Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Shooter gone @ 50, Bedard re-launching Legion?!?!?!?

Except that L3W is a Superman story, according to Geoff Johns, and so it seems so far, and Smallville is also pulling the plug this season. And it seems only the 3 original members will be on it anyway.

Amen to that.

Yeah well, I still think it's unneccessary nitpicking not to take this Lightning Saga Legion as close enough to the original to simply enjoy it. But that's the nitpickers problem, I really am having a ride with those books Johns is dishing out recently. Even got his whole JSA series from 1999 cause his writing really is convincing (Sinestro Corps anyone?).

But as for the Shooter Legion... I'm sad to see it go. As I stated recently, it has surpassed my expectations by far and I am liking it more than DnA meanwhile. It's sad that Shooter came on board so late, what a book this could've been had we not have to suffer through Waids ridiculous generation conflict babble.

As most of you, I am quite certain the Legion will return in less than half a year. Which version? Hopefully Levitz will have an idea (and hopefully, he will stop DiDio should he have another one of those "brilliant" ideas of his).

My current feelings about DC are quite negative as well. Reading Marvel makes me realize that the competition is running out of ideas as well. Skrulls again? D'uh...

My way is going to Ebay, buying whole series for little money (Valiant stuff, JSA, Marvels Exiles, even Malibu which are more fun than one might imagine) or getting more independent stuff like anything Alex Robinson is writing...

Or maybe more Vertigo, seeing that series like Fables are pure satisfaction... anyone put up "Greatest Hits #1" this month?

Even if it's nitpicking to wonder about the anachronisms in the Lo3W Legion, that still doesn't address my big problems. First, the Legionnaires are supporting case members to Superman. That's a big disappointment for me.

Second, I'm still waiting to see some character development in Johns' Legion beyond simply attaching labels to the characters (the truth, justice, American way for the founders, "burn out" for Sun Boy, etc.). Johns has written almost as many issues of the Legion in the past few years as Shooter, and there is no comparison in terms of character development. I feel I know the threeboot characters' personalities better than the Johns Legionnaires, even though I've been reading about Johns' Legionnaires for two decades. While you can say that Johns has the responsibility for handing complex plots (though the plot of Lightning Saga was pretty thin when you really think of it and the ending of Superman and the Legion was way too pat), Shooter had to clean up Waid's plot mess. Johns' Legion just seems to be coasting on nostalgia, like a nice visit to the Legion museum for reminiscing about old friends, but I haven't seen anything to suggest they will be interesting to read on an ongoing basis. So far, they have been ciphers (Lightning Saga) and reactive to the plot events (Superman and Legion). But you can't have a universe-threatening event in every issue. At some point, you need to delve into the characters, show who they are, and have them grow.

The news doesn't come as a surprise but I am still very disappointed. I really enjoyed the last 2 issues and so far L3W has not impressed me.

With "Titans" being so awful to read/look at, "Teen Titans" getting rid of my favorite Teen Titans Rose and "Legion being cancelled....there is really no excitement in the DC universe for me.

Only thing I am looking forward to is "Terror Titans" with Rose.

At least I will see Dream Girl again until # 50. <sigh>

Worst 50th anniversary EVER.

But please do recall the past 2 times LSH either sank into obscurity or was cancelled...

the first time LSH came back with the name "Dave Cockrum" attached...

the second time, we got Legion Lost and Coipel evolving into a superstar right before our eyes, and then the exciting launch of THE LEGION...

If you want to count the skipped months that preceded the 5YL era, we can.

It may take a li'l bit, but I do see big things coming.

I'm almost positive we WILL see that Levitz/Giffen 1-shot or mini.

As previously mentioned, there are still plenty of pros who want to do LSH stories. Absence of a regular series will make the desire stronger.

BIG stuff. I believe it.

I don't see how sales warrant this cancellation at all. Aren't titles like JOHAH HEX, MANHUNTER, and several more selling at much less? I don't want any of those titles cancelled by any means, but why the disparity?

Why not work the title into a crossover with LOTW? I know there've been complaints about such linkage, but in this instance it'd only make sense- and with all the characters inherent in a meeting of three legions, the space'd be *welcome*. Wouldn't it?

Why does DC keep pulling the title when there's 3-4 issues left in the creators' quiver?

I don't get it.

They cancel "Legion" but let the monstrosity called "Titans" continue. "Titans" has awful art and horrendous writing but yet it stays around.

I am really going to miss "Legion" as I can honestly say I like each and every Legion member on the team.

I could never say that about any other Legion lineup that I have ever read before.

Agreed.

Maybe DC is trying to suprise us with an actual replacement book?

I expect that there will be another LSH book within a year. LSH has one of the most loyal cult followings in comicdom. That would be us, kids.

Don't know if this is still accurate or not, but if anyone is interested:

dan.didio@dccomics.com

Congratulations are in order, I guess, to all those here who never cared for Shooter's take on Threeboot. I know many of you who didn't were expecting Jim to somehow bring back the Silver Age instead of bringing the fresh forward-looking approach he did.

Again, congratulations. I look forward to hearing all of you complain about how whatever comes next is so wrong, too. Because I know that that segment of Legion fandom will never, ever be satisfied, no matter what approach is taken.

