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?

That has always been an issue for me. The Legion is very Earth-centric. Everything big happens on (or to) Earth. We might visit Naltor for one issue, or Talokk VIII for one issue, but if it's going to be a five-part big major arc, darn skippy someone is going to be threatening Earth (or to eat Earth's sun, or blow up Earth's moon, or whatever).

The LSV 'war' on Orando was novel in being one of the first major story-arcs to be set on another world, and that made it very cool.

Having Legion branches on other worlds would make a lot of sense, but, on the other hand, would detract from the atmospherics of the main book, IMO. Instead of the team going to Naltor, or Orando, or Talok VIII, or Colu, the 'local team' would logically be expected to handle that sort of thing, and 'our Legion' would turn into the local team. The stories would be even *more* concentrated on Earth, IMO, and that would detract from the scope of the book. Right now, a single team of Legionnaires, based on Earth, has a reason to go to all of these cool places. If there were a dozen branches all over the United Planets, we'd have less reason to see all of the grandeur of the setting.

It would be like a James Bond movie, where he never leaves London. The setting should remain a 'character' in it's own right, and a single centralized team seems to be the best way to keep that 'character' alive.

And this was a reason for loving TKM: blowing up Earth. And its focus on other planets going-ons.

I like a Supergirl connection, but don't really care if she's in the Legion or not.

Andromeda I loved, Thunder I loathed. She felt too redundant and with little to offer (I respectfully acknowledge others may feel different).

I agree with the scope of the Legion being huge (the hugest in comics) and therefore a justification for a huge Legion with many very powerful members. I think that's part of what makes the Legion special and stand out from other super-hero/science fiction comic books. And I also like the old Silver Age ploy that certian members were away on missions and thus couldn't help at a certain time or place. Its conveinent but underlies the message that (A) there is a tremendous amount of work to be done always and without a break and (B) each Legionnaire must contribute in their own way to deal with it. With various missions happening at once, it lets a writer like Levitz get a chance to showcase all that "who is where when" stuff, and if another writer gets exhausted doing that, they only need mention "Ultra Boy and Cham are still recovering/returning from/en route to their mission to __".

I liked the PAD Supergirl but her day is done. DC won't acknowledge her and PAD himself has given her a bit of a home in the Fallen Angel universe. Not only would it be too confusing now, but PAD himself should have control of her after the way DC has (rudely) ignored the character. The Seagle Supergirl was so repetitive it was annoying enough to make me stop reading Superman at the time.

Re: Supergirl

To me, only two pre-Crisis stories that feature her as a Legionnaire stand out to me, but they are both significant stories.

1. ADV. 313: Kara fights Satan Girl, a mysterious enemy bent on killing the other female Legionnaires.

2. ADV. 368: Kara and the other female Legionnaires are given enhanced powers but "brainwashed" into turning against the boy Legionnaires.

There were a few other Legion stories that featured Kara, of course (notably # 334's "Unknown Boy" story and # 374's battle with the Taurus gang), but the above two are the ones I think of when I think of Supergirl's role as a Legionnaire.

Why? I think because they showed her playing a pivotal role in resolving the stories and being as resourceful and competent as her more famous cousin. ADV. 368 has the added value of showing the human side of Kara (albeit stereotypically female for the time), in that it is her love of Brainy that enables her to shake off the brainwashing.

(It is also unfortunate that both stories revolve around the theme of Kara not being fully in control of herself--Satan Girl turns out to be a Red K-spawned duplicate of Kara), a theme also repeated in the "Unknown Boy" tale. I suppose that this shows how the writers didn't really know what to do with her.)

That Kara was a competent hero but also brought along a certain sweetness made her rare Legion appearances a treat. She embodied the girl next door in a way that Kal could never truly be the boy next door. (He was either too much the wimp or the super-hero; Kara, as Linda Lee, was a more balanced personality.) I think these qualities made her an essential if underutilized part of the Silver Age Legion.

As for Andromeda, I liked the pre-Crisis version but I could never shake off the fact that she was a Supergirl substitute. I thought the reboot did a much better job of developing Laurel as an independent character (yes, even as a bigot; a character has to start somewhere in order to grow.)

Thunder is a completely different character from a completely different point of origin (e.g., Captain Marvel instead of Superman); I don't see her as being connected to Supergirl at all.

I really wonder why Supergirl shouldn't be a significant part of the supposed longterm return of the pre-Crisis Legion?

