Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Conjure reads the reboot!

Believe it or not, two of those were dealt with.

In "First Strike" crossovers, the Dominators locked Swamp Thing's consciousness out of the bio-sphere forcing him to time-jump, leading to a year's worth of Swamp Thing time travel stories.

Also in "First Strike" the Spectre held a summit of all magic users and mystical beings where it was decided that humanity had to face the threat on its own. Only a few standouts defied their decision (Deadman being the prominent one).

Dream doesn't normally involve himself in these kind of things.

Yeah, it occurred to me that Dream isn't a Earth entity but perhaps a universal entity?

Anyway, I'm fine with any given civilization not progressing much in 1000 years, or progressing and falling back, or accidentally putting themselves in stasis, or deciding progress is simply not for them... whatever. The stupidity is unnecessarily bringing in FIVE races from the future and having to explain why all 5 just happened to have a net progress of approximately zero for the same millennium.

I know it's just comics, but you just don't have to push the verisimilitude that far. It does break at some point.

Okay, think I've harped on it enough for this week.

Yup. This was how J'Onn saw Morpheus:

Ugh, you mention Durlans in the 20th century and I have flashbacks to Skrulls in Marvel's Secret Invasion and that left a lingering bad taste as it is.

Yeah, that's more how I saw the Endless.

It turned out that the young SW6 batch Legionnaires weren't actually the adult Legionnaires plucked from the past, but duplicates created by the Timte Trapper.

Which explains why young Garth had his arm restored and young Luornu had all three of her bodies, while the adult Luornu didn't and the adult Garth got his arm back a different way.

Oh, the Dominators didn't create batch SW6? Are they something other than clones?

In the very last issue of that reality, the Time Trapper (who is really Cosmic Boy!!) revealed that he had "split off" the SW6 Legion from the "real" Legionnaires and hidden them underground. He was responsible for restoring Luornu's third body (by plucking her from time earlier) and healing Garth's arm. In essence, they were like magical duplicates of the "real" Legionnaires - each version was as real as the other.

Their time didn't end completely because their being split prevented it. Time only ended after each paur of adult and young Legionnaires merged.

So why were they being called "batch SW6"--and who was calling them that btw?. This sounds like something that one only done once.

Though there have been an awful lot of Legions out there.

I think Batch SW6 was a name given by the Dominators, whod found them where the Time Trapper hid them. Remember, the original intent of the writers was supposedly to have this Legion revealed to be the original Legion, and the adult Legion was a cloned version, or vice versa. The whole Time Trapper explanation was created at the end simply because the original storyline couldn't be written due to Zero Hour happening.

You know, I find it interesting that the invulnerable Andromeda was thought dead and the intangible Apparition really did die. The two Legionnaires you'd think are safest from bodily harm?

Of course, that paved the way for both of them to return. I'm sure that's one reason they were chosen to "die", so their returns would be plausible.

Still strange that they were called Batch SW6 if they were actually the originals. Unless it were a security measure, but surely this name was only used among the Dominators in the first place?

Oh well. This is probably not a useful line of inquiry.

Well, in real life the writers could have wanted to keep readers guessing as to which batch was the real one. Perhaps even the Dominators didn't want their entire populace to know which was the real one.

You know what just occurred to me?

"Does it matter?"

I mean other than emotionally to fans, and possibly to some characters, it kinda doesn't, unless they eventually use something only clones or Time Duplicates are susceptible to.

Perhaps we should poll all the clones on the Boards.

The answer might surprise you. Many of them actually have a high degree of internalized clonophobia.

I'm still annoyed that my long absence made me miss this battle!

Say, why aren't more people talking about this Legion era? Come on, people!

What did you all think about new characters like Gates, Monstress, Magno or Gear?

We've heard a lot of opinions on XS, and we all know what you think about me

(Proud winner of IB's Multiverse Legion Idol, huzzah!)

I'd love to post more about this era, but my reading time has been taken up by the Archives.

I will say that I loved most of the reinterpretations of Legion stories and characters in the reboot, particularly how the team's membership expanded under President Chu. The notion that the Legion would be exploited for political purposes was too good an idea to pass up--as was the Legion's eventual victory over Chu.

