Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! LSH #50 Spoilers

I don't know what to say about this issue. I've mentioned here that I wasn't really getting Shooter's story, but this issue was insultingly bad. This wasn't even up to Silver Age standards of story.

When I went into the comic shop this week, I hadn't been since before Christmas. Between finding time to get there and certain financial issues, I just hadn't had a chance to get there. After four weeks of not buying comics, I was starting to think "well, what if I just stopped now. What would I miss?" I told myself that I'd miss the final issue of the Legion and the last two issues of Final Crisis. I spent about a hundred bucks on comics Wednesday. After reading those three issues, I may be done after all. I'll buy the occasional Usagi trade, but if this is the direction that comic writing is going, I'm out. All the way out.

I've kept reading the Legion over the years because I keep hoping that someone will recapture what made it such a magical read 20+ years ago. I think I'm too old for it to happen again. At this point, I'd rather just treasure the old stories and ignore the new. I really think I'll be happier that way.

Don't blame Justin Thyme blame DC. JT had another writer's several plot lines to tie up as best as he could in one issue. I actually think they did an all right job. Story still sucked. It was a hurried hack job but with that in mind it wasn't that bad.

The art on the other hand killed me. Didn't like it at all. Combined with the bad story this made the issue pretty horrible.

My guess the writer was Bedard but I don't want to blame him. Blame DC. How the hell does Didio still have his job? Final Crisis was a flop IMO, DC overall is selling much less than Marvel, and some things like the Legion seem so much like an after thought.

Can of worms being opened.....

NOW! This is probably going to get me "Whatever Variant"-ed but I'm just curious as to why no one seems to be chasing after Francis and Jim with their burning pitchforks?

From what Francis has said in this thread, and I think what we can gather from Jim's old interview and his admission that he had nothing to do with this issue - it sounds like the two of them just up and quit this book very suddenly.

Who knows when exactly but obviously after #49 was written and the solicit for this issue was announced. So obviously, very last minute.

Now I know they had had their story majorly screwed with by losing some of the issues they had to tell it in (and that would sprock anyone off) - but isn't that part of the 'deal with the devil' you make when you work somewhere like DC Comics?

And if you've brought your readers this far along, isn't it your (professional? moral? creative?) responsibility to give them just that *one* final issue to send them off happy and complete with?

I don't know. I'm not blaming Jim or Francis since obviously I don't know the whole story but I think it's a bit tough to lay *all* the blame on 'Justin Thyme' and whoever the poor artist was for trying to condense four months worth of story into one issue and then draw the two dozen or so characters that that story revolves around all in the space of like, four weeks.

... I have to agree to a certain extent Blacula. Would a month really have made a huge difference to whatever schedule Francis was on to have finished the Legion run first? DC clearly don't have a problem delaying books or switching artists at short notice. Couldn't he have finished one project (especially considering that he only had one issue left to go) before starting another?

Hard for us to say, we weren't there and didn't have the decision to make.

Slketch Lad says :

I don't think the art was as bad as many here have stated. There has been worse art in Legion books. It is too bad we didn't get a true farewell issue from fjm. I bet it would have had that extra ....oomph!

And I'ts true remember Lee Moder o Jason Amstrong...
It's a shame the Projectra's story is unfinished, Cosmic Boy returns, Trips & Karate Kid, Dream Boy? and so many subplots.
And why Element Lad and Pahntom Girl are in te cover, Atom Girl and Ligthning Lad deserve more this honor.
And where is Sun Boy in this poor finale?
Farewell to another Legion Boot, I only wait with hope for a better time..coming soon!

After reflecting some more on what happened with Jim Shooter's story line, we can only hope, and it's probably a long shot, is this story could not be resolved due to what will happen in Legion of 3 Worlds.

Perhaps the Projectra, Timber Wolf, Phantom Girl, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl issues for this version of the Legion will be revealed at the end of the mini series.

I have to agree with Director Lad, it's time to review my reading/buying habits. Final Crisis made my head hurt. Superman kicked out of Action Comics. Batman is no longer Bruce Wayne. OK, I'll sit those titles out for a while, no problem. No Legion of Super Heroes comic you say? Looks like I'll have more disposable income for the near future. Thanks Dan!

