Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! A ThreeBoot Post-Mortem: What Worked, What Didn't

Gentlefolk, I thought it might be worthwhile to have a separate thread about what we learned about good and bad Legion art and storytelling from the ThreeBoot. You might disagree that the 3Boot deserves that much additional attention at this point. For myself, it's nice to think back on the last 4 years about the good and the bad, and separate that from concerns about what happened with issue #50. So to kick off:

Something else else I Liked: The Legion as part of a larger movement similar to today's millenial generation/Obama campaign phenomenon.

Something else else I Didn't Like: Waid mistakenly portraying the millenial/Obama generation with Baby Boomer/Anti-War confrontationalist attitudes and behaviors.

To give Waid some credit, I think he was tapping into the same youthful, generational change phenomenon that the Obama campaign rode to victory. It's impossible for me not to think about those early-issue scenes of Legion plaza filled with kids when I look at video of the election night celebrations in Grant Park and around the U.S., or the unprecedented gathering for the inauguration. And, Waid was spot on about the pervasive surveillance culture, especially for kids. How many of you have seen that TV commercial for the service that calls your cell-phone based on your kid's phone GPS location? And the gal in Legion plaza with all the viewers out of her back (what was her name?) was a heroic version of myspace and facebook.

But, Waid totally blew it by grafting Baby Boomer-era rebelliousness and pugnaciousness on top, which I think is what really alienated many fans. The "To the barricades" mentality doesn't work today like it did in 1968 Paris. Many of the hardcore Legion fans (well represented in this forum) took personal affront to "Eat it Grandpa!" since so many of us are approaching or are at that grandparent age range. It's also a more-than-fair criticism to ask how capturing the millenial/Obama campaign spirit could translate into exciting superhero action.

I've only read portions of the stories in question. But bearing that in mind, I don't think there's one "youth attitude," nor one "boomer attitude," doublechinner. So whatever problems I might still be having with the series when I finally have the chance to read the whole thing-- well, they probably won't have much to do with that.

In fact, the strongest interplay I've seen in the stories so far had everything to do with seeing characters who shared an overall goal but came to blows over the means to achieving it. (ie-- the power struggle between Cos and Brainy.) That's not about some "typical boomer" or "typical post-Gen-X" attitude at all. It's pretty much in keeping with the dynamics of every attempt at a social/political movement that's happened since the dawn of time.

A couple issues off the top of my head.

1) I agree the "Eat it Grandpa" was the wrong message. I understand that he was trying to equate the legion with a movement, but it would have been nice if that movement was a POSITVIE movement (such as, you know, inspiring people t be HEROIC). Eat it Grandpa doesn't do this.

2) Not explaing WHY. To me Waid never explains a) where the Legion comes from b) why it calls itself the Legion of "Super-heroes" and c) what it's actual motivatios are. Without knowing this, to me, it was hard to care. You radically change the nature of the Legion, but you never explain what the NEW Legion is

3) Too much in-fighting and too soon. I was rereading some of my early threeboot, because I remember enjoying those issues, but I realized one of the things that turned me off. The Legion turned against itself TOO soon. The Legion, it's purpose, it's characters are never firmly established before they start tearing themselves apart. If Waid really really wanted to do a team "in-fighting" arc they needed to do it later in the series. Have the first arc (the war) be six issues, show us who the characters are and why we care, and then later show the team dealing with other stress.

4) unlikable characters and stupid changes. Too many times I feel like the writer is pointing and saying "aren't I cool, this isn't the Legion like you knew it." The characters (and partly because they fight amongst themselves so much) you rarely sympathize with them fully, they don't sing to you as much as they used to.

Then you have Micro-Lad, really, what was the point? What did his being from a race of giants ever bring to the story? You change a character that really serves a nice "All-American Boy" role (at least that's the vibe I always got from Gim) to "character who is just there to look large". And Invisible Kid, why do characters have to match their powers? Doesn't that sound kinda simple/stupid.

5) Poor pacing. Honestly, some issues were great, early on, but the energy was really gone by the time the war ended and I felt this book never recovered. Too much time to do ANYTHING. Even when Supergirl was introduced, he spent too much time on her "this is a dream" comment and never RESOLVED it. That should have been a three issue arc where the Legion proves to Supergirl that it isn't a dream or show where she comes from. The fact that he let yet ANOTHER subplot run on for too long.

there's more, like how he never fully followed up on things, left subplots dangling, didn't answer questions, never fully explored the universe (again, if you are going to change it that MUCH you need to explore it well) but I'll just start with that group.

