Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lardy's Roundtable: How forgettable or unforgettable was SLSH/LSH between Earthwar and Levitz II/Giffen?

The more I mull over the concept of 'merging' the adult and SW6 Legions, the more intrigued by it I get (when I first read the post about it I was skeptical). Here are some of the thoughts/ideas I had about it:

A merger would have done away with a lot of complications, such as Glorith's aging effect and Rokk's depowerment. I think Kent would be the only one still left out from such a merge, and perhaps restoring his adulthood could be his own personal quest after everyone else got restored. His arc could lead-in to what's come next for Glorith and a restored Time Trapper too.

A lot of the non-SW6 and TMK Legionnaires were generally younger than the Adventure members anyway and could still be peers to this renewed, mid 20s Legion. Celeste, Jacques, Dawny, and Drake for example. The SW6 Legionnaires with deceased counterparts could remain their age or (gross as it sounds) somehow be "merged" with their deceased selfs and restore an adult Andrew Nolan and Lyle Norg. Computo, Catspaw, and Dragonmage were new to heroing anyway, and could stay their ages. With Kono and a younger Mysa and Devlin (their Glorith ages uneffected by a merger), they could be their own youthful caste on the team. Adults without counterparts, such as Cham and Jeckie, could still work. Cham, Brin, and Shady could still be gung ho. Jeckie didn't look like she would leave her post anyway. Thom, Nura, and Chuck could have merged with their new SW6 versions.

Personalities from a merger may only be a problem for a few Legionnaires. I imagine most of them are similar. Vi is one obvious exception. Maybe she'd be a little softer from SW6, but more outgoing than her shy self thanks to the adult version.

One thing I loved about 'Legionnaires' is that even with complicated history these books could be made appealing/accessible. We weren't reminded every issue that they were possible clones, or that there was an adult Legion, or what happened to Earth, etc. You kind of just took the team at face value, while still having some nods to history and previous characterizations. That could be done with this 'revived' Legion if it had to, though obviously that may vague up why so many Legionnaires would be re-evaluating their place in life.

But the cool thing about the merging concept is that you can play up that it happened. Hell, it could actually be embraced and be a good premise for the title: A group of older/retired super-heroes have been given a 'second chance' at being young heroes again. With the galaxy so in need, do they take up their old calling? Do they continue moving on?

I realize the thesis sounds more biased toward the adults than the teens, but I think that just works for some reason with the approach. It could include the best of both worlds: sci fi and heroes, characterization and heroic antics, commentary on the lives of adults and teens, etc. Some Legionnaires would embrace their 'rejuvination'; others may prefer to remain detached or still have other obligations that keep them away.

I imagine the Legion on the Run group and SW6 exclusives would be the guaranteed core. I could see Garth and Imra discussing the merits of rejoining before they age out of their 'prime' again, though ultimately remain on the plantation to raise their family. Maybe Imra would venture out with the team again for a mission or two; a nod to her rejoining the team in v3. Other Legionnaires could come and go, especially those that never did rejoin like Thom & Nura, trying to figure out if this was the life they want to relive.

Those are possibilities I took away from Eryk's concept. What do you guys think?

Color me sold, Future... it certainly could have worked. Drake's "1 Year Later" thing would have made an excellent bridge.

Sigh. What will never be but should have....

That's a great fleshing out of the merging idea, and largely the way I've always thought of it, Future.

Even though the thread has moved beyond this discussion, I want to comment on this. I haven't been online for the past few days and only recently saw this post.

You make an excellent point, Steph -- one that I grudgingly agree with, if only because this seems to be the prevailing philosophy of those in power at Marvel and DC these days: Heroes don't really change; they are all about preserving the status quo, as you put it, or the franchise, from a business perspective.

Yet one of the things that attracted me to comics in the first place and sustained me through three decades of fandom was the illusion that heroes could change. No series exemplified this more than the Legion. The LSH of the 1970s was drastically different from the LSH of the '60s, yet they were clearly intended to be the same characters, just older and having undergone experiences that changed them as individuals and as team -- which also happens in real life! It was this resemblance to real-world happenings that encouraged me to identify so closely with the Legionnaires.

The Legion was not alone in this, as most mainstream comics (i.e., those published by Marvel and DC) perpetuated an illusion of change. Peter Parker graduated from high school and went on to college and post-grad work. Reed and Sue got married and had a child. The original X-Men moved on and were replaced. Even the Avengers changed their lineup as early as their second issue. The idea that heroes could change and that change, while sometimes bittersweet, could lead to better things set comics apart from other forms of mainstream entertainment. Most television series of the '60s and '70s, for example, truly maintained the status quo.

It's odd and disheartening to see this trend reverse itself. Modern TV series such as "Law and Order" and "Lost" (which I admittedly don't watch) have attracted large audiences by changing their casts and evolving their characters and relationships. Comics, on the other hand, dwindle in readership as they go from one mega-event to another while their characters avoid "real" change. I think this is particularly true of the Legion today, where reboots and multiple versions serve as quick fixes to such thorny "problems" as character growth and story development.