I mean, Superboy (the poster) argued very passionately about the need to return Superboy to the fold and tie the Legion back to the Superman legacy. So why shouldn't Supergirl be restored to it in a significant capacity? Is she less deserving somehow?

Yes, I know that Kara didn't appear in nearly as many Legion stories as Superboy pre-Crisis. But she was also inducted and probably had an even more personal tie to it in the form of Brainy's crush on her.

Yeah, Lu had a crush on Clark as well, but can it really compare to the beauty of the Brainy thing? I remember fondly that Lightle cover of Brainy mourning Kara in the Crisis crossover. And really, there was some strong evidence that Kara reciprocated to some extent.

So wouldn't it be nice to have that connection restored as well, if we're going to get the rest restored anyway? Yeah, as I've read elsewhere on the board, the current version of Kara seems kind of well, not-too-bright, to paraphrase the poster in a nicer way. But I thing James Robinson and Johns are going to make a mission of her in terms of instilling some personality and worthiness into her character.

So why not? Kara's pre-Crisis Legion membership was pretty underdeveloped in my opinion, so in a way it could be a lot more exciting to explore her as a Legionnaire than it would young Clark since her future is a lot more uncertain than his.

The obvious barriers for us as fans since the current version would probably be used are: Can we put aside the disaster that was her 3Boot experience and give it another chance? Can we accept this new Kara as Kara?

Honestly, speaking as a big Laurel Gand fan, I'm extremely skeptical that DC will ever give us Laurel back. We got her during TMK and post-Zero Hour to give us a Supergirl-substitute. She was a lot more than that in her fans eyes, but I think that's how DC sees her. And with Supergirl 'back' (and Power Girl still out there, too), I seriously doubt we'll ever see her again. In DC's mind it would be repeticious.

(And by the way, HWW..."pre-Crisis version"? Either you meant pre-ZH or you've got her confused with Laurel Kent, I presume?)

Re: the size of the Legion.

The arguments above make sense from a logical standpoint: The Legion has galactic responsibilities and should have a membership large enough to handle those responsibilities.

But logic is only one part of the Legion's appeal. Another part is that they are a "club" of super-heroes, a team that most teens could identify with as it resembles other such clubs (glee clubs, camera clubs, church clubs, etc.). If the Legion becomes too large, it loses the "buddy" aspect of being a club.

The problem with the Green Lantern Corps analogy is that the GLC was so large that new members could be introduced for one story and then never seen again (as often happened in the "Tales of the Green Lantern Corps" backup stories in Green Lantern). Or, if they did appear again, they were often background characters who were never developed or easily became casualties in whatever major battle was being fought. As a result, the GLC never* had the intimacy afforded by the Legion's 20-odd members.


*Well, there was an attempt to turn the GLC into a regular team when GL's book was retitled Green Lantern Corps. But this turned the GLC into just a run-of-the-mill super-hero team (albeit one in which every member had the same powers); it, too, lacked the large-but-intimate club atmosphere of the Legion.

I meant the 5YL version. Thanks for pointing this out, Lardy.

I would add 2 of her appearances during the Levitz/Giffen run:

1) The GDS

2) The Weber's World/Emerald Empress story

I love how she's all grown up and confident in her appearances in these stories. Yes, the GDS one is mainly a cameo, but WHAT A CAMEO!!!

Did she appear any more in the long Levitz run before her death? I seem to remember her appearing in Omen and Prophet or somewhere during the Tales run of new stories, possibly both? Any help in listing her appearances with the Legion post-Adventure era would be appreciated, actually!

Yeah, it's really sad, but I guess it kept anyone other than PAD from writing her and probably messing her up. She really made an excellent Supergirl, though.

The character had potential but was poorly used. I remember being very excited to see her in that poster insert in one of the issues that included her and some other people who weren't Legionnaires at the time among those who were. She wasn't a Supergirl substitute at all. If the right person decided to bring her back, I think the concept could be revisited and done in a way that people would enjoy a lot more.

Yes, I, too, like Kara's appearance in the "Great Darkness Saga," though, as you mention it's more of a cameo and she doesn't really affect the outcome of the story.

I'm drawing a blank with the Weber's World story. When did it appear?

Two other appearances stand out for me now that I've thought about it:

1. ADV. 350-351: She and Kal are temporarily brainwashed into forgetting the Legion and returned to their own times. Later, when the Substitute Legion tries to jog Kara's memory, she rides (!) Comet the Super-Horse at them and unwittingly assists the Subs in their mission (securing Comet's magical hoofprints on a piece of concrete.)

