Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Official LSH 3 Worlds Thread #5 out (FINALLY!! - spoilers)

I don't want to rain on the parade of anyone who loves what Geoff Johns has been doing with the Legion, but if his Legion is so great, why can't we get a comic book about them? Not about the JLA or JSA. Not about Superman. Not about Superboy-Prime or Impulse. About the freaking Legion of freaking Super-Heroes. You know, like Shooter and Manapul are doing (and well). Like Torres and Serra and Manning and Briglio are doing (and well).

I'm not really sure I understand your question Matt...

Are you asking why Johns isn't going to do one?
Are you asking why DC won't do one?


If you are asking why Johns won't do one I can think of serveral reasons right of the bat..


#1. Flash Rebirth - This is a new development, probably due to the disaster that the Flash reboot has become. But there's no doubt it's a new project based on comments from Ethan Van Sciver that he's now not going to be doing the art on The Blackest Night and instead is going to be doing FLash Rebirth.

Flash is the favorite character of both Johns and EVS.

#2. Johns writes about 4 monthly books already, a large task for any writer, and the Legion is a huge assignment due to all the characters.

#3. Johns has stated on many occassions that if he does the series he wants to do Superman or Superboy and the Legion, not just the Legion.

#4. He doesn't want to steamroll Legendary Legion creator Jim Shooter off the title.

#5. He might be...he just might be doing Flash Rebirth first.


If you are asking why DC won't publish one,


1. They probably want to...hell it added a decent bump to Action, and it held it's audience.

They might be planning to, and they just don't want to announce it yet.

The Superman/boy litigation is due to be settled in September, so they may be holding off on any announcement until that time.


It seems to me that you were wondering if DC had any faith in that Legion...DC knows beyond all doubt that Legion will sell...they just aren't sure how much they are going to have to pay the Siegels to do it.


I mean the evidence of it's viability is right there in the montly sales total, the Legion added 5-6000 readers per month to an already good selling Action Comics title. Plus there's never been a real version of Superboy and the Legion that sold badly...never.


It's all about the litigation IMO...both on the part of Johns and DC...it may have always been about the litigation with DC.

What I'm really saying is, I want one and as far as I can tell I'm not getting one.

Oh, no, they don't. Not in the long term.

I know someone is going to chime in that they don't like the Legion with Superman in it, and I'll just counter by saying if there were more of you, the Legion wouldn't have been rebooted and relaunched about 5 times times since the COIE.

As opposed to what, the current one? The Post Crisis Legions, apart from early early on in the 5YG era, have hovered around the 25-30k a month total. They can stick the name Legion on anything and call it the official Legion and it will put up those numbers...and start declining from there.

It's also pretty easy to see that the majority of fans that follow the book religiously now are not really Superman Fans, so it's not hard to see that combining the two will produce a better selling book.

And finally...there's not a single bit of evidence anywehre that it won't sell well.

If there is, I'd like to see it...and in the meantime, I made a thread about the sales figures.


That's why Johns doesn't want to do a version without Superman...no one has done it truly succesfully, not even good writers....not even Jim Shooter.

Sales bumped on Action Legion very likely because there were variant covers for each issue. I am still not convinced it was due to the Legion showing up. Successful? Maybe, but not as a home-run hit.

Yes. And DC doesn't know that that won't happen, after an initial burst, to Johns's Legion. I don't know it either, and neither do you.

Anyway, the sales figures aren't my primary concern. But Johns's Legion has been nurtured along in JLA/JSA, in Action, and now in FC:L3W, and they haven't once been entrusted with the spotlight all on their own. This may be a smart way of doing it; it probably is. But it's not what I personally want to see.

I don't have a problem with Superman. I just think that the Legion should be the stars of their own book, whether Superman's there or not.

I'm willing to stipulate that the Legion would sell better, somewhat, if Superman/Superboy was a regular or semiregular character in the title. But how much better? I don't know. But that's not what I'm talking about anyway.

That argument is unworthy of you. If I blew my nose in a piece of paper and photocopied it fifty thousand times, there's not a single bit of evidence anywhere that that wouldn't sell well, either, but who cares?

Well thank you Matt I appreciate that. But I will counter with, there is not a single shred of evidence that a snotrag will sell good...and there is a mountain of evidence that Superman and the Legion sells well. And there are only like one or two brief examples of the Legion selling well without Superman...brief, the launch of the Baxter Legion, and the launch of the 5YG, and that's it...everything else is cult or fringe status.


For me it's easy to extrapolate my own Legion experience...


This continuity and cast is daunting without a certain level of familiarity....and that's what Superman provides. He is the known quantity.


Besides, the time travel aspect is neat.

