Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow Okay, if I put aside my distate for Giffen's art and writing, I still have to ask...

DISCLAIMER: This is not meant to be an invite to Giffen-bashing. All that I propose is for us to have a reasonable, civilized discussion about this controversial creator who, for better or worse, defined the Legion for a sizable stretch of time.

Question: If there's any truth to what I perceive as Giffen's unprofessional, big-babyish attitude, then why has DC put up with him for almost 40 years?

I mean, did "The Great Darkness Saga" really move *that many copies?* Am I really the only one who thinks that the more leeway Levitz and Berger gave him, the more the LSH series dropped in quality and consistency?

And yes, I know very well that JLI sold like hotcakes for quite a while. Not my thing, but I respect the many readers for whom it is a thing. I also know that it was the success of JLI which caused the DC execs to give Giffen enough rope to hang himself with on the Legion.

And hang himself he did. How in the cosmos did they let him hang in there for three years without firing him? Every time LSH v4 started to regain some of the spark of its excellent first issue, Giffen would miss deadlines and bring the series' momentum to a halt. Was it perversely deliberate? Was he unconsciously self-sabotaging? Not that I care about what was going through his mind, but I *do* care that he and the Bierbaums pretty much ruined any chance of the Legion ever becoming a household name.

I could go on and on but I won't. Look, I don't unilaterally dislike everything he's ever done. Marvel's "Annihilation" is the rare superhero event of the 2000s that holds up nicely today. I enjoyed "Invasion" when I was young. And he conceived "L.E.G.I.O.N.," which I mostly love, although I think it got a hundred times better after Giffen left following issue 12.

And I don't think that everybody has to have the same tastes as me or agree with me on everything (how dull would life be if that were the case?) I just don't get *why* he gets so much slack from pros and fans alike. I just don't get it.

It's a mystery to me as well. At the start, his art was great, and the collaborative storytelling he had going on with Levitz was decent (if a tad overwrought on soap operatic 'drama' and stooge-esque slapstick humor at times, the latter of which was clearly his forte, but the former of which could just as easily have come from Levitz), but he seemed to utterly give up artistically, and his storytelling seemed to focus on cheap relationship shenanigans and lots of deaths, both handled quite gratuitously, which felt like a slide downhill for him as both a writer *and* an artist. My only thought as to how he stayed on so long is that he'd generated a certain amount of goodwill in his years, and may have been a great guy to work with (surrounded by more famously difficult-to-work with sorts, like Jim Shooter), so that the decline was not as noticeable, occuring over time, to his fellow creators, and / or being regarded as a slump or a phase or even a 'style' that had it's fans (during a time when comics seemed to be embracing some new artistic styles than the more representational Curt Swan-esque model, with more stylistic artists like Jae Lee or Bill Sienkiewicz).

There could be external factors as well, such as some personal life-changes or health reasons for the decline, but it seems in poor taste to speculate about that. (I've had a stroke myself, and could see how that sort of thing, for instance, could result in a downturn in one's work as a writer / artist, but also how it wouldn't be terribly classy to suggest that just because I don't like someone's new artistic direction, he must have had a traumatic brain injury or something...)

The most cringe-worthy work I remember of Giffen's was *Omega Men*. Though some of the blame for its quality lies with its writer, too. In general I don't go in for gory, depressing stories where the very idea of pacifism is more-or-less openly ridiculed, as it was there. Also, its style (at least then) wasn't really right for whatever Slifer was trying to portray. Giffen was still doing a sleek, gleaming, pretty-looking future which jarred weirdly with Slifer's fondness for gratuitous violence and everyone (metaphorically) stabbing everyone else in the back. Maybe that discrepancy was what they wanted, but it never worked for me.

I think whatever ultimately afflicted Giffen isn't really unique to him, or even unique to Big Names in the comics field. It's viewable in a lot in other entertainment fields, as well.

I'm not even aware of how old Giffen was during most of his best-known works. I should probably look that up.