A "real" story, after all, has to go somewhere. This is usually accomplished by showing at least one character as significantly different from how he or she was when the story began. (The change, of course, could be internal instead of acquiring a new costume or power.) I concede that this is difficult to manage with most serialized characters, yet Marvel and DC pulled it off extremely well for several decades. That's what made them (Marvel more so) cutting edge. Nowadays, they seem to have taken a more conservative approach where even the "illusion" of change isn't so convincing.

From your post above and your previous posts, one might infer that you don't think change in comic book characters is ever a good idea. Is this true, or is there an instance where you think change is good?

And not to single out Steph: Do others prefer characters to maintain the status quo or to truly evolve as time goes on (meaning that they should reach a point where they cannot go back to how they originally were)?

I would say the latter - and writers should be careful about HOW they develop characters for exactly that reason. Very little grates more than a contrived reversion to an earlier version.

Just to clarify, HWW, I take my cues from my fellow contributors when I edit the Roundtable topic to reflect what's going on currently in the thread. There are no steadfast rules and NO dead topics! If anyone misses a few days, or is new to the topic, I hope they DO take the initiative and comment on something we've "moved beyond"!

Please, everyone, this is YOUR topic and wouldn't have gotten to these 14 wonderful pages without you!

As for your latest point, HWW, I prefer evolution, man!

That said, I can see the dilemma the Big Two face when trying to apply this philosophy to their most iconic mastheads. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman for DC and Spidey and maybe Wolverine for Marvel are just so imbedded in the culture that I can see why it would be problematic for them to stray too far from the concept or put someone else in the identity.

To me, pretty much everyone else at either company is fair game because the people under the masks don't seem as integral to their basic concepts. I'm not saying any of these are necessarily poorer characters than the icons, just that the general public doesn't know them as well, if at all, and that should give the creators lots of leeway. But the Big Two obviously disagrees. Wally West makes a great Flash--why do they have to bring Barry back? And Captain America--I've no doubt they'll bring Steve Rogers back very soon, but what's wrong with having Bucky stay in the role when Brubaker sold the majority of fandom on Bucky's return in acclaimed fashion?

And the Legion, of all properties--being set 1,000 years in the future and being as below the radar as anything being published by a major company--why in the United Planets did it have to be rebooted twice and retconned several times before that? Change was something preboot Legion excelled at. Now, it seems that change for the Legion is synonomous with reboots or retcons! I swear it makes about as much sense for something so outside the mainline DC continuity as the Chewbacca Defense parody did in that episode of South Park! Bloody grife! :rolleyes:

I believe in growth as well. As long as it's a natural evolution. We've seen too many contrived departures of behavior from characters when it's clear the change services a story rather than the story servicing the character. I'm also in favor of exploring deeper into a character, giving them an added dimension or facet that has yet to be explored, but one that fits into what has been established about the character so that the change or revelation makes sense. (even if it surprises)

I agree about growth, but I'm with Drake in it being 'natural' evolution. It has to service the character as well as the story.

Sometimes I feel better knowing Marvel and DC own these characters so someone like Avi Arad (at Marvel) can call up Joe Q and go 'nuh-uh' if they plan on doing something outrageous.

Also, its the writers jobs to keep the series interesting and to make it run well past their leaving the series and even well into the future where the creators and fans of one particular time period have since moved on. Only the rarest of exceptions should be allowed to break this rule. So sure, make natural changes to Superman, but know that Superman will outlive you--so don't try to conclude the series. Like I said, there are exceptions to the rule, and I don't have an outline, and I don't want to provide one

I hope it's clear in my last post that the evolution I favor in my characters characters is also of the "natural" variety. In the cases I used of Flash and Cap, death is a realistic thing to happen to the characters, and I felt their successors were well-chosen.

But I'm not in favor of stunts like what was done with Hal's character during Emerald Twilight--that was just pure dreck! I think there is room for stories where a hero goes bad, but that story was terribly fabricated and forced. I can even accept the possibility that Hal could go bad--Hal's basically a cop (a flawed one, at that), and cops sometimes go bad--but he just wouldn't go that far over the deep end overnight. (Years later, Geoff Johns gave us a band aid to explain why it wasn't all what it appeared to be.)

That's where the "natural" comes in. If you're going to tell the story of a good guy going bad, take your time...sell us on it gradually, and make us believe it, maybe even expect it, when things finally go south. One of the inherent problems with that in the comics industry is that writers rarely stay on a title long enough to evolve a character naturally and gradually. And when they leave, whomever succeeds them is usually so dead-set on carving out their own direction or tearing down everything that the other guy built up that the kind of natural evolution we might want is virtually impossible!

This is where a strong editor would normally come in handy, but there's a lot of turnover there, too. And even when there's not, the editor is usually more motivated by increasing sales, rather than building the character naturally, in order to please his boss and build job security.

