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

I think you're reading more into the scene than the writer intended, Shady. I think that scene was just so the 2 characters could voice their raisons d'etre: Shikari follows things and Umbra's all about darkness. Kind of like how Dawnstar has to say something about a path in every voice bubble. It's one-note characterization.

Besides, Projectra tells us the source referred to: Mordru.

P.S. It's a nice idea though.

Well, that's darn sad.
sigh

I knew that the door to the DDs was opened by Mordru, but I didn't think that he was the source of their being.
(I was reminded of the Darkness Saga when Darkseid's corrupted heroes came through the boomtubes.)

Wishful thinking, I guess.

Do you have the numbers for this? Cause Conner's initial series ran 100 issues (and was run into the ground pretty spectacularly) plus Superboy and the Ravers. So there must have been some numbers to support him.

Now did Legion outsell him the entire time, possibly, I don't have the numbers, but for some reason I doubt it.

I don't think Conner is the savior for this book, they killed his book on a sour note (I bought that last issue, utter crap) but Teen Titans was popular and Johns is popular (although I think that Conner is a completely different character when Johns writes him). But I don't know where his popularity stands now, and I don't know what that portends for Adventure comics.

But more than anything else, retroboot Legion is what is selling, and as much as I love Conner, he doesn't belong with the retroboot Legion, they aren't his friends, they aren't his age, there's nothing. So I guess they are just using the historical connection with the characters and Adventure, because story wise they don't tie together.

sadly, they didn't! quite the opposite, even if superboy's series did't look that much healty in the first place. you can check the numbers here: http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=695

My comment wasn't really about sales figures so much as it was the fan bases. I feel the Legion Fans even then, and that is pretty much the absolute low point in Legion history, were more ardent fans whereas the base for the Conner Superboy was more disjointed and loose. Certainly less vocal.

The Legion's actual sales figures are not necessarily reflective of it's popularity or base. There are plenty of Legion Fans that haven't read the actual monthly of the various boots at times for reasons of protest or often just out of plain old frustration....

For proof I point out that the Legion stayed in publication through that dark period while Conner did not(outside of roles on teams). Then again, that decision to cancel his title could have had something to do with the litigation over the Superboy name. Still, the Legion Fans then and always, even now, were of a fiercer nature than the Conner fans IMHO.

I didn't say we're the more happy, positive and supportive base, just the more passionate one.


In any case those actual sales numbers for Conner's title are, greater or not, far from savior status IMHO.

Ok, fair enough. You want to be entertained so will only spend your money selectively on those projects which you deem have "entertainment value". That makes sense and is your God given right after all.
I'm a collector though, so I want to keep buying Legion in whatever form is available at the moment. I cannot however collect something that isn't there.
Will I buy any old comic just because it has a brief appearance by Tellus in it? Probably not.
I also have a burning need to be entertained before I spend my hard earned money as well.
I'll tell you though, I WILL definately buy a Legion comic, good or bad, not just because I'm a collector but because I love the concept and have since I was 7 years old. They are like family to me at this point and it's a given for me then to want to see them not only make it through this current test of their strength (Lo3W) but also in the years ahead, hopefully, in the form of their own comic once again.
It's like being a parent. You don't take "breaks" from being a parent just because you don't agree with your child at some point in their life.
Collectors who love the Legion stick it out regardless of the good, bad and ugly.
Because we're collectors.
Period.

Did you guys notice that apparently Adventure Comics will try to reintroduce Legion? That they expect that a bunch of solo stories will do something to grab readers interest, even though Shooter outsold most of what DC publishes now?
And that Legion of 3 Worlds was just an excuse to bring back characters dear to Johns and use LSH as cannon fodder while trampling Waid and Shooter in the process?

Ok, I'll buy that the Legion has a stronger fanbase, but I don't know if a part of that isn't to being so beat down. I think about the South, the South has an identity that the rest of the country really doesn't have, and it's partly formed from losing the Civil War and an attitude that comes from having been beaten down but still keep going. Sort of a "we've had it rough but we're still here." So I wonder if some fanbases since of identity isn't partially from being so screwed by TPTB.

I would also say that the fanbases don't help unless they are buying books. The success of Lo3W is a good sign, but I know Legion fans who don't care unless it's the post-zero hour team and see the Johnboots as more DC pandering to the Silver Age, other Legion fans who left Legion a long time ago and simply don't care anymore, and what about the fans who are out of comics all together.

But I do agree that Conner isn't the savior for the Legion, simply because this isn't HIS Legion, these aren't HIS friends, so there is no compelling story reason for him to be with them. And true unnatural story situations can sell, but often they are things that don't survive once the hot writer leaves the book. So I think Superboy (Conner) and the Legion of Super-heroes (Johnsboot) could sell, I think once Johns would leave the book the sales and quality would tank because there is no real story reason for those two to be together.

So I understand what DC is trying to do, but I don't think this is the solution, or at least a long-term solution. Maybe they just want to keep doing something with the Legion until they can build it up enough to spin it out on its own, but I don't think Conner is going to end up being a big part of this Legion.

(snip)

future king:

Quote

...It's like being a parent. You don't take "breaks" from being a parent just because you don't agree with your child at some point in their life...

Parents and children become estranged all the time, actually, IRL. So this metaphor doesn't really work for me.