I was very much into the first half dozen issues, the humour was great, the characters seemed fresh and had a nice set of "done-in-one" stories to get you into them.

But then nothing happened. And even when it did happen (the Lemnos plot), it didn't resonate and fell flat. Even when Supergirl showed up there were four issues of nothing much leading into the Domination War, arguably the only interesting thing, plot-wise, in the run, and by then we were in too much of a quagmire to pull out of the tail-spin.

I like Waid's "underagers" vs. "establishment" riff at first, and could even appreciate the obnoxious behaviour of some Legionnaires in illustrating that both sides were part of the problem, but Waid didn't explore it in any meaningful way and didn't let the conflict resolve as much as peter out. Once again, an interesting set-up that then dragged on without dramatic function.

Then Shooter jumped on and the "Legion vs. Establishment" stuff was gone, but the same problems continued, only with internal conflicts. Once again there were no interesting conflicts external to the Legion (faceless invaders again?), and the focus on the internals was.. unpleasant. I didn't need a big happy family, but I also didn't want to read about a bunch of grade-A assholes either. The plot was again flat and drug on for far to long. Plot-wise, the best issue was Shooter's last one (49) and I still firmly believe it's because he was forced to shorten his narrative up and get something done in an issue (now character-wise the issue was awful form a traditionalist Legion standpoint, but that's another story).

I don't think the Legionnaires have to butt heads with the Fatal Five every issue, but there's got to be some interesting conflict to drive this puppy and keep readers interested, which this series lacked throughout. Even if you don't want to recycle the cast of tried and true Legion villains, at least create ones that are fresh and interesting.

One thing that worked was the selection of regular artists. Kitson/Calero/Manapul is quite an impressive trifecta.

During the Waid run, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of 'friends' in the team, so much as 'allies' and 'rivals.'

By the Shooter run, we start seeing signs of friendships forming (Star Boy and Colossal Boy hanging out, Phantom Girl and Light Lass hanging out, Ultra Boy and Chameleon Boy wrestling, etc.) whereas in the earlier Waid run, we were more likely to see Ultra Boy attacking Chameleon or the team attacking each other en masse (during the big Brainy vs Cos faction showdown, where the team divided into Ultra Boy, Karate Kid and Shadow Lass versus every other single Legionnaire, ever, since the rest of the team was on Cos's side...).

On the upside, I loved the presentation of Dream Girl and the 'PreCops.' I only wish Waid had touched on that more (by having Dream Boy turn out to be the PreCop that Nura predicted would lose his wife in the next week, for instance, and using his character more), and spent less time changing other characters but not developing those changes (as he did with Triplicate Girl, changing her origin, and then *doing nothing with it* or with Micro Lad / Colossal Boy, whose altered origin was interesting, but also got abandoned). We got glimpses of places like Colu or Orando, but they were gone in a second, and not a single one of them felt as fleshed out as the presentation of Triton with it's methane-glacier-skiiers in issue 37-38.

One thing Waid handled better than Shooter was the female characters. Dreamy (although Waid *did* kill her off, which takes off points, obviously!) was a much stronger character, as was Light Lass (with her 'gravity storm' on Colu). The male characters were more likely to play the 'victim' role under Waid (Cosmic Boy being tortured by the Dominators while Triplicate Girl is forced to watch, which is the opposite of what would happen under most authors). Supergirl fairly blatantly played 'alpha male' while she was active, showing up half the team at various times, to the point that fragile male egos (such as Ultra Boys) had to be preserved, which made for a fun plot point.

Shooter went too far in the other direction. Waid's Light Lass strutted her stuff on Colu, while Waid's Star Boy was self-identified as a buffoon whose specialty was in getting blown up and making mistakes. Shooter had Star Boy become the 'big gun' in his first two issues, but then had Light Lass turn into the helpless sobbing victim on Planet Pirate Rape (where Fruit Boy was apparently also fondled at knifepoint, which is all sorts of funny, 'cause it's Fruit Boy!). That's not balancing out what Waid did, that's too far in the other direction. Too wrongs. No right. Can't *both* Star Boy *and* Light Lass be competent and capable? Ultra Boy transforms from the Waid version who can't control his powers, or his emotions, and is deeply insecure, to the Shooter version who is an ultra-confident super-stud who has *fantastic* control of his powers. Again, too far in the other direction. Show him *gaining* that control, don't just hand it to him. Where we could have seen character growth, we instead had the Waid characterizations completely replaced.