Probably the best creative handoff I've seen in recent memory was the transition from Bendis/Maleev to Brubaker/Lark on Daredevil. The new creative team built on what came before so well that you'd swear there was no change! Even the art is consistent with what Maleev established! And though Matt Murdock has gotten a semblance his life back, he's still known to be Daredevil even though officially he's not. Brubaker didn't just have Matt make a deal with the devil like Peter Parker did and effectively nullify the story (and yes, Peter should never have been outed), and the stories have been all the more compelling and challenging for it. Hopefully, the next writer will go this route whenever Brubaker leaves, but it's hard not to be skeptical.

Comics are serialized stories, yes. But even in soap operas, characters live, die (like comics, often not permanently ) and evolve. Comics characters can too if it's true to their story.

Good points Lardy (heh, I like that name). There are of course debates over which changes are natural evolution and which are OOC story driven stunts (like I would argue 5YL is OOC story driven stunt, many would argue otherwise) but I certainly feel that there are far too many examples where everyone (well, vast vast majority) agrees that 'x was an OOC story driven event.'

I feel part of the job of the writer is to tell the story they want to tell, but with the character and situations they were given. If you want to tell a Superman goes bad story, than its up to the writer to make it convincing why Superman, as we know him, would go bad. This is something I don't think they did with Hal Jordan at all.

On another note, I feel that too often writers (and to an extent fans) want characters to be so 'relatable' that they forget that in the end these characters are supposed to be HEROES. There seems to be instances where a fan says 'that's how I would act in that situation so it is perfectly believable for so-and-so to act in that situation' while ignoring the fact that character x has faced far worse things then that fan probably has and it has not stopped them.

To me continuity isn't so much nitpicking of events, it is more an internal consistancy. Character a behaves this way because it was shown that character a reacts to adversity this way in stories a, b and c. Or, character b did this because he/she learned from mistakes in story x and y. Also, things such as flight rings do this or this planet is like this also adds to the internal consistancy of a universe.

And of course, characters can grow and evolve this way, as long as it is consitant and logical. To me most 'change' in comics seems to be fairly illogical and inconsistant with prior characterizations. Again, it is stunt story driven and has nothing to do with how the characters would react.

Forgive my ignorance, Steph, but: "OCC"? What does it stand for?

Nothing, it should have been OOC (Out of Character), man is my face red.

'sokay, Steph...I've made more than my share!

Certainly, though, you're right that a lot of the big events in comics are more story-driven and not true to the character. There's probably no better example of this than the already-discussed character assassination of Hal Jordan.

Another good example of this was what was done to Hank Hall in his transformation from Hawk to Monarch. Hank was always presented as a very flawed individual, but the story as told was just utter event-driven crap, made even worse by the fact that Captain Atom, I believe, was originally intended to be revealed as Monarch. I think that would have been an even worse character assassination, if that's possible, had DC gone through with that plan.

And as this particular conversation has developed, I've found myself wondering whether one of comics' classic stories, the Dark Phoenix Saga, was really true to the character of Jean Grey. It's hard for me to judge because I first met her via back issue. I found it beyond amazing as a young man just discovering the rich history of the X-Men, but I wonder how old-school fans, or even those who'd just been regular readers at the time, felt about it when it happened. It was a really groundbreaking story, probably the first of its kind in comics, but I imagine it pissed off quite a few fans of the character at the time.

The story worked for me as a teenager who'd started reading the X-Men during Paul Smith's stint as artist, and obviously, it's regarded as a classic. But Jean Grey was eventually resurrected and the teeth taken out of the chain of events in the explanation of her survival with a big ol' retcon (much like what was done when Hal was brought back as GL). But as originally written, as it was intended, was it true to the character of Jean Grey? That's really hard for me to judge.

That's certainly some food for thought. Any fans out there who lived the DPS in the moment? Des, have you ever asked your dad that question?

As for the 5YL Legionnaires being OOC, Steph, I'm sure you know I'll respectfully disagree. I know I'd ever have connected so well to all those characters had I felt they were inconsistent with all those stories I read before that era began. I also know from your prior posts that your main OOC gripe would be that you felt the characters "gave up" on the Legion and being heroes in general and that you could never be able to accept that above all else. We've certainly discussed that at length, and I and others illustrated how the "giving up" made sense to us, at least. Best of all, everyone respected everyone else's opinions

But putting that issue aside, I'd say 5YL, particularly thru the end of the Bierbaums tenure, was very true in the portrayals to the characters as we'd known them. Certainly, there were some missteps (particularly Shvaughn/Sean), but I loved 5YL foremost for the characterizations and how they were true to what came before. And I'm definitely including what happened to Dirk.

Obviously, a big tool that was utilized to help sell some of the more extreme changes was the use of the Five Year Gap itself and the references to things that happened during that time that gradually got more and more explanation to varying degrees. This worked for me, too, because you could see the seeds of the Legion's disintegration being subtly (then, not-so-subtly) planted as the Baxter series progressed, and the final issue pointed to rough times ahead. Had Baxter began, continued and ended about shiny, happy times in the clubhouse, this would've been lots harder for me to swallow. But it didn't, and that made it a lot easier to suspend my disbelief and accept that really bad things happened in those missing five years.

