Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion November 2007 Solicitations and Images...SPOILERS!

None taken. In fact, I hope I'm not telling anyone what to think, although I reserve the right to try to persuade them to think this or that.

I still don't understand what you are trying to get us to think.


I also think you guys are trying to draw conclusions about what the LS Legion is going to be before the facts are out...

So far I've seen nothing to indicate anything that I consider the original cannon can't exist...

StarBoy is schitzophrenic? He just never told anyone before...it doesn't really change his history or any stories than I can think of. Maybe if he had told Superboy this little tidbit Superboy would have been able to use that as a defense for him in the Nuhor killing...he didn't. Probably because it had nothing to do with his decision to kill Nuhor.


Wildfire is Red Tornado?

There are quite a few ways of interpreting that...

One, that the Erg1 suit or his LS containment suit, was built from the original Red Tornado body...and or Two, that they are both creatures with feeling trapped in unfeeling shells etc. Which they both are and have more or less always been characterized as being.

There are a lot of way to interpret that statement by Wildfire, but nothing that I see changes any of original cannon...if he's not Drake Burroughs...get back to me and we'll discuss it some more.

Karate Kid is alive? I think it's been indicated that they went back in time and saved him. I like that happening...I didn't like that they killed KK off anyway.


That the original JSA/JLA Legion crossover didn't happen? Ditto the B&B Batman/Legion and Batman/KK teamups? Maybe they still did and it was forgotten...either way, those are minor changes.


But so far nothing has been revealed that, in any way excludes any Legion story up to the COIE. A couple of minute changes...but nothing to actually erase any stories that I know of.

This obviously lops off the Pocket Universe stuff...which is fine by me, since that, and everything that came after, wasn't the orginal Legion to me anyway. And it never will be....

I just want the Legion that Jim Shooter and Paul Levitz wrote.

And for them to stay in mostly Bronze age costumes.

And for DC to undo the damage that crisis on infinite earths and John Byrne did to the Legion.

Yeah that's right, Lone Wolf, back when we two were the first members of the Legion academy, those were the days

I really see that the discussion is more complicated than I had assumed - cause everybody has his/her own opinion and nobody seems to think exactly the same about the last nearly 50 years of Legion...

Some are into it because of the feeling, some for the continuity, some for the nostalgia, some for the adventure and some for certain characters, like Superboy who seems to be very focussed on anything "super" - whereas I for example never cared much for any super-character (especially not for Super-Pets).

In the end, everybody has his own moment in Legion when "everything went downhill" - be that Pocket universe, Zero Hour or Threeboot.

Now with the impending changes - whichever those will be - I fear that DC has absolutely no chance to succeed cause even if Legion fandom is huge, it will be impossible to do a new book which will satisfy a large enough crowd to really let the book fly again!

They are trying to bring back certain elements and characters from the good old days when continuity was not that challenged yet - but they cannot explain it in a logical way! The only idea would be to go back to a certain point in history - say Magic Wars for example or Conspiracy - and either start there again - WITH a Super-Character - or let them age again and explain what happened in those years in this continuity.

But there seems to be no valid option to bring back Superboy(man(girl into the old continuity cause there have been so many crossovers that nothing seems to fit anymore.

I am very thrilled to see what will be happening with the old characters returning - but when I'm hearing "Wildfire is Red Tornado" (where was this said???), I definitely get a feeling of impending doom cause many Legion fans won't tolerate those irrational changes to begin with...

It was said in the "Lightning Saga" JLA/JSA crossover that Wildfire was somehow Red Tornado's body (Superman also claims that Wildfire's in a containment suit so there was either some sloppy writing, the "Wildfire is Red Tornado" thing happened after Superman used to hang with the team or Red Tornado's body is a "containment suit" of some kind)

In the final issue of the Lightning Saga, Meltzer has Wildfire remind Red Tornado they are the same person--John Smith. Their "bond" evidently goes beyond merely sharing the same shell. (Wildfire is Drake Burroughs, too, so they're some sort of combination character at this point, I guess.)

I don't think that.

Sure, there have been times when Legion comics haven't been that great... for instance, the issues just before, let's say, the Reflecto stuff in 1980; the Legion on the Run nonsense; some of the reboot stuff before DnA took over... but those times all came to an end.

