Start saving your pennies now for:


THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES: THE SILVER AGE OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC
Written by OTTO BINDER, JERRY SIEGEL, EDMOND HAMILTON and others
Art by AL PLASTINO, CURT SWAN and others • Cover by J. BONE
The tales that introduced the teen-team known as the Legion of Super-Heroes are collected in an Omnibus Edition for the first time! Don’t miss these stories from the pages of ADVENTURE COMICS #247, #267, #282, #290, #293 and #300-328; ACTION COMICS #267, #276, #287 and #289; SUPERMAN #147; SUPERMAN ANNUAL #4 and SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #72, #76; and SUPERBOY #86, #89, #98 and #117.
On sale AUGUST 2 • 680 pg, FC, $75.00 US


Did we have any idea this was coming?

It is 680 pages...that is a Harry Potter size book then. I need to create more space on my bookshelf. It sounds like a great buy for those who don't have the physical issues anymore. Is the quality similar to the Archives?

Finally! Thanks for the heads up!

So the first few Archives in one volume (For the cover price of one Archive)? Great news for people who don't have the Archives. Anyone have some of the bigger DC Omnibuses? How's the quality/binding?

This is great news! Especially for someone like me who's just been caressing the Archives in bookshops for years until I work up the courage to commit to buying them all.

And here's some even better news:

Amazon Prime has it on sale for 51% off the regular price - $37.11 down from $75.00.

https://www.amazon.com/Legion-Super...;linkId=fe9d78ffbc7cdb4b4736105c7daac0ce

I'm not sure how long the sale will last but it's probably better to strike fast if you're interested. I'll be getting mine today.

Per this Bleeding Cool post, a whole bunch of other DC Omnibuses are also on sale:

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03/02/batch-dc-comics-omnibuses-drop-50-off-amazon/

I'm thinking I might get some of them too.

Thanks for the heads-up, Blacula. I've definitely got my eye on "Flash: Silver Age Omnibus, Volume 2." If the Adventure-era Legion are my favorite DC Silver Age ongoing feature, then the summit of the Broome/Fox/Infantino/Schwartz Flash is a not-too-distant 2nd.

^ You've talked me into it FL! I've been umming and ahhing about picking up those 2 Silver Age Flash Omnibuses and that was just the inspiration I needed.

Oh, wonderful.

Thanks, Blacula, that certainly brightens my day.

I hope the Flash Omnibuses at least get to the early 200s, because the origin issue of Iris is nigh-impossible to find at ANY PRICE!

Which issue # is that in FL? I have a few issues of the early 200s Flash that I haven't read yet (I'm planning to do a big DC re-read one day once I've filled as many of the gaps in my DC collection as I'm comfortable with).

I agree that that period in Flash history is hella expensive though!

Blacula, I think it's 204, but I'm not 100% sure.

Shall we continue this vintage-Flash discussion in the freshly BUMP-ed Barry Allen thread in Gy'mll's so as not to incur the wrath of On-Topic Angel?

I just looked it up online and it's #203. Darn - I own #202 and a bunch of others nearby.

I can see why it's expensive though. Beyond the Iris origin story, it's also one of the few DC comics from that period that had a photo cover:

https://www.comics.org/issue/24018/cover/4/

I was just reading an article somewhere recently about who and how and why those covers were created.

I'll be more able to contribute to the Flash thread once I've read the issues.

So those of you who are like me and are loving DC's newish line of Golden, Silver and Bronze Age Omnibuses will be equally excited to hear that a second volume has been released for our beloved Legion of Super-Heroes:

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-nov...ibus-2017/the-legion-of-super-heroes-t-0

Can't wait.

Bound to be better quality than the Adventure digests (which is what I have).

I may be elsewhere, apologize if it is, but... are the omnibus' in color?

It's in color, Rick. Don't have one myself because I have all the Archives, but I've seen confirmation. I haven't seen DC do any B&W omnibuses unless the original material was like that. The Showcase collections are a different animal.

