Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Supergirl and the Legion #30- Spoilers!

You could be right on that or I'll just throw out an alternate hypothesis for everyone to consider.

What's being said is that growing up is about being able to make hard choices that go against your idealism. Inevitably we see naive idealism giving way to seasoned pragmatism.

If you look at the whole arc we see Cos being told by the UP to control himself in issue one. In response he threw a hissy fit. The adults on Naltor told Nura the same. She helps Brainy destroy public property. Then Saturn Girl's mother to Imra. Then Mekt being older and having suffered life accusing the whole Legion of not being able to make those dirty pragmatic decisions.

By the end we see Cos choosing a somewhat unpleasant path to ensure some measure of security.

I think we could have seen Winston Churchill's old adage that a person who's not liberal at age 20 having no heart, while a person who's not conservative at age 30 having no brain being played out with Cos as subject.

The Dominators weren't wiped out, so calling it genocide is a bit of a misnomer to begin with. They destroyed the capital planet of the Dominator Empire but they did not intend to carry out a full scale and systematic wiping out of the entire species. Much like destroying Skaro in Resurrection of the Daleks, the destruction of the planet is meant to deal a devastating blow to a overwhelming enemy that can't be beaten by normal methods.

As for the Authority, the Legion is Hell and gone beyond any different from that group in their choice (even presuming that not everyone was putting on a show for Cosmic Boy BECAUSE THEY TRUSTED HIM---which is amazingly not occurring to anyone on these boards). The Authority has been proven again and again to be a group that feels the needs to walk all over the rights of others out of a sense of righteousness. The Phantom Zone Bomb or P-Bomb solution is taken as a last ditch attempt of a people ALREADY THE SUBJECT OF AN ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE. You do realize Earth was meant to be dead to the man.

The United Planets problem is not that it is a fascist right wing regime but that it is a stagnant non-functioning bureaucracy. People are perhaps used to comics reflecting fiction but the Legion of Superheroes is an organization fighting wars for a government that cannot and will not fight to protect its own citizenry. It's closer to Charles DeGaul's resistance under the Vichy regime than it is to modern day liberal pacifist movements.

It's hardly flawed or superficial writing either that Cosmic Boy sent Mon'el to his death without a second thought. Far from the ovethetop treatment of Lightning Lad's death, life in the Legion is expected to be one where they are aware they could die in the service of battle. This is the SECOND war that the Legion has fought in since the Threeboot began. They have all faced against ruthless and destructive foes that they have not been very Silver Age about dealing with.

The Legion of the future is a group of idealistic young men and women with new ideas. New ideas that seem to be very Teddy Rooseveldt that the United Planets should talk softly and carry a very large stick.

The Legion had a choice of crippling the Dominator Empire or subjecting BILLIONS to their slow and painful deaths. They chose very wisely to destroy the Dominator capital.

Now that is a really interesting development this Legion could undergo. I'd especially love to see something like that if it meant the two fractions "kids" and "adults" would find some sort of common ground and a measure of mutual understanding - that would make the whole age conflict palatable to me.

Right now, though, I think the book's really not there. With the adult fraction up to now being mostly portrayed as incompetent buffoons, all their "adult" values are tainted by association and therefore not presented as something the Legionnaires should accept or even emulate. Likewise, apart from maybe Cos, none of them show some kind of insight that maybe a change in their status quo has taken place, or that any of their values and opinions have been compromised.

Let's hope that maybe something in that vein is coming up in the future, though - would make a great read.

Again, I think the whole "genocide" thing was an expedient way to get rid of Mekt and free Mon-El from his clutches. There's a silver-age like quality to that twist, if you ask me. And judging from the previews, there WILL be consequences (unlike in much of the Silver Age). I think the end of #30 was in fact a great example of the idealistic kids coming up against a real-life limit to their idealism. Cos found a way to preserve it, but to make it work the rest of the world has to believe he didn't.

Yeah, that Cos; amazingly trustworthy fella, what with all the scheming and spying on teammates and so on. I wonder how anyone could ever doubt his intentions.

When I mentioned the Authority, I was not trying to compare their methods and intentions to those of the Legion. I took the Authority as an example of a book where you know what to expect in terms of team behaviour, and with the protagonists not deluding themselves.

In my eyes, the Legion comic on the other hand simply does not contain what is advertised on the tin, claiming idealism and contradicting itself.

As for whether genocide or partial genocide or the like is necessary or not in the situation the Legion is in - that wasn't something I was actually trying to debate here (although I'd say NO; especially considering, as jimgallagher said, that there is no immediate urgency to kill the Dominators). I just think it simply shouldn't be an option the Legion should consider in the first place if they adhere to the idealism we are constantly told they supposedly possess.

That's the point, though. What idealism are you talking about? Because the idealism of the Legion since book 1# seems to be "We should go to Lallor and crack every skull that we find."

