Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! The Legion needs Superboy!

I'm sorry. I know that for years now they have been trying to make it work without him, trying very hard.

But it just doesn't. It always winds up lacking something, that certain spark that makes it work. It's funny, the Superman character i can take or leave, but Superboy belongs to the legion, and they to it. They started in Superboy's stories. They grew in Superboy's stories and books. Without Superboy, they are just another group of teenager's with superpowers.

I guess this is kinda harsh. It isn't meant to be to the writers, Waid included. I know that they have had to try and work around what Byrne did.

but the legion only feels right to me when superboy is a part of the team.

When he left before the reflecto storyline with Ultra Boy lost, the team missed that spark. He returned, and the legion seemed right again.

I don't know if i am the only one that feels this way, like, no matter what they do, the legion is still somehow incomplete without Superboy, but it would be nice to hear from those that think or feel the same way.

After having to roll over for the boy of steel for 22 years until they ran him out of his own magazine (1958 to 1980) ... after appearing in over 554 issues since running him out of his magazine ... after 6 major series (including LEGION 1 and 2 and Legionnaires ... after going throuth storyline uphevals, CRISIS, Zero-Hour, Post Zero-Hour and now a whole new restructuring for series 5 ... THE LEGION STILL IS ALIVE AND KICKING AND DOESN'T NEED SUPERBOY IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM!

Yes ... nice to see him once in a while just to keep the thread to the past alive ... but the LSH does quite well without him ... DO NOT GET ME WRONG ... I like Superboy ... been collecting the LSH comics since 1960 ... grew up with Adventure Comics ... and I've got to tell ya ... I got so bored with seeing Superboy in all the stories, I looked forward to the issues that didn't have him in them ...

Just an opinion.

Depends on which Superboy.

Yes, definitely.

The only Superboy I would want anywhere near the Legion-- any Legion-- is the original... pocket-universe him, hypertime him, whatever contrivance is needed to make it work. But one without direct ties to current happenings; a Superboy that is solely the Legion's and not at the mercies of the Superbooks editors.

Klone-El's a fine enough character, but he doesn't belong in the Legion.

The sort-of-outcome in one panel of "Kingdom Come," Pov, was to have had Klone-el (or whoever) be part of the Legion, along with the Matrix Supergirl (is she gone now?), because they wouldn't affect anyone who was among the "current happenings." They'd be "solely the Legion's."

Well, that is, it would have worked at the time "Kingdom Come" was released, but probably not now, with more backstory on 'em. And a new Supergirl.

I can easily take the Legion without any of the 20th/21st Century Kryptonians. The future-history tales should stand on their own, if they can. Time travel was always overused and too casual in the Silver/Bronze Age.

It was always a fish-out-of-his-time storytelling support, and a non-cynical marketing ploy (I'll think better of them at DC for once), to have a younger Kal-el with the Legion, anyway. Our being used to him, for those of us who read the Legion in that era, isn't enough of a good reason to bring him back.

Hey, to each his own. Too me, its like Dean without Martin. Robin without the merry men. Turner without Hooch, Thelma without Louise.

I have to disagree with badman though, the legion hasn't done well without him. Their numbers sank beneath the floor, the book has had to be restarted about three times since then, the last in a desperate effort to save it from cancelization...it HASN'T been doing just fine. If it had been...this version wouldn't be out there.

And it's a good version. I am enjoying it. But honestly, i just keep wondering when Superman when he was a boy will show up and make it fun to read again.

Not earth-prime Superboy, not Pocket Universe superboy, not Kon-el, but Superboy.

heck, maybe its just me, and maybe i am longing for a nostalgic era that wont come to pass again.

I'm just sayin'...

I'd rather the Legion have no Superboy than trying to shoehorn Kon-El onto the team. The current Superboy has more history and chemistry with Tim, Bart, and Cassie than he ever would with Rokk, Garth and Imra.

If the Legion needs a "Superboy", I'd rather see Kent Shakespeare brought back as a kryptonian descendant. Keep whether he's descended from Clark, Conner or Kara an open question.

But to get "Superman when he was a boy" back we'd need the real Superman back as well, wouldn't we? And that's the problem...

I miss our old friend too. Kal was what brought me in as a Legion fan and he's what kept me there for years and years but DC doesnt own the rights to "Superman when he was a boy" anymore. That character belongs to the Seigels and the Schusters. DC is too cheap to pay royalties on the character so we'll never see him in the Legion again no matter how loudly we cry.
Zero Hour's End of an Era apperance is likely the last time we'll ever see our beloved Kal ever again. He's comic book history.

http://superman.ws/fos/copyright/2004comicon.php

Hey, I have no axe to grid with the Boy of Steel ... when the original statement was made ... "THE LEGION NEEDS SUPERBOY" I thought we were talking about whether or not the Legion has done well without him in the abstract, i.e. kicking the butt of the bad guys w/o Superboy ... not in real world distribution numbers ...

