Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 - Preview and Spoilers

Thank you very much for the information, Nightcrawler, I still had time to cancel the order of Harley Quinn 1, and I have done that.

Ok, just read future state, I have not read any other comments yet so these are just my questions and thoughts I have from beginning to end. I understand there probably won't be answers to any of these, I'm just asking anyway. 1) Why is Tasmia's hair now orange/blonde? 2) Why when she came all the way to this location at Ultra Boy's(a fellow legionnaire) request suddenly seem to figure out she is being asked to return to the Legion? 3) why is her darkness now red and why is it seemingly holding and causing pain to invulnerable Ultra Boy. It's light/darkness it blinds, it does not have a physical hold. 4) WTF happened to brainy, his brain is exposed, he is once again obviously insane and seems to be fused to a Protean and now goes by Brainiac 7 and seems to have multiple consciousnesses because he seems to talk to himself later on. 5) Saturn girl is one psychic brain "twitch" from killing everyone. Is she sick, the still part makes this seem its been a problem for a while. Also what happened to her arm? Also she can't read Brainy's mind, however given his state that's probably a good thing. 6) I just thought Planet Gotham was roughed up from battle and war and lack of repair, but I guess the entire planet is "Broken and Unstable" and Brainy thinks they are not safe there. 7) Who are the Horraz? he calls someone highness, someone calls Duo Damsel royalty later on, the first one seems like a joke while the second as a term of worship, but two within a couple panels seems odd. 8) The "good team" seems to think Reep is very important to there cause and although he is powerful I can't see how he would be the key to defeat Element Lad. 9) Reep turns into Rokk, than who is either matter-eater lad or General Nah, ont sure if its either, than his mother, and than nervously back to himself. 10) People I think I recognize on page 8 Cosmic Boy, LoSH TV show Violet, Timber Wolf, Princess Projectra, Mon-El, some sort of superman, Quantum Kid. 11) Cosmic Boy seemed to bring Chameleon to a trial to ask him one question and it feels very intense, but at the very end Chameleon is there so what happened from point a to point b. 11)R.J. Brande is dead. 12)Element Lad is once again insane and evil, why? 12) He seems to have given the entire legion of substitute superheroes there powers. 13) Triplicate Girl is once again Duo Damsel and this is actually the only part I like because it feels more personal and touching writing. It also appears to have happened recently. 14) With no extra powers she double handedly took on an army of subs and was doing just fine even before blok showed up. Love her and Bloks talk.15) Why is chucks face on the top of his body? how does that work, how did this happen? 16) What did brainy do to make BB so angsty, how did everyone's family die? 17) Who is Commissioner Sevenbergen? 18) What is Jan's plan, because it seems he already did the baseline element thing. 19) Why did he think Lightning lass was dead? 20) Finally, is that gold lantern on the final page? Final thoughts: I am not a fan of the art, and also they say that the legion ends on the 100th day, but from cosmic boy Saturn girl and Lightning lads flash back to forming the legion it looks like a lot of time has passed between then and then recruiting Jon, they are a well oiled team and I doubt it went from 3 to 20+ members and everyone got well acquainted and used to working with each other in less than 4 months. I know that by issue 12 they are still new, but they aren?t THAT new.

OK I seem to be in the minority, but I actually liked the writing in this issue! And I loved the art! Riley Rossmo is an extraordinary talent IMO and I think he's really going to go far. All the criticism and insults [not specifically from here] being thrown his way are giving me huge flashbacks to the reception that Olivier Coipel received on Legion of the Damned. And we all know where his career's gone since then! (God, wouldn't it be amazing to see Coipel come back and draw a Legion story again. <wistful sigh>)

The major problem with this story is that it's come too early in this Legion's run (or more accurately, Bendis didn't effectively use the twelve issues he had). I feel none of the stakes because I don't really know or care about any of the characters involved. That isn't all Bendis' fault though; Future State was obviously forced on him by DC editorial. But it's yet another example of how rushed and last-minute decision-making has contributed to the inferior product that is the Bendis/Sook Legion.

Getting to the redesigns, I like a lot of them (except Bouncing Boy's; God, that's ugly!); I'm just not sure I like them on the character they're attached to. How and why Duo Damsel got access to one of Bumblebee's old rejected costumes is a story I'd like to see some day.

