for some reason last night I got bored and pulled out my old issues of Legion to read. I read the baxter era #50 to the end of the Magic Wars.

I would have to say that I liked the new uniforms that Giffen came up for the Legionnaires. My favorites were Polar Boy, Invisible Kid, Jeckie's, Magnetic Kid and even though it made him itch Timber Wolf. It would have been interesting to see if he has sketches for Mon-el, Shady and White Witch.

Anyway agree or disagree?

I like them in retrospect. I don't know if I would have liked them long-term but they are an interesting sidenote in the history of Legion fashions. Better than those dumb blue/gray uniforms from V4.

bIZARRO AGREE. tHEY ALL AM SO AWFULE, ME AM LOVE THEM TOO.

mE hOPE RELAUNCH TEAM USES FAN DESIGNED UNIFORMS FROM aDVENTURE cOMICS #403.

pLEASE NOBODY POST PICTURES OF THOSE!

The style was an interesting change, but Giffen really burdened them with too much clothing -- especially in a future of controlled weather and huge outdoor environments brought indoors. The pockets idea was done better by being changed into belt pouches, for Batch SW6 and the reboot.

For Dawnstar, though, Giffen cut her outfit down by nearly half. Although this ended up showing her beauty off better, he admitted to doing it because he wanted her "to look like an Indian," not for any reason based in the story. (Even Indian raiment wouldn't get more stylized in a thousand years?) And he admitted to doing it as a putdown, since he didn't like the character.

I'm glad Lar, Tasmia, Mysa, and Brainy were absent elsewhere in the story when the new outfits were created. I don't think they would have worked well on any of those four. Lar was too independent, the ladies too ethereal in their own ways, Brainy too much not the man of action needing insulation.

Projectra's was my favorite, possibly of ALL her costumes.

Looks That Kill Lad wrote a whole huge piece about these costumes for an issue of the Legion APA we were in. I'll have a look for it and post some of his pertinent points!

Sounds good CK! I'd like to read Paul's ideas on the costumes!

Thanks CK I would love to read what was written about the outfits too.

Unfortunately I hated them. I had only just come back to the Legion after a gap of some 20 years. My memory was not up to instantly recognizing the characters and, even with the insignia, it was hard to figure out who everyone was.

Mind you i seem to remember the Legionnaires didn't like them much either.

I commented on these in my Magic Wars review thread a few months ago. I actually liked a number of them quite a bit. I thought the hooded look on Cham was a nice touch, though the outfit as a whole was so-so. And, yes, the Sensor Girl outfit was awesome. I think Gim's outfit was the best other than his Adventure-era uniform.

If, as seems increasingly unlikely, we ever get the oft-demanded return to the Levitz-era Legion, picking up after the Magic Wars, I certainly wouldn't have a problem with seeing these costumes continued in use.

Ever wonder what Legionnaires carried in those pouches?

Coins, keys, and candy for the cuties?

Wow!
I'm impressed!

And I loved the look of this era, and then, the jump to the 5yrl era, which was sort of similar in design.
Not Laurel's non-design, but many of the others.

I liked a lot of those costumes. For me, Cham was about promoting alien integration so the hood was more Durlan than him. Timberwolf's Lightle costume was excellent for acrobatics and fighting, something the Giffen one seemed likely to get in the way of.

I liked:
- Ultra Boy's "Fist of the Northstar" look
- Sensor was probably my fav
- Polar Boy
- Phantom Girl (second favorite - it also probably got the most play since she was thrown into the past and wore it in "L.E.G.I.O.N.")
- Colossal Boy

But in general, a lot of them seemed too bulky and a bit too utilitarian for inspirational super-heroes. (I also hated the solid energy form for WILDFIRE)

I wouldn't mind pouches if the Legionnaires (or any heroes, really) pulled stuff out of them on occasion, such as handcuffs (futuristic zip-tape?) or neural-'Russian-sleep' devices to keep bad-guys sedated for transport or special med-kit sealy-patches for wounds (since this is the 31st century, and patching up a bullethole should be an outpatient procedure that you can do with a bit of sensa-skin graft pulled out of a pouch!), or even an inflatable one-man tent for emergency life-support in a hostile environment (folds to the size of a wallet, unfolds to be a comfy sealed environment, even in the depths of space, for one, or a tight intimate fit for two...).

Emergency ration paste (just add water, turns into a weeks worth of rations, despite coming as 21 individual pills, swells into a 1 lb. loaf of 'meatcake' (no meat included)).

Instant water (just add water!), not included.

Patches for breached enviro-suits and transsuits.

Rebreathers to lengthen air supplies.