Bottom line was I accepted these characters as Rokk, Jo, Cham, Vi, etc. readily, and I rarely had that wtf moment that made me thing the Legionnaires were acting OOC. Yes, 5YL was definitely an "event", but a great example of one that mostly worked because the characters were recognizable and generally were true to their selves.

We’ve talked about it over a hundred times and he’s given me quite a few. Obviously, Dark Phoenix Saga is such a large-scale magnitude with a series of huge ramifications, the most potent being that a long-time original member of the X-Men, Jean Grey, was killed, that there are very few moments in comics history that can compare. Specifically because the last 20 years have tried to match this so often—and have so often failed due to lack of literary integrity, no real substance or just plain bad story-telling—that its hard to find something that can compare. But my Dad of course wouldn’t look to anything in the last 20 years

A few of his would be (I’ll begin with lesser scale stuff). Some if it is me going off on a tangent (as I’m apt to do )

Blue Beetle – One of my father’s favorite characters is Blue Beetle, from the Charlton days when he was buying Steve Ditko Charlton comics off the rack, and he was able to one day pick up the Ditko Blue Beetle relaunch and suddenly find that Dan Garret, the Blue Beetle from the 1940’s, dies within the story and passes the mantle on to Ted Kord. To him, this was huge. Anyone who hasn’t read the story, I recommend it—its actually a masterpiece of Ditko work and probably the best Ted Kord story of all time, even after all this great stories in JLI. Here, the entire mythos changed, in Dan Garret died in the end, passing the mantle on to an entirely new character. But this was not until Ditko (famous for giving TONS of story in any single issue) showed the two of them becoming good friends, and Garret actually training Ted. The entire Blue Beetle mythos experienced some real growth here (and its one of the first times such a transition was ever made), and I’d wager most people would say it was for the better. Now imagine there being no internet, no Previews or Wizard and no comic book fanzines and you simply picked it up off the rack one afternoon.

The Avengers – I’ve mentioned this before but its an amusing anecdote. My father was a Marvel Zombie in his youth (pre-teens/early teens) and like most Marvel Zombies, the Avengers were instantly a hit. The mini-saga of the Hulk crossing from title to title, into the Avengers and then the FF, the growing friendship of the heroes (which meant the MU was actually coming together), Cap, Zemo, Kang, etc.—it was all really amazing. When #16 hit, most people today don’t realize that fan reaction was purely NEGATIVE. Hawkeye, Wanda and Pietro joined as everyone but Cap left and largely most fans hated the new line-up and hated all three of the new Avengers. My father and almost everyone he knew who collected comics (and back then, a large portion of kids in the US did) dropped the Avengers completely, preferring not to read the stories with Cap and his new line-up. Sales were so bad that Stan started to play on this within the stories, and that’s why they were called Cap’s Kooky Quartet. This is also why the Wasp showed up on the cover of #26—which worked, as my father and other kids his age picked up the comic again for the first time in a year because they knew what they really wanted was on the way: Goliath (albeit, newer & better name and cool new costume). Goliath immediately became the star of the Avengers, which helped bring old readers, who quickly became fans of the other big star of the time, Hawkeye. In a way, Hawkeye owes Hank Pym a debt for that. But this is a good example of how a series can change over time, but be faced without a complete negative reaction. Today, you’d think this was largely to the Avenger’s and Marvel’s benefit to change so early and bring in characters many know and love today.

Crisis & the Flash - Those two are pretty small scale, but one major one is Crisis which had huge ramifications in a hundred different places, but the one my father particularly cared about was the death of the Flash. By the time Crisis had come out, my father had stopped reading comics throughout the entire end of the 60’s and entire 70’s and had only just began picking them up in the early 80’s, then hunting down the back issues of all the Marvel comics he missed in the 12 years in between (later doing the DC’s in the late 80’s). So when Crisis hit he had been back into comics for about two or three years and was embedded enough in DC (which at the time he considered superior to Marvel in terms of quality across the board) to understand the magnitude of what was happening, though he wasn’t exactly faithful to the idea of the multiverse or even Supergirl’s part in Superman’s mythos. But he did love the Flash since he was a kid, and it was a major thing to see Crisis #8 arrive, after almost a year of the Flash being missing and then read it to see Barry Allen’s death. Which is up there as probably the greatest death in the history of comics (IMO and his too with a few other contenders). And by Crisis’ end, Wally had taken up the mantle (and would have about 5 years of struggling with it as largely a horrible Flash until Waid). But you know what? He loved it. He loved Barry, Jay and Wally, loved the mythos, loved the history of the Flash as a series, but he especially loved how Wolfman and Perez were able to do it. Extremely heroic, showing some real grit and bravado while being heart-breaking and awe-inspiring at the same time. Followed by Wally’s reaction four issues later when he learns from the Psycho-Pirate what happened (heart-breaking) and that page near the end of #12 where Wally tells Jay he’s becoming the new Flash (one of about three scenes that makes me tear-up every time I read it). It just worked. Everything was there—real growth for the Flash mythos and Wally West, Barry staying completely in character and showing off some of that 1950’s Silver Age heroism, and it all coming together so effortlessly to the reader.