Some ideas I initially didn't care for turned into wonderful stories which made me rethink what could be done with the Legion. For example, Leviathan as the first leader seemed to be an arbitrary "let's muck with this because we can" choice. But the reasons why Gim was selected--his SP background made him look good on paper--and the Tangleweb story demonstrating his shortcomings as leader (as well as his wisdom in passing the reigns on to Cosmic Boy) was one of the highlights of the reboot.

I enjoyed most of the new characters, including Gates, Monstress, Magno, XS, and Kinetix. They were not merely added to show that this Legion was different from the old one (which they did); each had a unique personality and formed relationships with the established Legionnaires so that the group as a whole transformed into something new and fresh. At the same time, certain classic stories were deeply woven into the Legion's identity and could not be discarded, such as Garth losing his arm and the destruction of Trom. Yet these stories were often changed in ways that made them new and exciting.

Not everything worked in the reboot, however, and the series started to show its age by the time the Team 20/30 story lines were wrapped up. I didn't mind the team being split in two and half the members stranded in the present day--some outstanding stories resulted from their attempts to get back home. But after they did, it seemed the creators didn't know what to do with the series. (Ironically, I jumped on board during this period--with LSH # 109--after having abandoned the series toward the end of the preboot.) While some ideas still seemed fresh, others--such as the brief membership of Thunder--showed the creators were trying to include too many ill-thought out ideas to stay fresh or tie in with other DC Universe properties.

I had mixed feelings about the Blight, though it was clear a change was needed and it was refreshing to see the team struggle for a victory. Legion Lost was a brilliant masterpiece that again challenged our conceptions of who the Legionnaires were and what could be done with them. Unfortunately, DnA did not know what to do with the Legion once they were back in a regular series, and most of that run, to me, is best forgotten.

Overall, I liked the first reboot and was dismayed when DC chose to reboot the Legion yet again in 2004. That's where I pretty much stopped following the Legion and other comics on a regular basis. The Legion's universe is, I think, meant to grow, become complex, and even get messy. Starting over was a novel idea once; doing it again is just lazy writing and publishing in my opinion.

Wow. That's a well-written and concise review of the entire era, HWW. And I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything you said.

I highlight the first two or so years of the era as a masterpiece, showing how old elements (Trom, Garth's lost arm, M'Onel's time in the Phantom Zone, Durlan xenophobia, UP politices) mixed in so well with new (new characters, Tinya's overbearing mom, Andromeda's xenophobia) and meshed into a wonderful take on the Legion that was exciting, refreshing and thought-provoking.

Thanks for the compliment, Ibby.

Some stories and characters were just hands-down better in the reboot. You mentioned Tinya's mom. In the preboot, we got to see the parents of the Legionnaires only occasionally, but you can bet some would have serious issues about their children joining a super-hero club. Winema was a peach.

Although the xenophobia thing was overdone, it was radical and risky to make Andromeda a racist. It gave her a definite flawed place to start as a character and created an interesting dynamic with Brainy, with whom she was supposed to fall in love (since she was an analogue for Supergirl). Tying her prejudices to the xenophobia of Daxam and the White Triangle story was also an example of brilliant writing that never would have been attempted in the preboot.

As was the "sibling rivalry" between Live Wire and Spark, or Brainiac 5's extreme disinterest in the team, or Kinetix's power lust. Gone were the days where all Legionnaires had cookie-cutter motivations. The Postboot was good (at least in the early days) for digging deeper into each Legionnaire's character.

couldn't agree more IB!

the early years really were great for characterization.

I've said it before and I'll probably go on saying it... The Reboot Legion was:

A) My favorite
B) The best
C) After the cancellation of the current iteration, the Reboot Legion will still be the one that I miss the most.
D) Bring back Andromeda!!!!

Amen to A, C and D! Saying Amen to B is just asking for heated (but polite and well-thought out) debate though

All Legions had their ups and downs, but personally I find it hard to pick the best. That judgment is heavily colored by my personal preference for the Postboot team

Fair enough.

Consider, however, a certain degree of irony...

If you look at all of the DCnU reboots, Teen Titans and Justice League as prime examples, DC essentially started from scratch with younger versions of standard characters (I think that Superman had at least a decade of age knocked off of him) and/or the same youthful characters with essentially "modified" versions of their prior continuity.

Now look at the reboot Legion again... surprisingly, it fits better with what DC has tried to do with the DCnU that the current iteration does (IMHO).