Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1 (SPOILERS)

I agree with huntdrouin, I think that Shikari might be a distraction to what is being established with this "new" Legion. I already love what I see in this first issue, and if the last incarnation remains in limbo for awhile (although I'd welcome the original incarnation anytime), that would be fine.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! This is killing me!

Mine won't arrive until Monday at the earliest!

Sun Boy, Collosal Boy, and Element Lad. I have been waiting so long for this, and I just want more!

I wonder if the picture bubbles on the Logo will stay around and feature different legionnaires each time. It reminds me of the 70's SLSH series with character pics in that logo. Jeez, I'm happy.

Well! After months of waiting and speculation the holy grail has arrived. I liked it..not love, not yet. But lots of promising, positive changes in the first issue. Some positive points

1. Love the absence of panel hogs Imra, Brainy, et all. It is sooooo great to see Sunboy, Colossal boy and Element lad together again. Wanted to cry!!!
2. Love all the sexy flirting...now these are real teenagers unlike the ..barf..Archie Legion
3. Loved the clubhouse..on Earth...so retro. I think the young man is ...Condo Arlik..wouldnt that be a blast.
4. Love PG again...she was made to wear bell bottoms

missing -
Violet of course, but I am willing to wait. I like how we are seeing little bits at a time.

also - Dryad mentioned- Blok maybe...thank god

Cant wait for two

I just have to say ditto to everyone's positive comments. I think this was a smashing first issue, and I can't wait for the next issue.

Vee, I can't believe you have to wait til Monday. That's so not fair! (And same to anyone else who has to wait.)

Would you believe, I went to my comic shop today, and the owner forgot to pull me one?
He sold out in less than a day.
I guess I should be overjoyed that it's selling so well, but, I have to wait for a re-order!
>sob<
How can I wait?
Call me Super-Bummed-Out-In-Space.
>sob<

I hated it. I guess I'm the only one. I'll re-read it and try to be concise about what I disliked, but mainly I was just...bored. From the many-paged intro (that should have been on one page!) to the last page, I was disappointed.

We tend to get so excited over the little easter eggs and stuff that we'll overlook things that are less than stellar. I know I liked it when I read the advance copy, I look forward to seeing your critique Lance.

...to simply use the infamous line, "Feels Like Home"
I was so glad to be near a comic shop today. I loved every minute and detail. I read the advance copy in Dallas ( with Yellow Kid) and to finally see it all in color rocked.

Mark and Barry (we know your here somewhere) FANTASTIC JOB !! Two Legion Flight Rings Way Up!
You had me sold in Dallas...but you guys have really out done yourselves.
THANK YOU

Got it (went out in the snow to get it, but it was worth it), read it, loved it. It felt like a great way to start anew but still be enough for us old-timers. I'll reserve full final judgement on the series, though, until I see Garth.

And I think I need to change my signature line.

"Eat it Grandpa!"

I found it a little daunting for new readers. There was plenty for Legion vets, but I fear newbies will feel the old "too many characters to keep track of" blues all over again. Wish some of the extra pages had been used to introduce us to more team members.

That said, this was a fabulous revamp of the Legion, IMO. It's up-to-date in a way that the old reboot Legion never was despite the throwback codenames. Somehow, I have to write a very short review of this for my newspaper. And try not to gush.

I thought it was great. Loved the shot of Element Lad dissolving the weapons... he looked very dark & very mean. So much for the speculation that Sun Boy was gay. Looks like Light Lass has been trying all the Legionnaires on for size. I dug the take on Cham... makes sense that he wouldn't have a gender. Nice that Shady has her old name back... Umbra sucked.

Couple things I still hold out hope for:

1. Mon-El/M'onel/Lar Gand/Valor... whatever. The Legion isn't the same without my favorite Daxamite. I understand the difficulties in DC continuity that bringing him in would establish, but Waid loves his Hypertime... The possibilities are endless. With Hypertime, who needs continuity??? Superman has already met 2 different versions of the Legion & both of those had a Mon, why can't this one?

2. Ultra Boy & Phantom Girl pairing up. I know it's been done (and in some cases done to death), but Jo & Tinya just work for me.

