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

I think what would solve a lot of the animosity towards Mr. Didio would have been an explanation or a warning of what was to come re: The Ending.

At the very least the solicitation on DC's website should have changed to suit the actual material or removed completely.

We had no idea what was going to be dropped in our laps.

I didn't really like the three boot much. It had it's moments here and there, but overall most longtime fans know it's a failure. Still, I would like the real ending to have been presented. It just was not fair to the fans.

Thanks to the shoddy treatment afforded this long time fan, I will be drastically reducing the number of DC Comics I will purchase. It's the only protest available that might get noticed, but I doubt it.

No, probably not. Are you?

I remember that it was news. But, part of the reason it was news was that it was unusual that Mr. Shooter was working for either of the two major publishers again. He had something of a reputation, it seemed.

As you said in your post, neither you nor I have details on what happened when between DC editorial and Mr. Shooter. So, if you would like to weight artist-hood whereas I find hints of diva-hood, then it's good we can at least make each other aware of our perspectives.

I never said diva-hood was not present. But there are a lot of creative divas who work in industries that exercise some form of control and the system generally functions pretty well. (I know a lot of actors and Hollywood types, and divas are the norm. However, that is why contracts set out who has creative control and detail how the process of approval will work. Some actors and directors will not sign onto a project if they do not have final approval.) DC knew what it was getting with Shooter, and I'm sure both entered the contract for Shooter to do LSH with some trepidation, but that is also why I feel pretty confident that they outlined how the arrangement would work *before* Shooter took the book. Given the state of the book before Shooter came in, DC needed Shooter more than he needed the Legion. So I can't imagine that DC would have brought Shooter into the fold without a lot of assurances that he had creative control once the basic plot was approved. The fact that Shooter had his stories written so early (and possibly outlined before he started his gig) is a pretty strong sign that he got the greenlight from DC to write the story that he planned.

I don't think any of us really need to be insiders to have some sense of what happened: DC's plans for the Threeboot changed and they tightened the reins on Shooter. Shooter could not even end the Threeboot on his own terms, because a particular Threeboot Legion was needed for the more favored Lo3W.

You may call it diva-hood, but consider it from Shooter's perspective. His name will always be on these books and if Shooter had finished the run with a lame resolution forced on him by TPTB, it would have further tarnished his reputation. I cannot fault him for not wanting his name associated with a story that he knew was going to be awful. Better to walk away and make sure everyone understands that this lame ending was not his story.

isn't it time to kill this thread and move on?

I disagree.

I agree

No, I'm going to stick with considering from my perspective.

No, it is not. It won't help at all. Here's what will help:

Reduce the number of DC comics you purchase, just like you said you were going to do, and write a letter to them telling them what you're doing and why. A paper letter, concise and civil.

Seriously, I can't recommend letter-writing enough. I believe that it gets attention. And it's a lot more articulate a way of protesting than simply not buying stuff.

Do you think a letter from good old Germany would get any more attention? After the editorial and narrative disaster that was Final Crisis, and the infamy that was #50, I really do feel like telling someone inside DC my mind...

And I do plan to further cut down my DC expenses. Canceled my subscriptions to JLA and Booster Gold recently. Going to cancel Titans this month. My plan is to keep nothing outside of JSA and Green Lantern, and carefully checking out what new Legion project might be on the horizon...

By the way, I also cut down my Marvel monthlies to two due to the insolent price raise recently. I believe that both of the Big Two are in sever trouble right now...

It would get more attention than no letter at all.

Well, if we don't diss Levitz TOO badly, I'll ve okay.
lol
(Oh, I just tickle me sometimes!)

Hey, I'm not picking on anyone, well except whomever made the conscious decision to bait and switch me. Am I being unfair in not liking that?

Calm down, all.

BB feels tricked and abandoned by DC.
APB feels tricked and abandoned by Shooter.

Regardless of how blame is apportioned, the end result is the same.

It's always easy to oversimplify and frame a situation to fit our assumptions... yet we have only glimpses of the incident at hand.

Shooter signed on knowing he did not have full and complete creative control, true. We don't know whether his relationship with DC was within normal give-take parameters, if he was singled out for excessive treatment, or if he was just more vocal about some of the 'normal' roadbumps.

From what we do know, DC was not exactly politick in handling Shooter all along, despite whatever was agreed to last year.

There is blame enough to go around, but no matter how you slice the skunk we all got sprayed.

I thought we were calm? Did I miss something?

Heh, wouldn't be the first time.

Pointing out a writer's obligations (in a thread replete with criticism of the publisher) equates to "picking on" him or her?

"Conscious decision to bait and switch"?

Please let me know when my other posts are unfair too.

You don't know what the writer's "obligations" were. Shooter's agreement with DC could have given him more control over his work than you think. And writers in nearly every industry have the right to walk off a project if it no longer reflects their work. There is a reason that the Writer's Guild (and the Director's Guild) have official pseudonyms when a writer wants his or her name off a project. Also, a writer cannot be forced to write something against his will. He forfeits his right to be paid under their contract, but that is it.

