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

See, I'd place this in the "plus" column.

I really liked it. I found the writing had more of the quality of Wolfman than Levitz, but that's appropriate given it's written more as a homage to a traditional "Crisis". It will be interesting to see where we go from here and what it's like "getting the band together" next issue.

Just for the sake of argument...


Suppose the 5YG is brought back and is pretty much slaughtered by SB Prime...say, half of them are killed.


Would that be considered offensive to 5YG fans? If so why...since that was what Giffen intended to do with them himself....not to mention the fact that he killed many of them himself during the course of his run anyway.


Here's the thing about bringing the 5YG back...it wasn't intended for them to remain the Legion, nor was that intended to be a lasting vision of the Legion future. It was a finite version of the Legion with a beginning and an end...as concieved by it's creator. I guess you could say it lived by the ulra realism, and it will die by the ultra realism. Even if half of them aren't dead...they are in their 50's by now. I just don't really know what 5YG fans are wanting, long term with that version of the Legion...a good many Legion fans did not enjoy it, and even the creator did not intend for it to be an indefinite ongoing...


At some point the continuation of that series becomes the inmates running the asylum, against the wishes of it's creator, and actually telling Giffen what he should be writing. Since Giffen doesn't like to be told what to write(a trait that lead to him creating the 5YG in the first place), I wouldn't bet the farm on that series ever appearing as an indefinite monthly.


I know 5YG fans want to see them again, but Giffen himself was going to slaughter them, that future wasn't going to remain dystopian, and the survivors weren't going to be called the Legion. If they are brought back in some way as a permanent cast...I don't expect they'll be called the Legion, more like the Omega Men.


What would you 5YG fans think if they showed up as survivors from an alternate Universe, in the future of this current Universe now calling themselves the Omega Men? That would be fufilling Giffen's wishes, and it would give you your 5YG Legion back(even if not in name).

I could maybe see Johns doing something like that, but that's about the only way I could see them coming back permanently. And I'm not sure how well it would go over with the 5YG fans.

For me the issue isn't bringing back the 5YG Legion as much as it is everyone including Johns saying that his version is the "original" Legion and thus saying that the 5YG isn't or something.

I really think that if Johns and so many of the fans didn't say it was the "real" or "levitz/giffen" Legion, I wouldn't mind it and I might like it. But because they are, every little thing that either conflicts with what I feel is the spirit of the "real" or "levitz/giffen" legion (like basically the whole xenophobia storyline or pointlessly having Val come back only to have him die on some other Earth) or that contradicts something from the 5YG it just makes me hate it.

Apparently not far enough. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the enlightenment.

I'm not seeing a single post complaining that the character is painted as a hero or about the "realism" of the depiction. It appears that you're creating a strawman.

I think the complaint is that he's painted as a boorish whiner, a difficult character to stomach for more than a few panels, let alone wrap several major story-arcs around. It was difficult FOR ME to imagine what personality would be attracted to such a character for any length of time so from YOUR description it came to me that Johns was writing a character to make fun of those that would be most attracted to it.

The character seems to be written not just to mimic whiney message boarders but also to depict them as losers, villians forgotten to a back room.


After painting such a pathetic character I look forward to how Johns realistically portrays him as someone that inspired nearly every single 31st century villain. If he can make this character anywhere near as affective as he did Flash's rogues, this story could take a turn towards my favor. But so far, this story's contrivances read more to me as if they were written by Mark Waid than Geoff Johns. John's is usually more clever, so I suspect (HOPE) there's some things up the sleeve.

Just curious,

Are you able to link us to this Giffen interview you are basing this on? I don't recall Giffen ever saying he was going to turn the Legion in to the Omega Men....

Thanks!

