Whether you believe (as I do) that the current incarnation of the book is creatively crippled, the sales information cannot be doubted; the Legion is selling near or at cancellation levels. Something else else has to be done, and it's up to you (and you, and you, and you, and me) to do something about it.

What do you think might be done to 1. Make the book creatively satisfying for YOU 2. Financially successful for DC.

Do the two conflict, or do you feel what works for 'you' would work for most?

Go as far as you want -- creative direction, character make up, creative team composition.

I suspect some combination of all three would be necessary to make the Legion successful again, to get eyeballs on the book.

I'll post my thoughts later, so as not to dominate/prejudice anyone else!

New creators - both a writer and artist who have never, ever worked on the Legion before. It's time for a brand new voice & direction. And it would be better that it was one that I don't expect or predict.

More sci-fi oriented.

Tone & atmosphere can shift with stories and plots, but the scope should be large and grandiose. It's 1,000 years in the future and spans all of space. While times can be bright or dark, the epic scale should be present. Likewise, regular stories "bringing things back down to Earth" are needed to compliment such a thing.

A mixture of long form storytelling and short term adventures.

Stop trying to please fans of continuity. Spend at a minimum the first 12 issues (probably better to do 24) telling their story without spending much time on the past. Only then can a reconciliation with the past be worth pursuing.

If you're going to interact with the DCU, don't let the rules of time travel or continuity box you in. Do in on the Legion's terms. Personally, I'd limit it to Superman-related franchises only, but applying those kind of arbitrary rules are the kind of thing that needs to be avoided.

Focus on the new. New adventures. New subplots. New relationships. New villains and antagonists. New political problems. New social turmoil. Take the classic characters, whether 50 or 30 or 10 years old and apply them to new settings and see what magic can develop.

Lastly, find a roster size you can manage. If its 17 heroes, do it well. If you can do 25 heroes, do it. But manage it. The Legion *should* be large, but they need to adjust the cast & roster size so it makes sense to the creative team.

Personally, I'd love to see one of the upcoming sci-fi geniuses at Image or Dark Horse have a shot. Someone like Brandon Graham or Ken Garing, who most people who haven't heard of. Just let them run wild and tell their stories.

Some good points, Cobalt Kid, and I echo them even as I doubt whether some are possible. Specifically, I have my doubts that Levitz is going to be ousted before the book is canceled, but I really believe that to be the one irreplaceable element; he needs to get off the book (Giffen in addition would have made the book more successful, and did, but he's gone now and this is where we are).

Reboot -- In other words, you'll only be satisfied by getting "your" Legion back?

Well crap, Cobie just basically said everything I wanted to say. I will say though that I think a focus on character development would be highly valuable. A few issues here and there that are devoted to showing us who these people are. DC can't just rely on everyone knowing and loving the Legion characters to gain/keep fans. If I were to pick up the books right now I wouldn't like any of the characters because very little of their personalities shows in their interactions. Anyone who writes the Legion needs to infuse a new sense of who they are to really help the book succeed.

Pretty much. I have no interest whatsoever in preboots, threeboots, retroboots, 52boots or whatever. Obviously, much of what Cobalt says holds true - them actually using the version I'm interested in would be a starting point, not the be-all-and-end-all, but it's the only thing that would actually make me give it a chance to begin with.

Gotta agree here. Seeing this version of the Legion again is probably the only thing that might save it for me. I've said it once and i'll say it again: the people who were teenagers in the 90's are a large part of who is buying comics now. We grew up on this Legion, and I think a lot of us would come back to see them again. Just sayin'.

There is no saving the LSH until a Grant Morrison or a Geoff Johns or a Jim Lee decide to work on it. Lesser-knowns won't cut it this time.

The franchise has become a bad rebooted-too-often joke. I am thinking it NEEDS to go away for awhile. I don't want to cheerlead this mess anymore.

When it DOES come back-- for the love of SPACE, just tell GOOD STORIES. WRITING GOOD STORIES ISN'T THAT HARD... people have BEEN DOING IT FOR DECADES... and the LSH HAS SOOOOO MUCH BACKSTORY TO DRAW FROM.... *exasperated arm flailing*

I was going to start a similar thread. How would you end the Legion?

ha! I think Giffen detractors and fans alike can agree on one thing, Giffen can END a Legion. So why not bring him in, do a big four parter where he destroys everything. He could probably do it next issue.

Burn the house to the ground and let it sit until someone has a good idea for it.

After that I would like to see something different, more of an intergalactic police force with espionage, swat, and intelligence divisions. I heard soem writer, not sure if it was Brian Vaughn or not ... but the quote is "comics need to be less comicy". I think it would be nice to have a little less super hero tropes which dont work for me so much sense wise in an advanced civilization with so little crime. Back in Giffs early days ... there were supposed to be like 3 Science police officers for Earth.

So what are the Legion for? Maybe they ARE the ENTIRE police force of the galaxy. explorers and inventors as well. Maybe even a necessary and violent evil of the UP society. unpopular because they represent a savage past.

Maybe they're the parents, not the kids Mr. Waid.

Maybe society has advanced so much, the LSH are the only ones that know how to do anything anymore! heh heh. Anyway, there's a whole slew of new directions to go in ... that aren't cliches.

I also think those crazy Silver Age stories are somehow very appropriate to today's modern "indie" comics scene. They were bizarrely futuristic, bizarrely brutal, and a bit cute(sy), and set in a creative and unknown background.

I would bite off my own arm if it was any tie to present time DC! I always hated the big three and what I loved about the Legion was that it wasn't "DC" so much. My childhood Legion did have Supergirl but that's alright. She was cool.


Otherwise I would almost agree with bringing back DNA's Legion. I HATED and still do HATE the Archie Legion because of the art and the rehashing of stories in a cliffs notes manner but ... DNA had saved it ... brought some excitement to it ... and then it got whited out ... The story feels UNFINISHED.

Whereas as much as I love my "originals" I feel like their story was finished in the 5YL or before.

But after this retroboot fiasco (or are we on retroboot 2 now) I wouldnt want DC's hands on anything really ... much less a Zombie version of something I used to like.

Regarding "big names", I'd be worried they'd bring in more bad than good. Someone like Johns will just tie the Legion closer to the DCnU and try to make it match this ambigous "classic Legion" in his mind. Someone like Morrison will scare as many people as intrigue them. It'd be the classic short term sales bump with subsequent dip.

I think "big name artist" (of which there sure aren't that many anymore) + brillaint, young up and coming writer would be a better combination. Someone who could dig in and man the franchise for a decade.

Too bad DC editorial would probably screw it up. The days of a Big 2 comic gradually going up in sales over a 10 year period of time may be over. Only Image (and Dark Horse) seem to be able to do that anymore. Instead the Big 2 play the marketing game up never-ending sales declines only alleviated by short term bumps.

The trouble is when and if it does come back, the Legion will be another reboot. I would assume the next incarnation will look clear different from the versions most of us hold dear. I'd rather see the changes happen in story than with another cancellation. Perhaps a mass slaughter to most of the team members trying to save the universe would do the trick. Then a new team could be formed from the three or four surviving members.

If I had a choice on who the core of the new Legion would be I'd choose Tellus, Gates, Dawnstar and Lightning Lad. That would give some diversity and yet continuity with what has gone before. Perhaps the next go around could be more sci-fi focused.

I also agree that a big name writer would have to come on board along with a name change of the title to make it feel brand new.

I loaned the trade paperback of the first issues of the 52 Reboot to my friend, who is a major Batman/DC fan because of movies and other media (to the point that she doesn't like watching Marvel products) to see if she could get into it. She appears to have liked the stories, but she told me she preferred reading about characters she already knew because she had to look the Legionnaires up online. We are in a period of media inflation. If people can't understand a comic book they can simply read another one or watch a movie or TV show or play a video game.

I think at this stage it would be instructive to look at Guardians of the Galaxy. Quite a popular title when Jim Valentino was writing it, then went downhill FAST afterward, ending in a scorched-Earth cancellation with the now thoroughly messed-up team stranded in an unknown time in an unknown universe.

And they have literally NEVER been picked up from that. The DnA version of the team was in the present day with a token alternate version of one of the originals. And that's the version Bendis is working with now, sans even the token Vance Astro.

The equivalent here would be a new L.E.G.I.O.N., composed of random DC cosmic characters with a token Cosmic Boy or Brainiac 5, a decade after the Legion's cancellation.

Before seeing Reboot's first post, my face hadn't lit up at a Legion picture in a while.

Whichever version of the Legion is being used though, I agree on the scale. You're exploring the 31st century, best take advantage of all that space and everything in it.

Make them feel like a real team of heroes that have faced death together many times. The halcyon Silver Age captured imaginations because of the "super hero club" feel. They need not be elitist, but they need to have a "family" vibe.



I'd have to disagree on the massive slaughter. Write out characters if you must, but at the very least keep them injured or have them leave for other reasons - these are wonderful characters who could be brought back for future stories. Frankly, I don't think it's so much the team lineup that is a problem, as a lack of imagination in utilizing said lineup to the fullest.

I think killing off Legionnaires is a powerful tool, and one that should be used -- but sparingly. Gimmicky slaughter, without weight or thought, invites gimmicky resurrection. If there is anything that might separate the Legion from the DCU proper, maybe it is that death more often sticks (for what it's worth, I'm not a proponent of dead-means-dead in the fictional universes, and believe the cyclical nature of the superhero existence to be a charming artifact of it's role as escapist fantasy).

DnA's Legion really started coming off the rails when it gave in to gimmick -- cheap deaths and cheaper resurrection with no plan and all shock value. When the creative team was replaced, I wasn't upset; I felt a change was needed.

So I wouldn't agree with the 'kill the Legion' gameplan, at least for me. I DO think Legionnaires should die, or be crippled, or retire as the story demands it, but the best way to ensure that such changes are lasting and meaningful is by making the story too good to ignore, and the 'sidelining' a meaningful part of it.

