. . . whether you read it recently, a long time ago, or not all, post your thoughts.
What prompted you to think about it? What memories did it spark? Has it offered any fresh insights?
The mention of Andrew Nolan and the Mordruverse over on "The latest Legion issue you've read" prompted me to think of this story (LSH v. 4 # 5) and how it fits into the "heroes against overwhelming odds" tradition more than most previous Legion stories. Andrew and his few conspirators were truly going up against an overwhelming enemy, and pretty much everything was at stake. If they failed, they would have suffered horrible deaths, most likely. Their clandestine struggle made me think of the failed plot to kill Hitler.
Yet those were the very reasons I didn't like the story at first. I was used to the Legionnaires living in a fantastic future world in which they were all but guaranteed success. Sure, some members died or lost limbs, but the overall status quo of their universe remained the same. Even when the earth, the universe, or the timestream was threatened, the threat was seldom convincing (e.g., most Time Trapper stories).
Plus, the Legion always had, well, a legion of heroes for support while Andrew, Rond, and Mysa were on their own. If they had failed, no statues would have been erected in their honor, no streets would have been named for them, and no videos would have been shown to educate future heroes about galant sacrifice. History would have remembered them as villains.
Ironically, their victory erased their timeline. No one remembered them at all.
LSH # 4 was an uncomfortable read because (like most of TMK) it challenged our notions of super-hero comics and shook us out of our comfort zones. It showed what heroes truly have to do in real life and in fiction to defeat evil.
I may not have liked the story then, but (if it's not obvious) I admire it now.
Posted by Exnihil on :
Most recently (as it was featured this week on a podcast I listen to - The Legion of Substitute Podcasters) I was thinking about the first Legion backup story in Action Comics after the original Adventure run was finished, called, "The Forbidden Fruit".
I think most Legion fans are familiar with that story, or at least know of it, as it's the infamous Timber Wolf "Lotus Fruit" addiction story.
Hearing the podcasters discussing it, however, it suddenly hit me that there is a symbolic narrative thread connecting the end of the Adventure run, and the beginning of the Action run that I never noticed before... namely, a continuing influence of Homer's Odyssey on Jim Shooter's Legion stories.
I had pointed out a couple years back that the final Adventure story contained rough analogues to the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Sirens from the Odyssey (with possibly Dream Girl acting as a stand-in for Tiresias) but I never made the connection that the very next story then continues on with an analogue to the Lotus Eaters.
I guess when young Jim Shooter liked a story, he really liked a story.
Posted by Fanfic Lady on :
This morning, I was thinking of a TMK issue that I actually haven't read, but was discussed substantially in Dev's retrospective thread: the revelation that Bounty was a mutilated, traumatized Dawnstar.
It just underlines how I feel that TMK did almost all their ultra-controversial moves with a very heavy hand and without thinking it through. I remember HWW saying how he was outraged by the callous indifference of Brainy and other Legionnaires to Dawny's cruel fate, and how it reminded him of the atrocious Avengers #200, which, coincidentally, was mentioned in the Latest Legion Issue You've Read thread.
Posted by He Who Wanders on :
I don't know if "outraged" is the right word. At least, I can't recall writing that I was outraged by those developments, Fanfie. (I don't get outraged easily by comics.) But I agree that both the Legion's reaction to Bounty and Avengers # 200 were sloppy story telling at best.
Posted by Power Boy on :
I thought about the Conspiracy story because the finale of LOTO ... reminded me of their epic battle against the Time Trapper.
"#50 - Life And Death And The End Of Time"
I wish I had been able to read these at the time, and not in a random order over the years.
I vaguely recall some of the build up and foreshadowing ... over the course of 6 or 7-8 issues! And then the follow up, the trail of Brainy.
One day I will have to go back and read it, I suspect its very good.
re: Bounty, I was confused by that ... mostly because her friends didn't seem to recognize her. or know where the real dawny was. could they be so obtuse "dawny has wings, this is not dawny". haha and I don't think they ever even resolved it, IIRC one day she wasn't Bounty possessed anymore?
I've never had the benefit of reading Avengers #200 .. it sounds spectacular!
I thought the Bounty character was cool though, besides the weirdness. except then they introduced Monica Sade ... who is basically the same character.
I think the TMK era had a lot of good bones, and big ideas, or even good ideas when it started and somehow the execution was awkward. They took too long to wrap a lot of things up.
Posted by Power Boy on :
Also this one:
It was my first! And I wish RJ Brande was my absentee father!
plus ... that cover!
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
I'm not sure I've actually read the issue where Bounty is revealed as Dawnstar, though it does seem like the lack of recognition is something that should've been addressed.
Brainy figures out who she is at least by the time she is treated for injuries after the Roxxas attack, but apparently decides not to tell anyone as he assumes that she has her own reasons for keeping her identity concealed. It's certainly a mistake on his part, but actually doesn't seem unrealistic, given the two characters.
Posted by Fanfic Lady on :
Peebs' mention of Conspiracy inevitably makes me think of my favorite Legion artist, Greg LaRocque, because the couple issues of Conspiracy that he drew were his LSH swansong.
They're not his best LSH work -- it's obvious he was burned out, something he later admitted.