He's an idea factory. I'll usually check out something Giffen is doing, not necessarily buy it or even read anything other than the description. Lobo is awful, IMO, but as a money-maker for DC, probably a winner. Ambush Bug was more to my taste. I loved his Doom Patrol, my idea of heroes living Stoic principles. Wasn't he the guy who oversaw/organized Wednesday comics? That was an unusual project, although since it hasn't been repeated, it likely didn't pay or burned everyone out.

He's not afraid to gore anyone's ox; we can take comics a bit too seriously sometimes - perhaps it's good to just blow everything up from time to time. It's comics, there's always a reset.

I don't even mind now that he keeps killing Karate Kid - maybe they'll bring him on to one issue in this new Legion to do that and have it be a fake-out, or real. It's become a tradition; I'm expecting it.

From an interview I read, Giffen felt that his initial dropping out of comics was as unprofessional as you could get. I think it took a fair amount of bridge mending to get him back in. I don’t read many interviews, and it’s something that comes up often enough that I don’t think he’s ever forgotten.

Comics history could be renamed Clash of the Petty Egos. There have been many, many others who have pulled similar stunts, and worse, and not learned a thing from them in the field. He’s been the first to wish The Magic Wars had gone better. I think there was a time when he committed to too many projects and couldn’t spin all the plates. Then there was his Legion burnout. I think he has learned form that. Personally, I think throwing Maguire under a JLA 3000 bus was a rubbish thing to do.



Yes, I think it really did. Now I like the JLA/ New Gods story as well. But The Great Darkness Saga is the one that cemented Darkseid as *the* DC Villain. The GDS not only sold loads of single issue copies, it was a big selling TPB. It was one of the early ones too. That’s a *load* of copies over the years.

Giffen’s partnership with Levitz brought out the best work from both of them, plus that extra shine that only comes from such a strong collaboration. The title, along with the Wolfman/Perez Titans was selling copies in numbers sufficient for DC to look at their royalty payments.

The art of that Legion run, was like a Kirby/Perez/various Euro artist fusion. Crisp, clear character work (he put in the effort to define each physically) combined with gorgeously detailed backgrounds. The Legion had already had its share of top artists. I think the fallout over the departures of his predecessors also gave Giffen some lee way as he stuck with it for a few years, with *lot* of work.

The JLI was a hit in its own right. But it also got DC into the team franchise market, more than it had managed with Titans East. As the Avengers and X-Men started spawning books, DC had a distinctive vehicle of their own. That’s a *load* of books.

The Legion also had success in that way. Legionnaires, Legion and L* all selling copies for prolonged periods at levels they’d sacrifice relative for these days. Giffen was very important to DC franchise books.
Ambush Bug remains comedy gold. Lobo was a huge hit, and again gives DC something to show for against Deadpool.



In many industries, there does seem to be something that absolves success from similar levels of scrutiny in the next project. Despite that often being key to the initial success.

Watchmen and Dark Knight are usually trotted out as show ponies for the darker, starker comics of that period. But there had already been a number of years with top independent comics giving readers content for grown-ups. The industry was about to decide that was all too much effort. Grown up would become barely clothed characters and lots of pointless bloodshed.

Before that happened, Giffen looked to provide a mature take on the Legion that kept the ideals of its heroism close to its heart. Deep characterisation coupled with idealism, action and adventure in a tougher galaxy. Levitz was winding down, the premise well thought out. It was being picked up by someone who was a key part of that success. The alternate choice was something similar to Levitz, but without Giffen and possibly not as good considering who they were following.



DC were complicit in the wheels coming off. Mark Waid, no stranger to bizarre Manchild Tantrums seemed to have met a similar force from the Superman office. That may have led to a lot of bad feeling and escalations behind the scenes. That helped put pressure on the book itself.

What should have happened was to plan out the first 12 issues in reasonable detail (they possibly were). That’s Giffen’s get-the-team-back-together a la 9 panel Watchmen opus. That’s the story to be published giving us much more depth than we got. *Then* the Super-mewling could be dealt with. Back in the ‘60s both Super and Bat offices were reminded in no uncertain terms who they worked for. Whatever was going on behind the scenes on this one, showed a real lack of editorial leadership. Sadly, that’s been one of DC’s main problems in the decades since too. It won’t have helped that one of the people in charge was Levitz himself who purposely distanced himself form getting involved. Office politics being what they are, I’m sure there was plenty of manoeuvring around that. “How dare they do this to my guy Paul’s book?! I shall protect it in my guise as Whiny Stabby Man!”