Look, I don't expect everyone to love Shooter's Threeboot run. I know it's not to everyone's taste. Nothing ever will be. But some of us did become invested in this version, just as others grew to love the reboot, TMK, etc. So before the men in black inevitably come out en masse with the I-tolja-so's and the barbs at Shooter, show some respect for the fans who are beyond disappointment about this.

After this debacle, I'm more convinced than ever that any version of the Legion DC puts out will never gain enough consistent fan support to be sustainable and therefore reboot-proof. If the next version centers on what Johns has done, it too will probably be successful until the novelty wears off and/or Johns or whomever leaves the book.

This is a Black Monday for the Legion. Part of me wishes DC would just bury it and let it rest in peace, rather than having us all go through this again every few years.

Wasn't the "never reboot-proof again" obvious back in 2004? (And I'm serious about that).

Next version's due to last two years at this rate of decline. Blame Waid & Wacker.

I guess I was an optimist?

You know what? I organized a letter-writing campaign and an online petition to try to save LSH31C from the axe, but I'm not going to do anything of the kind for this series. Not because I don't want to save it, but because it can't be saved by an act of will on anyone's part.

DC just doesn't know what they're doing, that's all.

And I don't mean that they're no good at their jobs, I just mean that they don't know what to do with the Legion. I believe that they're stuck for ideas. I'm sure they'd love to have a Legion series all ready to go for next spring, but they wouldn't know what to put in it. They don't have a writer, they don't have an artist, they don't have a premise. They need a vision.

I think it could be quite a while before we see the next Legion comic. I could be wrong, of course, but if it's three years from now and we're still waiting, well... you heard it here first.

I guess I'm going to be optimistic about this. I have a feeling (which possibly is nothing more than misplaced hope) that DC has something big in line and they are not ready to announce it yet. I'm not surprised that this comic will end but I do think we will see something quickly down the road. Hope I'm write. If the Legion was doing so poorly by DC standards, they wouldn't have done the Legion of 3 Worlds and try and set things straight (which is what I think they have in mind to do). So I shall wait patiently. In the meantime I will enjoy 50 years of back issues.

I agree with probably everyone: it's one terrible golden anniversary. But it's actually assuaged my worst fear. That is, that the threeboot would be cancelled and, with slap-in-the-face speed, replaced by a neo-80s Legion that really isn't even what it claims to be. If they are letting the Legion rest, they're hopefully going to keep their options open, which means leaving all three Legions in a usable state at the end of L3W. The Legion probably isn't about to get more sprocked-up than it already is. Not right away, anyway. We'll all be left hanging. But our emotional investment will remain intact.

I don't know where DC should go from here. I don't think they can find out by watching fan reaction.

I'd already been losing interest in the threeboot. Waid threw a lot of stuff in the air and didn't develop much of it. I'd have liked to see that version of the Legion fleshed out. Shooter hasn't been following up on much of it, and has introduced inconsistencies. Most disturbing are the apprent changes in Element Lad's and Colossal Boy's powers - back to older versions, more or less. Aside from the major continuity issue, this shows that he isn't really writing the Legion he was handed. He's writing an alternate Silver Age Legion.

Well, everyone who was around here at that time knows how I feel about that whole imbroglio - but the simple fact is that all the previous retcons/softboots/reboots had been done because (DC felt, at least, that) they needed to, to match the continuity situation of the time and the increasingly desperate retcons that had been pulled to stabilise things (kind of like what's going on in the markets right now, now I think of it...), and the 1994 Reboot was a once and final acknowledgement that it couldn't be stabilised - there was no desire on anyone's part to say "X years had never happened", so they brought things to an ending.

Whereas the 2004 "threeboot", as it's come to be called, was done because Mark Waid *wanted* to do it, with no wider goal beyond "this is Mark Waid & Barry Kitson's vision". And the obvious next step is that when someone ELSE's "vision" comes along, they'll make any and all changes - up to and including another full reboot - necessary to actualise that (logically, after all, no-one else's vision will exactly match WanK's - or the place where the last person to use WanK's version left it, at least).

If I was to put money on what'll happen, I would still say that Johns' Legion will get a series some time in 2009 (whether written by Johns or not, as they're clearly DC's favoured version right now) - although I would say there would be more to be gained in the longer term by pulling a Thor and letting the property rest for at least two full years.

Shooter's already been starting that.

I like how the Waid-Kitson concept was only loosely tied to the present. That might be the only way the Legion can work in the main DC universe.

There will be another Legion book within a year, I'm sure. But what will it be? What can it be? After the wild, chaotic expectations, hopes and antagonism of recent years (fuelled by L3W), what can DC do? I can't solve "the Legion Problem".

Speaking in the abstract, you're probably right in that the Legion shouldn't be tied to the present in any direct way - certainly not in any way that DC continuity can affect the series.

Speaking PRACTICALLY, however... crossovers = sales (unless the well is pre-emptively poisoned, as with the fiasco of Amazons Attack). Notice how WanK's Legion essentially reset its' sales pattern by adding the then-top-selling Supergirl (not only to the book, but to the title of the book). Without that, the book would have sunk below the 25k mark by the start of its' third year.