I'm also going to have to vehemently disagree with the idea that bringing back any previous version of the Legion, or rebooting anew, is the right way to go in the grand scheme (obviously everyone has their wish list, and I respect that for some on this board that is the only way to make the Legion palatable again...I just take issue with the notion that it is true for most). In fact, I'd argue that both of these options are just the kind of continuity rigamarole we (and by 'we' I mean DC comics, which we represent in the confines of this thread and this thread only -- do not start telling Didio what to do, he still doesn't know who you are) should take special effort to avoid.




What we have is what we have. We have the most recognizable, and the most historically successful Legion ever. They are a massive group with a lot of adventures behind them as an institution that fights crime across a galaxy and more, with some old members, some new members, and some part-time new and old members. This is our foundation.

From there, we work out, I think. If we want to make big changes, fine, but it's not with cheesy shortcuts like rebooting continuity or retrobooting continuity. We now have a consistent continuity that we can point people to that is simple and easy; Everything from their first appearance in Adventure to say the end of v3, and all the stuff since that Legion's return in Superman and the Legion and the Lightning-crossover whatever. In pointing people to the Legion, you need not even mention 5YL, Archie, DnA, Threeboot, etc unless they're interested in seeing 'alternate reality stories' of the Legion (and this isn't an issue of taste, but clarity; my personal favorite Legion is the Giffen 5YL, and Legion Lost/Legion Worlds is in my top 5 Legion stories of all time).

(And for the sticklers, I do recognize that not everything makes total sense and certain bits of continuity don't add up, that there might be better breaking points than the end of Vol 3, etc but really are these continuity issues worth quibbling over? Does anyone REALLY care? Does it hurt the integrity of the story, or the history?)

More later!

I also agree with IB / disagree with others on the massive slaughter. There is no need for it. Simply remove them from the cast. The writers don't even need to give the fans an explanation for it. Make them *want* to know. That worked great for the Walking Dead with Morgan, where fans were dying to find out what happened to him...and two years later the payoff was tremendous.

Regarding the preboot / postboot / etc: for years and years and years, all I wanted was for the "original" Legion to return. Even during the postboot, which I absolutely loved, I always in the back of my mind wanted to see the original "preboot" Legion again. During the threeboot, I craved it more than ever.

And then they came back...kind of. And I learned that "kind of" will always be the case. I also learned you can never go home again, an obvious lesson I should have seen coming. Since their return in Action Comics this "original" or "quasi-original" or whatever you want to call it Legion does not feel like the original Legion. And nothing ever will.

I'm afraid that will be the same if the postboot Legion ever came back.

We simply cannot go back again to any era. Those era have passed. Too much destruction reduced things to rubble.

At this point, we can only move on and work / change what we've got.

So I'm done wishing for the original Legion or the postboot Legion, or any type of Legion from the past. Because it'll never be as good as it was and never feel quite right. Instead, I'd rather have something for right now.

The Legion IS, I think, troublesome. A sprawling cast, an unrelatable sci-fi setting, an inability to tie into the crutch of ongoing continuity and guest appearances. These can be great strengths, I think, if executed flawlessly...but, when not, they tend to be weaknesses.

I'm sure it's every writers' dream to get their own corner of the comics universe to play with, unencumbered by the movements of your contemporaries, but those books tend to be a harder sell, short of an obvious lead in (video game tie ins, Smallville). Crossovers sell -- they boost sales. Guest appearances boost sales. The concept of a book 'mattering' to modern continuity, even absent crossovers, seems almost malignantly vital to the survival of any ongoing title (look at Robinson's brilliant Shade maxi-series, which barely had the heat to complete, despite a flawless execution; because it existed on the periphery of DC continuity).

That said, I firmly believe that a high level of execution CAN tip these into strengths; it's just a matter of getting the right balance, and the right approach. Hickman performed a similar feat on "Fantastic Four", which only vaguely related to any ongoing continuity events, and primarily told its own story. Yes, a gimmicky 'event' of its own was required to bring the numbers up to notable levels, and frankly the Legion doesn't have any individual characters with which they could replicate said gimmick, but even before that - and certainly after - sales were at reasonably stable and high levels (for the franchise).

It can be done with the Legion.


I think the elements of a perfect Legion book have been scattered around various attempts throughout the years. The closest, as I see it, was Giffen's 5 Years Later run, but that was perhaps too adult, too impenetrable, too ambitious, and ultimately Giffen and the Bierbaums weren't doing very 'stable' work (moments of complete brilliance, but punctuated by stretches of mediocrity when Giffen wasn't directly involved in either the plotting/dialogue/artwork).

What made Levitz’s contribution so exceptional is that he was planning stories out not just 12 issues, but YEARS in advance, we’ve plots and subplots over the better part of a decade, it seemed. The meticulous detail with which he catalogued his work, mapped his progression, meant that he could rotate the spotlight to various characters, giving each of them their due. And this long term planning allowed everything that happened to feel organic. Characters and character relationships developed over years, with a realistic, measured rhythm. Events never felt like they were done for shock value, or to see what worked, but had been built to over the course of months at minimum. There was a natural, gradual escalation of threat.

No, this isn’t the only thing that made Levitz’s Legion such a success, but it’s the one thing that his Legion had that all others have lacked. His Legion was partially successful because it had a healthy dose of soap opera, which he did quite well. But other Legions have had the same soap opera – most notably the archie legion under Peyer, Waid, etc – and didn’t fare nearly as well, either in the open market or the critical theatre.

Giffen brought with him a genius concept engine, with some extremely forward thinking ideas. It’s clear, especially from their separately done work, that he was the Big Concept guy, more in line with Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis than the traditional superhero writers of the day. His characters were complex, subtle, and often deeply tragic.

DnA’s Legion took a page from revamps like Grant Morrison’s JLA and Ellis’ Authority/Stormwatch and brought widescreen action to the book. That is certainly an element that had been there, in bits, with epics such as Great Darkness Saga and the Time Trapper throwdown, but it wasn’t nearly as emphasized until DnA came on. But their run lacked, crucially, the long term planning I mentioned earlier. That’s why something like “Legion Lost” and “Legion Worlds” holds up so well, while the Legion title itself became progressively more haphazard, began to rely on shock value and ultimately their removal was not only warranted, but overdue.


Waid’s second turn at the title attempted to blend two of the attributes I mentioned above – soap opera and big concept generation – but failed to do the first interestingly or convincingly, and failed to create any interesting, compelling antagonists for the team. Additionally, the lack of a long term blueprint was fairly obvious (and disappointing). Potential, sure, but squandered.

One thing that I thought Waid did well was that he attempted to make the characters feel…alien, or at least profoundly DIFFERENT, both from each other and from what we have come to consider ‘normal’. While previous iterations of the Legion had a few token ‘alien’ like characters, most of the main cast acted exactly as one might expect a JLA member to act. Under Waid’s pen, the character of Chameleon, for instance, was odd while still relatable. Leviathon was in fact a giant who could shrink. Titans could no longer speak with vocal chords.

Any future attempt at the title has to attempt to reconcile and merge all these positive aspects, but most crucial is that there most be some long term, multi year plan in place. Legion is a title that not only allows such a plan thanks to the insular nature of its continuity, but it demands it thanks to the sprawling size of its cast. Likewise crucial are the big concepts, the soap opera, and the wide screen action. All of these can be blended into what I think would be the perfect Legion of Superheroes comic book.

That's just it, isn't it? The current Legion - the original Legion - is what we have RIGHT NOW.

Let's work with THAT, but take it forward and turn it into something that exists as a reflection of today, or a natural progression of what we've had.

Cobie what you say about a Johns may be true, but it will probably take someone with the selling power of a Johns to get a relaunched title on the table in the first place.

LSH as we know it is 100 percent doomed and will be going away, possibly for a very long time. And whose fault is it?

Over on Facebook, I was recently told by an artist of a frustrating experience with the LSH... how every idea this artist had was shot down, and his former love of the title was replaced with frustration because Batman often has better tech than the LSH, and nobody currently at DC wants to let the LSH attain the potential it CAN reach.

Either Levitz or DC editorial is just looking to keep it business as usual, straight to Cancelville.

The New 52 is a joke. Make mine Marvel.

Yeah, with that editorial interference so ever-present in this regime, there is no way a franchise like the Legion can flourish. Until something changes at DC internally, it'll be like trying to push water uphill.

I'm going to take that 'artist' to be Keith Giffen, and that's god damn heartbreaking.

But I'm betting it's Levitz having a specific vision for what he wants to do with his Legion, more than anything. I can't imagine that anyone has any right to tell him what he can or cannot do on that book, editorially, given his previous status within the company, and the almost assured severance he got in terms of creative freedom for moving out of the Presidential role without any fuss.

The whole retroboot, imo, has been pretty much a disaster from day one. A pretty cool series could've been done picking up the day after the Magic Wars, and gradually introducing elements from later versions, but this thing has been so badly mismanaged, it's not even funny.

I see only two ways forward at this point:

1) A "next generation" scenario, with a series focused on the kids of the Legionnaires, with past continuity just left a bit hazy for the time being, but drawing upon ideas and bits from all previous incarnations.

2) Someone decides to do a kickass Superboy series, featuring the real "Superman when he was a boy!" Superboy, totally out of the mainstream DC continuity, and a new version of the Legion inevitably gets introduced as a part of that.

Perhaps they should just let a fan (or fans) write the Legion. Desaad's points about wide-screen action coupled with long-term plotting make sense, and so we need a skilled,experienced writer with love for the title AND GIVEN FREE REIGN BY EDITORIAL.

Well, I'd trust most of the fanfic writers here over just about anybody DC is likely to put on the title.