Theena joins the ranks of memorable non-Legionnaires like Dr. Gym'll and R.J. Brande and Rond Vidar and Gigi Cusimano and Shvaugn Erin, IMO. I'd definitely like to see her return, regardless of the 'boot. Waid (or, more correctly, Barry's artwork) implied a strong connection between Theena and the Dominators (since her pods were *exactly* the same as the Dominator viewing technology we saw during the invasion of their homeworld), and that connection was apparently either an accident or ended up being cut for space at the end of Waids run... I would have liked to see more on that.

That's probably my biggest quibble with Waid's run, is that it was full of promise, but failed to deliver on most of it. Flashes of genius, all too soon abandoned in favor of some major story arcs (Lemnos, Dominators, etc.) that ended fairly abruptly (particularly in the Lemnos arc, where it was downright anticlimactic, and even kind of preposterous to hear the Terror Firma guys who had destroyed a half-dozen planets claim that they didn't know that they were the bad guys and they were sorry...).

My favorite issue of the Waid run would have to be the issue where they go to Naltor.

My favorite issue(s) of the Shooter run would be 37-38 with the presentation of the battle on Triton, Star Boy being a 'big gun' and the introduction of the hapless Fruit Boy, Virus, Spy, Voice, Sonar, etc. and 48 with the Tryouts. 48, in particular, had a dozen little characterization bits, from facial expressions to body language to lines said by the various Legionnaires that made it my hands-down favorite Legion issue since Superboy's Legion. A whole bunch of friendly Legionnaires, but not drowning in treacle, as we also have less than friendly reactions from other Legionnaires, making it not some after-school-special saccharine-fest. While Waid had some neat ideas, they were mostly *big* ideas, and ended up going un-developed. No issue of his run makes me *like* various members of the team, and feel like they *like each other* like some of the scenes in 48.

I would really have liked to see more 'done in one' (or two issues, or four issues) stories, where we see a team of Legionnaires dealing with a specific crisis on some exotic world, and less twelve issue arcs, from *both* creative teams.

I would have liked to see more of the secondary characters being re-cycled, as Theena was, and as Saturn Mom, Pappa Norg and Kinthea / Popoff / LiFong were. It creates the sense that the Legion doesn't exist in a vacuum when they interact with a certain police contact or political liaison or whatever over the course of several issues, and helps to 'ground' what is otherwise a pretty 'spacy' and surreal setting. If a character like Dream Boy is not going to see significant use, don't bother setting them up with a room in the HQ...

I have to disagree with you, in this sense: I don't think that Waid was trying for a Millennial superhero movement with a Boom flavour; I think he was trying for a Boom superhero movement with a Millennial flavour.

In support of this, I point you to the stable, prosperous, bland and boring society that the Legionnaires were trying to stir up. It's much more comparable to the desiccated 1950s-style culture that the Boom was rebelling against than it is to the fractured, dysfunctional 1990s-style culture the Millennials are going to have to deal with.

And I think that the reason it didn't work was because readers had a hard time reconciling superheroism with a movement to change the status quo. I thought it was a great idea, if done properly.

i agree with doublechinner and stephbarton's posts.

let me add that i think waid portraied teenagers the way a narrow-minded parent could see them: shallow, moody... while reading the book i really felt like the writer didn't "click" with the current generation and saw them from a high horse. i don't know, maybe it was just me, but still i really couldn't believe how DC thought they could sell this book to teenagers... or, at least, to those who consider themselves worthiness!

kitson is a very good artist but he's not one of my faves, i think his characters are too stiff. i enjoied manapul a lot more.

i remember a lot of second-rate fill-in artists, though (like kevin sharpe). sorry but i believe calero wasn't much better than those.

All very good points.

Other things I liked:

* I totally agree on the female characters--the portrayals of Dream Girl, Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, Atom Girl and Shadow Lass all added something to these characters that future creative teams can make good use of.


* Establishing Brainiac 5 and Cosmic Boy as "poles" in the Legion. I agree with a lot of the criticism about rivalry versus friendship, but I do think the 3Boot usefully gave us Brainiac 5 and Cosmic Boy as two poles of influence and attraction, and I think that fits. Cos was a non-entity through much of the original Legion, until Levitz really started emphasizing the Founders in the 1980s. The 3Boot Cos synthesized a lot that was good from the previous 2 incarnations and made him a force to be reckoned with. Also, 3Boot Brainy returned to his 1Boot glory, and the backstory of Brainy and Colu was quite good, I thought. And say what you like, but Brainy's lab full of goats was teh funny.

