I was just reading some of the recaps from the NYCC at Newsarama, all sort of Legion related info coming out today, and lots of spoilers...so be forewarned.


1. Geoff will be the regular writer of Adventure Comics, and the main artist on the title is going to be Francis Manapul.

2. He said Adventure Comics will take place in Superman's time, the Legion's time and perhaps a 3rd time if possible.

3. Starman will be one of the features in Adventure and the story will be coming out of LO3W.

4. The lead in Adventure was not mentioned specifically but I am guessing it will be Kon-El as a Black Lantern by Johns and Manapul.

5. James Robinson said Mon-El's story in Action is going to be bittersweet as it will be counting down the time till he goes into exile.

6. Superman: Secret Origin will feature stories about Superboy, and the Legion(old news but reconfirmed here).

7. On Lex Luthor having a sibling, Johns said: read LO3W.

8. Bart Allen is going to wind up back in the Flash Universe...I'm not quite sure what that means. I mean isn't he always a part of the Flash Universe being a Flash?

9. George Perez will be working on something "big" soon.


Here is a bigger image of the cover to Adventure Comics #1:




Johns said one of the shadows is good and one is bad.

The rest look like Starman, Krypto, Luthor, Brainiac and Bizzaro.

The center image looks like Kon-El, the other
shadow looks like Kal-L, Prime or Superboy(Kal-El) to me...


Hmmm...basically Superboy(Kon-El), the Legion(Starman), Krypto, Bizzaro(tales of the Bizzaro world)...all were once features of Adventure Comics, so they are definitely giving a nod to the past here. I'm not sure what Luthor or Brainiac are doing in there, but Adventure will definitely be a Superman centric title from the looks of it.

Since James Robinson is handling Krypto I guess he will be contributing to this title as well for the Krypto feature....everything else appears to be things Johns is working on.

Hopefully the Legion will end up being the lead feature.

Forgive my ignorance but I rely pretty much totally on Legion WOrld for my comics info...

Am I to understand Adventure will be an oversize anthology featuring many strips? Or a regular size book featuring shorter stories?

That's a good question MLLASH, but one I'm not quite sure I'm fully prepared to answer as I don't really know myself.

Thanks anyway, Supes. I'm sure one of our LW-Oracle types will know soon.

Hopefully...I'm interested in knowing that bit of info myself. I don't see many ways they could put that many features in a regular size title....which means that title could be $$$$$, and that will hurt it's sales no matter who the features are.

I'm wondering if that bottom right character is Match. Didn't the Titans free him from Jericho's possession?

ACTION FIGURE NEWS - LSH figures will be released in Mattel's JLU line in 2009. The figures will be a set of 4 including Brainiac 5, Cos, LL, and Saturn Girl. These figures WILL NOT be in any stores or through Diamond. They will be exclusive to Mattel's MattyCollector.com.

Thanks Tek!

I'll be buying several multiples! And yeah for being online only! It's A LOT easier to find than store hopping.

Yeah, Matty is open to all and Mattel has done a great job with quantity. Of the figures that were Matty exclusive and not from a Con, MoTUC Skeletor was the fastest sell out and he lasted 2 weeks. Matty will post pics and cost at least 2 weeks in advance and tell you the exact day and time they will become available.

As long as three finders, and myself, show a bit of restraint there should be enough for everyone.

i wanna those figures!!!! Let us know and set up the link so we the legion worlders will grab those as fast as we can!

i'm so glad they're doing THOSE guys, even though garth never showed up in the animated series!! YES, COME TO ME

yeah that's right....I remember Chameleon....hmmm.

Most of the classic lineup cameoed in the JLU episode "Far From Home" during a big fight at the end. Garth appeared then, and Brainiac 5 was the featured Legionnaire starring alongside Supergirl.

Dan Didio is a big jerk for saying that: " We don't cover that. It was a pseudonym at the author's request. We cancelled the book, finished it and shoved it out the door. Thanks for asking that."

as you can see on the following link:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19927

scroll down and you will see that. That's pretty insulting.

Thanks for being so responsive to the people who pay your salary, Dan.

Sounds like he was really proud to be involved in that particular decision.

There can be no doubt about it now, none whatever. Didio despises the Legion and its fans. I can't wait for the happy day DC Comics wakes up from its coma and shoves "him" out the door.

The coward "Justin Thyme" would be wise to remain anyonymous. He/she has nothing to be proud of. And shame on Geoff Johns for colluding with Didiot in this sickening travesty. Imo, they are all devoid of professional integrity and utterly beneath contempt.