I think it did have an impact on Giffen. He walked more than once. Any other assignment must have looked more enjoyable. I imagine that those started to get more of his happy thoughts, if not hours at the board. I get the feeling, based on rumours he tried to bring them back for v7, that Giffen would have felt badly leaving the Bierbaums in the lurch. I think Tom had given up other work for the Legion, and that would have looked shaky with a new editor and a walking Giffen. That might have been what brought him back.



Normally this is where I agree that the result of the TMK run was a train wreck. The guys at the end of it felt it couldn’t be salvaged. It could have, but they chose not to. Ironically, Giffen’s own storyline would have rectified a lot of it, had it been left in peace. I’d have been horrified. But hopefully I’d have got over it, by the time I was writing this.

Giffen blew up Earth in the huff. But no editor should have allowed it. No changeover in editors should have been so lax. Even then, a lot consider the follow up issue to be one of the best in the volume, and we see a fractured new Earth in the latest Bendis run.

As for it not being a household name, since v4 there’s been Legion appearances in Supergirl, possibly Superboy, a Legion cartoon and Legion Heroclix. Has it ever had such widespread visibility? A Big Gun writer is now in the book, and that’s partly because of the work GIffen did on it across all those years.

I am far more ambivalent about Lobo than you, and I'll admit I've enjoyed a few Lobo stories -- some of them plotted by Giffen, some of them not, but always scripted and/or plotted by Alan Grant, whose own brand gallows humor is far more simpatico with my sense of humor than Giffen's is.



In theory, I agree.

However, I find his attitude towards superheroes and their fans to be mean-spirited. It's like he's constantly taunting people, young and old alike, for even reading superheroes in the first place. Bit of a schoolyard bully streak, in my opinion.

I do feel that Levitz's Legion could get awfully pretentious and precious at times, but I feel that, in trying to take his co-creator down a peg, Giffen simply went to the other extreme.

Blowing things up from time to time is fine, but not in a fit of childish petulance like Giffen did with 30th Century Earth.

Agreed on his treatment of Maguire. That was as mercenary a move as they come. Unforgivable.

I had already heard of his bad behavior during his Bronze Age JSA/Defenders days. But looking across the decades in hindsight, I have to question whether he ever really did learn anything, or if he just got savvier at playing industry politics.



Fair enough on GDS, but I virulently disagree on everything after GDS, on any of his Legion artwork other than his first few (pre-GDS) issues being anything better than mediocre, and on Levitz and Giffen bringing out the best in each other. I shan't elaborate further, in the hopes of the Re-Reads threads getting lots more hits.



Sorry, I beg to differ. In my opinion, Giffen's take on the Legion was a bandwagon jump, no more and no less.



There were *plenty* of other alternative approaches. And I don't think Levitz was that great. Our coverage of the Baxter re-reads found me finding clear demarcations between the really good stuff (fewer than 10 issues), the so-so stuff, and the utter dross. And I *had* previously been a fervent defender of that era. Levitz, in my opinion, did more harm than good to the Legion, in the overall scheme of things.



Fair enough. And you proved the above point, with interest, through your follow-up post to this one in Bits, that detailed outline of how those 12 issues *should* have gone.



Agreed 100 percent.



That still doesn't excuse the missed deadlines and their effect on sales and story momentum, nor his petulant final shot by blowing up the Earth.



WHAT? He tried to bring the Bierbaums back for v7? It was arguably the Bierbaums who fucked up his best laid plans in the first place, with their constant backpedaling and their counter-productive demands. I might as well say it now, seeing as we've been clearing the air: I dislike Giffen, but I *loathe* the Bierbaums. I only recently read the issues they did after Giffen left. Let's just say I'm sharpening my knives way in advance. And the carnage is going to be far, far more savage than anything I've said about Giffen.