In a way, the Flash storyline in Crisis reflects the Blue Beetle one from Charlton in 1967 on a much larger, more grand scale (in terms of actual scenario and sequence of events in real time). They both reflect the axiom that change is good when its done right. “When its done right” of course, is subjective, but there has to really be a sense that its organic and natural, and not change for marketing reasons. Change for marketing reasons may be a way to make money, and some people may argue its good, but at the end of the day, it often feel lacking in integrity, and I think readers can sense that.

The Dark Phoenix Saga is amazing. I’ve read it about three times and each time I’m more impressed, which isn’t always true in comic book rereads (and besides Spidey and the Legion, I’m actually someone who isn’t always too into rereading things). Not only was it well-done, but the effects, in regards to the subsequent ten years of X-Men stories, were a direct reflection of the changes made with X-Men #138. The entire X-verse stemmed from those events and Paul Smith’s run and John Romita Jr’s run had a certain sense of building from the Byrne run, with the DPS being *the* major event from Byrne’s run. It was incredibly stupid to bring her back, because like Lardy says, it really took the teeth out of the whole saga, and in a weird way, through a monkey-wrench into the entire X-franchise. Since she was brought back by Byrne in FF, she had some great stories, notably in the 90’s and in the wedding issue (one of the best comic book weddings I’ve ever read), but something always felt off about the whole thing. Which is why Morrison killed her again. Now if Marvel risks bringing Jean back for real-real, the redundancy of the whole thing will turn it into complete farce.

Speaking of "natural evolution", Hal Jordan's already been mentioned as a prime example of the "unnatural" variety and some good ones have been mentioned for how to do it right. Two more I'd like to add to that list:

Jack Knight Starman - Though he starred in a monthly, his story was *about* his evolution as a character. Well timed, engrossing characterizations, wholy believable, it's a benchmark for this kind of storytelling.

Vic Sage, The Question - O'Neil started the series with the character's "rebirth" and took it from there. Vic was a character in transition with many detours along the way, but his 36 issue run felt like one continuous journey of a man's life.

So, Des...that post was all well and good, but--what did your Dad think about the DPS, specifically regarding his feelings about the changes in Jean's character? (this is assuming he read it when it was published and was a fan at the time) Or did he read it after the fact like me and you?

<I think in context you're implying that he dug it, but I'm curious how he filtered the enormity of it all as a fan in the moment.>

Did anyone else read the Dark Phoenix Saga as it was published and care to share whether it was or was not a Hal Jordan moment for you? (Yes, I'm calling out the geezers! )

My Dad and DPS:

When my Dad returned to comics in 1980 (or so), he recalled the four worst comics by DC and Marvel during his youth (in his opinion): X-Men, Daredevil, the Legion and the Teen Titans. Not that he didn’t like them, he actually did, but he just didn’t consider the franchises strong enough in the 1960’s to compare to the other titles he collected (all other Marvels, all JLA-related characters). So when he got back into comics at that time, and was on a budget, he choose not to start back up on those titles. He laughs now, because unknown to him at the time, is that those were probably the four best comics on the market in the early 1980’s (with Swamp Thing, which he did get). He knows that now of course, but missed Frank Miller’s DD, Perez & Woflman’s Titans and our beloved Levitz/Giffen Legion when they were coming out. Moreso, he missed the entire Claremont X-Men run until he finally got back into it with the Paul Smith Brood issues.

Even then, he was never that into X-Men, so he didn’t read the Dark Phoenix Saga until well after I read it (probably 8-9 years ago). In fact, by the time he knew about it formally (via CBG readers claiming it was so good), Jean was actually already back. So about nine years ago my Dad and I finally completed our entire Marvel collection (all Marvel comics from 1960 onwards) and the X-Men was one of the final ones, mainly b/c they’re so expensive. I read the entire run, loved Claremont’s first 100+ issues (Cockrum to Byrne to Smith to Romita Jr. and even a bit onwards, which we’ve talked about before). Then I at last got him to read Giant Size X-Men #1 all the way to #138 (the Dark Phoenix Saga finale).

He loved it. Loved the grandeur, loved the risk-taking, loved the story-telling, loved John Byrne’s art more than anything. Now, you must recall he is a Marvel Silver Age zombie through and through—his preferred Avengers line-up is Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Hank & Jan and no one else—and yet, he (like me) suddenly found this new X-Men team to perhaps be even better than the original line-up (he’s a little less affirmative on that fact compared to me). So he actually thought Jean’s death was akin to the Flash (Barry), and that it was beautifully done. But of course, he read these as recent as 1998 or so. Interesting tidbit: what he got out of that run was a firm love of two characters: Storm and Banshee, which is funny because my faves are usually Nightcrawler, Kitty and Colossus. Both of us love Cyclops, of course.