Is there really evidence yet, that "Justin Thyme" isn't Jim Shooter who simply didn't want his name on a forced condensed version of what he had planned?

We are easily jumping the gun on this blame game I think.

The evidence that Justin Thyme wasn't Jim Shooter is simply that the story was nothing like anything else by Shooter. I've read enough comics by Shooter that I think I can recognize his prose style, and I did not detect Shooter's prose style in that story.

On another note, I am no longer going to refer to DC's current Executive Editor by name. He is not worthy of being mentioned.

No guns have been jumped, BB. At least a week ago, Francis M. pretty much confirmed Shooter didn't write the issue. It's somewhere in the LSH #50 thread.

The irony of the "Justin Thyme" thing is that this means even Steve Apollo didn't want his name on the book.

That said, I don't think Dan DiDio comes off as bad for being unresponsive there. Obviously the Shooter Legion wasn't going over like the brass wanted, there was bad blood between Shooter and the brass over the abrupt ending, DiDio got someone to write a best-as-possible wrap-up story given certain constraints, and someone, knowing that even his (or her, I suppose) best efforts couldn't really result in a story everyone will be happy with, agreed to do it anonymously. DiDio is right for not violating the anonymity agreement, and it's better that he's not airing whatever Shooter-based dirty laundry DC has. His answer pretty much means: Stuff happened, get over it, let's move on with a Legion that people will start buying and enjoying. And that's the right thing for him to say.

Did his response adequately answer for you why it was okay to solicite a book as being written and drawn by one team and delivered by another? Not rhetorical, I'd like to know what reasoning I could possibly be missing.

Sorry, but I disagree, CMK. He should have apologized for such a travestite issue and say DC would gladly return money for such a lousy job, in which not even the writer was honerable enough to place his name on it.
After all, DC announced a VERY DIFFERENT book on its website. And for much less, they are accepting returns on World of Krypton.
Also, he could have chosen a decent team to wrap it up, but nooooo, he had to prove his point against Shooter by murdering his last Legion story. Problem is we were the customers.

Actually, we don't know the real reason for the decision to trim 4 issues off Shooter's run, and that seems to be what started the slide toward the mess at the end. Surely when Shooter came on board, the editors knew what his storylines would be, so that shouldn't have caught them by surprise.

Many of us assumed they decided to end the book early because of what was happening in Final Crisis, but that hasn't made any difference, and Lo3W itself has been long delayed. So unless it was because of the economic situation that all companies are facing, I still don't understand the need to amputate the planned ending to this book. That apparently wasn't Shooter's decision--he had to adapt to it, and perhaps he behaved badly in that process and perhaps he didn't--but the "stuff" that happened started with TPTB.

All right, folks, I'm back from the Con and I confess that it was actually me in the DCU panel who asked that question.

I debated doing it, because it wasn't exactly the correct forum, but, in the end, I felt stongly that DC should be held accountable for their behavior with regard to Legion 50.

My phrasing, if I recall correctly, was, "I was really looking forward to the conclusion of Jim Shooter's Legion story line. Could you please tell me why the creative team was changed, and why the fan community wasn't informed beforehand?"

To his credit, Dan DiDio, though he was clearly taken aback, did his best to answer the question to what I'm sure was the best he could. I have no doubt that there are certain business considerations that oblige him to hold his tongue. Yes, it was a somewhat evasive answer, and, no, I didn't really expect anything different, but I really would have hated to go all the way up there and not at least try to get the story.

That being said... I actually did get the story... from Jim Shooter!

Now, admittedly, it's his version, but given DiDio's dodge of my question, that's the only one I have to go on. Out of respect for Mr. Shooter, I won't post what he told me on the board, but if anyone would like to know just for his or her own satisfaction, you can PM me and I'll tell you what he told me.

Exnihil - no problem....glad to hear that you clarify up on this issue, we all appreciate that.

LOL wouldn't it be quicker just to start pm-ing everybody on the board?

And thanks Ex, for at least voicing the opinion of the Legions of fans out there. It definitely had to be said.

Thanks for the clarification, Ex. But why would be Dan Didio taken aback? He doesn't read his mail?

Not about the question itself, but that somebody actually had the balls to stand up in front of a thousand people at what was basically a pro-DC pep rally, and be a voice of dissent. I don't think he was expecting it.

