Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes 15 years later - Rereading the Reboot...

wow, I had forgotten about this thread. I didn't realize the last section was for issues 15 through 23 (emphasis on the 23).

I do agree that the Darkseid storyline fails on a lot of levels, the thing that bugs me the most is how they portrayed Superboy. First, they act like Superboy had never met this Legion, been their friend and earned their respect. That confused the heck out of me when I got this story (in trade). it was the second Legion trade I got (I think, as great Darkness was the only other trade and it was hard to come by) and I thought that I had ventured into yet another reboot of the Legion from what I had read in their first trade and the Superboy series.

So not only was Conner completely written OOC and his history with the team completely ignored, but the plot was convoluted and it felt like the Legion didn't really do much.

However, will come back to this thread (because it is fun to review era's after the fact) and post my thoughts on Dream Crime, more on Foundations (that's the name of the arc, right?), and the actual end.

But yeah, DC put in a bunch of fill-ins for their Legion and then cut Shooter early(and they had to know Lo3W would not end on time). Did a Legion fan kill TPTB at DC's cat or something.

They cut DnA early.

"Incoming team"? So Simone was considered the new regular?

I really don't get this - the Champagne one-shot was totally neglectable, and Simones four-parter (not yet through with it) was entertaining, but I don't think that it's a story that just BEGGED to be told... why not letting DnA tell their last story and leaving the Simone story out?

The Champagne/Lightle issue was a pre-existing inventory story they had to use up.

And, no, Simone was clear from the start that she was just filling in - she actually referred to it as "a goodbye to the postboot - and preboot as well (!)". Exactly WTF DnA weren't allowed their last three issues to tie up the Cub plot is a mystery which hasn't been answered with time.

Wish they would spill with their plans...at this point, it isn't really spoiling anything since those characters are pretty much gone.

Legion ##34-38, Titans #16, Titans/Legion Special

So I'm done! I made it this far! The Reboot reread is officially over

The last storyline by Gail Simone was solid, but I got this feeling that it was an unspectacular ending - just like "Tangleweb" and friends have been an unspectacular beginning of this Boot. Yes, the story showed how heroic the Legion is - it was almost a little bit too much - but the villains were lame second-graders and the "danger to Earths existance of the week" was redundant, especially considering the fact that this book was through. The Champagne Widfire issue was even more neglectable...

But what struck me as pure nonsense now was the "story" that gave the official reason why the Reboot Legion went into Limbo. Fatal Five Hundred. Parallel realities, reached by the Persuaders axe. Some techno babble solution involving speedsters resulting in a local Whiteout which sent the Titans to the ill-fated "Titans tomorrow" storyline and the Legion - nowhere.

This story made Zero Hour look like "Brothers Karamazov". It was dull, it came out of nowhere, it involved lamest story elements and served as nothing but a vessel to introduce the unlucky Threeboot. Also, it made me realize why I never considered Geoff Johns a big writer until I got into his Lantern stuff: His Titans run was mostly average stuff, nothing special at all - not up to his JSA (which I did not discover until 2008), Green Lantern and, yes, Legion runs. if this story was his fault or Mark Waids - it did simply stink. Wow.

I'll be back with my final judgment...

I thought Gail Simone's story was awful. She made Timber Wolf even more Wolverinesque by giving him a "Healing Factor" and Canary was the lamest villain ever. All she did was sit around and talk about how good she was at making tea. She was never even shown using her power IIRC, but it was said her powers were increased by a Naltorian's power, but Dreamer was the only precog from Naltor in that boot, so that made no sense at all. Ick. Waste of paper. IMHO of course.

So this was it - the Legion Reboot reread, minus the two years I'm missing (but not missing too much ).

In my eyes, it was not as bad as I remembered, but the generally high cheesiness factor was still noticed - and I clearly see why I hated it so much back then cause I was a real sucker for the "dark & gritty" angle... exchanging a war torn Braal for Lori Morning? Not a good deal in my eyes...

What I already mentioned, but would like to repeat was the fact that the cheesiness was there from the beginning - but it got worse after about 2-3 years when characters like Lori Morning, Sneckie or Monstress stole the spotlight. The Reboot took its most severe blow from the 20th century stunt, which in retrospect was simply lousy.

