The question that came up in my head was how a rather shy teenage Magnoball champion who was dumb enough to be cheated by his greedy manager suddenly became such a perfect, strong-opinioned leader. That sudden change came out of the blue. One issue, he's the little boy, the next book, he totally knows every right decision during their first mission - much better than the Science Police experienced Colossal Boy. Now where did that come from... ?
From: Bamberg, Germany | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I'd have to go back and re-read the issues to see if I pick up on the discrepancy you identify, CK. You could be right, however . . .
I find it plausible that someone may be highly proficient in one area and not so good in another. A real-life example of that is the Beatles, who were unparallelled in crafting hit songs, yet they utterly failed in managing their own business affairs.
In Cos's case, he may have possessed a natural talent in leading others his own age and even in assessing what needed to be done on missions (a skill honed, no doubt, by his sports training). But he may have been a bad judge of character when it came to adults, particularly those who were supposed to look out for his interests. Like many teenagers, he probably trusted his manager implicitly and lacked the experience to recognize when he was being cheated. (Of course, this is also true of most adults. To extend the music analogy, rock history is full of talented musicians who were ripped off by their managers.)
I'd like to think that the experience taught Cos a lesson and that he became a more shrewd judge of character as a result. Was this transformation too sudden? I don't know; wasn't a training period at least hinted at before they went up against Tangleweb? I seem to recall that some time elapsed between their rescue of Brande and that first mission.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
For me, the reboot never worked simply because it meant bad storytelling and dumbed down storylines. My appreciation of Legion was its highest during TMK, so it was like being on Watchmen and suddenly it all being substituted for Youngblood or something like that. True: the last days of McCraw era were just as awful, but it was (again) more about the dumbing down than the concept of the book. I was 20-something by then, saw the evolution of the book and the characters, so a book for 14-ys-old was not at all what I wanted. Rebooting the Legion was just the easiest, more unthoughtful way to get the book back in track and, as I've always thought, the worst one - because it didn't solve the main problem: writing was bad, characters became 2nd rate copies that would be forever compared to the "original" ones and eventually it would all fall down. Threeboot was less traumatic because Waid and Shooter were much better than Peyer and DnA and at this point in time, there was no compromise at all to the franchise's past. And Johns' LSH is simply nothing so far, just a bunch of colorful characters with the same name as that team I used to like.
From: Brasil | Registered: May 2008
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cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
(snip)
quote:Originally posted by He Who Wanders: . . .I find it plausible that someone may be highly proficient in one area and not so good in another. A real-life example of that is the Beatles, who were unparalleled in crafting hit songs, yet they utterly failed in managing their own business affairs...
I've managed to apply some variations of this idea while watching the cartoons and/or reading Threeboot (or parts thereof). It helps a lot in terms of dialing down the initial fanboygirl shock of, "Hey! That's not how you're supposed to write so-and-so!"
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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quote:Originally posted by He Who Wanders: I'd like to think that the experience taught Cos a lesson and that he became a more shrewd judge of character as a result. Was this transformation too sudden? I don't know; wasn't a training period at least hinted at before they went up against Tangleweb? I seem to recall that some time elapsed between their rescue of Brande and that first mission.
There's a fairly large gap between Legionnaires #0 (where Lu & Tinya join) and LSH #62 (where the first set of draftees arrive), as I recall. Weeks, anyway.
-------------------- My views are my own and do not reflect those of everyone else... and I wouldn't have it any other way.
posted
Thanks, Reboot. A few weeks is plenty of time for Cos to have learned his lesson and to even have taken some leadership courses.
The more I think about it, the more I think the Beatles analogy applies to Cos. For most of their career, The Beatles were managed by Brian Epstein, who did not rip them off although he may have made some questionably competent business deals. But after Epstein died, the Beatles sought to control their own financial empire. They launched Apple Records, which fell into disarray, and Apple Boutique, which closed its doors after six months. (Most of the merchandise was given away.) Facing financial ruin in a comparatively short period of time, they turned to savvy lawyer Allen Klein, who did rip them off (and later served time for doing so). Other friends, aquaintances, and hangers-on also took advantage of the Beatles' generosity and naiveté.
The Beatles were in their mid to late 20s by this time; Cos was supposed to be 14. Not only was he a lot younger, but he, like the Beatles, came from a working class background. Cos's family was struggling financially, as I recall, so he had a double reason, in addition to his youth, to trust the manager: he desperately needed a ticket out of poverty. (In this respect, Cos's situation is analogous to that of The Three Stooges. Also coming from working class backgrounds, the Stooges signed away their rights to future royalties from their film shorts in exchange for the guarantee of lifetime employment--a deal that sounded pretty good at the time. Yet it meant that they got nothing twenty years later when the studio sold the their film shorts to the new medium of television. Nor did the guarantee of lifetime employment prove as binding as they had thought.)
In regards to Cos, one area in which I think the reboot excelled was in portraying the early Legionnaires as teenagers with realistic foibles. Cos, as a teenaged sports hero getting ripped off by his manager, was thoroughly realistic.
As for him proving to be a better leader than Sci Cop Gim, it is interesting to note how their situations paralleled each other. Gim became a celebrity after gaining his powers and was promoted quickly through the ranks--far quicker than he should have been. Like Cos, he lacked real experience, albeit in a very different way. Gim simply did not make an effective field leader. (He was better off as the hard-ass drill sergeant of the team.)
[ July 05, 2009, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: He Who Wanders ]
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I know there are a lot of people that are tired of XS but I thought she was a natural for the team. I also thought Mark Waid's use of her as the primary character for his first issue was a stroke of brilliance. One thing it did for us was to say immediately that this was NOT the Legion we'd known before and another was to show that the Legion would definitely continue to have some sort of DC Universe connection. -yes, lots of debate about that too-
You're making me want to dig out the Reboot and read through it too.