I got out of a sick bed to buy this final issue. I've just read it... I may never recover.

The only good thing about how wretched this issue was... it was SO terrible that I don't feel as sad as I normally would that there won't be another issue coming next month.

I feel as if a rabid dog has been put to sleep.

R.I.P.

I understand what you are saying Blacula...and if this comic was produced in a vacuum, I'd agree with you about Jim and Francis.

But, ever since Infinite Crisis to Final Crisis (and unfortunately it doesn't appear to be ending soon), DC Editorial has done little to cultivate certain creative teams over another. In the Legion's case it's been "F" over the actual title because we want Johns to do whatever he wants.

Shooter (and Manapul) were hired on board with a 16 issue storyline approved by the editorial staff and went to work. Didio or whoever woke up some time after that and decided to screw them and change everything for something else. Instead of letting them finish what they started, they wanted them to wrap it up prematurely. SnM may have come up with a way to do it, but it might not still been enough for TPTB and their precious Ode to Superboy-Prime, Green Lantern and Flash in the 30th century called Legion of 3 Worlds or something. Who knows?

I feel once they let them create, they should have let the story conclude without interference. And if they did decide to cut things short early on, then its an editor's job to reign in the creators so that everyone is happy. Most of Shooter's plots should have been resolved before #50 hit the stands. Jim should have been better at finding stopping points and the editors should have said "no" to a plot or two long before now. "Finish this one first, then start with that one."

And Francis probably didn't want to draw the sh*tty script that someone pulled out of their @$$ to make #50 possible. He's just being a gentlemen not to say it here in public.

Well, now you've gone and posted something I have to agree with. So let me provide another target for the pitchforks by saying that everything I've read about Mr. Shooter and his time on the threeboot has left me feeling that he doesn't really care about the Legion. He does good shuffling of team-members to keep fans happy, he can see where plot points should be addressed, and he has other nice writing skills. But these are skills that can be applied to any team or book, and that sounds like what this assignment was to him. So, when/if DC asked him to put in more effort than he could agree to, he left. Folks would probably support such a decision, and I'm not about to argue over it. On pondering it, though, I couldn't help but envision Mr. Waid feeling disappointed with negative repercussions on the Legion from any perceived missteps by him. Whereas with Mr. Shooter, I can't see him caring about much other than his particular story.

We were robbed. We deserve a redo. I suppose that nobody considered that T-Wolf might have been the Legionaire that passed.

Who needs the Hardback now that you know how disappointingly this resolves.

My best Legion moment of late is the 1st page of Final Crisis #6!!

You wrote exactly what I believe in, Nightcrawler, in terms of editorial business. It was poorly, awfully handled. Shooter was treated like an a$$ having to rework his story every 5 minutes to whatever Johns/Didio wanted to do. Even though he was hired to tell a 16-issue story, from begining to end. Funny is that Johns can do whatever he wants with the Legion (like now, by making them a sub-team to GL, Flash and Superlame-Prime).
Thanks for making it all so clear, N.

I don't see how you can think that. Shooter has a long history with the Legion and has shown a lot of pride in his work.

I agree that Shooter either quit or was fired before issue no. 50, but none of us know the deal he worked with DC. When he came onto the Threeboot, it was in desperate straits, and DC needed something to add life. DC figured Shooter would bring fans back to the book. They pimped the hell out of his return. But to do that, the editors probably had to make some concessions to Shooter to allow him to do what he wanted with the team. Then, Legion of 3 Worlds is announced, the book is canceled early, and Shooter's plans get shot to hell. Suddenly, TPTB want the story condensed significantly and want a different ending. As a writer, Shooter was re basically being told to drop his vision for the story. That could very well have been counter to Shooter's agreement with DC, so he would have been perfectly justified in walking off. Alternatively, he could have objected to the demands and been fired (and replaced by a warm body who would do what the editors wanted).

You only need to look at Lo3W to realize that it creates huge continuity problems for the Threeboot. While we do not know when in Threeboot continuity it takes place, it could not come after No. 50 if Shooter was going to kill one of the longstanding legionnaires who was already appearing in Lo3W (there already is a gaffe in not having Gazelle and Sun Boy in Lo3W). And, most likely, the Threeboot could not really come after Lo3W, given that it is almost certain that several Threeboot characters are going to wind up in body bags.

