Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lesser Known TMK retcons...

Well, really how far are you going to get with a bunch of shifty Weight Wizard clones?

All these subtle stitchings together of Legion Lore really make me wish that "Legionnaires" hadn't been repurposed to telling SW6 stories but had retold the Silver Age stories in the Valor continuity as originally planned. I think it would have been a lot of fun.

Another tiny post-Valor retcon: Element 152, which was what flight rings were made of, picked up the alternate name of Valorium after it's creator.

I agree, completely, matlock. As a matter of fact, I'd have much rather read the "new" versions of old stories by the Bierbaums than the watered down re-hashings of old stories we got after the reboot.

I would have definately liked that too.

And you guys are dropping all kinds of TMK retcons that I've forgot or never even picked up on! Cool!

I would definitely have preferred the "old stories" concept of Legionnaires, but I loved the early reboot era. The reboot Mano was much better than the pre-boot one (until DnA idiotically made him a regular teammate of the other Fatal Fivers, I'm still not sure how that happened), I thought the re-introductions of Dirk Morgna and Doctor Regulus and of the various original Workforce members fit well with a gradual blending into Legion lore. I also thought the Superboy 3-parter was well-done.

I think the team lost its way with the Fatal Five/Chu sting storyline. While an obvious nod to prior continuity, it felt like a forced "fast-forward" of Legion history to the Shooter-Swan era for which most Legion fans had nostalgia. It was a fun story, and some of the stories that followed were enjoyable as well...I loved the Emerald Vi-Mordru and COMPUTO stories...but it was at that point that it seemed the decision was made to throw in old Legion elements and stories willy-nilly rather than try to grow the team at a manageable pace.

It would've also been much more satisfying if the grown up Legion had been the victors over the Dominators instead of sitting around on Talus... what? Playing cards or getting beat up by BION or whatever they were doing while SW6 and the Subs did all the heavy lifting. That would have actually made it feel like "the Legion" was back in the substantial way that the early TMK issues made it seem like they were going to be.

Another, and not very necessary, TMK retcon: Zuunium gave Brin constant physical pain, and was gradually eroding his mental capacity long before Black Dawn kicked it into overdrive. It turns out he wasn't kind of awkward and ever so "slow" because it was effective characterization but on account of, you know, brain damage.

That actually brings up something that I don't suppose really rises to the level of "retcon" but I guess what you might call revisionism: several Legionnaires had their personalities totally reworked from the Levitz era: Jo, Garth (the "real" Garth) and Dirk were all quite differently presented during TMK and later by the Bierbaums solo. Rokk also gained a much greater stature in the Legion than he had previously been seen to have. He always seemed respected as a founder but he wasn't ever seen as "the heart and soul of the Legion" until TMK up and said he was.

Wasn't the Lotus Fruit addiction story retconned to a Zuunium addiction story? That may have been in the post-TMK Timber Wolf spotlight, however...

Not quite, I think it was played as an effect of a generally addictive personality, which was originally caused by Zuunium dependence.

I liked how Kid Quantum was seamlessly retconned into Legion lore; i bet few even noticed!

So, are we ever going to get a Worlds/The Legion update, before you need to add a "NewER version" link?

I hope to. When I can spare the money to attempt to salvage my old hard drive.

Curse on me for not backing up my Legion files recently enough.

And they even managed to work in more Protean junk along with him. They were really, really hung up on the Proties weren't they? The Proties backstory got more development than any of the new v4 members like Kent or Celeste.

The Antarean subplot actually got freakish amount of airtime in the pre-Shooter Adventure era, so it's not surprising that writers as obsessed with that era as Tom and Mary would emphasize it.

Next up - the Legion of Super-drug-addled-cultish-Villians. For some reason, the LSV was rejiggered into having been run from behind the scenes from it's earliest incarnation by Cosmic King (remember that his earliest in-continuity appearance was during the LSH/LSV war) who we are told was using drugs on the other members and was sort of a creepy Mordru-worshipping cult figure. The only thing I can think of to explain this was that maybe they wanted to give Spider-Girl (and Ronn Karr to a lesser extent) an "out" for her LSV membership in order to transition her to semi-hero status.

Saturn Queen was also given retroactive behind-the-scenes membership as well. Her only appearances in the group were as part of the Adult LSV in the Adventure days but apparently she was there the whole time.

Eeeew! I really don't like that as an idea for the LSV.

Personally, I've always thought the Dynamo Boy story should have been retconned as the origin of the LSV, in a kind of criminal takeover of the LSH.

Oh, and the LSV retcon was also used to partially explain Mekt Ranzz' psychotic behavior as well. I guess there weren't really many real villians on the LSV at all.

I always kind of found the LSV, especially in its later forms, kind of pathetic. I mean, weren't half of the later LSV just bitter rejected LSH applicants?

I can just picture some poor S+LSH era reject walking, dejectedly, out of the tryouts and hearing "the line forming to your left is for the Legion of Substitute Heroes, to the one to the right is for those interested in joining the LSV..."

I don't think the LSV has ever been done quite right. And it's not clear why a lot of the rejected applicants went to the LSV ranks rather than the Subs.

I like the Levitz era "army of super-villains" concept, but it's membership seemed to be a bit too disparate and unorganized for my tastes. Tyr, for instance, didn't really seem to fit in to that group.

That's why I really like the idea of a criminal working his way into the Legion, then gradually trying to replace it's members with criminals as a story of how they all come together. They could of course then add members, but that would make a really plausible foundation as to why these people would end up working together.

Here's another one of those tiny little retcons:

The unfortunate victim of the lab accident that let to Dr. Regulus' dismissal and eventual villiany went from poor ol' Zarl Hendricks to poor ol' green-skinned lab assistant lady. I suppose it might have been to reinforce Dirk's negative relationships with women (as interpreted by TMK at least.)

Personally I think the entire V4 representation of Dirk as a selfish borderline crazy jerk was a retcon, but I don't want to editorialize here.

Ah, I thought something seemed wrong about Alisia's death. It was supposed to be Zarl!

I like to think somewhere in the "Valor" continuity there's a safe and happy Zarl. Someone deserved to come out on the good side of a retcon for once and why not poor ol' Zarl?

After the Adventure era stories, v4 is probably my favorite era. Now I know why! This thread has tied up some TMK loose threads for me and definitely deserves to be bumped. And, may I say, that EDE is a sprockin' Brainiac when it comes to Legion lore! Eyth? Stig Ah Plaza? Alisia? Jillikers!

Was the 'Dark Circle as Fanatical Space Cult' thing a TMK retcon? They just sorta seem like crazy invaders in the battered copy of Adventure I own with them in it. Was it TMK or a previous team that had them find God?

TMK brought them together in worship and violent harmony, I do believe. Previously we had seen them as a big gang pile of a few cloned individuals and before that as that mysterious invading army that Val miracle machined off the planet. After the new boot they showed up under the command of Braniac 4.

...I think that's right...

We could just forget that "seeder of worlds" annual and I wouldn't miss it a bit.

I loved the seeder of worlds annual!

I love both annual #1 and #2 of v4. Especially number #1 where Ultra Boy plays the dummy and dances circles around the arrogant time goddess Glorith and the powerful wizard Mordu!

I guess I am a big fan of both Jo and Mon-El so I really enjoyed these two stories!

Jorge