Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes 5YL - the first year. Some thoughts...

stile, I dub thee comics historian! I'm in awe of your knowledge and analysis. Quite enjoyable to read too!

We say we want stories with real lasting consequences, stories with teeth, stories *that matter,* and yet, when such stories happen, all too often we say, 'not like that!'

At the end of the day, comics are serial entertainment, and DC or Marvel teams and characters are not the individual property of any one creator, not a Giffen or a Bendis or a Byrne or a Wolfman, no matter how definitive a take those writers have placed on a particular character over their time as custodian of that book.

'Cause, ultimately, that's what they are. A custodian. Not an *owner.*

They should expect to 'put the toys back' when they're done, so that the next creative team has the same box of toys to play with that they did and they aren't stealing from the future of the franchise by killing off characters or destroying parts of the setting or eliminating story options or otherwise *making the value of the IP less.*

There is still room for stories that 'change everything,' in Elseworlds or What Ifs or 'alternate universe stories.' Or, also, in runs at Indy companies like Image, where the creator *does* own the IP and can kill or maim or greatly change forever a character or team or set-piece (like a company or city or world). Or deliberate limited series. (Some of which, like the Runaways or Young Avengers, two teams I love almost as much as the Legion, have arguably farted along through various half-assed relaunches that went nowhere long after their original story idea from their original creators ended.)

And that's the other side of the coin. It *is* a serial adventure format, and yet any one creator might only have a specific story to tell, and everything the *company* does later with their creation might sort of falter around, attempting to recapture the sales of that brilliant original idea, and yet basically fail to do so, and leave fans who arrived later wondering what all the hoopla is, since the definitive story was years ago, and the modern attempts to cash in on nostalgia for it just kind of ring hollow. I feel like, in many cases, there are forced attempts to get a new book out every month for character X because 'X is popular,' even if *none of the writers have a specific awesome story to tell* with that character, and so they end up with their fortieth confrontation with classic nemesis Y, by the latest creative team, which will only evoke comparisons to the last dozen versions of that confrontation...

I'm a huge fan of all sorts of teams and would love to see them back, but also realize that some characters stories have been told, and should probably be allowed to retire, and not be like Charlie Brown, stuck at eight years old, falling for Lucy's football trick over and over again, for forty-five years.

I had a big LOL with the Devlin comment!

Celeste was odd for me in that they didn't really take her where I thought she would be going (namely some kind of a more direct Green Lantern tie in), and while she had an interesting personality, I didn't get the power set all that well. Same with Kent - he was just suddenly "there" and I never got his story or retro-backstory. Kono had moments, to be sure. Loomis was such a backgrounder to me that he just seemed like Dyrk Magz from the reboot to me. So yeah, the newbies were kind of a mixed bag, I guess.

I do wonder if Giffen's plan was to retcon Laurel initially anyway - yes, they had killed Supergirl in the COIE, but that doesn't mean they don't have to use her in some way from the pocket universe. But the Super-mandate made things way more complicated, and he had to retcon her anyway, so why not the rest? Laurel probably is one of my favorites of this era, now that I think about it.

That's probably the same for all of us - I didn't start to really get into Superman until the lead up to the Death of Superman, then had to backfill to Crisis and all that, so similarly to picking up Legion after 5YL, the points of reference were all over the place for me. Still there was enough compelling in all those that made me want to go back and read more of what came before, either through back issues or helpful folks summarizing on the early internet in those days.



I hadn't heard all of this, but its fascinating. True enough, alot of those Wolfman concepts were things that I glommed onto when I picked up the Superman titles, so its funny how one concept can lead to others. I will say that because I didn't have the history with the Legion or Superman at the time, I was totally bought into the Byrne Man of Steel world and I enjoyed it a lot.


Yes, based on multiple sources where both Tom B and Giffen are quoted separately, this does appear to be the case. Although I don't think PL quite understood what Giffen REALLY wanted to do, as by all accounts no one in the DC Back office was happy. What would be a really good question to answer is whether the "no Super-fam" mandate was issued before or after the release of LSH v4 issue 1.


As I understood it, the break came from the Superman side backed by editorial, but it was just "don't reference Superman or his family in the title." It was definitely Giffen who executed this, but also took it upon himself to retcon to the extend he did.


I think that statement of "putting away the toys" is a good idea, as these concepts can get overly dragged out (the DnA Legion is a great example of things not being resolved). I've said before that comic writers tend to get stale on a title after a couple years, so that's another thing that they should look at as well. But your comment about the title dragging I have to agree with. There were great components and stories, but taken as a whole, the entirety is not what it should have been IMO. The Terra Mosaic story went WAY too long, for example.

Guilty as charged!