* The Saturn Girl/Lightning Lad relationship -- before Shooter, I thought Waid and Calero did a GREAT job showing some of the mechanics of their relationship -- like the line about dating a telepath forces you to be really honest. They seemed like deeply commited couple whose relationship was forged in adversity and based on real trust and affection.

* Star Boy -- I just liked everything about this Thom Kallor (and I liked the 2Boot, too), and I may miss him more than any other character, especially since we are left with an adult, schizophrenic Thom in the 21st Century.

Things I Didn't Like

* Saturn Girl -- Despite the nice relationship touches with Lightning Lad, I think Imra really suffered through much of the 3Boot. She has always been, from the beginning, one of the poles of power and influence in the Legion, and in this version she really wasn't. Less said about Shooter's treatment of her, the better.

* Sun Boy -- the character started off very interestingly, and then just got totally dropped. Really too bad.

* Art -- Yes, I loved Barry's designs for the characters. Probably the best since Cockrum's in terms of thoughtful matching of character and costume. Calero was fascinating and creative, and Manapul is another rising star. Having said all that -- it should be abundantly clear now that doing Legion as a monthly series requires more than one artist. I don't have any idea how and if the current economics of comics allow for that or not, but I think DC needs to figure it out. Back-ups, rotating arcs, something.

I think this reboot generally failed the same way the other reboots failed - by diverging from the initial blueprint of the Legion which had been successful for 30 some-odd years. That blue print being, concisely; action stories about a large group of teenage heroes performing good deeds in an optimistic future setting.

If you look back at all the reboots, they each stray from this blueprint in one way(s) or another, and IMHO failed because of it. In the case of Mr. Waid, his original premise of a dysfunctional future with a rebel youth movement was problem #1. The changing of the Legionnaires' origins and powers and names and skin colors was more "change for changes' sake" rather than important to any plot progression, and was problem #2. The time spent on these insignificant (distracting) changes bogged the story pace to a crawl - problem #3. His best storyline came with the Dominators, all his new villains were uninspiring - problem #4.

I thought the artwork was excellent throughout the entire run, and Mr. Shooter incorporated some blueprint elements on his watch to revive my interest in the title. Too bad he was chop-blocked just as he was gathering momentum. This reboot version did produce the supporting characters of Theena and Morrisey, and to a lesser extent Gazelle and Sizzle (nice to have some more alien-ish superheroes), but aside from some nice artwork moments, the version for me is forgettable.

KQ hit the nail on the head; the threeboot turned the core concept of the Legion on it's head. Give me civic-minded youths (with a few exceptions) who are doing good deeds both for and also with the support of a beneficial future society. Let them save the day from colorfully costumed evil-doers. Don't give me bratty anti-social "protesters" against a straw-man "bad" adult society and have them defeat wave after wave of hostile invaders. I don't think that we'll be going back to that core concept after all is said and done either. It doesn't seem very much in-step with comics today.

I saw no connection between Obama and Threeboot. None at all.

Waid's ideas were interesting... but never really seemed to click. Might'a been better off tried as a limited Elseworlds series.

Other than the social/youth movement (which fizzled quickly), there was nothing so innovative that Waid couldn't have just used Reboot and skipped ahead a year or so, and let whatever Reboot elements he didn't like fall by the wayside (it's easier to ignore than reboot).

Good points: Kitson's art. Bedard's run. #15 cover. #3. That's about it.

Shooter's run did hold its good elements, but as I've said elsewhere, coming in cold, guns a-blazing on a 16-issue arc is biting off a mountain. Shooter is a good enough writer to have built up to a huge arc, slowly incorporating 1 to 3 parters into an epic. Starting off the bat with a story that took a full year to begin to develop was just too much. As I've said, a lot of it read well in one sitting... but it was hard to justify following month-in, month-out with a pantomime cast few seem heavily invested in.

Did work
1) Dream Girl's characterization in issue 2.

2) M'rissey (conceptually)


Didn't work

1) Team motivation: The preboot team was a group of heroes coming together to be heroes. The reboot team was a group of youth learning to be heroes. The threeboot team was a bunch of jerks continuing to be jerks--the reasoning for their attitude became more implausible each time it was employed.