I don't think the LSH distribution problems stems from the fact that Superboy is no longer an everyday member (if he's with the LSH in every epsiode, who's keeping "the foxes out of the hen house" in the 20th century?) Without Superboy coming to the rescue in every issue (which by the way started in 1980), it gave the writers the chance to expand the usage of the other Legion members and their powers which required more team work to solve a problem ... to me that was a good thing ...

Times change ... but the Legion continues to go on ... when it got cancelled in 1969 from Adventure, it survived from 1969 to 1973 as a back story of Action and Superboy ... in 1973, the LSH moved to the forefront of Suberboy comics by becoming Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and eventually pushed Superboy out and became Tales of the LSH ... most of us know the history of the LSH ... but I review this because I believe that it is not the Legion who needs Superboy, but Superboy who needs the LSH ...

I blame DC for the state of the Legion ...

CRISIS (again, my belief) screwed up the history of many of DC's halmark heroes, the LSH included ... actually maybe more the Legion then anyone else because the LSH history had more main characters then any other comic ... each with his, her or it's woven history ... DC severed that with CRISIS and Zero Hour ... then ...

The Legion Of Super-Heroes begins it's 4th series which basically destroys Legion continuity ... Superboy is removed from history ... there's a five year gap which is not accounted for ... the storyline becomes rougher and more controversial (not a bad thing) ... the characters I've grown up with had new names, new costumes (or no costumes) ... charcaters came and went with no rhyme or reason ... characters who were female are now male ... this series was like a bull in a china cabinet ... too much change ... too fast ... the LSH shattered ... all of that contributed to the major drop in sales.

I too stopped collecting the LSH (which is the only comic I ever completely collected) during the 4th series ... April 1992, issue # 28. That broke a run which started in 1960 and survived the my teen years, college, military service, marrige and children.

Thanks to my 16 yr. old nephew, I was reintroduced to the Legion when the 5th and present series was released ... I recently went back and purchased all (and I do mean ALL) back issues of the 4th series, both L.E.G.I.O.N.S., Legionnaires, Legion Lost, Legion Worlds, and all other issues from 1992 to present and I'm in the process of reading each magazine ... and YES much to my wife's chagrin ... the Legion live again in my house!

Even though I think the Boy of Steel should be reestablished as an occasional supporting cast memeber for the LSH ... I believe Suberboy has not contributed to the problems which affected the LSH ... the influx of Marvel Comics and many other publications have ... the DC earthquake which took place in the early 1990's did ... and an editorial team who did not respect the continuty we the LSH readers depended on definately did.

I think the new LSH has a bright future as long as there are there are dedicated readers like us who will not let it die.

I have never felt this way until about the last year or so, but I think the Legion desperately needs and should have Superboy (Superman when he was a boy) and Supergirl involved with the team in some capacity. I’m not sure how it could ever work or if the fans would ever be satisfied, but I think I prefer it to be that way.

In a recent interview, Grant Morrison revealed that the real Superboy (Superman as a boy) is slated to appear in issue #6 of the All-Star Superman series. Strong hints that the LSH will appear in the same issue, too. Which version of the Legion, I don't know. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.

Wow. Thanks guys. I was startin ta think i was the only one that thinks the legion needs the character.

It's not that i think he should be the only one to ever do anything, or be the big hero, but there was something about it. The Myth of Inspiration, i guess. I mean, who amoung us hasn't wanted to meet that one person we looked up to, and have them be not only as good as we thought, but even better?

I understand what Waid and Barry are doing, and i like it, but the generic "hero's from the 21st century" thing just isn't as tight, as inspiring, as ...primal, i guess you could say, as having the one guy that inspired them all as a member of the team. The group just really seemed to light up a book with him around.

Many interesting points in this thread.

10 full years later and I have felt this way ever since.

He doesn't need to be the panel hog he once was, but Superboy (Superman as a boy) being involved on a regular basis with the LSH may be the only way the franchise ever becomes viable again.

How would Neil Gaiman do it?

That's what floats through my mind when thinking about returning Superman as a boy into Legion. The best part of Legion lore, rarely includes him but the character was also a keystone. So I think of Gaiman, when he got the Sandman gig. A way that includes the character but doesn't, is what is needed I think. He was better as an inspiration than a participant but I really liked the stories when Legion went to the 20th century to visit him. Smallville was a connection I'd want people from the future to have when judging us.