The idealism of Mark Waid's Legion is not pacifistic or even friendly idealism. It's the idealism that a new patriotic government lead by an ambitious and aggressive new generation can produced.

The Legion of Superheroes has repeatedly been shown to be the first to go to war and go for the aggressive solution. This is not a new thing. They're frustrated and upset about the cripplingly slow government aparatus from again, issue 1#.

Idealistic doesn't mean "Can't we all get alone."

Idealistic in this case means "Can't we go in there and kill Lemnos before he murders us all?"

It's wasn't genocide, but all but the few Legionaires who knew it was a Phantom Zone bomb essentially signed off on genocide.

No, they signed off on a retaliatory strike to cripple the enemy. This wasn't a case of "I hate Dominators so much I want to wipe them all out." Even when dealing with a non-human race in fantasy means they REALLY CAN BE UTTERLY BAD (like the Borg or Daleks), this wasn't a case of hatred but trying to cripple their war machine.

Yes, it might make people uncomfortable they had to do it but I remember something my father taught me "if you have a better idea, then feel free to speak up."

What if they had thought about it a few days and decided 'Still no good' and millions more had died at the Dominator's hands?

In my understanding, the Dominators were already crippled and unable to attack anyone until they rebuilt their world and weapons, which it was implied would take some time.

And destroying a race's home planet and most of the race's population sounds pretty close to genocide to me, even if every Dominator in the universe wasn't home when it happened. I agree with Insomniac Girl on just about everything except that it's faction, not fraction.

I'm just wondering why some characters didn't voice their opinions here.

This is like when the Avengers killed the Supreme Intelligence. There was a debate.

I think it's because there wasn't room for it. This is kind of like when the Legion let Terror Firma walk off into the sunset with Sun Boy in #13; we saw enough of the debate to know that there was a debate, but basically (it seems) it wasn't the part of the story Waid wanted to focus on, so it wasn't shown with the amount of depth or detail that some readers wanted.

That may be true, but I think it was a bad choice on Waid's part not to focus more on that aspect.

I disagree because it makes a farce of it. No one actually died so what was the point of it? Frankly, I think it would have been better not to go "truman" and just have Cosmic Boy send everyone to the Phantom Zone from the beginning.

I got the impression the Dominators had their army in the millions and that while their science and military facility was crushed, the Insect People would immediately rebound to attack Earth again and again. That Dominators would never surrender and would work to wipe out them all.

I think it's pretty farcical the way it's written. Cosmic Boy just looks like a fool. He goes through this elaborate deception to make it seem as though he's doing things the way the Wanderers would, in order to take the bluster out of them, but, as it turns out, most of his troops would be perfectly happy going the Wanderers route of just blowing up the whole planet. Effectively, most of the Legionnaires would be perfectly happy as Wanderers. So what's the difference between the two organizations?

EDE, you are right. The Wanderers and Legion don't seem that different at all.

But the main members of Terror Firma joined Sun Boy. What seperates these teens if anything?

I think that's generally true, but the writers went to some lengths to show the Dominators as exceptionally conformist. This is a race which has no word for non-aggression between states, which has been under a fascist one-world government for at least a thousand years, whose teachers are condemned and executed before class ends if they question official wisdom in front of their class. Any "opposition party" would be expunged from the planetary culture and genome before the day was out; that's just the way they work.

Plus, insofar as the Dominators have any mavericks, we've already met one--the scientist who created the shocktroopers. He risked execution for his views. It's just that they still weren't particularly nice views.

Well, remember that the Dominators weren't actually beaten or conquered or anything like that--they were merely temporarily unable to continue the invasion of Earth. They still had millions of active shocktroopers--more than the Legion could ever defeat in a straight fight. And while their infrastructure was wrecked, we've seen that this era's Earth can rebuild itself in a matter of weeks; imagine how fast the Dominators could do it, given their tech level and collectivist society.

The way I read it, it might take decades before the Dominators actually launched another attack...but it would take about five minutes after the Legion left for the Dominators to reentrench themselves, start seeding the shocktroopers and render it impossible to prevent that eventual attack.

Incidentally, I think it's pretty clear that this Legion doesn't have a code against killing; they've been leveling presumably-populated Dominator buildings throughout the war.

It was just more of Waids lame writting that hardly anyone on the team objected to destroying a whole planet just because his lord and highness Cosmic Boy said so. You can argue all you want that the Dominators were not really destroyed, but the team doesn't know that. They all just signed off of wholesale slaughter without even thinking about it.
The truly lame thing is Waid dumps this lame ending and then runs away leaving it for future writers to deal with. This more than anything really showed that Waid for all his talk really had no idea what made the Legion such a special book for the last 50 years.

Glad he is gone.