I walked into my CBS and my heart was racing with anticipation!! I was so giddy! I saw the issue on the rack and then noticed a 10 or 11 year old boy take the issue off the rack. That's great, I thought, that might be a new reader, a first issue of Legion to inspire kids like I was back in the Cockrum and Grell era. It warmed my black old heart! Until.....I realized with horror that it was the last issue!!! What to do? Grab it from the kid? Is anyone looking? Have a hissy fit? Stomp my foot and whine? Great, now I'll have to drive way out to the other side of Tampa and try to get it there. A million things were going through my mind and my heart felt like it was in my testicles! I tried to console myself by looking for Teen Titans #19 which also came out today (good issue, BTW). Reality sank in and I prepared to leave when here comes Comic Book Guy with another 8 issues for the rack!!! He said these were the last 8 that he had and had sold 32 issues earlier. Whoo-hoo!!! I'm back on top of the world and so excited that I sit in the reading area and soaked it all in. The 3 months was worth the wait!! I echo most of the sentiments on this board; loved it and can't wait for #2. I've read twice more since I've gotten home!!

One question: Did anyone notice the little people in the large clubhouse scene? Is that Violet and who are the others? I guess that was 2 questions.

I just read it again, and I loved it!!!
It feels like the "old" Legion. There seems to be a little innocence mixed with slightly edgier versions of the "superhero club" we grew up with. I like the fact that these are kids,but they don't seem like they're going to take any "stuff" from anyone! I love Cosmic Boy's character. it seems he and Sun Boy have (in the past) or will butt heads in the coming months/years.

Micro Lad seems to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder, which is great for character interaction.

I liked Thom Kallor a lot...in all Legion incarnations, but this Star Boy is a really funny dude! it seems like he (although it's early) always wants to do the right thing, but never seems to quite land on his feet.

There is so much more going on. All of this great Legion characterization, and it's only the first issue. So far, this book (the 1st issue at least) has exceeded my expectations!

The scene with Saturn Girl (I think) flying away in the back ground...I want to say that the guy leaning on the railing (talking to two female Legionnaires) looks like Lightning Lad. It's hard to tell, but it looks like "lightning streaks" in his costume. Okay...maybe that's a stretch.

Finally, whatever the heck is going on with Lallor, I hope the Lallorians from past incarnations show up. Perhaps another battle between Micro Lad (he's still Colossal Boy to me) and Duplicate Boy. Maybe Duplicate Boy and Violet will have another shot at something real in this incarnation. Perhaps our Micro Lad won't like that idea too much.

Sorry, for those of you new to the Legion, the Lallorians I referred to were the heroes of Lallor in past incarnations. The team featured the already mentioned Duplicate Boy, Gas Girl, Life Lass, Evolvo Lad and the original (I think he was anyway)Beast Boy.

Haven't read it yet. Unlike Legionfan my store in Tampa has a copy waiting for me (they better!).

The few things I've seen have almost made it a hit with me. Not sure I will like it all but it has that Legion spirit. Go Sun Boy!!! And Element Lad having to touch things to transmute them is perfect! As a kid I always thought why can't he just change the air to interon again...on every mission! Can't wait

Jorge

Hi Everyone
I'm SO glad most of you liked the issue!

I'll hold off answering questions until everyone's had a chance to get their copies...then we can dive right in to the 'real' discussions!

Thanks again for all the kind words!

Well, the SP guy said that there were fifteen to twenty "core members", but as Star Boy said, the HQ is open to everyone - most simply choose to stay outside. I suppose the random people around the HQ could just be more "Legionnaires" who decided to pop in for a spell...

Had to wait until 2:00 pm to get it because of a late shipment to my Georgetown comic shop -- three hours late...wound up reading it in a Virginia coffee shop.

Rambling thoughts:

The cover pic is oddly disconnected from the story itself. Nice cover, love the cover, but no connection to the story that I could detect.

Loved Joan of Arc and Jesse Owens, powerful symbols.

Is the city on page 4 recognizable to anyone? Seattle? Denver? San Francisco? Birmingham, Alabama? A lot of detail in the drawing with a message that's going right over my head, I guess.

