Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes What I read on summer vacation

So I did a a lot of reading over my vacation. I decided to read a couple different parts of the Legion - in one path, I was reading the Abnett & Lanning run from Legion of the Damned through the middle of Legion Worlds. In the other path, I read the end of the New 52 Legion - essentially from the point of Tinya winning election through the end. With the former, I was already prejudiced to dislike, but in the spirit of eating my own words, I started re-reading that run (and will continue through Gail Simone's ending of the run).

I picked a couple of real winners. ;D In neither case was I satisfied or a happy reader.

Okay to start with DnA. As I've said often and elsewhere, McAvennie's determination to purge the entire creative staff in 1999 and make his mark on the Legion is what brought them to the book. Are the stories - Legion of the Damned, Widening Rifts, Legion Lost & Worlds - told well? Absolutely. They are amazing writers and can tell an awesome story. However, to me the Legion is about a bright future and a bunch of idealistic kids fighting to preserve it. Starting with Damned, the authors (and illustrators, for that matter), take the Legion universe into a dark place that readers in the real world wouldn't see much hopeful glimmers of light for another two years (I didn't start feeling hopeful until Legion Worlds 3).

In Damned, DnA basically takes the Legionnaires under control of the Blight and makes them accessories to murder, by turning them into hunters rounding up sentients to be sent to the Stem. Not really a great look, IMO, and is one of the main aspects of their run that instantly turns me off. And the art was really bad. Again, IMO. Every time I read this, I feel like this is a story that DnA came up with for a different franchise (or to start a new one) that they shoehorned into the Legion.

Then in Rifts, we have the setup for Lost and Worlds. Actually decently written and drawn, except Imra loses her cool as a leader and uncharacteristically panic. The end pages of LSH 125 are wonderful chaos, although there is a bit of a clash between the messaging of the UP apparently hating on the Legion (for the accessory to murder stuff) and then the "Thank you Legion" sendoff at the very end.

And Legion Lost. I know people love this book. Again, extremely well written. Essentially the Legion's version of "Heart of Darkness." All fine, but for the fact that it is predicated on the fact that Jan Arrah, the last Trommite, is apparently now an immortal.

I'll say this - I had a bunch of problems with the story setup but once I got past that and the story got cooking, I was enjoying the read. The Proginy & Progenitor are set up as a mysterious, interesting villains, Shikari seems to be an interesting character, other than the direct ripoff of Dawnstar. I think the story dragged a bit with Singularity, but final issue showdown was pretty fantastic. Garth's sacrifice was perfectly done, but that's what being a hero is all about.

My problems with this story are all about the character decisions. I was cruising along in this story mostly happy until Imra had her breakdown and the illusions fell apart around the Singularity story. First, Imra has already done something similar in the 20th C storyline, so it wasn't that original. THEN they heap on that the (*shudder*) Jo and Imra makeout session. That did nothing good for either character. But I had big problems with turning Jan, who had been massively abused in the Reboot as it was, into a psychotic immortal murderer. But the death of Monstress was just a waste. I get that fan sentiment at the time was massively against her character, and McAvennie straight up told DnA to kill her off. Yeah, I get it. Shock and drama. But if they wanted to off her, they could have just left her crushed by a bulkhead in #125. This death was empty.

This Legion is so dark, bleak and hopeless, that I had to force myself to start reading Legion Worlds. By the end of Lost, and even the end of the Legion Worlds issues when the Lost team returns, I started to become extremely disinterested in the reboot run simply because McAvennie and crew turned it into something consistently dark, depressing and dystopian, which is not why I read Legion. I'm familiar with most of the first year of The Legion, and I know I'm going to have to force myself through that title as well. I'm just hoping the tone shifts after McAvennie editorialship is over as I continue my read.

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Okay, now for the end of the New 52 run.

I'll preface this by saying that for the most part, I really enjoyed reading and the artwork of the retroboot Legion. Even with the Earthman nonsense, the retro Legion at the beginning of the New 52 run was a refreshing experience after the bleakness of the section of the DnA run I'd been soaking in (not to mention the Lo3W). The characters were not "five years latered" and a lot of the relationships were there (although I question Levitz's choice about Shady & Mon-El's divorce). But the future was bright and interesting and the characters were fun. I even started to warm up to Dragonwing and Chemical Kid by the end.

