Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes 15 years later - Rereading the Reboot...

I missed all of Marvel between 1966 and ... the time it takes me to post this.

BUT you're debating a different issue if I may say so. You're talking about the success of a concept and I'm talking about which of two Legions(neither of which might succeed) would be preferable to a certain age group. I've no doubt which of the two implementations, book, paper, language is closer to what today's kids are used to.

Well, it's an interesting thought experiment without possible resolution I suppose. My thinking is the pZH LSH was too immature for the kids I teach everyday and that they'd prefer either the simple life of the ADV Legion or the more mature Levitz Legion.

On the other hand, pZH did have some storylines and characters I think they'd like more.

Now that I think it some more, something that really ticks off the kids is when their books have pictures of kids doing Math instead of more mature teens and adults. Makes them feel dumb.

They might like the pZH Legion and even the 14-17 YO ages of the legionnaires but they'd have to actually look a little hardened. We just don't see a lot of cherubs around our neighborhood.

Think of a merging of "The Outsiders with guns" with LSH and I think we'd have a hit.

I made it up to "Legion Worlds" over the weekend - skipping "Legion of the Damed" and "Legion Lost" because I reread them on a fairly regular basis.

"Widening Rifts" was just as thrilling 10 plus years later. Everything has gone to hell and the Legion shines bright. Lots of heroic moments. Stargates were one of the better concepts introduced in the reboot and their corruption was used here to great dramatic effect.

"Universe Ablaze" came out about this time - so I took the opportunity to read it again. Huge Jimenez fan, here, so this was a great romp. The use of the Devil Fish was fun. The story left a little to be desired but overall the team up gets solid B.

I've only finished the Earth and Winath issues of Worlds. This series holds up. Reading the early DNA issues reminds me of how they built on concepts that were established early in the reboot. Yes, it was a change of direction. Yes, they wanted to do their own thing and had a vision totally different from their predecessors. They managed to get there without trashing what came before them. A far cry from the treatment they eventually received. Shooter tried the same approach with the 3boot and was treated just as poorly. Whatever happened to class?

C'mon now, do you really want us to "re-spoil" it for you?

The reboot was good for what it was...it just wasn't really the Legion and it wasn't really new IMHO.

I do agree with one thing though, the best original characters created in the Legion since the Shooter/Grell era were created in the Reboot.

It was what they did with the Legionaires and Villains that weren't original that was the problem IMO...as an older reader, some of that stuff was flat out insulting.

Because Silver Age DC books told the story entirely through captions and dialogue, which often led to redundancy. All that exposition wasn't needed; the artists' work was generally as clear as it could be. "Moan! I'm in great pain - oh!" is excessive when we can see from Mon-El's pose that that's exactly what's happening. No artist, though, could explain the schemes Superman pulled off.

So, the reboot books at least didn't have decompression - stuff happened, often *too* quickly. But they didn't have density, which some other comics both older and newer have.

DC did this with the Wildfire in the far distant future arcs for DC 1 Million and Tales of the Dead Earth. I kind of liked some of the concepts and wouldn't mind an on-going or mini based on those plus other characters but I would see these as a complement to the 30th/31st Century team not a replacement

Sounds like the Knights Tempus. Conveniently, threeboot Cosmic Boy is already on the scene.

So what did I get today: The Underworld Unleashed crossover, a rather confusing story featuring Lori Morning. Oh my. Why they did have to introduce a token kid character to a book that was already heavy on teenage characters I just cannot understand. Did they not learn that all those Wesley Crushers and Boxeys just don't work?

The next few issues were rather good. The reintroduction of Starfinger (alias Jan Arrah - another one I totally forgot about) and the Suneater were amusing. What I really did like was the team dynamics: Colossal Boy is confronting Cos in an open, aggressive way. Lyle and the Espionage Squad do so in a "stealth mode". Some of the characters keep getting more interesting, especially Violet. Off-planet, Kinetix and Valor do live through their own adventures, though why Valor did need a few issues to get the idea to simply get out of his iconic costume to go undercover is probably just weak storywriting.

I also liked the fact that the Legion got more and more shorthanded. With XS lost in the 20th century - my least favorite character missing in action, probably one reason why I enjoyed these last issues so much - and Brainy in prison, they were down to eight members.