"Who can keep them straight with so many?" Does this mean they can't all be "straight?" I've got dibs of a gay Element Lad -- he's 18, right?

On the other hand, Shadow Lass and Light Lass are so sexy, I might reboot myself as Lass Boy.

It's been said before, but I love the HQ. Thanks Waid and Kitson for such a thoughtful tie to past incarnations.

Sun Boy's Vulcan "V" to Chameleon was laugh-out-loud funny. Of course by this point the triple shot espresso had my head buzzing like a chainsaw.

The artwork of Colossal Boy shrinking to clarify that he's "Micro Lad" is a character defining image. Outstanding, Barry!

Are flight rings as video communication devices new? I like them.

A micro-nit: sometimes Cosmic Boy's uniform has stripes that connect the front and back black parts of his uniform, sometimes they're just rectangles like a military stripe. I could see no reason for them to change, and "it's that magic changing fabric of the 31st century" doesn't really seem to make sense for Cos' uniform.

I loved this issue and look forward to a long run with this Legion.

To DC comics, I've picked up $50 worth of other DC titles just since the Titans/Legion crossover. That compares to a total comic expenditure of about $8 between 1990 and 10/2004.

I'm sure everyone in this thread already realizes they're around, but to be clear, this post'll contain a few very specific SPOILERs.

Overall, I liked the issue! I did find the cover disconnect from the inside odd, mostly because of the choice to use Brainy front and center on the cover despite his vague one-panel appearance within the book. Anyone who isn't a previous reader wouldn't be able to recognize 'that guy with the bright thing' as the green person on the cover, too. Not really a problem, just a little peculiar. Hopefully Brainy's future on-panel interactions will be so important that they make his front and center appearance on the first cover seem a more natural choice.

The multi-page intro was interesting, although it seems to imply that war is gone by the 31st century... which obviously isn't the case, since they're worried about war with Lallor.

Seventy-five thousand seems like a big number of Legionnaires at first... but considering that it's a movement covering multiple planets, and that the Legion is an option for any teen on a planet where the Legion isn't banned (and that still may not stop them) this actually seems like a small number. How many teens are on the planet Lallor, and how do they compare to the overall population, to have given them a potential political majority with fourteen hundred Legionnaires? (Although I guess that could be in addition to other, previous Legionnaires on Lallor...) Perhaps there's a great deal of population control and planets tend to have extremely small populations in this future. Otherwise, for an interplanetary organization, seventy-five thousand seems like a relatively small number, especially for an organization that at any point has neared 'potential political majority' on a planet.

I like the art. Everyone looks so pretty. All of the costumes that we saw in this issue were fine by me, except for Sun Boy's, which still just doesn't want to grow on me. Collosal Boy's looks a lot better in action. I liked the way Light Lass looked too.

Although I appreciate the idea behind the 'echo' discussion going on between the two SP officers, I'd rather it had been portrayed some other way. As-is, it looks vaguely as though there's some sort of social stigma on speaking face to face with others, which isn't implied anywhere else. Maybe have them next door to each other in some sort of 'cubicle,' but not leaving to speak in the hall? Or have them at opposite sides of a large room? Something else else to imply more than 'not turning around and looking at people' is the social protocol being respected here. I suppose it's possible they are both speaking into recording devices for each other, in the name of keeping track of who said what... but since they're standing right next to each other, why couldn't they make two copies from one device? I don't know why this scene sticks in my craw so much, I just wish it had been done differently somehow. It seems as though it's odd for the sake of being odd, but the reason for the oddness isn't clear (other than showing the viewers that the future's crazy, man!)

Overall, I liked the comic a lot. Although I strongly hope this is the last time we'll read "Eat it, Grandpa!" 'cause that's wince-worthy. I look forward to seeing issue two, and how much more of this new universe will be shown. Especially the parts pertaining to Brainy, of course.

I lilked it a lot, especially the art (though it seemed to fall apart a bit on the last few pages).