Not sure what it is about Levitz and ending a run, but once the Fatal Five story started, that series wrap up was feeling a LOT like the Magic Wars. Death of a character? Check (overkill, but check). Universe falling completely apart? Check.

But I had a problem with the in media res nature of Sun Boy's death. I'm not even a big Dyrk fan, to be honest. But to kill him off panel and then have him be EATEN? Are you kidding me? Not a great choice. I'm honestly not even sure about most of the purpose of the Promethean story other than to give the new Tharok something to do and get rid of Sun Boy. Similarly disappointed with the treatment of Tinya. I'm not the biggest Tinya fan in any incarnation, but I've never considered her a coward. Showing the Legion leader as a coward completely took me out of the story. And does Thom even get a memorial?

Just a lot of stuff out of left field all over the place in the last few issues here. I'm guessing Levitz was mandated to bring the title in for a landing, so he wanted to make it as much of a crash landing, literally, as possible. At least with the end of the Magic Wars, there was a sense of some kind of hope. But not really at the end of this title.

So yeah, I read two storylines where in each Legion version, three characters are shown the door.

I should have brought my Silver Age books on vacation. Maybe I will next time.

I agree with everything you said about the deaths toward the end of the New 52 run. I am not a massive Sun Boy fan either, but considering how long he's been around he deserves better than pointless senseless gore like that. His death in the 5YL Legion was dark as hell, but it served a thematic purpose at least...this was just nasty. I feel the same way about Thom, he was treated so badly in that era from being the wacky crazy guy in the 21st century (because playing mental health for lolz is so classy) to then being confined to a wheelchair for ages in the Legion and finally just being killed just for the comic book equivalent of a jump scare...and Tinya crying helplessly and running away forever was the thing that pissed me off the most. I know Levitz has always had some sexist tendencies that pop up here and there, but I've never seen it as blatant as that crap.

I think upgrading all of the new kids to the Legion when the old Academy students were right there was a big misstep too, especially when the narrative made a point of showing how the new kids actually weren't ready for Legion membership and were still growing and learning on the job. I eventually started coming round to Chemical Kid and Dragonwing, but it honestly would have been much easier if they'd just been introduced to the team as part of an adventure like Shady or Jacques were so there'd be no comparison to the original Academy students in the first place. Similarly, I liked Harmonia as a Legionnaire but it's very hard to reconcile that character with the woman who stood by and watched Titan get destroyed without lifting a finger to help (I mean in that same story Brainy was just faffing about protected by his forcefield while people were dying all around him so par for the course I guess)

All up, a lot of short-sighted and just plain badly thought out decisions made that series a chore to read more than anything else a lot of the time imo

Re Damned, Lost and Worlds. I have to say that I was invested in it because I grew up with those characters. Would I have gotten into it as a new reader? I'm not 100% sure, as what drew me to the Legion in the first place was indeed the bright shiny optimism. I do think there were glimmers of it in DNA's writing, but never to the heights we saw in the early Reboot (am thinking of how LSH 80 and L* 37 made the team's struggles until then pay off big). And the team definitely went through a lot of struggles!

It was definitely a big turn-around.

On Monstress' death, it literally made me cry. It hurt because she put her trust in Jan, and she was so broken up, and then suddenly... bam. On that note I agree, Lost as a whole was well-written. But I also agree that the tone overall was a massive shift from what came before, and I also feel it marked a turning point - DNA never went back to the tone of the Reboot before, and I never felt the heights of optimism that I used to.

re the New 52. I also hated the deaths. Not heroic, not in battle, just there for the shock value. The only small little bit of good they tossed Dirk was that "he was such a good pilot, he got us down safely even though he died!" Blargh!

Re Academy Kids. I did think they were interesting, but the way Chemical Kid, Comet Queen and Dragonwing blundered into Cosmic King at the end... Variable Lad, Gravity Kid and Glorith did most of the heavy lifting, yet only Glorith joins the team (Gravity Kid ups and leaves). And the way Lamprey, Power Boy et. al. were turned down for membership... they didn't SHOW us why they didn't deserve it. Contrasting with the snotty Chemical Kid and hotheaded Dragonwing and kooky Comet Queen... just left me, like, eh.

