Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Reboots Now and Then

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately, in regards to Legion fans at least, but I'd like to know if anyone could explain how they reacted towards the various reboots over the last two decades.

The Pocket Universe, the Glorithverse, the Reboot, the Threeboot, Infinite Crisis, and Flashpoint.

I mean, I came around to comics when the Threeboot was still going but Infinite Crisis was about to start, so I've only experienced Flashpoint as my major continuity reboot. How many of you spent time mad that your favorite characters were gone because of one of these continuity rewrites mentioned above?

I had stopped collecting after Tales ended, but sampled a few things after 5YL and REALLY didn't like it. Eliminating Superboy, retroactively slotting Mon-el into his place and then mucking about with a bunch of other stuff incensed me. Every time I took another look it was worse than before. When the Reboot came around I was happy to see it, because I thought there was such a mess made that it was nigh unsalvagable.

The reboot took a quality dive towards the back half of Peyer's tenure, got a bit better at the start of Legion Lost, and then went downhill FAST after that. I considered dropping The Legion several times. When the Threeboot came along, I was dissappointed, only because while I wasn't enjoying it, I didn't think it was beyond saving (Champagne's WIldfire issue was good, more please).

Threeboot (as we recently discussed elsewhere) was cool at first but quickly lost it's shine and I hated Shooter when that change happened. I wasn't terribly upset when it was deep-sixed because I thought I'd be getting MY legion back. Even in a hacky story like Lightning Saga, they were still head and shoulders above the Threebooters. I'm as frustrated as anyone that the road forward with the current team is slow going, but I don't want to lose them AGAIN. I can live with a change in direction and new blood, but a mass cull or a reboot would not be welcome.

I'm schizo on the topic.

If a reboot-ish storyline is good, and the characters are likable and compelling, then I can be swayed around, as I was with Superboy's Legion, which is easily my favorite non-classic-continuity story ever, and even exceeds my love for a lot of not-so-great classic-continuity storylines and characterizations.

But, when it comes to rebooting the classic team to make them 'grittier' or churlish or manipulative jerks or whatever (and then insanely calling that 'more realistic,' as if a team of people who are utter dicks to each other would last more than a week...), then I'm not so thrilled with it.

I found lots of stuff to love in the Reboot and the Threeboot, but often found myself far more interested in the new characters, such as Kid Quantum II or Theena, than in the 'new improved Ultra-Moron' or 'Vril Dox 2.0.' Rarer was my falling in love with new interpretations of older characters.

'Nuru Schnappin' seemed like an insult to the original character, for instance, while Reboot Dreamer and Threeboot Dream Girl both seemed like interesting developments / upgrades to 'classic' Dreamy, and I could have really gotten into further exploration of either of those versions of Dream Girl.

I guess my number one issue with reboots is that I would prefer them to build something new (such as new characters like Gazelle or Gear), instead of tearing down old characters (by making Sun Boy a traitor who later kills himself, or turning both Brainy and Cos into scheming jerks willing to destroy the team to one-up each other) or retconning previous storylines out of existence just to retell them, IMO, often, much more poorly than they were originally told.

I have kind of vague memories of being slightly annoyed once I found out that the main point of LSH #300 was to write out of continuity the "Adult Legion" stories of the 60s, though it didn't matter that much since they took place on an alternate Earth anyway and that issue pretty much rocked.

As a kid, I pretty much quit reading comics a little bit after the Crisis, so I didn't really live through the "Pocket Universe" stuff live, though I did pick up a couple of issues of the Conspiracy storyline, but I don't remember really realizing the full implications of it.

I picked up a few issues of 5YL in High School, but couldn't really follow what was going on, so I didn't really realize all the continuity craziness at the time. The SW6 series, featuring fun, younger versions of the team had much more of an appeal to me, and I don't think it bothered me at all that these were in some sense "alternate" versions of the characters.

The reboot hit right at the time I went to college, which meant it was a natural time for me to start picking up the series again. It was kind of nice to be getting back in on the ground floor, and I loved it for the first year or two, but then as the quality began to dip and I started collecting a lot of back issues as well, I began to be annoyed at how much had been lost by the decision to reboot.

By the time the threeboot came along, I was actually pretty annoyed at a lot of what had been done with the reboot team, and kind of welcomed a "fresh start". Of course, that didn't go so well.

I've been wary of the retroboot since the very beginning, as it always seemed to me pretty lame to try to shoehorn something resembling the classic Legion into the modern DC continuity, as though the square peg wouldn't have be distorted beyond recognition to fit in the round hole.

