Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow Shooter: It's Official

I hope Mr.Shooter finds a way to use a young Kal-El in this Legion ,The Legion works so much better with that connection as in the original continuity,Alan Davis and Mark Farmer's Superboy's Legion and the current Legion Cartoon.

It's dawning on me that the biggest obstacle preventing Kal-El in the Legion is the ongoing litigation between DC and the Siegel Family.

That's really what it's all about...DC would like nothing better than to use the character these days, I am certain of that.

Shooter is a Superman Fan, in fact Shooter probably wrote the best Superboy stories...so if there's any way for it to be done I am sure he will welcome the idea.


Hopefully this stupid ownership dispute can be resolved.

YES!!! that means that we may see the return of the Substitute Heroes....in any forms..... but I have a fear - Will we see Infectious Lass, Dawnstar, Gates, Quislet, XS, and others? Jim stated that he has not kept up to the Legion since he left. ???

don't worry. I am certain your wish will come true. there's no way DC is going to have two or three versions of the team running around. let's face it, sales of one team has been low. I think the big 50th surprise will be some sort of dimensional wall, time traveling hocus-pocus that will bring back some version of the 'original' team.

in fact, I still think this whole new artist, bring Shooter back is just a fakeout to keep up sales on the 3boot, until they start over. would DC do that to us, in a New York minute.

I agree wamu. I didn't want to mention the "original" Action Legion but with Shooter coming back I just can't see them having him write the WaK Legion.

But DC missing out on chance like that is something I expect from them.

Don't assume Shooter has any allegience to the pseudo-Levitz Legion being fabricated by Geoff Johns. Unless he read them since last Fall he's not even familiar with either of Levitz's takes on the Legion, much less reeking with nostalgia for them. In many ways the 3boots are closer to Shooter's original 1960s characters than the Lightning Saga Legion is. He was given the option to reboot but *chose* to continue with them because (please reread the interviews), they are still the characters he loves.

Chances are *all* the versions of the Legion will fall into Shooter's lap for the 50th anniversary, but if you think for a moment he'd do injustice to any of them, you nothing about the man. He's not a fakeout, he'd never adopt this or any other Legion with the intention of harming it or flinging it aside like a dirty dishrag 12 months later, and DC could never in a million years force him to do it.

Good, good point, Tromium! Shooter probably wouldn't have any affinity for the LS version.

Funny thing is, the Zero Hour reboot was even closer to Shooter's Legion than WaKboot's is, if you really think about it. Too bad DC couldn't have brought Shooter in after DnA instead of rebooting...again.

Well, hopefully he'll get the chance to write them, too. Funny, since the reboots were co-created by Mark Waid as well.

From the Wizard website interview:

Boy, that sounds really Super, don't you think?

At this point, I'd be more curious to see Shooter breath life into Threeboot, as he really seems into it.

I do hope the Lightning Saga Legion continue to appear, though. If Threeboot and the Animate LSH can have different continuities published at the same time, why not a third?

I just had a mental image of a Council of Cross-Time Brainys. Multiple Brainiac 5 iterations, each trying to out-arrogant the other.

Actually, I think most of the Brainies would get along fine, as per the 5YL/SW6 Brainies circa 1992-1994. But I can see Threeboot Brainy being Odd Brain Out (unless Nura reins him in).

[QUOTE]Originally posted by superboymddjr:
[QB][QUOTE]Originally posted by Mystery Lad:
[qb] Here's some more from the newly annouced writer himself:

Wizard Universe interview with Jim Shooter

The image in the Shooter interview shows the costumes of 3Boot moving a lot closer to the Lightning Saga vision, Karate Kid especially. This could be a step towards a merger.

Interestingly, the colors on the Wizard pic do not match up with the version on Newsarama. While I can ignore Brin's hair changing color, the variations in Projectra and Star Boy are seriously drastic.

I wonder which is accurate?

When I first saw the Wizard version, I thought that was Superboy in the upper left instead of Thom. Also in this variation, Tinya has brown hair!

Just to clarify... you seem to be saying that Shooter drew actual full-size layouts which Swan finished, and that is not true. Shooter drew crude layouts on 8.5 X 11 notebook paper. Swan then referenced Shooter's layouts when he drew his pencils on full-size boards. Swan did follow Shooter's panel composition and angles fairly closely, but he was free to change things and often did. And Swan did all the drawing himself, it wasn't like typical comic layouts where the finishing artist traces over and fleshes out the basic layouts. I will agree that the end result was quite good, and a little more dynamic than Swan's other work at the time.

FWIW: Byrne says the retcon was the idea of DC editorial, and he was willing to take over Superman with no retcon. And regardless of whose idea it was, certainly everyone should have been able to forsee the problems it would cause with Legion continuity. I would imagine Paul Levitz could have prevented the retcon if he'd really wanted to... he was in a powerful position editorially back then, even though not as powerful as now.

Also... it is not fair to blame Byrne for the demise of Shooter's Last Legion Story in 1999. As a freelancer, Byrne would have had no power to dictate what DC editorial did. And in 1999 he certainly was not such a big name that DC editorial would want to pander to him with a decision like that. (Was he even working for DC in 1999?) I've never heard any mention that Byrne had anything to do with that, and Shooter himself fingered Mike Carlin and Denny O'Neill as the likely culprits.

Likewise, Shooter is a freelancer so he has no power to dictate whether Byrne presently does work at DC. Byrne in fact has an upcoming JLA Classifed Arc, though it is yet to be scheduled.

