Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes What If each different Legion writer was a separate universe?

This is something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I've touched on it briefly in a couple other Legion continuity threads. I hope I've finally found the right words for it.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the Otto Binder Legion stories happened in a different universe than the Ed Hamilton/Jerry Siegel Legion stories, which in turn happened in a different universe than the Jim Shooter Legion stories, and so on until we get through all the Legion writers to date. Most crucially, no universe is more "important" than the rest.

I imagine this approach to continuity might be overwhelming and confusing to a lot of people, but I think if we were to work out the problems (such as how some universes' events overlap with each other, and others don't,) we might be able to arrive at some kind of fan consensus.

This, in turn, might possibly eliminate the continuity bugaboos which have bedeviled the Legion for the past 35 years.

Of course, I can understand that, by this point, a lot of people are thinking, to hell with continuity, just give us good stories. I myself have taken that stand at various points in the last 2 decades, ever since I joined Legion World and went from casual Legion fan to the next level of Legion fan.

I just think that, if it is done right, continuity has the potential to enrich the Legion mythos rather than tangle it up.

Interesting thought experiment.

I think most of the stories published before Adventure Comics #300 are the easiest ones to place in their own universe. Excluding a couple of origin stories, which can easily explained away as being effectively the same in the other universes, the very early Legion stories... what I like to call their pre-history... are kind of already in their own universe, considering the sheer amount of stuff that is not explained anywhere and is never picked up. I'm still trying to understand what the heck went on in Adventure Comics 267, and that's just the second Legion story!

When you get to later eras, however, I think some limitations start to come up. Can you really do the Shooter run if you don't have the Hamilton run as a foundation? Can you do the Levitz run without the Shooter run? And so on.
You end up with several universes where the plots and character development of one writer don't go anywhere because you're cutting them off from what originally went on with the next writer.
Unless you go 100% episodic (which would greatly diminish the Legion), I don't think you can entirely dismiss continuity. It's a tool to be used or misused, it's not the solution to every problem and it's not anathema.

To be honest, I think the best way to treat the Legion is to look forward instead of backward. Pay respect and homage to the earlier eras to be sure, throw some easter eggs and in-jokes, but don't force the universe to return to a previous status quo: do your own thing!
I think some writers (the worst offender by far being Johns) and frankly a part of the fandom are too focused on "fixing past mistakes" at the cost of good writing.
Even if you don't agree with the direction a franchise has taken, I don't think "let's go back to how things were 20/30/40/50 years ago" is the best attitude.
As a fan of both the pre-Crisis Legion and the Reboot Legion, the Retroboot felt like DC was telling me I was only allowed to like one specific version of the Legion.
Having too many Legions co-existing in separate universes runs a very high risk of doing the same, but for every single incarnation of the team at once.

It would be an interesting storyline or miniseries to see, for sure, but I think it's not worth it in the long run.

Yeah I think the almost slavish devotion to continuity all the way back to the Silver Age is what torpedoed 5YL and made the team "too complicated" to use Mark Waid's terms.

I've made it plain that the multiple reboots into vastly different versions of the team (i.e., Threeboot & Bendis) have harmed the franchise, and that Levitz's failure to leverage the unique reboot characters also damaged it because in the first case the team versions have ZERO tie to ANY continuity, and in the second, while there is a tie in with the past, the omission of characters who became established over a decade tells longtime readers that no one cares about any version of the team.

The best way forward would be to reintroduce the entire classic team with the unique characters from across the different variants, then pick and choose what continuity to pull from. At this point it doesn't matter.

Ironically enough, it could be argued that Waid, as the original 5YL editor, is largely responsible for those exact problems.

At the same time, that should not excuse TMK from their share of the responsibility.

Despite what I said about all the universes being equally valid, I still have dark moments when I wish I could destroy every copy of every 5YL issue, and mindwipe the entire population of Earth into forgetting that 5YL ever existed.

I know we have always had differing opinions about 5YL and I understand why but it is particularly relevant here.

It was precisely because of the emphasis on continuity in 5YL that made me a Legion collector. While I had read scattered stories from across all the previous Legion "eras" I found the assumptions and subtle hints to be very intriguing and I had to understand it more. So began my back issue purchases and reading.