From: Smallville Sector : Greater Metropolis | Registered: Jun 2004
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
The way I see Cos is that he is a leader in the sense that he is brilliant at motivating others and figuring out how to analyze a particular situation and use the skills of others to maximum advantage.
He is not a leader in the sense of someone who constucts an original vision or is necessarily really great at assessing and shaping the "big picture". He actually needs someone else (his manager, Brande, etc.) to set general goals for him.
This conception of Cos is heavily influenced by the Bierbaum's description of his characterization, incidentally. But I think the reboot version fits in fairly well with it as well.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
There was a lot of material in the reboot. It had a pretty light tone but dealt with a wide range of issues - prejudice, the environment, government corruption, consumerism, lots of coming of age and sentient relationship problems. However, while there may have been too much focus recently on galaxy-destroying menaces, I think the reboot went too far the other way, addressing our current problems in the context of some future United Planets.
Its primary failing for me was how contemporary it was. The cities, landscapes, infrastructure all mirrored those of our current western industrialized nations, with a few futuristic tweaks. A while back, I was looking at how Winath was portrayed in different eras, and in the reboot it was 1990s American farmland, with spaceships. They even had cowboy hats, line-dancing and a shopping mall opening.
It was certainly a brighter future than we had in 5YL, but for me it was a step backwards. When DnA took over, the Legion really felt like the future. When Waid and Kitson took over, we had a recognizable, but very different society. There were allusions to contemporary social alienation, but something had happened to people; this was not our time. I didn't get that feeling from the reboot Legion.
quote:Originally posted by Yk: I know there are a lot of people that are tired of XS but I thought she was a natural for the team. I also thought Mark Waid's use of her as the primary character for his first issue was a stroke of brilliance. One thing it did for us was to say immediately that this was NOT the Legion we'd known before and another was to show that the Legion would definitely continue to have some sort of DC Universe connection.
Well, as I was devastated to learn that Legion Lore had been erased, being shoved down my throat AGAIN that this was NOT the Legion we'd known was EXACTLY what I did NOT need back then...
But anyway I don't want to rekindle the old Flamewar here. I totally feel with Ricardo and his "dumbed down" argument, all I'm trying to do here is rereading it 15 years later without all the bad feelings.
And I read the next four issues today, and I have to say that it was again a pleasant work break diversion. The stories certainly were one-dimensional - Tangleweb AGAIN! - but fun, especially the tryout issue with Violet, Laurel and Kinetix joining. Also, the White Triangle storyline started here, the only Reboot storyline before DnA that I can remember at all. There are inconsistencies that I have to roll my eyes over - how come Triad suddenly has three flight rings? - but overall the story is moving along in an entertaining way.
So if not compared with 5YL, which for me was also the Legion Watchmen, the Reboot gathered some momentum after the first Trade Paperback. I also am having more fun reading about those teenagers now than I had in 1994, when I was just about the same age the 5YL Legion was and felt robbed of some companions who had aged along with me.
But as I am now working with troubled teenagers on a daily basis, I still don't think that Cosmic Boys metamorphosis into a born leader was very realistic. Your arguments certainly all are valid, but I guess it's a little bit much to assume about a fictional characters. The teenagers I know are also sometimes shy or headstrong, but they don't change that quickly (if at all). Especially those good at sports
From: Bamberg, Germany | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
Magno Ball IS a team sport. Of the founders, Cos was the only one with team experience. LL didn't get along with anyone and SG was an outcast.
From: East Toledo | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Well, it wasn't always played up as perhaps it should have been, but Triad & Apparition were a LOT closer to the founders in their joining up than they were to the draftees, and Lu even mentions that they (the five of them) "voted" Cos leader early in LSH #62.
-------------------- My views are my own and do not reflect those of everyone else... and I wouldn't have it any other way.
posted
Cosmic Boy certainly was the obvious vote of the Starting Five. That does not mean that he's a natural leader - remember in school, the class representative was often not the most able, but the most popular guy/girl in class...
Read the next four issues today - entertaining again, though not spectacular. The Legion Annual was one of those annuals that could have been left out, telling only back stories and featuring some decent, but also some horrible artwork. The battle against the Composite Legionnaire was thrilling, though the Durlans motivation to come after Reep Daggle of all people after years of confinement was not really well written. I had totally forgotten about Saturn Girl going mad after that storyline - I thought that was much later. Moders art was very inconsistent, some facial expressions were great, some long shots were awful.
What I liked most was Andromedas characterisation. Her xenophobia being in conflict with her duties as a Legionnaire made her character fun, I can't remember how this thread ended so I'm excited to see it now that the White Triangle storyline is heating up. I also have to say that there is much more happening in just a few issues of the Reboot than in a whole year of WaK ten years later. Also, characterisation is often simple, but it is there which I felt could not be said about most of the Threeboot Legionnaires.
Still entertaining!
From: Bamberg, Germany | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I liked Andromeda's as a xenophobe, too, because it was unprecedented for a Legionnaire. Even in the 30th century, one might expect to find enclaves, societies, and even worlds in which fear of others is still common. Laurel's views provided conflict and mirrored very real and ugly tensions that still exist in our own "enlightened" society.
Sadly, the arc turns out pretty badly for Laurel. However, her later conversion to a nun makes sense in light of this arc.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
(snip)
quote:Originally posted by Fat Cramer: When Waid and Kitson took over, we had a recognizable, but very different society. There were allusions to contemporary social alienation, but something had happened to people; this was not our time. I didn't get that feeling from the reboot Legion.
You should bump the last Threeboot thread and expand on this, if you haven't already. It's an important note, and might explain some of the hostility that version gets from a lot of fans I encounter.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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