Earth-Man being forced onto the team was heinous, and Shady choosing to go for him just ruined her for me too.

raz, I think the point about Thom's mental health is a bullseye. Granted, this was all written 10+ years ago, and we are reading this with hindsight after a pandemic that also has amplified mental health issues (at least in my circle), I kind of was invested in Thom's retrieval back to the 31st century and getting back to normal, so I loved the Dominator storyline where he leads the rescue team to get Nura and Brainy, and makes it back. Just to be crushed by a damn building for no real reason other than shock. Another empty death.

As part of the read, I also included the Secret Origin series from the same time, so I was able to get the understanding of where Tinya was going, but the reasoning as to why infuriated me. You're telling me that this girl who phased into the Legion's world to help stave off an invasion and ended up staying for 10+ years and facing off against all kinds of crazy stuff just turns chicken? Levitz should have known better. I'm gonna chalk that up to him not wanting to actually kill her off, but needing to get her out of the way (similar to the weird afterlife-type place Brek and Jacques get transported to).


Good points about the newer characters. I think most of the Academy stuff was in the pre-New 52 run, but I agree, that part of the story was the hardest for me to get through. Although I did really like Jan taking CK under his wing and mentoring him. But yeah, he was definitely not ready for the job. Similar with Harmonia - she mellowed out a lot in the New 52 compared to the prior series, but her inclusion on the team I always felt was similar to Earth Man's, just easier to deal with as a reader.

The only three things I found hard to read in the retro/New 52 era were Earth Man, the Academy kids, and the Ending storyline with the Fatal Five. Similar to the end of the pre-New 52 run, I'm wondering how much time that Levitz had to wrap it up once the hand of DiDio officially crushed the Legion again.

Yeah, looking at the sales numbers and chatter at the time, Lost didn't do much for getting new readers into the Legion nearly as much as the relaunch of The Legion a year or so later. But I think that's where I'm having my ambivalence in wanting to re-engage. I know that there is the Terrorform story coming right around the corner, so the whole Earth gets trashed yet again. Then Robotica on the heels of that.

Just a bleak dystopia for at least three years of Legion comics.

I'll be continuing my timeline once I pick up the books again, but I don't know. I'm hoping I'll find something to reconnect with in the DnA run. I'm pretty sure a lot of my dissatisfaction with this era comes from McAvennie's broad stroke decisions and lack of attention to detail with the Legion, rather than Abnett and Lanning particularly, but I guess we'll see.


Regarding Monstress, on one level, this is the kind of reaction you want as a writer, right? You care enough about the characters and story to generate that kind of emotion. This may be a situation where I know too much of the sausage making to have a clear opinion, but Monstress was a character that was not clearly defined during the PMS era (indeed, she even went through a few interations of herself before we got to the personality at the end), so its understandable that fans hated her and McAvennie directed DnA to kill her. But those first couple issues of Lost did so much to make her extremely interesting, that the way in which she was killed was a waste on so many levels.


Exactly. What's the writing adage? "Show, don't tell?" I didn't know that Dirk was the hot pilot of the team. Nor did we see his 'heroic' landing. Same with the Academy kids. Chemical Kid at least goes on a journey once he's mentored by Jan, but otherwise it fell flat. I mean there could have been a few Legionnaires in this academy that were this universe's version of certain reboot characters who shall remain nameless. Instead, we get stuck with a couple of jerks and a kooky traitor.

I forget when Sun Boy's piloting skills were first mentioned, but it actually was an established if obscure bit of Legiom lore!

I'll have to keep my eyes peeled as I go through my Silver and Bronze age stories.

Funnily enough, the only place where I remember piloting skills being brought up was in the Elseworlds Legionnaires Annual where (I think) Cos casts Shrinking Violet, of all people, into the role of "Legion's Best Pilot." Of course, being Elseworlds, it means absolutely nothing, but I remember it being a fun read.

It's annoying me that I can't remember the source for his piloting skills, because I actually remember thinking when reading that scene that, as poorly as Sun Boy was treated here, it was actually cool that they referenced that fact.