For Cosmic Boy, those metal ovoids on his costume should absolutely be usable as weapons, for when he's in a place that doesn't have a bunch of ferromagnetic metal lying around for him to use. Instead, like Magneto with those metal spheres in X2, he's got all the weaponry he needs attached to his suit (and the fabric itself has metal wire mesh sewn in, so that he can magnetically lift himself if his Flight Ring is on the blink, or reinforce the fabric with his magnetic powers to absorb the impact of fists or bullets).

Not every Legionnaire would necessarily have an entire Bat-Utility-Belt worth of 31st century survival / law-enforcement gadgetry on their person, but at least *some* of them would carry some useful stuff!

One of the few times something was used was against the little demons of the archmage. Now Giffen drew it trapped in something transparent and humanoid shaped. Levitz wrote it as a specimen bottle, but I think it was drawn as a spare transuit.

Looks like her transuit to me too unless it is a specimen bottle that adapts to the shape of the subject and the subject has an invisible body with a grin in his chest. (was that an air spirit?)

I think this is the post that has been decades in the waiting for me. It's always niggled at me in some unfathomable way.

"That's no specimen bottle!"

It was a water spirit (see what I did with fathom there?) in a space station or some such, causing havoc.

a specimen bottle has knocked off the water spirits power.

Not sure how that works.

um.. the water sprite needs to be in direct contact with the main body of water it was magically summoned with?

It's a used transuit that used to belong to Timberwolf. The water sprite has been knocked out by Wolf sweat stench.

Every other pocket on Salu's costume contains sweets. Having white teeth is important to the grinning manifestation, so it gives up.

It's actually a prototype blow up Kara doll Brainy has been working on. Computo packed it by mistake and the Water Spirit is just too embarrassed to do anything now.

I never really cared for the uniforms during the Giffen era. They made the characters hard to distinguish sometimes, especially since Giffen has a tendency to draw faces very similarly.

Not to mention the number of faces hidden in the shadow of non existent light sources.

They were distinctive though and a sign that the book had grown up a bit with the characters.

Can't say I loved them. Thought they were static looking. Not exciting. There were a few I did like. Sensor Girl, Violet...that's about it.

It was also a good idea that the team should wear something at least slightly protective considering how many fights they get into. Vi, Jeckie, Imra and Tinya come to mind. Dawnstar didn't follow that trend, possibly as they wanted to keep her costume streamlined die to her flight powers?

In my head-canon, 31st century transsuit technology also allows for 31st century transparent body armor (both impact resistant and energy-dispersing) that would allow Dreamy and Shady etc. to run around wearing what looks like swimwear into fights, and still be as protected as teammates who appear to be fully clothed).

Not that the writers who get paid to write this stuff shouldn't have thought of this before I did...

As for coordinated uniforms, I don't like them. I want to read about bright shiny superheroes of the future, each a strong willed individual with their own planet and culture and sense of style, not teenaged death squads in same-same quasi-military outfits that, combined with boxy faces with freakish botox lips, make them almost impossible to tell apart.

Also, shallow much, I want my bright shiny superheroes to be *hawt* and dress to show off their curves, and not have them all hidden by bulky jackets.

I like the Legion costumes to be bright and colorful, to represent optimism and youth. The darker costumes worked for the 5YL stories, but it had the context to make it work.

The all grey 5YG uniforms were a mistake. Even the characters thought so. The late Levitz/Giffen run ones had distinctive colour schemes for each member. Not that you got to see much of them though.

Sometimes less is more. A flash of shoulder behind a boxy jacket, a botox pout from the depths of Giffen/Gordon shadows...

This has to be the secret origin of Grinn. His origin was in the Magic Wars and I think the transuit/bottle kept him isolated from the chaos elsewhere in the galaxy/ He may even be wearing a transuit all through the 5YG. You don't see it, in the same way you don't see the Legionnaires' either.

I did not like them. In hindsight, they were better in that they got so much worse. Also, the LSH all looked weird, Bizarro-like, with pinched faces. It was never explained what sort of Bizarro Ray was used on them...

Weighing down the guy with super acrobatics seems odd, but having to wear an animal pelt just seemed daft.

I'm hoping that the animal pelt was fake. Because by that time the race of beings the pelt belongs to may well have put a candidate up for membership. Having Brin go around with the skin of one of them may not have looked too good.

I guess it's the pelt of the Titanian Psycho-Beast

The ray gun was called the Giffenator.

"I used to be able to shave, but since my Giffenator overloaded half my face has been in perpetual shadow. Sure it was upsetting, but no one can tell I'm crying. Or anything else for that matter." - Hirsute Lad


"I useta feel the freedom of the galaxy. But since that Giffenator lab explosion I feel constrained...contained...like I was trapped in some kinda grid, y'know?" - Constrictor Lass