I can give you a brief list of jumping the shark moments he hated though to satisfy your curiousity. Keep in mind these were ‘as they were coming out off the rack’ and they would of course occur between 1980 (when he got back into it give or take a year) to 1993-ish (when he stopped reading them again for the most part with some exceptions):

1) The FF line-up changed to Torch, Crystal, Thing and Sharon Ventura – he considered this the low point in FF history in its entirety. He found the change in line-up largely worthless with no benefit of good stories as a result.

2) the Destruction of Hank Pym via Shooter. It literally broke his heart. Iron Man and Giant Man were two of his favorites (after Spider-Man) and this broke his heart big time. He never read another Avengers issue almost ever again because of it and missed Roger Stern’s entire run. The only reason he picked Avengers back up is because an 11 year old Cobie wrote Bob Harras a letter and he wanted to know why, and was amazed to see Hank as Giant Man again.

3) The Punisher kills Nick Fury. Anyone remember this? My Dad thought it was disgraceful.

4) Parallax.

5) There’s got to be tons more, I’m just drawing a blank.

Changes he loved:
5YL Legion – it made him a Legion fan for the first time
Death of Superman – one of the finest stories written once you cut through the marketing aspect
A Death in the Family and then, Robin III
Justice League International, mainly because of Giffen, McGuire, Blue Beetle and Batman
Hawkworld – yes, even I’m confused by this. Then again, I only know this mini as the mini that screwed up Hawkman. He read it as it came out and thought it was pretty good.
Mike Grell’s version of Green Arrow.
Walt Simonsin’s Thor (including the loss of Don Blake) – Walt changed many things yet my Dad loves his run on Thor more than most any other run of the 1980’s by Marvel.

Things he shrugged at with an eyebrow raised as if to say, I’m no longer that interested anymore:
Spidey marries Mary Jane; plus Venom later on
Punisher-mania, Wolverine-mania, Ghost Rider-mania
JLA-Detroit
Guy Gardner

Things where he smiled at me and said ‘do you honestly think this will stick?’ when I was still a naïve teenager
Spidey Clone Saga
Az-Bats & Knightfall
Age of Apocalypse

Hm, I could probably go on some more. But that shows you how a longtime fan might react to various things happening in the 1980’s – early 90’s.

What a wonderful story. That really warmed my heart, because, to me, Hank will always be the Harras era Giant-Man. Thanks for sharing, Cobie.

Many people, myself included, feel that the mini is not at fault, but rather the Hawkworld ongoing and the incompetence of DC's editors at the time. IIRC, Tim Truman's original proposal for the ongoing series was to set it during the Golden Age. There's a great article by Alan Kinstler which looks over the entire Hawkman/Hawkworld mess (that's where I found out about the original proposal), but unfortunately, as you can see, it's unavailable at the moment:

http://alankistler.squarespace.com/journal/2007/11/20/alan-kistlers-comic-book-history-essays.html

Maybe if you contact him, he'll e-mail it to you.

Des, I guess I'm not totally surprised your dad discovered the DPS after the fact. I really don't know how long it took Claremont's X-Men to become more than a cult favorite, but it definitely was not an instant huge commercial hit. I'm not sure if DPS was really where the success really started taking off or if it was already pretty much there by that time. I tend to think the former. Either way, I think Marvel can thank Claremont and Byrne for that story as the seed for the X-Men's phenomenal status were probably planted with that one story. No DPS or DPS without Jean dying = no blockbuster franchise for Marvel, IMO.

But I'm pretty darn sure there were many fans who were angered by DPS's outcome at the time. But if the X-Men had already enjoyed great success before this story, I think the reaction would have been more along the lines of how we view what was done to Hal.

X-Men was a title that was actually cancelled before the concept was revitalized by Wein, Cockrum and Claremont. Even then, it wasn't an instant success. So when DPS happened, Claremont and Byrne were toying with a comparatively obscure character in Jean Grey. I think if you're a title that has more of a cult following (like X-Men was at the time), you can get away with this more than you could doing something similar with a character like Hal Jordan.

Yes, Hal had run into some hard times. His long-running title had been cancelled. Then he labored for a while in an anthology title (Action Comics Weekly), getting about 8 pages per issue. His strips in Action earned him another ongoing, but one he had to share with Guy Gardner and John Stewart at first. For a while he flourished when the other two spun off, but one supposes sales were waning again when Ron Marz was brought on and the infamous Emerald Twilight was born.

Despite his run of bad luck, Hal was a considerably more visible and more marketable character than Jean Grey was at the time of DPS. Heck, he'd appeared on Super Friends for Chrissakes! Jean (or the X-Men) certainly hadn't had that kind of exposure back then! So with Hal, DC was taking a MUCH bigger risk with the fanbase making his character evil than Claremont and Byrne were taking with Jean a decade earlier. That's why, I think, many more people accepted Dark Phoenix than Parallax. (and yeah, DPS was a much better story )

This brings us back to the Legion. With the exception of the height of the Giffen/Levitz era, the LSH has always had more of a cult following. Yes, we are hugely opinionated about why 'x' take on the Legion works and why all others pale in comparison. That's why we'll probably always be part of a cult following and not a blockbuster success.