But suddenly, Gates and Star Boy joined - off panel. Why did these two get the okay and Ultra Boy and Element Lad did not? Maybe this Chu story again, let's wait and see. Gates at least is fun. He certainly is also quite one-dimensional like most of the others, but his political bickering is funny. Did they ever tell the story how they made him join after he was so antagonistic during Gims first draft attempt?

On another notice, the art did get more consistent in my eyes. Still Manga influenced, but Moder at least got his grip on the Legion. Also, the constant change of inkers on Moys art stopped. After these issues, Stern was coming on board, so... is he the one to blame for later "insults", to quote Superboy above, like Coco and Snakey?

Because each planet got one and only one representative, and they had to be officially selected (Element Lad's planet no longer HAD a government and so wasn't eligible, and Ultra Boy had nothing to do with whatever "government" Rimbor had). Exact same reason Live Wire got booted when Spark turned up.

In this case Star Boy was a direct replacement for Kid Quantum I as Xanthu's member, and Gates was already entered as Vyrga's representative. It just took them that long to actually force him to get into a shuttle to Earth.

I'm enjoying your account of reading the reboot, Chem. I liked it a lot more than you did, at least until the end of the Mordru battle.

Something else else to think about-- the vision for the post Zero Hour series was first to show the early adventures of the existing (at that time) Legionnaires.

Whether Zero Hour happened or not, retellings were going to happen.

I think that's worth keeping in mind.

I absolutley didn't want to like the reboot-- I was loving the Legionnaires title as it was and I still liked some things about 5YL. In fact, I remembered thinking that that series had turned a corner, as so often happens when comics series are announced to be ending.

But I thought the spirit of the LSH was captured in the early years of the reboot. I even found things to like in the team split when several characters were sentenced to the 20th century. After that, though, the pickings were slim. The LEGIONNAIRES half of the equation provided stories that I liked fairly well. Then DNA came and changed the landscape in ways both positive and negative.

I didn't want the adventures of this set of Legionnaires to end either.

It took Xanthu quite long to provide a replacement, though - Kid Quantum died during the Legions first mission...

To be fair, I never did get into this drafting idea. I mean, it's basic team dynamics that people FORCED to work with each other do worse than people who WANT to. And why Brande, who founded the team, was suddenly so out of any decision making process... I just don't get that. I remember that I did not like this stringent rule of drafting in 1994, considering the fact that the classic Legion always was up to making their own decisions. Still don't like it today, though some of the stories made out of that rule are fun (like the open hostility towards Star Boy and Gates).

Moreover, Jan being the single survivor of Trom would have made him the automatic draft candidate for the Legion - him being the last Tromite makes him the official representative in any way, President, Superhero, High Priest, Mister Universe , you name it

Well, they were reluctant to start with. But they sent Thom off relatively quickly - whenever you get to Legends of the Legion #4, you'll see exactly WHY it took him so very long to reach Earth.

Well, remember that the reboot team was never meant to be an army division - Brande sold it to Chu as a PR exercise. That is, go round waving to the crowds, with the occasional "soft" mission just to show they're doing something. From that POV, numbers and demographics are more important than a functional fighting unit.

Not really - not every UP planet was granted a slot for a Legionnaire. There was even a story in Showcase showing how the less-important planets were given a spot in the Legion Academy to shut them up (this was referenced in the tryouts issue, where it was established that the LA had been gone for a while - presumably, at least since Chu went, if not before).

A planet with one surviving citizen isn't exactly high up on the wheeler-dealer scale.

On the Legion draft:

You're absolutely right, CK, that team dynamics are less effective when teams are forced. However, politicians don't always see things the way us "normal folk" do. They often make decisions based on political expedience or appearance, not on less convenient considerations such as logic.

The reboot did a brilliant job of portraying this, I thought. Chu's selection of Gim as Legion leader looked good on paper: He was a Sci Cop, and a famous one, at that. (It would be like asking Ashton Kutcher to lead a police squad because he played a cop on "That '70s Show." Gim, of course, was real Sci Cop, but he lacked the crucial experience and personality traits to be a leader.) The horrific outcome of the Legion's first mission demonstrated the flaw in that thinking.

Political expedience, etc., also explains why Brande was quickly marginalized. Those in power want to stay in power by controlling anything that might win popular support (such as the Legion).

Since Trom no longer had a government, it was a non-entity as far as representation was concerned. Unfair, yes, but true to life.

