Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lardy's Roundtable: How forgettable or unforgettable was SLSH/LSH between Earthwar and Levitz II/Giffen?

when stories meander around for too long...

Oh, those scenes with Ultra Boy and the pirates' female captain were soooo creepy...


In fairness, the story changed editors once and writers twice before it stumbled to its conclusion.

bit of a tangent, but what is it with (some) writers making Ultra Boy so irresistible to some women?

Tinya...

Captain Frake...

5YL Spider-Girl...

Reboot Spider-Girl, though that was nipped pretty early

that whole thing under DNA with Imra making a fake Tinya...

and in the Threeboot, there were more Imra shenanigans, and that obsessed Science Police officer

When Retroboot Tinya turned Retroboot Jo down because he was too smelly from his workout, I cheered! finally!

It's a mystery to me. I, personally, find most of his iterations repulsive!

I did like the PZH Jo for a long time...until DnA.

PZH Jo was great when he became open and honest about his feelings for Tinya, and stayed a loyal partner and husband.

His treatment of Spider-Girl (being her boyfriend) while initially pursing Tinya, not so much.

and under DNA... yeah...

As previously mentioned, the LSH monthly series switched editors halfway through Reflecto Saga (bye, Jack Harris, and hi, Mike Barr.) It's only on second read that I've noticed the many changes implemented all at once by Barr -- some good, some bad. The Good would definitely be bringing George Pérez on board as the new cover artist, as the covers had been uninspired for a while now (I'd argue that the last good one before this was Dick Giordano's cover to the first installment of the Dark Man Trilogy.) Then there's the replacement of long-term inker Frank Chiaramonte with Bruce Patterson. Chiaramonte had a more old-fashioned, heavily shaded style, while the younger Patterson was more illustrative, with greater fine-line detail. Patterson would stay on the series until just before GDS, and in my opinion he made everyone he inked look good.

So far, so good -- unfortunately, Barr also replaced writer Gerry Conway with Roy Thomas. I'll elaborate on that in future posts.

Agreed on all of the above. What could Waid have been thinking, when he gave us that macho jerk Threeboot Jo?

Yeah, I dunno about the DnA *or* Waid portrayals.

My guess is that they were trying to get to a character who was more "real" (PZH - delinquent womanizer, 3B - arrogant delinqent womanizer) as a teen who thinks they're hot s***

But given that both decided to make a play at Imra.... It just made me lose respect for the character and the writers doing that (and, by the way, making Imra a flake - and that includes Levitz).

I always liked the pre-ZH Jo. He may have been kind of dense, but he was endearing, and not like either of the versions who followed.

And I have NO idea what was up with the Bendis one...

I've always felt that the pre-ZH Jo was tolerable until TMK turned him into a Gary Stu who was always one step ahead of everybody and who pretended to be dumb so that people would underestimate him. I hate that characterization.

Oh for sure - THAT I absolutely hated. Yet another part of the Bierbaum retcon-a-thon of v4.

No, I mean v3 and Bronze Age, primarily. Silver Age is fine, but its Silver Age.

For me, the basic archetype for Ultra Boy is the kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is trying to do the right thing, despite his background or even possibly criminal past. Anything that makes him a jerk kind of misses the whole point

Glad to hear that.


Exactly. TMK had no business making him a deceitful poser from a middle-class background.

While I kind of hate the whole idea that there is some grand narrative lying behind all of Legion history that TMK took from v3 #50 and ran with like crazy, I also suspect that the "dumb jock" stereotype that gets thrust uopn him during the Levitz run (with Tinya and Shady as the catty cheerleaders in the Legion high school) also feed into some of the negative later portrayals. While he was always a decent guy during the Levitz era, it's pretty easy to go from him being the "jock" of the team to adding in more negative jock stereotypes, which may feed into the "womanizing jerk" portrayals of some later versions.

word. Adventure-Era Jo, and mid-Reboot Jo before DNA, are the best versions of this.




perfectly sums up my feelings on 3Boot Jo. and while I agree that there is some realism here... that's not my fave take on Jo, nor does that character fit - in my mind - into a team whose core is a bunch of heroes with not-necessarily the most impressive powers, but who do amazing things when they work together!

This is right on EDE. I feel like writers were trying to get to the "more teenage" approach to someone with his powers. It's an easy shift to do, but one that makes him completely unlikeable.





Bingo. This is something that kept coming into my head all throughout the last time I read through this, especially after the early issue where the team fights amongst themselves and treats Lyle horribly.

Why would any team of "heroes" that rely on acting as a team ever tolerate someone like him around? He honestly seemed, tempermentally anyway, to be more aligned with the Wanderers team that was introduced later in the run. But a super-team has to act like, well, a team, and when you have an obvious bad seed who's claim to fame is sleeping with all the women on the team, how does that create any sense of team unity without there being jealousy and the kinds of drama that would break apart a group like this?

Final thoughts on the Reflecto Saga, as collected in LSH Before the Darkness Volume 2:

Decades don't end exactly on schedule, and this story is only one of many ways to prove that. Originally published throughout 1981, it is among the final gasps of a particularly 70s style of superhero storytelling, and quite possibly the worst-written. Whatever Gerry Conway's intentions might have been when he began the Reflecto Saga, I seriously doubt that they followed through to the end, even though his replacement was his good friend Roy Thomas, then newly arrived at DC after years of conflicts with Marvel. It appears to me as if Thomas refit the story to suit his personal interests, throwing in time travel, Cold War paranoia, interdimensional incursions, what have you.

It didn't work. And not even the young and precocious Paul Levitz could do anything to salvage this sorry mess, except to return everything and everyone to the status quo so that he could proceed with his own plans for the Legion series. Thankfully, Levitz's plans turned out to be good for the Legion, finally breaking the cycle of mediocrity that the series had been stuck in for years.

Am I glad I purchased LSH: BtDv2? Actually, yes, because it's a genuine curiosity -- one of those fascinating (if sometimes frustrating) follies that only superhero comics can produce! I doubt I'll hold onto it for the long run, but I've said the same thing about other Legion Eras that I dislike far more, and I still have them in my collection.

Such is the specialness of the Legion, flaws and all.

I'm always surprised when I realize these stories were published in the 80s. My instincts always want to say they are from at least a couple of years before.