One thing to remember about Shooter's 70's Legion work: he was constrained to a large degree by editor Murray Boltinoff. Boltinoff would not allow him to do any continued stories, and in fact rarely even allowed him to do stories that took up an entire issue (most of the 70's Legion issues had two stories in them, one 11 or 12 pager and one 6 or 7 pager). Whereas all the very best stories of his 60's run (Ferro Lad/Sun Eater, Adult Legion, Mordru, the Legion outlawed) took up two issues. It's hard to do a story with much scope, or incorporate much character development, into such a small page count. That said, I still really enjoy the 70's run with Grell. He made the most of the space he was allowed.

I totally agree on the Korvac Story, by the way. Complete cosmic gobbledygook. But the issues of Avengers he wrote immediately before that were really really great, some of the best work he ever did. Why Korvac is what gets remembered from that run is beyond me.

As long as Byrne and Shooter don't have to work at the same desk...

Reading the Wizard interview, I pretty much get the feeling that Shooter will take the book in the direction he wants it to be, keeping some stuff like "Micro Lad" but mostly doing his own thing.

As I said before, the Waid run did not provide any Legion "canon", history or biographies, so it's no problem to take the pretty clean slate and do your own "Secrets of the LSH" kind of history lesson. Even the relationships between the characters are totally open - Shooter could easily reintroduce the old "couplings" (Tinya Jo, Garth Imra to begin with) because apart from the Brainy-Cos feud, there was nothing really consistent being written about that topic by Waid.

That - after 2 1/2 years of comics - is certainly NOT a compliment to Waid... I keep on wondering how such a prolific writer (Empire, Kingdom Come) could fail so mightily on (one of) his own favorite subject...

I'm a disgruntled old-timer who is being drawn back by Shooter, and so I'm only peripherally familiar with Waid's latest run (I've glanced over some issues at the store but wasn't grabbed enough to buy them). As a relative outsider, it strikes me the biggest flaw in Waid's current continuity is the nature of society itself. The Legion works best as a utopian future society where the threats and conflict come from external sources, rather than the repressive dystopia we have now where the threats are part of the existing structure of society. The Legion, like Star Trek, should portray an optimistic future. Having the Legion as an underground force works well for an occasional story (such as Shooter's classic story in Adventure 359-60) but as the status quo it doesn't feel right. It's like turning Superman into the Punisher, and I'm surprised Mark Waid of all people would so deeply misunderstand an essential component of the Legion's appeal. From Shooter's past work I would guess he feels the same way, and I hope he can find a way to shift to a more hopeful view of the future within the present continuity.

Oh yeah I know...in fact Swan was under no obligation to use Shooter's layouts(I call them that for lack of a better term) and in fact I think no one was expecting him to do so...he just liked them.

Byrne says a lot of things...but I remember when he was rebooting Superman and was being inteviewed by every one from Time Magazine to The CBG and he was only too happy to claim ownership of no Superboy and making Supes unique again. He said it about 10 times per interview he gave back then.

Additionally...he's said he hates the Legion.

His idea was to make the Legion continuity like an Elseworlds continuity..not an alternate future...but more like a legend.


Additionally...he got a Supergirl when he wanted one and he's pretty much claimed ownership of the Pocket Universe Superboy concept as well.


DC was actually launching a Superboy TV show and comic based on the show right around that time...

If Byrne had wanted Superboy...he'd have been there.

He didn't...he knew it was going to screw the book, and he didn't care.


He was the VP of circulation...his power was not on the creative side of things...

But yes...Levitz and DC get plenty of blame to go around...still, Byrne was the guy getting what he wanted.

I disagree that Levitz had carte blanche power to get what he wanted done...this was one of the biggest character makeovers in history...

He tried to bring Supergirl into the Legion as Sensor Girl and was over-ruled...Byrne wasn't over-ruled when he wanted Supergirl.

I agree Levitz should have done more...but maybe he already knew the answer since he had already been given it with Supergirl.

No...Byrne was definitely the impetus behind the move. I don't care what he says now...I know what he said then, and the trail of him getting what he wanted is pretty easy to see.


It's just my opinion...I never claimed I had proof...I just know Byrne doesn't like Shooter. And I don't like Byrne...at least as a DC creator I don't.

Probably true...I've definitely heard it was Carlin, at the same time, I have to think some bigname creators were involved. I don't think any Editors have the power to pull that off themselves...and BTW, it's a lousy editor that will make those kinds of demands. Putting personal issues ahead of the company.


Shooter doesn't have any kind of power at all right now...he's basically coming back from a blackball.


So it's already completed?


By the way...your nick is hilarious.

I don't see Shooter having a the problem with this, since the "repressive dystopia" premise was never seriously explored by Waid (he seemed to back away from it when readers expressed their discontent, and even treated it humorously), and hasn't been an integral part of the storyline in I don't know how many months. That said, there is dramatic value in having the Legion face both internal and external threats, and I hope Shooter doesn't ignore it entirely in the future.

LOL, true. I know blame Byrne. I blame DC as a whole (editors) as the guys who screwed the Legion. Ultimately the editors are always responsible.

He's too much of a fan. I think when it comes to the Legion he has this narrow idea of what the Legion should be. He failed the legion during post ZH and again with this IMO. Get Waid away from the Legion except if he's an editor. I think he's the best Legion editor out there.

Per Shooter:
"Some old adversaries will turn up along the way, but I plan to introduce a lot of new enemies. As a reader, I loved seeing new bad guys often. And when “old” bad guys come back, it will be in new ways, with a fresh approach. And why stop there? Francis and I will be introducing all kinds of new environments, characters, concepts and worlds."

This, more than anything, is what I wanted to hear the most. This last year has probably been the least enthusiastic I've ever been about the Legion in my lifetime, and if Shooter can come in with new concepts & write great stories, I'll be able to forget about 'boot issues' and just enjoy Legion stories again. And that would be really swell.