Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Utopia and the success of the Legion of Superheroes

In most comicbook depictions of the future the dominant image is one of a dystopia, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST being the most prominent.

The Legion throught its many versions has always maintained the youthful optimism presented from their Silver Age debut. When the backdrop is one of galactic utopia it seems to lack the conflict that drives so many other adventure stories.

I have to wonder if the Utopia of the 31st Century is exactly the thing that keeps the LSH from thriving for an extended period?

Thoughts.

I think the problem is no one really believes in a utopian future anymore.

Legion can still work with one, but it has to be written in such a way that addresses our disbelief in utopias.

The "utopia" in the 60s Legion stories was mostly attitude. The Science Police could arrest the Legion and subject them to psychological torture to see if they might reveal a secret they themselves chose to keep.

Much old SF depicts technocracy as good. Later, it becomes evil. By now, we have trouble believing technocracy could exist at all.

Was the Legion's world ever a utopia? Let's see . . . they had the Fatal Five, Mordru, the Time Trapper, and other threats to contend with. There were also occasional political squabbles, such as the one over Imsk's hunting rights in the preboot and the uneasy UP alliance during the reboot. Fear and hatred resurfaced at times, as expressed by the White Triangle war (reboot) and the distrust of Durlans (both boots). Legionnaires also had frequent personal issues and conflicts with each other to sort out. None of this sounds like utopia to me.

Like the Star Trek universe, the Legion's universe always represented a progression of society from where we are now, not an arrival at some perfect society.

I don't mind Utopian elements, so long as they're not treated as something inevitable, eternal and universal. To do so robs the characters of depth and diversity, and makes for more boring stories. As others have mentioned, it also weakens credibility. Yeah, I know, we're already treating people who grow to the size of a skyscraper and giant sentient fish as "credible," but still...

If every other future world is dystopian Judge Dredd cyberpunk grit and grime and human misery, perhaps settings like the Legion and Star Trek are *MORE* valuable, for showing another side?

Comics have always been at least partly about wish-fulfillment. GIs would sit in their barracks and read a funnybook where Captain America punches Hitler right in the face, and it made them feel good. Today, we've got economic and racial and environmental and political and religious firestorms aplenty, and what sounds more fun to read about, a future that's as dysfunctional as our present (or, in the case of some stories, where Earth gets ravaged by plagues, invaded by aliens and then blown up, WORSE!), or one that depicts a glistening future where bad things can still happen, but the problems of the 20th century were obviously resolved somehow, to be replaced with new challenges?

I'd rather read a book set in a future where 'hope' isn't a word for deluded crazy people.

The genre is full of cyberpunk / noirpunk / grim and gritty dystopian Blade Runner-esque futures, and even the shiniest of Legion futures has places like Rimbor or Durla or Khundia, where everything isn't peaches and cream. I don't feel that the Legion needs to be dirtied up to pander to people who are clearly not fans of what the Legion has always represented, just as I don't feel that Judge Dredd needs to be cleaned up and turned into a glistening beacon of hope, to suit my tastes.

Isn't there room to provide material for fans of both sub-genres?

Sure, we've toyed on these very fora with the idea of making an Image-esque 'Iron Age Legion,' but they are two different flavors, and I wouldn't want to see the mainstream Legion book grittied up and made dystopian (which it has been, more than once, and these gritty earth-ravaging, plague and disaster filled reboots have failed spectacularly to last), any more than I want to see a Wolverine / Power Puff Girls team up.

Now I have the idea for a scene at the end of FC:L3W where Jazmin Cullen, Jacques Foccart and threeboot Thom Kallor pile into a Time Bubble and travel back to 1978 Chicago to visit a young Barack Obama and get him to come to the future and join their club. Could be good if done right.

[groan]

Now all I can think about is that song by the group Blanche that ends with the line, "Hope preys on you."