One million percent agreed here, Set. I think the challenge comes when a creator is on a book too long and they make so many changes (or in the case of 5YL, jump the timeline so far that they can literally change most of the characters and setting to something unrecognizable) to where it is almost impossible to clean the toys up for the next person. *Looks* of the characters, and memberships in teams, should definitely change especially to reflect the times. And even though "killing" a character in a comic is almost always something that can be reversed, the more complex the process to get there, the more challenging it is to reverse it without doing a wholesale reboot, or even a retro-boot. In any case, I think once a character has been introduced, they should be available to be used moving forward.


And its also a reason why I'm a proponent of an extremely slow aging process of the characters. I feel like the Legion from the mid-70s through the end of the Levitz run aged WAY too fast. A year's worth of comic book issues should only be a month worth of time in-universe. Based on the Legion issue that I just read where the v4 Legion is fighting Zombie Legionnaires, Projectra makes some kind of a comment about Val dying 9 years prior. That would have made all the events in the v3 Legion take at least three years, and that seems ridiculous to me with the serial nature of the stories. Yes, time passes in a comic book universe, but when one story picks up after the next, a month hasn't passed in-universe.

I blush. Actually I think there are far more knowledgeable fans on this forum such as Set, EDE, Nightcrawler etc. There is a lot of background Legion knowledge that I only know from their comments. For example I have never had the chance to read the Legion Companion. I may have more background in the post-Crisis Superman era although even there I expect Paladin might know more. In the end one of the great things about this forum is how we share our knowledge and opinions, disagreeing but still enjoying each others comments.

You have stated the point I was trying to make better than I did. Thanks.

It really is a tricky line to walk. For example would we change the death of Ferro Lad or Invisible Kid or Chemical Kid or even part of Luornu? Reading the original stories and those around them it is easier to see that the characters had been little used prior (varies and certainly not Luornu) but as the years have gone on their deaths have become part of their mythology and it is hard to imagine them without those events. (Having said that the Reboot Legion shows that they can be successfully rewritten without those events and still retain much of the same characteristics. Oh well, great argument Stile!)

Other changes that we celebrate in the Levitz era are Projectra becoming Sensor Girl, the new Invisible Kid who would be so different without the death of his predecessor.

So change can be good and accepted, sometimes over time, as long as the background setting does not change too much. This is where I think 5YL went perhaps too far. The core concept of a team of young(ish) people working together for the common good in far future environment was still there but much distorted from its origins and it is difficult to see how another writer could ever take them back to their roots.

Incidentally, the phrase about putting toys away when you are finished is from Jonathon Hickman speaking about his intentions when he took over the X-Men a couple of years back and made such radical changes. His initial story and hinted plans were unfortunately derailed and Marvel editorial seized on the increase in sales he had brought and pushed him to extend and change his plans. Now instead of the X-Men being a team that existed as a persecuted minority, they are more powerful than most nations, dominate world economy, are effectively immortal, and even control Mars. Whatever Hickman's original intent It is hard to see how this can be restored to the core concept without some sort of huge reset. It was with this in mind that I saw some parallels with 5YL. No matter how much I enjoyed some of the individual stories it is hard to see how some sort of massive retcon could be avoided.

Well said, Stile!

Giffen and the Bierbaums definitely tried to have their cake and eat it too by including the SW6 Legion (eventually to become the reboot Legion itself) in the plot, which was always part of the plan. (Who would survive would be another story altogether! ) But it illustrates your point - they were able to turn back the original 20-odd characters so that Luornu even had three bodies again (because 'cellular cloning' made it work).

Where I think this approach worked better for the Legion was in DnA's run, where they took similar actions - made the universe way darker, put the characters through the wringer, advanced the timeline (only a year). But they did it in such a way where pretty much all their major changes could be rolled back creatively if needed (and some were). Their major mistake was taking too long to tell their character arc stories so that certain plot threads weren't addressed in 2-3 years worth of issues.

Having this discussion has actually made me really appreciate the efforts behind the retroboot. Even though I have issues with Geoff Johns as a writer, I do appreciate the fact that he retconned Superman to such a state where it sidestepped the original Crisis, Byrne MoS background and 5YL retcons, showing that you can definitely 'fix' a continuity like the Legion's. Now whether this helped anything is another debate altogether. A lot of people jumped ship at Zero Hour, more at DnA, and again at the Threeboot. Readers are tired of the resets, and with the Legion they keep smashing that reset button hard.

I never thought of comparing DnA to 5YL in this way before and I think you make an excellent point. Good thinking.


Great point about the Retroboot as well.

So year four. Very interesting due to the issues discussed in the sub-thread about issue 38, which was apparently prompted when new editor KC Carlson told Giffen that the "hat trick" was a no-go. But of course, that happened early in year 4, so then we spin into a universe that is solely crafted by Tom and Mary Bierbaum and also spinning off the younger "clone" Legionnaires into their own title. I'll discuss both separately as they spin off in different directions, at least for the most part.

