Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Retroboot re-read: So, I have some questions

After finishing the reboot re-read through LSH v4 #125, I shifted over to the Levitz Retro-boot after Lo3W.

I couldn't bring myself to start the rest of the DnA run. I read the first few pages of LL, and I kept getting more annoyed the farther in I went knowing how this would end.

So I turned to the Levitz run that started in 2010.

With the exception of wanting to throw the book across the virtual room every time Earth Man was on the panel, I actually very much enjoyed the run. It seemed much more Legion than a lot of what had been published for the ten years prior. Really enjoyed seeing the classic characters in action, really enjoyed seeing Ayla and Vi as a couple. But thought I'd ask folks here who may have a better context on to some of what happened on the publishing side:

• So, we know that Levitz pulled Gates and XS from the reboot. But I wasn't thrilled with his use of Gates, and XS did NOTHING. What was the point of even having them? Did Levitz have an issue with the post-ZH reboot?
• Where were Cos, Vi and Cham for the final battle? It seemed like the plot was building to a LSV vs full LSH confrontation.
• Was the end of this series rushed to a close due to Didio's stupid New 52 concept?

I mean, on one level, the Earth Man story kind of taints the run, but I really enjoyed the storytelling and art whenever he wasn't around. Well, not the Academy stuff as much, either, but it was starting to grow on me by the end.

But by the end, Earth Man is just thrown in as basically cannon fodder without even bothering with a real redemption arc. The run seemed incomplete. I'll be reading the New 52 stuff shortly to see how it all fits together and comment on that.

I don't think it was Levitz's idea to keep Gates and XS around. That was Johns's doing. My impression is that PL really didn't read the Legion much after his own tenure as writer, so I suspect he just didn't really have much connectiont at all to those characters.

And yeah, the end of the series was massively rushed due to New 52.

I remember Levitz dropping XS very soon indeed...

as for Gates, he started off with that Gates / Dream Girl / Dawnstar world tour thing that went nowhere... at least he tried?

also remember him suddenly having Dream Girl be on Naltor all along, when i believe she was originally supposed to be in the 20th century alongside Element Lad, Tenzil, Jeckie and company.

OK, all that makes sense. Johns effectively left XS and Gates at the end of Lo3W for whomever picked up the trail there. I think my question about Levitz was more around, did he dislike the reboot due to it effectively wiping out a lot of what he had done in the 80s. So not disliking the characters, per se, but what that reboot team represented.

And to the rushing at the end - SMH.


Yeah, Gates ended up being an as-needed taxi pretty much wherever Levitz needed to use him, LOL. Which I guess is fine, its one tactical use of his power. But his range wasn't very consistent.


I don't quite remember the specifics, as Nura is around quite a lot, but I don't remember a 20th c. trip, although in the wrap up she pops up suddenly with Thom so that Brainy can pull out the crazy.

I think it's pretty well-established that he really disliked what was done with the Legion 5YL, and I'm fairly certain he had to sign off on the reboot to begin with, so I don't think he bore any ill will towards it, per se.

Just reading this thread reminds me what a muddle that period was, the transition from Johns to Levitz. Was Nura in the 20th century in that Adventure series where Element Lad was disguised as a teacher? Mon-el was in the past around then too - I'd have to dig out the issues to clarify. There was a lot of coming and going with the 20th century.

Ah, thanks, EDE - that may be what I am conflating in my head with the lore from the editorial side. Which, come to think of it, is almost as dramatic as the stories of the Legion itself.


FC, "muddle" is probably the best word to use in the circumstance. I want to say the Jan/Nura stuff was the Lightning Legion, so that would have been concurrent to the end of Threeboot, but I'm reading all these from mostly collected editions, so there may be things I'm missing, for sure.

From what I remember, the Legion were in the 20th century twice around that time.

before Earth-Man: the Lightning Saga (Brin, Val, Jeckie, Drake, Dawny, Nura, and Thom who was already there earlier). Thom stayed behind, while Val and 1/3 of Lu went and got themselves killed in the run up to Final Crisis, bah.

then concurrent with Lo3W: Jan, Tenzil, Quislet, Tellus, Jeckie, Cham + Thom helped Superman and Supergirl and company out against...I'm not quite sure anymore, but I think it was New Krypton. Nura was supposed to be there, but ended up not being there. though all of these, plus Nura, and Lu/Chuck were among the "missing" Legionnaires shown at the beginning of Lo3W, when the other Legionnaires were out searching... we had a page where search parties on Trom, Durla and Naltor failed to find Jan, Cham and Nura.

