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?

To my mind, Laurel Gand, whom I care nothing for at all, since she wasn't part of any Legion I ever read, is *still* ten times the character that Kara ever turned out to be.

Kara's problem is right there in the conception. She's not a character in her own right, she's she-Superman. Characters like this, including She-Hulk, She-Wolverine, She-Batman, She-Aqualad, She-Human Torch, She-Spider-Man, She-Namor, She-Zatara, etc. always have a difficult road ahead of them. Either they are defined as 'Superman, with boobies,' or they are defined by how different they are from their male version.

*Some* of them find their way out from being 'popular male hero, but with boobies' (such as She-Hulk, IMO), but most of them never really do. Kara's failing stems from the fact that she's never been anything other than a girl version of Superboy.

Laurel Gand, for all that I never cared for the character, has never been portrayed as the 'she-Mon-El,' and that makes her many times more usable (and, IMO, respectful, since I find 'she-dude' characters to be extremely lame, as if no female character can possibly exist on her own merits, but has to be the female clone, sister, cousin, daughter of some male hero).

That being said, I'd rather see Laurel Kent than either of them.

The last one's an odd case, as Zatanna's become many times more important than Zatara. Exactly why I like her. In both 5YL and the reboot, she was no more like Mon-El than any other Legionnaire, and the two weren't a team.

I also noted that She-Hulk was an example, IMO, of a character who succeeded despite this 'difficult road.' She started as Hulk-with-boobs, but has since become a vibrant character in her own right.

Zatanna? No idea. Her powers used to involve the elements, nowadays she's big on mind control and illusions. She used to be uber-moral and even a bit naive. Now she gives children mental blocks for Christmas. I have no clue how she's progressed over the years, she's always seemed to have whatever powers or personality the issue or episode in question calls for, even if she does or says something that's impossible or out-of-character based on her most recent appearance.

Frankly, I think the only reason she's seen more than her dad is that the League didn't have enough girls, and Zatara didn't look as good in fishnets.

Oooh, you shouldn't have said that! John Byrne is fully responsible for giving her a personality!

Certainly, girl versions of popular male heroes really have their work cut out for them, especially if they are tied very closely to appearances in the male version's books. Some of the ones that really blossom begin with that tie but quickly go out on their own.

She-Hulk is a good example of this. She debuted in her own title, but it was short-lived. Two bad things could've happened from there: she fades into obscurity like Spider-Woman did for the longest time, or she becomes a supporting cast member or frequent guest (or worse, a backup feature) in her cousin's book.

Instead, Roger Stern and John Byrne used her in Avengers and Fantastic Four and develop her really well in those books, a graphic novel and another solo book that was successful until creative changes sunk it.

But by that time she was really an established and important part of the Marvel Universe and was featured in the Avengers more often than not. Next thing you know, another talented writer launches another book with her and it slowly builds steam. Luckily when Slott left, Peter David was there to keep the momentum going, and here we are. Even if her book eventually gets cancelled, Jen will be that much more crucial in the Marvel pantheon.

Supergirl was, and still is, too closely bound to Superman. Her book has been a mess of rotating creators. Apparently, Robinson and Johns intend to remedy that. But their plans involve tying her book more closely with their Super-titles. Not a good way to let her soar beyond her Superman Family.

This could all have been avoided had Kara been allowed to be a more vital part of the Legion back in the Silver Age and beyond. She coulda been a lot more than "Superman with boobs"!

Just ask Laurel Gand!

To me, She-Hulk is the character who takes the place of other heroines on teams. Unfortunately, it's the place of heroines that I like infinitely better. She's become the unofficial fifth Fantastic Four member- a position that should be Crystal's or Medusa's, to me. And now, she's apparently one of the LAST Defenders. That slot oughtta be Valkyrie's. Especially now that Asgard's back.

I think Krypto is one of comic's great litmus tests. You can almost fill in the answers to other questions depending on if someone likes the dog of steel or not.

I do. Even so, I don't particularly want to see the other members of the original Super-Pets show up. Now *new* super-pets from some of the other members' worlds-- or from places unseen-- *those* could fill out the ranks of the LSP, as long as they're written like the current Krypto. No thought-balloons or overly humanized behavior.