I seem to remember a 70's or 80's Who's Who piece (meet the Legion or something) where Sun Boy was described as "having the niftiest skills of any Legion cruiser pilot"

... and found it...

https://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=592159

it was actually niftiest NAVIGATION skills!

Ah! I checked his Who's Who entries to see if it was mentioned there, but didn't think to check the other Meet the Legionnaire type things!

Nice catch, Ibby!

Pretty sure this was mentioned more than once in the early Adventure issues before Shooter took over. One of the times may be the Luck Lords issue IIRC.

Again IIRC, all of the wacko stuff in that last retroboot/new52 storyline like Sun Boy's death, cannibal aliens, etc was Giffen's doing (and probably being cheered on by Didio) where Levitz was in the back seat and just along for the ride. And then after Giffen quit, Levitz had to do cleanup on aisle 7 in the last issue (throwing it out that this Legion run was actually a Legion from another Earth and not the retroboot from pre-new52

I actually completely forgot the New 52 relaunched a whole new series again, oops! That whole time period just kind of blends for me...at least Portela's art was pretty lush!

EDIT: also just wanted to join in on any Earth-Man hatred going on...aside from the nonsense with Shady and the fact that the Legion of Superheroes is the last team anyone should be putting space nazis on, it also wasted what could have potentially been a good recurring villain who occupied a pretty unique spot in their rogue's gallery.

I'll have to keep an eye out. The Luck Lords Silver Age story definitely has Sun Boy piloting and he "reacts with all the speed of his well conditioned reflexes" but still ends up crash landing. and hurting his arm to boot!

But yeah I have a nagging feeling there's another reference around the same timeframe.


Yikes. I get that the editors and publishers have a short list of people to go to for Legion stories, but Giffen always seems to get them into trouble. Waid, in a recent podcast interview, said that the start of v4 by the DC back office was NOT well received.

Yeah, even though they are (I guess) technically separate titles, I consider that run from Earth Man to the end of the New 52 run to basically be the same thing. I agree - using Earth Man as a good recurring villain would have been a better choice, I think.

Oh, one other thing that popped into my head with the end of the New 52 run - Isn't Val Armorr supposed to be dead in that reality? Him and Jeckie popping up out of nowhere was really weird.

Issues 17 (Sun Boy's death) and 18 (Thom's apparent death) have both Levitz and Griffen sharing writing credits (issue 17 puts Giffen first). Issue 19 and 20 (when Tinya vanishes) return to just Levitz in the credits but "With a Nod to Consulting Destructionist Keith Giffen" whatever that means. The final three issues are solely credited to Levitz.

I seem to recall Levitz writing somewhere before #17 that he was excited about the story and plot Giffen was bringing so he saw something good in it. Also the Fatal Five plot and Tharok's "ascendance" were all begun with Levitz with the tech failure starting at the end of #16. I doubt we will ever know exactly how the plotting sessions went but yes the most shocking moments seemed to happen under Giffen's credits so Levitz needing to tidy up after could be true.

All the continuity gets so bizarre during that period. On the one hand, vol. 7 clearly picks up from the end of vol. 6, which in turn picked up from the stuff Johns was doing, which in turn was supposed to acknowledge much of the Legion's history up through Crisis, though there was always some weird inconsistencies. But, it's pretty clear that the Legion's history gets pretty radically altered along the way. We get a completely new origin for the Legion in Legion: Secret Origin, and they're meeting the Fatal Five for apparently the first time by the end of it. And then you get the thrust onto an alternate Earth where Superman dies thing in the very last issue.

Even before the last issues there were things that just did not gel for me with the universe we were used to. In particular how the Fatal Five had elements to them that seemed to me to be incompatible with their previous appearances. Some references suggested they had never been encountered before while others maintained the older history. I seem to remember making some such comments at the time but my memory may be faulty. Anyway it was the New52 so I guess they could once again make the history whatever they wanted, but as familiar as it was it still felt somewhat different to me.