Thank you for your courage, Exnihil. As for the "private" info you gathered, it's clear the Didio defenders don't have a leg to stand on.

I don't think DiDio despises the Legion or its fans. He is a businessman first and foremost, not a comic book fan. As I pointed out to the others, in the DC Universe panel, DiDio referred to the Batman franchise, the Green Lantern franchise, etc. If it will make money, he will love it. If it doesn't make money, it is not worth his notice.

Yeah, it's hard for me to say Didio hates Legion fans because I think on a couple of occasions DC has sincerely tried to get behind the title. Putting Waid and Kitson on the book was a big deal, despite me not liking much what they did with it. Bringing in Shooter was a big deal and I'm sure caused a lot of political grumblings that Didio had to quell.

Unfortunately I think Didio has also absorbed the worst aspects of how Marvel runs things and tries to emulate them. Cheap shock and big events are valued over good storytelling and respect for the past. He certainly doesn't seem to be a graceful speaker when he has to go off topic. If he'd have said, "unfortunately Shooter's run had to be ended prematurely but it was because we have plans that we think will please Legion fans even more, and we're sorry for how things went down" that would have been a little less obnoxious.

Damn. Poor Mon-El.


No one yet happens to know when in 2009 to expect these? I know the current exclusives (Gotham Villains) will be available mid February. What is the typical interval between these exclusive packs? I need to mark my calender.

Go! Figure is Back!
Check in with Techwych, you might be able to get your question answered there.
Apparently GoFigure is full of action figure nerds with connections and research skills and they're just dying to share.

This was just posted by Andy Khouri at CBR:

"Actually, DiDio did not say "shove." That was a misquote on my part, and was been corrected in the article. The accurate quote is as follows (emphasis mine)

We finished and cancelled and put the book out the door.

I don't know if that change makes all that much difference to you, but there it is for accuracy's sake. This is a consequence of the live-reporting process, whereby we transcribe and publish as fast as we can every few minutes during the panel discussion. 99% of the time, the information is accurately conveyed -- if not exactly word for word -- but in this case it seems the substance of DiDio's remark may have been improperly conveyed, so for that I apologize to all.

Thanks for reading."

Hey Exnihil ... he definitely looked surprised when you asked the question ... the best he could do was muster up the point about getting the book out on time ... it was a great question ... well played, my friend, well played ...

I already mentioned this but, I found out from Cliff Chiang they were going to use Freedom Beast instead of Infectious Lass while planning the Dr. 13 story in Tales of the Unexpected. I don't know at what part in the planning, or if that's the whole story. I just thought I'd let you guys know.

Freedom Beast and... was it Andrew Bennett or the pirate?... would have made a cute couple.

She had going for the Captain.

Excuse me! I'm a NERD with a computer science degree. The rest of the team, and most of the board members are Geeks with an incredible love of and knowledge about Pop culture. While Action figures are a major part of the site you will find discussions of Movies, RPGs (some people still play these), Video Games, and
yes even Comics. All are welcome as long as you are willing to embrace Pop Culture and have fun.

The MattyCollector figures come out once a quarter. Matty is hinting that the LSH will be the second set becoming available early summer. I'll post here as soon as we get a date.

Cool.

Thanks for the info!

NYC Comic Con interview with George Perez re: Lo3W.

http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/video/player.php?aid=25936

Great interview, but maybe a potential spoiler?

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> Perez talks about the different costumes the Legionnaires have had at different times, not to mention the different versions. He even mentions drawing Princess Projectra in her classic costume. does this mean flashback, or is it time travel? Don't know but I'm very excited to see Perez draw the Legion in good costumes </span></span>

But yeah, we aren't seeing this thing for a long long time to come.

whoaaa thanks for the link, chaim.

i have very little understanding of what the people look like that make my books....

:spepvbeohgsev,,speeuiskseuialhbwubx9385ys!:

(Sorry, lost control of myself. Hearing George Perez talking about his love for the Legion made me GEEK OUT for a moment there.)

He truly loves Legion. You can feel his excitement. And it pours. it is unfortunate the story is not the best, but whatever.

Not a spoiler. She's in her classic costume in Lo3W #3 -- the splash page where Brainy describes the first meeting of the three Legions.

There is an oddity about that sequence. The Threeboot Projectra is shown on the right side along with the Threeboot Dream Girl, but Dream Girl died when Projectra got her powers. So the changes of them being on the same mission is pretty much impossible.

It did mention different times as well as universes. That would explain why the reboot Legion was there to save a baby XS and baby Bart.