There's a side of me that still wishes we could somehow fit all the different versions of the Legion into some sort of "grand narrative" that combines at least the best bits of all of them.

Of course, my own private Legion continuity that I've got worked out in my head kicks the ass of all previous versions.

I'm a huge sap. When I found out that the Reboot legion was going away i actually broke down in tears. I kid you not. I cried. They were the only legion I'd ever known and I grew up with them and it was like my friends were dying. I'm a serious weenie. And it hurt my feelings so bad that i gave up the legion altogether until just last year.

I think my posts in this thread give a good idea of where I was at the time (tl;dr: "mostly very angry").

I started reading this title with the SW6 Batch and really liked that series. I didn't care to much for the Legion of Super Heroes that accompanied it at the time.

When the Reboot happened, I was really excited and that was the Legion I grew up with. Yes, I agree at times it wasn't the best and during the middle of its run I would have to reread the issues several times to really retain any details from the story. I also wasn't to fond of the art or many of the choices (the teams being split between two era's and then the combination of teams to go to the outpost and to stay on earth.

Then when they did the Threeboot I was pretty pissed off. I hated the look of their costumes at first. I did like the concept but i still wanted my legion back.
There were also developments I liked, like making all Titans mute was a really great choice and Atom Girl's (Vi's) attitude was a really well done.

When shooter came on, I actually started to like it and see some potential.

Then when the retroboot came in I honestly, thought about dropping the title. It just wasn't something I could get behind at first and honestly I'm still having trouble. The characters just aren't as realized as some of the other versions were. The story is too slow.

Then when Flashpoint happened...I really just was bored with the series and still am. I'm still reading out of habit I guess.

This will sound like I'm even more old and cranky than I am, but stay with me if you will.

Things have pretty much sucked since the Original Crisis in '85.

They cut the heart out of the legion then, when they removed it's origin pertaining to Superboy. Some might agree with me, some might not, and that's cool either way. But no one can deny that the train veered then, and hasn't been the same since.

I'm sure that there have been some great moments, but to me they have all kinda paled compared to the first run, which itself had down moments. I remember the excitement, the twists and turns, the spot on characterizations. Paul and Keith turned Legion into a force second only to Titans. Everything else since then has seemed lacking to me. The various reboots just seemed to take them further and further away from what they were, and what they stood for. And it's undeniable to me, but having the Real Superboy (yeah, I know...but still) gone, not a part, seemed to leave the team foundering.

And as much as Keith can energize a place.... his desire to kill main characters all the time can leave me a bit cold. If that's the best hook you have, then pretty soon, you'll have no characters to work with because everyone is dead.

As well, the attempt to make this "Brainy's Legion" with him as the rock it seems to be built on... doesn't work for me. Brainy's job is the very occasional Deux ex machina and Expostion. Not field leader.

All this is just my thoughts, the way I see it.

I have always been fine with the various reboots as, by and large, they have always managed to improve the quality of the series.

I am not sure I would count the original Crisis as a reboot per se but will agree that it was a divergence from what had come before. But even this led to an improvement in the series as IMO the book had started to meander a bit and death of Superboy leading into the Conspiracy story gave it a much needed shot in the arm.

Same for the Zero Hour changes, as rough as they were at the very beginning, were still markedly better than the Legion on the Run story that had preceded them. It also gave the writers an opportunity to refresh some stagnant characters and to introduce some new ones which is never an easy thing in the Legion as everybody has their favourite characters and nobody wants to see them sidelined or eliminated completely but it is occasionally necessary and rebooting is often the easiest and least painful way to do that.

The same for the Threeboot when it came along was a breath of fresh of air after the reboot team had been run into the ground following the end of the DNA run (the Wildfire on Qward story aside) and the frankly dreadful Legion/Titans special. This was a far more radical change than the previous one and seemingly put a lot of people off. But even this had enough anchor points to previous Legions to satisfy long term fans especially when Shooter came back and started to write them more like the original team but still in this largely new setting. Given time I do think he may have got the balance between old and new close enough to satisfy most people.

Unfortunately we will never know as the retro boot happened which is the one reboot I am not so keen on as it just seemed so unnecessary and caused more problems than it solved. On the face of it the reasoning is sound; bring back the original team in their original costumes (at first at least) and everybody will be happy. Unfortunately though too much time had passed, a whole new generation of fans had grown up with the subsequent teams who had no real affinity to the classic characters and too many holes had opened up their history so nobody was really sure what had happened when and to whom. So you ended up with the classic fans unhappy because these were little more than facsimiles of their team and the re&threeboot fans were unhappy as they were not their teams at all.