You know the whole thing with Superman and fans not wanting to overshadow him or the prove the Legion can stand on it's own etc...


The Legion has proven it can stand on it's own...it's got enough of a fan base to do that.


What it does not do on it's own, is increase in popularity, attract new readers in substantial numbers, or sell anywhere near the levels it has sold historically with Superman..

That is kind of an odd form of pride talking there...not business sense. And I know business sense is the shallow materialistic aspect of things...but it's also the solution to stopping the reboots.


My dear, dear Legion brethren...we are fringe fandom, a quirky fandom, we are not like other comic team fans...we do not think like them, we do not love what they love.

They will never think like us, and that's why I must again point out that for one to see what will truly salvage the title...

You must step outside of your Legion Fandom and disconnect from it. For getting us to buy the book, is not the problem..we buy it. IT's the people that aren't buying it that are the problem..and they obviously don't think like us with regard to the Legion.


And it is a complex, daunting and foreboding concept on it's own.

This book has had good writers, it sold 20-30K. IT's had good artists, it still sold 20-30k. It's been at times innovative, and at times very well contructed, rebooted, started over from scratch, started over again, tweaked, improved, modernized, updated, fixed, efixed, hyped etc. All that, and it's been published bi-weekly without really commercial justification, for nearly a decade at one point, and it still sold 25-30k, and dropping. And that may be good enough to keep it coming out monthly...but it is not good enough to keep DC from attempting to fix it.


The solution is simple...2 Legion books, one with Superman, one without.

By the way...Legion of Three Worlds is going to surprise everyone with how well it sells...Johns has put so many factors into this thing, Superboy Prime, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman...even the Legion fanbase.

I think it has a very good chance of actually outselling Final Crisis.


Superboy Prime alone is a about 1 hundred times the comics audience draw that the New Gods are...

When the Action Legion gets a book, the title of it should be The Legion of Super-Heroes with Superman as a occasional guest star. Not Superman and The Legion of Super-Heroes.

Superboy: Superman-and-the-Legion did sell well, yes. Back then. Now? If it was brought back on a regular basis? It may indeed sell significantly better than a non-Superman Legion title... but then again it may sell just about the same. That's DC's problem, though, not mine.

You have to understand that I'm not arguing with your main point. You're saying that regular dosage of Superman will cure a lot of what ails the Legion, and I don't dispute it. It certainly couldn't hurt, if done well (and we always have to add the 'if done well' caveat).

The only point I climbed into this conversation to make was that, when I read Legion comics, I want to read stories that are about the Legion. It's understandable that JLA stories are going to be about the JLA, even if the Legion is there; JSA stories are going to be about the JSA, even if the Legion is there; Action Comics stories are going to be about Superman, even if the Legion is there; that's all fair and sensible. But for FC:L3W to be about Superman and Superboy-Prime and Bart Allen... if Geoff Johns's Legion is so great, why can't we get a story that's actually about them? It bewilders me. I've been skeptical about what Johns is up to, but I'm willing to give his Legion a chance, but I have to see them do something first.

I think that what Superboy/man has to offer the Legion is optimism. The Legion has gotten pretty cynical since crisis. Like it or not, Superboy/man is still the ultimate boy scout. It would be interesting to see the interplay between a 1950's style Superboy and a modern Legion. They'd both influence each other, but I'd like Superboy's influence to be the stronger one.

The way it held it's audience month to month, some months even increasing over the previous month, in mid storyline is extremely rare...especially at DC these days.

It's not the variant covers...if variant covers worked that well you'd that sort of trend happening more often...and it doesn't happen often at all. In fact in the last year or so, I'd say it was the only DC book to do that.

And I don't think it was entirely because of Legion Fans...I think was a good PCT of new readers picking up the book...when I was going to the store there were a lot of people unfamiliar with the Legion, and not regular Superman readers either, buying that arc.

Just for the sake of argument...Why is that better for the Legion?

Because that would be no different than any Legion published in past 20 years...it would be exactly the same thing. With some costume tweaks and the ability to again reference classic back issues.


Besides...I am arguing for two books.


The bottom line is that Superman is just as much a part of the Legion as any Legionaire is...he's more important and integral to the books success than whatever personality Cosmic Boy has in so and so incarnation...and what color Starboy is. Seriously...


The reality of it is...he was a founding member, and the book and team was spun entirely out of his mythos. Did it progress beyond that? In a way...it also lost a great deal of itself in the process and created an extremely disgruntled fan base...not to mention a shrinking one.

You cannot revise or retcon that ultimate truth away...for it is the truth. It is the reality. OPlus it could do anything that any Post Crisis Legion has done..and a lot more.