Unless, of course, some future writer has a great story to tell utilizing the old concepts. Great stories trump everything.

Okay, I'll bite. Which questions are you thinking of? What other opinions tend to correlate with Krypto?

Don't "worry", Valkyrie's going to be used - in Teh "Jeph" Lobe's Red Hulk ;p

From, oh, about 17 pages ago:

I finally read it last week, and BOY was I dissappointed!! As good as the "Superman and the Legion of Super Heroes" followup in Action was, I found "The Lightning Saga" to be just terrible! So bad, I don't even know where to start!

I dunno...maybe I should start with the writing. Yuck! Man, did that crossover ever mesh badly between the two titles. Unsurprisingly Johns' issues were much better than Meltzer's. Unfortunately Meltzer had the first, last and middle chapters, so that didn't help.

I mean, it started out really badly with that flag-stealing exercise between JLA and JSA. The exercise itself was a little ill-defined, and what should have been a lighthearted affair nearly turned into a serious injury for Roy. Supposedly this had to do with an ongoing problem with Red Tornado, but having not read the previous issues, I had no clue as to what that was.

A cardinal rule when doing a crossover is to make sure a reader who may be prospecting from the other book or interested because of the Legion connection should have enough info given to be able to enjoy the story. Meltzer obviously had no clue about this.

As a Legion fan, though, came my biggest disappointment. As great as it was to see those Legionnaires in those costumes again, there was precious little to make them identifiable as the characters I know. Poor, flat characterization was the rule for the members that appeared. In the followup arc in Action, the opposite was true. The costumes were different, but I recognized the characters better by their accurately-portrayed personalities. Here, it really mattered little which Legionnaires were used as all were about the same with few exceptions.

And the plot? It just went nowhere! It's just stupid that we're left hanging as to why the Legionnaires were there in the first place! It seems Wally West returning was just an accident or something. I know Johns was setting up what will eventually be revealed in L3W, but it really hurts this story which was already bursting at the seams with flaws.

And why in hell didn't Karate Kid die when he was struck by lightning? "I dodged it"? Come on! Don't get me wrong, I wasn't rooting for Val or any of the others to die, but if you're going to set us up with a story mirroring a classic Silver Age tale and put all this buildup into it, you pay it off in a plausible, satisfying manner!

I also hated that stupid sequence where Sensor Girl bedevils the combine JSA and JLA with the Computo & stuff illusion. I guess Triplicate Girl was never there, but it sure was confusing.

In JLA #9, Meltzer put in this scene where some girl is on a slab with the top of her head cut off. I thought it was relevant to the story, but I guess it was a subplot in the ongoing series. If so, it was done very poorly as it was interspliced with the baby ape we'd just seen after Timber Wolf's discovery in Gorilla City. When the scene ended with a trio of villains including Per Degaton revealed, I naturally thought it was important to the main story given Degaton's time manipulations. Apparently not, as they are unseen for the rest of the arc.

I dunno, it was just a poor story whose point was apparently to bring Wally back, but wasn't at the same time. And I noticed how they stopped explaining how each Legionnaire was trapped in a nightmare scenario about halfway thru. Never understood what was so bad about Timber Wolf's situation, and Dawny certainly didn't seem badly off.

I'm just very glad I read the Action arc first because if I'd read this first, I probably would've taken a pass! Thank goodness I didn't buy the hardcover version of this sorry excuse for a crossover!

So I wasn't the only one who thought Meltzer's run was a mess. In fact, his JLA is down there with Dan Vado's run, in my opinion.
The Lightning Saga was one story that simply didn't go anywhere. Nothing was solved (in fact, the Red Tornado situation is as of yet still up for grabs - no development whatsoever), lots of fist-fights were available, but everything presented seem to indicate something big was going on. But it wasn't. In fact, Action Comics had something. We just didn't know we would better skip JLA/JSA crossover.
And no, not even that buried issue saved Meltzer. It was one of those over-the-top melodramatic stories who are supposed to sound deeply serious, but was just... flat.

So the editor-in-chief who has expressed contempt for super-pets, and had Superboy-Prime kick Krypto to death, he gets a big fail on that questionnaire?

part of the problem for female-spin-offs is that most comic writers who created/defined them have been males of the geekier or old-fashioned persuasion who were either just trying to do a fem version MOTS (more of the same) or had no real ability to write a central female character. Claremont is the first writer I can think of who started to overcome this (no - I take that back - O'Neill's Black Canary came before that).

