Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Your Favorite Legion Stories Since 2000?

I thought about making this a top five list, but decided to leave it more open-ended. So what are some of your favorite Legion stories of the past twenty years?

I think Superboy's Legion has to be pretty close to the top for me. A fun Elseworld's story full of youthful energy and exuberance, some neat alt-takes on Legionnaires, and a nice handling of a large cast in just a couple of issues. Plus gorgeous artwork!

It's been a while since the last time I read Superboy's Legion, but I do recall that it had a lot going for it, most of which EDE has already noted in the opening post. That said, I didn't much care for Farmer & Davis's takes on some of the characters, especially comedy-relief Cham. And I disliked the way Davis drew Shadow Lass's face, which is an extremely rare reaction from me to a Davis face.

Much more to my liking was the way Steve Lightle visualized her in DnA's The Legion 24, which spotlighted her (and wrapped up a loose end that had been hanging around since almost the beginning of the series...groan.) The story's not great, but it's better than most of the issues of The Legion. A pity about the way that series went off the rails so quickly and so thoroughly, after so many promising elements in the early issues.

The first 3 issues or so of the Threeboot were just as, if not even more, promising. And yet, I still think all those good qualities could have been achieved without rebooting. The younger, more aggressive and proactive Legionnaires could have simply been new characters, some of them from the planets as the established members.

I liked the Retroboot issue which spotlighted Glorith (can't recall the number at the moment) and had all sorts of space-time anomalies centered around the city of Barcelona. It felt to me like Levitz was finally getting some traction, but DC editors and execs ran out of patience and immediately forced the Giffen-driven death + destruction upon the book. I've said this before in this forum, I really do think Levitz was building to a massively-scaled battle between Glorith and the Time Trapper, the latter who was meant to be Harmonia Li. Would Levitz have hit it out of the park or would he have struck out? We'll never know.

The first half-dozen or so issues of Legion Lost v.2 had a lot of nice characterization, I thought, but yet again DC editorial drove the series off the rails.

I also enjoyed the final issue of the Retroboot -- Kevin Maguire's art had a lot to do with it, but I just liked the way that it tried to end things on a positive note, even if it felt somewhat forced.

Finally, even though the bulk of DnA's earliest, and best Legion stories (Legion of the Damned, Widening Rifts, and Legion Lost v.1) would all have to be considered 1999, they remain my most recent Legion favorites.

Re Superboy's Legion, great story. But yeah. some dislikes were poor Gim dying AGAIN in another reality. And I'm torn about their Jo. I do like his great tactical mind and battle leadership, but I hated his overly macho personality and inability to take accountability for his own mistakes (i.e. he never apologized for his faulty bomb that would have made things worse). And did he ever apologize to Tinya?

I also loved that DNA issue with Tasmia, finally cemented her personal growth arc - her "bringing light" to the newly-xenophobic Talokians was a master touch.


Very much agree. The premise was great enough that I was willing to give it a chance - and this coming from a big Reboot fan (one who GREW UP WITH the Reboot). I would, of course, have been tickled pink if the Threeboot had been set in the future (say, 30 years?) of the Reboot reality. Then old faves could have popped back in... but ah well. if the Threeboot had developed better, I would not have minded the rebooting at all. and even to this day I do not hold much ill will to the Threeboot for erasing the Reboot, it's not "their" fault and they deserve to be judged on their own merits.


Agree, agree and agree. Legion Lost v2, I loved for fleshing out characters like Dawnstar, Tyroc, Tellus, Yera, all of them in fact. We got a lot of depth that had been missing for a while. Even Gates was written well, and I tend to be more critical because Gates is a Reboot favorite of mine.

and yes, DNA's earliest are still their best. They made me a big Monstress fan, made me like Cham and Wildfire and Tasmia and Imra a lot more... and they made me cry thrice during Legion Lost v1!

I really liked the Threeboot because it spoke to me as a teenager in the aughts. The Legionnaires were written as Millenials, for better and for worse. I liked a lot of the Threeboot relationships, especially Brainac 5 and Dream Girl. I like the contrast between science and magic that they each represent.

I like the John's issues of the Retroboot, but I think Levitz did not capitalize on the strong set-up at the end of John's run. He could have done a lot more with the conflict between Earth and the rest of the galaxy.

