Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Would you rather have endless reboots or the Legionnaires aging?

The context is my previously expressed opinion that the Legionnaires should never again age past 25 (hardly retirement age), and I should add I consider a core team of more than, say, 25-27 members unwieldy for both reader and writer. All told, that doesn't leave much room for newbloods or allow for a great range of ages -- certainly not the teens to 30s range Jorge has in mind -- unless you assume they're going to kill off an original Legionnaire every few years just for the sake of change.

There are other opportunities to introduce younger characters as supporting cast, e.g., the Legion Academy, and in the case of the WaK Legion, the lower-case legionnaires. However, the radical team shakeups of the late 1980s and the early 1990s were profound mistakes that should never be repeated, imo.

I'm totally in favor of the ambiguously aged but going-on-30 Legionnaires having their own "teen auxillary", ala what Mort Weisinger suggested way back in the 60s!

Thanks for clarifying that, Tromium.

However, there's no reason to assume that older Legionnaires must be killed off to make way for younger ones. Marriages, drafts, and resignations worked just as effectively in the past.

re: introduction of new members

As mentioned, it's indeed possible to transition members away from the Legion. The more interesting ones that come to mind would be:

- Matter-Eater Lad gets drafted into Bismollian politics
- Tyroc leaves with Marzal
- Star Boy gets appointed planetary protector
- White Witch leaves over a philosophical difference with Polar Boy
- Saturn Girl & Lightning Lad leave to raise a family
- ...then of course there's the big clubhouse in the sky

re: shake-ups

I think that during the period you mention (likely the TMK period), it was less about a team shake-up & more about the whole unvierse changing. Just to clarify, I really do like the TMK period with how the team emerged of older members as well as younger ones. Perhaps the median age was higher than the team compositions before but the fact that you had old & young together, learning off of each other and keeping the legacy of the Legion alive was great.