Right now I'd say is as good a time as there is to be a Legion fan: DC is publishing two Legion comics a month and both of them are very good, there's more Legion content coming up in Supergirl and Countdown and Action Comics, the cartoon is going to start its second season soon, and a couple of weeks ago I walked into McDonald's and bought a Mano toy.

Imagine!

Whic is exactly why the guys who write the Legion don't post on this board and the artists who draw it do...


Would you believe there are still large and vocal segements of fandom that don't consider anything after the Adventure run as the original Legion?

Still active fans...still upset over changes made in the late 60's...


This is true...


But removing Superboy from the Legion was like removing Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings. It was that big of a move, and the only people who don't really view it that way were people that never read Lord of the Rings with Frodo in it.

The changes done to what I consider the original Legion were not made to improve the book, they did not add to the book, they stipped quite a bit from it...

They weren't done to benefit the Legion and I have yet to find a Legion creator to say that they were done for that reason...

They were not well recieved at all by the fan base, the Legion lost a large portion of it's audience...and it has never reclaimed them.

And everything since has been an attempt to fix that...and it hasn't worked.


To tell you the truth Chemical King...I have a hard time seeing why you don't like the W&K Version or the Archie versions...

Why don't you like those?


And I think that's a mistaken sentiment. The audience that likes the post boot versions doesn't support the book well enough to keep it in publication. That's not even considering that there are fans like myself that have bought almost all postboot versions of the Legion without really enjoying it...


I think they'll make the changes they want and call it the original and the fans that want that version will accept it.


But you need to understand something...the single defining trait between this LS Legion and the post boot Legions is that Superman was a member of it. That's why he's important.


Not that hard to accept since none of the stuff done since fits to most of the people that were fans back then.


They didn't change that original continuity because people didn't like it and didn't support it...that's why they have changed all the others.


At heart...DC is a business and it is sales of the fittest.


Oh sure they will...there will be fans like yourself that accept this new version and consider it cannon...no matter how ridiculous and unecessary the changes were.

As you said...every version has it's fans.


They could turn the Legion into SuperPets from Krypton and there would be someone that jumps on at that point and considers it to be the Real Legion...just like there has been for every other version...

The question is...will it sell 600 thousand to 80 thousand as the "Original versions did" or will it hemmorage readers every month and have cancellation only staved off byadding one of those annoying SuperCousins...


As for why Superboy is so important to us..

Well let's see...he was in the first Legion story. He was in the next 50 Legion stories...he was the lead feature in Adventure then shared it with the Legion, then ceded the title completely to the Legion.


Then he has his own title, that the Legion moved into as a backup, then shared adventures, then ceded that title to the Legion.

His entire supporting cast were members, in his final story(imaginary) as Superman, it was the Legion that showed up and gave him the hint to survive the forces alligned against him.


The only reason Superboy is not important to you...or should I say the main reason, is because you weren't a fan during that era...you were a fan that came after...but you became a fan of a Legion that had been gutted not for it's benefit...but for the benefit of John Byrne. And it is not out of publication now due to a creator whim, but because fans failed to support it to a degree that DC wished to continue in that direction. That was not true of the orginal Legion. It did not get changed because fans weren't supporting it. It got changed because Byrne didn't give a whit about the Legion.

Agree with that...Shooter's second run on the Legion wasn't exactly spectacular either.

There has been good stuff and there has been bad stuff done...but essentially, the Legion has struggled to be one of DC's most popular books, as it was prior to the TMK Legion.


It's a great time to be a Legion fan...but as Chemical King noted...there are going to be lots of arguments coming up.


DC just has to let them all exist...in this multiverse...but the one that's going to get the most pub is the one that sells the best. Do you doubt which one that will be? I don't. I know exactly which one it is going to be.


There's no way DC can appease all the various fans with one Legion...so they just have to leave multiple ones in the multiverse...and let the will of the Legion Fans choose the one that gets published. Who knows...they might all be able to maintain an audience.

They do have Legion toys at McDonalds USA? Well, they certainly don't in Germany. The cartoon has not been aired here yet and if it will be, you normally won't realize it because it will just drown somewhere in kiddie TV limbo. Never got hold of the Titans cartoon over here too.