I am completely happy with DC continuing the W&K Legion and simultaneously publishing one that is more the one I want to read about...I am totally happy with that. Maybe they will...

I think you think I'm saying that I want a story about Johns's Legion without Superman. I'm not. Superman's fine; I'm always happy to see him. I want a story about Johns's Legion that's not about Superman.

Well...this L03W is designed as much to attract a new audience to the Legion Universe as it is to bring an old one back...

Johns built this as a relaunch.

Besides...you don't think it's kind of cool if Bart Allen ends up becoming of the Flash of the 31st century and joining the Legion?

I think that would be awesome.

I hope he creates new characters too.

I mean Matt, aren't you the one always saying they are all the Legion? And that things change?

This an entirely new chapter of the Legion...

What's wrong with a big mega arc to attract some new readers while the W&K Legoon continues to come out monthly?


I am excited about seeing this big Crisis in the 31st century...with important characters in the DC Uni playing role...I love Legion stories like that. Those are my favorite kind.

I love the Time Traveling Legion...

BTW, I think you are right...I don't think this is being written entirely for Legion fans. And I've never seen Johns state that either. He's pretty clear about that.


Since the Legion gets outsold montly by Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, and anaything with Superboy Prime in it...we are the least powerful demographic of this target audience...plus we're easy and they know it.

It's not our bus Matt...we're just along for the ride.

Unfortunately, despite your anecdotal evidence, the monthly numbers don't really bear that out. Using CBG's Diamond numbers, here are the sales figures for Action in 2007 and 2008:

846 - 64,542 + 1,795 (from following month)
847 - 64,676
848 - 62,153
849 - 53,592
850 - 56,148
851 - 46,859 + 29,615 (the second number was for a 3D variant.)
852 - 50,276
853 - 49,691
854 - 48,452
855 - 55,532
856 - 53,758
857 - 51,346
858 - 54,540 + 4,432 (from following month)
859 - 54,552
860 - 56,220
861 - 56,049
862 - 55,623
863 - 56,870
864 - 48,428
Annual - 54,307
865 - 46,751
866 - 50,139

Superman and the LSH covered issues 858-863. Their sales were a boost over the immediate previous issues, but if you look at the numbers, they are lower than the sales of a year previously. Action 846 was part of the "Last Son" arc, which was then delayed and continued in 851 (hence the additional sales of 851 and the high sales of 847 and 848, which fans probably expected to continue the Last Son storyline). The numbers then dip a bit, but have some increases depending on the individual issue. Then they bump up a bit for Superman and the LSH, before dropping to pre-LSH arc levels.

Bearing in mind that the LSH issues all had variant covers -- which tend to increase sales -- it is hard to see how the LSH arc in action was a big sales success. The minimal sales differences from issue to issue are not particularly significant. You point out that there were increased sales mid-arc, but bear in mind that 860-862 had Lightle, Grell, and Giffen variants. Those artists have a strong draw for LSH fans, so it's not surprising that those issues saw a bit of an increase. (I discount 859, because its variant cover was by Kubert, who imo does not carry the same weight with LSH fans).

So what can be taken from the arc? There certainly was no carryover to the regular Superman Action stories once the LSH arc ended. However, even more important in my eyes is that fact that the bump for the LSH arc was not even as great as the bump for the Last Son storyline -- the most recent pimped arc in the series. Considering there is reason to believe that sales on Action generally increase for significant, but limited, story arcs, it is hard to tell if that is what occurred in the sales boost for 858-863. It certainly does not provide a lot of empirical support that an ongoing Superman/LSH book will sell particularly well.

As I have said previously, what is DC going to do? Can the market really sustain another Superman book? Will its numbers exceed the sales of the current LSH? Or is Superman and the LSH going to replace an existing Superman book? For that to be profitable, sales would have to come close to the combined sales of both the Superman book being replaced and the current LSH book (offset by the costs of making one of those books). I think DC is running on faith, particularly once the ongoing book settles down with a writer other than Johns.

The problem with assuming the new book is going to be a Legion title is that there is no evidence to suggest that any Legion title will sell any better than the current LSH book. And neither of the Lightning Saga LSH stories focused on the Legionnaires in any meaningful fashion to suggest that an ongoing series will be a good seller. An ongoing series requires characterizations and plots that rely on more than nostalgia, which was a major selling point of the Lightning Saga and Superman and the LSH. Whether that can carry over to a regular series is an open question.

As for less popular characters increasing sales, look at The Last Son arc in Action a year before Superman and LSH. It's gimmick was that it brought back General Zod and the villains from Superman II. Action 843 sold 56,100 issues. Action 844 sold 78,800. With respect to the final LSH issue sales, it did not outsell the first issue. (858 sold about 59,000 issues when you factor in the second printing, while 863 sold about 57,000.) 863 did sell more than the issues immediately prior, but it was hardly a significant difference, and I suspect the bump to 863 may have had a lot to do with the announcement of Lo3W and comic buyers realizing that 863 would tie into Lo3W.