But you can f*** with the stories and characters in a cult title much more than you can on a flagship title that has plenty to lose if it upsets the fanbase. So more extreme things will be done with LSH, whether it be reboots, deaths, 5-year gaps, retcons or what have you.

When's the last time a really iconic X-Men character died? Collossus? Well, he's back. Banshee? Is he really iconic? When's the last time a really iconic X-character went bad? Dark Phoenix! They've pretty much been mailing it in, in a way, by only having the illusion of change ever since.

Legion? 5-Year gapped. Rebooted. Turned a longtime Legion stalwart into a murdering monster. Rebooted the second time three years or so ago. Killed Dream Girl (apparently) in the first year. Changed the title to reflect the inclusion of a new character. Changed it back. Another version of the LSH starts showing up in the DCU.

Seems like a pretty big difference to me. Does that mean all the extreme changes done to the LSH are justified? Well, no. But I think this point of view shows why it's more possible with LSH than it is for X-Men. It's a blessing and a curse for both properties, depending on how you look at it.

Thank you for an insightful and interesting response. I agree with most of your points, including that changes that come about when a hero “digresses” are bad. However, I’m not sure that change, by definition, qualifies as a digression.

I find it interesting that you define “change” differently from “growth.” In fact, the two terms overlap in definition: one tends to lead to the other and vice versa. It is true that “growth” has a more positive connotation that implies that a character (or person) is progressing, while “change” can be perceived as good or bad (such as graduating from high school or the death of a loved one), but, in fact, both terms are neutral. They suggest leaving something behind (such as when a child outgrows certain toys) to receive or obtain something new and better. Both change and growth can occur intentionally or unintentionally; both often bring pain as well as joy.

I’m not sure that “trappings” equate with the core concept of a character. Is a hero any less heroic for not wearing a costume or using a codename? Or does a hero remain a hero for continuing the fight against evil (however “evil” is to be defined)? That, I think, is what Giffen was trying to do with 5YL: show that the Legion still needed to continue the fight (which they did, after a fashion).

If I recall correctly, JLI went away because its primary creators (Giffen, DeMatteis, et al.) had moved on and their successors couldn’t do what they did: infuse humor and humanity into the title. Those qualities made JLI successful regardless of whether the concept was changed or not. JLA-Detroit wrought similar changes but was a huge flop because it lacked good stories and believable characters.

I can’t speak to the success of the title once Superman, et al., were restored, but I dropped it soon after. The stories had become very serious and standard super-hero soap opera—a huge letdown after Giffen and DeMatteis. Even though this version was closer to the core concept of the original series, it lacked any spark of originality.

The conclusion I draw from this is that “core concept” is itself a mutable aspect that takes a back seat to well-written stories with an identifiable cast, etc.

I think it would have been possible to return to the costumes and codenames, if such were desired, without “fixing” anything in such drastic fashions. All that needed to happen was for the Legionnaires to somehow don costumes and codenames again (as was done, badly, in “Legion on the Run.”). Perhaps they could have realized that such devices gave the public heroic symbols to believe in (as military uniforms and, in a different context, football uniforms do). Perhaps Rokk would have decided that returning to such trappings would boost morale. It could have been that simple and much more organic than rebooting.

I disagree that such changes were superficial. Peter’s graduation from high school was a major step and marked his transition into the adult world—with attendant problems, such as those experienced in his relationships with his supporting characters: Harry Osborn became a drug addict (and, later, the Green Goblin); Captain Stacy and Gwen Stacy died. These changes were every bit as devastating as those wrought by 5YL: Just as the Legion failed to stop the Dominion from taking over earth, so, too, did Spidey fail to save his best friend, the father of the woman he loved, and the woman he loved herself.

Yet such changes helped the character grow in different ways. Peter’s eventual marriage to MJ would have probably been impossible if Gwen were still around.

I stopped reading Green Lantern with EMERALD DAWN, which transformed Hal retroactively into a drunk driver. I sat out most of Kyle Rayner’s tenure as Green Lantern, and so I don’t have much to say about him.

I will say, however, that I always feel a tinge of disappointment when a character’s replacement is ditched in favor of the original character returning to the role. It’s as if DC (or whoever) is admitting that they don’t have confidence in their ability to make the new character interesting in his or her own right, and, therefore, the new character is just a placeholder for a decade or so.

Cobie gave several examples, above.

. . . which, ironically, seems to be what has happened to comics over the last two decades or so anyway.

On this, I absolutely agree.

On this, I absolutely disagree. Marvel and DC constantly update their characters anway, in order to appeal to this year’s crop of 12- and 13-year-olds. As such, they change superficial aspects of the characters--allowing them to wear modern fashions, for example, or killing off certain characters and bringing back others on an endlessly rotating basis--at the expense of real change/growth, which could lead to those 12- and 13-year-olds sticking around for awhile longer.