The Secret Files was one of the more enjoyable reads - and given that it was a separate collected edition, I should have included that in my list here. Even though it was yet another origin story, I really liked how it connected to the Levitz retroverse. In fact, because it ended in such a good note, I was really looking for more - I enjoyed these characters (although we never did get to see Vi as promised on one of the covers...), which made the whole thing about Tinya just vanishing back to (presumably) Bgtzl was infuriating at the end of the New 52 run.

I remember being OK with a lot of it, as SOME kind of Fatal Five action had happened in their past, given that they thought Validus was caged, and that they had the Axe in a vault. What I thought was unusual is that, if I'm tracking this right, the Empress shown would have been the third (Sarya, the Orandan woman, now this new person) in this Legion's history, and there was no real explanation for her, nor any callback to Ayla & Vi's earlier encounter. And then finally Tharok - I don't think they gave near enough explanation of how he got to be the way he was. I would have liked much more discussion about transcendent Tharok, but I'm sure the book's fate had been cast already, so Levitz had to get on with things. Added to the uneven story and unsatisfying ending, though.

EDIT - I see where the FF disconnect is with that LSH #0 issue that shows the interference of Brainiac with Tharok, but its not very clear as to what's going on there. It certainly doesn't show the classic "split" Tharok or any explanation as to why he looks like John Malkovich in the main series.

I wasn't blown away by it or anything, but I have kind of wondered if it wouldn't have been better if they'd just continued from the Secret Origins story as a full-blown reboot, especially if they kept the wonderful Chris Batista artwork!

One million percent agreement here. I enjoyed the art and most of the story, and it seemed a good way of modernization without alienation. But what do I know? LOL

This comment made me think that the DnA Legion may have been intended to be their version of 5YL: the bright, optimistic future of the teen Legion crashing headlong into the adult realities in which they have to truly struggle to make a positive difference for humanity (so Giffen said about 5YL). It would be a jarring transition no matter what, but I wonder if the DnA Legion came too soon in the reboot. The characters were still teens at that point, and the entire reboot was only a few years old. There wasn't time for the characters to really gel in the series or with fans to make the transition meaningful, as it was (somewhat) for the original boot.

The optimistic future was a central part of the Legion's appeal, but it was always a future with consequences--especially during the Adventure era, when Lightning Lad lost an arm, Star Boy got expelled, and Duo Damsel's third self was killed. But most of these consequences proved temporary, so it was a very '60s and probably Western-centric idea of an optimistic future. The idea that everything goes back to the way it should be was certainly popularized on TV at the time. In the '70s, there was an attempt to move the Legion forward by killing off Invisible Kid and marrying off Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy, but these transitions were really intended to remove characters unwanted by the creative team; the events were dealt with and done, just as happens on TV when characters are written out. Even in the 1980s, the "optimism" of the Legion's future still manifested itself in the characters behaving as if there were no consequences to their actions (Sun Boy burning through GiGi's apartment in one story being one example).

5YL, I suggest, was the first attempt to really show long-term and permanent consequences of living in the Legion's world----just as many teenagers find there are real consequences to their actions once they reach "adulthood" (if not before). Sometimes these consequences come from serving in war; other times, they come from ill-thought-out choices, such as driving drunk or having children while still teenagers. Thematically, I thought 5YL worked on that level although it obviously had other issues. And, from a writer or publisher's perspective, it got people talking about the Legion again. Fans may have hated what was happening to their beloved heroes and optimistic future, but they were talking about it in letter columns and magazines.

I imagine the DnA Legion was intended to accomplish the same two purposes: thrust the Legion forward into an adult world with serious consequences and generate new buzz about the Legion. Of these efforts, I thought Legion Lost was the most successful. It took a small team of Legionnaires, removed them from everything they knew, and tested their survival skills. Brainiac 5 had to come to terms with his inability to solve every problem. Saturn Girl had to come to terms with her inability to control everything. Ultra Boy had to come to terms with this dependency on his girlfriend.

To drive home the challenges the Legionnaires faced and the consequences of their actions, DnA thrust Element Lad off the deep end. The biggest failing of this arc, in my opinion, is that they portrayed Jan as too much a victim--isolated, having given up so much for his teammates, and then surrendering to the dark side because . . . why exactly wasn't clear. There's never a moment where Jan makes a decision to turn evil, where he makes the wrong or selfish choice. We're led to believe that his insanity and immortality were inevitable products of his heroic desire to protect his friends. What a cynical message.