DnAs run was still very entertaining the second time around - but it was not as good as I remembered. There were some very special moments, wonderfully portrayed by Coipiel (who did not do that many issues in the end), but there also was a lot of redundancy and questionable choice of villains. In the end, they seemed to run out of ideas - for example, to ressurrect Garth in Jans body was a pretty dumb stunt in my eyes...

So all in all, it took me about nine months to reread it in between all the other comic books I am currently reading - and it was a fun ride, especially due to the fact that so many members here contributed their thoughts.

My next plans do NOT involve rereading the Threeboot - I did that somewhen in 2008 and don't want to waste any time on Waids drivel again - but I rather would like to reread the few Johns issues before the new regular Levitz run will be starting. Guess I'll start a new thread for that. But I don't know if I should not rather be reading those Promethea trades I got via Ebay yesterday...

I still think the first two years of the reboot and the first year or so of DnA's run (Legion of the Damned to issue 4 or 5 of The Legion) are some of the *best* Legion comics ever.

It was interesting reading your thoughts on that period CK.

Well, I wouldn't call it a "dystopian" future, FC.

It was a very oppressive society: Everybody over there seemed to be carefully regulated, slightly tyrannical, and obsessed with personal distance. Heck, it was so bad that they comunicated via their video coms instead of face to face even when standing next to each other! (Basically, the equevalent of sitting at the same table and speaking via smartphones instead of simply looking at each other and just talk away.)

But that's still a far cry from being "dystopic". 5YL was dystopic. Earth Man's 31th Century was dystopic. Kingdom Come's reality was dystopic. The classic Marvel Universe bordered on being dystopic, and Marvel's sub-mythology of the X-men is, for all intents and purposes, a low-level dystopic saga, where you're being bound to be hated, feared and hunted for the simple "crime" of having a genetic quirk that gives you super-powers.

But compared to those nightmare realms, the world of the Threeboot is tame. And that comes from somebod who hates the Threeboot and everything it stands for, beginning with the fact that it effectively gutted the - at that time - still healthy and vibrant Reboot Legion.

But even STAR WARS: A New Hope was a far darker and grittier saga than the Legion Mythos, as interpreted through the Threeboot lens: It depicted a princess so volatile that she was basically hysterical throughout the entire film, a whiny farmer brat and a seedy smuggler as the "heroes" of the piece; It depicted a creepy, masked, genocidial mass-murderer as its villain; The entire movie played out on either a dark, moody desert planet inhabited, among others, by slavers, or a murderous smuggler's planet, or on a ship manned by space-nazis; Its entire plot revolves around flying dead-machines shooting down (and killing) other flying dead-machines filled with sentient beings, and climaxing with murdering the populations of TWO entire small worlds: First Tatooine, then the Death Star.

Yet for all that darkness, all that horror, nobody would call STAR WARS' nightmare-reality a dystopia. So we certainly shouldn't call the Threeboot's world a dystopia. Because even though it was trash, it really wasn't a dystopia. No matter how awfull it was.

Just wishing to clear that up, because it seems that whenever pople don't like a particular version of the future, they just slam the "dystopic" label on it.

Gosh, I have to make sure I read through this thread! It looks like a very interesting discussion.

Not to compete with this thread though, but for those who want a more in-depth, issue by issue discussion, we have another thread that started from the zero issues. We ended with LSH 76 and Legionnaires 33.

At a guess? You can probably lay the entire blame for it at the feet of one person: Tom McCraw.

For he was the true mastermind behind the formation of the Reboot Legion. It was he who decided that the Reboot Legion's main theme wouldn't revolve about the self-styled heirs of the universe's greatest and most legendary hero (Silver/Bronze, and even, up to a point, Levitz Age Legion), a team of progressively more jaded and progressively more damaged super-heroes defending some progressively more threathened and progressively more crumbling future-world from the abbyss (Levitz Age Legion), a team of desperate freedom fighters attempting to bring it all back in spite of an indemic universe-- indemic to the point that the universe's creator itself was an old enemy of the Legion (KTM Legion), but who decided instead that the then new Legion's theme would resolve around a carefully hidden ideology of Globalism.

