Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Hickman on Legion Speculation

Newsarama is pairing Jonathan Hickman's tease for working at DC with his previously admitted desire to work on the Legion. Thoughts? I don't read Marvel so I have no idea what Hickman's like.


http://www.newsarama.com/28536-hickman-teases-involvement-in-dc-s-rebirth.html

He does East of West, also did Pax Romana, Red Mass for Mars and Nightly News for Image - all of which I enjoyed. Different - but dark, dark. I didn't get into his FF work. "Destroy another superhero universe" doesn't leave me with a warm & happy feeling, but I bet he'd produce something interesting for the Legion.

From what I've read (and that's far from exhaustive or recent), there's lots of nice big scope science ideas. The execution of which can vary. Pacing has also been an issue and the characters can just get caught along for the ride of ideas, rather than being what the book revolves around.

I have mixed feelings about the work I've read. There is definitely a big vision behind it, but the pacing can be erratic (in reading his Avengers stuff, I found myself thinking I missed an issue somewhere).

BUT I would love a new LSH book and he's got a big enough name to bring new fans.

I hate, hate, HATE Jonathan Hickman's writing. He has talent and he's smart, sure, but he's TOO smart, to the point where whenever I read his superhero work I get the impression that he looks down on superheroes. If he were to write the Legion, I wouldn't even give him a first-issue trial, sad to say.

The only thing I'm familiar with is the beginning of his Avengers run, which started out really promising, but then just kind of lost my interest.

It reminded me a lot of DnA's Legion run, with both the good and the bad that that entails.

The irony is, I was thinking just the other night how much I loathe Hickman's writing. This is like my worst comics-related nightmare come true. The people running DC just can't seem to get anything right!

I think the DnA Legion comparison is unfair, EDE, because I don't think Hickman could ever write anything as compact and propulsive as Legion of the Damned, and I think if he tried something like Legion Lost it would take three times as many issues and be one-third as satisfying -- and I'm being generous there!

If Hickman's entire schtick is destruction of superhero universes, what will he do now since DiDio and company already beat him to it?

LOL

I needed a good laugh. Thanks, KK.

I'll cast a "YAY" vote for Hickman on the Legion. I kinda buy his stuff hook, line and sinker, although I agree that characterization often gets lost in the shuffle, which would definitely be a problem on any Legion book I would want to read. It's the scope of what he tries to do, he is so ambitious, and I like ambition... better to be interesting and fail than to be boring, at least for me. I found him when Nightly News came out and have followed him ever since. I haven't loved everything that he has done, but I thought the Avengers run was epic, and I loved what he did with the FF. East of West is one of my current favorite titles, hands down. As far as things I don't like, Manhattan Projects is too flip for me, and the other more recent Image launches have gone nowhere. I would be very excited to see what he might do on the Legion.

Like a few others, I've really been impressed and loved his independent / Image work. He's a fantastic writer, and is really intelligent. He also does a great job with science-fiction concepts and makes them feel fresh with an original take.

Currently, I stopped following East of West but I love Manhattan Projects and continue to do so.

For his Marvel work, it's been a little more hit and miss. I actually enjoyed his Fantastic Four a lot and especially once he was done telling his "epic tale" and told several really great one-off single issues at the tail end of his run. I did not enjoy his Avengers at all though and thought is eventually became impossible to read. I hope he's learned from those mistakes if he does indeed take over the Legion.

I really loved his SHIELD series (which never finished?). He really has a great handle on using other eras / time travel in his work, and that would be a great benefit. His Pax Romana is really raw and fresh and is a good example of that.

Related news coming from Wonder Con. There is a DC Rebirth Q&A occurring right now for the "press" and Newsarama just posted these comments from Geoff Johns :

Johns said specifically that there is a "larger story" to tell about the Legion of Super-Heroes.

14:48
Johns said characters like the New Gods, Shazam, and the Legion of Super-Heroes would all appear once Rebirth gets underway, along with other properties, and that there is a "Story to tell" about how some of them make it into the universe.

So no Legion title announced yet, but plans do seem to be in the works.

I'd rather they just tell good Legion stories, rather than stories about how the Legion fit into the universe.

This.

It sounds to me like they're going to have Hickman do the same over-crowded over-long garbage that he did for Marvel.

I agree - there is WAY too much focus on how the Legion fits which is kind of odd considering that we are talking about the far future. Why does it need to fit neatly into the present?

I'm hoping that there is a forthcoming Legion book and that they don't try to live inside some past era - and instead move forward

Well said, Andy.

But I'm not holding my breath.

With it fitting into something larger, I'm thinking of that Avengers thing that had a cast of a hundred cardboard cut outs stuck in an overlong plot. Yuck!

DC is probably thinking Mr. Hickman is an award-winning writer who knows how to write team stories. They probably don't read comics and are not aware of his actual style. My advice would be to hire some eager new brilliant writer and artist. That has always worked out well for the LSH.

I love most of Hickman's work. He's more focused on high concept sci-fi than space epics, but he can do them (see Infinity), and other things (Secret Warriors was more like sci-fi spy work, think a less grim Brubaker Captain America). He can handle a decently sized cast (Fantastic Four, New Avengers), but if it's one that's too big, most characters will fall into the background. Almost everyone aside from Captain America was underutilised and ignored in Avengers, but that series was basically as companion series to New Avengers, which was obviously the more important book.

But here's the thing: Hickman knows how to write a jumping on point. Secret Warriors, Fantastic Four and Avengers read well on their own initially, teased future stories that made use of old elements, and build upon themselves through time. At the same time, you feel that there's history to his work, because he doesn't write like nothing came before, it's just now what's happening NOW. And he excels at large scale, epic stories.

Oh, and there's the obvious sales boost it'd give. I'm entirely of the mindset that the Legion needs a big name creator on board for at least two arcs to keep it above cancellation numbers too early. The Legion is intimidating, and even if it was rebooted completely, the Legion still has a bad reputation when it comes to reboots and the like. But bring on a big name creator like Hickman, and people will push past that. I think Johns would be better, since he has a good reputation when it comes to revamps and keeping his work in-continuity (lest we get ANOTHER reboot once the Rebirth era Legion ends), but I'd settle for Hickman. Oh, and maybe a decent name artist would help too, but the writer is more important in this case.

A chorus of LW "YEAs" for this sentiment. Me too.

Yes, Hickman would be perfect. Most of his Avengers stories are Legion stories in disguises, anyways. That is why the cast is so large. And you have to admit, even in classic Legion stories, there were core groups of popular characters that would appear more often than others.

I like Fuzzy Barbarian's take on Hickman and his potential. If not a name artist, then Legion has done well in the past with new-name buzzed-about artists. The more I think about Hickman on Legion, the more I like it.

While relatively new, Hickman must get top dollar and has a great resume - maybe DC sees potential losses, given past sales and what potential writers/artists cost. Personally, I think there should always be a LSH comic running... also a Captain Marvel (Shazam).

I don't know why I didn't think of this before -- a friend of mine did a detailed 8-page analysis of Hickman's work for Marvel up to just before Secret Wars:

https://avengersaccessible.wordpres...beyond-a-look-back-before-time-runs-out/

That should tell you whether or not Hickman will be your cup of tea.