I guess that depends on your definition of "classic" - to me, it's the Cockrum costume (red/pink/yellow, circle motif) that's the classic, not the blue swimsuit that she wore during the pre-Cockrum years.

I thought Projectra got her powers as soon as Orando was destroyed, around issue # 6 or 7, and Dream Girl didn't die until issue # 13.

The more impossible one is the post-ZH Legion lineup, which shows Kid Quantum I in action, wearing his individualized costume, fighting alongside Brainiac 5. Never mind the fact that KQI first donned that costume aboard the ship leading the Legion to the mission during which he died - Brainiac 5 had ignored his Legion draft notice until after that mission had ended. And he's depicted in that scene as his later Brainiac 5.1 appearance, not as he appeared in the pre-Gim's death days.

Great find...George Perez is a gift to comics and all comics fans. What a beautiful human being this guy is...it's always awesome to see someone truly in love with their occupation, especially when it's an art form. I think that's why George Perez has remained relevant, vital and popular for 30 years...unheard of for an artist in this industry. It's hard for me to imagine that any artist that has ever lived has loved drawing comicbooks more than George Perez.


Keep on keepin' on George :thumbsup

While I agree entirely with your praise of George Perez, I am sure that fans of people like Jack Kirby will react to a slight to their faves

I have to be one of Perez's biggest fans (for me, that Avengers storyline back in the 80's that featured the Squardon Supreme and Hellcat intro is what started the love for this artist in the first place and I've followed his craft ever since then) and I really appreciate his work on Lo3W, the man hasn't slowed down in 30 years as far as talent goes.

I can't wait to see Jeckie in her classic red/pink outfit, if it happens. I'm sure George will make her look awesome!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll see Sensor Girl first so then she can drop that illusion and show the classic costume from there. Plus I hope that after that happens she finds the time to punch 3boot Projectra right in the face ... that would be so worth the price of that comic, and would also be a nice closure to the juxtaposition in characters.

Obviously there is a Colossal Boy Mini Series coming

So if, according to Perez, they are working "Marvel Style", does that mean the sequence for events is basically:

1. Johns Plots
2. Perez Draws
3. Johns Scripts
4. Finishes, coloring, production, etc.

And if they are only on step two for issue #4.... Yikes!

Must have missed that, I'll have to reread Lo3W #3 to see if I can catch it this time (not like that's bad or anything...)

True again, but Projectra did not reveal her new powers until she helped free Timber Wolf from Terror Firma. That was almost simultaneous with the bomb blast that killed Dream Girl. I had assumed that image was supposed to show a relatively early version of the Threeboot Legion because it does not have several Threeboot Legionnaires -- Sun Boy, Karate Kid, Ultra Boy, Invisible Kid, Element Lad, and Shadow Lass, among others.

Of course, there's nothing to say that she couldn't have gone on the mission without powers.

Certainly possible, but...who the heck knows? Other than knowing that Invisible Kid was the last of the initial (issue # 1 of the Waid-Kiston series) cast that joined, we have ZERO sense of the team's history. A problem with the threeboot, IMHO.

And, as Matthew E says, she may have gone on missions before she got her super-powers. I suppose if she had any fight training at all, she's at least somewhat useful. Or maybe her usefulness was her rapport with Timber Wolf.

Well, we know a little more than that. We know Karate Kid joined fairly recently (because he didn't know about Atom Girl). We know Wildfire was an early applicant. There are other things like that that can be filled in.

But we'll likely never know much more than that.

Could just be he's not a fan of the Post Criss concepts of the Legion. I know I'm not. And the Post Crisis versions have been around for a long time. I know which one I like and it tends to be similar to the one Didio seems to be letting happen. Ironically enough...Didio is probably a fan of the Shooter Swan Legion.

That said, Didio has shown himself to be a bit flakey so I'm not 100% certain of anything.


Geoff Johns OTOH, was not really rasied on the Pre Crisis Legion, he was 7 or something when the GDS came out...he grew up on the Reboot and 5YG, and says the Reboot was his favorite. So the constant accusations that he's working entirely out of a sense of nostalgia aren't really accurate. I think he's simply very adept at figuring out what worked when things worked and what didn't when they didn't....

Where did he say that?

They say the golden age of anything is 12, and Geoff was 12 in 1985, right as the Crisis began.

(snip)

Chaim Mattis Keller:

Quote

...we have ZERO sense of the team's history. A problem with the threeboot, IMHO...

