Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes ADVENTURE COMICS #1 (#504) SPOILERS!

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about how great the writing has been the past few years.

Even though I've liked a story here and there the overall writing has been a meandering mess since Levitz left (regardless of the creator's "names"). And even Levitz' last few years on the series weren't that good. Most of the stories were boring or unoriginal or fixed/created a new continuity disaster if/when they ended.

Most of the stories have been about screwing things up more than about "a team a thousand years in the future fighting crime."

Which would actually be a kick-ass series if anybody wanted to produce one again. Which DC apparently does not.

I tend to think if DC tried to do a comic about teen super-heroes in the future and actually had plots that ended with memorable storylines and well-written characters it would sell.

I don't know why but I have a good feeling about the possibilities for this Legion... partly because this first appearance, though small, was interwoven with the the main feature somewhat. I had expected a disjointed, separate story which would have left Connor fans scratching their heads as to why they were reading about the Legion.

Maybe because it's the original Legion... the one I got hooked on and it had echoes of one of their best adventures... the Mordru in Smallville two-parter.

Mr. Janson is the new Bob Cobb!

All in all it was handled more smoothly than I expected which gives me some hope.

My point is Superboy CANNOT be the leader in a LSH team clearly more mature than he will ever be. He would be at most a trainee into the team, much like Kono, Magnectic Kid etc.

He can be like a pet or something, snicker.

Conner would make a nice snake. Supersnake. I'd see him interacting more with Krypto that way.

They already have a Super Snake. He's called Hissy.

Ok well since I'm not much of a Conner fan I'm inclined to agree with you on that...however truthfully it's not really accurate, not in comcics or even in the real world....for instance, Alexander the Great was 19 years old when he conquered the world.

Leadership isn't automatically defined by age. Being older doesn't automatically make someone a leader anymore than being younger automatically makes them a novice.

NC, we've had pretty much everyone short of Alan Moore or Frank Miller attempt to do this book, in some cases they were extremely knowledgable of the Legion's history and I can't really say the construction of the stories was the problem.

I mean the continuity fixes were done to appease the readership not because that was what the writers particularly wanted to focus on.

And they were rebooted and cast aside because they were basically commercial failures that didn't attract new readers in significant numbers, at least compared to past versions of the Legion.


As for the fighting crime in future...no, it won't sell in substantial numbers, because it's a generic non-unique concept in a fringe genre. Good writing doesn't always sell, especially when it's genre is largely a fringe genre.


There are basically 3 sci fi properties set in the future that have had extended success, and all of them were basically unique at the time of their creation...all had a central character they revolved around...all had a multiple casts and spnioffs that rode the success of the original to moderate success, but in no way truly matched the extended success of the original iconic version...

And more importantly, the primary target of all of them initially were children just entering their teen years or perhaps a little younger....not adults. They became more adult properties as their base grew old with them...but their initial appeal to adult or more sophisticated audiences, it was never the reason for their success.

And more importantly, the spinoffs or secondary casts were arguably more talented, better written and conceptualized, and more sophisticated than he originals...but they never matched the success of the originals due to the fact that they lacked the central memorable character and they weren't unique as the originals were.

Those properties are the Legion, Star Trek and Star Wars....and you could even argue it was the same generation of fans that iconized them all...but without a doubt what sets them apart from the countless other attempts at similar concepts and even their own offshoots, was that they were unique(at least in a space future setting) upon their initial creation, and they all had a memorable character(Spock, Darth Vader and Superman) as a cornerstone of the property.

Good writing isn't enough...it's the concept, it's being unique when originally debuted and it's having a memorable central character...at least when you are talking futuristic science fiction.


The past versions of the Legion in recent memory have lacked both of those things and IMO, that is why they failed, not the writing or the art.


The Legion had it's Star Trek the Next Generation equivalent...it was the Reboot. That wasn't enough for DC(nor was TNG enough for Paramount).

JMO.


I don't think die hard Legion fans really underwstand how unique they are in what appeals to them...not only the fanbase, but the unquestionable Legion Fans that have been writing the book since...oh, Paul Levitz. I applaued your sci-fi purism and that of the other Legion fans...I just don't think there's ever going to be enough of you to support a property on writing alone..at least not with the more commercially successful specter of the original forever looming overhead.

Ahem...

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."

Like I said, agree to disagree. Most of your points have nothing to do with the argument at hand anyway...

Johnsboot will fail like the rest of them because its derivative of the continuity-altering crap storytelling (as opposed to continuity-enhanced which the fans that are all the rage to bash are asking for) we've been subjected to for decades rather than telling good stories about a great group of characters. Oh, and they have no clue as to what they are doing with this "franchise" other than let Johns and Robinson have a go at them. JMO.

