Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes So exactly HOW bad is the Legion right now?

Well, I've thought there were major problems with the way this whole "retroboot" was handled from the very beginning, and some of those problems are still infecting the current run. The fluid nature of this team's past makes it kind of difficult to really take their present stories to have much impact. On the one hand, they've been trading on the nostalgia factor of "Hey, this looks a lot like the team I liked back in the 80s!", while, at the same time, being incredibly ambiguous about how much of that version's history is still in place. (Note: I don't really care so much that the continuity is exactly what it was pre-Crisis, but it bothers me that no one seems to know what the continuity is at all!).

That said, PL definitely hasn't had much success in making lemonade out of the lemons he's been dealt. It's obvious from reading his v2/v3 run that PL was itching to do an epic "Green Lanterns in the 30th century" story for years, and I'm not sure how much of his old ideas he actually ended up using, but, man, that was disappointing. And he's been making a lot of questionable choices since his run started (*cough* Earth Man *cough*).

Having said all that, there are things to like about the current run, and I definitely wouldn't rank it as the worst ever. I actually like the Academy kids quite a bit, though I'm not sure bringing them on to the main team was such a great idea (though, given that the Adventure run with them was the best received thing Paul has done lately, it kind of made sense to bring them in).

However, I do find myself really curious about how the new Levitz/Giffen run will actually go, so I suppose in some ways I'm actually looking forward to Legion more than I have in quite awhile. I don't know. It just feels like it's been a really long time since the Legion has been really good. So, it has to pick up eventually, doesn't it?

See, the unfortunate part about this line of thinking is fans my age. I didn't read comics in the 80's. I was too young. I grew up on the rebooted legion, and so these characters are completely foreign to me. And considering I'm in my 30's, surely we have to be a large part of the buying market. Did they even realize, when they brought these characters back, that some people might not even know them and actually be turned away by them?

I think, to be honest, I would have actually preferred them bring an entirely new team in like they technically did with reboot and threeboot. At least then everyone is on the same page of WTF.

Yeah--I didn't read any of those Legion books as it came out, but I will say that that initially, the reason why the Retroboot worked so well was that when Johns brought them back, he actually added new stuff to it, and Levitz just...hasn't, for the most part. The most substantive thing I can think of is Harmonia and that Utopia society that we got just before the New 52, but that hasn't been explored since.

I think the Retroboot would have worked a bit more if they continued to add new ideas to the book instead of mostly just wallowing in the past.

Leather Wolf, despite those two issues being left in my pull bag to this point, I AM hopeful that the book will improve, especially with Giffen coming in next issue. If nothing else, I'm expecting that Giffen will push Paul to tell stories that are less safe and make us feel SOMEthing, even if it's outrage. The ambivalence/"meh" is not something I'm accustomed to feeling about the Legion, so I'm hoping to shake the sense of stagnancy.

So I will be onboard at least for the first few months with Giffen, but if it doesn't do it for me, this could be it for me as a fan buying the ongoing series.

I actually give Paul some credit for the Earth Man storyline, at least as it was portrayed during the first half dozen issues or so of that run. It was Paul taking a chance and doing something controversial in having a bona fide former Legion enemy go through a redemption arc. I actually liked how Paul shook things up with him, even having him date Shady. But as that volume progressed, Earth Man faded mostly into the background, so that when he died in the end, it seemed more of an afterthought.

This, of course, happened after the page count was cut and everything was compressed further to make way for the New 52 relaunch and a clean start.

And the GL storyline really went nowhere, didn't it? That really had the stink of editorial interference in hindsight. I'm sure Geoff Johns and his stranglehold of the GLverse had much to do with that.

Good point. DC assumed with the retroboot that catering to mostly forty-somethings and older would be the way to go. DC has simply made a series of bad decisions with the LSH over the last decade or so. Me and more, I find myself missing the reboot/post-Zero Hour Legion and wishing DC had stayed with it with a new creative team if they felt it was floundering.

While this Levitz run may not be exciting, I think it's far from the worst. At least he knows the Legion and has had some good ideas. Where I think the run has been lacking is in execution. Every story arc so far has felt like the stereotypical bad SNL sketch - a clever idea, some interesting bits along the way, the sense that it's going somewhere, and then it just sort of ends with no payoff. For me, the two best examples of this are the LSV arc and the Secret Origins mini. At the end of issue five of Secret Origins, I was genuinely excited for the finale, which ultimately left me cold. It would have been nice to have had some context for the big reveal of as villain. A montage of past (future?) encounters to demonstrate the significance would have been nice - something to indicate why someone who hasn't read the Legion for 15-20+ years should care.

Was that really even the reason the Reboot Legion got canned? I'd always assumed the REAL reason was that Mark Waid got a "brilliant" idea for a "new and improved" Legion, and since DC worships the ground he walks on that they allowed him to have his way and reboot the series. Because, as a reader, The Legion probably had some of the best writing and plot that the Reboot Legion ever SAW. Were the sales THAT bad at that point?