I guess I qualify as a geezer. I was reading X-MEN at the time.

Let me preface my response by admitting to just how much of a geezer I am. I was 17 when X-MEN # 137 was published—an age when, at the time, one was supposed to have outgrown comics by a few years. Unlike today, when comics have greater acceptance among people of all ages, comics in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s were still widely regarded as disposable kiddie fare, the abandonment of which should have coincided with the arrival of puberty.

I, of course, knew that they weren’t. Amid super-hero battles were often found gems of relationships, personal dilemmas, and a sense of right and wrong that represented more of a window into the adult world than anything else in my life, including religion, education, and other forms of entertainment. Comics were the realm of ideas and the exploration, in the deceptively simple guise of fantasy, of those ideas.

But it was still a given that, even though some changes had occurred (as mentioned above), certain canonical heroes in the Marvel and DC universes were probably exempt: Superman wasn’t going to age; Captain America wasn’t going retire for good; and the original X-Men, though they had moved on to other things, weren’t going to die.

And then came X-MEN # 137—and I loved it!

The Death of Phoenix turned comics on its head. Suddenly, everything was up for grabs. There were no sacred cows anymore. Any character could face devastating and irrevocable change—even the X-Men, whose book was at that time the most popular on the stands.

This change was even more significant and ground-breaking by the fact that Jean Grey was not a minor character. Since the advent of the New X-Men five years earlier, Jean had been reintroduced and played up as a significant hero. She was more than Cyclops’ girlfriend. It was she who piloted a shuttlecraft carrying her teammates into earth’s atmosphere, protected only by her then limited psychokinesis. She had saved her teammates at great cost to herself. True, she emerged from the incident as one of the most powerful heroes of the Marvel universe, but that power came at a price. It led to difficulties in her relationship with Scott and, ultimately, to her becoming an unwitting victim of a dangerous villain’s mind games.

Still, Jean was arguably the most sympathetic character X-Men had at the time. This made her callous murder of five billion beings even more horrifying. As Dark Phoenix, she had simply flown to their sun and absorbed its energies without noticing that she was committing genocide in the process.

Jean was constantly at war with herself, trying to regain her sanity and control over the Phoenix force. Yet it was a battle she was losing. She knew that and so she did the most heroic thing she could—she ended her life.

I must admit that I did not get to read X-MEN # 137 when it was published. Either due to a distribution oversight in my area (which was somewhat common in those days) or to the issue selling out, I missed the issue entirely. My first indication that something important had happened was when # 138 came out. It opened with Jean’s funeral and the entire issue was a retrospective of her life as seen through Scott’s eyes—a moving tribute.

Still, I applauded this development for several reasons. One, it reinforced the morality that super-heroes were supposed to represent at that time: Heroes simply did not get away with murder, even if they were out of their minds when they committed the act. Two, it reinforced the idea that the Marvel Universe took place in the real world, where actual consequences could happen. Three (and most importantly), it elevated comics to something more than kiddie fare. It gave them—to my mind, at least—some claim to legitimacy as an art and literary form. If heroes don’t always win or come through battles unscathed, then their world is infinitely more complex and their story possibilities richer.

I held onto this belief for about four years afterwards—until Jean Grey’s resurrection. To me, this was a step backwards off of a cliff for Marvel and comics in general. It was a needless capitulation to the cultural prejudice that comics were, after all, just kiddie fare. (Fortunately, there were many other comics at the time which challenged that notion; but mainstream Marvel would never be the same for me.)

Yep, X-Men 137 was a big step forward for comics--a mainstream hero not only turning evil and committing a heinous act, but also dying by her own hand. It was a great, great groundbreaking story that was needlessly undone.

I've said in the past, and I'll say it again: since Jean was brought back, I've read not one story featuring her that made me feel glad that they did it or that justified her return in any way. In the years she was gone (pretty sure it was more than four HWW--six or seven, maybe?) the X-Men continued to flourish artistically and build its momentum. Coincedentally or not, the time I began to slowly lose touch and drift away from them was around the time they brought her back. I still stubbornly stuck with the franchise for years after her return, but I haven't picked up the book regularly for any extended period since around the time Scott and Jean tied the knot.

I loved the X-Men more than any title for a long, long time, and in hindsight bringing Jean back was when it began to lose its "street cred" for me. I applaud Grant Morrison for attempting to put the Jeannie back in the bottle (never read that story, by the way--was it good? And what happened, exactly?), but it was way too late for this fan. Plus, I'm sure her return is inevitable and probably just around the corner, which proves Steph's point of course.

I liked the evolution the Legion took for the 5YG immensely myself. I wish DC hadn't pushed the "reset" button on it. At least the two options we discussed here (going back in time to prevent the cataclysms or the merger of the Legionnaires with the adults) would have preserved things better than a complete reboot did.