posted
A few years ago I reread it to see at which points I started losing interest. When this first came out I was very against it...but they won me over after 8 issues or so cause it was so damn good.
I notice that Darkseid story wasn't all that. A somewhat confusing arc that kept me interested cause of Timberwolf. Then after Giffen left the art chores I lost more interest.
Then the darn clones. Geez, i guess it's my irrational hate for that Adv era but that just threw me for a bad loop. Still watching those bright colored teens in a very dark world was interesting to a degree...and well the grown up Subs were cool.
Little by little each arc I liked less and less. I guess when Keith left plotting I was barely hanging on and then didn't care for it at all.
Anyone have a point where they lost interest or thing it started to go downhill?
From: Tampa | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I never did lose interest during that period. There were some very strange Legion stories at the time and I found them fascinating. Granted there were moments of wtf(?) and some pretty odd things came out of left field but that Legion was rarely boring. From Laruel Gand to Polestar, I enjoyed almost all of that run. Almost. Yeah, I'm with you guys on the clone/duplicates thing. I loved getting two Legion books but one of them was this bizarro kid Legion. -one of those wtf(?) moments, y'know? -The Timberwolf mini deserves one of those question marks too- I started picking up Valor again once it started leading up to End of An Era and before I knew it the Legion was gone. I thought it was a fun ride.
From: Smallville Sector : Greater Metropolis | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
When did it go downhill? With the first issue.
... No, that's not accurate: With the pages of the "Magic Wars" storyline, before "LSH" v4 began, where Giffen began constricting the characters (most of the time) with that absurd nine-panel grid.
"LSH" v4 went into the abyss with issue 6. See the left-hand column for a clue as to a few reasons why.
From: Starhaven Consulate, City of Angels | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
YK, I gotta admit I was all into the Khunds super powered guys...Veilmist and company. (cyborg khunds, etc).
I actually thought the teenage clones (later not clones*sigh*) on New Earth would have been an interesting series. BUT the Chris Spouse kiddy art and the elements of the pro-Archie Legion didn't do it for me at all. If anything they should have tried to be more different than the traditional Legion.
But yeah that battle with Mordu was kinda fun wasn't it...and atleast we got Wildfire gack. (though his "brother" thing was super lame)
From: Tampa | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I loved the first year of the Legion. It was clever, dense storytelling that rewarded multiple re-readings and took much longer to consume than my usual fifteen minute flick-through. The character portrayals were stellar with the first twelve issues containing any number of classic character moments. Keith Giffen's claustrophic gritty art was perfect.
However, after Keith stopped doing regular art, I think the title really began to suffer. On rereading it, the title seems to lose some of its timelessness and begins to feel really early 90's when Keith's art is absent.
Tom and Mary were major legion fans before they began writing and I think it starts to show after the first twelve issues, with the writing gradually becoming really really fan-ficitiony (proty-garth, Sean erin I'm looking at you). After the earth blew up and Giffen completely left the title the legion became total rubbish. Seriously, it sucked. Violating traditional legion conventions such as costumes, codenames and earth headquarters were acceptable within the tone set by the early issues of the era, however with the lighter tone set after Giffen left, these violations just seemed wrong and the legion turned into one big, sucky fan-fiction. It boggles my mind that it took so long to reboot that god-awful mess.
So in conclusion, the less involved Keith Giffen was with the legion the more it sucked. Keith Giffen is a creative genius and his Justice League and Ambush Bug ruled!
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I can't say for sure without the issues in front of me, but I also missed Giffen on art when he left though I enjoyed some of his replacements. The clones were a bad idea but I still liked "Terra Mosaic" overall. I also thought it was a mistake to blow up the earth - if they wanted a more sunshiny Legion I think instead of introducing SW6 they could've just given the Legion a happy ending after Terra Mosaic and maybe skip ahead a year or a few months after the war and have the tone of the series be more upbeat. I didn't like the Khund War story and really didn't like Legion on the Run. Unfortunately for me, the series had lost a lot of excitement by the time they brought Wildfire back.
From: New York, NY | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I loved the entire TMK run. Admittedly I lost some interest with Giffen off the book, but I did enjoy Jason Pearson and especially Stuart Immomenn's art.
I'm always surprised that Legion of the Dead doesn't get more mention. I thought it was a well written, beautifully illustrated story more like the traditional book in many respects.
It may go without saying, but I do not include Legion on the Run in this or any other grouping of runs I liked.
From: seattle | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I loved the TMK run. Some of the most brilliant, well-written Legion stories ever. I also love Giffen’s 9-panel grid and his style of story-telling.
That being said, I hated some of what he did during the run, most notably Dawny as Bounty and even more, Schvaugn on pro-fem.