So, I do own LSH Omnibus vol 1 (hardcover). Not only is it in color as Paladin says, it is in my opinion pretty high quality as far as quality of the paper and brightness of the colors. In fact, I would say the quality is similar to the archives, perhaps identical, perhaps even a tad better. The point is, it's quite close. Also, given the size of the book, the binding appears to be pretty sturdy.

My only complaints are:
1) god-awful choice for the picture on the dust-jacket cover
2) The covers of the comics in which the stories appear are not always included. However, the Table of contents does make it clear which issue each story comes from, and they do tend to re-print the key covers... many early Action/Adventure comics
featured covers that did not show the LSH anyway.

I decided to buy this rather than go back and get the archives, many of which are now quite (if not prohibitively) expensive!! As I just posted elsewhere, I did buy Archive #13 because Omnibus covers Archives 1-3 *exactly*, and I reasoned they would have covered archive 12 by the 4th Omnibus and then likely not be inclined to add another to cover a single archive that is the most recent one anyway.

HOWEVER, per announcement from Blacula above (made of course since my purchases), Omnibus Vol 2 goes just PAST archive 6, so they may end up covering archive 13 by the 4th Omnibus... if they make that many!

I thought that a Legion Omnibus was something Dr Mayavale drove around in...

I've added this to my little wishlist. It's not cheap here, but it's much better value than what I forked out for the Legion of the Damned TPB a few months ago.

Actually, I ended up giving that to someone to give me it back for Christmas, so technically it was great value

I actually really like the art they're using on the covers of these Golden, Silver, Bronze Age Omnibi. It's suitably fun and colorful and hopeful (much like the stories contained therein) IMO.

I can also confirm that these Omnibi... Omniboo... (what is the correct term for this?) are in full color and have received excellent binding. The quality of the reproduction is excellent all round actually. I can't imagine how this collection could ever be improved unless it was with full creator annotations and commentary or something.

As for the missing covers, that's only for those issues where the Legion appeared in a back-up story and didn't appear on the cover. At first I didn't like this omission but the more I think about it, the more sense I think it makes to not have a Legion story behind a completely unrelated cover featuring Superboy accusing Pa Kent of being a robot or something. That would just confuse those readers who don't know the Legion's publishing history and can't understand why the cover's contents don't appear in the story.

There will be three volumes of the Silver Age Legion Omnibus - likely ending around the end of the Action backup run. Then a new series will start called Bronze Age Legion Omnibus (assuming DC goes the same route as they have for Justice League, Titans, etc). This series would pick up with the Cockrum/Grell era archive content and keep going through the content in the two Superboy and the Legion hardcovers (basically archives in all but name) released in 2017 and 2018. Now whether DC eventually collects the run from Legion 260 up to the GDS in some format remains to be seen.

Thanks for clarifying, Colossal Boy! For me, the key thing is that, assuming you are correct about the Bronze Age Omnibus, there is now definitely no reason to pay out the nose for the out-of-print archives if all I want is a read copy for my shelf.

Right. There's an app 10 month gap between the release of Silver Age Legion Onmi V1 and V2, so if that pace continues or even shortens some going forward (and sales stay good and I have no reason to think they would not) it would only be a few years until all of the Silver Age Legion and most of the Bronze Age Legion material will be in omni format.

Hey, the amazon pre-order/ad for LSH omnibus 2 is out:

https://www.amazon.com/Legion-Super...-1&keywords=dc+comics+legion+omnibus

INTERESTINGLY, per your comment, CB, it now goes just PAST where the 6th DC archive would go (though by only 2 issues..).

In order to link up with the current hardcover series, it has to make up 10 issues in 4 archives, (unless they do 5, in which case they will get smaller), as it must go thru S&LSH 233.