I agree, Zeroman. And Silicon Dream, the Dominators have not always been shown as a completely conformist fascist regime. One or two boots back there was a young dominator girl who wanted to join the Legion (I think) and in their original appearance (Adv 361) they were working to make peace with the UP. Of course that was then and this is now but it's impossible to completely divorce the past Legions (or Dominions) from this one.

I don't know that the Legion should have a code against killing in times of war, but I wish we could take a step (or ten) back from the ever-escallating threat levels that have put them in the trenches of all out warfare again and again in this incarnation. If you want to see warfare and killing and bombing, watch the news.

Never thought I would say this but I remember the hot Dominator girl from that annual that set up Valor the seeder of worlds. Why do the hot Dominator lasses have to be banished to the PZ. Maybe Mon-El will bring some people who didn't deserve it back. Hey, that's a storyline right there!

I got my comics late but I finally got a chance to read this one. I've been avoiding the spoilers so please forgive me if I go back over ground you guys've aleready chewed up.

Was it just me or did this read like a "farewell issue"? Waid wraps up a few subplots, finishes (rather hurridly it seem to me) the Dominator war storyline and sticks Mon-el back into the Phantom Zone. It just felt like Mark was trying to get as much in really quickly as he could because his input won't be the new cannon anymore.

This Legion is full of secrets and inner turmoil, it's split into political factions and rivalries. Both Garth and Rokk showed themselves to be manipulative jerks during this run. Lightning Lad made an unpopular deal to save the Legion (within the context of the story, I personally didn't care one way or the other whether they recieved UP support or not) but Cosmis Boy pretended to blow up an inhabited planet..and the Legion went along with that.
What?
Isn't there a popular x-over where Superman states the Legion has a very strong code against killing? Did I miss a memo?


Mark Waid seemed to be trying at times to bring back some of the old Adventure era character traits and activities. The games and practical jokes that may have been hilarious in the '60s just didn't "play" well (to me)in the new century. Or maybe I just outgrew those stunts and don't find them funny anymore..whatever. Starboy is a touch insecure, Sunboy's a mouthy know-it-all, Lightning Lad is brash and prone to go off half-cocked, Colossal Boy is clumsy, Violet's one tough booty kickin' fem and so on.
..btw I'm thrilled we got a living Gim back in the group -yay!..
..hmmm..maybe Light Lass' supposed promiscuity is a nod to all the dating and boyfriend/girlfriend stories from the Silver Age?

I just love Barry Kitson's art but I am sick to death of seeing large groups of people standing around talking to each other...on the other hand I see Theena is included in the groupshot as if she's a "core member". Ya gotta love that. I'll miss Barry's smooth polished work but I'm ready for a change. I want to see some dynamic superheroing like Kitson drew for his JLA Year One series. I want some stories that make sense. I want a Legion that reads like the Legion NOT like the X-Men.

Yellow Kid, I was quite happy with Starboy, Sunboy and most of the characterizations. In another post we talked about Levitz's exaggeration of each personality and how I liked it because it made the character stand out. With that said Levitz showed them a bit better rounded. Sun Boy was a playboy but we were always reminded he was the Legion's third top scientist after brainy and Dream Girl.

I say this because I really didn't care for Ultra Boy's or Colossal Boy's characterization this entire series. The way I took it Waid was dealing with much younger character than Levitz. These characters are not well rounded (save Cosmic Boy it seems).

Levitz was dealing with characters that had *years* of backstory to draw upon. So he could bring up Cosmic Boy's interest in history or something that had been introduced in an old story but hadn't really been used since, and there was just a lot of stuff like that to draw upon.

The issue read well and the art was beautiful, but neither could hide the fact that many of you are right: it was pretty farcical *NOT* to focus on the debate within the group about a potential genocide. That made the scene read not "lets be courageous and make a tough decision" but rather "okay Cos, if you think its right, let's blow those suckers to kingdom come!".

After reading through this entire thread, I find myself more and more in tune with Kent and others. With each issue, I find this Legion more depressing, and hope what we're getting in JSA/JLA takes its place.

That all but four of the legion turned and walked away from the destruction of an entire planet sickens me. Maybe that just makes them human or tired fighters, but it certainly doesn't make them heroes. Of course, I can't be surprised because this comic isn't about them. This title, despite its title, has been about Cosmic Boy for what? Over a year now? So I should instead focus on the ingenuity of his ploy and revel in how long his perfectness will be remembered.

Well, good for him. I, personally, would prefer reading about the legion of super-heroes, not “his lord and highness Cosmic Boy” and those other folks who can do some different things but usually not anything like come up with an original thought.

I don’t like this legion of super-heroes. At this point, I would cheer any villain who just wanted to give them a smackdown.

Maybe that's why I was a fan of the antagonists during this series. I admit I've always been a big Science Police fan. But I also liked Terror Firma and Wanderers.