LIKE

I'd take single issue stories by rotating writers (including LW fanfic writers) and 1-2 strong artists over anything we've had in the last 10 years.

I'm not convinced that being a fan is necessary, or even preferable; I think that's sort of the trouble that Levitz is in. He's writing with too much history at his back, he can't shake it. I think a lot of fans would do the same.

I think we need a writer first, a fan second, maybe not at all. Someone who won't let their love of any past Legion story keep them from telling completely NEW Legion stories. Better writers know how to balance this - Grant Morrison, for instance - but too many writers in this field do not, to the detriment.

Fundamentally; we need someone who is excited about what they can DO with the Legion, the potential it represents, rather than anything that has come before.

And that's sort of the whole philosophy of the Legion, if you think about it; they appreciate what came before (Superman, the superheroes of earth), but they believe deeply that they can do better, and work tirelessly to prove it.

Same thing DC does on all of their other books that isn't Batman related. Put Geoff Johns and a star artist on it. Look at Aquaman.

I am being serious. Put Geoff on Blue Devil with a popular artist...it will be in the top 20.

Trust me I'm a huge Levitz fan. So maybe have Jim Lee on with with Levitz.

Geoff Johns is just the wrong choice for the Legion, and there is no getting around that.

I'd rather the Legion die than be kept 'alive' by a writer who either doesn't understand or doesn't agree with the whole point of the franchise.

And to be clear, I have no problem with Geoff Johns. That's a man who is incredibly enthusiastic about the work he's doing, he loves comics more than anyone I've ever met, he tries diligently to get other people to love them, and it often works. He's written some great stories of the years, and I envy the man's skill, ability and enthusiasm.

But that he's good at superhero comic books doesn't mean that he'll be good at the Legion, because the Legion is something at the very fringe of that genre, IMHO.

Writers I want to see take this book on are:

Grant Morrison (never happen)
Brandon Graham (only slightly more likely)
John Hickman (only slightly more likely, and he's already writing them over at Marvel)
Matt Kindt (most likely, and I think it would be pretty great)


I'm still waiting to see how Ales Kot performs on "Suicide Squad", but he's another guy who at least deals with the right THEMES, and whose work tends to be well considered. But so far he has yet to turn in anything that could be called 'coherent', at least that has been published, so we'll have to wait and see (that could be a stylistic choice for his creator owned stuff). He also has a tendency to get pretentious in a very "undergrad NYU student" way, you know "I don't take the photos, the photos...take me" sort of thing. But still, I'd be interested to see him get a shot.

I do think up and coming is the way to go for the Legion, the younger the better.

Hey, I'm 26...:)

Some other (writer) names I'd like in a sort of 'what if' scenario....

Keith Giffen (again!...one of the few older voices I think could do it)
Kieron Gillen
Nick Spencer (if he could compress his work a little, as he did on the Jimmy Olsen backups)
Warren Ellis (again, one of the few older voices that I'd entertain on this book -- his work on Freakangels wasn't at all like the Legion, but it touched on themes that I think would be important for a good Legion run).

*shifty eyes* I saw that comment on Facebook and it isn't Giffen. Sounds like something he would say, but isn't. I wouldn't be surprised if he feels the same and simply isn't saying so.

This is an incredible analysis, Desaad. I think you've articulated exactly what worked and didn't work in each version of the Legion over the last 30 years.

I think we should not overlook the 25 or so years before Levitz and Giffin, though. The Silver Age and '70s work, in particular, laid the foundation upon which Levitz and Giffen built so brilliantly. In another thread, the essence of the Legion is being discussed. I think much of that essence is found in the work of Weisinger, Binder, Plastino, Siegel, Shooter, Swan, Cockrum, Bates, Grell, and others.

And yet, as was also pointed out in another thread (by you, IIRC), the Legion needs to move forward, not backward. It needs to tell new stories, not homages to old ones or be shackled to past continuity . . . all of which, combined with the scattered elements you identified above, make the Legion, as you said "troublesome."

Yet I don't think the trouble really lies in the Legion itself, but in comics, or the comics industry, and the expectations thereof today. When I get back to your questions at the start of this thread, what would make the Legion work for me today, I can't find a single thing. This is because I've largely moved on from comics. I find them unsatisfying in the current DC/Marvel pamphlet format of $3-4 a pop, ongoing (re: endless) stories, and simplistic themes that are meant to appeal to everyone from age 12 up. I don't think it's possible to write a story which satisfies such a broad audience; yet comics (and mainstream entertainment in general) demands that any work worth investing time, talent, and money in reaches such a broad audience.

I like EDE's idea in the other thread that the Legion needs to go forward and perhaps focus on the next generation of heroes. So long as stories continue to focus on the same characters whom we love so much (and who, therefore, are untouchable in any real sense--even death holds no grip on them), the Legion is doomed to the same endless cycle of retold stories, reboots, and cancellations, because that's what the mindset of both the company and the fans demands.

Thank you, sir.

The best we can hope for is probably to get someone like Geoff Johns on the book again.

The worst we can hope for is another reboot, and/or another 5YL full of retcons. Which is what I suspect we might get. There's *so* many ways to screw up the Legion, and after a cancellation or near-cancellation, they're going to loom large.

Oh, I know (Frankly, I wouldn't trust the current state of affairs at DC anyway). It's a "be careful what you wish for", but I can't help wishing...


Depends - the individual stories might well be better, but a long run of fill-in writers will cancel more or less any series, pretty much regardless of quality.

It's the return of the reboot Legion! Except XS never existed, Brainiac Five now has Batman's personality, and the Legion has bizarrely adopted the threeboot "Eat it, Grandpa!" as a motto! And did I mention they're meeting the Fatal Five for the first time?

I am reminded of that story where the guy's head is reduced to purple jam by a falling bulkhead, and then his decapitated body is eaten by cannibals, and everyone is like, "Oh, how can we save him?" and "No, no, I'm sure he's still alive."

The Legion is like that.

If that's the sort of thing they've been pulling with the current team, even before the "Fatal Five again for the first time" bit, why is anyone accepting the retroboot or 52boot teams as "the original Legion"?

I've always been a little confused about why every Legion author has such a rough time creating new villains. I know, I know, most comics tend to revolve around the same dozen villains...but surely the 31st century is just chock FULL of people wanting to do bad things. Right? And not lame new villains either.

It's not going to happen, but I'd like to see the Legion made open-source, or whatever you call it for characters. Just throw it wide open for anyone to use, write about, make movies, whatever, like we have for Sherlock Holmes. The cream would rise to the top, and there might be a Legion for everyone.

Unfortunately, the Legion doesn't have the widespread popularity of a Sherlock Holmes, so it might just sink into oblivion.

They haven't quite deleted a character as central as XS (except maybe Supergirl, whose status is at best ambiguous), but the others are pretty close to stuff that's been done.

The thing about Sherlock Holmes is that there's a clear canon, namely the original Conan Doyle stories, such that, however radically new interpretations deviate from the source material, there's always the gravity of those original tales pulling one back towards them.

It's an interesting question what would serve the same kind of role for the Legion. The Adventure era perhaps?

I agree with a lot of your points but not this one.

I don't really get where it's coming from either. I thought the 'Superman and the Legion' arc in Action Comics was excellent and demonstrated exactly the sort of art and storytelling that this book needs - big-scale stories with plenty of smaller character-focused moments interspersed throughout; bold, new ideas for the universe while paying respect to and utilizing the characters and continuity of the past (I mean, who ever thought Tusker, Eyeful Ethel or Rainbow Girl would ever seem so cool or interesting?); the sense of the Legion struggling and ultimately succeeding as a team and friends against such a challenging threat; a big name artist who gave us (IMO) an excellent and exciting new vision of the team and their costumes.

If the main Legion book had carried on with that creative team, trust me - we would not be having this conversation today.

I think the problems with the current Legion all boil down to one man - Paul Levitz. For whatever reason, his writing and plots for the entirety of his run on the Retroboot (or at least what I've read of it) have been crushingly boring and nonsensical - the fall of Titan; Earth Man's ridiculous membership; Harmonia Li; that stupid, blue baby villain; the dumb, Durlan assassins; the worst Legion stories I've ever read in that Adventure-era run in Adventure Comics... with the small exception of maybe his Legion Academy arc (and even that had an extremely disappointing conclusion), I would not be interested in re-reading a single part of this era of the Legon ever again.

Whereas I know 'Superman and the Legion' and Legion of Three Worlds will be tales I return to again and again. And I say all that as someone who is a long way from a fan of Geoff Johns' work of the last 5 years or so.

---

I'm so thoroughly disinterested in the DCnU though that I don't think there's a thing they could do with the Legion that would get me to pick up the book again... unless it was a return to a self-contained version of the Reboot universe with a living Leviathan. THAT I would definitely return to DC for.

I'm with you Blacs... I think not only would Johns' selling power be welcome, but he would actually write some good stories. Even with its flaws, the ACTION arc was a wild, fun LEGION-ey ride.

Oh well, it's all moot really... Johns was THISCLOSE to writing the LSH regularly, but then the overhaul came and they gave it to Levitz. I don't think it will come up on the table again...

I think that to get decent Legion we need
1) A writer who understands the Legion
2) A writer who is willing to write the Legion as is even if some elements of it don't align with his preferences
3) No editorial interference
*and* good writing.

Getting all of these is rare.

I agree, we can't afford to look back at the past because the audience's expectations were different in the past. US American society has changed drastically since the Legion of Super-Heroes began in the 1950s. For example, in the 1950s China was isolationist and considered an enemy of the United States; last year I studied a semester in China. We have to write stories that reflect the hopes and fears of 2013 so the audience can relate to them.