In addition, I really don't have the parent-child feeling toward any fictional character unless it's one I've actually created. I don't know what metaphor I'd use to describe my relationship to a corporate property; one in which I sometimes grasp what the current caretaker is trying to do, but sometimes not. However, parent-child doesn't really cover it.

Quote

...Because we're collectors. Period.

Which is great, for you. But I still maintain that DC can't keep this or any other "franchise" healthy unless they want to look beyond what the typical comic book collector traditionally wants. As I said earlier, I don't refer just to content, but how it's pitched, to whom and in what context.

well, I finally read it. It'd previously thought that many had leapt to conclusions re: the domination by non-LSH characters, that it was more of a Flash/GL/Supes book with LSH as decor... now I can finally agree with that perspective.

I am glad that Neoclassic Legionnaires are generally being spared from the gratuitous slaughterings. Hopefully that Legion will be the core with the unique members of Reboot and Threeboot as additions.

According to the DC website Lo3W #5 is now scheduled for July 8th (2009 just in case you were wondering)

It's absolute bollocks having to wait so long for issue #5...it's also bollocks having to wait so long for #6 of Ambush Bug:Year None! Very irritating, not to mention poor scheduling!

Didio killed Ambush Bug #6 months ago and forced a rewrite. Supposedly it will be re-solicited when it's done.

Also the original editor (Jann Jones) left. Might it have to do with that too? It wouldn't surprise me...

Guys? They released the preview for Adventure Comics #2. Lightning Lord survives. And he has a shocking family secret to tell.

Let me guess, they're really separated triplets from Cargg.

Oh eww. I dunno, just said secret. Oh, and for Donna Troy fans, you are going to be pissed. She's going to be wishing she wasn't a mother when the skies turn black.

She's a mom again? I gave up on Titans back when she became Jean Grey the first half dozen times.

Well she will be when her son crawls out of his grave.

Given that the end of Lo3W is now less than a month away, what theories has everyone got as to how the three Legions will be rationalised and what will be the fate of Prime.

the possibilities for the Legion, as I can see them, are:

- all Legions lose a load of members leaving an amalgam Legion going forward.

- two Legions make a mass sacrifice to save the other Legion and the universe.

- (my pet theory) The three Luornus learn that they can merge into one and separate again into 6-8 bodies. B5 emulates the merging capability to merge the three Garths, three Imras etc into one of each with a combined power level. These mergers will not be able to separate. Some of the Legionnaires (XS, Gates, possibly Gear) who have no counterparts will survive while others who are duplicates (eg Shikari and Dawnstar) only one will survive.

As for Prime, the options as I see them:

- he dies redeeming himself saving the Legion(s)

- he ends up as the Trapper at the end of Time

- he dies as the Trapper

- he reforms and joins the Legion

- (my theory) he discovers that Earth Prime still exists and is taken back to become the Superman of that world - Saturn Girl mindwipes him so he does not remember anything since he left Earth Prime.

Do you agree or have you your own theories?

I would agree with the Luornus merging and can certainly see Prime and the remainder of the Threeboot returning to their Earth after it is discovered to be Earth Prime (or a close approximation thereof)

However I would also predict wholesale slaughter of the re-boot team as they cause the most problems to the ongoing continuity.

The Johnsboot is clearly the future Legion so more or less they are safe from the chopping block and if we are both correct the Threeboots can fairly easily be moved out of the way. This only leaves the post-Zero Hour with nowhere to go.

I would imagine Karate Kid and Ferro could be fairly easily slotted into the Johnsboot to replace the missing versions there and possibly Shikari and one or two of the other unique characters could be added to the Threeboot refugees.

As I do not forsee amalgamation for all of them and the LSV have to do something in this series to earn their keep, their future is rather bleak!

I do hope I am wrong though

I hope that somehow it all kind of resets back to the pre-no-superboy legion and the last 20 odd years are treated as a mulligan (I'm not a golfer so I hope I'm using the term correctly).

Your theories were fun and entertaining BUT, I have a problem with your last one. They do that type of thing in comics and I think its wrong, just because you don't remember the crimes that you've committed doesn't mean that you're not guilty of having committed them. And it certainly does not heal the hurt caused by those crimes. In my mind, Superboy-Prime needs to pay for his sins. If he actually is TT, perhaps that would make TT an even greater threat/villian to the DC as a whole. I just don't get how Kryptonian powers translate into time manipulation.

There's hve to be a whole lot of miracle machine level mind-wiping going on to keep denizons from a dozen destroyed worlds from spending their existance trying to get to E-Prime and get revenge.

Maybe he'll end up with Pocket-Superboy. Do we know where he ended up after death? At one point, I used to think they were the same character until I got this Pocket-Prime thing straightened out in my head. I kep reading "prime" and thinking "pocket."

I am expecting more of an anti-climactic conclusion to all this.

1) SB Prime is not redeemable, IMO, and I think he lives on to another day as the murderous Time Trapper.

2) The three Legions may lose a few more members, but they will, for the most part, stay intact and exist in three different universes. During the final departure to their own earths, some members may find themselves 'trapped' with the wrong Legion. The classic Legion will be the focal point of future Legion stories and it is this Legion which will acquire the 'extra' members such as Luornu, Val Armorr, and Kon-El, etc. The other two Legions will exist in DC limbo until a writer chooses to draw upon them.

3) The main point of this saga was the reintroduction of the 31st century Green Lanterns, the reintroduction of Bart Allen, and the reintroduction of Conner Kent. The emphasis will remain on these points and not much will be added on the Legion front.