This appearance stands out because, well, it was just fun.

2. Her farewell to Brainy in SUPERBOY # 204--a bittersweet story that brought a satisfying conclusion to her Legion membership.

LSH 303 at least. May have been a one-off or possibly a two-or three-parter. Not sure, but 303 definitely features those elements on the cover.

Interesting sidenotes about the dark-haired Seagle Supergirl (Cir-El) and PAD's Linda Danvers/Matrix Supergirl after doing some research:

Cir-El wiped out her own existence in the conclusion of her story arc to save Superman in a Brainiac scheme she was a pawn in. She was never a real Kryptonian but a human grafted with false memories by Brainiac. So she's definitely out of continuity.

PAD's version was said to have been wiped out of continuity after Infinite Crisis in an interview with Dan Didio. But Geoff Johns apparently disputes this. As influential as Geoff is, she may return if he pursues that train of thought further. Honestly, it just seems stupid to wipe her out, being that she doesn't really contradict Kara.

Also all versions of Supergirl apparently appeared in Superman/Batman #24 to save Superman from the source wall, including pre-Crisis Supergirl, Linda Danvers and Cir-El, as well as the current Supergirl and Power Girl. The summary I read says Superman only recognized Linda and the current Supergirl of all those. This comic was published before IC ended, but illustrates that Supes knew both of them to exist at some point at least.

The current Mon-El in Action Comics has a little sister...IIRC I think her name might even be Laurel(I'm not sure they gave her name or not).

Levitz IMO used Kara more than any other Legion writer in history up to that point, or maybe I should say more importantly...which is not much, but she was a regularly appearing character and Levitz was developing her relationship with Brainiac IMO.

I think he also had further plans with her(as Supergirl) that he was never able to do due to her death in the Crisis...he mentioned something about it in a lettercol once but also mentioned that there were some continuity issues he didn't want to get tangled up in...this was in 1985.


And then of course, he planned on her being Sensor Girl as well, but was overruled.


Here's a semi complete list of her Legion appearances(including some cameos):

Action Comics:
#276

Adventure Comics:
304, 308, 313, 316, 325, 326, 334, 342, 350, 351
359, 364, 368, 374, 375, 376

(SB)LOSH:
202, 204, 294, 297, 300, 301, 302, 303, 306, 314, 315

Annual:
2

Secrets of the Legion:
1, 2


A lot of those are cameos, flashbacks or reprints but pretty much none of her Levitz appearances were just cameos...she was in the Webber's world arc (LOSH 302-306 IIRC) plus she was in the trial over it (LOSH 314-315).


So Levitz gave her @9 decent appearances compared to probably 6 or 7 for Shooter.

I don't know that I want the Legion as big as the GLC, but I get what EDE is saying as well...but they should be 30+member easy...and there should be some kind of outpost
(s), frontiers and they rotate in and out of those outposts so often that it's not even a big continuity deal.

I kind of like EDE's idea though...in some ways that does seem kind of like something Waid was working on as well...the Legion had thousands of potential members due to the fact that it was a movement as much as it was a team.

But definitely the big Legion...you can still do small Legion with a big Legion...but you can't do big Legion with a small Legion.


Here's another reason I like the big Legion...

Blank slates..so many of the Legionaires started out as blank slates that fans could just project themselves onto...they could basically write the charactrer in their head. I think that was a genuine appeal of the book....I think it is one of the strongest appeals to this day to new fans.

Lots of Legion fans still love the obscure characters because they are those blank slates.

In fact, I think a big problem with some of the Post Crisis Legions not being popular with longtime fans is because some of those blank slates were more developed in the Post C versions and they weren't developed to the personal liking of many Legion fans...

This is what happened to me with Mon-El. I didn't like Valor because it didn't jive at all with my personal impression of Mon-El..I didn't like him as this ultra developed character.


And as well a big part of the appeal of the Legion for me was always wondering who all those characters were and when I was going to get to see them in a story...


IMO...if you can think of a story featuring every Legionaire, have a grasp of their personalities, origins, and powers?

It's time to add some more Legionaires.


Legion Fans love those blank slates...whether they realize it or not.

Count me in as a big supporter of a huge Legion. I can see a 40-50 member team with semi-regular rotation of characters being fairly easy to do, especially nowadays with the industry's love of TPB-size giant storyarcs. Now if Cary Bates takes over the writing.... well, not so much, then.