As for the current books, yes, it seems to be the case that all the terrible Legion lows... Brainy with a monkey comes to mind, Reflecto and Dr. Mayavale, Emerald Dragon and Enya Wazzo (Phase?) and not to forget the silly "underagers" nonsense by Mark Waid... have passed. Still, their impact is still felt very strongly. I am looking forward to the return of the original Legion, but do very much see the trouble to explain their return in a logical, satisfying way. I am so hopeful that I currently am buying all this stuff - Countdown, Action, even the Bedard run - but I fear that if the 50th anniversary is over, there will be an all new Legion #1 book and the discussionms will start from the beginning... will there have been a deboot - a newboot - maybe a moon boot, I don't know but I'm pretty sure that many people still will not be happy, only the roles might be reversed...

At this point, I'll take any Legion that will give me back Laurel Kent, before she got retconned into a Manhunter robot.

Plus the Subs, Khunds, Mordru, Fatal Five, tryouts issues, etc. The classics.

Ironically, that's kind of how I feel about Superboy. He hasn't really been part of the team for ages (decades, even), and he was never really *part* of the team in any sense, always the standalone character who was 'visiting' the team from his 'real home.'

Conner Kent was vastly more interesting as a *character* to me (which his writers had to work at, since I had a knee-jerk* dislike to him to start). This is not a flaw in the original Superboy, so much as a statement about the complete lack of characterization that was endemic back when the character was being written. Back then, *none* of the characters had much 'depth' to them, their personalities shifting issue to issue to match the theme of the issue. Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Ultra Boy, Mon-El, Sun Boy, all would utter the same sorts of lines, and even Brainiac 5 didn't seem to have a distinct personality yet. They were all pretty two-dimensional, and that was the norm.

Since then, most of the other Legionnaires have been fleshed, and can be said to have very clear mannerisms and modes of speech and action, and grown-up Clark Kent has as well, but the original Clark Kent Superboy hasn't been active, so he's never gotten the same sort of character development that modern viewers have come to expect from these characters. I'm not going to say that 'tastes have matured' or anything, they've just changed. We've come to expect more, and Clark Kent Superboy is the eternal changeless teenager, who, unlike the rest of the team, can't be shown growing or changing or even putting on another costume. He's the Legion's own 'Lost Boy,' a kid out of time.

Garth and Imra can grow up and have kids and still be Garth and Imra, but Superboy *can't* grow up, because when that happens, he becomes Superman, an entirely different iconic property (equally trapped by that trademark status, and unable to change his costume or hairstyle, or grow and develop significantly), and one that already exists and has for many decades.

Unfortunately, Supergirl *has* gotten this sort of updated characterization / development, but in several different and not-entirely-compatible directions, leaving readers reading the same comic month to month unsure as to exactly *which* Supergirl they are reading. Waid seems to have created yet another Supergirl to join this latest Legion, for that matter, further complicating a messed-up situation.


*I typically loathe replacement characters. Anybody who has a II in their name, any female character who is an exact copy of a male character with the codename ending in 'girl' instead of 'man,' etc. So characters like Conner Kent, She-Hulk or X-23 have an uphill struggle. I'm automatically turned off by the appearance of cashing in on a popular character by making teenaged versions, or of cheapening out on creating an interesting female character with unique powers and personality (like Storm or the Scarlet Witch) by instead just picking a male character and adding breasts (like Bat-Femme or Zatara's Daughter).

Canada, actually, not the U.S. Although the U.S. was also included in the promotion. If you're interested I hear they're available on eBay.

Set: Good analysis of Superboy; I hadn't really thought about it like that before.

I would actually have a hard time believing that. I imagine there are a few people who feel like that, but a) it's kind of a strange thing to be upset about*, even in the context of Legion fandom, b) that's a long time to stay upset, and c) I would be surprised if there were enough fans at all still active from the '60s to be considered a large segment.

Anyway, if I was DC I certainly wouldn't spend any time worrying about such people; anybody who's been nursing a grudge for forty years is more attached to the grudge than he or she could ever be attached to the comics at this point.

*I hope I'm not offending anybody here who may think this way. But I find the idea very difficult to entertain.

I agree with you, the Legion had something for everyone, and then they started trying to cut stuff out and eliminate it, and erase it..and the result was a largely miserable fan base many of whom just stopped reading. And now they have this fragmented fan base the likes of which seldom agree.

Superboy was always a part of the Legion I loved, the original Legion.