Assuming they do go to a "bronze age" series, it will be interesting to see where they cut... I think the Action run starts near the end of 1969 and were 15 cents, so to me those are Bronze Age, but with only 20 issues left in the Adventure run, that would be awfully small compared to the other omnibuses, so I assume as you (CB) do that they will put Action there (in V3). If they are interested in catching up within 4 omnibuses, they should also cram all the random Superboy appearances in V3 (before the series starts at #197), but that is they getting WAY into the Bronze age.

Maybe they could justify calling the 3rd omnibus Bronze Age?

ALSO: to those asking about quality, I recently ordered the Teen Titans Omnibuses (silver and Bronze age + two vols of New TT, which FINALLY clears up what had been a complete snarl/tangle of never-quite complete collections.. be sure to get the NEW editions of the omnibuses though, the old ones are incomplete!), and they are both of extremely high quality, have complete tables of contents, and include ALL the covers.

Side note: that Nick Cardy (Bronze age TT artist) was REALLY under-appreciated... anyone know if he ever do any issues of LSH? that would be a wonder to behold...

I am almost done reading the Vol 1 SA Omnibus - this is probably some of the best comics $$$ I've ever spent.

Such a good read to see the evolution of the early days of the LSH.

I absolutely love these stories.

It is a good comics investment. I got the Archives as they came out and discovered lots of Legion stories I missed as a kid. Whether they're ridiculous or wildly creative, those stories are worthy of multiple re-reads.

Oh definitely - the beginnings of the relationships and early story arcs, just amazing.

Revolt of the Female Legionnaires, though.... Yeesh! That one was kind of radioactive! EDIT - Just for clarification, radioactive in a HORRIBLE sense!

Agreed, that story is horrible.

But it that one's radioactive, then a later similar one, the Thora one, is downright thermonuclear.

Oh my. I'll keep a lookout. I'm starting on the second Omni tonight.

To me, the Thora story ends up being hilarious. It's just so bad and has aged so poorly that I can't help but laugh. It feels like 17-year-old Shooter's mom told him to go clean his room, so he wrote a story where Supergirl is so horrified at the mere thought of Brainy cleaning floors she snaps out of mind control.

Well, I have to admit to laughing at the over-the top nature of the girls blowing away the boys' statues in the earlier story, but the rest of it is just soooo horrid (Femnaz? REALLY?), so I'm really curious to see what cranky Shooter has in order.

What cracks me up is how over-the-top toxically masculine the Femnazi women are.

also the planet name. Femnaz, really? Lol

Yeah that was a Jerry Siegel story... SMH

LOL

So I'm there. The Thora story is in the third Omnibus.

And yeah, its pretty horrible on a lot of levels. Lots of head shaking on my part - not only for the portrayals of the female Legionnaires, the reason why Supergirl breaks out of Thora's control but also the really bad resolution at the end. WTF, Shooter???

That being said, I was fascinated with the fact that the idea of Violet having size control powers in both directions and Luornu having the Duplication power is introduced in 1968.

Maybe its just the whole Femnaz thing from the earlier issue, but I found that one to be more problematic (which may just be due to the current political climate) but they're both really horrible stories. Third place goes to the story where the girls basically go to the Red Tent Quarantine World.

One thing I didn't mention before about the Thora story is that I think Shadow Lass came off particularly bad in it, to the point where it might have permanently damaged her status with fandom.

When she was introduced in the second Fatal Five story, she was awesome. Then, in the Mordru story, she accidentally set free the most dangerous sentient in the galaxy. And her behavior in the Thora story appears to have been the final nail in the coffin.

During the 70s and first half of the 80s, she'd be under-used to an absurd extent, culminating with (what I consider) a horrible make-over by Giffen.

In the second half of the 80s, the make-over was undone by Steve Lightle (Gods bless his soul,) and she finally showed some of the old grit towards the end of the Baxter Era, after Mon-El was fatally wounded by the Time Trapper.

But in the end, the stifling paternalism of the 5YL Era (Ayla & Vi excepted) and that horrible burned-alive scene during End of An Era gave her Preboot iteration a most disgraceful exit.