I continued to enjoy it immensely throughout Terra Mosiac (some of the best Sub scenes ever), and even after Giffen left. I missed his art, but the writing was still strong IMO.
Joe, I also really like the Legion of the Dead series, and liked most of T&M’s K-less stories as well.
Legion on the Run may have been where I was losing interest, but I never thought the series was bad as some others do. It wasn’t the most shining moment, but there were still some good scenes and character moments, especially for some lesser characters (i.e. Spider-Girl).
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I thought the writing was awesome in the beginning. Didn't like Giffen's style of art by that time though his input on plotting was sorely missed when he left. I hated the Quiet Darkness story with Ariel and Timber Wolf. I thought it was really lame. Can't remember where this story fell chronologically, but that may have been where it jumped the shark for me.
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From: Champaign, IL | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I think the cracks started to show when the Khund war came up out of the blue. I didn't need issues devoted to that when we still had to get my favorite characters straightened out.
Things got better after that episode; though, I wasn't especially thrilled with how Ultra Boy and Mon-el were retconned.
Then another low-water mark when the whole Kid Quantum/Heart of Antares story took up panel-time. I hated that one.
I loved the SW6ers. They were ready to reclaim the future until Legionnaires was launched. Then, I hated them. If ever there was a group I was eager to see fail, it was them.
While that was going on the old Legion was still holding their own with the Legion of the Dead storyline, but it soon sank too far with the obsession with Rokk and inability to give them a goal beyond surviving.
Disclaimer: I didn't read any of this at the time. I read it all at one during my marathon introduction to all things Legion a couple of years ago.
From: Portland, Oregon | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
Most of the bad things about the run can be traced to the editorially mandated reboots in #4 and #5. As a whole, though, it was the most experimental phase of the Legion's publishing history, which was really a mixed blessing. There were throughout moments of utter brilliance side by side with huge missteps. So I'm not sure there was a clear point at which is "started to dwindle".
I still strongly believe that there was absolutely no reason for the 1994 reboot. Nothing that had been done to the team had rendered the book beyond salvage. This, imo, is the major difference between it and the postboot Legion before the latest reboot.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I liked what was going on right up through the Legion of the Dead storyline. They absolutely lost me with the abrupt "Legion on the Run" crap. I still hold up TMK and Levitz v3 up as the greatest moments in Legion history.
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Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Awkward Pause Boy: I think the cracks started to show when the Khund war came up out of the blue.
I agree. One issue they're superheroes, the next they're soldiers in a war that came out of nowhere. After that story the book got back on track through the end of the Terra Mosaic, which I still love. I remember liking the Quiet Darkness when I read it, though I didn't really see it as a "sequel" to the Great Darkness. More like an epilogue.
For me, the book really lost it with the Legion of the Dead story. Six issues of the Legion fighting dead bodies. Yawn. People have tried to tell me that the drama comes from the whole "they're fighting their dead friends and lovers" thing, but to me, it wasn't their dead friends and lovers, it was just their corpses, which really didn't mean anything to me. Also, I really thought the "Super Khunds" were pretty lame. All of this leads into the Legion on the Run, one of the most directionless stories I've ever read. What with the various age fluxes that Glorith inflicted on them and the stupid new codenames they adopted, I never really figured out what the heck was going on. And then it was over. Like hitting a brick wall.
Hard to believe that all happened more than ten years ago and that it's taken this long to get a really good Legion book going again.
From: Los Angeles, CA | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
I started when SW6 was in the thick of Terra Mosaic and the SW6 Legionnaires series was what hooked my onto Legion, so I have no hate for them. It would be a good 10 years before I ever read TMK in total.
Hard to say when the run as a whole jumped shark, since I wasn't there for the month-to-month. But I can say I first dropped LSH in disgust during the Legion of the Dead arc. Less happened -- REALLY happened -- in those 5-6 issues than occured in any two issues of the Giffen-plotted ones. Tom and Mary kinda sucked.
On Legionnaires they did a better job of balancing the cast, plus they were a better fit for their cheery style. But I found I was getting it as much for the art as the writing when the art chores got handed from Sprouse and Hughes to a really awful neophyte. Oh, the pain.
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From: ATL, fool!!! WHAT!!! | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
For my money the book, though still enjoyable, drifted off topic by about issue 14 or so. As Awkward P. B. mentioned above, the Khund war storyline was really off course and had little to add to the overall mysteries built up in the first year and didn't really advance the progress of the title. By the time the adult Legion was relegated to sitting around their junked up HQ while SW6 did the real work on Earth I'd say the book had painted itself into a corner. I think the reboot could have been avoided if anyone had simply invested the energy into turning the title around, but I guess at that point too much drifting had ocurred.
From: Douglasville, GA | Registered: Jul 2003
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(though his "brother" thing was super lame)
