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

Shooter mentions Dreamer as a member. Will this be Dream Girl revived in the Bedard arc, then taking the Reboot name? Dream Boy taking a new name? Some combination of the two? Did Shooter just say the name wrong by accident? Did he say it wrong on purpose to avoid being a spoiler? The mystery continues.

No mention of Tenzil or Wildfire being members initially, so it appears their Bedard appearances won't culminate in either joining.

Excellent news on Night Girl, and it sounds like a whole new take on the Reserves. December suddenly seems like a looong way away.

There are quite a few other weird things in the interview, like Shooter's first issue is #137. We'd have to wait another ten years!

No tie in to Final Crisis--that's a relief. If a Legion is going to be swallowed by a cosmic vortex or replace by a Great Disaster future, it won't be them.

I'm *very* excited about the tryouts, councils, Legion Academy and Reserves. Lydda is a big bonus--she's one of my favorite Legion gals. I'm a little surprised Shooter didn't name Karate Kid and Timber Wolf as his favorites. He's a true purist, I suppose.

Francis, please, I'm dying to get a sneak peek at some new artwork. Even doodles on napkins!

The sketch of the three leaders in the article linked above is amazing. I love that sketch. Very dynamic, holding up all Shooter's comments about Manapal.

It's a great sketch but I remember seeing it a long time ago. Maybe it's a conference sketch of the 2boots. I'm not sure.

Anyone catch Waid say that towards the end of Levitz's Legion he wanted to bring Shooter in to do a Legion Academy. That would've rocked.

The solicitation for #36 mentions "Supergirl's last day as a Legionnaire", but the solicitation for #37 on the DC Comics site includes her name in the title. Soliciations for #37 posted elsewhere don't have Supergirl in the title, and Shooter doesn't mention her as one of the members.

Because Waid totally lost track of what the Legion is about with his own deluded attempt of telling a "oh so modern" story. In an interview before the Threeboot started, I can remember him saying "no old villains, if I ever come up with saying "Let's bring Universo back" it's time to take me of the book". Something else else like that. So in doing his stuff, he deliberately left out most of the Legion key elements (you mentioned some, I'd like to add NO origin story, NO character biographies, NO love stories, NO team spirit ...) for convoluted stories leading nowhere, lame villains (an enemy whose power was to be forgotten, wow, how ironic is that!) and the ill-fated underagers-adults controversy.

Making the Legion a hippie movement instead of a team of young heroes totally ruined it for me. Waid probably thought it would be working, getting new youngsters to read the book. I believe most youngsters did not see the point in spending 3 bucks for a convoluted comic book when they have their playstations and xboxes ready to play...

by the way, I second your feelings concerning Night Girl. I always loved her character and the way her relationship with Rokk was just... a happy one. That was so nice. I hope that Shooter makes her Rokks girlfriend again, everything else would feel wrong (like the Cos-LL-Imra triangle in the Reboot...)

And TINYA AND JO BELONG TOGETHER!!! That's the Legion to me! No hint of that in Waids run til now - why did he have to work so hard to deliberately leave everything out which worked just fine in the old run? (Heck, it even worked in the Reboot - and that, coming from me as a reboot-hater, is saying a lot!!!)

By the way I really like what Shooter is saying about the Legion in the CBR interview. And considering that Waid refrained from telling any background stories about threeboot history, Shooter has a clean sheet to work with - he does not have to change anything Waid did because, character-wise, Waid did hardly anything. Wow.

I guess with Shooter on board, this Threeboot could really make me care about the current characters. The only fear I'm having is that with Manapuls art, the book might look way too "Manga" for my taste. But let's wait for some more before judging.

That interview makes me all verklempt.

I'm so used to being disappointed by people yanking 'my' Legion all over hell and creation, I'm afraid to look forward to this.

Well, it could be hit or miss... We all have warm and fussy memories of Shooter's Legion... but that was a long time ago... I'll check the first few issues and decide if I want to continue or not.

I've always been a fan of the Academy. Could Laurel Kent be resurrected from the Manhunter debacle?

I know some people might be sick of the founders, but they are the core much like the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman of the Legion. I'm glad Shooter sounds like he'll be restoring them to their legendary status as the "parents" of the team.

maybe not in Shooter's Legion (sounds wierd doesn't it...Shooter's NEW Legion?) but I can see her popping up in Geoff's version.