I recognize that comic book writers do have to answer to editors, and often modify their vision. However, there also is a point where a writer's pride in his work comes into play and being asked to bastardize a story so that it is completely unrecognizable may be too much to demand from any creative person. At that point, quitting is the only appropriate thing to do.

Who knows? Maybe a couple of the unresolved Threeboot plot points will be addressed in Lo3W. I could see Johns having Threeboot Projectra defect to the LSV for a few panels as a bone to the Threeboot readers. (Of course, something like that would be handled in very cursory fashion before she is killed or we jump back to Superboy Prime and the 31st Century Green Lantern.)

This was something I was thinking about. Not that I would have bought he TPB anyway, but we should all, 100%, boycott the Enemy Manifest TPB. I hope my LCS won't order a single copy. The way I look at it, trades collect complete story arcs, and with this crap as the final part...the story arc has no fitting ending.

Well, now that I've had a chance to reread it.


lol, just joking.

I didn't reread it.

AGREED!

The art was really sub-standard. And the entire issue I was waiting to see Projectra! Hopefully, we'll get a better conclusion in L3W.

Last night I read issue #49-50. I intentionally kept my opinion to myself unless I had something positive to say about the current Legion of Super-Hereos comic. After high school I stopped buying comics (I only bought Legion) but in 2005 I returned to and started buying the archive books, then moving on to the current series and finally back issues of other Legion comic lines.

My understanding is that the earlier issues of the current series were not that popular here on Legion World. When I read them I found myself laughing a lot at the humor that was interjected within and found it to be a welcomed change to the Legion comic I recall. I accepted the fact that characters would look different, possibly act different, that art had changed, names would be changed, and so on. I found the whole "Underager" idea silly and I thought the villain (Lemnos was it?) pretty boring/flat, but overall, I enjoyed most of the issues.

When they brought Supergirl back and I was thrilled. When it started out I loved it. I Liked seeing Kara (I still miss her and Superboy in my Legion). I accepted the fact that this was a revison and that things beyond my comprehension had changed with the DC Infinite Crisis thingy and so facts change on how characters meet and so on. Accepting it as something new I was ok with it. Supergirl's departure was a disappointment, I didn't like how everything was wrapped up so fast and neat at the end. The absence of Cosmic Boy I didn't like at all.

Then we moved on to the Jim Shooter issues. When I heard his name come up as the writer, I was thrilled. I thought to myself "This will be great". I thought things started out slow for the first couple of issues but I had faith it was building up to something awesome. I'd read the comments posted here by others and some I'd agree with, others I thought were greatly exagerated; some found nearly everything offensive. I tried staying out of the discusssions and debates because I wanted everything to turn out well and I do believe it isn't fair to throw arms up into the air and shout at the top of my lungs about things until I see the whole picture; so I waited.

As the series continued I found myself annoyed by the use of the futeristic swearing. It's not that I was offended by it, its just that it seem so out-of-place and came up way to often. These Legionnaires had way to much of a potty mouth. The implied nudity/sex bothered me as well because there was to much of it and I would have preferred it without. It didn't offend me morally, it's just that I would have liked the comic so much more if they had replaced the nudity with romance.

At this point I thought the plot was floundering and going nowhere. I also felt like I wasn't reading a Legion comic other than in name only. The Legionnaires spent so much time fighting with one-another, not just verbally but physically. I hated the attacks of Timber Wolf on the other Legionnaires. Had this been real and not a comic, that guy would have been kicked off the team so fast. I thought having him essentially look the other way when Projectra attacked Phantom Girl was horrible characterization and representation of what the Legion should be. He doesn't do anything about it, waits for Projectra to walk away, activates the emergency response on her ring, and walks away leaving her to bleed to death. Obviously he wanted others to find her or he wouldn't have done the ring thing, but still, him not doing anything about it and even worse, walking away afterwards had to be about the worst characterization of any Legionnaire I have ever seen. I guess I wouldn't want someone like that on my team much less serving as a protector of the planet and galaxy. Terrible writing and portrayal of what the Legion is all about.