Y'know, when I started reading the Threeboot trades, I didn't have a problem at all with there being no Capital-O "Origin" story. My assumption was that the team had drifted together in an organic fashion. Right or wrong, it was supposed to be a "youth movement," and I imagined that the heroes came together across the galaxy in small groups before eventually banding together as one group.

I didn't find that to be problematic at all. For whatever that's worth.

Johns obviously has some affection for the reboot LSH but has said time and again his favorite version is the Levitz Legion -- the one he started out with.

But evidently he doesn’t love it quite enough to do more than pay it lip service. I'm willing to bet you'll never once hear Levitz referring to the Johnsboot as his own, nor see him giving it enthusiastic personal support he gave the early reboot and 3boot. Of all the people at DC, I suspect the biggest NON-fan of the Johnsboot "Levitz" Legion is Paul Levitz himself.

The only Legion Didio is a fan of is the one he thinks he can shill in any given month.

He said it in an interview when he was being interviewed about LO3W...

Also you can track down his early fandom by letters he wrote to the Kon-El Superboy series...and that was around the same time as the Reboot.

I know some are probably mystified based on his focus as a writer...but you know I've noticed writers of a certain generation are often to the ones that overwrite the continuity of their generation.

All the revisions of the Crisis were done by kids of the Silver Age.

John Byrne blew the Silver Age Superman off the map, and he was entirely a child of the Siver Age. He never bought a version of Superman off the stands that wasn't the Silver Age Superman.


Mark Waid is also a child of the Silver Age and one could hardly say wrote like a fan of the Silver Age Legion, since he was the one writing it out of continuity.

Giffen is similar.

There's a definite trend there.

I don't really agree about Levitz Trom..he called the weekend he read the 5YG the worst weekend of his life spent outside of the hospital.


I know I like what Johns is doing...I felt the way many of you do now after the Crisis, and the 5YG, and the Reboot...etc.


This isn't the first time Legion Fans have been disrespected. I mean I look at that ish #50 as overwriting 2 major subplots and some off characterization for a couple of characters.


As opposed to the 5YG when about 7000 pre-existing thingsw were overwritten(all the while promising a fix)...or the Reboot when, 100% of things were overwritten, also while being promised a fix.

Mark Waid is an extreme fan of the Silver Age Legion. He was the one who wrote the 5-issue ICG Legion Index and much of the Who's Who in the LSH series.

I spoke to him at the time of the reboot. He was under orders to make the post-Zero Hour "0" issue of LSH and of Legionnaires a jumping-on point for the series, something that a person who never touched a Legion comic before could read and understand everything they need to know in order to start following the Legion thereafter. He said that and Tom McCraw tried, but between the duplicate cast, the Valor/Superboy confusion, the Green Lantern changes that were occurring (affecting the Celeste character), he just couldn't. That's when they decided that the only way to do the job they were assigned to do would be the reboot. He even polled Legion fans on CompuServe for what scene captures the Legion spirit most, and those scenes in large part made up the collage of that last "Long Live the Legion" page of End of an Era.

I'm not crazy about his three-boot, but there are few bigger fans of the classic Legion than Mark Waid.

I still don't understand how changes in continuity 1000 years later would affect a character beyond the use of time travel.

Because back then, the editorial edict was "Kyle Rayner is the last Green Lantern." Even Alan Scott was made to change his name. So a Legion character running on GL-power was forbidden.

Of course, eventually, DC would change their minds about that, and now we have not only the Corps back, but Hal himself. But Mark Waid, writing a book in 1994, had to comply with 1994 editorial edicts.

Yeah. I know the history. But, that doesn't mean it makes any sense.

Johns being a Reboot fan does explain a lot why his Legion is completely away from the concepts I like.
However, first and foremost, Johns likes to tie all DC history into one semi-cohesive whole. That's what he did on GL, that's what he is trying to do with the Flash, that's what he did to Teen Titans and JSA. And that's why - I think - he is being very successful: he is less interested in starting from scratch but would rather retcon a few important things to make them all fit together. A necessary evil, if you like.
Personally, he is successful on occasion (GL for sure, JSA okay but not the Legion), and more often than not he treats every team as the same concept (JSA and Teen Titans had the same idea, and now so does LSH). He is also lucky not to be interfered by TPTB like Waid, Shooter, Giffen and DnA were - sometimes against the property -, which makes life so much easier.
All in all, he is the "right" guy at the "right" moment, for the "right" Dan Didio.