Yes, Xanthu took its time in appointing a replacement for KQI--but, again, that's politics. The wheels of progress sometimes grind slowly.

Legens of the Legion? Showcase? Oh my, I'm pretty sure that I don't HAVE these... it came a time in the 90s when I stopped buying Legion Spin-Offs due to obvious reasons.

My motivation to have a complete Legion collection somehow has a deliberate blind spot in the years 1996-DnA...

Showcase 96 issues 11 and 12 were a couple of my favorites. Brainuac 5 meeting up with Brainiac 1 and Vril Dox II.

As for the reboot itself I was ok with it. I loved the 5 Years Later Legion as much as the rest of you, but after Giffen left the wheels just totaly fell off the series. It just kept getting worse, but after issue 50 the book just became unreadable. Issues 50 until the reboot to me are the absolute worse period in any version of teh Legion period. Horrible art and just a putrid storyline.

I think the reboot was the best move honeslty. If they could have just gotten a half way decetn artist things would have been a lot better. To me some of the new takes on old characters worked very well. Triad and Invisbile Kid to me were 100times better than the originals. The only thing I would have liked to have seen was for Waid to get over his hatred of all the non-silver age Legion members and introduced some of them when he ahd the chance. Those were jsut too good of characters to ignore, and he did the same thing with his Threeboot.

The Showcase issue I referred to was Showcase '95 #6 [Which also included a Shvaughn Erin story]

There were also stories in Showcase '96 #8 [Leviathan/XS/Gates], #10 [Ultra Boy] and the Brainiacs two parter ZK mentioned in S96 #11-12, the last issues of Showcase '9x.

Legion minis included Legends of the Legion (Origins of Ultra Boy, Spark, Umbra & Star Boy), Inferno, and Legion: Science Police.

See http://www.legionwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Legion_Publication_History for further information

So, what did wie have now...

There was the Fatal Five storyline with the conspiracy twist. Before that, we had a rather lousy annual - "Legends of the Dead Earth" starring XS - and the F5 storyline was interrupted by a pretty silly Lori Morning story.

Okay. Negative things first: The annual was really a hard thing for me to read. Featuring the return of XS to the 30th century, we got 40 pages of her - alone - in a book called "Legion of Superheroes". Legion as in: "Many team members". What we got was some Avengers wannabes in a completely irrelevant story in the 100th century, and a Time Trapper cameo which left open XSs destiny...

I mean, come on: How hard did they try to shove XS down our throats? They made her join right at the beginning. They made her character oh so one-dimensionally naive and lovely (don't give her any rough edges people might not like). They gave her extra screen time in other books like Impulse. Then they dedicated a whole annual to her - and she now has a destiny... Hello? How desperate can you get to sell a character to the audience? This is the gazillionth speedster of the DCU, and I really don't believe that it was necessary to add one to the 30th century. Like most of the annuals of that decade, this one was simply dispensable.

Then there was the fill-in issue featuring the supporting cast fighting a protean invasion of the Legion HQ. I guess this is where things started to get really silly. Lori Morning - who initiated the invasion by doing a dumb vid-broadcast in the beginning as "Future Girl" - in the end gets celebrated cause she helped a little bit to defy the Proteans. Huh? This seems to symbolize every kids dream to be taken serious by adults. Nice try. But the story is just dull, especially adding the fact that it interrupted the main story.

And that main story was the good news: The Fatal Five storyline was told in a rather thrilling way. The nearly beaten Legion gets help by a secret rescue squad gathered by Garth Ranzz, and the Legions numbers are suddenly nearly doubled, thus finally justifying its name (Legion as in "many members", we've been there). The fight scenes were really well done, as was the showdown with Chu - which looked like a showdown with Winema Wazzo for quite a long time. Though I still think it's a little bit too far-fetched that an acting UP president would employ one, not to say five of the worst criminals of the galaxy to distract from her power plays, the execution of the story was very entertaining to see. And as a bonus, with Brande as the new president, the Legion finally got its self-administration back, thus ending the ill-motivated drafting system.

Was the Legion draft intented to go all along, or did the writers end it cause readers did not like it? I would be curious to learn about that...

All in all, the Fatal Five issues were rather good, the supplementary material was not. The silliness factor clearly has risen since White Triangle, and again I'm wondering if it was Roger Stern which brought it to the books.