LSH:

For all intents and purposes, the LSH title deals with the aftermath of the loss of the Earth on the original team. We at least have an issue where the team deals with their feelings in relation to the new situation, the coming together (then separation) of the younger and older teams, then a setup story where the team takes on Glorith and Luornu finds one of her selves. This springs into the six-issue fight against Mordru and the zombie apocalypse, including fighting their dead teammates. These stories excelled at character moments, as the Bierbaums are very character-centric writers. The reactions of the Legionnaires to the destruction of Earth is great. Violet and Ayla get probably their most definitive scene in v4 as they deal with the loss in their quarters in issue 39, and both Vi's get a good moment together in 40. Jo's situation when he deals with the encounter with his (really stupid) younger self is true.

Then we get to the Zombie story. This very much seemed to be an attempt to tie back to the Amethyst work that the writers were involved with, so I had no idea what was going on there. Also, Martian Manhunter is having sex with Nura? OK... The Mordru/zombie story was just "ok" for the character moments, but issue after issue the same thing seemed to be happening - "Mysa's breaking free/we're beating the zombies" followed by "Mysa's hate is allowing Mordru to take control/the zombies are more powerful" with a bunch of temporary Khund team members I figured were done with by the end of the story.

Well on the bright side, we did get to see Devlin's powers in full splendor, so that was ok. Also - Jamm in the Annual! The first annual to be tied into a DC Annual crossover - the awesome Bloodlines story!

Did I say bright side? Sorry, that's the bourbon talking. Honestly I had forgotten reading Bloodline almost as soon as it was done in the titles I normally read at the time, so this was a major groan fest. Like, totally, dude. But seriously, we DID get Brin back. (and no, I didn't read his series for this).

One definite bright side was Stuart Immonen on the title. I found his art style definitely made the story move, even if the story itself did not. The characters and action were made much more fluid than the Giffen era, which definitely helped the read.

Legionnaires:

I have to admit that I have a soft spot for this title, as I found it interesting to see these kids adapting to their new situation, as well as each other in the new world. The new Fatal Five were creatively re-introduced, I thought, in the context of the younger Legionnaires, especially the new Emerald Empress in Cera Kesh. The story was by no means perfect (why is Mordecai smitten with Ayla? I mean I get it - who wouldn't be - but its not really explained). The two-Eye situation for the Emerald Eye is interesting, and something that was a good take. Cera's transformation into the Empress was realistic and set the stage for the real insidiousness of the Eye that we would come to know in the reboot. Watching Cera become the empress made me actually root for her, because I honestly can't stand the portrayal of Garth or Dirk in this team. They are complete and utter assholes. How are either of them tolerated at all? Honestly, I'd have been totally happy if Cera had axed both of them and they never came back. I was literally hoping this Garth was dead after Cera zapped him. In a similar vein, I felt like they wrote Violet as fairly incompetent, which was very different from her last interaction with Devlin. And its clear that the Bierbaums love Tenzil in any age.

This was definitely a popcorn book, which I was fine with from a plotting perspective - I didn't ask for much, and it delivered a quick page turner.

Clearly this new era of the LSH is designed to be more accessible to a superhero reading audience. We do lose the gravity of the storytelling, probably for the worse, unfortunately, and this really illustrates the influence that Giffen had on the story. But with the Legionnaires' lighter take on the events, I felt more energized reading the books. Bring on year 5!

I had this whole theory one time that Mordecai was actually an SW6 Brin Londo, but Tom Bierbaum shot it down.

And I guess that would have made sense at the time - issue 2/3 of Legionnaires was out there at least a couple months before LSH Annual 4. But at least you didn't have to hold on to that theory for long!

Not the missing in time Timber Wolf, but a younger version (clone or whatever) like the Legionnaires team. A Lone Wolf who had met the Legion, but never joined it. But who had also been weirdly mutated into a monster during the whole process.

Ah! That WOULD have been interesting! I'm kind of surprised they never went there with that. Is that addressed later in the book, or did you ask Tom directly?

I think it was on FB? Maybe here, but I don't think he's a member here.

Anyway, he said that Mordecai wasn't intended to be any previously existing character.

I've always thought they should have had an SW6 Nemesis Kid as well, one who hadn't yet been revealed as a traitor, and whose life then takes a much different path given the circumstances.

Kind of surprised. T&M are notorious for making connections to the past so I'm really surprised Mordecai is an original.

Great idea on Nemesis Kid as well. It would have been better than the zombie Nemesis Kid that was dispatched by Projectra in the Mordru run...

A redeemed SW6 Nemesis Kid would have been cool!