To reiterate, I blame the Thora story.

Well, I agree about the Shadow Lass intro being awesome in the Fatal Five story. Lots of good stuff there (except for the pining for Brainy).

But, yeah, she isn't written well in the next two stories for sure.

I dunno why Shooter takes this anti-female focus all of a sudden - it's just very much in your face here after having a lot of decent team stories for a year or so. It comes off bad.

Also, as I understand it, Shadow Lass was initially intended to be African American, but they changed her skin to be blue, cause that's how DC rolled in the 60s. And 70s. And.... ah nevermind.

I'd say the "created to die" problem had a much more negative impact on Shady than any single bad portrayal.

I also heard that the origin that had been intended for her was nearly identical to the one eventually given to Tyroc. Either way, I'm glad they decided to make her racially ambiguous, because that way anybody can interpret her as being coded in their own way. For instance, I'm Latinx, so I regard Shadow Lass as a coded Latinx.

And, quite honestly, I liked her pining for Brainy in her introductory appearance.



That, too. Not to mention Levitz compounding the problem during the early part of his 80s run, just because of a stupid error that a DC colorist made! It's that kind of fan-wank that makes me consider Levitz way overrated (and I was once a tremendous fan.)

So are we saying "created to die" due to the fact that she was shown (with Ferro Lad and Chemical King) as a fallen Legionnaire in the Adult Legion story?

The lack of diversity in the Legion has, to me anyway, always been its achilles heel. In a lettercol shortly before her introduction, a writer specifically calls out the lack of AA representation in the Legion and the editorial response is basically "watch what we're doing soon!" Because yeah, the original idea (as I understand it) was that Talok was going to be a planet colonized by people of African descent to explain the lack of diversity in the books (even in the crowds), and for Tyroc they just changed it to an island.

I get that it was the sixties and that DC didn't want to jeopardize its distribution network, but its a horrid look, and it wasn't addressed very well even through the 70s.

Yep. The fact that her first appearance was as a dead Adult Legionnaire heavily shaped the perception of the character. Even after the Levitz twist to save her from that fate in #300, there were still letters along the lines of "she's destined to die, so why not just kill her already?"

On diversity, there's three basic options. You either a) change the racial characteristics of existing characters; b) retcon in a bunch of additional diverse characters; or c) invent some artificial reason for the lack of diversity. All three approaches have their problems.

The "planet colonized by Africans" actually reminds me a lot of what they did with Starhaven.

They do all have their problems, yes, but I still favor "Retcon In a Bunch of Additional Diverse Characters."

Agree, I thought the same about Starhaven not long after I clicked the Post button.

And it seems like option b (I'll call this the "Kid Quantum" option) is the less horrid approach. You'd think they just would have started slipping in diverse folks in the background and a couple new characters without issue, but I'm approaching 1967 mentality with a 2021 brain.

Exactly. Pop culture from the distant past is what it is. That's why I think the Legion is best treated as an artifact from another time. I say to DC, just give us the "Classic Legion" and stop trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole.

LOL - "Distant Past" - those issues are only a year or so older than me, so that's a pretty accurate description!

I'm no spring chicken myself. But that's all right, because I wouldn't go back to being 27 or 17 or 7 for anything! (Okay, maybe 27...)

Yeah, totally 27 - with some specific knowledge to do a FEW things differently!

Yeppers.

"If I knew then what I know now...et cetera..."

So I finished the third Silver Age Omni. But as far as I can tell, there's a big gap from a collections perspective from the last story (Action 392) to the next Superboy issue in a collection which seems to be 234. There's a lot of good content from Superboy 271ish where the Legion starts in the backups, to the 230s, but as far as I can tell there is no collected edition of any of those stories.

Can anyone confirm?

EDIT - I confirmed myself. THere are the editions from the late 90s that have these, seems to be Volumes 10, 11 & 12, but Amazon doesn't make it easy to confirm. It would be great if there were cheaper options!