Ultimately, I think people are reading way too much into very slight sales increases, and basing huge decisions on them. DC is taking a huge leap of faith in retconning the LSH yet again. As much as I loved the old Legion (hell, that's when I first started reading), I'm just not convinced there is any possible way to restore that continuity. Frankly, while I thought the Lightning Saga and Action arcs were fun, they were little more than slapping old costumes on characters (and then changing the costumes) and waiting for LSH fans to go "oh, wow, look, it's _____." I thought both arcs were letdowns in their conclusions. Lightning Saga ended with a lot of "huh?" bits and promises they would be explained in later stories, and the final issue of Superman and LSH had a lot of cool splash pages, not much in the way of a story and a more questions that supposedly will be answered in Lo3W.

But what happens after Lo3W? The current LSH book is selling about 30,000 copies a month and, as you say, Superman has a bigger number of fans. So if you're DC, what does that tell you about an ongoing series? If Superman is just a supporting character, will those large numbers of Superman fans regularly support another book? Batman and the Outsiders in June sold 35,000 copies, a lot less than Batman (about 100,000) and Detective (about 50,000). Brave and Bold sells similar amounts to Outsiders. And those are books where Batman is regularly front-and-center and is teamed up with fewer numbers of characters than the LSH will bring to a Superman team-up. DC has to realize that it is not going to get Action-type numbers in an ongoing Superman/LSH book. So what does it hope to get? It seems to me that even to get 35,000 a month, DC is going to have to keep Superman front-and-center, and that is going to have to be at the cost of time devoted to the LSH characters. If Superman becomes just another character, I wouldn't be surprised that, after an initial sales boost, sales settle at a number similar to the current book's sales.

You've got a lot of assumptions in there that I'm not making. I don't know that this is a relaunch, although it may be. I don't know what the plan is for Bart, although your idea may be correct and could be cool.

Look, I expect to enjoy FC:L3W; I expect it to be a good story. Might bring in new Legion readers; that'd be good. If it sets up a more reader-friendly status quo for Legion continuity, that's good too.

Your particular hobbyhorse is Superman's relationship to the Legion. It's something I mostly agree with you about but don't have much interest in talking about. My particular hobbyhorse, these days, is Geoff Johns's Legion and whether they're really the original Legion and whether they're really all that and a Fotomat. That's what prompted most of my posts in this thread.

Specifically, I'm saying that no matter how good FC:L3W is, no matter what it does in terms of fixing this or appealing to that, it doesn't seem to be primarily a Legion story (as far as I can tell), and Johns's Legion is going to need to sink or swim in a Legion story before I can sign off on them.

And I agree with you...I don't think it is primarily a Legion story. However I do think one of it's primary goals if to fix the continuity of the Legions and hopeuflly come up with something more satisfactory than the current status quo.
I mean like...it's got ties to the Titans, Flash, Green Lantern...looks to me like he is attempting to relaunch the 31st century.


It's primarily a 31st century story IMO.


But I think the hope on Johns part where the Legion is concerned, is that there will be fewer disgruntled Legion Fans. I think that is the Legion lure for him.


Welcome to my world...I've said all along that sticking the name Legion on it doesn't make it the Legion, and I've been countered by those saying...oh, it's DC property and what ever they say is the Legion, is the Legion...or that, all of them are the Legion.

Personally...I've never agreed with that, and it's comforting to find someone else with a similar opinion


You are right...calling it the Legion doesn't make it the Legion...no matter who is writing it.


As for what makes something original Legion...

Depends on the continuity...and what fits and what doesn't. If things that clearly define the original Legion as the original Legion are there...then I'd say it's the original Legion. Superman is a big part of that, as is Supergirl as are the entire ties to the Superman Family.

Forget about my Pro-Superman argument for a second...I am just saying if the continuity fits, it is the original.


I think if you read Action #864, all of them are in continuity...even the stuff they don't remember. The Time Trapper remembers...and if one character remembers, then doesn't that make it in continuity?


I don't really care if it's the orignal Legion or not. It's closer than anything since for me, and that's a good start.

I don't care what they add to it...I am more concerned with what they subtract.


Like I say...I really don't think Cosmic Boy's personality is the reason for the reboots.


I consider the loss of the most successful and well known Legionaire as the reason for the reboots.......because the writing and drawing have been pretty good all along.

Maybe so...but since every other concept of the Legion has failed and been rebooted and failed...they may as well give the one that never did fail a chance to fail as well.