posted
Has there been any other Legion creative team which has incited such extreme opinions? We seem to be two solitudes on TMK - people love their series or hate it. Not to sound like Mr. Spock, but it's really quite fascinating.
Have there been similar splits of opinion on other comics' creative teams? I can think of fairly general acceptance (the "Levitz era", or condemnation (the current Superman) - but not the sort of split we have on TMK. Maybe the Archie Legion - although opinions on that seem a lot milder.
Just asking, not looking for a battle royale. And I'm in the "love 'em" camp, so I got no perspective on the issue. It is interesting to read the "hate 'em" explanations, though.
posted
I, at least, try to avoid an extreme position on this run.
I dislike how it began with a soft-boot of the legion, but I liked a lot of the inrigue and events presented during the run.
I was annoyed that many of my favorite characters were gone or not a big part of the action, but I liked how much depth was given the characters who were there.
From: Portland, Oregon | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I didn't like the five year gap era. It was too gritty for me. Plus it seemed like the Legion was being done over to more resemble the X-men.
-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I'm fairly indifferent on it, since I wasn't really reading it at the time, and it;s the main era I haven't yet exposed myself to back-issuewise. Once I read more of it, I'll be better equipped to make a reaction to it.
-------------------- White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So... many... possibilities.
From: Birmingham, AL | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I loved it for the sheer density of the storytelling. The letters pages and extra text pages were engaging and as much a part of the stortline as the actual stories themselves.
I hated the utter disregard by TMK for anything they didn't consider "Legion"-- characters and stories done post-Adventure era were cannon-fodder, it seems. Not that they didn't treat ADV-era characters like Dirk and the Tornado Twins just as shoddily, but modern-era characters like Dawnstar, Drake and Blok seemed singled out for their more destructive storytelling tendencies.
One thing's for sure, love it or hate it, it's really hard not to feel strongly about these stories.
-------------------- "Anytime a good book like this is cancelled, I hope another Teen Titan is murdered." --Cobalt
"Anytime an awesome book like S6 is cancelled, I hope EVERY Titan is murdered." --Me
From: Up a Gumtree | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
My recollections on the era are fading with time, and I rarely re-read the issues, but in general, I felt like TnM really seemed to know their stuff. I know that K knew his stuff. That mattered. The presentation of the stories were often jumbled and confusing, but definitely interesting to a long time reader like me. I got a lot of the little stuff that could have been easily missed. I didn't like how most of my favorites weren't ivolved, like Nura and Imra and Garth, but as I often say, I accepted that reality. The violence and doom got to be tiresome. I liked the new characters like Kono and Laurel and Kent. I liked Keith's art (which is a hot topic of debate during this era). There are many other things that I liked, like the treatment of Jacques and Drura and Tyroc and the Subs. I liked the Bounty plotline, mostly because it had a kinda, fairly happy ending. It's weird, but even though Blok's death was really sad and kinda pathetic, it was really well presented. That's a prevailing opinion I hold about TMK, I thought sad and difficult stories were well told. I suppose that makes me a fan of the era.
The stories were intricate and packed. This really is the only era that to me read more like a novel than a fanboy comic book and the only era that encouraged me to think about the future with any depth. Mind you I like playing fanboy, but it was nice to see something in which I had invested years treated as if it was serious subject matter. It was the era in which the future was more of the star and Legion a player within.
I did have some difficulty "perceiving" the art, which slowed up my reading as the panels had to be studied sometimes to figure out exactly what was what. That was both good and bad.
From: East Toledo | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
The rebooted, or "archie" legion might have as much passion in both camps. I don't really know how to measure it though.
For myself there's no indifference: I loved it. Imperfect and awkward as even I find parts of it, I love it anyway.
The Legion always seemed to be a super powered high school - with the fat guy, the BMOC, the flirt, the wallflower and so on. Unlike almost any other comic, these characters actually grew up - they became young adults with sex lives. The TMK era was, for me, the high school reunion series. The flirt is fat, the wallflower is a self possessed woman, and the guy in the high-school-sweethearts turns out to have a big secret he's been hiding since Junior Year.
And I loved all of that. I didn't think the depictions were off or out of character any more than I think real people are when they return to their high school reunion and everyone is surprised to see where their lives went.
From: seattle | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
I can find both positive and negative aspects to it. There were a lot of good ideas that played out during that era, and a lot of things that should never have actually made it into print.
I do tend to think that some of the negative are so bad that they tend to overwhelm the positives (the Archie Legion has a similar problem, imo).
I would much rather have seen the team develop gradually, adding new members to replace the old ones, as was being done during v3, rather than the "class reunion" scenario, in which newer characters tended to get ignored or butchered for the focus on the older characters.
[ August 26, 2003, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: Eryk Davis Ester ]
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I would say that about 50% of the stories were really good, 25% were fair (or simply didn't appeal to me much, like the Tenzil issues) and about 25% were just ill advised crap. But it was still a noble, if somewhat unsuccessful, experiment all things considered. I guess it's worth mentioning that we'll never really know what might have been without all the editorial meddling, both with the Carlin-mandated exclusion of all Super-related lore, and to a lesser extent with the changing concept for the "Legionnaires" title which eventually gave us the unwieldly concept of two Legions in the same era.
