Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lightning Saga Legion in Action!

Well, I'm looking forward to that story in Action Comics.

But am I being overly sensitive if I'm picking up a vibe from that article that suggests there haven't been any Legion comics at all in the last 20 years?

Hm, I wouldn't say it comes off as that harsh, but it does kind of leave open the question: "What about the Legion from Crisis to Zero Hour?"

So, just from perusing the John's interview and without reading the story yet, it would suggest there are these Legions:
(1.A) Classic Legion #1 - Adventure to Crisis - lost until Lightning Saga (aka "The Lightning Saga Legion")

(1.B) Classic Legion #2 - Adventure to Zero Hour - lost since Zero Hour, including SW6 Legionnaires

(2) Reboot Legion

(3) Threeboot WaK Legion

(4) Cartoon Legion

This, of course, doesn't include the alternate Adult Legion future of Adventure, the various Elseworlds Legions (i.e. Superboy's Legion), etc., but I'm just trying to figure out where DC is going with this.

PS - I find Tromium's notion that the Reboot Legion is the post-crisis/pre-IC DC Earth that eventually leads to Kingdom Come (now designated Earth-22). It kind of makes it easier to figure out.

No go (well, let me rephrase that - no-go if they're sane). Post-ZH Legion diverges from the DCU-as-we-saw-it during OWAW because of Veridium and Computo - that's essential to the whole DnA run, OWAW must happen, otherwise everything from their very first issue (Lgs #78) to Legion #25 involves Robotica in the plot (arguably Legion #32, the last time we see Babbage) falls apart. No Robotica means no distress signal to draw Cos, Monstress, Apparition and Brainiac 5.1 away from Earth when the Blight attacks. Which means XS and Saturn Girl don't get away, which means the Blight nuke the galaxy.

Robotica needs Computo, and Computo needs Veridium's responsometer and Imperiex to match that up with a mother box again. (I treat the flashforward in JSA #51 with a post-ZHalike LSH, but with Blok, an unfamiliar HQ and Adventure-era-style Mordru, as the post-ZH hypertimeline where Computo didn't get put back together, and so things unfold differently from how we saw them in LSH #0 and on)

And, of course, Wesley Dodds was killed off in JSA SF&O #1, long before OWAW, and needs to survive to the opening of Kingdom Come.

PS: "Earth-22" can't accomodate The Kingdom...

What the SPROCK are you guys talking about???

Reboot: Valiant effort, but DC has ignored greater continuity violations than that. They'll do what they want to do...

Jillikers!!

Its more confusing than I appreciated. So...can *you* find a way to make this all strait for me, Boot? Or is it impossible to figure out a coherent split in timelines?

How come Kingcome Come (other than Wesley Dodds) not work with OWAW (which you'll have to forgive me, I've blocked out of my memory banks).

Oh, a'DUH. I'm treating any post-IC postbootalike as just that - an entirely separate version that happens to share surface similarities.

Cobalt - give me a few minutes, I'll need a diagram...

I throw a lot of stuff against the wall I don't remember half the things I say, but I guess it's possible Johns will do just that seeing he's getting ready to reintroduce KC and (apparently) the reboot Legion around the same time. He's not loathe to push square pegs into round holes, which is exactly what he's doing now with the LS Legion.

But they wouldn't be the original reboot Legion any more than the LS Legion is the original pre-Crisis Legion.

I've made it no secret I'm fast becoming irritated with Geoff Johns and his "original" malarky, but on the plus side, it looks like three Legion comics (and the cartoon) running simultaneously for 5-6 months. That's what I call saturation marketing. If this push doesn't work, nothing will.

I make it eight or nine timelines (which isn't necessarily complete, I may have missed something, and I'm counting the future Thom seen in Starman #79-80 [because of Dreamer's recurring vision of a "gravesite" for Thom] and the Omega Point (End of Time) seen at the end of Legion #14 as being on the central Green Line,).

First, the diagram:



Most of which is self-explanatory.

However, you'll notice Kingdom Come isn't on that list. That's because I checked here first, including looking at the bigger version of the image. We're very definitely in alternate timeline with that lineup (obviously, particularly with Kon & Mae there), so the KC-Legion isn't the post-ZH Legion and shouldn't be treated as such.

But the key figure is between Shadow Lass (apparently referred to as such in the notes, although not on that page) and Kinetix. Princess Projectra - not Sensor. That pegs the divergence point for Kingdom Come way, WAY back, before Superman's, hell before the *JSA*'s debuts. Like, millions of years man!

Highly impressive and entertaining! Thanks 'Boot!

I like how you've kind of made sense of all that for me. I have to reread JSA #51 also, since I hardly remember anything from that story.

Also, Tromium's thought that John's saying the Lightning Saga Legion : Preboot Legion :: KC Legion : Reboot Legion is well taken.

That diagram confuses and frightens me. I've read a lot of those comics - the Legion titles anyway - and I have no idea what I am supposed to understand about them from this diagram.

This, unfortunately, is how I view it. Johns will take what he wants to work with and forget the rest, all in favor of the continuity-of-the-month. I'd be surprised if we reach the Legion's 55th anniversary before this one is screwed up and tossed out.

Branching timelines (diagram NOT to scale ). Like that one - written by DnA - from the Young Justice OWAW special where M'On's taken on the Superman costume and Brainiac 5's merged with Brainiac 13, as how things would happen if OWAW ended a different way.

Rumours there was no multiverse before Infinite Crisis are, after all, greatly exaggerated.