Having said that I don't disagree that continuity contributed to 5YLs demise, and now continues to contribute to it being the often unmentioned Legion version, shoved to the side. It exists somewhere in its own universe, rather like your suggestion of different realities for different creators versions, and if you don't like it then it can just stay there (much the same way I tend to shove any Batman Who Laughs adjacent realities to some black hole where I don't have to think about them.)

I have always loved exploring continuity in many of the fictional universes of my interests. Nevertheless while I enjoy delving into questions of how things do or don't fit together, it also doesn't bother me too much when it doesn't. I tend to look at whatever I am reading as a recreation/recollection of what "really" happened. Ask any two or three witnesses to any event to describe it and you will get two or three different narratives. If a couple of retellings of events in comics don't exactly match up then it is just the narrator remembering it differently. That way I can have my cake and eat it too.

Except when it does bother me. I am nothing if not consistently inconsistent.

Stile, I appreciate your civil and thoughtful counterpoint to my opinion.

The more I turn it over in my head, the more I'm convinced that if anyone involved with 5YL had a concrete agenda, it was Mark Waid. I've come to believe that he despises everything that happened in the Legion after the Devil's Dozen story, and he was out to smash everything in the Legion toybox which he disapproved of.

With a better editor to rein in TMK's capricousness and arrogance (instead of egging them on to wreak ever more havoc), 5YL could have been something that, even if I'd probably never love it, I'd at least respect it. That Waid himself later sought to smash the monstrosity that he himself had helped create speaks volumes against him, in my opinion. Yes, there were many good qualities to the early PZH Legion, but I think ultimately it was a step backwards. And then there's the Threeboot, which Waid also helmed...Jeez Louise.

I do agree with 5YL basically being an elseworlds series. Its honestly the only way that all that mess makes any sense.

I don't think I agree with your take about Waid, however. He was relatively new to professional comics writing at this point, and IIRC this was his first editing gig. And given that he only lasted six months (barely) as the editor of v4, I think he saw the reaction of the back office to v4 (it wasn't great) and having to deal with editing Giffen probably encouraged him to find another job in DC. Giffen has stated that all the weird retconning that they did in v4 was the Beirbaums doing, I tend to put most of the blame on them. Yes, Waid was the early editor, I think he was more focused on getting the book out on time.

There's also the issue of the Superman team's meddling and the TMK choices that were made around that, some of which were done on Waid's watch. I do think that there were choices made there that made things much more complicated, and those choices I do think were done as a collective creative team and were wrong IMO. Some of those choices led to well written individual stories, but the overall effect was to create the complicated continuity that everyone points to the reason for Zero Hour.

PZH may have been a step backwards in a way, but it SHOULD have worked if back office editorial would have left things lie. Threeboot COULD have been a really great thing, and Waid's final arc on that was amazing. But DiDio greenlit the Johns Lightning Legion and at that point the damage was done.

So LOTS of blame to go around, but outside of the TMK choices, the Legion has been at the mercy of outside editorial forces that overcomplicate the franchise and ultimately drive people away.

It was actually this thread from almost 10 years ago which led me to start souring on Waid:

https://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=858985#Post858985

Oh that's an interesting read.


The first article from Waid just mainly looks like a PR piece to tease people into reading. But I'm still pretty sure it was Tom & Mary behind "Lightning Lad's Dark Secret"

I think what I would say about Waid in this context is that he was such a superfan, and probably knew more about the lore than the Bierbaums, that they floated what they wanted to do with all the retcons and Mark said, "hey that makes sense because it fits into the continuity."

I also think that the Super-team's meddling is what made him leave, ultimately. When you hear him talk/write about it, there is some clear acrimony on that subject.

What I *AM* unhappy about viz a viz Waid, speifically from this article, is that its the first time he's beating the "Legion is too confusing and not attracting new readers" drum here, which he basically does for the next 15 years. And this is *BEFORE* all the 5YL retcons.

Absolutely not a good look.

I agree with Thoth in the thread who basically said that it was a vocal minority. Waid will say until he's blue in the face that he hears it "all the time" but I still say its no more complicated than the X-Men or the Avengers.

With the rise of the Internet, continuity becomes less of an issue to keep up with. Nowadays, I can easily look up a specific reference, or a character's history, to understand why so-and-so is happening. or why such was said.

and good writers/editors will reference past stories sufficiently, in their current story, so that newer readers will get what they need to understand what's going on!