Agree 10000%!

also, interesting discussion and points all around re putting toys away. still too groggy to contribute though... I need my coffee badly

Mordecai as SW6 Brin would have been an awesome idea, although the poetry might have had to go (or I guess we could find out Brin secretly writes romance novels on the side and just pretended to be a doofus in the 80s to throw people off the trail hahaha)

Even Mordecai's weird chest emblem is kinda wolfy if you squint!

I have to admit though, I always just assumed he had the hots for Ayla because she's a hottie

I REALLY LOVE the Nemesis Kid idea! Man, that would have made for some awesome stories...I can't imagine Queen of Orando Jeckie would have been impressed! He's got a really fun power too and he wouldn't be in any danger of becoming a Gary Stu because all you really need to do is throw two bad guys at him together to get around it!

oh, I forgot to say - the two Emerald Eyes is one of those things that just seems so obvious in hindsight, like we know that two eyes is the galactic standard so why shouldn't Ekron have two eyes? I can't believe it just never occurred to me to even wonder about it until that point! And Cera did have a good motivation, and Dirk and Garth were absolutely truly the worst....am I remembering right that this would have been pre-Proty Garth? Were they trying to say that Garth was just an abjectly awful human being before he got replaced by Proty? Dirk at least I would like to think they were going somewhere with it as a story....you could get some mileage out of it if he saw what happened to his older self and just felt like his destiny was already set in stone so he just cynically threw himself into it because why bother trying and failing to be better?

That's what I didn't get - TMK made a conscious decision to turn Dirk into a jerk, mainly based on his womanizing as depicted in the past. And they took it to a logical extreme by giving older Dirk his own fate that his younger version was able to see himself! Literally! So you think that would have made him try to be a better person. It really seemed like the writers were trying to do that.

With Garth, they straight up admitted they did a personality graft, as it WAS pre-proty. Now he's naturally a hothead, supposedly, and he gets reinforced by him hanging around with Dirk all the time. So yes, basic Garth Ranzz, according to T&M, is an abjectly awful person.

But if this Garth is like this all the time in this book, it stands to reason that he and Dirk were like that before the cloning. And I don't see the other Legionnaires putting up with that behavior and I CERTAINLY don't see Imra simping over a guy like that. I know the writers take it in that direction, but he's too much of a wrecking ball.

That was one of the unexplored threads that intrigued me about the cartoon, was the introduction of a Nemesis Kid in the last season, who joined the Legion and suspiciously had the exact same 'powers' as Grimbor's power-negating-ray-gun, so was positioned to possibly be a very different sort of traitor, or not?

Yeah, I've always thought that there was so much untapped potential in NK as a character, and even with all of the reboots, the only thing that's hinted at doing something interesting with him was the cartoon, but even that was the single episode that never got followed up on.

A "good" Nemesis Kid was an interesting idea for sure, and I think the cartoon upgraded his powers well.

I agree. Well said. I really liked the character moments in this follow-up to Earth's destruction and the meeting of the two teams was great. If we had to have that disaster then at least they didn't just forget it an move on.

Immonen's art was definitely a highlight. I thought his art was even better here than his later work on the Superman titles.

Regarding Dirk I remember a letter debating how Dirk could be portrayed like this particularly after the traumatic confrontation with his older self. The letter writer thought there should have been more change. The Beirbaums acknowledged the point but said that Dirk was probably in denial and that his journey was far from over. They had plans to further develop this and I think we see some of that in coming issues.

Regarding Garth, yeah he was acting like a jerk but we do see him pulling himself back around a bit as the story goes on. Again I think they had more tale to tell but it seemed it was more a young teen who has just been through multiple traumatic events, and is finding strength in comradery with his brasher more outgoing friend. The Proty-Garth bit is certainly intended to be a factor. I couldn't find it but wasn't there an issue where Imra says something like "why are you acting like this? It's like you were before ...". If this Garth were a clone that retained the memories of the original but not the Proty personality overwrite then perhaps it makes some sense. Of course the later Time Trapper explanation makes that different again but hey, superhero comics.

Oh and my favourite character in this period was probably Computo. Fun but strong and her interaction with Cham is just grin worthy.

Thank you! Yes, it made the whole thing feel very true, and I appreciate the Bierbaums doing this, and how they did it. Issue 39 is particularly effective

Immonen's art was definitely a highlight. I thought his art was even better here than his later work on the Superman titles.[/quote]

YES! Completely agree - I thought he did great work on Superman, but Stuart was able to handle a large cast really well.


Hah! Superhero comics indeed - IIRC the Trapper stuff comes in towards the end of the era - I don't remember the back half of the pre-ZH Legionnaires as much as the first half. I definitely remember Garth getting his comeuppance a couple times to some degree, but don't remember anything about Dirk - I'll keep my eyes peeled.


Big time agree - Danielle was a breath of fresh air as a full on team member!

Agree, the character moments were very good. And I do appreciate they built on the destruction of Earth and rebuilding of New Earth. some interesting concepts there!