Everybody lost the book became confused, started to meander and shedding readers left right and centre until we are where we are now 16,000 monthly sales and everybody gearing up for another sweeping change or jumping off before its too late.

So yes, on the whole, reboots can be good and worthwhile when they freshen up the story and introduce new characters. But if, like the last one, they are ill thought out then they can bring a book to its knees in no time at all.

Some can be. But with all the reboots, Legion has become the Hawkman of team books. Each one seems to cut a little bit more heat and soul out of the book. that's happened here. Like I said, no doubt there were some good moments here and there, but as a hole, I think not everyone would agree that each reboot has done something good. Different views for all of us.

Each era's had its ups and downs for me. The original Levitz/Giffen run is a cherished memory, but I actually dropped the book a couple of times in the middle of the Baxter run. Paul seemed to have run out of steam and I so hated the Laroque/Decarlo art team. The 5yl storyline came along as I was starting college and the shift to a more mature storytelling style suited my own growing maturity. That run stayed on track until the end of the Terra Mosaic, at which point the Mordru storyline with the zombies and the Legion on the Run thread just totally took the wind out of its sails. The last issue of that run, with the double-page spread of Legion memories leading to white pages evoke the same reaction in me that Conjure Lass described above. I still get choked up reading that page. I gave the Reboot a few issues to convince me that it was an acceptable substitute, but the love triangle between the founders put me off and I stopped reading the book for almost five years. I started reading it again just before DnA came on board and picked up all the issues I'd missed. I was more impressed on that second look and actually found the Reboot, as a whole, to be very enjoyable. DnA, in contrast, ruined what I saw as the best aspect of the Reboot, which was the bright shiny tone of the book and I always found DnA's long-term plotting to be way to heavy on the galaxy shattering crises. Many here will know that I'm a champion of sorts of the Threeboot or WaK Legion. I still love the conceptual work that they did, but even I can admit that the story they were trying to tell was a bit lofty for us low-brow comic readers. It ultimately didn't have any narrative drive to it. However, Bedard and Shooter added exactly nothing to that drive and told really boring, pointless stories that, lacking even the conceptual underpinnings of the WaK run, are utterly forgettable segments of Legion history. The Retroboot has been a disappointment all around. I'd hoped that Levitz would have a more compelling story to tell, but it seems like he's using that talent for World's Finest, which has been exciting and fun, in contrast to the Legion which has been plodding throughout.
We discussed in another thread what the next step for the Legion might be. Whatever DC does, I hope something happens soon.

Pocket universe: That was about the point I was ready to quit the Legion because of the retcon (I had just rejoined it with V3 #17). I didn't, though. I liked the Legion a lot at that point side from the editorially-enforced pocket universe story and I still think the entirety of V3 is better than Paul's work now. The Anti-Lad story, which was my first Legion story, seemed very ironic in hindsight when Superboy was actually erased from history.

V4 is not technically a reboot, but I got disgusted with it as being, basically, fanfiction (just like modern Doctor Who is fanfiction). I don't think I quite dropped it though. When I was a kid, and stopped getting comics, up to when I rejoined the Legion, it had been around five years, and comparing that actual five year gap to the "five year gap" was instructive. The things that had changed during the real five year gap were of a vastly different nature than what had changed during the "five year gap".

With the reboot I sighed and didn't think the old Legion would ever come back. I bought it for a few years and eventually gave up out of boredom (rather than out of being averse to retconning). When I got these issues later as back issues they seemed much better when they weren't all the Legion there is. I only ever got DnA as back issues.

I didn't do anything for the threeboot but I started getting the Legion again with Shooter's return. It seemed too far from the Legion I knew.

I was glad that Infinite Crisis allowed the return of what was basically the old Legion, but it didn't last long before the whole DCU got rebooted. And now we have 1) continuity holes because of the rebooting of the DCU, and 2) consistently mediocre writing, which I'm really afraid is going to result in someone trying to do another reboot or V4 (which can be vastly worse than mediocre writing).

Like Omni, I started reading the Legion with the SW6 batch. But they didn't capture my imagination (perhaps because of the large amount of backstory - wtf Earth is dead????).

Like Omni and Conjure Lass, I grew up with the Postboot Legion and while I did get a bit bored at times, I always adored them. Always thought it would be so cool to be one of them. You can imagine I was really mad when they were unceremoniously tossed into the timestream.

I did read the Threeboot, but only with a heavy heart and the hope that a year or two in "my" Legion would show up and take over the book.