Ugh. And I think it gets better - I just started the first couple pages of the New 52 series, and it seems like there are a bunch of things that happened other than the Saturn Queen/Blue Damian v. Oa battle.

Seriously, did I miss something there, too?

(oh, I have to add - the cover for the first New 52 collection - "Most Approachable Jumping-on Point for the Legion of Super-Heroes You'll Get." That's SERIOUSLY an endorsement DC would put on the COVER? I've never trusted the folks at IGN...)

<GL runs off to the wilderness laughing madly>

Also IIRC at the time Levitz mentioned somewhere that there were big plans for XS in the Flash title (Johns?) at some point, so basically he was trending water with the character until those plans firmed up. But they never did as Flashpoint probably upset that apple cart.

Then on the rushed ending, once all the DC titles suddenly went to 20 pages ("hold the line at 2.99"), it really messed up Levitz as IIRC again the Legion title was originally 28 pages and gave him plenty of room for his story to breathe. After going to 20 pages not so much.

Most approachable jumping-on point? nope, nope and nope lol

wow, losing 8 pages is a lot!

Oh wow. Thanks for that insight, CB. It makes sense that XS would go to Flash, but you think they would have moved on that sooner. Oh well.

And yeah, I can't imagine losing 8 pages of a comic like Legion. Not even withstanding the large cast, depending on how the frames are presented on the page, that's like losing a couple chapters of a story. Yikes.

What kind of crack was DiDio smoking? I mean, it must have sounded great to the corporate overlords from a cost perspective, but wow.

That was such a crazy time 2007-2010. The Retroboot Legion turned up in a number of different places, while Threeboot was still being published. As far as I can figure a timeline (vague at places because various bits overlapped in their publishing dates) you have:

- Lightning Saga in JLA and JSA
- Starman in JSA
- Karate Kid and "Una" in Countdown (Supergirl even meets them in her own comic just after she returns from Threeboot 31st Century)
- Superman and The LSH in Action Comics by Geoff Johns showing the Retroboot 31st Century (plus a follow on in Action Comics 864)
- another version of Mon-El becoming a major hero in Metropolis by James Robinson
- Final Crisis Legion of 3 Worlds by Geoff Johns
- various Retroboot legionnaires undercover in 21st Century in Adventure Comics by Geoff Johns
- the undercover legionnaires and eventually the entire Legion help Superman in the Last Stand of New Krypton saga in several Superman books and Adventure Comics mostly by James Robinson plus Sterling Gates (XS and Gates both appear as part of the team)
- LSH volume 6 and Adventure Comics (515-520 early tales, 521-529 current) in 2010 by Paul Levitz

Although it feels like the Earth Man story in LSH v6 picks up straight after "Superman and the LSH", that was published two years previously and the Retroboot Legion have done quite a bit in the meantime. Still I suppose since most of that was in the 21stCentury time travel can help explain that.

This is a great list, stile - I think the only ones I don't have here are the Last Stand of New Krypton book, and the Countdown story.

Separate, but related, question - what happened in between v6 and New 52? Was that Flashpoint? Obviously the event that is the catalyst for the V2 Legion Lost is part of that, I assume.

I don't think anything happened that has been recorded.

Legion Lost was written as a part mystery series where we had to learn what was going on as we went. LSH v7 carried on directly from the last issue of v6.

I think Legion was probably the only "new" book in New52 that didn't rely on a reset. Sure Batman and Green Lantern largely continued with all their previous history intact but both characters received reboots of a sort with their portrayal in Justice League as the first book of the New52 series.

Legion ... just kept going.

Well, that was what my memory said anyway. Having a quick look back at v6 and v7 I can see how PL did a good job of tying up most of the narratives in v6 with the final issue, and the first issue of v7 is a good start of new plots and stories, although carrying on with existing characters including the new ones introduced in the previous series and the Legion Academy stories in Adventure Comics.

But as far there being some events or appearances of the Legion between v6 and New52 I don't think there were any.

wow, that was a busy time...!

If you go looking for the Last Stand of New Krypton you need to be warned of a couple of things.

The storyline "Last Stand of New Krypton" is the culmination of almost two years of Superman stories following on from the confrontation between Superman and Brainiac which results in Kandor being enlarged on Earth. There is not surprisingly conflict between humans and Kryptonians and the Kryptonians leave Earth for a new planet they "grew" but still in the solar system. Mon-El appears in a number of the stories and takes over from Superman as the hero of Metropolis while Kal-El moves to New Krypton and joins the military clan as a squad leader under General Zod, hoping to be able to build a bridge between his two peoples (and keep an eye on Zod). There are other characters, some of whom turn out towards the end to have been the undercover legionnaires in disguise, but it is only towards the end of the two years that they are revealed and the rest of the Legion turns up.