Yeah, the Omnibuses are basically replacing the long out-of-print DC Archives (as I recall there's 13 total), but haven't yet covered them all, and the recent Superboy and the LSH hardcovers basically pick up from where the Archives left off, so there's going to be a gap there.

What EDE said.

I would only add that Volume 10 has all the Dave Cockrum* stories in it, so that one's well worth saving up for.






*Or, rather, DAVE EFFING COCKRUM, to use the nickname Pal-Lardy coined for him a few years ago.

The gap bugs me so much. I've managed to accidentally collect the first part of the silver age three times over (I had the first couple showcase volumes, I picked up the first silver age trade when it came out, and then I finally got the omnibuses), but there's such a huge amount that's out of print and I can't find anywhere.

Yeah, its like five or six years' worth. Most of these comics aren't even digital at this point. I think DCI has issue 200, then 222, but nothing from the backup issues after the last of the Silver age comics. They seem to be more consistent after 222.

I will add, that its fascinating to me, reading all these stories in 2021, that Editorial machinations with comic books in general, and the Legion in particular have literally been going on longer than I've been alive.

Oy, don't even get me started(!!) (too late! )

I don't know why they have shifted focus from backfilling the earlier volumes to instead filling in the recent(ish, 90s+) history... maybe they thought it would help more with sales of the current title? (if it even still exists?), but as Ann Hebistand alludes to above, the next volume (which I presume would be BRONZE AGE Legion Omnibus #1), would have contained the ENTIRETY of the Dave Cockrum run. It will be a crime if they never get to this key turning point in the Legion's publication history.

IMHO, Dave Cockrum single-handedly rescued the Legion and was responsible for their surge in popularity in the mid-late 70s.

A lot people give Grell a great deal of credit for that, but really he just went with Cockrum's improvements/style and ran with it,... and ran quite a bit too far, if you ask me (70s Cosmic Boy costume and Colossal Boy with no pants but still with headgear? Tyroc's "Peter Pan in chains" costume? augh!). Other than those horrific misfires (and Dawnstar, which could start a whole debate but I'll just leave it, and Saturn Girl, which was an ill-fated editorial decision to permanently go with a reader-suggested costume), the rest of the "new" costumes for the 70s Legion were all tasteful, and ALL from Cockrum. Plus Cockrum gave different characters subtly different faces and hair, unlike Grell's "every guy has the exact same ridiculous sideburns" style. I also prefer Cockrum's sci-fi backgrounds, although to be fair Grell was good at that also.

I think the good news is of course that since Silver AGe Omnibus Vol 3 came out I am pretty sure less than 2 years ago (still fairly new!), there is still a pretty decent chance (especially if everyone speaks up about it!) that we might, before long, see Legion Bronze Age Omnibuses come out to bridge that gap to S&LSH #234. It certainly is frustrating that this missing period has the most expensive DC Archives volumes.... not sure if that is because of lower print runs, or more demand (this was true even BEFORE the Silver Age Omnibuses were released, BTW). But if it is at all the latter, that should clue in someone at DC that the Bronze Age Omnibuses are worth publishing! (I am assuming 2 of them to get to #234, but you could imagine one really big one also.)


In the meantime, I will keep googling "Legion Bronze Age Omnibus" and hoping I get a true hit.

I hear you!!

A couple things to unpack on what you've said based on your great comments. The collections that Ann was talking about above are the ones from the late 90s that contain fewer stories than the latest Omnis. Regardless, they are out of print, so therefore pricey. Unfortunately.

As to why we aren't seeing any new collections, I don't know. I've asked around myself and the most common thing I've heard for more current news is that due to the AT&T divestiture and the resulting layoffs, there is no headcount to make it happen. And there are several more collections to go: The Cockrum/Grell Legion, a third and/or fourth collection of the reboot (hopefully not the McAvennie stuff), and at least a couple more volumes of DnA to round out the reboot era. The retroboot and current book released collected editions within the last 10 years.

