Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow Shooter off Legion?

Hmmm, you are probably right..but Barry did leave around the time of the LS Legion IIRC. True they did say they'd only be on the book about 3 years though. Anyway Barry is a poster on these boards, not to mention a complete and total gentleman, so I won't cast doubt on why he said he left...at the same time, if Barry had other reasons like creative issues, he'd probably never mention them publicly. At least that's the impression I get...he's a complete and total pro.

So I am completely speculating here...

But here's the deal though...

Mark Waid was a part of every rebooted version of the Legion...and his frustrations with DC's editorial policy concerning Superman and the Legion have been pretty well documented in interviws...as have his favorite Legion stories and characters...


Mark Waid has more or less had the post crisis bullseyes of Legion Fan anger smack dab on his forhead for 20 years....as he's been one of the guys asked every time to carry out DC's Post Crisis editorial mandate...

In short, Mark Waid never got to write his Legion, the one he grew up reading...he was instead given the task of creating a new or radically altered one...one not necessarily of his own creative desires and free vision...and he has gotten the brunt of the fan backlash, much more deservedly aimed at DC Brass, because of it.

Mark Waid is a Legion Fan...an oldschool diehard Legion Fan, he's also an oldschool diehard Superman Fan...and he never got the opportunity to write the Legion that Superman was a part of.


You know what he cites as his favorite Legion story? Adventure Comics #369-370...the introduction of Mordru...which just so happened to be a time travel story back to smallville involving Pete Ross and even the Insect Queen.

Mark Waid has said elements that story can be seen in everything he has ever written...yet he never got to write a story remotely resembling that one with the Legion.


Lo and behold, in waltzes John and boom...he gets the Legion where Superman is allowed to be mentioned.


You don't think that would be an enormous amount of salt in the literary wounds of Mark Waid?


I do...it would be to me. I'd be pulling my hair out over it.


Maybe he was just tired of doing the book and didn't really care much...but this guy was an extreme Legion Fan who knew the book inside and out...who was chosen to put together the Legion Indexes and did so with a painstaking attention to detail. It just seems odd that he never got to write the Legion he grew up reading, and yet he's probably written more Legion stories than all but about 2 Legion creators.

Superboy is back (you have been away for some time, haven't you?), Ricardo is back (well not on this board but in Legion fandom), Shooter is back, the old discussions are running again...

... Legion fandom how I like it! And this is just the beginning, I guess we cannot imagine how heated the discussion will become when Legion of 3 Worlds is hitting the stands...

I don't know, Superboy, but it seems a bit too much. Mark Waid was the first editor of TMKs (after Karen Berger). So he knew what would be coming up. Also, Mark Waid is one of the guys with more power in the DC Universe. I highly doubt he quit for not doing whatever he wanted on the book (hey, he had Supergirl for a while).

Barry left for Marvel to work on Spider-Man, hardly an offer he would turn down AND with Waid. So I wouldn't see LSH editorial as a problem. Sales dropped more abruptly after they quit, but things were always comfortable while they ran the show. Hey, they even got to have a lettercol for a while!

didnt they kill super boy cause they lost the rights to his name?

remember before they hinted that they were going to add superboy at the end of 15?

and then there was the mess with super girl

You are talking about more recent stuff. At that time, the only reason LSH had to lose Superboy was because he had never existed under Byrne's chronology.

To be frank, this has never bothered me. I think Zero Hour was much more damaging to the entire DC Universe than any Mike Carlin decision. Not to mention one of the worst stories ever told.

I have to confess that a strong feeling of despair has descended on me the last few days as a result of this topic. I'm not blaming, just sharing. Say what you want about the 3boot, flawed, misdirected, whatever, Waid and especially Barry put a lot into it, and it had a lot of charm and promise at the beginning, that Shooter (and Bedard, too) have recovered quite nicely after 2 years of 52, Supergirl, and the Dominators. (BTW, I love the Dominators, but after TMK and the 3Boot, we need a 5-year cooling-off period. Make it 10 years.) I really enjoyed the Action/Legion story, but as I've said before, those Legionnaires are all grown up (and have repugnant fashion sense). I don't want to read an ONGOING adult Legion series. Regular guest appearances with Superman are fine, but a grown-up Legion is a finished Legion. On a deeper level, I love the original Legion, but their story got finished. Poorly, yes, but it did finish. I keep catching glimpses of the Johns Legion as reanimated zombies with pretty skin and ugly clothes on top.