And if only you open your eyes and look at the evidence, you can see it everywhere:

1) The Legion was explicitely created to "unite" the universe, to weld together the various member-worlds of the United Planets space empire (albeit the UP are never refered within the texts themselves as an "space empire", it's pretty clear that they are an empire, ever looking to expand, don't permitting its member-worlds to leave without harsh sanctions - if they allow it at all -);

2) The Legion's members were "drafted" from various member-worlds of the UP: Ocassionally against their will, and very Legion member had to be from a different world;

3) In their first big story-line, politics are everywhere: The afore-mentioned Legion "drafties", Brande being far more interested in manipulating politics than in building stars (indeed, in the Reboot reality, Brande is famous not for building stars, but for building Star Gates, something that made the United Planets possible in the first place, by enabling that space empire to come into exististence by enabling the leading worlds to send delegates and traders from world to world, etc;

4) The main villains from the first big story are 1) a team of insular "separatists" from Daxam (who are of course diametrically opposed to being part of a big, inter-galactic ["globalism" taken to the next level] space empire, and who are of course genocidal terrorists) and the United Planet's corrupt president (who undermines the aims of that space empire by abusing its resourses and servants for her own ends instead of for the goals of the empire);

5) Chameleon's first (and, some would say, biggest) character arc involves (false) "language barriers-- something you wouldn't expect for a character whose super-power is to disguise as anybody or anything;

6) The Legion has a traitor in their team, and that traitor's treason consists of opposing the UP's globalist goals and giving the White Triangle the power to fight back and menace the entire United Planets-- of course, within a globalist world-view, as espoused by the Reboot reality, this has to mean that suddenly several Daxamite-powered muss-murderers descent upon innocent planets and try to destroy them;

7) Of course, that traitor was raided in some isolated "village", raised solely by some inbred yockels who instilled a deep, hilligan-like distrust of new "experiences" in her;

8) Some time later, after M'onel has left the Twilight Zone for good, one of his first thoughts is that you just can't let the president of the United Planets wait-- a rather strange thought from somebody who has endured a thousand years outside of physical time, yet soon as he gets outs out, he seems already to find it atrocious to let the leading politcian of the current time wait;

9) Whenever a character didn't regard the fact that his or her world belonged to the UP as desirable, he was automatically depicted as flat-out unlikable: Gates, Umbra, even Andromeda, (but Laurel was a jerk only for as long as she opposed the UP); this actually extended upon the worlds and teams viewed: All of Star Boy's former team-mates were depicted as treacherous hilligans, cheating without shame, and ALL of them were depicted as jerks, except for monstress, who was able to look beyond life on Kathoon and hence, who actually wanted to be a part of the UP and the Legion; and Kid Quantum became progressively less of a grudge-holding jerk the more she embraced the idea of a wider, but co-linked universe;

10) In one alternative future (which is still part of the Reboot reality, even though the events happen within a different time line than the time line where the majority of the Reboot's events happen), the surviving Wildfire/ERG-1 muses about the "downfall" of the universe, and the world depicted in his thoughts strongly suggests that only a globalized universe would be able to protect weaker worlds from descending into a state that resembles the Third World;

11) Both Cameleon and Sensor endured great problems with their parents, for (you guessed it!) political reasons, because they didn't really want to be part of the greater "family of the universe", and hence, didn't want want their children in the Legion;

12) Throughout the entire Reboot reality, there is an underlying enmity to spirituality, even as a belief in political "evolution" (i.e. the welding together of all nations/countries/worlds) is subliminally induced into the reader by the comics. This becomes quite clear as we proceed to learn more about Element Lad: Almost from the beginning, he's being singled out (because of the known spiritual world view of all his earlier versions) and is constantly being depicted as "weird", as the only one who isn't quite sane: In LEGION LOST, Live Wire even explicitly comments on Element Lad: "He was always... odd, religious". And of course, Element Lad was the only Legionnaire who ever went evil... after all, he was "religious"!!

And given the fact, that his entire Legion work propagates anti-Christian values (globalism, anti-spirituality, girls sticking out their tongues; the habitual sticking out tongues is known to us Christians as blasphemy, did you know that?), it only makes sense for such a person to re-introduce Princess Projectra as a serpent-- as the one animal that was cursed by God Himself for causing the coming of Sin.

The question remains why no major male Legionnaire did get the "serpent" treatment?

No other character fit. At least with Projectra, a case could be made that due to her occult nature (Orando, the Orakil, Hagga), she would fit thematically to occultism and to The Serpent. Try to make that case with Chameleon or M'onel.