As for Moders art, how about those heads he is drawing - do they get longer every issue? Some of the Legionnaires look as if they have been stretched...

I hate to say it (because I do like the character), but I have to agree with your criticism of how DC tried to shove XS down our throats. In retrospect, it does seem that they were trying too hard to make her a popular character.

Actually, XS appeared very little in LSH/Legionnaires if you look. A large part of that was that Waid on the Flash books nicked her twice for long (crossover) spells - but even past that, she rarely got that much attention after her introduction. The Dead Earth Annual (which was published MASSIVELY out-of-sequence - her returning to the 30th century was shown in the main books nine and a half months earlier) was an exception, not the rule.

I probably should look, Reboot, but I don't have the time or desire. Perhaps Jenni only seemed overexposed because of the crossovers and because they kept playing up the Flash connection.

Jenni as the granddaughter of Barry Allen was fine, but they should have left it at that. We didn't need Impulse as a cousin or Jenni trying to live up to some family legacy. I would much rather have had her concerned with the fate of her parents (whom she lost when she was an very young) rather than her grandfather, whom, if memory serves, she didn't even know (but did get to meet in one story?). It seemed to me that DC was trying too hard to cement her connection to a 20th century hero and thereby increase the Legion's own connections with the 20th century.

I prefer a subtler connection to the 20th century DCU. Having a Legionnaire who is an Atlantean or an Amazon or member of one of the Vegan races (Tamaranian, Okaran Warlord, Psion) or something, instead of one who is actually related to a pre-existing hero of the 20th century, works better for me, particularly since that well has already been tapped, multiple times, with Laurel Kent, Oli-3 Queen and that detective dude who died during the Great Darkness Saga.

XS (and Oli, IMO) was one pull too many at that well. I like the character, but she could just as easily have tapped into the Speed Force and idolized the Flash without being all consanguinous and stuff. Again, with Wally being Barry's nephew, that well's been tapped, and some originality would have been nice.

Yes, XS met Barry Allen in that before mentioned annual. I also had problems where exactly to fit it, but I guess it's best to read it (if at all) before Fatal Five...

Already read the next six issues today. Those are kind of the transition issues from the Chu / Fatal Five story to Emerald Violet. As before, the stories are very entertaining as long as they are the relevant ones. The subplots slowly are getting worse, with one-dimensional supporting cast like Winema or McCauley not really helping. Those are like out of a Harry Potter book! The Xanthu story featuring the first appearance of the "Uncanny Amazers" (*shudder*) has to be called the rock bottom story for the time being. I mean, come on - "Uncanny Amazers"? Like Workforce or Planet Hell, the name makes me cringe. Characters like Monstress or Atom'x (sic!) really felt so cheap, it's bordering on the embarrassing. The new Kid Quantum was the only bright spot showing a hint of characterisation.

Well, on another positive note, there were the matters of Legion membership, leadership and the Morgna-Regulus feud. Membership was increased up to 16 plus Valor - alias M'onel (how did you pronunciate that - Monlllllllll? Or Mow Nelle?), Violet became leader (totally forgot about that). Hints to the Emerald Eye were given slowly and subtly, first Brainy practically disappeared, Jo got Tinya back, Triad split into three different bodies - everybody got their hearts desire. The Regulus story ended with a major cliffhanger, Violet as the Empress. Wow! Now how and when did the Eye take control of Vi? Eager to read about that during tomorrows lunch break.

I also have to confess that Colossal Boy, apart from his new nickname, really grew on me this time. His constant feeling of guilt made him into quite an interesting character. His death as a hero - his hearts desire - was dramatic, I really thought it was well done. On the other hand, Tinyas return after just about one year totally damaged the dramatic White Triangle outcome. I really felt - again - that this was an unneccessary move.

So this ends the second year of the Reboot. Up ahead: Emerald Vi and Final Night.

I'd read it just before Lgs #35, since the last scene of both is the same - although I suppose "just after" works too.

I always say mONell, with heavy stress on the "on" but no syllable break before the "el" (as opposed to "Mon-El", which inherently destresses the "on" if anything). The alternative, I suppose, would be to go the "M'Krann Crystal" route and say "Emm-Onel", with the M pronounced as a letter rather than as part of a word. Since it's an apostrophe rather than a dash, that never worked for me in ye olde X-Men cartoon.

I've always pronounced M'Onel the same way I've pronounced Mon-El: mahn el.