One thing that would help is for DC to do something to make it easier for people learn about the Legion. The book is so intimidating and something like Legion of 3 Worlds only confirms the fears of people who think the Legion is too big, by making most of the Legion members just a bunch of faces and costumes with unspecified powers. Right now, a person who wants to understand the book pretty mcuh has to go to some wiki and having to read about the three prior incarnations of the character. In the pre-internet days, every few years, there would be an issue that would have a spread that summarized the characters and their origins. There also were inexpensive reprints/digests so readers could learn about the characters without doing research. One of the most successful things the writers did was the three-part Secrets of the LoSH in 1981, which gave all of the characters' origins but in the context of a story with a twist that had pretty significant repercussions for the Legion. I don't think it is coincidence that a book like that coincided with one of the periods of the when the Legion's greatest popularity. That series was a great jumping-off point for new readers.

Actually, thinking about it, wouldn't it be smart for DC to put that miniseries on digital for free download or make it free to anyone who buys a new issue of LoSH? It won't bring readers completely up to date and it won't help that the costumes are different, but it might open the door for some new readers who are nervous about trying to jump into such a big cast.

Oh, and on the costume thing. . . . I think a huge blunder was the retroboot Legion getting new costumes. The Lightning Saga used costumes that people identified with the characters. This is the Legion with a lot of history and some very iconic characters/costumes. Junking those costumes right away took away from that. I would actually love for the book to come up with some device that forces them into some classic looks. One thought I just had is how they could have a plot send the characters back in time to the Shooter era (maybe the team's current minds are forced to inhabit their older bodies) and they have to relive or change history. There could be some play on the continuity, with some nod to history by using variations on past stories, but there also could be things the new Legion does due to their knowledge that prevents the past from occurring the way it did. How would the Legion and the universe be different if the Great Darkness never happened or Karate Kid never died. And just imagine the fun they could have with characters like Rokk, Imra, Tasmia, Gim and Jeckie having to wear those old costumes after 20-30 years.

Interesting.

Scott Kolins maybe? Anyway, obviously something is stopping real innovation here, and I'm betting Levitz, who has always been a bit more grounded and meticulous in his world building, especially since he caught hell for one of his more whimsical scenes in the Legion years back (having Mon-El to the White-Dwarf star through the galaxy to power Brainy's Time Machine)

Different strokes for different folks.



Superman and the Legion of Superheroes was a fun story.

But it was a fun Superman story. I want good Legion stories, and these are different animals.

Examining "Superman and the Legion" a little bit, what's the general arc of that story? The Legion has failed -- the future has failed, the youth has failed. And the only way to succeed is by going back in time and getting someone from the 20th century to fix it all FOR them.

I'm not against a dystopian Legion per se, but I am against the Legion losing their agency in their world/universe/story.

Now I don't complain about 'Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes', because that's a Superman story; it was a story told in the Action Comics book, it had Superman right there in the name, he has every right to be the star of that book. But it's not a Legion story. It's not even as much a Legion story as the current Action Comics book, really, insofar as it did even LESS to capture the wonder and magnificence of their far away epoch.

The more you examine it the more it falls apart, if you're looking at it from the perspective of a Legion fan; the laughable return of a bunch of minor continuity character points as the main antagonists (and with horribly simplistic motivations of rejection, if I do say so myself), for instance, the portrayal of the future-man to be even more sheep than the current ones.



I have no doubt that the book would be financially successful -- but I have equally no doubt that I wouldn't be satisfied, and that Geoff Johns is fundamentally the wrong person to write that book.




As I said, different strokes for different folks. "Legion of Three Worlds" is absolutely one of the worst Legion stories I've ever read. And it's important that I stress "Legion stories", because it's told ably enough (although it's a bit dull and cumbersome, I think). But it's a betrayal of everything the Legion of Super-Heroes is about.

The work of Geoff Johns is primarily nostalgia driven, and I don't mean that in the sense that most in comics tend to. It's not just that he's using old continuity or trying to recapture the Silver Age, it is that all present day drama stems from something from out of that character's past -- hidden mistakes of theirs or of trusted authority figures in their 'universe'. That's what makes him, then, such a terribly ill fit for the Legion of Super-heroes -- everything he does is backward looking, and that franchise is all about moving forward.

Waid, who changed so much and himself has a deep reverence for the past, understood that. Comparatively speaking, Legion of Three Worlds is almost EXCLUSIVELY about the past. There are homages to the old JSA/JLA team ups, with useless explanations as to the nature of the crystal ball they once used as the Legion goes in search of said crystal ball. The story is used for not just one but TWO resurrections of 20th century heroes, Superboy and Kid Flash, who by the Legion's reckoning would have died a millenia earlier. Time Trapper gets revealed to be -- Superboy Prime, that old 20th century villain (granted, for this one he at least left some wiggle room). Much of the book is about reconciling various past versions of the Legion with each other, continuity wrangling, rather than just getting on with telling a good story.


The book is OBSESSED with the past. Completely and totally. Even the artwork - and I love George Perez - but even the artwork has a sort of dated feel to it.




Just my opinions. YMMV.

This is really a pretty simple task, though. The first arc of any individual's 'run' on a title should contain a lot of this information.

In the dream world in which I'm writing the Legion of Super-Heroes, the first arc has the Legion facing off against a time-traveling villain - say Epoch, Lord of Time. It's a great big science fiction battle where the Legion is facing off against a literal Legion of Epochs, each from slightly different moments, all tearing up the time stream, bringing together the Worlogog or the Eternity Brain or what have you. It's big sci fi fun, but it's not the battle, or the antagonist, that matters but what happens as a result. Because in the very first issue, in the very beginning of it, a girl from 20th Century earth is caught in a time sink brought to that far flung future. And thanks to all the manipulations of Epoch, for that first (3-4 issue) arc, Brainiac 5 can't send her home quite yet. Through her eyes you're introduced to the Legion, and the future.

It's important that this is just a girl, not a superhero, because the girl is us, right? And to a superhero, perhaps such things are quotidian, but to us? It would be pure magic. And while the Legion might be blind, jaded to the every day miracles that fill the skies and the streets and the minds of the 30th century(Just as we, today, take for granted pocket sized wonders that illuminate the eye and the mind and connect us in heretofore impossible ways, so to do THEY take for granted point to point teleport, the panopoly of planets waiting for the tread of their boot, the geometry of time travel), she wouldn't be. And her wonder would be OUR wonder, and we could maybe get a sense of how incredible the 30th century is through virgin eyes (not to mention basic information about our Legionnaires).

The first arc of any good Legion run should be about what the Legion IS. If it were me, the next would be about what it ISN'T, and what it COULD be.

That could be a great entry point for non-Legion readers and introduce the rest of us to a new manifestation of the team, seen through the eyes of an ordinary person. Who among us hasn't imagined what it would be like to be transported to the Legion's future?

We got a bit of a taste of that in the very early days when Superboy and Supergirl were first brought to the 30th century and taken on a tour of different sites.

I'd leave the super cousins out of any Legion story, except as a reference. As far as I'm concerned, any version after the initial one - postboot DnA, WaK, 3boot - which introduced Superboy or Supergirl into the story went downhill quickly.

Exactly.

I think one of the things that has really been lost from the Legion of late -- outside of the Waid issues of the Threeboot -- is some perspective on just how fantastic the SETTING is. That, to me, is almost more vital than any individual member of the Legion, and so often it lies fallow, unexplored.

Show readers how FANTASTIC the space in which they exist is, and how much MORE fantastic the Legion is STILL; even in this utopian era, a wonder. Show them not just who the Legion is, but why they should care. Make every issue a journey of discovery, a flood of set pieces and character moments.

It is an Age of Wonders. Show us.

New readers, old readers...I think everyone can get behind that.



I don't think it needs to be particularly taboo, but playing too much with that kind of past continuity invites complications. It happened, he was around, if the story calls for it or editorial calls for it it can be made to work, but it wouldn't be a crucial part of my long term plan, yeah.

Wanted to respond to this more in depth but didn't have the time.



It's a fair point, and there comes a time when you have to recognize that about yourself, and step out of his hobby. Easier said than done, when it has given you so much pleasure over the years, but putting away childish things and all that.

I still have a passion for, and fervent belief in, this medium, and even the superhero genre. I believe it can be great. I believe it can be BETTER. And I believe it can appeal to you, me, and kids. Not by talking down to the least among us but by encouraging them to stretch themselves.

I really believe that people WANT to learn, they want to get something out of their entertainment. So much of who I am and what I know and what I like I was exposed to through entertainment of some sort; as a younger kid in highschool I didn't understand 1/20th of the sources that informed Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, but I knew quality when I saw it, and I knew I WANTED to learn more. I come back to that run every couple of years, looking for references, and every time it gives me something new to chew on; holographic universes, dream palaces, gnostic cosmologies.

There is no reason a "Legion" writer can't throw a reference in to Jackson Pollack or Arthur Miller (I use them because I've specifically thought of scenes that might do just that), so long as it's either non-vital (re: additive, for those in the know but not deleterious for those in the not) or it is succinctly explained.

There was a strange psychology at work in even the Golden/Silver Age books, stories that made an effort to say more than it appeared at first glance.



I see two problems with this, myself.

One, it feels a bit of a cheat to change the entire cast, repopulating it with your own creations. It feels lazy, and arrogant, and selfish to me to create an entirely new cast so that you don't have to work with anything that came before. That strikes me as a little bit similar to the reboot concept, albeit less confusing.

Two, this kind of wholesale 'one thing or the other' approach strikes me as divisive, and unnecessarily so. I don't think the cast has to be 'all new' or 'all classic', but some mix thereof. I'm not sure you lose or gain any stories from one and not the other.

Certainly I feel a number of characters should essentially stay out of the limelight, stay retired or dead or what have you. Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel are trainers -- that's where they'll stay, and for the good of it. The occasional story of them making a stand with their dew eyed students - as Giffen did in 5YL - is welcome and appropriate, but we don't need them in the Legion. Much of their story has come to a (happy) end.