No idea, CL. Anecdotal evidence has it that the reboot took a U-turn in sales late in the run of "The Legion", possibly around "Foundations", but I don't know how much that's true. Some other posters here who kept/keep track of sales might have better evidence.

But I believe you're right in that Waid's version probably got the nod for the point of view that you bring up. But I'm not sure if it was Waid's or DC's idea initially to do another reboot.

Yes, they were. The later half of the DnA era saw a pretty steady drop. I'll see if I can go dig up the numbers in the old sales thread. Now the numbers are the worst they've ever been right now, but that's the same for a lot of books.

I'm sorry for all of you fans who lost your Reboot and Threeboot Legions and continually compare the Retroboot Legion to them, but I must admit, I actually enjoy this version. I am one of those fans who grew up reading the Legion in the 1980's and inherited a collection of Legion comics from an older brother that dates back to 1965. I stopped collecting in 1987, the beginning of my senior year of high school (I know this is dating me) due to other life priorities, and when I had a chance to jump back on the bandwagon during college, I found that the characters I knew were gone as well with the Reboot. Like you, I couldn't get back into the Legion at that point. Fast forward 20+ years and I was suprised to find Legion Lost and the New 52 Legion by Levitz. The old team from the 1950s-1980's was back! I finally found my entry point again, and fortunately after reading Levitz' editorial in Legion V.6 #1, I discovered that this Legion is in complete (95%) continuity with the original run plus recent events from Lo3W, Action Comics and Adventure Comics.

While this may not be YOUR Legion, it does make sense that this is the Legion that Geoff Johns and Paul Levitz decided to work from. This is the Legion with the most years of continuity. Personally I think it was a mistake to ever reboot the Legion in the first place. The Reboot and Threeboot is where all of the confusion over characterization and continuty was created. I do wish that some of your favorite characters from those runs could have been created along the way as the Legion evolved over time, and that they might be part of the Legion today. Unfortunately that did not happen. Geoff Johns and Paul Levitz have simply worked with the hands that they've been given. For Levitz that meant continuing on with the Earth Man storyline from Johns Action run to not disrupt continuity again.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Not all issues and storylines from the 1960's, 1970's or 1980's were the greatest. You probably might hate them if they were published today. But the writers from those years published enough good stuff to make the title worth while in the long run. The same is true with the current Legion written by Johns, Levitz, Nicieza and DeFalco. Some stories work. Some don't. But I can't say that it's really any worse than it was in years past. Good story writing takes time to grow and weave plot threads into sagas. Every issue won't be an earth shattering saga. And it shouldn't have to be if you love the characters and the worlds on which their adventures take place. I think many of us are too quick to slam writers and artists and yearn to pull the plug. We need to give give Levitz time, as long as we continually see improvement.

Personally, I think most of this current run since issue #8 hasn't been all that bad. While the results from the current Legion Leader election may have thrown a curve ball for some of you because the wrong Legionnaire won, just remember, we readers voted in that election. It was our choice of who was elected. Levitz now has to work with our choice. That is one of the beauties of this comic. Readers do have a say in the ongoing saga in that way. Let's just enjoy the ride a bit and have fun. Isn't that what reading comics is all about anyway?

Yeah, I take it the introduction of Superboy in Foundations was a last ditch effort to try to turn sales around, but it was too little, too late.

Of course, the reason the Threeboot happened instead of trying to revive the title with a new creative team had everything to do with Waid offering a Legion pitch that took it in such a radically new direction that it had to be a new continuity rather than, say, picking up the reboot after a five year gap.

Leather Wolf, I'm about your age and grew up on the same stories you did. I loved the Legion from my entry point just prior to the "Great Darkness Saga" all the way thru the TMK/5YL era (with some back issues and digests to fill me in on the older stories) and would have never have wanted the Legion to be rebooted.

That said, it WAS rebooted, and I came to enjoy the reboot wuite a bit. It dipped in quality just prior to DnA, but they restored my faith in that version with a new, more sci-fi take. Honestly, their run was the last time I felt truly excited about the Legion. And their are versions and takes on the classic and new characters from that era that I miss to this day.

It's hard with the subsequent versions falling flat for me not to feel nostalgiac about the last time I felt really excited about my favorite concept in all of comics. The dilemma is, I know, tha just like this version has fallen flat for me, the same is likely to happen if DC ever decided to bring the reboot version back. Therefore, if I could go back in time and influence DC editorial somehow, I'd rather they'd just stuck with the reboot with a new creative team than have kept us going down the path of rebooting the book every time sales got low.

Hell, I guess they never should have rebooted it the first time.