Bit like how Johns screwed up Superboy and Impulse by pretending all their character development never happened, so he could do it over in a more irritating way...

I say again - Oh, a'DUH!

Or they'll screw it up completely and Kingdom Come will be the future that leads to the Lightning Saga Legion. Remember where Thom ended up before the JSA.


Also in the LSV story in Superman/Batman the future Superman in the Kingdom Come costume reverted to the guy at the end of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" when the timeline was adjusted. And isn't that story the first modern appearance of a the original LSH? I seem to remember a Phantom Girl/Phantom Lady punch up.

So lets make it that every time a writer or editor screws up that guy at the end of "Whatever Happened... " loses his happy ending and he switches to his alternate self having to live in that unhappy future where the Joker killed Lois. He then has to find someone to help him fix time so he can get back.

Yeah, I got that it was branching timelines... I guess it'd make more sense if I was more (by which I mean 'at all') familiar with OWAW... I presume its connection to Legion #13 has to do with Warworld? Why is 'For No Better Reason' an alternate timeline to the Titans/Legion Special?

Actually, no (even if Aquaman & Kyle's costuming is mutually exclusive). It's Computo's re-origin. Imperiex reassembled him during OWAW, upon which he promptly scooted as far and as fast as he could in case someone took him apart again and watched as the Metallo Virus & stuff happened - but Veridium made it through OWAW in the "main" timeline.

That's one I'll have to look up later. I've got it down in my notes as being different, due to relative time, and I've got double asterisks against Jarth and Kon, but I didn't detail that one.

after reading Johns comments about the Superman/LSH storyline and the disscusions here, I have dropped LSH from my pull list.


alternate time lines, and the final crisis story line(at least until its sequel the Absolute Final Crisis comes out), things are going to reboot, soft boot, or least a boot to the butt of new folks like myself.

it's sad what DC has done and is doing to the LSH. it's a great concept, but DC,like Procrustes did his lodgers, has stretched and shortened LSH to fit the whim of editors.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much the story of the whole DCU these days.

Johns description of the upcoming Action storyline sounds interesting. It does sound like a new take on the Legion rather than a return to "the original". But, you know what, that is fine with me. I'm not sure that "original" is a concept that is even definable with regards to the Legion. It certainly isn't possible to print anything that everyone would agree is the original.

I remember a letter in the one of the early 5YL issues in which the writer encouraged TMK "to put reality in a blender and turn it on to puree", or something like that. In essence, that is exactly what happened, even though it wasn't TMK who did it. We are now in the "post puree" era of the Legion.

That means we have two options. We can rebuild again, or abandon the Legion and move on. The fact that everyone is tired of rebuilding really doesn't matter, or change the fact that rebuilding is again necessary.

This rebuilding imagines the Legion as an instumental and essential part of Superman growing up. That is certainly not what the "original" Legion was meant to be. Some may argue that it is what it evolved into. It was never explicitily expressed as such, though, and you would have to toss out a lot of pre Legion Superboy continuity to make the case.

For bizarre legal reasons, Superboy isn't even available. That alone makes a return to the "original" impossible. I would argue that even if it were possible, it wouldn't be desirable. I don't want decades worth of continuity baggage. We all have to draw our own lines as to how much of a loss of continuity is accepatable, but we better face the fact that a good amount will be lost in any rebuilding process.

Reboot's timeline makes my head hurt. I sure don't need to connect all those dots to enjoy a good Legion story. 5YL is my favorite Legion era. That doesn't mean I need it to be "in continuity" to be satisified. I have the back issues and will go back and read them whenever I feel the need to re-expereince that time. I would rather do that then spend my time trying to find a way to make them fit into the current reality.

So, let's rebuild with the Legion as an essential part of Superman's youth. It's not a bad place to start.

I don't like either of those options. I guess "rebuild again" but not from the ground up like we've done the last two times. Rebuild it to make it look similiar to a Legion most people remember and love. And I know there is an ongoing debate about what that it is. But in my mind there is no debate.

A laudable sentiment. I'll be happy to comply when DC stops lying to fans about the "original Legion".

As for getting behind what DC is rebuilding, there's obviously more than one edifice to support. The new artist of the regular monthly Legion book is a member of this board, and the "big announcement" of the next writer is expected within two weeks. That means they're aggressively promoting not one but *two* official Legions -- the supposedly original team lacking a plausible history and the 3boot team with almost no documented history.

Then they throw in a third, rebooted reboot team into the pot and stir it all up into one sloppy mess that'll be on slow-cook until late 2008.

DC is yanking our chains for the zillionth time, this time using their in-house 'fixer-upper" Geoff Johns -- a writer without an ounce of credibility as a Legion creator. Let him diddle all he wants with Hal Jordan, Booster Gold and the JSA, but the Legion needs more than that.

It seems like a heck of a way to run a railroad to me, too, but I'm trying to focus on what we're going to get out of it. It might be really good! (Short-term and/or long-term.) Wouldn't be the first time an asinine editorial decision has resulted in good comics, or even good Legion comics.

As long as Meltzer is of the titles... his stuff always confuses me, like his current JLA. I hate it when I have to read a chapter ten times and still am left wondering what is happening...

At least we don't have to worry about Janette Kahn this time around.
"It's too confusing" indeed.

..witch..

A variant cover was just announced for Action #858, the first issue in the Legion arc. That makes two with the previously announced one for #859. Wanna bet they do it for the entire arc?