Ooo... far to many people to cite in here:

Blockade Boy:
<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">SuperWhiney-Prime as LSV main influence - </span></span> I just didn't put it into the negative side because I'll hold to further down the line. But I would imagine this as being a <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Time Trapper tweaking of history.</span></span>

Superboy:
I don't care if Giffen was going to kill half of them. The "hat trick" is obviously from the same angered guy who gave us the Earth explosion. I really don't care if they became the new Omega Men or the Wanderers. What I cared was the writing and artistic experience that came from that book, building up on every thing that came before. There are far too many stories that can be told as "Tales from LSH", for instance. I don't care. Kill 90% of them, for all I care, if that makes for good writing (such as it did). Moreover...

jccalhoun:

... is 100% correct. It is completely arbitrary to call Pre-Crisis retconned Legion as the "original". So, don't simply IGNORE TMK. Explain that Crisis actually broke the Legion into multiverses, or whatever. It's disrespectful to call it a book that will feature all Legions and ignores clearly one of the highlights of the Legiondom (liking it or not).

TimeTrapR:

He mentioned in some interviews. I think I have it here somewhere...

GIFFEN: Right um.. Had I been left alone to tell the story: young
Legion turn out to be the genuine article, many of both versions die in the war to free Earth, kid Legion gets the book, Earth and a return to a more innocent time, older guys become far reaches of space lawmen, the last bastion of law before unexplored space, continue their adventures in a new OMEGA MEN series. Or something to that effect.

(this is from an interview to Mike Jozic, DailyDispatch - Giffen's discussion group - moderator extraordinaire)

It's all explained in the Legion Companion published by TwoMorrows

Well almost everyone we did not see the Pre-Crisis Supergirl,which I didn't think we would anyway,and I don't recall seeing Magnetic Kid (Pol) in the book either.

I really liked the first issue,but I will wait and read the next four issues before I jump for joy or quit buying the Legion forever,I do think John's will touch on 5YL before the series is over though.

re: the 5YL Legion

I guess that was why, despite having a decent time reading Johns' "Action" Legion, it didn't resonate as much for me because it seemed to have completely ignored the 5YL Legion.

My attraction to the 5YL Legion was the fact that (as mentioned by someone else) it built on everything else that had gone before and actually moved IMO the Legion's story forward to a time when they married, had kids, changed ideologies/beliefs--they basically progressed/evolved into the next logical level. I've been a Legion fan for nearly 20 years and seeing that sort of progression, that understanding of how everything moves forward, positively or negatively, was the appeal to me of 5YL.

In hindsight I understand now when some of the more senior Legion readers say "It's exhausting to read yet another teen Legion". I still get the WaK/S&M Legion comic book but it doesn't hold much meaning for me...I guess I buy it out of some weird devotion to the LSH.

So yeah, I don't really care about the plan that Giffen intended to put half the team in the ground. The 5YL Legion was more than just a team of super-heroes...they were characters in a bigger story that I wanted to read and their being super-heroic had as much meaning to me as their evolution as characters.

Yes, the Supergirl delimma is going to be the hardest for Johns and company to sort out. I'm hoping they they try, in this series, to give us an explanation tht makes sense. I'm not sure that is really possible.

I feel safe in assuming that Pol is part of this continuity. Polar Boy, Sensor Girl, Tellus, and Quislet are all now established as having been part of the team. There is really nothing in all the crisis, pocket universe stuff that contradicts their introduction so I beleive we are safe in assuming it happened pretty much as Levitz, Lightle and company presented.

That's the Tangent Superman.

Post-Crisis did Superman or anyone for that matter remember Supergirl? Now that I think about it, it seems odd that they remember Barry Allen so clearly but don't seem to remember the original Supergirl.

First off, Thanks for the reference to Giffen's comments RE: The Omega Men/ Legion. Thank you very much...I had no idea there was a Giffen place on the net and I am terribly p.o'd for the time wasted on other creator boards.

Second.

It isnt that "people" feel slighted over "their" Legion not showing up in this book isnt the point. NO...
What causes me to crack my knuckles and begin typing is the "assumption" the "Action" comics Legion is the real deal.

It can't be. Absolutely. Can. Not. Be.

That Legion died at the End of an Era so all 3 of "these" can exist!