I disagree. But that's a whole other thread's worth of discussion.



Be that as it may, it was a nadir of unprofessionalism from a creator with a history of bad behavior before and after the fact.



It could have been *so much more* is my point. I still think that, had the Legion not been radically done over by Giffen and his collaborators, we'd have had the cartoon show much sooner, like 1992, and it, rather than Batman, would have been the cornerstone of the DCAU. Not to mention big-budget live action movies, merchandising...basically, success on a par with Marvel's far less deserving Guardians.

I’d hope the former, as I would for anyone, and I would think yes to the latter. Just form experience. He went from being a veteran who couldn’t get a DC gig to a key player behind 52 (Bleh!) and working on titles with DiDio (Bleh!). Maybe he finally asked Levitz about how it worked.



I’d just like to mention that some of my absolute favourites are post-GDS/ pre-Omen. Also, that by bringing out the best in each other, I also meant pushing each other to do better. Doing that with no boundaries can lead to Lyle Norg sized problems.


Since I’m speculating, you may be right, or even just closer. Giffen did seem nonplussed that Gibbons 9 panel grid was seen as genius while his got pecked to death. To be fair to him, Giffen had done a 16 panel grid around that time, so perhaps there were other influences going on. I’ve no idea about the writing side of it. Probably a lot of things, like most titles. He might have slaved away over Moore & Miller scripts the way he did over particular artists. There may have been other writers he was looking at too.



Oops. I mistyped. It should have been along the lines of “The alternate choice could have been something similar to Levitz…” It would be daft to think that what has gone before would be the best thing there ever could be. I also agree with there being a lot of OK, but not knocking it out the park, Levitz issues. As a body of work though, it’s considered to be a strong one. I’d be interested in what harm you felt it did in the overall scheme of things. Is it one particular part, or as a whole?


Fair enough. He could have walked. I’m never sure which are the deadline problem issues and which are the ones where he walked. I can understand the frustrations involved from those there, that led to what happened.



That was a rumour I’d read, when he was coming back on board in the Levitz issues. The resistance to it, was mentioned as one of the reasons he didn’t stick around. As for v4, I agree that the story was stronger without the changes to Erin and some other points. Roxxas using Blok as an example of a last survivor of a race didn’t have the same impact with Jan’s story, and wasn’t really referenced as such again. Looking back, I wonder if it wasn’t also a dig at the Superman office: A last survivor causing them problems.

Giffen wanted a collaborative approach. He got a lot of leeway when working with Levitz. But I’m sure Levitz’s hand was the one in control, even if it might not have seemed that way when things were going so well. But in a collaboration, concessions are often made. Not always to the benefit of the book. More extreme examples are the many plot-by-committee books DC has had over the years, either Events or through editorial retreats or editorial over-meddling.

I do have a lot of respect for their in depth knowledge of the Legion and in communicating it without beating the reader over the head with one of those Legion wedding sticks. Their ability to pinch hit so well in ridiculous circumstances is to their immense credit. They delivered some of the best dialogue the book has seen.




Yup it was two fingers up to the company as he left a book he felt had been thoroughly compromised. Not that he didn’t play a part in it. Very unprofessional and it shouldn’t have been done in the first place.



I don’t know enough about the Animated DC to really have an opinion on the properties. As for Marvel’s Guardians, Giffen co-created Rocket Racoon and DC couldn’t keep the DnA Legion team that brought success to that Marvel book. So, I’m not too sure I’d trust them with regardless of the potential of a property.

LOL The Lyle Norg thing...Jeez Louise. That's exactly the sort of stuff that I think Karen Berger had every right to flag down, but chose (?) not to. As I said in the Re-Reads discussions, Berger did go on to distinguish herself as a superior editor, but her Legion tenure, in retrospect, was a learning curve.



Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, I think, with hindsight, that Levitz's hypothetical successor could easily have made the focus of the book the reconstruction of the galaxy, without all the trendy corruption and gore and such.