<strike>(When did Alan Moore and Frank Miller [a good writer?!?] write a Legion series?)</strike> My bad, thanks Rick.

They didn't, he said everyone SHORT of. I think both of you make both good and bad points. He misses one thing, of those three franchises, each was from a time when things were more...I guess male is the best way to say it. Star Trek used brawn as well as brains, but by the time next generation came along, it was a much more genteel show. Kirk got alien booty, Picard sipped early grey tea. The second generation seemed to be much more phoney "intellectual". I think a lot of comics suffer from that now adays, believe it or not. I hear folks complain about a slugfest issue, look at it and think "wha?" Legion walked that line successfully for years and then veered over into the next generation style.

Legion needs to go back to being smart, but kicking ass as well. In the last few years, a lot of the time was spent talking instead of acting.

Legion needs more action. Lo3W's was a nice start, more needed.

Not nearly as big as the Night Girl/Shadow Lass snafu, but I notice XS is now from Earth. Is there no Aarok in the Earth-0 universe?

Didn't they say she was from Earth-0 in Lo3W? I guess that means they consider her mother's home planet her homeworld.

I think it follows the retro change to the origin of XS and Impulse from Legion of Three Worlds. XS and Bart were born on Earth-0. When their parents, the Tornado Twins, became targets of Professor Zoom, the Legions hid the entire Flash family on Earth 247. The Tornado Twins died soon after. It was never spelled out specifically, but I think we can assume that XS still went to Aarok with her father, after Dawn Allen's death, and was raised there. The missing link, I guess, is that her father originally went back to Aarok because it was his home world. Maybe he was raised on a Universe-0 version of Aarok? Or maybe he was originally from the 247 universe and somehow traveled to the Universe-0 Earth before Professor Zoom's attack?

That's about as same as the problem as, if Impulse and his mother are from Earth-0 and went to Earth-247, what is her exact relationship to President Thawne.

As I've said before, STNG lasted for at least 7 seasons and centered around at least one other unforgettable character, DATA.
The ST franchise was totally reborn with Generation and the spinoffs weren't from the original but from Next Generation and Deep Space 9 was very successful.

I only want to point that out because I don't think that SciFi fans are limited to 'original' ideas only.

It seems to me that there are other popular movie and TV scifi besides the 3 you mentioned, too, including Doctor Who, Farscape and Star Gate.

Books are a whole other 'story' really, because they don't cost so much money to produce.

There are hundreds of characters and worlds that I have explored over the years, usually as series, so many, really.

And comics are books, after all.

Sorry, I started that reply a page away!

And STNG was only 'genteel phony' for most of the first season.
After that, they kicked a lot of bottoms.

And frankly, the Legion didn't do much butt kicking, originally.
The reboot and 3boot kicked boodie much more, I think.

I think what they are doing with the Legion first and foremost is putting Superman back in it and producing a Legion that bears as much resemblance to the iconic version of the Legion as is humanly possible given the current status of the DC Uni.

I don't think they have tried to do that in other boots, or at least both hands weren't working together.

And given Johns' track record of success I don't see why it's bad idea to let him run with it anyway even if that is what they are doing. He's brought Green Lantern and the JSA back...in fact IMO he's made them better than ever before...and that was a near impossiblity with the JSA given that it's continuity was destroyed basically as badly as the Legion's was.


It seems to me that Johns did exactly what you are saying the Legion needs in his stint on the JSA anyway. He didn't turn it back into the Earth 2 JSA....and he fixed it and made it a cornerstone for DC without massive rebooting.

The reason he has been able to do that is because he seems to be very good at distilling what worked when it worked, and IMO, he's doing exactly that now....

Except for the hideous costume redesigns.

Since you don't consider the writing to be very good over the past two decades, who do you think should write it? Its been primarily extreme Legion fans and or writers who at one point were A-list writers writing it....I don't see any hacks in the group really.

I can think of countless titles that have great writing and are still thoroughly unsuccessful in today's market. Matter of fact, titles that are built upon good writing and little else are pretty much the first casualty in today's market.

It takes more than just great writing, it takes more than just good characters...

It takes good characters, good writing, name recognition...sure there are a few exceptions to the rule, but the Legion isn't one of them.


I personally think the version Johns is doing has all 3 of those factors working in it's favor and that's why I disagree that is going to suffer the same fate as the reboots.

Johns is a good writer, at least according to a significant portion of modern DC fans.

Not only is he a good writer, but he's got name recognition as well and usually(not always) can bring in fans when working on a previously successfull property. He certainly does that better than any other writer we are likely to get.

Superman is still one of the most recognizable characters in the world...