2) Team competence: The threeboot team's ever succeeding at anything was yet another strain at my suspension of disbelief. Time after time, they won only because of the tiresome, overbearing presence of Brainy or Cos. And each time they did, it felt like it was only because the author wrote the jerks into a situation and just picked Brainy or Cos to have the magic way out.

3) Genocide. A single legionnaire acquiescing to the destruction of a planet and its people should be enough to banish that version to not only elseworld status, but evil-legion-elseworld status. Of the few plots that could be relevant in the modern era of Bosnia and Darfur, this was the most sickening.

I agree with most people that the threeboot was mostly wasted potential. But what potential!

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.comics.dc.universe/2006-04/msg01523.html points out something that would, I think, have made the "youth rebellion" angle more palatable to many readers. If Waid had emphasized that - like in the 1960s - "adults are the enemy" was really a facade distracting from the real clash. The overall culture was the enemy. Also, revealing what had made the older generations complacent would've helped make the culture clash more convincing. In the 60s, the older generations had experienced depression and war. Waid started out with a world that had seen peace and prosperity for 300 years (Shooter's mention of a war within living memory was a retcon, just as it was in his first run in the 1960s)... so what was it that made older people's experiences different?

This is why I loved the threeboot, at least in potential: It felt more realistic to me than almost any other superhero comic. I hold that people wouldn't be likely to become superheroes to protect the status quo. All superheroes would have to get political.

That was one thing that bugged me from the get go, the Legion formed because they were "bored." They sought out conflict because, well, Waid doesn't really explain. He sets up this movement/generational conflict than drops it. So he gives us hints that the adults are uber controlling (Public Network) and the Legion is righteous (fighting on Llalor) but really it's just hints, and then Waid drops it so quickly, but it was around long enough to

a) confuse the readers as to what the new status quo is. This obviously was NOT the same as the original Legion but their purpose and reason d'etra are never explained

b) taint people's perceptions of the threeboot Legion. "Eat it Grandpa" didn't stick around too long, but the idea behind it, that this Legion didn't form to be Superheroes, but formed for other reasons, did stick around and really tainted this Legion. Add "Eat it Grandpa" to the already bickering Legion and their unlikeability factor goes through the roof.

New Thought--

I realized I forgot to write what worked for me in this version and don't want to sound super-negative so here's what I liked/worked.

Dream Girl and Pre-cog cops. That was cool and a nice concept, and I really liked how Nura acted in that entire issue. One of my favorite issues of Legion period.

Humor, I liked the humor that existed early on in the run. Between the goats in brainy's lab, to a lot of the one-liners. However, by the time the team started bickering with eachohter, the one-liners lost their charm and just turned into caustic sarcasim, but I liked the stuff early on.

Some of Kitson's costumes. I do think that is the best Cosmic Boy costume I've ever seen, and the Dream Girl design was super as well. I don't think Kitson was the right artist for the actual book (too static and everyone looked alike) but I did like some of his designs (not all, but some).

M'rissery--I think he could be a very cool addition to the Legion period.

Projectra under Shooter--yeah yeah, I love Jeckie and it sucks seeing her go bad, but darnnit, she kicked butt (besides, by this point we all knew the threeboot was going bye-bye, so lets have some fun with it).

I'm sure there's more, but I would have to flip through the threeboot to see what they are. But I never really like changes for change sake, like other posters have mentioned, Waid changed things like Triplicate Girl's orgin and Colossal Boy, but he never did anything with those changes to warrent them.

Oh, one more thing, the Letter Pages when we had them.

Some of the folks above have pointed out exactly what was wrong with this version of the Legion.

Why not stick with what worked in the first place. They were basically the Justice League of the future. They fought against world conquering menaces or bad guys e.g., the Fatal 5, that the Science Police couldn't deal with. Even some natural disasters either on Earth or other UP planets or the occasional Khund invasion.

Throw in some romantic interest between certain characters and some rivalries and bingo, a winning formula.

I would like to see a complete updated 21st century remake of the Adventure era Legion including the recruitment of Superboy and go from there with more detail of how all the members were allowed to join.

Any good writer could do these adaptations. A lot of those stories didn't have every member in every issue so a good artist need not be afraid of burnout. Or, have an artist do a six issue cycle or skip every 5th issue like Coipel used to. It wouldn't be any worse than drawing the JSA of late. That's a mob over there every issue.

I think most of the good comic book stories have already been written. That's why there is so much letdown from today's story lines which just don't seem to deliver at the end.