As I've said before regarding Superboy's Legion, it definitely benefits from being an Elseworlds, rather than an ongoing continuity, where some of its more questionable choices probably would have started to chafe more over time.

I remember enjoying Gail Simone's closing arc from The Legion, "For No Better Reason". I remember thinking that it showed that there was still potential in that version even after DnA's run started to fizzle.

The first few issues of the threeboot were really solid, especially #3, which would be near the top of my favorite single issues published since 2000. I also really liked Tony Bedard's arc, "The Quest for Cosmic Boy", in between WaK and Shooter.

Though I found most of Johns' Legion frustrating, "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" was a pretty decent story for the most part. LO3W didn't really do much for me overall, but I liked the concept allowing multiple Legions to exist and interact, and that splash page with Legionnaires from a bunch of different universe showing up was certainly impressive.

The best of Levitz's run were the Legion Academy stories with Jimenez, so if you count those as one "arc", I'd rank that pretty high. And Glorith overall was definitely a highlight of his run. I wish we'd gotten to see more of her story (preferably with a confirmation that she was a "de-splorped" original Glorith).

I recently re-read that final retrobbot issue and, yeah, I was surprised how much I liked it.

I'll also put a plug in for LOSH in the 31st Century, which, while definitely a mixed bag overall, had a number of delightful individual issues, particularly the Arm Fall Off Boy story.

LO3W was indeed meh for me - though it was good enough that I didn't hate it (despite Kinetix, 3boot Jan and 3boot Dirk being killed).

I didn't really like Superboy's Legion, aside from the artwork. Maybe it was praised a little too much for my tastes, I remember seeing too many comments among the lines of "they should cancel the reboot and continue this one". I definitely need to read it again to see if I change my mind.

Post-2000 single story is really hard, as my favourite Legion stories tend to be multi-parters.
Legion Lost is up there, the last few issues were particularly powerful. Several parts of The Legion, especially after the group is reunited, really made me thought we were on a very high note.

Threeboot had a solid start. My favorites were the issues where we were focusing on single Legionnaires, always a good approach but there were a couple of interesting insights. Really sad it was cut short.

I didn't like The Lightning Saga, especially since bringing up the retroboot in the middle of the threeboot was just stabbing the threboot in the back.

Legion of Three Worlds killed my interest for the Legion for a couple of years. Flawless art, awful story, a disservice to multiple Legion timelines only to put the writer's pet characters on a pedestal.

I tried to get into the retroboot and I just couldn't. I found absolutely nothing in it appealing.

I also remember fondly the story where they visit Colu to have Brainiac 5 re-take his tests because he thinks he's getting dumber (thrown of the continuity of the cartoon by season 2, but really well written) and the story where we see what the Legion has learned from Superman... as well as what Superman has learned from the Legion, once he's back in the 21st century.
We don't see enough times the influence that the Legion has had on Superman!

Thank you! I agree 100 percent, and I think Lo3W gets too much slack from fans.

I'll put in my vote for threeboot Legion # 2 - the banter between Brainiac 5 and Dream Girl ("cause, then effect!") and his reaction to her saying they'll be married, and the goats at the end were just perfect. It's a shame that the threeboot never really got off the ground properly, IMHO, but I loved that issue.

Also, the conclusion of the Abnett/Lanning Computo/Robotica story, where Brainy understands that the organic dismissal of artificial intelligence as life was wrong all along, and he allows Computo to evolve, was an unexpected good twist ending.

Also, I did enjoy Geoff Johns's Superman and the Legion and Legion of Three Worlds quite a lot. Yes, the latter was too much of a vehicle for the return of Kon-El Superboy and Impulse, but even so, the Legionnaires and their supporting cast and villains were used with good knowledge of their character and history, and the art, of course, was fantastic. I do wish, though, that it didn't rewind the entire 5YL era. But I understand that it was a story-era that called for standard costumed super-heroes rather than for the more mature versions that made up that version of the group.

comments like that would certainly turn me off too. It was good, I liked it, but not enough to erase the Reboot.

I think a lot of the people who weren't too excited about the "darker" turn of DnA's run latched onto Superboy's Legion as an alternative. As I said above, I don't think it would've worked nearly as well as an ongoing continuity, though I would have loved to see a sequel.