What about Cub?

naaaaah!

B-5.1 and Lyle smooching on-panel!

I know I'm in a minority here (in fact, I may be the only one), but I liked Monstress. She was very Silver Age to me. I'd like the big girl back.

Edited:

I just thought of something - Monstress was pre Abnett and Lanning, wasn't she. Never mind. I go back to my original opinion. DNA contributed zippo to the Legion Mythos, worth retaining, that is. Good ridance to them.

You're not the only one; indeed, Monstress made a respectable showing in the recent "Reboot Legion Idol" game.

yikes! I'm the oposite... a Legion fan since around '82, who had a hard time sitting through many issues of the reboot (although I also enjoyed some a lot) until DnA started. Before DnA, I felt like I was constantly just waiting for whatever current storyline to be over, hoping the next one would be better. Things like half the team being stuck in the past, seemed to drag on forever...

DnA saved the reboot, as far as I'm concerned.
(edit: not to mention, these boards are named after a DnA creation: Legion World!)

Yeah, I liked 'em, too. So, hear, hear for DnA!

And Monstress was cool, too (and Snekie as well, at least in terms of her characterization if not her appearance).

LLL!

Was it making Jan an insane god?

Nah.

How 'bout recycling an immortal Bat-villain?

Eh.

Maybe it was showing us Monstress' insides, both literally and figuratively?

Puh-lease...

No, I'm gonna have to say DnA's greatest contribution to the Legion was finally leaving...

DnA's greatest contribution was saving the Legion from cancellation.


Oh, and "Think fast"!

Haha, man...I don't think I'll ever get over what a tough crowd we Legion fans are. We can be brutal. If Pee Wee Herman was announced as the next actor to play James Bond, he'd get a warmer reception than some Legion creators get from us. It makes me think of the Giffen interview in 'the Legion Companion' where he tells about the letter he got, where a fan told him he "was no Pat Broderick." ( I mean, I'm a fan of Broderick's Legion, Firestorm, and Sun Runners work, but Giffen managed to have some slight impact as well.)

I wouldn't say I agreed with every single thing DnA did, but I don't remember getting bored during their run, and I felt more like I was getting new adventures, rather than wondering what retred of a classic story we were going to get next (although we did get a couple). The things that stand out in my mind, that I loved from the DnA run:

-- Legion Worlds. I really liked that series, especially the Winath story with Ayla and Mekt, drawn by Breccia. I really loved that story. Also the Dyrk Magz story. Okay, I wasn't crazy about the very end of that one, but I loved seeing that character again, and seeing how he'd been dealing with his post-Legion life. I also liked the Star Boy/Dreamer and Karate Kid/Ferro stories.

-- McCauley dead. This may sound weird, but I really enjoyed that his death was off camera.

-- Shikari. Yeah, she replaced Dawnstar, who I did like a lot, but I liked Shikari and her people as well. A lot of that probably came down to Copiel's design more than the writing, but I did like her character.

-- Legion World. Again, a nice design, and I liked the concept.

-- Legion of the Damned. A real feeling of menace and jeopardy for the characters, that I don't think I felt once in the reboot prior to DnA, even when Legionnaires were actually dying. I can't explain that, other than that was the feeling I had reading them. As dark as the 5 years later stuff...but cleared up in 4 issues!

-- Superboy in SB costume and part of the Legion in the future. I don't think I ever strongly hated the new Superboy, but I don't think I ever cared at all about him either, prior to this.

I could probably go on all day (or at least another 5 minutes), but those are the first things that pop to mind...

-- Oh yeah: and Chuck. Even if he couldn't actually be Bouncing Boy, I liked them giving him a more active role with the "Bouncing Boy" ship. Better than him being "the-guy-who-stands-around-and-occasionally fixes-something-because-we-can't-have-a-fat-guy-being-an-actual-superhero".

All of that stuff was just my personal preference... individual milage may vary.

On the subject of Monstress...was her origin ever explained? Coz i dont believe a real Xanthian native could have been born green, butch, yet strangely loveable in a "smothering" sort of way..

Yeah, alot of stuff that DnA did was pretty forgettable. If you were to ask me right this minute what the plot was for either Dream Crimes or Foundations, I would be at a loss for words. But there were some pretty memorable moments as well.

*Legion Lost still stands out to me as an incredible story simply for the fact that it made me care for characters I could give a rip about before. Kid Quantum, although not a DnA creation, really blossomed during this story. Of course they would then ruin her through overuse, but...

*Like Southtown Kid above, I loved Legion Worlds. Especially #4 where Star Boy, Dreamer and XS join the Amazaers and Khunds in defending Xanthu from Robotica. That stands out as my all-time favorite DnA issue.

