Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Do you have/have you had a Legion-reading roadBLOCK?

Some have touched on the reason(s) why they had/have stopped reading LSH over in the roadmap . Now here's a whole thread in which you may vent your space-spleen!

At some point the threeboot began acting as a roadblock. It was a combination of:

(A) Yet another reboot began feeling more and more like a slap in the face

(B) I thought Shooter's storyline and characterization were just awful, B-grade work.

*But* I probably began to feel that way before Shooter. If the Legion had continued with the threeboot, I suspect for the first time in my life, I might have stopped reading it.

I stopped during the threeboot for financial reasons. Never had an all out "I am never buying this book again" moment so far...there's been a few things that has almost made contemplate that.

I will say that if I had been enjoying the threeboot more at the time...I would have found some way to get it. I have picked up some trades from the series and will probably finish it off at some point, but I am in no hurry to do so.

I've only been buying new Legion comics off the stands since Legionnaires #1 in 1993 (though I'd first gotten into the team via a bunch of old back-issues I'd bought previously).

And though I've been a fairly consistent Legion follower ever since, there have been two points in time where my hatred of their then-current directions forced me to drop the book -

* The first was circa Legionnaires #65 - the finale of the Dark Crap Rising storyline. Though I love the early-Reboot version of the Legion above all others (except maybe the Adventure-era team) I had been thinking it was getting steadily worse after Mark Waid left, and this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I won't go into the details since I'm sure everyone else who suffered through this PMS-era of the team knows what its problems were, but if it hadn't been for DnA taking over the team about a year later, who knows if I would ever have come back to the team? In that era's marginal defence though, I will say that years later when I bought those missing issues solely to complete my collection of Reboot appearances, they were fairly readable and enjoyable in a "Thank God this book isn't like this anymore" kinda way.

* The second time was during the Threeboot when the book became Supergirl & the Legion of Super-Heroes with issue #16. My enormous disappointment with the Threeboot team and the fundamentally broken world that Waid and Kitson had created had set in LONG before that title change happened but the addition of Super-let's-put-her-on-every-team-in-the-DCU-until-people-start-to-like-her-and-her-trampy-outfit-girl was it for me. And I never picked up an issue of that book again.

Unlike with the missing Reboot issues though, I have no intention of ever finding out what I missed out in the rest of the Threeboot (unless it's to learn more about this Dream Boy character that everyone seems to hate) even when those issues are selling for .50c at my local store. My hated and disappointment with the WaK "vision" for this team is that much!

Three times in my own personal history.

1) Conspiracy- I didn't like the idea of Legionnaires plotting to kill anyone- even the Time Trapper. Added to the fact that I was getting tired of Levitz's tendency toward wordiness, and the fact that I was a college student struggling to make tuition payments, this story made my decision easy.

2) End of an Era- I LOVED the FYL Legion, and while I wasn't crazy about everything that was happening with Legion On the Run, I very much didn't want to see my history being thrown out.

3) Cub- I was getting bored with the stories at that point and my own little Cub (David Anton) was born right about then, too. I stopped buying comics altogether, but as Dev says above, if I ws enjoying them, I'd have found a way.

I should note that even before End of an Era, I'd only bought a few issues of Legionnaires. SW6 was never my cup of tea.

I stopped reading the series sometime around Legionnaires #71 and LSH v4 #114, when it was clear that the stories were going nowhere and the creative team was running out of steam. I didn't bother to pick it up again until sometime around The Legion #7.

I stopped reading when they canceled "Tales". I didn't have access to a comic shop, and therefore read the whole Baxter series in reprints up until that point.

When we finally did get a shop in town a year later I was two full years behind and had moved on to other books. When the v.4 restart happened I really didn't like the look and feel of it and passed (as luck would have it, a guy across the hall in my dorm collected v4 so I kept up to date through him, but really didn't like it).

I started again with the Reboot and have been back ever since. I've almost back filled most of the Baxter stuff I missed, but look forward to hunting some at SDCC this year (along with a Levitz autograph).

I was reading up through the Baxter run 'back in the day' and sometime after issue 38 (where Sensor Girl, Tellus, Quislet, Magnetic Kid and Polar Boy join the team) and 39 (Timber Wolf on Lythyl) it felt much like hitting a wall. After that there were only a few arcs (the Universo Project!) that really worked for me, and they got fewer and farther between.

So I just went to Cosmic Teams, and, to my surprise, it was apparently Crisis on Infinite Earths that heralded the end of my Legion career for about a decade or so...

And the thing that got me back into the Legion?

Superboy's Legion. That wide-eyed enthusiasm of youth sucked me back in, and I began picking up random Legion issues to see if it still existed in the 'main continuity.'

I will never ever ever ever ever buy 3boot LSH # 50.

Other than that, though, I've stuck with 'em through Chuck and Ron-Karr.

^^^ It took me a minute to work that one out. (It's early.)

Duh! I didn't even get until I read your reply, Blacula!!

Lash's mind just works on a higher plane than ours rhino!

I got it.

What I didn't get was Gail Simone's arc at the back end of The Legion. (I've since borrowed copies.) It didn't have anything to do with Gail, or that it was pretty much a marking-time arc (which I'm pretty sure we knew at the time?). I don't think I was buying any comics during that period, but I can't really remember.

I picked back up with the 3boot. The last issue I bought was 44. I'd been buying LSH since late 2001 to keep up with the MB wackiness, but I guess I hit my breaking point. It wasn't some dramatic never again! decision. I don't remember any decision, really. I was still buying a few comics, but my CBS trips became more and more sporadic.