I think LSH v.3 #45 -- the 35th Anniversary issue -- has some of LaRocque's best and worst work, and I wonder if he burned out while in the middle of working on it. Certain scenes are just spectacular, but other scenes (especially the climactic battle against Mekt) fall flat.
Posted by He Who Wanders on :
Speaking of TMK, my latest blog post addresses another memorable and controversial development of that run: Proty/Garth.
Posted by He Who Wanders on :
quote:Originally posted by Power Boy:
re: Bounty, I was confused by that ... mostly because her friends didn't seem to recognize her. or know where the real dawny was. could they be so obtuse "dawny has wings, this is not dawny". haha and I don't think they ever even resolved it, IIRC one day she wasn't Bounty possessed anymore?
The Legionnaires were having a "Silver Age moment" -- flashing back to the time when Superboy didn't recognize Bouncing Boy because the latter had lost weight. Posted by He Who Wanders on :
quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: I'm not sure I've actually read the issue where Bounty is revealed as Dawnstar, though it does seem like the lack of recognition is something that should've been addressed.
Brainy figures out who she is at least by the time she is treated for injuries after the Roxxas attack, but apparently decides not to tell anyone as he assumes that she has her own reasons for keeping her identity concealed. It's certainly a mistake on his part, but actually doesn't seem unrealistic, given the two characters.
I agree to a point. Some of this development does make sense.
Babylon 5 fans may remember the series finale when the surviving characters gather and toast friends who have since died. No one, tellingly, toasts Lyta Alexander, the telepath.
However, it must be remembered that Lyta wasn't friends with anyone present and had antagonized quite a few of the others. The only character who might have raised a toast to her was Zack Allen, who once had the misfortune of asking her out on a date when she was being possessed by an entity--but Zack wasn't present, either.
Dawny didn't make a lot of friends in the Legion, save Wildfire (who had disappeared). It's understandable that no one would have missed her and noticed the similarities between her and Bounty.
However, I'm not sure I buy the explanation Brainy assumed she had her own reasons for keeping her identity secret. The Bounty identity resulted in Dawny losing her wings--if any other teammate had shown up with a new identity and his or her legs amputated, would Brainy have reached the same conclusion?
Also, since the Legionnaires were (unlike the B5 characters) part of a unit that had bonded in the way of soldiers, police officers, and others who put their lives in danger, one would think they'd have shown some cursory support.
[ October 06, 2012, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: He Who Wanders ]
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
Well, there actually was another teammate hiding his identity at that point due to physical changes arguably much greater than Dawnstar's, which Brainy was completely aware of. Perhaps he assumed that Dawny's motivations were somewhat similar to Brin's. I suppose one could argue that he should have either asked her about it or (perhaps more likely) have investigated the matter further on his own, however.
Posted by He Who Wanders on :
True, although considering what became of Brin, one would think the time for respecting teammates' assumed motives would have passed.
Even then, I could accept the Legionnaires being flawed and missing cues if TMK (K moreso) had not overlooked them as people in favor of the larger story they were telling. I just re-read the Proty/Garth story (not co-written by Keith) and couldn't help noticing how Tom and Mary got it just right: treating the Legionnaires as human beings whose failings sometimes have serious repercussions.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
At the same time, I thought Mysa's trauma and recovery were handled really well overall, and there you have her fellow Legionnaires explicitly saying stuff about how they should have acted sooner.
And I'd put Vi and Cos's talk about Venado Bay/the War as one of the best character moments in Legion history.
Posted by He Who Wanders on :
Agreed with both (though I think I'm missing the issue in which Venado Bay is discussed).
In the Proty/Garth story, there's a wonderful scene in which Vi apologizes to Yera for misjudging her all these years--and it was because of Vi's own actions during Venado Bay and Cos's forgiveness of her that she is able to forgive Yera for her role in the sens-tank incident.
Posted by Invisible Brainiac on :
That made me think of Ayla and Brin sort of making up during v4, with Ayla even giving Brin friendly support while he was injured. Another good moment, and very telling considering in v3 Ayla had pointedly told Brin she wanted nothing to do with him other than as teammates.
Posted by Fanfic Lady on :
That makes me think of one of the few moments of the Threeboot that I remember fondly. I'm pretty sure it was in issue #7, the first one I bought. Anyhow, it's a brief scene where Brainy tells Ayla that she's a potential powerhouse if only she'd take her gravity powers seriously.
That inspired me to create an Ayla analog for the Imperial Guard whom I named Gravitress. It was also the very first fanfic I posted in Bits. Good times.
Posted by Set on :
quote:Originally posted by Fanfic Lady: That makes me think of one of the few moments of the Threeboot that I remember fondly. I'm pretty sure it was in issue #7, the first one I bought. Anyhow, it's a brief scene where Brainy tells Ayla that she's a potential powerhouse if only she'd take her gravity powers seriously.
I like that it also ended up paying off a few times later, first on Colu, where Ayla's 'gravity storm' is the one thing the team can do to locate and deal with Praetor Lemnos, and yet agaion much later in the Shooterboot where Brainy gets Thom and Ayla to rebalance the gravitational forces *of the entire solar system* (with the help of some equipment).
That reminds me how it was Brainy's grousing about the nature of her powers and personality that also led to the best portrayal of Dreamy I'd seen in years, in, I think, the third issue.
Brainy complaining about his lady teammates seemed to be a framing device for issues showcasing how utterly awesome they were.
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