Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion Article at Comics Continuum

Nothing really new and no new art but Comics Continuum ran a small article today on the new Legion series.

Actually their version of the cover to issue #3 is a bit brighter but that may be due to something they did and not necessarily a different version of that cover.

Quote from the article: You know what? I'm getting tired of this "kiss the ring" attitude toward Paul Levitz. Okay, he had a great run on the title, but so did Jim Shooter, Edmond Hamilton, etc. He's not the only former Legion writer out there. It's not like Waid got Stan Lee's blessing to write the Fantastic Four.

Don't get me wrong - I loved Levitz's work. But he's not the Legion Don. He's like Waid, another Legion writer who grew up loving the Legion in the sixties. I wouldn't even say that he had the definitive run on the Legion. I mean, how many new characters did he create? Invisible Kid? Sensor Girl? (Tellus and Quislet were Steve Lightle's ideas.) If you put a gun to my head, I'd give it to Jerry Siegel (at least he created half the Legion).

These days there are two Paul Levitzes: the guy who wrote the Legion and the guy who runs DC. Which one gave his blesssing? The one who pulps comics or the one who last wrote the Legion 15 years ago?

That article comes with jpegs of pages in what I assume is LSH # 1, but the images are so small even after I click on them that I can't read them at all.

I scanned in some bigger versions here .

And Re: the Levitz comments.

I think they keep hyping it that way because they are rebooting everything yet again and needed some way to alleviate the built-in fanbase’s concerns. Most of us won’t be sticking around if this isn’t close enough to the Legion we’ve liked. And Levitz does rank up there as one of the best and most beloved writers of the series. That’s why his opinion counts. If he likes it, maybe we will too and we should at least check it out. It keeps a lot of us interested until the product gets into our hands.

After that, we can judge for ourselves whether or not this is the Legion and/or a series we want to buy and support.

Paul who?

I on't know about Hamilton, but I believe Shooter also gave this new Legion a thumbs-up. That's two great Legion writers who like it.

That's like asking which Paul Levitz wrote a story in LSH #100. He held the same position then as he does now, but he still wrote.

I think Paul is mentioned because many fans are indeed worried this will be a sixties lovefest.

Levitz's Legion was the last really successful Legion sales wise. There are many many Levitz legion fans out there...and most of them are in the same exact age range the comics usually market to (these days).

Levitz is legion god. Nuff said.

Jorge (the 80s are so much cooler than the 60s and 70s)

The Legion stories have had huge casts, creative turmoil, main-DCU-induced continuity fractures, and fairly poor sales (other than when it has a Supes appearance or is one of many recent Issue Ones).

The reason they've been given nine publishing lives boils down to two words, and no others: Paul Levitz. Does anyone think any other such troubled comics franchise would have been saved so many times from oblivion without such help?

Levitz's first and largest passion is still the Legion, though it's not adroit for the publisher to admit it. If he weren't around, I think they'd have let the Legion peter out in Zero Hour, ten years ago. When he's no longer in charge of DC, that's when its chances will have run out.

With all that, a bit of bowing in his direction is justified, don'tcha think?

Very well put Grey. Sure Paul's work may not be a personal favorite of everyone but he is the reason we, or I should say the Legion, has had as many lives as a lucky cat. And he has to be given the credit as the man who wrote the Legion when it was the biggest selling title DC had, selling more issues at its lowest point than Identity Crisis or any of the X-titles sell at their best today.

I'd do more than bow to the man. I'd wash his car. If he wanted to drive it to Utah first.

Besides, would you rather we had a Quesada running DC?

As I figure it after ZH the only way we'd have seen a new Legion would have been a seriously stripped version of it so it could have been advertised as a "hot" new team book with no more that 7 active members and a minimal supporing cast. That's where we would have seen a futuristic version of the Justice League as teenagers full of angst and anger and rebellion against the status quo. Legion-X or something.
-yuch-

I've always felt that it's really with Levitz's run in the '80s that the characters really acheive individuality. Yeah, Shooter and Bates may have started us in that direction, but it was really Paul who gave them distinct, well-rounded personalities. For that reason alone, I've always seen Paul as the pinnacle of Legion writing.

At the risk of sounding heretical, I hope Waid doesn't take his admiration of Levitz too far. One thing that concerned me was his statement in a recent interview , that in depicting the Legionnaires' personalities he and Kitson would be "simply playing off [the] characterizations" defined by Paul Levitz.

Intriguing and incisive characterizations, for the most part, but not every Legionnaire would benefit from strict adherence to this line of thinking. I can think of several Levitzian depictions, particularly during his second run, that were not to my liking. They served the stories well, but not necessarily the characters. Examples: Sun Boy (self-absorbed playboy), Violet (tougher is fine but she lost her charm, too), Colossal Boy (a big dummy duped by a Durlan imposter), Chameleon Boy (aggressive, cynical, often bad tempered), Lightning Lad (from leader to Imra's second-fiddle; sent over the edge, then retired), Star Boy (co-dependent, lovelorn loser until he found his backbone at the end), and Shadow Lass (lacking confidence in her powers and insipid in love, until Mon became dependent on HER). You may not agree with all my assessments but that's the way I see them, especially when I'm feeling grumpy.