I have a half-baked 'all boats rise/fall with the tide' theory about the situation. I think this was about the time Slott left She-Hulk, which had been a buy-on-release-date book for me. I'm sure it wasn't just She-Hulk (although that was a mighty fine title), but that's one I can recall. Anyway, when you let go of a book you had been excited about, dropping one you were buying out of habit seems easier. Pun potential be damned.I did take a quick flip a few issues in the CBS, and I got the Justice League Earth trade at the library. So I guess I'm still willing to read it...but I ain't payin' for it!

That's a great point Teeds regarding the 'all boats rise/fall with the tide' theory. That recently happened to me too: a few comics I was really loving, like Young Liars were canceled by the publishers, and I got so annoyed I've made an effort to cancel comics I was buying out of habit but not enjoying: Mighty Avengers, Power Girl, Outsiders, etc.

Too many comic book series rest on the laurels. There should always be a reason to get you to come back to combat these types of feelings reader's get.

I hit two roadblocks:
1. Late in the Levitz run I got so tired of the art team of Greg Laroque and Mike DeCarlo and the generally tired stories that Paul was turning out at that point, I dropped the book for a grand total of two months. I don't remember which issues, since I subsequently picked them up, but I think I may have started reading again because I heard Giffen was returning. Not sure where I would have heard it though, in those days before we knew every move our fave publishers make almost before they do.

2. Five or so issues into the Reboot. I think it was the indication that the writers were going to pair up Imra and Cos that had me say "that's it; this isn't the Legion." I dropped the book for real that time, not reading it regularly again for about five years. I started again just before the DnA run and bought up all the issues I'd missed. Paraphrasing what Blacula said above, those issues turned out to be fairly readable in an "any Legion is apparently better than no Legion" kind of way.

After that I kind of accepted the inevitability that I would buy pretty much whatever crap DC published with the Legion's name on it, continuing to buy even when DnA got into the "let's see how we can top last month's planet threatening crisis" loop they found themselves in after the utter bleakness of Legion Lost or when Jim Shooter's triumphant return turned into such a disappointment.

It's ok. I'm comfortable with the fact that I'm a Legion whore.

Teeds, you totes missed out on Gail bringing back INFECTIOUS LASS!!

I totes did not. Re-read the post, I borrowed copies (from some hippie).

Ah-- excellent!! I loved the mention of alien STDs in that arc...

I also count three road blocks.

1: 1990. I quit five issues into the "Five Years Later" series. This was a major decision for me (I felt at the time) because I had been reading the Legion since 1972 and considered it my favorite series, the one series I expected to follow forever. But Giffen's darker version without uniforms and code names, and with that horrid nine-panel grid (which he aped from Watchmen) were antithetical to everything I loved about the Legion. The Crisis-induced redaction of Legion history proved to be the final nail.

(I will amend this by saying that I've since bought and read most of the TMK era and enjoyed it. I understand what Giffen was trying to achieve, and sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. But it reads better in a few settings than being serialized every month.)

2: 1994. I returned to the Five Years Later Legion just after Giffen departed and remained for about a year. This was the era of zombies and Legion on the Run -- not the Legion at its best. Also, I was undergoing some changes -- I graduated college, my mother passed away, I moved from my hometown and entered grad school -- and no longer had the time or interest for comics going through the usual motions.

3: 2004 to present. Four years away had given me some distance from the Legion, so I was ready to accept the reboot, it's more innocent take on the Legion, and the revisions to old stories. I accepted this new Legion as a new creation entirely, and I stuck with it through the cancellation of The Legion series. But then DC rebooted the franchise yet again. I read the preview issue and decided I was no longer interested in stories about teens rebelling against their parents. I'd been down that road. I wanted to see the Legionnaires mature, to grow up, as I did, as they did in the preboot. I do not care to relive my teen years, and I don't want to see my heroes do so either.

Inevitably, I was also undergoing some more personal changes at this time. A change in careers left me with no money to spend on comics. A hoped-for relationship left me with a broken heart. Compared to what was going on in my real life, the imaginary angst of serialized comic book characters was nothing. I had no patience for this anymore.

I read a couple of issues of the threeboot, Legion of Three Worlds (which I borrowed from a friend), and the first issue of Levitz's return. Some I enjoyed, others not. These days I'm happily retired as a comic book fan. I get my thrills from novels and other types of reading.

The Legion will always hold a special place in my heart, and I love discussing the old stories. But, in terms of following them (or any comics) today, I've moved on.

I know what Santa is sending Lash for X-Mas this year.

Hey, if he brings it, I'll read it and make fun of it.

Adventure Comics #381, although I did continue reading through part of the Action comics run.

I remember reading an article by Roy Thomas in which he recalled subscribing to ALL-STAR COMICS in 1950 or '51 so he could get the adventures of his favorite heroes, the JSA, delivered right to his door. He received one issue of ASC before the title converted to ALL-STAR WESTERN and the JSA disappeared into limbo. He was greatly disappointed that the rest of his already-paid-for subscription featured western heroes.

I imagine Legion fans of 1969 must have felt the same way when ADV. 381 hit the stands and their mailboxes.

Despite the fact I greatly enjoyed it, somehow I dropped collecting Legion Lost after #3. I believe maybe at the time all of my other titles had gotten slow and I probably tested myself and just gave up on collecting all together. I chanced upon Legion Lost #8 a few months later and saw a cover featuring some of the non-Lost Legionnaires. Needless to say my curiosity was piqued and I had caught up on my Legion collection by that afternoon.

I also dropped the threeboot after #3, but that was because my local shops stopped carrying the title and by the time I moved I had it in my head to just let it go. I stayed caught up via here and then came back later when Shooter came in.