The source of my despair, I think, is that there is no recoverable solution to all of this that looks like anything other than a Frankenstein's monster. The 3boot is not particularly popular or successful, and has no connection to Superman. Same for the 2boot. The 1boot has been reanimated, but mainly FOR Superman. And, I just want to read LEGION stories, with recognizable characters that I love. I DON'T want to read re-hashes of stories from the 1960s. I want new stories about my beloved characters. I want to be surprised, delighted, scared, and horrified. I want the boundless promise of a bright future inhabited by these wonderful characters, not the eternal recurrence of apocalyptic spasmns that has defined the Legion since 1989. I don't know that my love for the Legion will surive a Johns blood bath. I don't know that I can tolerate DC jerking around Shooter or Manapul. I'm just tired, and despairing. I like and respect much of Johns's work, but the body count is too much when it comes to the Legion.

I look at the reboots and see rehashed stories,heroes and villians,and I liked them better the first go around.

I watched the Legion grow up and loved it,that with their rich 30 years of history and characters made the story telling possibilities unlimited,With COIE all that material got took away and what came after to me was Generic Versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

From the moment the Pocket Universe Superboy was introduced the Legion seemed less like the Legion,And then with 5 years later while it had some of the Original Legion left in it,It turned out to be the final nail in what little was left of the Original Legion's coffin.

I feel your pain, guys! Reading that there's a good chance Shooter's been derailed sent me on an emo-spiral in which I may finally be about to have enough of all the effing around that's constantly being done with my favorite comics characters.

In particular, the poster Superboy's post to this thread here helped me put my finger on my frustration. Ever since Superboy was retconned as a Pocket Universe doppleganger, as Lone Wolf states, it's just been one thing after another. And if Shooter's being yanked already before even having a chance to finish his first big arc, it's just too much.

We've been talking heavily about this starting here in "Lardy's Roundtable" if you guys are interested in checking it out and putting in your two cents. It's been quite cathartic, I'd say.

Is Jim Shooter leaving? I don't know but I hope not. Ditto for FJM.

But clearly DC have decided rightly or wrongly to put out a story that will re-reboot de-boot amalgamate or whatever.

As a Shooter and Levitz fan of old, the original Legion is the one I watched grow up from raw kids to young adults. Keith Giffen tried to take that further but the retconning completely destroyed his effort - and not all of it was forced by changes in the DCU, remember the arbitrary renaming of Triplicate Girl to Triad. The first reboot was an attempt to get the Legionnaires spin-off without the baggage and the 3boot anti adults just sucked.

We need a Legion that is true to its roots and is well written and well drawn. Whatever comes out of Lo3W, the right writer and artist can take it forward. the wrong writer/artist and I fear the Legion won't make 52.

The current Legion creative team would succeed as I'm sure Johns and Perez would. Let's just hope in two years time this isn't a 'bring back the Legion' website.

Blow? Wow, strong words in here... Guesses, people? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">My guess is this may be a troll. Hopefully, I am wrong and just jaded from too many trolls on other message boards. If not a troll, I apologize.

More on the same story in LITG this week

"Yeah, so what happened with that Jim-Shooter-off-Legion thing? Industry gossip has the move down to the "Legion Of Three Worlds" series that trampled on what Shooter saw as his plans for his series. And, so, vamoose."

Well, that just bites donkey bits.

Okay, if Geoff is gonna be doing the Legion after 3wd's and still on GL and JSA, okay. I'm not happy that Shooter is gone, because i think he was just starting to find his groove and the book was headed up.

I was actually looking forward to it each month for the first time in several years. That isn't a shot at Waid or Kitson, i love Barry's art and have had the pleasure of telling him online before. Waid has been hit or miss for me, his latest on Flash a miss and the stuff here, while well imagined, just didn't have that legion flare.