Here's the thing -- when Levitz stuck to what I feel he did best (that is, no-nonsense, meat-and-potatoes, high-octane space opera action,) he was nigh untouchable by DC's other writers. Examples would be the early issues of v2 (after a couple false starts in 284-285, he really found his footing with the issues leading right up to GDS, my personal fave being 288, the showdown on Orando -- even Giffen's art pleased me there.) But I think GDS found him biting off far more than he could chew (for instance, instead of so many repetitive battles against the Servants of Darkness, and without the whole Daxam thing which comes out of the blue, there could have been a lot more of the Fourth World backstory and a lot less Marvel-style amateur metaphysics.) Post-GDS, Giffen started changing the characters' looks (hideous to a sentient, in my opinion) and shoehorning in a lot of his patented "irreverence," which, as noted above, I almost always find off-putting. Year One of the Baxter era, which even before the re-read I'd considered inferior to Year Two and Year Three, revealed itself to be a horrific mess, so much so that even after Giffen was gone, it took Levitz and Lightle several issues to get the book back on track. And then, with LaRocque firmly in place as a solid, reliable artist who always met his deadlines, everything should have been smooth sailing from then on...if not for Crisis on Infinite Earths. Somehow, Levitz and LaRocque still managed to produce a handful of gems (the extended battle against the New Fatal Five, the entirety of the Universo Project arc), before Death of Superboy (which, ironically, surprised me during the Re-Reads by how well it stood up) finished the job -- already started by Crisis -- of taking the wind out of Levitz's sails. I gave high marks to the Lightning Lad/Luck Lords issue, the Laurel Kent issues (though I went out of my way to make it clear that the Laurel stuff is strictly a guilty pleasure to me,) and to my beloved Tasmia/Mon-El/Blok issue. And having done that, I am willing to concede that those issues probably mean a lot less to most other readers than they do to me (after all, Luck Lords and Tasmia were among my very first Legion purchases, as back issues just a few years after they were originally published.)

So that leaves us with only a few indisputable home runs from my perspective: LSH v2 #286-289 and Annual 1, and Baxter 13-15, 23, 25-26, 32-35 (oh, so it *is* 10 Baxter issues after all. LOL)

This part leapt out at me. Yeah, it seemed that every time I saw the word 'mature' on something, it meant 'something that will titillate the juvenile, but no actual *adult* would find interesting.'

The relationship 'soap opera' was far more in-depth and sophisticated, at times, than some of the shallower 'two teams fight, for... reasons!' common to superhero comics.

If we're talking about Levitz, I feel like his last go-round proved how dependent writers are on good editors who can keep them grounded and/or focused. He had that in the earlier days, with Berger. Not so much last time.

I don't place all the blame on him, though. I think being roped tightly to that bomb of a GL movie by marketers would've been any writer's undoing. And of course there's the fact that decreasing page counts and the constant emphasis on splash pages and big panels makes it tougher on writers than it used to be.

I agree with Cleome. Reduced panels and fewer pages meant that Levitz' traditional approach had to be adjusted. Subplots like the search for Mekt's twin started and then dropped, because it wasn't adjusted enough. Panel hogging members and a Mon-El as Leader Lantern Lad were all poor. The endless bickering over who would be leader, a glacial Glorith subplot and DC's decision to relaunch yet again didn't help at all. I'm sure there were positives too though.

I really enjoyed Levitz' work on the character of Saturn Queen. At the start, we got a taste of what a culture of mind-readers would really be like. (See the idea of the telepathic "quiet room," for instance.) A lot of potential that was scuttled because Editorial and Marketing had other prioritie$.

Cleome and Thoth,

I appreciate these insights into the pros and cons of Levitz's work on the Retroboot. Such a missed opportunity.

Now I'm almost tempted to re-read the Saturn Queen story arc. The only thing stopping me is that I found it quite disturbing at the time. I'm sure that was at least partially Levitz's intention, but...

Regarding the Glorith subplot, that was actually what I found most intriguing. I genuinely believe that Levitz was building to the revelation of Harmonia as the Time Trapper, and a spectacular showdown between her and Glorith.