The ACTION Legion is some derivative left over from the CRISIS that people that "know" are supposed to fill in their own blanks with.....just like all the other "alternates". Just like *ANY* character DC published after the original CRISIS.

And that is just damn skippy fine.
But..i really hate reading people say things like "your Legion" as if to sound like a mocking child on some inter stellar school yard that is finding joy in somebody else's alleged woe.

Besides...Giffen obviously had other ideas for the Legion's future since he wrote some interesting tales in LEGION 1,000,000.

"How come those characters were ignored"?????

Did he write or just pencilled that? Anyway, Pérez said he is going to include 1,000,000 characters (but never mentioned 5YL).

L3W was pretty busy, and I could've done without the prolonged SBoy-Prime/history lesson sequence--but I can understand it's necessity because of Legion's cult status and bringing all the noobs up to speed.

Once the focus shifted to the Legionnaires, I enjoyed it a lot! Perez's art was absolutely magnificent, as expected. And RJ's death was shocking, though I missed having Reep in the story to react to it.

Loved the Trapper and all those cockroaches! Dunno if the Trapper-as-Entropy proponents were too thrilled with the shot of his foot, though, as it implies there is indeed a person under the robes. The foot really feeds into my theory (which was fodder for the Roundtable for awhile)that Johns is going to reveal the face of the Legion's greatest foe before this is over. (For the record, my pet theory is pre-Crisis Superman!)

I was a little surprised, though not entirely disappointed, that the focus of this issue was fairly narrow. I mean, it barely scratched the surface of what was shown in the promotional image, and some major aspects that Johns said would be there were either not mentioned at all yet (the lightning rod) or barely seen (XS). Five issues is relatively short, though the page count is higher per issue, for some of the major elements to be on the backburner. In a way it felt more like the set-up to a longer series of 7 to 12 parts than for one with just 4 more installments.

Not sure also how I felt about the "missing" Legionnaires subplot. I'm not entirely sure whether they'll turn up with some relevance to the larger story or if it would be saved for a potential follow-up series. I certainly missed Nura and Cham, particularly.

Otherwise, I share some of the caveats others mentioned, like the logic that lead to seeking out the other 2 Legions for assistance--it would've worked in a comic from the '60s or '70s but seemed too simplistic for a modern comic.

(Man, this is sounding so negative! But I liked it, really! )

But otherwise I enjoyed the story as a continuation of the Action epic and found the not-so-easy wrap-up to those threads to be enjoyable. I've a feeling issue 2 and onward are gonna be a lot more fun and should pay off the set-up really nicely. I mean, what's NOT fun about FINALLY getting another LSV War after nearly 25 years since the FIRST one?

I guess I haven't seen enough of Superboy-Prime. I remember him from the original Crisis, as being a Superboy from a world with *no other heroes at all.* And then he showed up in some Teen Titans issue I read where he punched Pantha's head off and did a bunch of other extremely violent stuff (including manifesting a variant of heat vision that cut people in half, but didn't cauterize the wound, making it more like 'chainsaw vision' than heat vision...), but he was freaking out as he was doing it, about how 'they were ruining him,' because he still thought of himself as a hero, the ultimate hero, and here he was killing people *and clearly hating it as it was happening.*

Now he's apparently *loving* killing people, and he's gone from being the poster child for 'does not play well with others,' to wanting to build his own team of super-villains?

How on earth does this make a lick of sense? He loathes teams, holds them in contempt even as he has commented on more than one occasion, because he was a solo hero, and the thought that he would need anyone else always seemed to stick in his craw, and yet here he is, *deliberately gathering a team.* Even in the middle of killing Teen Titans like they were in season, he was whining about how he was supposed to be the good guy, and how *they* were messing things up by 'making him kill them' or some lame thing like that, and now he's *celebrating* being a villain?

His characterization makes zero sense to me. He was a terribly short-tempered wannabe-good-guy who screwed up bigtime, and now he's suddenly all gung-ho 'killing! Yay!'