But Shooter?! Lets face it, folks, he is one of the reasons this book exists,and he did it as a kid. His writing has matured greatly, and his storytelling skills.

I am sad to see him go if it is true.

I have been enjoying Shooter's run more and more with each issue. What he and Manapul have accomplished on this book has been highly entertaining and the most I've enjoyed Legion since "Legion Lost." Jim Shooter is one of my favorite writers and will be really disappointed to see him go.

Lying in the gutters is sustaining their gossip from last week, blaming it on L3W (not surprisingly). I mean, there was nobody from LSH on the L3W panel on the recent NYComicCon.

Is there any confirmation that Shooter is off LSH? All we have is the rumors swirling after he pulled out of the Bristol Comic Expo. I thought Shooter was pretty notorious for not attending conventions. (In fact, it is not uncommon for cons to advertise appearances by major figures even though they are not 100% certain they will be appearing. That's why all cons have disclaimers that appearances are not guaranteed.)

But if Shooter was being moved to a L3W book following the mini, I can understand his leaving. Why waste the next several months developing characters and plots -- a salvage job if ever there was one -- when they are all going to get reconned anyway? It sucks because I am really enjoying the development of the characters. I know a lot of readers find Shooter's stories moving too slowly, but have always enjoyed the focus on the character interactions and developments in LSH, and I think Waid really failed to develop any interesting characters.

Well, I find interesting that Rich Johnston con tinued to build up on the rumour this week. it certainly means it wasn't denied the first time around.

Seven pages and it's still an unconfirmed rumor? I wish they'd just straighten all of this out. It sure looks like DC is going to f*** all of this up AGAIN, just in time for the 50th anniversary. I'll definitely get L3W, but I may be at the end of my rope if there is another retcon--unless it's a retcon that gives me back preZero Hour Legion. But then it's sure to be cancelled soon after, because that will alienate more fans than it makes happy.

I am pretty sure that Legion will be back exactly at the time before the first Crisis (that's how Geoff's mind seems to work) and, for that reason, Shooter is out (since he had not a say in this story). My guess. All the rest will be considered "alternate timeline" or something.

Guys,

DC Comics is a business. They'll do whatever they think makes them the most money. FYI, sales on the book now are about where they were when DnA were on the title, and they weren't happy with those numbers then. Why would they be happy with those numbers now?

exactly the same as before the first crisis? or Geoff Johns' pickin' anna choosin'?
so... Supergirl/Brainy romance? Wildfire in Red Tornado body or not? Karate Kid dead? the Legionnaires are in their 20's? Did Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad have Graym and Validus yet? Were Tyroc and Chemical King and Quislet and Tellus members? Fortress Lad was the first Legion Clubhouse? hmmm...

Because these numbers are still better than most of the rest of DC titles which have dropped sensibly more?

Blow? Wow, strong words in here... Guesses, people? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">My guess is this may be a troll. Hopefully, I am wrong and just jaded from too many trolls on other message boards. If not a troll, I apologize. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">i promises that im not a troll, all i cant tell you is that some ppl are right about a few things
and that the news is going to make some ppl very happy, and others very mad...i was not happy when i herd the news

Hopefully "whatever" doesn't include railroading a legendary Legion creator, riding roughshod over his 50th annivesary plans, and possibly allowing some of his ideas to be hijacked for LO3W -- because that scenario most definitely would *not* be a wise business decision in the best interests of the franchise.

This is the Legion's most special year. Sales should not be a dominant factor in allowing Shooter to complete his self-contained 16 issues. It would cost DC much more in damage control and loss of face if he's dropped or quits than it would to publish the story whole for posterity.

Any which way you look at it, these rumors reek of behind-the-scenes editorial conflict and incompetence, mismanagement of creative assets and bad faith dealing. If that's how DC has to make its money, it's already sunk.

Well, as far as I know, Mike Marts is a newbie on LSH in all terms. That's what it sounded like in his Newsarama interview. And I found it very odd he mentioned Shooter more as a pass-by than focusing on his importance.

By "editorial conflict and incompetence", and "bad faith dealing", I wasn't referring to Marts. A train wreck of this size would have to be the work of Danny Dearest. If not his personal handiwork, his responsibility to prevent.