Ditto Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad. They're happy, they're content, they're on Winath on the farm doing their thing, and there is no reason to drag them into anything (though I DO think a new Saturn Girl is something I'd want to see/explore; the whole concept of telepaths is such an interesting one to me, and I think there are some novel ways to explore the psychological impact of telepathy).

As I see it, those characters might come out for special occasions, might make a cameo. Perhaps as one of the big crescendos to a battle you have Cosmic Boy really up against the ropes, trying to lead the Legion (for he, in my vision, is the Captain America of the Legion) to victory against impossible odds. And perhaps two old friends take the field once more, to help a friend save civilization one more time (though, in such a crescendo, thematically the original 3 would INSPIRE the victory, but the newer recruits would be the ones to EXECUTE it).

But I digress. Some stories are finished, should be finished. But some stories are still very much vital -- I can so, SO many ways to go with Brainiac 5, Mon El, Wildfire, Shadow Lass, White Witch, Blok.

No reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I think.

Yes they are. But a 'Superman and the Legion' story is no less a 'Legion' story than are the dozens and dozens and dozens of 'Superboy and the Legion' stories. He is a long-time member and friend of this team after all.

And even though this storyline appeared in Action Comics, and Superman appeared thoughout it, I respectfully question how anyone could consider this MORE of a Superman story than a Legion one. Everything from the setting to the majority of the characters that appeared throughout it (including heroes, villains and supporting characters), to the history and stories it drew upon, to the repurcussions it caused, are all front-and-centre Legion elements. This story seemed more Legiony to me than some stories I've read in a book titled The Legion of Super-Heroes.



We must have read completely different versions of this story because I never saw any pages where the Legion just sat around while Superman did all the saving for them. Indeed, one of the things that I loved most about it was that Geoff Johns high-lighted the fact that these were all long-time childhood friends who cared for each other and needed ALL of their powers as teammates to overcome the odds.

As for the dystopian aspect - no one is more of a supporter of the optimistic-future setting for the Legion than me, but having this story start in the pits of despair and then travel to the highs of victory makes it no less a Legion story than many similar ones such as 'Legion of the Damned', Legion Lost and practically the entirety of the 5YL series.



But I am looking at it from the perspective of a Legion fan. Me! And I don't get what was laughable about the return of any of those characters. Certainly nothing was laughable about their portrayals here. Is it just your knowledge of how they were introduced in the Adventure-era that makes them laughable to you? That precludes the re-introduction of a whole host of characters if so.

And if it's just their 'rejected applicants bent on revenge' aspect? Well, that has a long and proud tradition in the Legion's universe! Not to mention, half of them have been out-and-out villains for a long while now.



There's no doubt that Geoff Johns knows his DC Comics history and utilises it often, but to say that that's ALL he does betrays a glaring unfamiliarity with his work. I hate to sound like a big Geoff Johns-booster here because I have multiple problems with the man's writing but his work on Green Lantern alone, especially his creation of 6 whole new corps of ring-bearers and the dozens and dozens of characters that populate them, is testament to that. He may use DC's long and wonderful history to inform some of his story ideas but they're never a crutch IMO. They're just there for the older fans to recognise and appreciate. I'm sure newer fans never even notice them. And I'd rather have someone to do that than just make nonsensical whole-sale change just for the sake of it being 'new'. Which brings me to...



Are we talking Reboot or Threeboot Waid here? Because if it's Threeboot Waid then I don't think he understood a single thing about what made the Legion work at all. And I definitely do not think any one of his 'new' ideas had any sort of future-lasting potential to them. Confirmed by the way they were all soundly rejected by the majority of the readership and most subsequent writers on the book.



I completely agree that Legion of Three Worlds has its problems - the Superboy (Kon-el) and Kid Flash intrusions most of all (though some could argue that they're allies of this team) - but we must remember that it was always going to be a tie-in mini-series to a DC-wide event first, and a Legion mini second. And that event was all about weird time travel/multiverse fluctuations.

So of course they're going to use it as an opportunity to team up the various versions of the team - something that many fans had been longing to see. By its very nature then, a story like that is going to employ a degree of navel-gazing and back-story explaining. And for what it was, and for being able to juggle the multitude of characters as well as he did, I think Geoff Johns did an admireably enjoyable job with this Legion story.

I also think that to judge how Geoff Johns would write an ongoing Legion book based on how he wrote this very different sort of one-off event book is completely unfair.

But that's all just IMO too.

The main positive thing I can say about Legion of Three Worlds is that it wasn't the complete and total slaughterfest of Legion characters that I was expecting from Johns. Other than that I thought it was a pretty wretched storyline.

"Superman and the Legion" was perhaps the best story since this whole retroboot thing began, but that to me is an indication of just how bad this version of the team has been. From the basic implausibility of the main plot motive (so, Earth Man finds this buried tablet saying Superman isn't from Earth, and suddenly most of Earth's population becomes space-rascists? What?) to turning loveable, bumbling rejects-turned-criminals into deeply disturbed and sadistic villains, there's just so much to dislike about this story.

I think what Johns was trying to do with "Superman and the Legion" was twofold: First, to present a motivation for the Legion of Super-Heroes to continue its existence. The second reason is to connect this motivation to a concept that readers in 2013 resonate with (my college is holding a Diversity Summit this week).

DING! DING! DING! Was it in this thread or the other one that someone was saying that Legion stories need to reflect more of the concerns that face today's readership, rather than the 1950s ones? Well, it's no new issue but I can't think of many problems more prevalent in society today than xenophobia.

I don't want to get into too much of a game into which "Superboy and the Legion..." stories were really Superboy stories and which were Legion stories; as you know, they were often split, some were more about the Legion, some were more about Superboy, sometimes it was just a backup about the Legion sans Superboy, etc.

But all that you list, that doesn't make it a Legion story, anymore than Wolverine in the Savage Land is a Kazar story. The Legion, the future, it's all just there to highlight how amazing SUPERMAN is, to support and complement his arc, his struggle, his journey.

And again, I won't knock it -- it's a Superman story, it's SUPPOSED to be about how spectacular Superman is. Johns did his job, and did it well. But, ultimately, the lesson there is that where the Legion failed, Superman succeeds. And, again, that's diametrically opposed to what I think the Legion is about.







And that's well and good, but they didn't EFFECT anything. They ran around, but their big play for success? That was bringing Superman from the past into the future to save them from something too big for them to deal with themselves.

All that you say is true; it was a nice, heart warming tale of childhood friends. Yet again, that's the bedrock of the story; nostalgia for the past. And that carries all the way through -- the future is DYSTOPIAN, and only a hero from the PAST can set things right again.

I don't mean to chide you for liking that story or liking that message, but I think it runs directly counter to everything that a good Legion story should try to say.



Indeed, as I said earlier I'm not against the idea of a dystopian future (although for 5YL that dystopia was WROUGHT by re-manifestation of old world superstition and ritual, as represented by magic, so that is perfectly aligned with the thematic underpinnings the Legion), but here it works to a very specific purpose; to glorify the PAST, to make us FEAR the future. Again, not what the Legion is about.





You're clearly not a true Legion fan! You've been brainwashed, you fool!

Kidding, of course, kidding. I shouldn't have been so universal there, and I certainly don't claim to speak for all Legion fans (indeed, I appear to be in the minority).




I just find the backwards-looking nature of the whole thing - picking up these nothing characters designed to be throwaways and trying to turn them into a 'badass' threat to be a little sad. Sort of the way Moore (unfairly and inaccurately) mocked Johns for basing 5+ years of storytelling around an 8 page story he (Moore) wrote back in the 80s. Again, the obsession with continuity minutiae, the 'backwards focus', comes out everywhere.







Au contraire, mon frere! I'm actually an old school Johns fan; I posted on his message board at comicbloc during the very earliest days of its existence. I've read everything the man has ever published at DC or Marvel (brief as the stint there was).

I've interacted with him personally, at length, and still do. He's a spectacularly great guy, with an unerring eye for what works and what doesn't on the page, and his instincts on how to connect people emotionally to his characters are dead on and so focused. I in NO way mean to degrade his skill; he does what he does and he does it better than anyone, and he's earned every inch of his popularity.

But there are some guys ill suited to certain characters or franchises. Grant Morrison is, bar none, my favorite writer currently working in comics in any capacity, Alan Moore inclusive. And I think he's probably the most versatile man in comics, too. But I'm not chomping at the bit to see him write Spider-Man.



I've written at length already about how I see JOhns' work or where I see it, but succinctly; it's not just about using the history of the DCU, it's about the thesis at the base of his work. You point to Green Lantern, but that's as good an example as any other; the main character conflict there was Hal's anger and disassociation from those around him thanks to the death of his father. Which happened when he was a child. THAT is the thematic underpinning there, Hal trying to overcome the burden of that in various ways (manifesting first as a fight against fear, then as a fight against death itself, finally as a fight against the emotional distance he put between himself and others). It's all fine - although a bit thin for some 10 years of writing - but it's all looking at the past, trying to overcome traumas of the past.

You cite the Emotional Spectrum, and that was an addition, and a powerful one, but I'd argue that urge to look to the past was once again present, because Johns really stopped there, didn't he? Once that concept was introduced and begun in earnest (post-Sinestro Corps War), that was the series, the series was that.

As an interesting aside, I think part of the problem I'd have with Johns' Legion is part of the problem that I felt developed with DnA's Legion. In summary, the antagonists were the story, the story was the antagonists. There wasn't a lot else going on but the conflict at hand. And whatever character stuff you got was in response to that.

But part of what made Levitz's Legion so great was that it was juggling all these wonderful subplots, some of which entertwined with a main antagonist, but some of which were just journey's of discovery and character development that were their own end, and had significance only in future characterization. That lack of singular focus, and that diversity of plot/tone/whathaveyou I think is important for the Legion moreso than most books.