This reminds me. As much as anything else, a major thing that makes the Legion 'feel right' for me is the fan participation. Tryouts issues that include fan-submitted characters, costume contests, Legion elections where the fans get to vote, Bits of Legion Business, etc. Waid, with the exception of a letters page, barely touched on that. Shooter introduced M'Rissey, and made some in-jokes and planted some easter eggs for the fans, as well as having a Tryouts issue, but still didn't capture the spirit of the fan participation that, IMO, *engaged* the Legion fans back in the day and gave us a sense that this was *our* book, too, and invested us in it.

my 2 cents:

liked kitson's art. didn't care about the new costumes though.

i agree the pacing was whack. 5 issues of slowness and then a wrap up issue where everything is finished up. especially the dominators storyline, it just lacked the drama or excitement such a big story should have.

"eat it grandpa" was juvenile. it wouldve been fascinating to see the free-speaking self-determinative legion in a brave new world, big brother environment of watchdogs and repression. this society waid created would have cloistered the adults and grandpas of the world as well as the youth. the legion could have stood for freedom, independance, and community instead of coming off as sixteen year olds that want to take the car out late.

one more thing: we had some kick nass female characters, i think all of which were tough but none with quite the firepower of the other boots.

no lightning lass andromeda type character.

What didn't work - we never got around to the Legion's origin. OK, the adults are controlling and stifling, and there are youths all around who bristle at this and want more freedom than "the system" allows. But how did THIS group get together? What's their real purpose for being? I realize that the original Legion didn't have a real origin for a long time either, but it was a different time then - every kid was a member of some backyard "club" of buddies, it worked on its level for kids of the 60's, it was a neato thing for Superboy and Supergirl to be involved in. Now, they're headliners and super-heroes. It wouldn't have been such a terrible thing for little hints here and there to have been dropped to the point where we could piece together the origin to some degree. We didn't even have that little.

What did work: Issue # 2 - the Brainy/Dream Girl contrast, the goats at the end - that issue was beautiful. Unfortunately, that was also the last issue about which that could be said. That issue was the peak of this run.

WHAT WORKED:
-I'll agree with those who say that, in general, the art was very good in the run. Kitson, Calero and Manapaul all draw beautifully.
-Loved Triplicate Girl's new origin. Too bad nothing was done with it (this very same thing happened to M'Onel in the reboot, a really interesting setup with great potential to produce excellent stories that in reality went nowhere)
-Also liked the alienness of this boot's Chameleon Boy. This is the way I'd like Reep to be written.
-Also quite liked the new Vi, although I wish I had seen more of her.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK
-Well, most obviously "Eat it Grandpa" and everything relating to that. Hated the lack of an origin for this boot, as a consequence we never found out what they were about.
-Brainy. I hated his characterization in this run. I honestly think this is the most misunderstood character in comicdom :-) So here's a guy with a 12th level intelligence who chooses to be with beings very much less smart than he is. Just imagine yourself being forced to spend the rest of your life exclusively in the company of beings much less intelligent than you are, say chimpanzees. Or small children (I'll get in sooo much trouble for this). Brainy is NOT impatient, in fact he must have the patience of a saint to endure it! To describe him as impatient or antisocial is really, really missing the point, he is much more like Theresa of Calcutta than just about any other legionnaire. No wonder his fellow Coluans don't understand his choices. But I digress...
-Saturn Girl's muteness. What's the point of that? To change 'speech' balloons into 'telepathy' balloons in the book?
-Phantom Girl's new origin really didn't make any sense at all. Nobody could ever function like that, half here and half there (except for Dream Girl, that is).

Well, I jumped on with Threeboot (still haven't read the Bedard and Shooter stuff) and read it in trades. So here' my take:

What Worked:
-Brainiac 5 as a manipulative jerk. Not sure on the relative release dates, but Waid tapped into the same ideas that have made House, MD one of the most popular shows on television. People can weirdly relate to obnoxious and neurotic geniuses, and his characterization was a large part of what drew me in to the Legion.

-Dream Girl as spacey, sarcastic, and hyper-capable. Waid managed to make precognition a useful ability without being cheap - she was memorable, dangerous, and likable.

-Atom Girl and Shadow Lass similarly worked well with badass attitudes. Atom Girl's debut is one of those moments I can show my non-comics-reading friends to sell them on the sheer coolness of the Legion - and Light Lass was well-contrasted at first by being cheerful and ditzy but crazy-powerful (although her characterization took a nosedive once Supergirl showed up).