And yes, I'd support ALL the big guns as members-- Mon, Laurel, Thunder, Duplicate Boy too. Looks like we're going to have Kal-El back, so might as well add Superigrl as well, why not.

As I said, I like a big Legion too, but one problem I foresee is that when the cast is so large and the roster so big, modern day writers have a tendency to say "well, I can kill one of them and there's enough people left where it wont' make a huge difference'. Something else else to think about.

Now we all know that's a stupid way to look at it (I can't see how you can think otherwise), but lets be honest. You can see DC doing this and most current writers doing it for them.

And man, I don't want that. I don't want a Legionnaire dying every storyline because there's enough of a cast to provide such cannon-fodder.

My ideal Legion is large, too (30+ members); I never liked the 25-member limit. Tax reasons? I recognize that you can't feature everyone all the time, but that's already the case with a ~20 member Legion - 30-40 members isn't fundamentally different.

But if there are enough that any are "blank slates", then those will become cannon fodder. I didn't think about that until now.

Well, I may have been going a bit overboard when I suggested GLC size. But I guess what I'm really thinking is that if you've got one club of super-heroes on Earth, it makes sense that there would be other, similarly structured "super-hero clubs" elsewhere. Things like the Heroes of Lallor or the Wanderers, but make them Legion-sized. And stick all our favorite supporting characters in them. I rather see them as largely independent, but affiliated in some way. So its not really like the GLC where they're all under the control of a central authority, but there is some kind of connection.

And yeah, as Superboy said, I do think Waid was kind of on the track of this idea with his "Legion as a movement" notion.

Ah, yes. I just skim-read those issues (LSH # 302-303, and Ontiir's trial in # 314-315). I had completely forgotten that Kara was involved in these stories.

I think this says something about how unmemorable or anticlimactic those issues were, as well as how Levitz's story-telling priorities differed from those of earlier writers.

In the first place, Kara is treated as just another Legionnaire in these issues. She really does nothing that Superboy or Mon-El couldn't do, and she doesn't display any unusual resourcefulness. Rather, she serves as muscle while Brainy (as usual) does all the thinking.

Second, her appearance doesn't really add anything to her role as a Legionnaire or love interest for Brainy. There are some typical references to her and Brainy being attracted to each other, but the storyline isn't advanced. Rather, the first arc ends with Brainy blaming Kara for distracting him, while the second ends with Kara declaring that she no longer fits in with the Legion. (Why? Because Ontiir was shot by Chief Zendak?) If it was Levitz's intention to show that Brainy and Kara had simply grown apart, I'm afraid I don't see it being developed in this story.

Thirdly and most importantly, Levitz is telling a very different type of story than earlier Legion writers did. Action is the main ingredient, not plot or character. This isn't to say that Levitz's writing style is worse or better than those of previous writers who handled Supergirl's stint with the Legion. But this arc is just one of several overlapping stories which makes it easy for Kara's appearance to get lost in the shuffle.

So, while it might be fair to say (as Superboy the poster does) that Levitz used Kara more than previous writers, I disagree that these appearances were significant. They add nothing to Supergirl or to her role as a Legionnaire.

Cobalt really has a point with regard to a bigger Legion and how that would probably make them more of a "cannon-fodder Legion" than they already potentially are.

I mean, we've already lost more Legionnaires than JLAers, Titans or X-Men, largely because there's more of them active than any of these. So if one is offed, there's still a couple dozen left. Let's face it, we're always more likely to lose one of them during a big epic tale than any of those are. If we get any bigger, it'll almost certainly be a yearly happening, if not more frequent.

I like expanding the scope, but it doesn't have to bring a huge expansion of cast with it, especially given the above concerns.

I wouldn't mind, however, having more Wanderers, Amazers, Work Force, Heroes of Lallor, Khundish heroes or whatever appear as Eryk suggests. Obviously, they'd be more like occasional guest stars, but I'd like to see them developed. And who knows, maybe a mini or separate ongoing for some of them if the demand is there!

Well, I haven't read the Weber's World story in many, many years, but her appearance there certainly remained in my memory. I'd have to reread it some time. I'm considering rereading Levitz's entire V2 run thru all the new stories in Tales soon (but not V3 since I read that a couple years ago), among other significant Legion eras, so I may have a more detailed opinion in a few months. But I remember the story and particularly the novelty of Supergirl's involvement. Particularly, it somehow stands out as one of my favorite treatments of Kara. We'll see, I guess...

Any other opinions about Levitz's use of Kara in her stories?