I'm speaking to the Threeboot Waid, and yes I know it was often not well received, but I maintain that a lot of the conceptual work there was brilliant. I thought the characters were shallow, off putting and utterly uninteresting in the extreme, sometimes repulsive. But so much of the idea work there -- the Legion as a youth movement, all the various weirdness associated with the Legionnaires (Chameleon Boy as a truly alien character, the origin of Duplicate Girl, the whole Giant-Who-Shrinks inversion for Gim), the Bottle City of Colu, all the various innovations and explications of transport or data processing or what have you (my memory is foggy now) that came out when they were being sabotaged.

Waid changed so many of the trappings and the set pieces and even the character dynamics of the Legion when he came on for his reboot, and I don't love a lot of what he did there. But what he absolutely, fundamentally got right was that he made it a book about the future, about social change, about the difference youth can make in society, and about the imperative to do so. It's a run about being informed by, but not obsessed with, the past, and that is what the Legion is all about.





But it was first and foremost supposed to be a Legion story, right? "Legion of Three Worlds", focusing on the Legion...it's a Legion story. None of the intrusions I decry were in any way related to Final Crisis. Not a single one was mandated or required by that event, and in no way did "Legion of Three Worlds" support the "Final Crisis" narrative, or even effectively tie into it. So divorced and off-the-mark was it that Morrison had to hastily script a bridging scene, ably drawn by Carlos Pacheco. And, yet again, in some 3 pages gave me more a feeling of "The Legion" than all of Legion of Three Worlds (though, again, this wasn't a Legion story and it showed).



But 'what it was' is the most important part for me, and if 'what it was' is fundamentally WRONG for the Legion, then I'm not going to be satisfied, certainly not supportive of more.

I hope that is not coming off as me being against change, because I don't think that I am. But I do believe that certain core tenants of what a book, a character, a team, are about should be maintained, or something new should be created. I think Johns either didn't see it or didn't care to do it, and so I don't particularly want to see him on the book.

IN reference to your last bit, I'll not deny Johns' technical skill in pleasing fans and giving us some great moments and fun forays into lore. What's more, he has a significant skill in communicating what makes a character cool, and relatable, in almost no time at all, and it is this that has made him so popular. Talking about the craft with him, seeing his enthusiasm, there is no mistaking that this is a passionate and smart writer, and I feel uncomfortable being put in the position of 'hating' on the man's work, because that isn't my goal at all.





I'm not. I'm judging it by the entire history of his work, both on the Legion and on every other book he's ever written and published.



Goes without saying, brotha! I'm enjoying the discussion, and hope you are to! No hard feelings intended.

I think his goal there was pretty obvious, and I totally get what he did and why he did it. It's the mechanism behind nearly all of his storytelling choices; he wants to make these characters relatable, their world relatable.

But I think there are other ways to go about it.

Xenophobia has been a part of our society since long before the 1950s. It's no more relevant now than it was then, and the Legion has ALWAYS addressed it. The difference is only in the manner, and how thick it's laid on.

But as we talked about in the "essence" thread, diversity is one outgrowth of the thematic underpinning of the Legion concept.

Let me just say, over on comicbookresources there is a thread asking "which characters can't you get into".

The number of replies with "Legion of Superheroes" is absolutely heartbreaking.

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?446895-Characters-you-just-can-t-get-into/page2


SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!!

Well, yeah. I'm sure that was also Waid and company's goal when they made anti-alien sentiments a central feature of the reboot Legion's world in 1994.

The problem is that the preboot Legion's society wasn't like that. It was a world in which the integration of aliens into Earth culture was taken as given. There were examples of prejudice, most notably against Durlans, but that had as much to do with suspicion about their powers than with the simple fact of their being aliens. So, to present something as a continuation of the preboot Legion, in which a massive amount of the human population could be turned into anti-alien hysterics on an incredibly flimsy excuse just doesn't ring true.

Now the one place that a substantial "Aliens go home!" sentiment does crop up in the preboot Legion is near the very end in the Legionnaires series. But the set up there is that evil aliens have infiltrated and controlled Earth's government for several years, murdered tons of people, eventually resulting in the actual destruction of the Earth and the death of tons of more people, and at that point, faced with food scarcities, some of the survivors actually decide that they want to kick the aliens off "New Earth". Now *that* is a pretty powerful motivation for even the most utopian of future societies to develop anti-alien prejudices.

By contrast, the idea that based on one flimsy piece of evidence dug up out of the ground that contradicts all of the other vast information that had been accumulated about Superman's history, the average citizen of Earth would suddenly grab his torch and pitchfork and start burning down the house of Joebob Alien that he's lived and worked beside for years just seems incredibly silly.

I like to think that, had Johns gone on to become LSH writer as was originally planned, he was going to reveal Earth Man had Universo helping him with his "Aliens Go Home" plot. *sighs dreamily for what might have been* I am almost sure he would have, and it would have been fun.

Exacerbated by the fact that many of the 'aliens' they were railing against were folk like the Braalians, Winathians and Titanians, who had pretty much been established for decades as colonists from Earth.

Yeah, some anti-Durlan hysteria isn't completely out of the question, since historical records state that they helped the Dominators and Khunds invade the Earth a long time ago, and they are kind of creepy, pretending to be friendly orange humanoids with antennae when they are really green tentacle monsters. Even Daxamites, when they oh-so-rarely leave their planet, must be existentially terrifying. A single person capable of pushing the moon down on Metropolis if the whim takes him, and, not so long ago, having been enslaved by Darkseid and sent to terrorize Earth?

But Winathians? Carggites? Rimborians? Not factually aliens, and not even remotely 'alien' or 'scary.'

Then again, this was around the time that it was asserted that Projectra's heart was in a different place (or that she had two of them?) because she was an 'alien,' so who knows what the hell Robinson and / or Geoff were thinking...

I'd forgotten about that aspect!

I'm pretty sure that even Universo's hypnosis can't make this plausible.

The only solution: Everyone in the story was on Cosmic King's space-dope!

The clue, of course, is in how strung out everyone looks in Gary Frank's artwork...

I bought the TPB of that a while back and I was just SO creeped out by the art. There was a scene where Brainiac is smiling and I was fully expecting him to have rotted out teeth from too much heroin.

AHAHAHAHA

Nice.

Anyway, I'm not too concerned with some of the absurdities of the plot or the suspension of disbelief necessary to make it work (it's implausible, but it's comics so I'll go with it).

For me it's more about the message underlying those choices, that necessitated those contrivances.

H8ers!

This was the last best Legion story! There is so much else to criticize since then !!!!

I didn't say I didn't enjoy it! I just said that the Legionnaires looked like they needed an intervention! XD

They were "suffering from exhaustion".

... as the celebrities say.

Frank does some mean *crazy eyes* too!

But his Superman looks much like Christopher Reeve. big +

Yeesh, Eryk, can I borrow some of your Cosmic King space-stash? I still have a couple of DC comics I have to read... *shudder*

I haven't got the greatest connection to the internet right now at home so haven't read through this thread so apologies if I'm just repeating what has been said before:

As much as I like Paul's take on the Legionnaires and the slow burn approach to the soap opera elements I'm sad to say the book needs a new writer to bring in fresh crazy sci-fi elements. there's a whole galaxy there waiting to be written! The only writer I know of who would have the marketing clout to do that would be Grant Morrison though I know he isn't always reliable. I just don't read enough comics these days (in fact Legion is the only one I've followed with any regularity for a few years now) so there are bound to be up-and-coming writers who could really blow our, and all the potential new readers minds with some space wacky stories.

If nothing else give it to me! I would love to write the comic for a year. Well I could wish anyway

The franchise needs another twelve part Lost story to reintroduce the gang to the wider audience - the original Lost of course in the second Galaxy, in case you wondered.

I'd not like to see another five years later (as much as the first few years of that were brilliant IMO) or re-bot - I would just give up if that happened again.

A decent regular artist who met deadlines would be great too.

As unpopular as may be to us hardcore fans initially I believe the book needs a cross-over with Superman to get the sales up. Just for two issues maybe but something to get the book into the bigger arena.

This, actually, is why the first 5-10 issues of the Waid/Kitson run are some of my favorite LSH work since the early 5YL stories. Waid's inventive vision of the future just made me feel the way I'd felt reading Levitz's stories from the '80s. It seemed to me to represent an "other" world, something beyond our current conception of the universe. Where that run failed, ultimately, was in not having an actual compelling story to tell. Or, at least, not one that long-time fans or new readers could connect to.

My feeling is that the book needs that kind of significant break from the past. Many will decry such a call for a new "reboot", but I think that the book needs to be stripped back down to basics, shorn of its history, and launched with a new vision.

I personally have been moving in the direction that HWW described, at least as far as super-hero books go. Despite their recent success at the box office, I think that super-heroes are a moribund concept. As soon as the '80s and '90s made us try to take them seriously, the doom of the genre was made inevitable. Super-heroes are an inherently ridiculous concept and taking them seriously leads to ever more spectacular suspensions of disbelief. (The Legion always had something of an out in this regard in terms of the future setting, in which a group of brave individuals were welcome to use their abilities for the good of society. The Legion, through much of its history, has operated with an official government sanction that few other groups or heroes can claim.)

Despite the presence of the word "super-heroes" in the name of the group, I think that any future iteration of the concept would be most successful as a more high-concept science-fiction comic. In all honesty, the only thing I'm committed to seeing a writer keep is the basic framework of a group of brave young adventurers with diverse super-normal abilities banding together for the good of society. It needs a writer who can imagine a future that's inspiringly fantastic and who can also write compelling, character-driven stories in that setting. So who can do that?

Grant Morrison is the first name that comes into my head. He's been the most consistently innovative comic-book writer this side of Alan Moore in the last 20 years. If Morrison were interested in settling in to write the Legion for the next ten years, I'd be buying it.