That scene between her, Blok and the Subs was my favorite part of the book though. It was great seeing a lot of those old characters again but particularly, the storytelling in that moment when Luornu talked about not liking to integrate any more because it was too painful made my heart stop for a second. It was so sudden and powerful and leaving the last of the three panels empty while she expressed that sentiment was one of the most subtly moving moments I've read in a comic in a long time. That emptiness really brought home her loss to me.

One last thought is that it must suck to be a Jan Arrah fan! I feel for all of you out there! He has really been shat on in every Legion since 5YL some 30-odd years ago! He's never been one of my favorites (especially with his bad design in this era) but I'm actually starting to root for him because of how mistreated he is.

Anyhoo, according to the article Sarcasm Kid linked above, this is the new normal for this team, and now I'm interested to see what's coming next.

Thanks SK for finding this interview.

It's glaringly obvious that Bendis has no clear focus about what he was originally envisioned to do with our beloved characters. Plus he contradicts himself at every turn.

Surprisingly I did enjoy this Part 1 issue and I am eager to see how it ends.

Yes the art is a bit of a departure from what I'm accustomed to expect for the Legion, but it is unique and special in its own way. And it didn't bother me at all.
Art is very personal and subjective by nature and no two people will ever 100% agree on art anyway.

Via Twitter -

I find the basic idea of Bendis skipping around Legion history really interesting. On the one hand, it allows him to tell a much broader story than he otherwise would be able to. On the other hand, it feels like it ties this version of the Legion even more to his particular vision, making it even less likely that it would survive without him. It also makes it kind of frustrating that he decided to pack so many characters in at the beginning and then not use them. If you're going to be jumping around in Legion history, then why have everyone in their at the beginning?

This is just too confusing.


The guy is white and in DC Nation Presents DC Future State he's identified as "Blast Boy." Of course the "Phantom Girl" identified there looks like Shadow Lass.

I mean, Jo turned white and so did Vi. And the Ranzz twins were looking pretty pale too.

Yeah, we went from one of the most diverse casts to a whitewashed mess.

that's sad

Is anyone surprised? Garth and Ayla being Black was a last-minute change on Bendis's part and that definitely showed when we saw what Winath is like in this timeline.

Of course there wouldn't be any consistency.

Interesting theory ..... you may be correct.

I'm leaning towards thinking maybe, just maybe, Bendis (or the DC management) decided against moving forward with this current Legion. Perhaps due to negative comments or backlash, or who knows what.
And I was a bit surprised to see the sudden unexplained changes in skin tones for a lot of the characters that we have gotten to know over the past year and a half. Although I have been very vocal about my dislike of some of the choices made regarding the skin colour and back-stories of a few Legionnaires (especially Garth and Ayla), I did respect the product as a whole. Regardless of whether or not I ever considered this run to be "true Legion" I did like having the Legion Of Super-Heroes back in the spotlight and top of mind, since this helps grow popularity in today's market and boosts interest in ALL the other versions of the Legion. So win-win situation all around.

I'll bet that we can expect yet another version of the Legion in the near future, ..... probably something more familiar to us long-time readers. Something more in keeping with a more conventional, historical resonance.
Could this be why we see the sudden switch to more familiar skin tones in this Future State 2-parter? To better prepare us for what's coming perhaps?? Some other odd choices such as Brainy's and Chuck's ( to name only a few) physical changes could easily be fixed in the early planning stages of a new series.

I have all these assumptions and questions! LOL
Time (and hopefully next issue) will tell I guess.

I like Bendis' writing, in small doses. And I wish he would give us that, but he falls in love with his own dialogue and starts repeating himself instead of getting on with the story. That's the issue I have.

Now that it's been a few days and I've had time to think, it's clear to me that he really does want to make his own version of 5 Years Later, while ignoring the fact that we've barely had time to get to know these characters. I'm going to keep most of my negative thoughts to myself, except one:

How does Bendis think the Brainiac title works? Querl is the fifth Dox to use the name of Brainiac. He can't declare himself 'Brainiac 7' beceause he 'upgraded' twice or whatever.

Somehow this is what's currently annoying me most. Outside of my distaste for his redesign, which I just find gross.