From: Douglasville, GA | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Giffen and the Bierbaums openly measured their actions by three standards, at times professed in interviews: ~ The number of Legionnaires that could be made to question their own personal value. ~ The number of those who couldn't that would be attacked, mutilated, or diluted by other factors or characters. ~ The number of settings, motifs, and traditions, from codenames to Legion HQ to the Earth itself, that they could destroy.
All such numbers were high. All were indulged in with a childish relish. And all are reasons why I detest that era. Nobody else involved with the Legion has shown such contempt for the milieu and characters on which they were working. That wasn't these creators' only evident motive, but it was their overriding one, the one that won out over anything substantive or positive.
Anything fitting what the Bierbaums, at least, wanted to create in a constructive manner was done for the new "Legionnaires" title, which initially was meant to independently re-tell the "Adventure" stories from the beginning. The LSH of 30-plus years' standing was at first meant to be left to crash and burn in its own continuum. The intended reboot-in-a-new-title wasn't accepted, though, and wasn't carried out until everything was restarted in both titles.
You said you didn't want a "battle royale," FC. That was unrealistic. The contempt for the Legion shown by TMK was not present in any other era. This was going to get down, eventually, to how we ended up feeling about it.
From: Starhaven Consulate, City of Angels | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I don't consider anything here to even approach battle royale status - by which I had in mind big insults or irrational, gut-driven response. People have given their reasons for indifference, enjoyment or disgust, which is all to the good, as far as I'm concerned.
Just threw it in as a reminder to play nice, which people here most often do. However, some topics do incite passions, even one on "indifference", which can lead to unthought-out posting and stepped-upon toes, which we don't need and which makes me unduly sad, which I don't need. Selfish, aren't I?
posted
I echo Greybird's views on the TMK "era", but I'll go even further. I hold the trio for being directly responsible for bringing the Legion to the brink of cancellation a few years ago. Here's how I perceive it happened: 1) In a attempt to boost slowly declining sales and replace long-time writer Paul Levitz (who accepted a VP job), the PTB at DC decided to do something drastic (they would say daring). TMK were brought in - Giffen due to his previous Legion work in the late eighties, Lobo popularity and apparent high regard by DC in general - and given a blank check by the latter to "remake" the Legion. 2) In a great promotion, the Legion was put on haitus for a year while the new creative (destructive) team prepared this overhaul. I remember thinking during the year long wait what kind of idiots would suspend a title (still one of the top DC titles at the time despite lowering sales) for an entire year? 3) The new Legion finally appeared, older, darker, "grittier" than ever before. Mostly unrecognizeable to long-time Legion readers. The earlier V4 stories used familiar names, characters, and devices from previous Legion Lore, but seemed to delight in twisting and warping it into damaged or ruined property. The 31st century was not a place of wonder or technological marvel as originally created and maintained for 30 years, but a place of misery and disrepair. The Legion HQ became a junkyard planet!? The characters had it worse - Legionnaires maimed, raped, murdered at a whim; villians reduced to cardboard cut-out characterization or "comedic" gags in many cases. 4) Midway through the series, the startling realizations were setting in. First, the creative team of TMK were quickly rampaging thru the Legion's long history of carefully accumulated lore, while adding very little to this lore itself. TMK were essentially burning their bridges behind them as they contined to draw upon and use (abuse) previous creative teams efforts. Second, the dark future portrayal had the effect you would expect to have on any reader - after a while it became a real downer to stay with. Third, while gaining some new readers after the Levitz era, this version also turned away some loyal Legion readers and was virtually inappropriate for elementary schoolers. Sales were not improved over the Levitz era, instead continuing to slip. 5) Editors, absent for years, were finally forced to step in to try to pull the Legion out of its nose dive. This didn't go over big with TMK, who seemed to begin to lose interest in the project at this point of interference. Except for some nice Stuart Immonen artwork, the last year of the V4 effort was unremarkable. 6) Zero Hour was used as the vehicle to repair the damage done. Kurt Busiek was called in to try to save the Valor run, and did a remarkable job with an impossible situation. He also helped set the course for the rebirth of the Legion. Even the eunich editors who stood by for four+ years watching the Legion be disemboweled realized they were better off to start from scratch than the ashes of V4. Hence the "Archie" Legion came to be. 7) Unfortunately, what's been published can't be unpublished. What TMK's V4 laid to waste of the work of previous creative teams, the reboot Legionnaires could not escape from either. The choice to forget V4 ever happened and "retell" silver age stories with different twists was another bad decision. The total reverse alienated some readers they had acquired from V4. 8) The "Archie" Legion made the divide between Legion readers complete. The Legion was schizophrenic, trying to appeal to two different kinds of readers at once. Valor was cancelled soon after the reboot, and the second Legionnaires title cancelled a few years later. With one Legion title remaining, the group was precariously on the edge of cancellation until DnA revived the book, by setting a new, constructive agenda for the team.
-------------------- "My dance card was getting fuller than a contestant's at a Jandan shurg-off." - Exnihil, The Lost Klordny
From: Frederick, MD | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
TMK was unbelievably good for the first year then became increasing less good. The first twelve issues contained so many classic legion scenes: Mon-El killing the Time Trapper, Rokk and Mordru, all of issues 1, 5 and Annual 1. Then the title started becoming a little too diluted with bad ideas and bad storytelling (see "The Quiet Darkness", Garth as Proty and Shvaugn "Sean" Erin for details.) That said, the last couple of years are worth reading alone for the moving portrayal of Dirk as a tragic hero which gets me all teary every time.
Registered: Aug 2003
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