Brian K. Vaughn has demonstrated in Saga an ability to create characters, settings, and stories that are at once totally alien, yet totally relatable. It would be interesting to see what kind of stories he could tell in the LSH framework.

If the book stayed in a more super-heroic vein, Matt Fraction's work on his recent Defender's series showed a strong writer creating imaginative stories while maintaining something of a sense of humor or whimsy about the whole genre concept.

Along the same lines (and I can already hear the cries of bloody murder for even suggesting this), Mark Waid's work on Daredevil has been solidly entertaining, recalling the four-color adventures of yesteryear, while still rooting the character in the world of today. Fine. Yes, I'm a Waid partisan and I know that absolutely no one else in the whole world (probably including Waid himself) wants to see him anywhere near a Legion book ever, ever again.

Brian Azzarello's reskinning of the Wonder Woman mythos has been one of the real success stories of the New 52 for me. If he could apply that kind of imagination to a future setting, we'd really be in business.

There may be other, lesser-known writers who could pull it off. However, if it's going to work, it really needs a big name to pull in a built-in, non-LSH fanbase.

To wrap up, a quick overview of a couple of writers whom I think are wrong for the LSH:

Geoff Johns: for all his star power, he doesn't have the inventiveness to really carry the Legion forward. Conceptually, he's often mired in the past and devoted to revitalizing the comics of his youth, usually by adding a few new trappings (new ring corps!) or tweaking the old ones (the GL Corps is like the space marines now, not space cops!). He also seems to specialize in event stories: big, world-shaking set pieces that don't actually have much of a narrative arc. Yawn.

Darwyn Cooke: let me be plain-Darwyn Cooke is one of my favorite comics writer/artists working today. When I met him at the 2008 SD con, I told him that New Frontier had reminded me why I love comics. However, it's more accurate to say that it reminded me why I got into comics and that's not really what keeps me there. Cooke is, far more that Johns, explicitly a nostalgic writer. If we wanted a Legion book in the style of the early Adventure stories, Cooke would be our guy, but that's not what will make the Legion successful again.

I'm not so sure that the concept of super-heroes is stagnant, though Marvel's and DC's comic book versions seem to be.

You raise an interesting question, though, as to what a super-hero actually is and why the concept is still relevant to us today (not to mention extremely popular). I think the recent Batman and Avengers movies did a brilliant of job of showing why super-heroes still matter. There are forces of evil in the world: frightening, ugly, cruel people. Heroes of any stripe are meant to show us that "good" (however we define that term) can prevail. Super-heroes, with their iconic costumes, their super-human powers, and their masked identities, represent that side of us that still wants to make a difference, that believes we can do better, and that knows there is more to us than the person who goes to work, pays bills, and zones out in front of the tube.

The Batman films showed how a super-hero story can be effective: there was a beginning, middle, and end. The door is still open for Bruce Wayne to come back and don the cape and cowl again, but he doesn't have to. He's passed on the mantel, so to speak, to a younger, fresher hero. Bruce is, finally, happy--a state very few heroes are allowed to achieve . . . and with good reason. If the hero becomes happy, the story is over and no one will buy the next issue.

This, of course, is how the publishing industry works and has always worked: get people coming back for more. This is the archaic mindset, I think, that most publishers, certainly Marvel and DC, operate under these days.

Filmmakers, by contrast, are limited by a different set of realities: actors age, price themselves out of a project, or otherwise move on. The brilliance of the Avengers films (including the Iron Man, Cap, and Thor films) is that they've allowed for the actors to age while keeping the franchise moving forward, even though it takes years for each film to be made and released. Soon or later, though, Downey's going to want to put aside that iron helmet.

(When that happens, we may or may not see a new Avengers franchise, just as we're seeing new Spider-Man and Superman franchises. But those of us who were satisfied with the original franchises can feel free to ignore the new ones and not feel we're missing much. This is the power of telling real stories, not ongoing "arcs" that never end.)

Comics, however, exist in a never-neverland where heroes never age (or they age backwards) and nothing ever truly changes. They don't tell stories; they have events. This is what is stagnating to me, not the concept of super-heroes, per se.

You also raise an interesting point that the perhaps the Legion should be called something other than "Super-Heroes." I think this is a good point and one worth exploring, though Abnett and Lanning's version tried this approach by truncating the title of the series to THE LEGION. That title itself, I think, was not enough: The Legion of what? But perhaps the term Legion of Super-Heroes is itself antiquated and interfering with the more appealing science fiction aspects of the series. I have no idea what the series could be called instead, and I don't want to see it totally divorced from its super-hero identity, but I would like to see the Legion "progress" in some manner.

What occurs to me from the above discussion is that the concept of super-heroes will never be irrelevant, so long as there are young people (and older people with youthful idealism left in their bones) willing to embrace the concepts of 'good guys' and 'heroes.'

The last decades have seen both DC and Marvel headlined by jaded writers like Millar or Bendis who *loathe* the very concept of super-heroes and have done everything in their power to 'deconstruct' the genre and tear down the notion that someone can be a hero or have good intentions.

The audience hasn't 'moved past superheroes,' IMO, it's been deliberately weaned of the concept, through events like the rape and murder of Sue Dibney or characters like the (explicity named as such in the text) 'jack-booted thug' Ultimate Cap, who doesn't only 'not like bullies,' but actually is one.

And yet, the Captain America movie didn't flop, and full-throatedly endorsed the idea of a 'heroic' Steve Rogers, not shying away from the 'embarassing' or 'naive' or 'Silver Age' patriotism and nobility and idealism of the character. There's still an audience for super-heroes, I think, despite Millar and Bendis' best endeavors to wean us off of them and into a more grim and gritty and 'realistic' view of super-powered thugs beating each other up for morally dubious reasons.

Well said, Set.

One of my favorite scenes in the Avengers film is where Cap barks orders to the police chief. The chief initially questions, "Who are you to be giving me orders?" But after Cap defeats an alien whatsis, the chief falls into line, repeating Cap's exact orders into his shoulder phone. And Cap doesn't even look back to gloat.

That scene, to me, encapsulates all that is good, noble, and heroic about super-heroes. They are characters who know what to do and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to do it. Most of us worry about how "doing the right thing" will affect our jobs, our relationships, our popularity with our friends, or, as in the chief's case, our sense of self importance. And sometimes we're conflicted between different ideas of what's right. Super-heroes may make things a little too stark (pun not intended) by dividing the world into heroes and villains, but having a sense of moral clarity helps cut through every other consideration, including ego and fear.

Great posts by Set and HWW on embracing the nature of heroism in superhero stories and also allowing true progress and change in the stories.

"For there will always be a need for heroes..." Heroic idealism is just that powerful a concept.

Why does a franchise like the X-Men keeps going, seemingly without the Legion's problems? It's a book I read sporadically, but it seems that characters age, have their powers removed or changed in the course of big events, members come and go, switch sides, some die, some come back to life, some time travel. It's all more complex, over the course of its history, than the Legion, IMO; there have been good runs and bad runs, but has it stopped publishing at any point or been threatened by cancellation? Are X fans as grumpy or dissatisfied as Legion fans?

I really have to wonder what a company like Image would do with the Legion. It would be fascinating to speak with some of their editors and creators about the Legion concept - but that's probably never going to happen, not even to theorize.

Two or three things make the X Men a more successful and more palatable franchise.

For one, they're set in modern times -- putting characters in unfamiliar settings puts a wall between the reader and the characters, makes it harder to connect. Even before all the continuity connectivity and tie ins and crossovers, the alien future setting is going to alienate some fans of the more grounded.

For another, the Legion is inherently optimistic, a utopian ideal. Meanwhile, the X-Men fight a world that fears and hates them, riddled with racism and oppression. It's an inherently angsty set up, and people really respond to that. The Legion was born of Superman in tone, and modern america just doesn't connect to that kind of hopeful optimism; it feels childish (I wrote about that here http://heshouldreallyknowbetter.blogspot.com/2012/10/superman-dying-for-our-sins.html)

Furthermore, the X-Men line has simply been better managed to stay popular. Post-Levitz, the Legion became experimental and boutique, and then pretty bland and generally neglected. Post-Claremont, the X-Men became an artistically driven franchise on the 'cutting edge' of the 90s Image-style artist that really captured the Zeitgeist of the time. I wouldn't wish 90s X-men quality stories on the Legion - there is no doubt that no X Men run has been as good as 5 Years Later Legion save Grant Morrison's run and maybe some of the Bill S. New Mutants stuff - but that was a line that knew what to do and how to squeeze the most out of its readers, and how to attract people (and it wasn't with 'accessibility').

Finally, reboots have fractured the Legion fanbase. With the X-Men, yes, the continuity itself is arguably just as confusing, but there is a consistent-ish narrative. One can 'believe' that all the things you loved about a character or a continuity are still there. As a Legion fan, when the original Legion was gone, at least some people decided to cut out, in it more for the affection with what had happened than the affection for the concept. This, presumably, happened again and again. As comics are a pretty niche market, growing smaller in terms of new readers by the year, those lost just weren't replaced by those gained.



Image, as a company, doesn't have editors really. They don't do anything -- that's the point of Image. The creative team hires their own editors, if they have them; Image just publishes the book.

Having a creator with a strong creative vision work on the title would be amazing, but I really don't think editors interfere so much with people writing Legion stories. It feels to me that the problem is Levitz more than anyone. He's too much a fan.

Love your blog, Desaad.

The above is an excellent analysis of why X-Men remains so popular and the Legion doesn't. I was also touched by your Superman post, in which you say he represents faith and other ideals which are, unfortunately, now considered "hokey."

In another post, you nailed it on the head when you said the Legion represents "THE FUTURE" and the problem with Geoff Johns' version (and Levitz's, too, I think) is that it's too focused on the past.