He was in it's first appearance, he was in it's last appearance. He was the most famous, the most important, and the foundation for the entire Legion. From day 1.

You are a fan of a Legion without him and I applaud that...DC has produced that product you like for along time now...and it doesn't sell as well, it doesn't hold it's audience.

I guess the difference between us...

I am not saying I want part of the Legion you liked eradicated...say Chemical King eliminated...

Others are saying that now, about a part of the Legion I like...and it's been given to them ad nauseum for the last 2 decades. It comes out every month.

This is true...

But factually, commercially, the point where it went downhill, the point where it's identity was lost was when they gutted it's history.


Welcome to my world....


Hey every has it's fans...but changing Mon-El into Superboy didn't kill one chracter...it killed two...to a much greater degree than tying Wildfire into Red Tornado.

There was still a Superboy in the Legion...he just wasn't the original, he was an imitation. And Mon-El, the most enigmatic and mysterious character, was gone.

IMO...Mon-El's mystique was how int he world did he survive a thousand years in the Phantom Zone while retaining his sanity...while still coming off as the boy next door...

I didn't want that explored...it wasn't meant to be explored, if DC made a series called Mon-El in the phantom zone...it would be quite possibly the most boring series ever put out.

And Mon-El didn't need to be Superboy, especially an imitation. He was a fine, intersting and highly beloved character in his own right...

If you are still going to have Superboy...isn't it better to have the real one? Instead of an imitation?


Well thanks for the long and thought out response...

I will adress one point you made...saying that if they make these huge changes no one will accept them...this board is full of people that did accept huge radical changes to the entire foundation. Someone one will accept it...it will be someone's favorite version...and sales cannot be hurt much more than they already are and have been.


I am not going to tell you that the version of the Legion you like is the wrong one, because it is the one you like...but I'll just say it's not the original one, it was vastly changed from the orginal concept and I feel this was a major reason for it's lack of success. Not just Superboy...but the whole aging, stuff...I don't think it had a mass appeal.


I don't really think that Legion had a history either...

For instance...what was Ultraboy's first appearance with that Legion in that continuity?

He didn't go back in time to the 20th century to meet Superboy like he originally did...

What was it? It was just a huge blank slate. It had no history other than the page devoted to it in issue #5 saying Mon-El replaced Superboy...without taking into account, who replaced Mon-El?


But you are right, the Legion did have something for everyone, which is why DC should be careful about cutting out huge swaths of it's history...you take away the something for everyone elements...you weaken the book. You fragment the fan base.

I think instead of DC trying to figure out what they should remove...they should be figuring out what to add...and how to do it the right way. In a story...rather than mass offpage continuity rewrites.

And every Legionaire is someone's favorite character...which is why killing them off or erasing them is something that should be handled with a great deal of care and thought.


In this case...Superboy was the most well known Legionaire, he was the most famous, he was the best one to attract new readers...and IMO, he was the most popular. Cutting him out severely reduced the Legion's mainstream and casual fan appeal.


The reason this book has lost so much of it's prestige is because a creator that didn't particularly care about it, was allowed to make huge radical changes to it.

Right now...the Legion doesn't have that much to lose by making these changes...back then, they had a lot to lose, and they lost it.

You mean aside from the first appearances of
Mordru, the Fatal Five, the Khunds, The Legion, and 90% of the original cast...you know, the classics.

You aren't seriously trying to argue that Superboy wasn't a major part of the Adventure run are you?

I mean come on. It basically revolved around him to the annoyance of many a Legion fan.


To me Superboy/Superman is the most original and interesting Superhero ever created...

It's all the others that are the imitations...if I put that lens on. Which I usually try to avoid.


Sure but that's not Superboy's fault.


Shooter, the guy who first put personalities on the Legion considers Superboy to be the most important one...he also considers him to be the most complex...I am not sure if I agre with that, but I agree he was the most important one.

Superman is one of the most recognizable characters ever created...how many of the Legionaires can make that claim?

You want a Legion without mass appeal?

You got one. You've had one for a long time.

I am fine with everything you said except I just don't agree with Superboy's place in the Legion...


He's not supposed to be just another Legionaire...
He's supposed to be the ultimate Legionaire, the archetype, the icon. You know...what he actually is, in the comics world, inside and outside of it.