Don't worry, it annoys me too. In re-boot they solved this better by calling him Brainiac 5.1, but calling him 7 makes no sense. Its passed from parent to child, not yourself to yourself.

This is one of those things that I assume there's some sort of explanation for in Bendis's head, which may or may not ever actually make it into the actual book.

I really think I need to write an article about what Bendis has done with the Legion since 2019 in order to stop getting so anxious about it. I just cannot make sense of what this man has been doing.

As the current artist hasn't made any of the rest of the cast recognisable, it's odd they would have bothered to fall back on traditionally presented ethnicity. Perhaps they genuinely hadn't seen any of the issues in the run before working. But in the world-mind of DC editorial, the important things are that Querl is green, Tasmia is Blue. They don't seem to have blinked an eye at the rest of the cast being white. It does show just how surface level their take on this is.

Yes, they made so many recognizable characters now have crazy skin colours, but barely gave any of the members actual recognizable races in our real world. The Ranzz Twins are black, and Karate Kid is now more clearly Asian than he had ever been before, and Cosmic Boy now seems to be Asian as well, but besides those four and Dawnstar I think it is just Invisible Kid who has only visibly been in one panel. As I grew up I noticed how white the Legion was, but even in 2021 they decided to give everyone crazy new skin colours instead of diversifying with what reality has to offer. I would have liked an East Asian Saturn Girl or bring XS and Jazmine and James Cullen back, or an Asian Phantom girl, or Latina shrinking violet. They would still be there alien species just with human skin tones. Also while I am on this note It would be nice to bring LGBT representation back to the legion. Confirm Chameleon as non-binary, have a trans character, confirm Brainy, Ayla, Violet, and Dawnstar as bi in this universe. Confirm Jan as pan, and since Lyle is gone make IK2 gay. So far there have already been several hetero couples but besides a staring contest between Reep and Brainy there isn?t any LGBTQ.

Sorry for such a long post, I?ve just thought about this for a long time. I miss Jazmine and XS so much, and as a Bi woman it would be nice to see my favourite franchise represent LGBT more.

I think what frustrates me more about the lack of general queerness in the current Legion is how people have tried to justify it by saying "Give it time" and these people apparently do not understand it took like thirty years before they didn't have to hide behind subtext with Ayla and Vi. And they STILL never kissed on panel. By then the only other openly LGBTQA relationship we had were Power Boy and Gravity Kid, and they barely had scenes to themselves.

For most of us who wish things are different, I think our only true hope at the moment is the knowledge of XS's appearance in Williamson's Flash having absolutely no implied connections towards Bendis's Legion.

Yeah. I think the ever changing and still very lacking issue of Race in the Legion is more important right now, but as more and more couples pair off I would like it if just one was LGBT. I love how in each adaptation they always portray Cham very differently but usually as a gentleman, and after that page of him and Brainy (who was briefly bi in the reboot) in issue two or three I wonder if they will be the first of this new adaptation. I like there dynamic.

Invisible Kid II, Gear, Computo Danielle, XS, Kid Quantum (pick one, or both), Tyroc ......
Throw in Brainy, Shadow Lass, Dawnstar, Karate Kid, Cham and what do you get? Enough representation of humanoid diversification to satisfy those that care about that sort of thing. Not to mention painting the picture of an alien future universe.
Bendis could have lead with any or all of these characters. Sure, change up the costumes a bit, but no too much! He could have also touched upon diverse sexual orientations.

But he didn't do any of that.
And don't even get me started on the ridiculous back stories of most of these new reboot Legionnaires!

Why the need to tamper with establaished classic heroes? Was this all another chapter of the Muti-verse universe??
**Hopefully**


My point is would DC allow Bendis or anyone else for that matter, to introduce a "new" Justice League with Asian and south Asian Superman, Wonder Woman and Bats? The answer is a hard NO. And everyone knows it.
So why do it to the Legion? It did not need "re-tooling/re-inventing/re-thinking"!!! It needed a cool new contemporary Legion that was as familiar as it was fresh.

Sorry, but that's how I feel.

Bravo, Catonyx!

We've already seen a Chinese Superman who had his own book, and we're now getting a South American Wonder Woman who may be getting her own TV series as well. Don't tell me that DC would never do it with their top three.