They were OK with publishing the Grell designs in 2017, so the earlier stuff should be no problem if they have the staff.

Perhaps we could circulate my copy of Volume 10 among us? I have all my favorite Cockrum stories in floppies, so if anything were to happen to it, I'd be okay.

That's a wonderful offer, but I wouldn't want your (valuable now) book to be damaged, or especially lost, by the likes of the postal service!

The stories can be found pretty easily for free online, if it were just a matter of reading them.

It's typical of long-running series like the Archives that later volumes would have lower print runs, and would thus presumably be scarcer. I imagine 13 is especially rare, being published near the end of the whole Archives program.

Well, this discussion has inspired me to consider the possibility of making some $$$$$$ by selling my copies of Volumes 11, 12, and 13 on Ebay.

As with Cockrum, I have my favorite Grell stories in floppies. And, to be quite honest, I think that, despite some very nice art by Grell and Netzer and Sherman, that era just doesn't hold up well.

I'll keep Volume 10, though. That one's special.

Yeah, I've heard the stories aren't all that consistent in quality. But, it'd be good to at least read them in order.

I didn't even think about looking at something like the superblogger site, that's a great idea EDE.

Yeah, Cockrum had a ton of interesting ideas to build stories around, which make the issues at least memorable even when the writing is sometimes a bit iffy.

Vols. 11-13 contain a lot of issues that are just kind of there. There are definitely gems, like #212, but, overall, Shooter's second run is much less interesting than his first, and Levitz's first run is much less interesting than his second.

Thank you for the kind words, GL, and thank you for easing my concern about the legal issues and for informing all of us about the unfortunate reduced headcount issue. I did not know that. At least that is something that we could hope would be reversed over time, unlike a legal block. One would hope that if the potential profit from producing more volumes offsets hiring people back, that they would... but then, we are also living in the first ever labor shortage that *I* can recall...

I am familiar with the out-of-print 90s "DC archives", and in fact I did get impatient and purchase volume 10 about a year ago, thinking it might only go up in price even more. I got a reasonable (but not "good") deal on ebay, paying only roughly double the original cover-price, but I work long hours and figured I deserved to indulge myself a little.

HOWEVER, I am still anxious for a Bronze Age Omnibus for several reasons:
1) The old "DC archives" pages are reduced size. I am not sure by how much (feels like about 85% or so of the original), but as I have just reached the age where I need reading glasses and before long might probably need prescription lenses, the reduced size is annoying.
2) while I at least partially agree with Ann Hebistand's comment above that the stories right after the Cockrum run are often weak (I would call them "inconsistent"), there are several gems, and some of these are historically important, such as the death of Lyle Norg, and the first even mention of Legion clones in #206. Speaking of which...
3) I think it would be nice if the Legion fandom community were as familiar with these stories as they are with the Adventure run. S&LSH #206 *in particular*drives me crazy because (spoilers if you haven't read!) 4) I would just like for everyone else to be able to read these great stories, and complete the "classic" (well, pre-TMK) Legion run, without having to break the bank by paying collector's item prices. The rest of the run leading up to #234 has the 1st Infinite Man, the death of Chemical King, the intros of Dawnstar and Tyroc, and several perennial "rejects" (Infections lass, porcupine pete, etc.) Not to mention the intro of Wildfire by Cockrum.

Anyway, hopefully it will happen eventually. It hasn't been so long that I am giving up hope yet.

Well, there is still a chance it may happen. We did get word this week that DC will release a second omni for the 5YL era that will effectively round out that run and include Valor up to the end of Zero Hour.

And I completely agree - there are a lot of concepts in the Cockrum era (i.e. 70-78) that inform some of what came later in the 80, the later reboot, as well as a lot of classic introductions. I just signed up for DCU Infinite to try and catch up, but it only really starts with S&LSH 222, missing many years of Legion stories.