And contrary to the absolute hate-on many Legion fans have for him...

He is an original Legionnaire and is a bigger factor in the book's survival than Lightning Lad's latest personality or Violet's latest power tweak.

And that is the direction they are going with this title.

I don't think we're on the same page here really...

#1. I'm not saying sci-fans are limited in what appeals to them, just hte opposite in fact. I'm saying sci-fi is a fringe genre that has a limited appeal to fiction fans in general and needs certain things going for it to have mainstream success. Yes there have been some mainstream successes(specifically the 3 properties I mentioned in their respective realms, not to mention the entire superhero subgenre of scicence fiction) but that is the exception, not the rule. I am saying sci-fans don't seem to really understand that. They don't understand that they aren't mainstream fans and what appeals to them is not what appeals to mainstream fans. Pure sci-fi does not generally have mainstream appeal...that is the point I am making.

When a sci-fi property has had mainstream success, it has been more or less unique and the first of it's kind, and it has had memorable characters...pretty much in every instance.

#2. TNG does not occupy the same stratosphere of success as the original Trek. It has not been as successful, it is not the image conjured in the minds of most fans
(sci-fi or otherwise) at the mention of the name Star Trek...nor does Data have anywhere near the instantaneous recognition factor to the majority of people as Spock, Darth Vader or Superman.

I gather you are somewhat of TNG fan and I sincerely don't mean to offend you, but I'm sorry, TNG is not a success on the same order as the orginal was. And it never will be.

You can use a very narrow definition of success and say it was as successful or more successful based on the fact that it was in production longer...but that ignores virtually every other definition of the word being in the favor of the original Trek. And if it hadn't been for the popularity of the original Trek as a cinematic property, there likely would have been no TNG in the fitst place.

TNG owes everything to the original, the original owes nothing to TNG.


You could make a similar argument to the one you are using for TNG for the Reboot VS all other version of the Legion really...it was published in two titles for nearly a decade, no other Legion can say that...

But the reality is half the fans reading it were complaining about what it wasn't...and those two titles sold 25k per month and routinely occupied the bottom 100 of montly comic sales, while the original sold 500k per month and was the top selling team of the Silver Age and probably the Bronze Age as well.

The mention of the name Legion does not conjure the image of the Reboot to most fans..yes it does to some, but not most..because a half million people per month were familiar with the original Legion, 25k per month were familiar with the Reboot.


While I realize many fans consider fringe or cult success as success, and in fact some prefer cult or fringe success to any other kind...DC obviously is not satisfied with fringe success for the Legion, especially when a significant segment of fans is not happy with the product they are getting.


Probably the second trilogy of Star Wars films presents the best arguments against the points I am making...I mean they were as successful commercially as the originals, but I say left to surive on their own that would not be the case....and they relied heavily on the interest in Darth Vader as a character for their success.

You know, I think that boy has a dictophone.

I for one am loving the Legion backup feature. Yes, I am hoping that they get their own book because with so many characters 8 pages a month is not nearly enough.

But we got plenty of Danny Blaine and although I don't care for the mental illness aspect, I am pleased that he is getting the spotlight I always wanted him to have.

I'm very intrigued by the mysteries that were set up. I have a feeling that Blok may be taking on a humanoid appearance, but I could be wrong. Anyway, can't wait to see what's next!

That's what I was thinking, a reverse Sneckie, though it seems more a Waid thing to do (micro-lad) than a Johns' thing. Since they haven't shown Bloc's face yet, it's not too late for them to come up with something actually creative but probably better to just let it die on the vine.

I enjoyed Adventure #1. I thought the artwork appealing and the stories were interesting, if not terribly heavy. My overall impression of both features was that it was aimed at more of a younger audience, which is ok by me.

That said, my complaint is that it was a very light reading - not much substance for $4.00 on the barrel. I hope it gets a little more detailed in upcoming issues, even if indeed aimed at a young crowd. I plan on adding it to my pull list for the year to find out.

I'm not that big of a fan, so you don't offend me.

But, I bet if you ask the younger generation of movie goers, who like scifi, what do they like best about Star Trek, they'll say, "The Borg."

The truth is that you can judge success by many criterian.

I DO agree that SciFi and/or fantasy has a limited audience, but I don't think it's nearly the 'fringe' genre that you think, at least not to the generation coming up now, the 10 to 30 year olds.

Computer and console games, and manga, have changed all of that.

I'm probably still not on the same page, but I kept it short.

I think Blok will end up having Mordru's face...just for another unnecessary soapy twist.

Here's what else I thought!

http://bottlecityofkanga.blogspot.com/2009/08/adventure-comics-1-game-of-two-halves.html