One of the most unfortunate developments in popular culture over the last few decades is that belief in a better future seems naive or "childish." This belief has been replaced by some combination of cynicism for the present and wistful nostalgia for the past, as if the only recourse left to us (or to certain comics creators) is somehow recapturing the thrill of that first comic we read.

I think you're being incredibly naive if you don't think that the Legion has suffered from editorial interference for at least the past twenty-five years or so. Going back at least to the editorially-mandated "eliminate all reference to Superboy" at the beginning of the 5YL, to the editorially mandated "add Superboy into the series" towards the end of DnA's run, to Giffen's recent leaving after two issues because of conflicts with editorial, there's just too many examples of problems created by editorial fiat not to attribute at least part of the Legion's problems to it.

Of course, one of the reasons the Legion prospered early on was Weisinger's strong guidance, so "editorial interference" isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I think there are specific periods in which editorial takes a heavy hand, absolutely, but it doesn't require the kind of day to day coordination and shoehorning that a lot of other books do. I don't believe that the problem with levitz's Legion is that someone is interfering editorially - I'm pretty sure the problem is with Levitz. Now, granted, certain things happened that DID hurt Levitz, Flashpoint essentially truncating his previous mega arc, but that's more structural rather than content based.

Yes, the first Crisis necessitated all kinds of re-writes, especially once Levitz left and took whatever protection his tenure with the company might have afforded him with him. And then again in Zero Hour.

But the biggest concern of someone like Waid was not that they forced story directions on him, but that they didn't do enough to promote or communicate with him -- he was off in his own little world doing his thing, and no one told him the greater goings on.

I think that is more typical of the hands off nature of a Legion of Super-Heroes book. There aren't many opportunities for crossover, not many logical options for impact reverberations.

What do I know though.

Thanks, sir.



I agree. It says something about us as a society - how self conscious we are, how utterly afraid of disappointment, how joyless we insist on making life.

It's a sickness that I hope we grow out of.

It's actually this utopian vs. angst comparison that made me a Legion fan rather than an Xmen fan. I always found the X-men's angst off-putting. I had enough of it in my own life. When I read comics, I wanted to see a shiny, positive future. It's a big part of what attracted me to the Legion.

This is a nice summary of the point I was trying to make in my earlier post. In the '80s, the book depicted a future that seemed, technologically over the horizon. The challenge to today's Legion writer is to imagine what's over the horizon from a world where we all have a tiny touch-screen computer in our pockets. The current book isn't doing that and hasn't in years.

But I don't think that's a common response, you know? I see what you're saying and I appreciate it and feel the same way, largely, but I think it takes a little bit of innocence OR maturity to see things that way; many of us are caught somewhere in between.




Well, I'd argue that it's less a challenge and more a privilege, really. I mean, for me, that's a huge source of JOY.

And it doesn't just extend to technology, although that's a big part of it. It's endless entertainment to imagine what society might look like at that point, how worlds might develop, be colonized by humanity; wouldn't corporations be at the forefront? The Lexor system, the Googleplex world-sequence, the W8yne Technarcy...wouldn't some be colonized in the name of religion? Frontier worlds in which the Hindu Gods are REAL, their mantles taken up by early colonizers keeping their great-great-great grand children in a pre-printing press age, planets with names like "Hajj", and "Bismillah", and "Akhirah" and "New Medina". In the name of now vestigial, forgotten nations? Worlds where Portuguese, or Spanish, or Mandarin are still the Vernacular Language (though instruction in Intergalac is, of course, compulsory and indeed necessary to succeed in the intergalactic stage).

But yeah, tech is fun to imagine, too, and some of it is going to be universal and very commercial (say, "Deathless", a technology which uses the technological footprint left by a lost loved one to reconstruct his/her/it's personality, marries it to an AI, then uploads the synthesis package into a robotic replica), and some of it is going to be born of the society from which it comes and be very proprietary, especially weaponry (the Imskians making tailored gene plagues, working the very genome with microscopic hands; the Coluans building bullets with BRAINS, adapting to by the pico-second to changes in situation...even their bullets are smart, they'll say; Braalian weapons turning the very magnetic fields of planets against their inhabitants, cutting communication with iron-particulate bombs; etc).

I don't think anyone looking at this as a 'challenge' should be writing the Legion -- it shoudl be one of their great joys.

Bring back the real Legion, with Everything that went into the making of it intact. Superboy, Superman as a kid. Not Con El, not pocket earth...not mon-el as replacement...

The real, unvarnished deal.

My thoughts exactly. Unless DC gets behind it and gives it a huge creative and promotional push like Marvel's giving Guardians of the Galaxy, the Legion has no chance to be viable for any sustainable length of time.

DC is clearly moving towards a point where only JLA/Batman/Superman-related titles have a shot at succeeding. The Legion doesn't fit that profile, and if DC changes it so that it does, it probably won't resemble the franchise we've loved all this time.

Just let it rest a while. Better yet, retire it if the alternative is mediocrity and endless reboots.

Yeah. I'm that fed up.

There was a time when Marvel seemed to be floundering the same way, where only a third-tier all-but-forgotten character like Blade could be successfully franchised out into a movie.

DC seems to be going the other direction, spending all of their capital on a few big pushes (mostly Batman and Superman, which Green Lantern pretty much getting greenlit on the strength of Geoff Johns love of the character alone). This approach seems more 'all or nothing,' as a big splashy perceived failure (such as some considered Superman Returns) dampens the chance that a DC property with lesser name recognition than Superrman ever gets greenlit.

A failure by someone like Blade (or Guardians of the Galaxy) harms none of the other Marvel properties. Even a lackluster performance by a Wolverine movie (such as Origins) or an X-Men movie (X3) or a Fantastic Four movie (FF2) doesn't stop the Marvel machine.

If DC had instead tossed out some lower profile Blue Beetle / Booster Gold movie or a Birds of Prey movie, rather than focus every single egg in their basket on the success of Superman or Batman blockbusters, then I think the comic book medium would follow suit, and have more room for non Superman / Batman centric titles.

As it is, the Legion is relatively lucky, compared to other corners of the DCU (such as the Fourth World, or the Vertigo properties), since, for better or worse, the Legion has always lived or died by it's connection to Superman. Every time we see some iteration of the Legion showing up in Action or in a Superman book, it's just keeping this little section of the DCU alive.

As long as the Man of Steel movie doesn't prove as ponderous and blood-less as Superman Returns, and as long as the Legion still shows up every few years in some manner in the pages of Superman-related comics, there's still life in the old girl.

Here's the thing, though: Wolverine, X-Men and Fantastic Four are all Fox properties, movie-wise - along with Sony's Spider-Man - and have absolutely nothing to do with "the Marvel machine". They were all licensed out - along with the Ang Lee Hulk, Daredevil and Punisher, which have since reverted along with a bunch of movies that never got made like Iron Fist and Mort the Dead teenager - well over a decade ago, when the market for superhero movies was unproven and a post-bankruptcy Marvel *needed* quick cash - Marvel got a pretty bad deal in retrospect out of all of them, with little cash or control.

Marvel more-or-less bet the farm (in the form of mortgaging the rights to their own characters) in putting together Marvel Studios to do movies they would actually make money out of if they succeeded. And when Iron Man did gangbusters and Incredible Hulk did okay, they succeeded, which put them on-track to Avengers and the $4bn Disney buyout.

DC Entertainment don't have that sort of pressure, either from the licencing-out-for-quick cash front or betting-the-farm on a big loan front. Indeed, they CAN'T licence things out. And, yeah, I think the flop of Green Lantern scared them - the problem with that was Geoff Johns though. They should strip everything back there - no more Rainbow Lanterns - and run with John Stewart rather than Hal Jordan.

John Stewart over Hal Jordan... for the JL toon connection?

long time fan, read from 7 yr old in 1961 until 1970, then came back in early 80s.

So, my Legion is the orginal.

I have found this thread interesting but sad.

When I first started to collect comics back in the 80's a long time collector told me "buy them for nostalgia", not for value.

I have read and collected all since, (and collected all back, except a couple) and love them all. However nothing feels like my original, not the best of DNA or Waid. Although I cringe at the Action Superboy backups, until Grell came on board.

Paladin mentioned that DC runs off Batman/Superman and JLA. It is what saved DC in the 50's. Legion then was as much a 50's sci-fi comic, (ala Space Ranger, captain Comic,) as it was superhero.

Lots of costumes and no secret identities or masks. It is amazing it made it out of the 60's, and if not for Shooter, it would have probably gone the way of Space Knights, and Adam Strange.

Problem with all today's comics is that to survive they need the old fans to keep buying, and new fans picking the title up for the first time.

With the Big Three young fans are weened on Saturday morning cartoons and reruns of old movies. The big three have a long future, and maybe the New 52 was more about them than anything else.

That together with the lack of depth in writers spread over too many titles, is an unfixable problem

So, now that the current run is ending, I wonder how many of our thoughts and concepts from this thread will show up in a future iteration of the LSH.

At a guess, I'd say 'none', but one can always be hopeful, and I keep trying to get the word out; I've put together a lot of the disparate thoughts I expressed here (and on the 'essence' thread) into a blog post for perhaps wider access and expression.

http://heshouldreallyknowbetter.blogspot.com/2013/05/so-they-cancelled-legion.html

If anyone from DC is reading -- I've got about 50 pages of villain revamps, new heroes and villains, plot lines, character directions, and cultures/set pieces/tech...you can have them all for free! Just hit me up.

I know it will never happen, but it would be a hoot if all Legion fans out there would go out there and buy the last four issues (whether you like the current run or not) and up the sales figures from 16,000 to 20,000 to 25,000+. I know most of you guys hate Levitz and the current Legion series, but it you ever want DC to bring the Legion back as a reboot or whatever, you need to show the powers that be that there is a fan base for this title in the future.