Here are the issues of the Last Stand storyline:

Prologue
Adventure Comics #8
Part 1
Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton #1
Action Comics #887
Supergirl #51
Superman #698
Adventure Comics #9
Part 2
Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton #2
Action Comics #888
Adventure Comics #10
Supergirl #52
Superman #699
Part 3
Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton #3
Action Comics #889
Adventure Comics #11

The Legion are in most of the issues but more so in Adventure Comics and the mini-series than the rest. However it is pretty difficult to follow the story unless reading the whole thing.

So there is a soft cover titled "Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton". This is collects the three issue mini-series only. This is not much use to you without the other issues.

There are two hardcover volumes titled Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton vol 1 & 2. These together contain all of the above issues and is probably the best way to get them if you want them.

Anyway that is what my research tells me. I collected the original issues (being a Superman fan as well) so I can't tell you from personal experience what the hardcover collections re like.
I just wanted to let you know what you might be getting in to before you went shopping.

awesome breakdown, stile. thanks!

So I recently re-read most of the Pre-Nu52 Levitz stories of the Retroboot Era, and I was surprised by how decent they seem now, especially the first few issues of LSH! The artwork is consistently solid, especially for the brief time that Phil Jimenez is drawing and co-plotting Adventure Comics, and while some aspects of the series are still off-putting, I think Levitz really had a definite direction going, one which could have led to bigger and better things.

Which got me to wondering, could this series have survived, and possibly even thrived, if there had never been that accursed editorial-mandated idiocy that lost DC so many fans of not only the Legion, but also many different characters across the DCU?

And, yeah, I'll admit there's no real point, so long after the fact, in trying to hash out what might have been -- unless, of course, the current DC editorial wises up enough to give the Retroboot another go? I mean, it couldn't turn out any worse than the Bendisboot!

I reread it back when I started a thing for Bits. It had taken a little while to find its feet, but I agree that, by the end of v6, we'd just had a slow burn LSV arc pay off and the book had got some momentum.

The switch to v7, resulted in something of a refocus/ reset and a decent amount of that momentum was lost. Those Adventure issues were popular (Jimenez in shock popularity boost), so those characters were added to the team in v7, which also changed the focus a bit.
There were what felt like a few filler issues, as v7 looked to find it's feet and some drive again. The sales must have reflected this, with the move being made for Giffen to try an launch a 5YG v2 at the end, only for that to be shot down internally.

I felt the Levitz Paradigm approach to plotting suffered by artists preferring fewer, splashier panels in the book, coupled with a smaller page count.
We had plots that clunked like Garth looking for his brother, that Levitz pulled the plug on in-panel; the Earth-Man redemption arc that undermined the ethos of the team to get it started, and Mon-El being a Lantern and Legion leader at the same time. Oh and Legion Lost took away some useful cast members, personality wise.

But quite a few good moments and art between both volumes.

The thing about LSH v7 is that it was all over the place, lacking the all-important focus of v6.

The slow burn style of v6 that Thoth noted has always been Levitz's approach to story arcs. Sometimes the payoffs were more successful than others, but on v7, Levitz seems to have been micro-managed to the point where he couldn't get enough traction for another slow burn. Instead, they appeared to force Giffen onto the series, probably because he was buddy-buddy with Dan DeDio; that a rehash of v4 got shot down is a rare example of wisdom prevailing at DC. And as for what we did get, well, even a lot of Giffen fans were displeased (there's also the annual from v6 by Levitz and Giffen, but all I can say about that is that it's the only issue of v6 that I dislike.)

I'm curious - what didn't you like about it? That's the Emerald Empress/Ayla/Vi issue, yes?

It is, and, firstly, I was underwhelmed by the art -- Giffen was never a favorite of mine to begin with, but this time it was especially bad, less reminiscent of Kirby than of mediocre Kirby imitations from artists such as Ron Frenz and Al Milgrom.

Secondly, I've always hated the whole thing about the Emerald Eye seeking hosts and corrupting them until they're all "used up." I hate it with a passion. It's not only gross, it's trite. Sarya was too interesting a character to kill off just to make a point. None of her replacements have even come close to equalling her.

I thought the idea about the Eye was interesting but I certainly agree with your last point. There has only ever been one Emerald Empress worth the title.

I definitely preferred it when Sarya was her "own woman" so to speak, and the Eye merely her tool!