Another point of comparison: Like 5YL, the DnA Legion went on too long and ultimately didn't resolve into a clear point. Things could not go back to the way they were before the Blight--that would defeat the purpose of their journey and growth. But by the time of The Legion ongoing series, the characters were running from one world-threatening crisis to another without rest or without a moment to reflect on what it all means. The series had become a carnival ride without a pit stop.

Hey there, HWW! Thanks for the really thoughtful reply! You bring up a lot of really good points.


I was actually very curious about this, so I read several interviews with DnA over the last couple decades (hard to beleive its been that long), as well as reading a lot of reviews and other discussions at the time. The common thread was that the books after LSH 100 got real stale. I think everyone realized it and it reflected in the reactions to the stories and, most importantly, the sales of the book. So I think there is general agreement that in 1999, SOMETHING needed to be done with the Legion books. It was very much a "rip the band-aid" moment for the characters, and I certainly found it too jarring a transition for my comfort. What it seems is that McAvennie turned to DnA and told them to go nuts, and apparently had air cover to do so, so DnA did what DnA does. So to your point, I think McAvennie hired DnA with specific intent, so a 5YL mood was definitely coming, whether that was the specific intent or not.

I just think that Damned was a step too far, as the Legionnaires were turned into hunters that rounded up innocents for death. At least that's the impression that I get - if that is the wrong take, I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but that aspect of the story really didn't sit well with me, nor the bare minimum of follow up around the aftermath of our heroes turned into these creatures for a month.

Just as an aside, I've always wondered if the story wouldn't have been as jarring if Coipel hadn't been the artist. He was brand new at the time (I think he's great now), but the art of LotD was certainly part of the challenge. McAvennie not only canned the writers, but also the artists. I can buy the argument about Coipel for all of LotD, but they used other artists for Rifts, and I think others, including Moy would have been good to include.


Your points are good re:Lost, but I think the B5 part of the story was the best, as the Imra and Jo subplots had been already done previously; they were just amped to 11 for this story.

And regarding consequences, I think I am agreeing with all of your points pre-reboot, but the reboot Legion still had consequences. By the time of the DnA run, there were two dead Legionnaires (there should have been a third, IMO, but that's a whole other discussion), and several razed worlds (the Dryad planet comes immediately to mind as well as a couple others). Garth lost an arm, Vi was changed, but I think where you're going in the impactfulness of the story. But you can have impact and consequence in a story and world without having to destroy the world altogether. Or, in the case of DnA, destroy it multiple times. Give them enough time, and I think they would have destroyed the Earth as happened in 5YL.


This and the Monstress situation is exactly why I'm not as fulfilled by the end of Lost as I feel that I should be. Jan's a special character so that if he were to be made a villain at that scale, he absolutely deserved a chance for redemption (as they did when he was brainwashed to be Starfinger). Instead they did what they did for shock value, and that was a huge disappointment.


I'm about to finish Legion Worlds and start the DnA Legion series very soon. And I remember a lot of the initial year of the book from an overall story arc perspective. Earth just keeps getting pummeled. I think its fine for things to change thematically - but I really do beleive that DnA went too far. I think they were over-encouraged in pushing these huge world-altering arcs. But think about it - from late 1999 through the end of 2002 was nothing but that: Damned, Rifts, Lost, Ra's al Ghul, Terrorform, Robotica. That's a lot of time of world bashing. A key facet of the Legion is the now and again off-duty story that makes the characters more human, or even one-off stories where they handle a specific problem, then get back to a big arc (the "pit stop" to your point). There was way too little of that, probably by design.

But to your point of resolution - I'm very curious about that part when I reread. I am very curious as to how that plays out in tone and focus when the editoriaship shifts from McAvennie to Wacker, and then when writing shifts from DnA shifts to Simone (who, by the way, wasn't told that she was wrapping up the series when she took over). My hunch is that it did not, as my attention really drifted by the end of Robotica the last time I read all these stories. But in a way that ties into the "optimistic future" point; if the Legion is to fight for and keep an optimistic future, DnA (and 5YL, for that matter)