This was all to different from the original series for me. Now I understand that such changes were intentional and that's fine, what I am saying is that I never warmed up to those changes. Then we get to all the rumors and in house issues with DC starting to come to a head. The comic is cut short by what 4 issues? Not good.

I had hoped that with things not working out with Shooter, that DC would have let him finish his story. Even though I didn't enjoy his run (other than a couple of issues); even though I liked where he started to go with a plot, and then ended up hating the direction he eventually took it, I thought, "Let him finish before you bring in a new writer." It turns out that DC decided to pull the plug on the comic totally, another call I didn't like. I had hoped another writer would come in and hopefully turn the comic into something I was liking a lot. Guess it wasn't meant to be.

So much of this series I didn't like. Plots were left daggling and unfinished (not completing the Projectra plot I thought was the worst thing). I don't really care if they bring her into the Legion of 3 Worlds as a bad guy now (I'd rather they just forgot about this series entirely). I'd rather they just let it go at this point and not bother to wrap up loose ends in another comic.

So here we are, even though I didn't enjoy Shooters storyline overall, we come to a crash landing. DC most likely changed the ending considerably. I found the whole data ripper concept "ok" up until it was clear there was no villain behind it. "SPLAT"! Not having a conclusion to the Projectra plot "DOUBLE SPLAT"! The constant fighting between Legionnaires "THREE SPLATS AND YOUR OUT"!

So where does this leave me? Well I don't plan on going away again that's for sure. The entire time between high school and 2005, I regretted not buying Legion comics and keeping up with it. I remember waling into the store and looking at them on the shelf, seeing how everything had changed and I figured I was so far behind the times that I'd let it go. I also felt kinda silly buying comics again, so I didn't. I won't make those mistakes again.

My patience with Legion and DC may be longer than others but that's most likely due to the fact that I've been gone for so long. I'll continue buying what Legion is out there and enjoying what I can from it, leaving the rest behind. I'll continue working on my game and eventually include these different versions of the characters as well.

So regardless of how this series ended, I do believe another will rise from the dust. My hopes are that rather than restart the series over again I would like to see DC simply start new adventures, using the original characters and saying "These adventures take place between these two points in time of the original series. I would like to see the DC company look forward and backward into the original series and direct their stories to line up with the eventual history that has already been written. I don't care anything about how the Crisis things changed the DC Universe and how it affected the Legion. I'm simple, I just want good stories, no long story arcs (3 issues per story, with the 4th issue sort of a spotlight on a couple of characters, then moving on to another 3 comic storyline). Yep, I'd be happy with that. Do I expect this? "NO" of coarse not. Do I expect DC to do better than this last series? "Absolutely". Do I expect DC to learn from thier mistakes? "Of coarse I do".

I'm late to the party as usual but it's too important a moment not to throw in my 2 cents.

Did I think this ish was as bad as most of you do? Probably not. The art was halfway decent, and I can't fault the artist for not knowing how to handle Gazelle. Francis handled her differently in different issues, and she's a newbie. Likewise, reading the story for its own sake, it wasn't seriously worse than the last Shooter issues (in fact, it felt so much like Shooter I think it WAS Shooter). Unfortunately, like so much of Legion since the turn of this century, this was ALL buildup and NO payoff. I loved the idea of a universe-wide quantum computing intelligence intent on wiping out all life. Very cool. BUT, if Brainy can upload Legionnaires into that reality and track them, he can certainly affect that reality. It doesn't require Lyle's "Extreme Makeover: Wuss Addition" to unlock the key to this virtual world. The logic is tissue paper. Very bad. Likewise, a malevolent bunch of brain-head females? Why am I not surprised? (Shooter has women issues!) Why did they wait so long to wipe out the "real" world? Besides, there's lots of cool theory that our "real" world is in fact a hologram of a higher-dimensional reality. Why not play off that? IF you are gonna introduce big-think sci-fi ideas in Legion, as DnA and now Shooter have done, and/or tell LOONNNGGG multi-issue epics, as DnA, Waid and Shooter have done, you better have some serious payoff. The Legion hasn't seem a climax worthy of the buildup since Legion Lost. That is lame, lame, lame!