Besides, I think that if you read all the Reboot stories, a single fact becomes appearent:

The Reboot reality is deeply mysogonistic.

Normally, I'm VERY carefull before I call somebody that. But going strictly by the comics, that guy appears to have a real hate on on females. Even if we ignore the fact that the main villain of the first Reboot saga was a woman, there are too many other instances that sum up to an ugly whole. Let's look at some of the females for a moment, and at their final fates:

Saturn Girl: Had to be mentally cripled by her mentor in order to remain sane. Soon as the block was removed (by Dr. Psycho, of all people, the guy who hates women more than any other fictional character), her formerly pure morality and strong sanity slowly but steadily began to crumble away.

Triad was re-envisioned as a multiple personalities nutcase.

Apparitation ended up as the second ever Legion casuality, before she was body-merged with a lover who was in a relationship with somebody else at the time. (And that's the simple summarizing.)

Andromeda was rebooted into a racist (but since the entire world-view behind the Reboot reality is deeply flawed anyway, that might not be so bad as it appears at first glance). But even after Laurel was cured of her "racism", and proved herself willing to spend the rest of her life behind bars, the Reboot reality didn't allow her to return to the Legion; instead, she became a "space nun".

Shrinking Violet was retconned into some neurotic, and later, her powers were warped to the point that she was defined more by Leviathan's powers than by her own power to shrink to microscopic sizes. (And even before that, there was this insulting relevation that all her victories weren't her own doing; they were possible because the Eye of Ekron "gave her strength!!)

XS was very likeable. But, as usual with female Legionnaires (at least in Reboot reality), it was "balanced" by some unlikeable traits. In Xs's case, it was paired with being a tattletale and being none too bright. (How comes that nobody gave M'onel, Invisible Kid, Star Boy, Chameleon, Ultra Boy or Rond Vidar unlikeable qualities to "balance" their positive traits too, hmm?)

Kinetix was even more likeable than XS-- but only after Roger Stern began to write her. Before that, she was an idiot. (Sorry, fellow-Kinetix Fans: But when a dumb jock like Ultra Boy exclaims to your favorite: "Your FIRST day as a leader... and our smartest member QUITS!!", then you know that your favorite is an idiot.)

And even after Kinetix was written as likeable, she was still extremely power-hungry.

Umbra: Boy, she was worse than Gates & Kid Quantum (both of them) combined. So does that mean she was worse than Gates and Kid Quantum I and Kid Quantum II, or what...?

Sensor, of course, was easily the most stable, charitable and easy-going of them all.

But, as you yourself noted: She was a **cking SNAKE.

Anyway, given the evidence of: 1) Tom McCraw's mysogonysm, 2) his anti-Christian tendencies, and 3) the fact that he tried to propagate a "world where there's a place for EVERYBODY", better known as Globalism, i.e. "Unity through Diversity", a phrase that was expressed at least once in the texts themselves, I'd say that Projectra could only make sense within the Reboot as a serpent.

If only because she was the only character who could plausibly be re-invented as a snake, due to her occult background (which represents the devil in real life) and her illusions power (illusions can be a metapher for falsehoods, exactly the sort of stuff the Serpent ever deals in).

And, let's be honest here. Do you really see a proper place for Princess Projectra within the Reboot narrative? The Reboot was all about welding all worlds to one big space empire. Whereas Princess Projectra was the direct counter-point of that, what with her magical abilities in a scifi setting, and being the heir aparent to a feudalistic planet.

Sure, it'd be very interesting to combine the two. But not for an inofficial editor (or whatever Tom McCraw was), who carefully structured the entire narrative so that it would prpagate a welding of cultures into one big ugly mess.

Indeed, from that perspective, Sensor fits much better than Projectra. Because Sensor is just another weird race (like Gates or Chamelion), whereas Projectra basically symbolized the antithesis of what Craw was trying to say.

Thanks for the hint, Brainy! So that will be my next destination, after I finished reading this thread.

That's a very interesting analysis. I had been wondering myself if the decision to reboot Projectra as a snake was a rejection of Orando being a kingdom.