-Cosmic Boy being so friggin' significant. The long wait before he actually got involved in combat gave a lot of weight to his leadership role; this was made even more effective in his characterization throughout the Dominator War (winning a war while still adhering to superhero ideals) and his recruitment into the Knights Tempus. He felt like the Legion's Captain America.

-The first seven issues in general. Waid has a tendency to start strong and peter out after the 12-issue mark, and here he laid a lot of good character work that later writers could easily use. In general this was a strong start to a continuity - a lot of things were thrown out seemingly so that other writers could make use of them down the line.

-Fights (at least in the Lemnos arc). I was impressed by the fact that every Legionnaire was useful and got some time to kick ass in the battle spreads. I was tired of team books like JLA where everyone fiddled around until Superman punched something or Batman pulled a Deus ex Machina out of his rear.

-Some of the dialogue in those early issues was fantastic. Aside from the oft-mentioned goat bit, there were also gems like "I have ULTRA BOY. I'll take those odds."

-The origin of Big City. That entire explanation is filled with copious amounts of win.

-I like this universe's versions of Carggites and Imskians - having Imskians just be small made Atom Girl more special. The classic Legion always weirds me out because so many of the heroes basically come from entire planets of superheroes - I think it's to their benefit that the Legionnaires come across as superheroes to their native populations as well as to humans.

-Better definition and limitation of Element Lad's powers. His power level was reduced from "godly" to "sane" through the physical contact limitation. The original is one of those perpetual "why didn't he..." characters, what with being able to turn anything into anything with a thought.

-Kitson's costumes. IMO, these are all gorgeous examples of updates that manage to be modern without sacrificing an ounce of the original versions' collective spirit.

-Theena - an extremely convenient plot device character that worked rather well.

-I for one think that Black Star Boy and Asian Atom Girl were positive changes. Both changes amount to cosmetic details as meaningless as their new costumes, so I have a hard time understanding why any of the old-school fans care. It's a new continuity, after all.

-Some cool alien worlds - too bad Colu was genocide'd away.


What Didn't:
-The villains. Oh my goodness, the VILLAINS. Aside from Elysion, this was probably the single most forgettable bunch of antagonists I have ever seen. The sheer amount of fighting that involved nothing but faceless invaders gave the Legion time to show off their powers, but it came at the cost of any sense of drama.

-War plots. First off, gearing the entire 36 issues of a run around two slow-building wars was repetitive and boring. Secondly, this forced the heroes into situations that were ill-suited for superhero narratives. Waid explained that the superhero costumes and names were basically a surface, fashion type thing - so it basically came across as trendy kids who functioned as an intergalactic militia in superhero costumes, rather than actual superheroes. It also forced the Legion to deal with questions that are beyond a "no-killing" superhero morality - leading to "only in a superhero comic" wall-banging logic of Terror Firma's "reformation," as well as the questionable manner in which the Dominators were dispatched.

-Hell, too much genocide in general. Just how many planets were wiped out, taking toys out of the toybox before they could even be used?

-The dystopia premise. The Legion's "Eat it, Grandpa" reaction (which a lot of people seem to exaggerate, IMO) to such things as genetic tracking was rather justified. But the details in place to set up the Legion's rebellion were hugely contrived. Waid seemed to be working backward from the idea of "teenaged superheroes in the future." There had to be a reason why they were teenagers, why in the 30th century, why rebellion was justified, etc. etc. etc. The setting clumsily justified the premise, as opposed to being a natural part of the premise.

-In general I liked the comic IN SPITE of the "underagers vs. authority" premise, just because it was so clearly derivative and backward from an existing concept.

-Supergirl. I HATE the current version of Supergirl, and she was particularly hateable throughout her tenure aside from the scene with the Kandor weapon museum.

-Plot threads that disappeared without explanation. Ultra Boy learning to control his powers (a fine character arc for a new continuity). Invisible Kid's (or any other character's) stalker crush on Supergirl - although that may have been intended as another "hey, another writer can do this when I'm done" thing.

-From my skimming, Manapul seemed far better at this - but Kitson utterly sucked at creating an interesting sci-fi environment. I never felt like I was in a "OMG THE FUTURE IS COOL" type setting, which I think kills the point of having the Legion in the far-flung future.

-Lack of cool-looking alien Legionnaires for most of the run.