But enough of that. I could complain about the abandonment of the Projectra story, but frankly I hated it, it least in execution, if not in concept. Consequences from Orando's destruction and Terror Firma's seeming clemency? Absolutely! Projectra as all-powerful mistress of the ID? Maybe, but I rarely enjoy seeing one Legionnaire destroy another, and I had to see too much of that the last 2 issues. I won't miss that story.

But even more broadly, I don't know how we could have expected the 3Boot to end as anything other than a trainwreck. It's been a trainwreck from the beginning. The limboizing of the 2Boot, despite it's deep connections to the present day DCU. The supposedly brilliant ideas of Waid that never seemed to show up in the printed comic. Waid's distraction by "52," which I really think is the ONLY project he's cared about in the last 4 years. The sheer impossibility of Barry Kitson, God bless him, drawing 30 pages a month (add in his near-crippling hand injury). The obvious intentional lack of communication going on amongst DC editorial and the creatives. The re-appearance of the "original" Legion just as the 3boot gets going, with NO coordination among the books. DiDio throwing Supergirl into the 3boot because he doesn't know what else to do with her, and he doesn't know how to deal with a Waid Legion and Johns Legion appearing simultaneously. Shooter's hired, but the commitment is lacking from the get-go, and Shooter's work doesn't set the world on fire anyway, getting more hackneyed and misogynist as his run progresses.

I could keep on going, but all of this points to DC editorial that REALLY doesn't know where it's going from one second to the next. The clost DC comes to a coherent creative direction is "whatever Morrison and Johns want." Now, I don't think that's a bad plan, per se, but they have repeatedly shown that they can't even implement that plan successfully (Countdown and Death of the New Gods, anyone?). Given that lack of direction, and the collateral damage the 3boot caused before its first issue, how could this end any differently?

The best hope for the Legion is that Johns DOES want to write the book. Because at this point, I don't think DiDio could recruit any other competent professionals to do it. And THAT'S what makes me SO angry. The Legion was always a hard sell to comics creators. So much to draw, so many moving parts to keep track of. If Curt Swan hated doing it, THAT'S a hard sell. And now, this travesty is gonna make it an even harder sell. Every version of the Legion since 1989 (that's 20 years!) has been rebooted, wiped out, abandoned. Why sign on to that? Only really green artists eager to prove their chops and quickly move on to something better would ever draw this book. Why try and seriously add something to the history of the Legion? Future history is a sandcastle wiped out by tides of indifference and incompetence. So, only someone with the influence of Geoff Johns could get the Legion back on track. I hope he does. I hope he realizes that the mess he's helped make worse is now his responsibility to fix.

I'm rather late here too, but I have to agree with virtually everyone here...this issue was pure drek with a side of indifference.

The thing I can't get my head around is (IMHO) DC truncated Jim's 16 issue run so the threeboot would be gone by the time Final Crisis/Lo3W ended. With all the delays to both Final Crisis and the Legion mini, Shooter and Manapul would have had the time to squeeze in those last few issues and we'd have had a more satisfying conclusion (again, my opinion here)!

This boot of the Legion hasn't been my favorite (I'm definitely a preboot Crisis fanboy), but I always look for the positives of every Legion boot, even if it is the people behind the scenes working on it. This was not a happy ending, or even really an ending at all. It also taints the 50th anniversary wrap up yet again (what a lousy 50th...the cartoon is cancelled, and both the Legion books). It reminds me of a company I used to work for: We spent a few years moving our existing customer base from an old computer product to a new platform. We had a 50/50 party when we reached the halfway point, and there were parties and prizes and general merriment. Two days later a visiting VP told our office we were all being downsized. Like they didn't know that when they had the party?? Ah, memories...

Thanks for whizzing on the campfire, DC!

And on a non-sarcastic and appreciative note, thanks to fjm for being part of our little community. I know many of us look forward to your next work. You are a class act, and I will gladly keep buying your stuff!

Ending this post on the bright side...Lo3W #3's preview is up now on Newsarama, and it looks pretty darn good!!!

-LLL!!!

From CBR, here's a link that may prove interesting:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=6421

Now, whats interesting is what i will copy and paste here...

"CBR: Let's discuss the end of your run on "Action Comics." J.D. Finn was credited as writing the conclusion to your storyline, not you. Are you or are you not J.D. Finn? Because I remember reading your script for "Action Comics" #825 and it was quite different from Finn's story.