I'm not going to comment on your point that the Reboot was mysoginistic or Anti-Christian. I do agree, though, that Orando as a feudal planet seemed not to quite fit in with the Reboot at the time. I just finished rereading some Preboot issues set on Orando, and I have to admit that I'm hard-pressed to see Projectra and Orando in the Reboot setting.

Certainly, among the Preboot Legionnaires, I think Projectra was the one who seemed most out of place in the Reboot reality.

Two comments I do have at the moment:



I can't recall what the policy on secession was before Brande took over. In Dark Circle Rising though, Orando, Xanthu and Winath were all able to leave the United Planets. It's unclear if any sanctions were imposed, but I don't recall any being mentioned. Orando was also able to rejoin the UP without further incident, though Winath and Xanthu apparently choose to remain outside the UP. I think McCraw was still involved then.

In the Legends of the Legion mini, which came out about that time, Umbra was telling her origin. She mentioned speaking with the souls of her ancestors. Ultra Boy accused Talok VIII of being backwards, to which Umbra replied that as a Legionnaire, he should be more open-minded of other cultures.

My pleasure! I will be happy to have you add your comments to the thread

Hmm... Maybe I am misremembering the part about the UP handing down sanctions upon departing member-worlds, Brainy?

Or, and that would be more likely, I acidentially mixed it up with the UP regulations from the Levitz Age Legion. Because in that era, it was indeed brutally difficult to leave the United Planets even if you just didn't want to remain a part of them, as Imsk found out. It may even been flat-out impossible altogether to leave the UP of the Levitz era, but I don't remember any details about that.

About Umbra and her defense. I think she used that phrase only to disarm her critic. After all, if somebody attacks your opinions (or worse, you as a person because of your opinions), your first instinct is likely to tell that other person that he should kindly respect your opinions, or at least, be tolerant to them. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to actually believe in tolerance.

And seeing how Umbra was never the most generous person within the Reboot mythos, it makes it somewhat difficult for me to believe she was serious besides shutting Jo up.

Rebooting Projectra as arejection of Orando's original feudal culture?

It's certainly a possibility. But I believe that it was about far more than merely the fact that Orando was a kingdom.

I believe that Projectra, as she was written, embodied the very antithesis of everything the Reboot's United Planets represented. It's not only about the magic part-- after all, magic seems every bit as common, if not more common in the 90s mythos as it was in Preboot times.

But as you noted: from all existing (Preboot) Legionnaires, Projectra seemed the least able to be successfully "converted" into a counterpart that could plausibly fit into that reality. At least without heavily re-inventing her and the "problematic" elements of her world. ("Problematic" at least when viewed through the reboot lens.)

Indeed, when I thought about it some time back, I thought that even the original Superboy (Kal-El) would fit in better than Projectra would. Superboy's concept (and the world around it) doesn't flat-out deny the Reboot reality, albeit they do not seamlessly merge.

But Projectra? No way could she be inserted into the Reboot reality without heavy modifications. The world-view she embodies in combination with her role in the Legion and with her entire story-world (Orando, Karate Kid, etc) simply doesn't meld with the world of the Archy Legion.

This even became part of their official characterisation:

When Projectra and Sensor encountered each other, Projectra was at once utterly hostile to Sensor (already totally out of character for Projectra; because without exception, Projectra had always been depicted, as noble, humble - for a princess, anyway -, gentle and positive), and instantly attacked her.

And Sensor reacted just as badly out of character: Whereas she normally tries to moderate and kind of acts like a big sister, she here instantly returned the attach, rather than trying to calm Projectra down, especially seeing how both of them were threatenend by countless evil Legionnaires and the Time Trapper.

Projectra and Sensor are Irreconcilably at odds. Just as the ideologies ("freedom through diversity" vs "unity through diversity") that spawned them are. (After all, a society that can "draft" children into service to a team even after that team got at least one member KILLED, may be UNITED; But it certainly isn't free.)

Good points, certainly. You are right that Projectra and Sensor are incredibly at odds. And turning Orando into a kingdom ruled by snakes with raccoon servants makes the whole kingdom aspect more... silly? light-hearted? I'm blanking at the appropriate word, but doing so makes it easier to accept in the milieu of the Reboot.

I agree with your point about Umbra. Certainly not the best evidence that the UP is accepting of mysticism.