Good point about the potential link between SLSH #206 and Batch SW6. I have to admit I completely missed that too. Of course End of an Era went down a different path but it certainly could have fitted with postulating prior to that.

I thought there was a letter about that during the TMK Era. I definitely remember someone making the point that, if SW6 were clones, they the Dominators or Dark Circle or whoever must have much more successful cloning tech than the Legion.

I feel like the SP kind of put a spoiler into clone tech on Earth / in the UP to keep it from running wild with everyone making a dozen clones of themselves and having whole clone families.

But the Dark Circle has historically been crawling with clones, and they were sometimes active for decades, so clearly they are using tech developed elsewhere (quite possibly by the Dominators!), or have hacked it and removed whatever spoiler the SPs built into it (or developed it past whatever bizarre restriction makes the clones poof in 24 hours, in any event).

Tom Bierbaum on the SW6 clones from his It's OK I'm a Senator Blog:

We then remind readers that Valor has found evidence that the Dark Circle had obtained Legion genetic material back in the Adventure days and planned to grow an "Unkillables" version of the Legion for their own use. And for the first time as I writer this, it's occurring to me that according to the timeline of this Legion universe we were writing, our younger "SW6 Legion" popped up after a gap of 17 years in Legion continuity, which gave the Dark Circle or the Dominators or anybody else roughly the right amount of time they needed to clone and grow up their own Legion replicas, avoiding that illogical quality of most comic-book clones - that they're somehow "born" as old as the original person from which they've been cloned. That 17 years is total coincidence, simply the number of years of Legion continuity that had occurred from the point in Legion history I wanted to draw the SW6 Legion from. I suggested that point because I wanted Ferro Lad in the SW6 Legion, not because I was counting the years or anything. And yet it's very close to the perfect amount of time someone would need to grow and age their own Legion to the proper point. Funny that I don't believe that ever occurred to me before.

Somewhere else (couldn't find it) I recall speculation or suggestion that the Dominators had the advanced tech necessary to perfect the cloning technique - it may have been the letter EDE mentions.

I'm far less bothered by the idea that clones could be grown to the appropriate age super-quickly, than I am at the idea that they would have all of the memories/personality of the original. That seems to me far more unrealistic (though obviously explanations can be invented in a universe with a whole world full of telepaths, for example).

Actually, I mainly thought lack of concern in the batch-SW6 storyline over the events from SLSH #206 did not seem plausible, although any such omission can I suppose be attributed to something not mentioned in the 5-year gap...still an awkward omission, though.

But yeah, replicating memories/personality is something far more than "cloning", while the idea that normal cloning would still be a challenge 1000 years in the future seems a bit ludicrous, given that we can already, right now, clone if we really wanted (obviously we don't for ethical reasons of high failure rates, but Dolly the Sheep happened 25 years ago, and we can now edit DNA of pre-embryonic mice and could with other species if warranted).

But that was definitely not true at the time of SLSH #206, and not even quite yet at the time of SW6 storyline.

But what they (whomever it was fictionally) did for SW6 was really: a) cloning + b) rapid aging, + c) mind transfer

I guess it is still believable that b) would lead to the survivability issue in #206 (Set's explanation of a spoiler put in by the SPs also could make sense), and that c) might be something only the Dominators or Dark Circle had mastered. (But then, I am sure there must be tons of "mind transfer" storylines in LSH history? I can't think of any off-hand, but I am sure there must be...)

But as Tom B points out, you don't actually need the rapid aging for SW6, because of the time gap between when they are from and when they appear. So if the rapid aging is what's responsible for the self-destructing, that would actually solve that problem.

That 's an undeniably good point. I still feel it warranted a mention. Oh well.

ironically, the SW6-ers were eventually wiped out anyway by Zero Hour (or, to break the 4th wall, being rebooted. I dare someone to execute a reboot but then still have multiple versions of the team after the reboot due to cloning. )