Austen: No. I think Eddie is J.D Finn. Maybe. That's a guess. I had a completely different ending in mind, one that left Gog a major villain, and…I mean let's be honest…I was ashamed of this initially, but let's just get this out there: I was fired and blackballed from DC. I was off Superman, period. It became complicated very quickly, from there. I was given the option of finishing the final issue of the arc I had begun, but being suddenly, and very unexpectedly, unemployed, I needed to find work right away doing something else. I was given the option to still write for DC, but not on Superman or any other top, or even mid-level character. I would have had to write under a pseudonym and take some lower tier project like "Prez" or "Blue Devil" that would have probably lasted an issue, and then I'd be out of comics, anyway. I turned that down because I knew that there were people who do like my work and I didn't want to go out with two strikes against me, I wanted to have the opportunity for anyone who did like my work to find it. So I went back to a hectic animation job that left me no time to finish my final script in the week allotted and they got "JD Finn" to do it."

Maybe it's just me, but anyone notice a kind of pattern here, if this is true?

If it is, it sounds to me like Mike Marts may have finished this up. Sounds like Mike Marts was involved with the same type of situation, a run ending and there being problems with the writer, once at marvel, once at DC. And from what i remember, Justin Thyme was used at Marvel first. I may be wrong on this. And maybe i am reaching. And i use the DC reference here, but the marvel reference is in the story in another spot.

What do you think?

my first reaction to #50? relief, actually.

relief that it's over. This is not a title to mourn. Shooter's run was not without merit, but neither was it one to be adored for years to come, even before its premature shortening.

The main accomplishment of this entire 50-issue run is that the Reboot era at its worst (v.4 80-121) now looks a bit better. So does Conway.

Unfortunately, it otherwise mainly stands as a blemish on the resumes of two otherwise worthy writers.

The main crime of #50, other than its replacement of the Shooter script, was the omission of the Projectra storyline. Other than that, it was a forced ending to a story that went on too long anyway, and offered mostly predictable results. The mutiple words/universe-ending thread rang hollow as a last-min intro... but I didn't care. It was a fitting end to an entire run marred by unsatisfactory conclusions.

When all is said and done, I really found very little to care whether this version ever appears again (L3W or not).

five years ago, I assuemd this new book was better than having no Legion book at all. I was wrong. I would rather see DC let the Legion lie fallow for a while than to inflict another ill-advised revisioning ('boot or not), and I hope the 'merged Legions' hinted at is either a red herring or something short of a complete shuffling of rosters; the only merged Leginos I can envision is an intact Johns Neoclassic Legion with the characters from Re and Three that do not otherwise overlap: XS, Shakari, and (if we have to have anyone from Threeboot) the newer Shooter creations.

rick, interesting, but as I'm not familiar with Austen or any of his work I really have nothing to add.

Craig, if the story was worth 16 issues, I'd agree. But all along it's felt like it's been too drawn out. It would have worked better as a trilogy of 4-parters than the Never-Ending Story.

doub, I fully agree.

PG, good points. There were funny moments and good bits, I concede... but too few and far between amongst too many stories that fell flat.

I'm with Rick Shaw. And I deeply regret people daring to compare the awful Reboot with the class act Shooter and Manapul pulled from W&K's-burdened-by-DC-Editorial run.
I think people sometimes take a bit too seriously their favorite character's absence (or appearance) as a sign of how good a run is. It's about storytelling. I think Shooter had it all, except he was ran over lots of times during this dreaded run. Just read again all his interviews to see that the work he was hired to do was never meant to be done from the begining. And this is probably true with Waid & Kitson too.
In fact, Waid best runs usually pay off long term (his Flash run was by far my favorite - much better than Johns and almost as good as Messner-Loebs). But, nooooo, the only two guys who can do whatever they want are Johns and Morrison. These guys are untouchable. Pft.

My review is up . Go ahead and tear into it.

I didn't tear into it, but i did disagree with your overall assessment of the book. Nice Blog, by the way.

I have a very similiar opinion to Matthew's on this issue, though not the same sentiment for this entire threeboot. I don't think I'll spend much time missing it, or re-reading it.