Basically the same things the post boot Mon-El was trying to be...only Superboy is the real thing. He actually is the one that grows up to be the greatest Superhero of them all...and the Legion is supposed to be part of the reason why.

And they got this impossible chance to hang out with him and meet him. He instantly sets them apart from any other teen group...any other SuperTeam.

You don't think Marvel would give their left nut to stick him the X-Men? No matter how hokey he is?

They would...they've been trying to copy Superman for years, they just can't succeed at it.

He was never supposed to be just another Legionaire...they didn't travel a thousand years back in time to recruit him because he was just another Superhero.

As for the characterization and stuff...I wouldn't devote much time to characterizing Superboy...he's Superman almost, his character his secondary to his purpose...which is becoming the greatest Superhero of all time. He doesn't have the same quirks and weaknesses most people do...that's why he's inspiriational to them.


Eh...Connor was his own character, but to me he's not a true Legionaire...he's a Titan. Superman was the Legionaire...from day 1 of the Legion's existence. He was there.

I agree Connor is basically just another Legionaire...at which point, why is he needed? We already had Ultraboy.


Superman and Superboy are not ever going to be a post modern characters...he's always going to be iconic...that is the purpose he served. That is one of the major things that made the Legion special. That made it more than just another SuperTeam.

Mon-El, his cosume, do not conjure those images in my head, nor do they do it to the average fan...the S Shield does. It is part of the greatest canon in comics, the Legion was always a part of it, except for this exteneded down period...and why would you want an imitation, when you can have the real thing?

The fact is none of us are going to change the other ones minds...we all know this in our hearts. This arguing will never solve anything...you can't make someone like something they don't...

I am just voicing my opinion because, I think the Legion you guys want, is a whole lot like the one we've been given for a long long time now....I know DC creators read this board, and I want to make sure my opinion is heard this time around.

I like time travel stories, I like sci-fi stories instead of character pieces, I don't read comics to watch characters grow old...

DC, some Legion Fans love the Legion being tied to Superman and his mythos...to some Legion fans, that is and will always be the original Legion, the true Legion. How about giving us a Legion we like for a change...Publish them both. With and without, and let the fans read what they want.

There are.

I wouldn't describe it as being upset...I mean who are they going to be upset with? All the people responsible are dead or out of the industry.

It's more like, they don't accept any other Legions and I am not surprised you have a hard time understanding that...you tend to like all versions so the mindset is probably not one you are used too.

It's not even that they want the Legion fixed, they pretty much don't think it can be...but they are still Legion Fans who are very active with their Legion Fandom.


LOL, you seriously underestimate the tenacity of Legion fans...these are the same people that refused to let the Legion get canceled. They were among the first organized fandom in all of comicdom.


Matt...you realize that Superboy sold 500k copies a month back then, the Legion around 400k...

IF just 1pct of them are still active, that's a huge sales bump in todays industry.


And again...one of those fans back then was Paul Levitz, another was Keith Giffen, still another was Mark Waid and nother was George Perez and so on and so forth.


And if I was DC I'd be trying to figure out how to sell more books rather than teaching my fanbase a lesson.

Eh...I don't think it's possible to discuss the various versions of the Legion without offending someone in someway...you do a better job of avoiding that sort of insensitivity than most IMO...including myself. That doesn't mean I agree with your stance that all Legions are equal though And I don't really think DC does either...since they can't publish things that don't appeal to a decent sized returning audience.

Wow you are a very busy poster here Are you an a holiday just like me?

You said a lot of interesting things, many of them very true. I just want to add that for me, it's not about liking a Legion WITH Superboy OR one WITHOUT Superboy - I liked them BOTH. And if your apply to DC about publishing both version would be heard, I would very much rather take the new book WITH a Superboy (as long as he comes along with the classic Legion characters) than the current Threeboot version, even if it finally got a little more coherent after only 25 issues.

So to clear this up: I liked the whole Legion history UNTIL Zero Hour. I like the 70s with Superboy, I like the 80s when he was only a guest star, I liked 5YL for reasons I mentioned above. I am probably more tolerant to continuity changes as long as they only BEND history... I get very angry when they start ERASING the whole of it. So I could very much live with Valor (even if the continuity holes you are pointing out are probably correct), but I could NOT live with everything being wiped out for the Archie run. I was devastated back then.