*Despite fizzeling out somewhere in the Computo storyline, DnA had an incredible start with the Legion series. I loved the scenes where the Lost Legion fought the Oversight crew. When Triad freed Shikari from that hospital, I got actually cheered, cause the Legion was back and working again! And of course when Gates is freed from prison (It's...it's...it's about sprocking time!") Classic moment!

As for actual contributions? Some have already been mentioned but...

Shikari
the Omniphagos (cool concept)
the Rosetta (I think that was the name of the circle of planets belonging to teh Progenitor - very cool IMHO)

Robotica - never was fully explored to its potential - I would love to see a class of robots interact with the Legion

Legion World - the ultimate in HQs
a kick butt Dreamer

Kon-El in the Legion - not very popular for many here, but it made me like that character for the first time ever

Plus I've never seen any characters of the OC read old issues of Levitz's Legion on TV, have you?

And of course as Lash mentioned they kept the series from getting cancelled outright. As many mistakes as they might have made, I think they pulled something together from a wreck of a reboot and made it interesting.

Bravo DnA!!


BTW, what was the name of that girl in the Oversight Watch who had whips or something? I'm too lazy to look it up.

Her origin was given in Legion Lost #2. She was this pretty rich girl who was hit by a gene grenage or something like that and then mutated into that form.

no gamma rays involved?

For one thing, DnA brought me back to the Legion! I had grown tired of the "Archie Legion" and dropped both titles. I think their biggest contribution was the excitement they created about the title after "Lost" and "Worlds".

I think the best thing they added to the mythos itself is Legion World. Too bad we never got to see more of it and have its possibilities really explored.

On a more personal note, I loved what they did with Wildfire - ejecting that crappy new origin and showing us Wildfire the way he was meant to be.

I could have stayed with the Legion with the writing team of Abnett and Lanning, but then there was Olivier Coipel's art to consider - it was good in parts, bad in others...

Non-related thought: did Thunder ever appear again after the Blight storyline concluded or did she simply fade into obscurity like Tyroc did?

She resigned during "Widening Rifts" and was never heard from again.

Oh boy...just goes to prove what changing a comic book's direction would mean to certain characters. Like when Levitz was writing, Tyroc was utilised less...

Maybe it would have been better to have Thunder as a visiting "heroine in need of assistance" rather than making her a Legionnaire, coz what more could be done for her after her Rock of Eternity quest had ended?

You know, I'm in the same position with DnA. I had left the Legion during "Archie Era" only to be sucked in by the Damn'd Legion!

i'm another one DnA brought back to the legion, legion of the damned and after, legion lost etc.
(the advertising for legion of the damned must have been good) i also, quit the legion after the reboot.

Whatever shortcomings developed (and they were many by the end), DnA streamlined stupid things, reintroduced a Superboy to the 31st (for which I will be forever grateful), reenergized what many of you will recall was a pretty beat down fan base, and put the Legion back on the comic stage. Not too shabby--and more than Waid could say with his first Legion run. Let's not completely throw them under the bus just because they finished weaker than they started.

I'll cede some points, but I can't give you Superboy, AFOB. Klone-El met the team several times before DnA, both in the future and in his era.

Their later work wouldn't have been so disappointing if they hadn't started out so strong...

I still say

For a finally-likable Reboot Brainiac 5, I'm very grateful to them. I also enjoyed their Chameleon more than in earlier parts of the reboot. And they brought along Olivier Coipel, who became my favorite artist of that Legion incarnation.

And yeah, Legion World!

I also think that Kon-El's exile into the 30th century was an editorial decision and not something DnA wanted or needed.

If I'm remembering some of the interviews and such at the time correctly, I thought that DC wanted to remove some of Superman's add-ons and that sending him into the future was their solution. It was supposed to also save the Legion's slumping sales. But, then Teen Titans (partly because of the cartoon?) became such a hit (and Legion took such a slump), that Johns got to keep him.

The one thing I truly loved about their run was this. They made Garth "Lightning Lad" Ranzz important to the Legion again. Yeah sure he was a founder but besides that some versions of the Legion Garth was just another Legionnaire. Rokk was the perfect leader, Saturn Girl and Brainy were always the brains and Ultra Boy was always the wild child but who was Garth really? DnA made Garth the one who heroically sacrificed himself to stop the mad god Jan and get the lost legionnaires home, he became the symbol of everything a legionnaire could hope to be. (Though I was less that thrilled when they killed him off but Garth has died before, LOL). Then they brought him back to Imra and the Legion potentially as the most powerful of all Legionnaires no less. For that I will always be grateful. Heck he and Imra actually share the last panel on DnA's run so while not my all time favorite version it is far from the worst.

IMO DnA were the BEST and WORST thing to happen to the reboot Legion.