Love that we're back to the core Legion and original codenames. I posted a thread a while back musing on the fact that every time the Legion gets rebooted, the old team is brought back, even including such "useless" members as Triplicate Girl, Dream Girl, and Invisible Kid, while the johnny come latelys from the latest series are discarded. Once again, this has proven to be the case: No more Kid Quantum, Sensor, Gates, Kinetix, Gear . . . and I couldn't be happier. I never liked any of them.

I did have some problems with the basic philosophy of the new series though. The Legion's new mission of inspiration is "we're bored with Utopia."? And if the 31st century IS a Utopia, who are they supposed to fight? And would the adults of Lallor really use deadly force on their own children for conducting a youth rally? I also didn't care for the "Eat it, Grandpa." A little respect for your elders, please. They've earned it. And if the Legion is disrupting the status quo so much, why DO they have UP approval?

Can't believe no one else has mentioned this yet, but in my copy at least, Shadow Lass is GREY not blue. I want a BLUE Shadow Lass, please!

I also want Cham's eyebrows and antennae back. And I don't like his button eyes either. The asexual thing makes sense though.

I'm also eager to see if Dream Girl and Shadow Lass still have their powers beefed up, or if they're back to their pre-pre boot levels. Obviously Star Boy is back to his original "making things heavy" level instead of his more recent "complete mastery of gravity" level since Light Lass is back.

'No more Kid Quantum, Sensor, Gates, Kinetix, Gear . . . and I couldn't be happier. I never liked any of them.'

...but..but..but...that means no more XS? *trembling poochy lip*

Of course we all had favorites of the "new crew." I'll miss XS and I REALLY liked Gates.

But I'm excited about what this version has in store.

I'm betwixt and between. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. It was like a dizzying rollercoaster ride, racing from the Silver Age to Venado Bay and back again. Unfortunately, the key scene, the "Tiananmen Square" incident on Lallor, seemed to come out of nowhere. The carnage wasn't shocking, it was puzzling. Why would a technologically advanced society with interstellar ambitions massacre its own children in cold blood? What are the adults of Lallor so terrified of? Waid provides few answers while driving the surface parallels home with sledge-hammer subtlety. I have similar reservations about the epilogue. The Legion's young allies are willing to be bulldozed to protect HQ, but why? What does the LSH represent to them, beyond the nebulous concepts of "freedom" and "independence"? They don't seem particularly oppressed if their parents let them hang around Legion HQ all day like groupies. I hope it begins to make sense soon.

Still, it was great to see Element Lad again. So now he must touch to transmute? I actually approve of this modification to his powers because it'll require him to be in the thick of the action from now on. Sun Boy's puerile appearance still makes me wince, but I'm satisfied that his personality is as leonine as ever. Lyle comports himself well in his first battle, even rescuing Cham. And Cham *does* have an antenna (singular) after all. You can see it protruding from his/her/its forehead when he/she/it emerges from the threshold on Lallor. (Does the vocabulary of the 31st century include a gender-free pronoun other than "it" that we can use to refer to Cham? He/she/it just doesn't cut it.)

So, it looks like there's trouble brewing within the Legion ranks and, for once, not everyone subscribes to Cosmic Boy's cautious leadership style. Hence Shady's remark about "the recent inclination towards U.P. servitude" and Sun Boy's refusal to withdraw. I like the fact that Cos seems conflicted, and is not above losing his cool when challenged by Dirk. But Cos calling Sun Boy "you stupid ..." was downright nasty, even under the stressful circumstances. Next thing you know, the Legionnaires will be slapping each other silly and exhorting grandmas to "eat it" too. Intrapersonal conflict and tension are to be expected, and have always been a part of Legion storytelling, but I hope Waid keeps the surly teenager shtick to a minimum.

Barry's artwork is fresh and dynamic, his sci-fi/tech is ingenious (e.g., the talking holo-heads), and there must be a hundred little nuggets that'll keep us busy excavating for weeks. I was much more impressed by his artistic contributions than Waid's script. This is not the Legion I was expecting and it's probably not the Legion I want. But it's the only Legion we have, so I guess I'll stick around for a while to see how things develop.

Maybe, but don't you all get it?

They're us!

Read the quote about them from the last page again:
"They're not here because of us, we're here because of them."

If that's not an homage to the decades of Legion fandom, I don't know what is.