Yeesh.

And what an odd appearance by Myg, who was a potentially cool character, when Lightle was drawing him. He's not only become a quisling, but the Asian just washed right off that boy, I see.

On a less Negative Nelly note, I loved seeing the museum details and the mentions of the various other homeworlds, and the old familiar faces like Dr. Gym'll and R.J. Brande (who better have been faking it, somehow!).

Some quirky dialogue sounded a little overly generic (describing the Legionnaires as 'average on their home-worlds,' which may describe, uh, someone, but sure doesn't describe Gim, Nura, Imra, Garth, Rokk, Tasmia, Luornu, Querl, etc. who have all been depicted as special, if not nigh-unique, on their homeworlds!).

Nice spreads of the teams at the end. I'm not at all sorry to see that Jarth has somehow parted back into Jan and Garth. Let us not speak of that. Ptui! Also fun to see Dream Boy hanging out back there, so he's not completely forgotten, even if, like the kid who went upstairs and never came down again on Married, With Children, he's never seen or mentioned again.

Action Brainiac needs to cut his hair, stat.

Action Mon-El. Oh yeah. Good to see him on the case. I wonder where Action Cham will show up, or, as whom?

Or have we already seen him? Mwahahaha!

RJ is dead?? *choke* Geoff Johns just wrecked my day.

(Probably won't get to read this until next week.)

I'm quite suspect of RJ's "death." Can a Durlan be killed that way?

I asked the other Durlans in the room and they had no suspicians. However, one told me, "we are always in an alternate form even we don't remember what we look like. We just presume we look like squids and when killed, our blood is supposed to turn green and we will go to that big squid in the sky. Why he turned into a golden head, I don't know."

What if RJ Brande turned out to be Cham disguised?

Wouldn't it be a shock if Brainy's rod housed another character who died during COIE.


LOL I can't believe no one caught this....Brainy's Rod Housing Supergirl ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL yes im a perv

Other than the "perv" angle that's not a bad idea.

I remember a lot of speculation about Barry being the captured character but since we saw him in the 'running backward through time' sequence we now know it's not him. I don't see any reason for it to be Jenni since that entire Legion disappeared together.

So maybe we're about to see Pocket Universe Superboy or the original Kara Zor-El return to save the day?

Heck, I'd pay extra for the book if we were to see the return of Laurel Gand-in-a-thong!

I need a clue! Just one..please?

Until my illusions are crushed, that's my working theory, and he's just faking being dead as well!

Well, I finally got a hold of it and I think it rocks. Geoff Johns has a real gift for writing and love for his source material. And I'm really, really curious to see how the character might be "redeemed".

Re: some of the questions that were asked or points raised up-thread:

I don't find it hard to believe. If the Legion is being sold as a demonstration of inter-racial unity and cooperation, and as a member, he sees bickering and thinly veiled hostility, I can see him being very disillusioned.

I think that's the Tangent Superman you see there - and I think I saw him in the Phantom Zone as well, during the Mon-El rescue operation.

I suspect the Time Trapper's powers - at least in this version - are limited to moving things in time, except when individuals place themselves in his power. McCauley's comments indicate that the Time Trapper promised him renewed youth. This placed him in the Trapper's power, and when he failed, the Trapper could punish him by aging him.

He's upset that instead of staying in post-Crisis reality as Superman of Earth-1's little brother (a role he never thought possible), he wasted his years in nowhere-land. Upon discovering that there WAS room for a Superboy in the new reality, he became obsessed (probably with some goading by Alex Luthor) with reclaiming what he sees as his rightful place, which he sees not only as "Superboy" but as the heir-apparent to the role of Superman. However, when it became clear to him that Superman would never accept him after the diaster that was Infinite Crisis, he's become obsesses with destroying Superman so he can step into that role without interference.

(BTW, wouldn't you love to see him say "Hate Superman! Hate the Legion! Hate! Hate! Hate!" At some point during this series??)

The intended symmetry of the Legion's founding to this is pretty obvious.