Here's Ken Aromdee's chart with the known sales up until this past summer. As you can see, the move from "Legion" to the Threeboot was a huge jump:

http://www.rahul.net/arromdee/legion.jpg

I think that's kind of what it is for me. I know damn good and well that if they brought back the Reboot Legion now that it wouldn't be the same. But those were the characters I loved and these just...aren't. I'm sure this is EXACTLY how the people who grew up on the original Legion felt, though to be completely honest with you I didn't even know that the Reboot Legion was a "reboot" until about a year later. I was sort of new to comics in those days and didn't realize you could reboot entire universes to suit your fancy. XD

*CRIES OPENLY*

Does this feeling EVER GO AWAY?

Sorry for the double post!

The sad part is that even at its worst, the Reboot Legion is still selling more than the current version. That makes me very sad.

I wonder, really, how much of the Threeboots initial success was due to the storyline and how much was due to people buying it due to Waid's popularity? Probably a mix of both.

The election result has at least made my interest pick up. And one thing I like about the current lineup is there's nobody I actively loathe and wish would leave the team, unlike Superboy (end of the DNA run), the 3boot Ultra Boy, and Earth-Man (at least at the start of his tenure). I am curious about Harmonia, and I do like the (finally) open acknowledgement of the Vi-Ayla relationship.

Re the chart, even at its lowest, the DNA Legion wasn't selling as poorly as the worst of the pre-DNA Legion. So I'd guess the nature of Waid's pitch was a fairly big factor in the decision to reboot?

I don't think the feeling of wishing things would go back the way they used to be ever goes away, particular for those of us who have very fond memories of growing up with a certain era. I know I enjoyed the Postboot Legion because I liked what I perceived to be a very strong atmosphere of camaraderie

Nope...

This completely.

It probably hasn't helped my appreciation for the current run that I've been re-reading 5YL lately as well, which, in my mind, is far superior to the retroboot in every way.

The 5YL is one of the finest examples of the comic book form of literature.

One thing about 5YL is that, despite what flaws it has, it actually feels to me like a continuation of v3. Whereas the retroboot has always felt like something calculated to look like v3, but I just don't buy it as a possible future heading off from that series.

Careful everyone, we're skirting dangerously close to another "5YL was the Best/Worst" throwdown (TM). Remember what happened last time? Quislet Esq, still has the scar on his elbow.

Oy, I don't wanna cause a throwdown, but the following Legion eras are my favorites: (i) Levitz/Giffen; (ii) 5YL; and (iii) DnA's run.

These were the times I was most excited by the Legion, that I cared most about the characters.

In my view, the commonality of these runs was that new things were being done with the Legion, there was a sense of risk, of vitality... as opposed to, say, misguided fan service or maintenance of status quo.

I want someone to be given the time to take some creative, well-planned, non-editorially-dictated risks with the Legion and show us what they got.

And I don't see it happening any time soon, particualrly not at DC where I see very little of that at all right now.

The current run is solidly in the middle for me, just uninspiring at the end of the day. I have fond memories of the Earth Man saga, though, and I the GL story had un-realized promise ... it really seems like Paul kept getting interrupted with a new reboot or renumbering or new 52 initiaive every time he started to get a groove going, and so far the current title has not grooved for me.

For me: twenty pages isn't much to work with in todays storytelling atmosphere. Honestly, I think it would work a little better if we had maybe three or four pages of character and future storyline building, and fifteen or so pages of the main, current storyline. With that, making each one pretty much two issue arcs, with maybe five to seven members of the legion coming into focus on each one. Different members. It's okay to not have Brainy in each and every storyline. I get that he's a great exposition character, which writers need, but the rest of the Legion aren't duds when it comes to the brains department.

Have Ayla be an expert on Gravity, not just making things light. Thom would be the opposite side. He grew up on a station designed for deep space study and exploration. Pretty sure he's got some knowledge about stellar forces, interactions. Can probably prove or disprove string theory. Rokk is a noted historian. There's all kinds of different things.

And as the storyies progress, you can build to that once a year or every eighteen month's big battle blowout that features the entire crew together.

Mix and match more characters together that maybe we haven't ever seen any real interaction with. Mon and Vi, or Jo and Pol. That's always been the strength of the legion, the characters always being teamed up in small groups that are forced to adapt and interact with each other in different ways.

I wouldn't call what I've read "bad" per se. But the book offers very little value for the money. Otherwise, I'd probably feel compelled to plunk down money for it no matter how broke I was.

I echo the sentiment of rickshaw1 and others who've complained about skimpy character development. Of course, it's great to see talented artists show off what they can do, but that's not enough by itself. During the first year of Levitz' return, I spent most of my time enjoying the art, even when it wasn't perfect. But also scratching my head and thinking wtf?! regarding most of the plot/character developments. Too many of them just seemed to come out of nowhere.