Look at it this way. If DC had reviewed Grant Morrison's Final Crisis outline and said to Grant Morrison: "You know that whole thing with Darkseid taking over humans? Not really keen on that. How about a cult of Darkseid supporters decide to pretend they have been corrupted but they don't really put up much of a fight. And Batman dying? We don't think so. We think you should replace Batman's cowl with floppy bunny ears and have him go nuts and skip through Gotham. Oh, and that Japanese group, nix them entirely. Give us a team of cornfed Midwest football players with superpowers." Are you saying that Morrison was forced to write that story? Of course not. If he was willing to walk away from DC's money, he had every right to break his contract and go work elsewhere.

Yes, I get your point about contractual obligations already. If you don't see my point about obligations inherent to the medium, then that's fine too.

The unexpected/bait and switch with no explanation has angered people - and not for the first time. This latest one was egregious, but people also reacted badly to the Shvaughn Erin cover (who was really Chameleon) and to the Dawnstar-Blok cover (who were just in the story as legends). Maybe they should just abandon solicits, then no hopes would be dashed.

Since DiDio actually brought up the question of whether covers should reflect contents at NYCC, they must be getting lots of negative feedback. One outcome of this could be to just take an interior panel and make it into the cover, which would avoid howls of anguish, but would mean less artwork for fans to enjoy.

Covers are different than artistic teams, at least to me.

Didio in his response really should have apologized for the company IMO. Even before that, they should have fairly advertised the changes in author nd artist.

It is reasonable AND predictable to think most people would feel cheated to be told they bought a corvet, take it home and there's a chevet inside. DC had to know this and so in my mind, their decision to not alter a solicit to account for new artistic team was egregious.

The world won't end because of a poorly executed comic book but there are such things as integrity at issue.

This is a type of decision that would cost most of us our positions.

Personally, I'd like a refund.

I'm not going to pretend that I've read every single post of a thread that's currently 15 pages long, but I have skimmed as much as I could absorb in a reasonable period of time, and I have to say that some people are waaaaay off in their interpretations as to why things happen in the comic book industry. Everyone in it may have started out as fans, but decisions aren't made for what I'll term "fanboy" reasons, such as someone doesn't like what someone else is doing to their beloved characters. It's a business, and the people that work in it are pros. They know that what another writer does isn't necessarily what they would do, and they're mature about it. They grant the same courtesy to that other writer that they would expect to receive in turn. In other words, they don't overreact and act like someone kicked their dog. They disagree on a dispassionate level, and that's that. It's a mistake for fans to think that pros think like they do, because they don't. It's a fun job, but it's a job. At the end of the day, the company owns the characters, and they know that.

As far as issue # 50 goes, yes, it was wrong to solicit one comic and deliver another. There should have been plenty of time to correct that, but for whatever reason, they didn't do it. That aside, # 50 was a professional, competent comic book. It may not have been what people wanted, but it wasn't amateurish by any stretch of the imagination. Believe me, I've seen amateurish comic books, and this wasn't that. We also don't know the circumstances around its creation, and I actually feel bad for the people that did it, because what a thankless job that was. No matter what they did, they were going to catch hell, and that's exactly what they caught.

As far as who Justin Thyme was, I have no idea, but it was either someone who sat down with a bunch of comics and tried to wrap it all up in a hurry, or (and this is a guess) Mike Marts himself. He knew where the series was going, and it would have been easier for him to just pound it out than try to explain it to someone else. DC has an official policy where editors aren't allowed to write for the company (it eliminates two editors giving each other jobs in a quid pro quo system), so a pseudonym would have been both practical and preferred. And if he did do, again, thankless job. From everything that I've been privy to, he and Shooter got along just fine.

Maybe some day I'll be able to show you guys what Jim Shooter's original original plot for # 50 was. And yes, I know that I used the word "original" twice. It dates back to before the book was cancelled and everything had to be wrapped up in one issue. It even dates back to before that!

Shooter said in some interview that he had prepared a 16,400 word script for the series. Is this property of DC (I suppose) or could he release it/let someone post it or at least post the general plot points? I think many of us are very curious as to how he saw everything play out.

Sorry, Glen, but everything about LSH #50 was unprofessional and incompetent. Artwork was terrible, dialogue was trite, things didn't make any sense, characters were completely far out (Invisible Kid simply had multiple personalities throughout the entire endeavour) and plot simply negated everything that came before.
It is obvious that DC owns all these characters and that pros like Shooter have (and are able) to deal with that. But I, as a customer, cannot be quiet to see my favorite monthly simply go down the drain because of bad management of the whole situation. And, as people have pointed out on other topics, L3W is already full of inconsistencies with the Threeboot, which means that the original team could have finished its storyline without any problem.

Finally read it last night.

Complete and utter crap.

Glen's concept of the universe, as reflected in his post, is rather closer to mine than are any of those suggested by most of the other posts in this thread.

Well, a day later I know a lot more about what went down with the big five-oh than I did yesterday, so I stand by some of my comments moreso than I do of others. It's actually more complicated than I thought, but not as complicated as some other people might think. Things did go south in a hurry near the end, though, and you all bought the end result. It's a shame, but that happens.