I can appreciate that your history with the team has them as a couple. But the current book should be judged on the 30 some issues, not the last 50 yrs. It's a new book.

CJ, I think it is quite impossible for me to do that. When I think of the Legion, I think of Luornu crawling through a tunnel and crying herself to sleep. I think of Ferro Lad's sacrifice. I think of Superboy discovering that Laurel Kent is a descendant of his, only to forget it as he traveled to the past. I will always compare current Legions to the best the Legion has been. There hasn't been anything worth comparing to the "classic Legion" since 1990, in my oh-so-humble opinion.

Amen Lance.

And I while I'm looking foward Shooter's take on this Legion I'm also looking foward to Geoff's take on the other Legion. I'm not one of those that think it's just a nostalgia fest.

Same for me. I still have my doubts about Johns's take on the Legion, but I'll give it every chance... but I wonder about all the people who want and expect a nostalgia fest--how many chances are they going to give it?

I'm often bemused by the level of fixation on the past and nostalgia among fans of the Legion. The Legion of Super-Heroes, of all comic books. It's supposed to be about the future!

Agreed Matthew.

My favorite Shooter quote from that interview.

“I can tell you that many of the things I liked about the Legion way back when will become more important, like the membership tryouts, the councils and the missions to fantastic worlds. There'll be a new take on the Legion Academy. I'm also introducing the Legion Reserves. Night Girl will be reintroduced as one of that group. There'll be lots of new characters. A few will depart. There will be lots of new worlds, new technologies, new revelations about the 31st Century and beyond. I hope that by the end of the first arc people feel that every issue was significant, that the series has evolved dramatically, and for the better.”

And in my opinion, and this board confirms me in my feeling that I'm far from alone, this new book is not very good. And one main reason for that is the complete ignorance of any classic Legion tradition combined with the refusal to build a new tradition. And what are 30 issues compared to 50 years?

That's just it, you can't compare 30 issues to 50 years- these are two completely different series and sets of characters with only a basic premise in common.

If you want to read about a Legion with Jo and Tinya, then maybe this current one isn't one you should read. Because it doesn't have the things you want doesn't make it less Legion.

It does to me.

I don't understand. Is Shooter doing one Legion book and Geoff Johns doing another? Can someone clear this up? What's going on?

Geoff's writing a 6 issue story arc in Action Comics featuring the Lightning Saga Legionnaires from the JLA/JSA crossover,While Mr.Shooter takes over as the regular writer of Waid's Threeboot title.

I was struck by your comments, CJ, because they left me wondering what makes the Legion the Legion.

My experience with the threeboot is limited, but what I have read and followed in interviews and threads has left me with the impression that Waid kept the Legion's name and the classic names of the characters and nothing else.

This, to me, is not the Legion of Super-Heroes. The team, the characters, and the concepts must have some foundation deeper than outward appearances. It can't be something that just looks like the Legion (or is called the Legion).

I don't recognize Chuck as an assassin (or whatever he was doing in # 31), Tenz as a lawyer (or chef, for that matter), or various Legionnaires as members of the Wanderers and Terra Firma. This reads to me as if the Legionnaires are play acting: pretending to be different characters.

To me, the Legion has to have a solid foundation in what has gone before. That doesn't mean they can't change. In fact, they should change. Ayla broke up with Brin. Lyle died. Garth and Imra married and had children. But these changes grew organically out of what had gone before. They did not involve the Legion's face being removed from its body and grafted onto what seems to be an entirely different set of characters. As a Legion fan, I felt mildly insulted when I realized that Waid apparently thought that all I wanted was the old codenames back. Frankly, I couldn't care less if Garth is called Lightning Lad or Live Wire or Electric Farm Boy. The Garth I know died and was resurrected, lost an arm, married Imra, resigned as Legion leader, and went Protean. (Well, the jury's still out on that last one ...) Those experiences informed the character of Garth Ranzz moreso than his name ever could.

Of course, I may have misjudged the threeboot Legion. But I can't help but wondering if its fans would feel the same way if it were called something other than "Legion of Super-Heroes". I'm betting you would. If the threeboot's characters and story lines are worthwhile, they should live and breathe on their own merits and not pretend to be something they are not.

Well put,He Who Wanders.

Now I am really confused - I thought Superman being a Legion member was retconned out of existence. I guess this has been ret-retconned back in? I guess I don't know what the continuity d'jour is...