On the other hand, there were instances where UP officials worked well with Mysa despite her being a sorcerer - Legionnaires 48-50 come to mind. But then, the Reboot also never delved into how the sorcerers governed themselves. We certainly never saw extensive scenes on Zarrox, unlike what we saw in the Preboot. On the converse side, Live Wire's rejection of Dragonmage's application in Legionnaires 43 speaks poorly about the Legion's attitude towards mystics (though Kinetix and Star Boy, at least, expressed doubts about that decision; and Live Wire would later express appreciation to Mysa for helping out against the Emerald Eye).

I'm curious as to what you think about how the UP evolved after Chu left and Brande took over. Recall that Brande abolished the draft when he became President; and even before then, he strongly objected to the draft despite the Legion being his idea.

Turning Orando into a kingdom ruled by snakes with raccoon servants make the whole kingdom aspect of Orando seem more inncocent and light-hearted on the surface. But it also serves to enforce the theme of many different species inhabiting the same space much more deeply than a mankind-inhabited Orando would.

About Umbra. You're right about the general intolerance of the UP against mysticists. Remember, even Garth (who's really not as hot-headed as everybody seems to think he is, originally acted pretty rudely against Dragonmage and "Nura Snappin", when they they demonstrated their super-powers. He basically just threw them out!

Generally, as far as I could tell from the comics themselves, the actual existence of Magic (as a force, just like Science) is well known to the United Planets of the Reboot reality; Arguably more widely known than it was in 30th Century of Earth-1, or even the 30th Century of 5YL (which had cause to accept the painfully real existence of magic due to the continuing and already decades-lasting reign of Mordru and Glorith's capricious antics, as well).

It's just that individual Legionnaires appear to distrust magic-users, and the UP themselves don't seem willing to touch magic either, unless they have to.

How the United Planets evolved with Brande leading them?

They goverment regulations became a bit softer: Where before the Science Police harassed everybody (but the Legionnaires especially), they now had to act civilely.

And where before, the Legionnaires could expect to be debriefed, harassed and maybe even detained even after a long, hard battle, they could now count on full cooperation from the UP (on FULL cooperation-- as long as the Legionnaire's requests weren't obviously criminal, they could be reasonably certain that they would be granted).

This was best symbolized by that time when the Legionnaires were injured after a fight, see an UP cruiser, first expect the worst (more trouble, and lots of it), but when the hatch opens, they see R. J. Brande, flanked by several medics. President Chu certainly wouldn't have bothered witch such "unnecessary" niceties, and would simply have demanded a quick update.

That's some very interesting analysis Beyonder.

I'm not convinced of the mysoginist aspect (or at least that it was any more mysoginist than any other comics property) and am iffy on the anti-Christian aspect (I thought the Reboot was more anti-religion/spirituality [as seen in the treatment of Jan] than specifically anti-Christian) but you make a good argument for the pro-Globalist aspect.

Having said that, I think I'm pro-Globalist myself (in at least the way I define the term) and am not a fan of contemporary religions appearing in my Legion comics (even the few minor references to Gim's Judaism bug me) so I think I was OK with that world-view in the Reboot.



I think the raccoon servants were much more problematic and disturbing than silly and light-hearted.

My memory fails me a little bit on some of this but:

1. Was it clear that they were willing paid servants and not some sort of slaves?
2. The similarity between the 'raccoon' servants/slaves and the derogatory term for African-Americans ('coons') was very ugly.
3. We know that Sensor and her people eat small meaty creatures for food from her date with Reep so the implication that these 'servants' are also the Orandans sustenance was particularly horrible.

I guess the scenes where Sensor and her brother champion the raccoon servants' rights, were done in order to help counter those disturbing implications. Perhaps my impression of Reboot Orando is colored by later issues. Sensor and her brother championed the worker's rights; things like payment were never discussed, though.

I do agree with both of you, though, that Reboot Orando, at first glance, has a lot of problems. The Reboot itself has inconsistencies re food. But in Legionnaires 44, Monstress and Sensor comment that the meat they eat is cloned from cells; implying that animals are never grown and slaughtered to provide food. Spark makes a similar comment in LSH 85. This gave me the impression that Sensor's species don't eat live animals - of course, I could be wrong as it was never confirmed either way.

I'm pretty sure the tongues were part of the anime-lite flavour the Moys were brought in to deliver. A lot of the early reboot was looking to pull in some of that crossover audience.