Supergirl over the years often suffered just as much as Wonder Woman, for instance, who one could argue was also a Kal-clone in certain ways but one with her own identity.

Byrne for all his faults did do a decent job with She-Hulk (although the aforementioned graphic novel was abysmal). Levitz and even pre-burnout Wolfman pulled their weight with Legion and Titans. Perez did fine with WW. Thus the 80s were really the watershed for writers who could write women - unfortunately for Kara she was slated for execution, and the Matrix fill-in SG only briefly flourished under Peter David - a little too late, perhaps.

Any character, male or female, is just lines on a page; a skilled writer can breathe life into any of them and make lemonade out of lemons of awkward back-stories.

I'm not certain what you mean by this, but it seems to me like a rather arbitrary standard. no offense.

I guess that depends on whether compentency = longevity, or if one factors decisions made as well.

Firing a creative team 4/5th of the way through a miniseries for being one week late strikes me as an odd decision, especially when the hack replacement team takes even longer than the original team. (original Punisher miniseries)

Lining up a top-calibur writer (Gaiman) who delivers a top-calibur story transitioning Action Comics Weekly and its entire cast into a kick-ass crossover, then scuttling it for the silliest of reasons, does not strike me as a good decision.

Even if one can rationalize his interference into Legion, these and other decisions reek of editiorial ego-stroking power rather than competency.

Even Black Canary started out as 'Green Arrows Girlfriend.' She's got major points in her favor in that she's not just she-Green Arrow, but has her own individual schtick, and I think she's come a hell of a long way since then, but she still had to fight her way out of a subordinate role to a male character.

[That being said, I think Earth-2s Huntress, the child of Batman and Catwoman, a majorly derivative character, is probably one of my favorite counter-examples, because she never felt like a 'bat-clone.' She felt more like a character organically derived from the legacy, and not just some chick who decided to dress like Batman and throw batarangs at people.]

Cutting out super-femmes who aren't just she-clones of established characters (like the various bat-femmes or spider-chicklets) *and* aren't 'so-and-so's love interest,' there's a surprisingly small number of established female characters that aren't defined by a pre-existing male character, like some sort of Eve, made from Adam's cast-offs, pastiche.

Given how many Legionnaires there are, it's actually kind of amazing that only one of them is a 'she-clone' character (Ayla) and none of them have been introduced as someone's girlfriend or wife (even if many of them later got around to dating and / or marrying). Even those that did marry often upended the 'traditional' power relationship, with Saturn Girl taking turns as Legion Leader and Shadow Lass pretty clearly 'wearing the pants' in her relationship with Mon-El.

Remember, when she was created in the late 40s, it wasn't to appear in Green Arrow. She was a supporting character... to Johnny Thunder. She worked her way out from under that. Later, she became Green Arrow's girlfriend and has been often used in that capacity. But because she came from another comic originally, she doesn't resemble Green Arrow.
I never thought about this. Another thing that's great about the Legion.

Good points, all. Dinah was a pre-existing character, and contrary to the trend of the time she gained powers and became more powerful than her b/f too.

I too loved the Huntress, but as much as I loved her, her solo stuff didn't exactly entail stellar story-telling, I'm sorry to say.

to the Legion-clone point, I would add that Ayla is balanced in concept if not longevity by Dream Boy. Ayla did suffer somewhat in the 70s, when it seemed she was deligated solely to being Brin's g/f, but Levitz more than corrected this.

Also, even if Tasmia and Grev were not linked until the Secrets mini, and even if Grev appeared first, Tasmia has far outshown her cuz, deservedly so.

very true, unfortunately. Even the Legion, m and f, by Superboy. Lu and Tinya at least were created to be Kara's girlfriends, if memory serves.

I sometimes brainstorm alternative takes on various characters at certain points in their histories; I would have launched the 80s Supergirl series not with yet *another* of Kara's perpetual carousel of forgettable supporting casts but a combination of former 70s Titans like Lilith and Bumblebee and visiting Legionnaires, in addition to putting a decent creative team in the book (not Infantino and... was that Cavelieri? I forget).