-A lot of the things I've heard about Shooter's treatment of the female characters make me retch. I actually liked elements of Saturn Girl's cheating scene - the idea of a telepath who selectively skims others' thoughts to confirm her own insecurities is an interesting idea, if a poor choice for Saturn Girl - but...Ayla saying she dated so many of the Legion's guys because she doesn't like to fall asleep alone? Projectra pulling a Dark Phoenix? Just, ugh. (Also: I wouldn't mind Saturn Girl being into S/M if she were written as a healthy S/M participant - from the descriptions I've read of her characterization, Shooter clearly has no idea what he's talking about in regards to the fetish and should stay the hell away.)

-As has been said, the Legion started in-fighting far too soon. You just don't DO that by the end of the first arc - that's a "three arcs down the line" type thing.

And most importantly...

-Lack of inter-Legion interaction. IMO, the Legion would have a lot more mainstream appeal if it tapped into the "shipping" demographic - playing with romantic possibilities as characters have ambiguous and humorous interactions that could set up possible relationships. What few relationships DID surface (Triplicate Girl/Element Lad especially) were so underdeveloped that I had no emotional investment in them. Every Legionnaire basically existed in a vacuum, which deadened the whole title.


So there are a Threeboot-liking noob's thoughts!

Supergirl being so undefined didn't work. Was she really the 21st Century Supergirl? How did she get here? Was she dreaming? Did she have a purpose? Why was her personality so different? These questions lingered month after month after month. Their resolution sprawled over three or different books which many Legion readers didn't pick up. When the answers finally came nobody seemed to care.

What worked for me:
1. Kitson's art. Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I thought it was better this time than when he did L.E.G.I.O.N. years ago.
2. Manapul's art. Took a little time to grow on me, but it fit the spirit and youth of the Legion.
3. Phantom Girl. Excellent characterization and spirit. Not reduced to being U-Boy's girlfriend.
Also like the way she was drawn. Very nice.
4. Costumes-Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad (the way the lightning bolts sometimes seemed alive), Dream Girl (by Kitson only), Star Boy, Phantom Girl, Triplicate Girl, Saturn Girl, Light Lass,
Timber Wolf.
5. Issue 3 for sure. It was fun, had intrigue, you name it. Very sexy cover.
6. Almost every cover.
7. Seeing the Dominator again.
8. Phantom Girl's comic book collection and her protective nature of the same.

What didn't work for me:
1. We all look back at Adventure 247. What a simple story, tweaked (Lightning Boy becomes Lad, costumes change), but interesting and the one which started it all. THE ORIGIN. Did this group HAVE an origin? Totally forgettable.
2. Like you all, "Eat it Grandpa."
3. Calero's art. Draw half a face, color the other half black. Hated it.
4. Chameleon's costume. What do those symbols mean? One might mean change, the other two?
5. Chameleon's attitude early on "Stupid Legion" this and "Stupid Legion" that. Unnecessary.
6. Timber Wolf was out of control, then...what?
7. Costumes-Element Lad-ugh. The blue and green 70's version was better even. Micro Lad /Colossal Boy-shoulders kept getting bigger. Invisible Kid-Take the jacket off and stay awhile already.
8. Saturn Girl as a mute. Mostly non-speaking maybe. Mute-no way.
9. Meandering, unending story arcs.
10. Conflict between Supergirl and Mon-el-what was the point?
11. Infighting everywhere. This is the friggin' Legion! They're supposed to be a family!
12. Issue 48. Nice characters, but unnecessary given it was ending two issues later. Could have been used to end the story arc. Tryouts were totally unnecessary.
13. Issue 50.
14. Issue 50.
15. Too many unresolved stories-like in Issue 50!
16. Invisible Kid was what, 13? Too small/young.
17. Ultra Boy's slicked-back hair.
18. Supergirl's name added to the title. A gimmick, plain and simple. Should have been "The Legion of Super-Heroes with Supergirl."
I could go on and on.

Brainiac 5 didn't work. Let me take that back since Brainiac 5 didn't even show up in the threeboot until Shooter took over. Before that all we saw was Vril Dox II from L.E.G.I.O.N. being called Brainiac 5. The really bad thing is Waid and Kitson didn't even try to disguise the fact that it was basically Vril Dox II.

I agree about Brainiac 5, and will also toss in Timber Wolf's portrayal. If I ever have to read Brin depicted as snarl, snarl, crazy again I'm going to scream. Of course, Johns can't seem to write dialogue for him that doesn't include some sort of obligatory wolf/den/pack reference so I'm not optimistic. Please, whoever writes the version read Levitz's version before trying to write him. Brin was, well, a little slow but basically well meaning and his temper flashes were as much out of frustration as anger.