This may be your anti-Christian values, but I don't think all Christians view globalism as evil or anti-Christian. I imagine that some people back in the 1100s viewed nationalism as an evil anti-Christian value.

And I have never heard of sticking your tongue out is a sign of blasphemy.

Regarding Sensor. I think first it was to include more non-humanoid members. In that respect, Projectra with her illusion casting powers makes the most sense to change into a non-humanoid.

Regardless, we all have our own view on things. Thank you Beyonder-Prime for sharing yours.

I'm not sure which issue it was in (and it might even be one of the ones you reference above) but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a panel of Sensor in a restaurant ordering a whole cooked chicken for herself to eat. I guess the chicken could have been cloned but if so, I don't remember it being mentioned as such. And even if it was, isn't the LSH the pre-eminent authority for the idea that "clones are the equals of the originals"?

(Now that I think about it, I'm almost positive that it was the "date" issue where she went out with Reep wearing the funny, fruity hat. Was that L* 49?)

I think Sensor is the ultimate example of "good idea/poor execution".

The LSH writers of that period attempted the admirable and necessary goal of adding another 'alien' member to the team but did not properly consider the repercussions of a) making that alien a formerly human and fan-favourite character; and b) developing a functional background for the character.

That was L* 46.

At least Gates wasn't plagued with those problems.

No. Reboots aren't per se bad. Unless they're done wrong.

In fact, reboots are something of a necessarity. But they absolutely need to be done right.

In a comic industry completely devoid of rebooting, I could never have become a comic book fan.

Why?

For starters: For the first 2 years or so, it wasn't Superman (or the Legion) who kept my interest in comics alive. It was Wonder Woman.

But not the degenerate, men-hating (and men-condemnig) creature she was in the Fourties. That Wonder Woman was perverse, she was incredibly ugly, and she was inherently malevolent, as was her creator, and as was the whole story-world around her.

No, the Wonder Woman I fell in love with was the one who was about to be updated by Gery Conway. She was the one character who actually drew me into comics, and who interested me long enough (and beyond) until I finally read my second Legion story, after that "Crisis in the 30th Century" fiasco.

Had Wonder Woman not be rebootet, I would have stopped reading comics over 36 years ago!

Had the Flash not been rebooted, most people wouldn't have read him in the Sixties, because Jay Garrick isn't nearly as interesting as Barry Allen, and has no villains to speak of.

Never mind that that without Barry (who's the direct result of a reboot), there wouldn't have been a reboot of GREEN LANTERN, which directly led to the Justice League (a rebooted Justice Society), which is directly responsible for the creation of THE FANTASTIC FOUR, which, in turn, was responsible for everything from Spider-Man to Thor to The X-Men.

Without reboots, the comic franchises we love wouldn't have lasted past their first 10 years. Heck, the Legion was dead by 1972, before Dave Cockrum released them from their Sixties tomb, gave them newer and better-looking costumes (certainly, their old costumes and hair-cuts looked like something that belonged to the early Fifthies-- and the Legion was a Sixties series!).

Rebooting keeps a series fresh.

It's only when you reboot a comic franchise wrong, that rebooting starts to hurt a comic. (Like the Reboot Legion, who was LITERALLY rebooted as the Threeboot Legion-- a feature that shared very little similarities with any Legion variant that came before: Basically, the had the names, similar but sometimes not identical powers and flight rings, and they lived in the future-- after that, good luck finding anything that is compatible with the main points of what The Legion of Super-Heroes is about.

Or when you reboot it too early: The Reboot Legion had years of stories left to them when they were replaced. Do YOU want to sit at a banquet with 3 helpings, and they take away your plate when you're still hungry?

But generally, reboots are a GOOD thing. But they must result in something at least as good as that what came before the reboot. Or better.

After all, very few fans and virtually none of the creators (the Bierbaums being the exception-- what a shock!) mourned the retconning away of the 5YL continuity and replacing it with the Reboot Legion. (That said, many of them would've prefered to see the Original Legion again over getting another "new" Legion-- especially me!)

On the other hand, only the most fanatic Threeboot fans would maintain that the retconning away of the Reboot Legion was not too high a sacrifice for what we got in their place, or that what replaced the Archie Legion - namely the "Take that, Grandpa!" Legion - was in any way, shape or form an improvement over what came before.