I would've loved to have read a Supergirl book like that! Maybe instead, she could have actually moved to the 30th century as a starting point. Seeing Kara and Brainy interact during her stint in the book for a few issues after 300 is exactly the kind of stories I would've liked to read more of featuring her. We could've had her relationship with Brainy fully explored and seen a fresh perspective of the future we'd heretofore only seen thru the Legion.

*sigh* What could've been...

That would have been fun. I would have read it.

So what about poor Laurel? I get the argument that there might perhaps be too many blonde powerhouses based on the same model. ..but..Laurel was SO cool.


Can anyone figure out what's going on with Wildfire's new suit? What a strange look. Nightgirl? Yowzah.
Dawny's outfit would look great with pants. Good to see Brainy's as crazy as ever. ..what if this B5 meets this Supergirl?..

Warts and all, I'm enjoying the read as the issues come out on the stands. I'm impatient for the next installment of each tale and snap it up off the shelf the minute I walk into the CBS.
I'm such a sucker for the Legion.


Hey..could this Time Trapper be one of these Monitors gone bad?

I actually would have set it in San Fran, with Kara living AS Kara, having gotten tired of the whole secret-ID thing (letting Linda lie low after her then-recent fame on the Soaps).

I wouldn't have her move to the 30th, but would have used it as much as practical without stepping on Levitz' toes.

YK,
I loved Laurel, too. I'd rather see her get a decent run than Power Girl, and I say that as a long-time JSA fan.

Hey, let's get back to some more gossip?

It seems that JSA Annual 2 (by Johns) is set exactly at the point right before Crisis, according to Jerry Ordway on Newarama. Wasn't Action Legion also the group from around that time? Can we be led to believe Action Legion is actually Earth 2 LSH?

As for our friend Rich LITG Johnson, he maintains Shooter has been fired, but left enough scripts for quite some time. Exactly what we believed in here.

Johnston maintains that Shooter *quit* -- quite a different kettle of fish. Believable, seeing how DC undercut his work by deciding to label the Johnsboot the “original Legion” (which didn’t happen until DC began promoting the “Superman and LSH” arc – the Lightning Saga wasn’t advertised as the original Legion.) If my understanding of the chronology is correct, JS did not sign on for the job knowing his run would be editorially invalidated before the first issue hit the stands. He was florged by TPTB after he made his deal.

I hope you guys who attend the July convention in San Diego are able to discover the truth of it.

Hey, Tromium, there is this Brazilian film (which won the Berliner this year by the way) called Elite Troop, in which a hard-ass Captain is ostensibly forcing a crooked sergeant to resign. His words are literally: "Come on, ask to quit! Ask to quit!".

That's my feeling to what happened to Shooter. He was "asked to quit" by being ran over editorially. Remember: Marts is LSH editor, but Berganza is L3W editor. Which makes no sense at all for me.

It's certainly possible, though the Superman connection implies that version is the "real" one and consequently the New Earth/main DCU Earth version that most of Dc's books take place on.

What I really, REALLY don't understand is why there can only be one Legion after L3W! What kind of damn sense does that make? I mean, with the release of the annual we're apparently going to have the return of an Earth-2 version of the JSA to complement our New earth version, so why can't there be alternate Earth Legions after L3W?!?!?

In case anyone thinks I'm speculating, Dan Didio has made it clear on several occasions that only one will remain after the mini. Assuming the multiverse will still exist after Final Crisis or whatever (and there has been plenty of reasons to think it will), why can't we have multiple Legions out there?!?!

I'd personally LOVE it if there were at least five Earths out there with a Legion on it: 1) one for the version currently written by Shooter, 2) one for John's Lightning Saga version, 3) one for the Zero Hour reboot, 4) one that follows the 5YG continuity with Valor and Laurel Gand and minus Superman ties and 5) one that perfectly maintains the Silver Age to just prior to the death of Superboy continuity and without any retcons to the Superman family at all as it existed and interacted with them for decades.

I know it's unlikely that we would have series for all these, but at least they'd all still exist along with the possibility of revisiting them somehow! It makes a lot more sense and is more respectful to the fans than just deciding only one version will survive and probably the youngest of them all (Johns' version) at that!

Nice one, Didio.

Grrr!