As for Superboy being original and interesting: I give you that, he is by definition the "original" Superhero, he (or his adult ego) was the first out there. But I never thought he was interesting. Maybe that's because he just was not WRITTEN in an interesting way - but to me, he always seemed like the ultimate boy scout, and that includes Superman who never had any appeal to me as well (so as for Justice League, I rather like the runs without him as a member).

The problem might be that he was written out to be a regular cast member before the Levitz run - so when Levitz finally started to give the Legionnaires their own characterization, he was absent. he only got the "true 80s treatment" in "The greatest hero of them all", which I haven't read in along time but I recollect to be rather good. But that was PU Superboy already, so he does not count for you

In the end, I would take any return to the BC Legion anytime, even if it meant that I had to loose PC Baxter and 5YL. I loved to see the characters growing up - one of the major differences between us - but I would take any version in which my personal Legion bible - called "Secrets of the Legion mini-series" - would become official Legion history again. This mini sums up everything that is great about the Legion - and is a great jump-on point for readers who want to jump into the Levitz run thereafter.

It's not so much that I think that all Legions are equal... They're fictional characters; who cares if they're equal or not? It's more that I think that all Legion fans are equal. Some people are fans of the original Legion only and some are fans of the threeboot Legion only. I don't think either of those groups should be privileged over the other; I think all Legion fans should be able to read about their preferred version of the Legion. I don't know how DC could accomplish that, but I do know that they're not going to do it by (for instance) keeping the 5YL and SW6 stuff out of continuity.

Yeah but the reaility is the larger audience is more important to DC...and to them a young large audience is better than an aging one.


I can call the new Legions failures, because they weren't popular with their intended audience...new younger readers, and the older audience is generally irate.


Even still...
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of all Legion Fans to this very day, are the old audience that DC screwed over years ago in pursuit of a Marvel audience for Superman.

SO no they aren't all equal and understandably so...I mean the Legion audeince isn't as important as the JSA or Titans audience now. Because it's smaller.

And I think DC could easily erase most of the stuff from the past 20 years with little or no sales change, because the bulk of this audience is the old Legion audience...this book doesn't appeal to a large young audience, and it's not because the old audience won't let go of the past...it's just because it doesn't have a mass appeal as the original did...to old fans, or to new.

Tehy are not equal and in the eyes of DC, not all fans are equal either, if they were, DC wouldn't have allowed the Legion audience to get trampled as they did...


That audience was the original direct market audience and they paid a premium price to read the Legion, and they supported the book, and the failure of all Legions since is directly tied to DC's screwing that audience over, not to mention being a largely unattractive book to the younger audience they sought...because there is no gateway character to newer readers.

It'd be nice if everyone's favorite book could be published endlessly and all fansbases could and would be respected equally, but it's just not a realistic expectation...on either side. I mean if the fans of the TMK Version were equal to the Original in terms of $$$...we'd still be reading the TMK version and this discussion wouldn't be needed.

Well, I did not really remember Superboy being a major part in the Levitz run - I'll have to reread it anyway, so I guess I just forgot about Superboy due to the mentioned reasons.

I very much like your "Gateway character" analysis. Even though I never cared much for those, obviously other people need a major hero to get into a book, which would be a rather psychological question as to why that is. I absolutely agree that as far as sales are concerned, it will always be an intelligent way to put a franchise character on the cover to get people to buy the book who normally wouldn't...

I'm not sure if all seasons were/will be shown since I never became a fan of the show, but I remember the dub actually being pretty good (unlike the terrible Transformers Armada one), if that passes for a comment...


Actually, considering Legion fans are vying with Transformers ones over first place in the categories of pettiness and blind nostalgia, this casual fan can easily imagine that.

...actually a nice comparison.
LSH started out with a wobbly continuity and usually plain stupid dickery, then matured, then had a couple of distinct cuts (PU, Valor), then got rebooted, then got rebooted again.
Transformers has Generation 1 with its couple of continuity hick-ups and usually not too deep of a story (with exceptions) which lasted how long? End of US series? End of Japanese continuity (during which it at first became deeper and then became increasingly weird)? Some point between sub-series at which it derived too much from the original? Fans opinions differ. Then there was the Beast Wars reboot that saved a terrible concept by excellent execution (and begat the more humorous Japanese series that led into the slapstick Car Robots). And then there was the Unicron Trilogy reboot that was the most shameless toy commercial of them all (not that the other weren't essentially, but they managed to overdo it) whose continuity got screwed up because TakaTomy failed to put any kind of leash on the animation studio which suddenly felt the need to go artistic for the third series. ...And the movie is a Bay movie with all the good action and lack of characterization that comes with it. A different director for #2. Please!