In the best of all worlds, Waid would use the Levitz character moulds only as guidelines, intregrate the best personality bits from each era and give each Legionnaire a unique, new twist. Levitz was great in most regards, but he shouldn't be the last word.

Another reason hinted at by some of you but not baldly stated: Levitz is not only a former and beloved Legion writer, he's a big cheese at DC. If YOUR boss used to have your job, it would be a relief to know that he approved of major changes you made.

Tromium,

I like your points, and basically agree with them. However, to be fair, we should note that almost all the examples you cite are Legionnaires that had little or no personality prior to Levitz -- Sun Boy and Violet in particular were completely generic characters, even during the Shooter era. You may not have liked Levitz's CHOICES for personalities, but you have to acknowledge that he GAVE them personalities. I suspect that Waid wants to signal his Legionnaires will HAVE distinct personalities, as they did under Levitz.

Your observations about Star Boy, Lightning Lad, Shadow Lass and Mon-El under Levitz are interesting. As I mentally scan back over his stories, I notice that virtually NO Legion romance faired very well, or at least had LOTS of rough spots. (I am happy to be contradicted by more thorough historians.) I wonder if this is how Levitz felt about team romances, romances in general, or if he felt like the only interesting story to tell about Legion romances was "Put X and Y through the ringer!"?

In general, Levitz was better at playing with the Legion chess pieces (no one was better), than forging genuinely new territory for the team. The Great Darkness being the exception that perhaps proves the rule.

As usual, I prefer to remain sanquine about the new book until I am proven wrong by its actual content (though I have loved the previews I have seen.) For my own part, I think Waid invokes Levitz chiefly for the reasons cited by fellow posters. It doesn't hurt to invoke past greatness to stir up new interest among the base, and sucking up to the boss (for something the boss did well) is rarely a bad idea!

No, I don't agree he was the first to give them personalities. As someone who began reading in 1963/64, I can tell you the Legionnaires very definitely had well-defined personalities long before Levitz. At least we early readers invested them with personalities that often became reality on paper. Even as a little kid, I saw Sun Boy as a mature and dominant player with great style and leadership potential. Needless to say, the conceited womanizer came as something of a shock when I caught up to Levitz years later. He set Dirk up to be shot down in flames and replaced with the detestable SW6 Inferno, who bore no resemblance whatsoever to the original Sun Boy. Shrinking Violet, BTW, was my favorite female character in the early days -- shy, modest and vulnerable but more courageous than she knew -- not at all a generic character in my mind.

Star Boy and Lightning Lad were pretty well-defined in the olden days, too. Levitz chose to exaggerate their weaknesses, which in both cases happened to be love for their women. Not coincidentally, Dream Girl and Saturn Girl usurped the roles their men once played. Colossal Boy was always a big, affable lug but never so stupid as when he deluded himself into marrying the hideous Yera. Shooter's strong/vulnerable Shadow Lass was a favorite of mine, but Levitz's Tasmia was almost unbearably weak and sappy (IMO) until she was forced to deal with the dying Mon-El. I could go on with other examples of characters who lost ground under Levitz while others thrived. Element Lad, Projectra/Sensor Girl, Dream Girl, Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, Phantom Girl and Brainiac 5 were probably never better characterized than under Levitz. Too bad he wasn't inclined to do justice to them all. The same, of course, can be said of any writer.

This is not meant as a tirade against Levitz. Overall, I enjoyed his work but he DID contribute his share of damage. I'd be happier if Waid and Kitson followed their gut instincts instead of his influences. Imo, Levitz's characterizations should not be the ONLY ruler against which the characters are measured. It is possible for good writers to give the Legionnaires distinct and authentic personalities and at the same time restore them ALL to greatness.

Tromium,

I defer to your longer Legion tenure. I have read almost all the Legion back to Computo's first appearance, but it's been years since most of Adventure back-issue collection vanished (way to go, Dad!) and my memory, while good, is far from perfect. I DO think Levitz was a master at using little snippets of dialogue, in conjunction with the art, that gave the Legionnaires much more distinct personalities.

I think we agree that it would be nice to see Waid and Kitson go in new directions with the characters. As I think back over the history of the pre-boot Legion, it was a story with a great deal of richness, chiefly built up by Siegel, Hamilton, Shooter and Levitz, that was then riffed on to the point of dismemberment in the last years before Zero Hour. Levitz's stories were great at taking the seeds planted by his predecessors to their logical ending (e.g., the Projectra/Karate Kid/Nemesis Kid story). Unfortunately, more stories ended then new ones began. I'm really excited about a new beginning and a wide-open future for the Legionnaires.