At this point, it's essentially insolvable - through everything they've done, DC have fragmented the fanbase that *might* buy a Legion title beyond repair. They can probably pull sales in - in the short term - by relaunching with high-selling creators, but as soon as they leave (Witness the sales freefall of the aforementioned Supergirl title after Jeph Loeb left) and aren't replaced by a similarly A-list team (who will almost certainly make major changes, if not a full reboot, to satisfy their own "vision"), sales will plummet again.

The best the Legion can expect in the medium term is to pull an Immortal Iron Fist - starring a character who's never held a solid solo fanbase - and become a stable mid-tier title by aggressively targeting a specific niche (in more general fiction terms) and executing it well. Aiming for "Legion fans" is a lose-lose, since "Legion fans" all want different things.

--activate a veryvery long post, don't worry, i made the important part bold--

ah, as you can guess, i really don't mind. issue 45 was so upsetting that i didn't even want to talk about it, i just set it down and tried not to think about it. if anyone else in the dc staff was reading the way i was then maybe that's why (if the sales didn't seem to be that bad)? i didn't like shooter's run and i was waiting for the end of it to see who took the reins next. for me, this ends my sadness 4 months early.

i didn't like where the book was going, and i think it's just a big, cumbersome, time-distorted monkey on dc's back. i can see why this book is very hard to sell. a giant cast, without the mainstream comprehension of Xmen, with a long and daunting past. it's really hard to get people into the legion, and i think dc tried VERY hard to salvage this book so give didio and the staff at dc some credit here . mark waid, i know most of you guys hate him or whatever, but he's a popular writer that many people respect, his name sells books. so they put this writer on the legion. not enough. they put SUPERGIRL in the book. not enough. i can see them looking at this and going "oh well, maybe because waid and bedard are too modern? they're not appealing to the older fans of the legion, we should appeal to them instead!" so they played time trapper reached BACK INTO TIME and got shooter, a writer from WAY WAY back in the day, that, despite my opinion of his work, is fairly well known and generally revered, AND he worked on the legion way way back in the day! AND paired him with a top-notch, super slick artist! it's not like they got third tier unknown people to work on the legion. their handling of the legion, to me, shows them trying a wide variety of things to try to make it stick, further evidenced by the legion's inclusion in Final Crisis. man i don't know WHAT you could do with the legion that would get people into the book beyond what they've tried already.

in an editorial position, what would you guys do? (and please, no answers like "well i wouldn't have done blahblah in the first place", unless you've built a time bubble, that's not feasible).

i think this rest period will be good for them to figure out what to do! but i don't think this is good-bye forever for the legion, not one bit! don't worry, guys! it'll come back! the smallville-legion episode will roughly coincide with the end of LO3W, right? i think legion'll get a boost of interest next year! i'm still looking forward to whatever comes next for the legion, and i'm positive that there's still something there. i also think LEGION might help out LSH! let's stay positive! i think the legion will come back better than before! 4-boot, lets go!!

also, i'll follow manapul's art wherever it goes, i'm waiting to hear what he's doing next. i really like his people but his legion run made me appreciate his INSANE attention to detail (check out some of those backgrounds some time, they're so intricate!!).

man, i'm surprised shooter just gave away the ending in that interview, yeah?! like... whoa, way to kill your own sales?!! i noticed that his future projects didn't involve dc...

ahhh sorry, one more thing, francis just got back to me, he said he's got another thing lined up for DC next year! i'm so glad! lets all support him when it comes out, ok?!

Jim Shooter has long been known as going against the flow. What better way to stick it to DC than to give away the ending of the story? I would like to have seen the reaction of TPTB when he gave it away.

I am not saying place all of the blame at Dan DiDio's feet--yes it does look like they tried a lot of things. However, in some of the interviews I've seen or read, just the cavalier attitude he seems to take in laughing off comments he makes that many people hang onto every word of, makes me think he is really out of touch with the fan base, and that he doesn't care to change that.

Actually, that spoiler was a great relief to me because it implies the situation can be resolved relatively quickly, and possibly by one, single hero (I won't name her) instead of the whole team. So then Jim can spend the rest of the time covering the *real* important stuff -- the soap opera stuff.

Hey veryvery, how is it that you have contacts with all these people at such a young age? Please share! I don't know you as well as some posters obviously do.

AFOB: ahh! i don't! not really, i'll send you a note about this as it's off topic. and i'm very, very new here so no one knows me, actually!

but uh, my background makes me very sympathetic to didio and co i think, because i would not envy their job. their job is difficult to begin with, imagine if every day you have to go to work and every single thing you do will make a group of fans CRAZY mad at you! what people see as his dismissive approach, to me seems like he's trying to make things fun and casual, sort of like "take it easy" you know? and also, when someone says "oh, amazons attacks was horrible", and like, imagine you're friends with the people who made it and you know how hard they worked on it? it's easy to see why someone would defend things.

RAMBLE RAMBLE. i have faith they'll try again. i'm surprised, honestly, that they tried in the first place! to me, that says a lot. not many companies would touch something like the legion, you know?