Okay, that paragraphe became a bit long. Just to get my opinion/stance out quickly because I have to get home packing ASAP.
My siblings had exactly three super-hero comics. One issue of Batman that centered around Bruce visiting (the opening of?) some casino island, one of Superman (which started with Supes and Lois in bed and had a cool ad at the end (next issue, probably. trapped in the Phantom Zone? maybe)) and a small Legion paperback with I think two stories as well as a character guide (I distinctly remember Invisible Kid and Duo Damsel) and an ad about a fight against the Legion of Super-Villains at the back. They kept disappearing in the depths of my cupboards, but were some of my most treasured (and whenever found most (re)read) belongings as a child, especially the LSH one.
So yes, I have a special place in my heart for the original Legion (whatever that's supposed to encase) and like 'em all, but the one that actually got me into it was the Threeboot (more due to timing than anything else) of which I love the premise despise flaws in execution. However, "my" Legion is the Postboot one despite retellings and snakifications.

On a side note, around the same time I read the backissues of Teen Titans, which led me to torrenting Young Justice - and how should I put it - I like most stuff by Johns I've read to date, but aside from the Titans of Tomorrow arc his stint on the book in my opinion deserves no praise aside from mysteriously turning the Titans brand into a valuable one again. Looking at current stuff like Blue Beetle or Manhunter as well as older books like Impulse and Batgirl (and Robin back when it was good (up to about Gangwars)), my tastes don't sell, I guess.

Where was I?
I would love the regular title as well as a Lightning Saga Legion mini and a post-ZH Legion mini leading into the Legion of Three Worlds event. (Think the Annihilation template. Though prior to that post-ZH should get some kind of exposure again as well. A mini seperating LL and EL again or something. Ideally DnA-written, of course.) Ideally, the market should be able to support three books (plus the toon one) at least for a while afterwards (until they get canceled one after another). And I'd buy all three until a respective writer manages to piss me off.
Either way, hype doesn't generate itself, so DC marketing should do SOMETHING for a change.

Actually, to create hunger for more Legion Johns's stuff should be the perfect entry drug from which good comic readers should then branch of into the other Legion titles, but that's me dreaming of the majority looking to at least sample outside of their little selection of titles. Not that I'm that much better than the mainstream.

...discussion currently centers around the neccessity of Superboy, doesn't it? There are some great Superman stories, but I just can't make myself care for Supes outside of Kingdom Come. That said, I don't actually mind having him on a team, Legion or otherwise, though I prefer him off. However, as mentioned he's a great draw for new readers so the classic formula of a strong connection, but only occasional team-ups would IMHO be the best. Which I guess is what I was writing about in the paragraphe just above.


Also, DC's current golden boy calls it the original, so editorial treats it as such and if contrary to expectations it fails despite Johns's name on it, possibly your last chance at something resembling whatever you consider original will be gone, so I'd advice not to get lost in semantics and instead try to enjoy the ride, but that's just me.

And something people everywhere keep forgetting because DC doesn't remind them often enough - there's a new Earth-1 out there on which the probability is high that all the pre-Crisis stuff still happened unaffected by modern rewrites until someone decides to wreak havoc there ('though don't ask me if their Flash is dead too, Supergirl should be). Multiverse = New Earth + Earths 1 through 51 + One Anti-Matter Universe + The Bleed + New Gods. I've seen posts considering E1 and NE the same often enough (including at least one in this thread), thus this reminder.

Which come to think about it, really makes me want the Lightning Saga Legion to include adjusted continuity of the whole Preboot area.
I just hope they are *not* from Earth-2. Any of the new ones are fine, but please not one of the original three or others based on previous work. Give all the current three Legions an Earth of their own and everything's fine in my book.


Anyway, concerning the solicits: Yes, Cosmic Boy looks fugly in both, but such is life...


Quickly, I said? I fail at life. Also not exactly too coherent and I have the nagging feeling I forgot something... Oh well, I'm off.