They definitely saved us from cancellation and about 2 years of the most mind-numbingly idiotic stories that were the PMS era with their amazing work on Damned, Rifts, Lost and Worlds! Four fantastic stories that made me excited and proud to be a Legion fan again! If they'd stopped there they'd probably be my favourite Legion writers of all time.

... But they didn't. Instead they stayed on the regular series and in the most sudden and abrupt downturn in creative quality I have ever seen in my 15 years of reading comics by issue #4 or #5 this comic was back at its PMS levels of banality. And in fact, by the time the title was finally wrenched from their cold, dead hands the level of its banality would be lower than it was during the PMS years. MUCH, MUCH lower! Such was my dislike of their run that by the end of it I not only hated "their" Legion - I was starting to hate *everything* Legion!

Thank God Mark Waid and Barry Kitson came along and saved me before that hatred took hold! There are still a lot of great Legion back-issue stories out there I want to one day read and own!

As for their greatest contribution to the Legion? Hmmmmm...

Probably their Brainiac 5 and Wildfire. That is the first and only time I have ever liked those 2 characters.

Finally someone brings up The Oversight Watch! Yay!
I liked the concept a LOT if not the actual execution. They were sort of a 30th century Suicide Squad since they were all former villians (or at least adversaries).

http://www.legionworld.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000883#000001

I've always thought the Legion's era should have some sort of adult Justice League types around and the OW filled the void for a moment.

Oh...and SuperLadKid, her name was Twine

DnA's greatest contribution to the Legion were new villians. Compared to the PMS creations of Domain, White Triangle and Tangleweb, we got some real heavies like The Blight, Robotica, CREDO, Omniphagos and the Progenitor - all of which made for interesting, intense conflict for the Legion. In hindsight, the DnA train lost momentum when villians used were off the DC shelves, such as Ra's al Ghul, Universo, and Darkseid. DnA's obvious talent was in their sci-fi scripting ability, which got lost in the DC Universe (tie-in this character, somehow) quagmire.

Equally impressive but probably less memorable was how they SAVED a lot of Legionnaire characters and probably the book from cancellation itself. Dreamer, Monstress,
Brainiac, Wildfire, Chuck Taine, Ferro, and Livewire all became better characters than when DnA inherited them. I place DnA in the top three in Legion history for scripting behind Levitz and Shooter!

I never want to see anyone post on this forum again with the words Credo or Progenitor EVER AGAIN! Those stories flat-out annoyed me. I was soo glad to hear that they were getting replaced right around the end of that progenitor arc.

I'd say that those guys ended up doing more harm than good to the overall mythos. Sure they did well when they took over but I think that a lot of people could have done well if they took over at the point that they did. Also, I can't say for sure if they saved the title from cancellation, because look at who's the editor-in-chief. You think he'd let his baby go bye-bye without a fight?

So long as the stories are decent and the sales are moderate, I think we'll continue to have LSH for a while. In some respects, I'd think that it would be easier to continually reboot a title (until you get it right) versus starting a brand new idea, because you've typically got a built-in audience who will at least look at the title for 6-8 issues.

But...but...I liked the Credo. And the Legionnaires were "kewl".

I did hate Progenitor though.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Kid Q.

Like them or not, DnA deserve some credit for extending the life of the franchise by five years. They didn't have the creative freedom to reboot but nevertheless did a fine job remolding the cartoonish Archies into characters and storylines with weight.

I don't mean to be cynical, but it's not clear that WaK will do any better in the end.

Hmm... for my money, for every character they improved upon (which generally consisted in getting them to some reasonable semblance of what they'd been before the reboot], there's another one they made worse or (at best) completely ignored. It was to the point that by the end of the run, half the team could have been killed and it wouldn't have had any emotional impact for me.

And I'm actually not certain that "saving" the book from cancellation was necessarily a good thing. Rather than giving us yet another in a series of failed revamps, and thus contributing to the general perception of the Legion as something that has to be majorly overhauled every few years, it might very well have been better for the health of the title in the long term to have let it lie dormant for a few years.

Of course, then we would never have gotten

Legion revamps have happened in continuity before and generally they were just fine. We went from the Adventure era to the Cockrum era with nary a bump and the Legion achieved greatness. I think I've stated before how much I disliked Staton's Legion but shortly afterward came Giffin's first run on the Legion and it then achieved one of it's golden ages.

That Damned Legion was a pretty good story (like a Legion horror story) and started DnA's run pretty darned well but I'm in the camp that believes they could have just gone on with the regular title without a reboot and we'd have been just fine. All the stories of Lost and Worlds could have been done in the regular 12 issues a year with an Annual or two format and I would have been quite happy with things.