Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Rebirth: Add new powers / characters or keep them the same

Hi, I'm a long time Legion fan and can't wait for the Rebirth to happen.

From a purist standpoint, I don't want to see any changes with the origin, characters and powers, but also realize in order to boost / introduce new readers the new writer(s) may need to have a major reboot / rebirth of the "old" Legion.

For example:
- How about Superboy (Kon-el/Conner Kent), Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark), Red Robin (Tim Drake) and Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) either move or are forced into the 31st century (by Dr. Manhattan) and join the Legion? (or form "Titans of Tomorrow") as a 2nd storyline.
- Update the powers of each characters. (e.g. Since Saturn Girl is a Precog/Telekinesis, add "Telekinetic Teleportation" limited to herself or a person for short distances).
- New / update storylines on the Wanderers, GL Corp, Legion Academy, New Gods, Immortals like Vandal Savage, new clubhouse, Legion Embassies across galaxy locations.


Would you like to keep the Legion the same or update characters / introduce new characters and storylines?

I'm not sure what would attract new readers, but personally the best case scenario for me would be a return to an old incarnation of the team, and continue from there.

I think each team had its own dynamic. In the Reboot (Post Zero Hour) continuity for example, I felt that the team had a good camaraderie going. I would restart from there and just add new members.

As for adding new powers to their power set, I think it would work best if the "power creep" were through organic extensions of their powers. To illustrate, in the Reboot -

1) Invisible Kid focused his invisibility to make up to two other people invisible, or to do "partial" invisibility by layering the effect (making all his organs invisible except his bones to fake his death)

2) Umbra learned to make her darkfield hit hard by focusing it tightly

3) Saturn Girl had mental blocks removed to increase her range - but she didn't get new unrelated powers

4) Brainiac 5's trip to the anomaly made his forcefield a part of him

Then the team could add new members such as Nightwind, Infectious Lass, Polar Boy, Mysa, Particon...

Of course, this is what I would like. Can't say if it's the best way to get new readers on board

There are two origin stories for the Original Legion.

(1) Three super-powered youths from the future come back in time to recruit Superboy for their club...

(2) Three super-powered youths save wealthy R.J. Brande from assassination, and he helps them organize a club...

The Reboot tried to eliminate the first origin, but eventually brought in Kon-El.

The Threeboot tried to elimate both origins, but eventually brought in Supergirl.

Rebirth has brought Saturn Girl and the Emerald Empress from the future, but has not (as far as I know) touched on either of these origin stories.

Linking the Legion to the present day has always been problematic: it has been hard to keep the present and the future in sync, mostly because, you know, there really is no thousand-year plan for continuity.

One solution would be to situate the Legion on a parallel Earth, where 21st-century technology is 1,000 years advanced from the mainline Earth.

Maybe history would be accelerated, too, so that Columbus discovered the Western Hemisphere in 492, or the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century BCE. Maybe Superman was extant in the 11th century, when King Arthur's knights all had cell phones. I don't know.

As far as Power Creep goes, I think the simpler the power set the better. Very early on, Saturn Girl originally had a 'super-mind', meaning she was very intelligent, and could read minds. Later, her super-intellect was transferred to Brainiac V, and she gained a broader range of psychic abilities. Phantom Girl could walk through walls, but later was shown to be able to travel between dimensions, (especially the Phantom Zone) and possessed a kind of x-ray vision. Chameleon Boy's power was originally described as 'super-disguise', but he was later shown to be able to transform into giant monsters, reduce himself to molecular size, and even assume a phantom form.

I think it is better for the stories to restrict characters to a very narrow range of well-defined powers. Thus, Colossal Boy just gets big, Shrinking Violet just gets little, and Sun Boy just shines like the sun.

(For those who read my fan-fiction, and want to call me out as a hypocrite, I only explore the Legionnaires' powers they have already demonstrated in the comics. I don't give them new ones. Still, that gives Blok, for example, an incredibly diverse power set.)

All this said, I give my opinion that a Rebirth Legion will be a long time coming still.

And yes, Power Creep would make a great Legion villain.

Given that the past of 20th century characters changes all the time, it has long puzzled me that the 30th century future's past has to so slavishly reflect what is going on right this minute, one thousand years ago... (Manhunters, I'm looking at you!) We've long ago accepted that Superman and Wonder Woman and, heaven forfend, Hawkman's, pasts are going to change from time to time, to say nothing of Donna Troy or the Phantom Strangers multiple-choice origin stories, so why is it so hard to say that things have changed between the 'modern day' and '1000 years in the future?'

It feels like vanity, at best, for some event 1000 years ago to have any relevance to the Legion future, as if my immediate daily routine is suddenly and dramatically be affected by the Battle of Hastings (in a way that it hasn't already been all my life, because that **** was 1000 years ago, and I'm not suddenly going to be all discombobulated by some historical event 'suddenly' affecting me).

The existence of A) a woman who can make Superman forget stuff, and B) time machines being a thing that exists, means that what Superman does or does not do or say or think in the 1000 year old past is completely irrelevant. So he doesn't remember fighting crime as a teenaged 'Superboy' alongside friends from the future. That doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. Same with Supergirl. So what if she just died in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Legion has access to a frikkin' time machine. They can go back and hang out with her from before that happened, bring her to the future and have *YEARS* worth of amazing stories with her, and then return her a second after they borrowed her, so that the present-day continuity doesn't even know that she was gone and having wild adventures in the future with her Legion friends and green boyfriend.

It boggles my mind that people can write for the Legion and not realize this. It's their darn jobs, and it's not rocket science.



Yeah, I feel that the characters have already grown dramatically in power. (Sun Boy, for instance, used to create light. Now he's pretty much a Human Torch riff.) And I also agree that, for the most part, the Legionnaires are fine with the powers that they already have, for the most part. (They seem to have flailed around with Jacques, trying to find a way to make him more useful, and, IMO, not exactly succeeded brilliantly, but other than that, and keeping the stealth upgrade that allows Dreamy to precog while awake, like her Reboot and Threeboot counterparts, I'd prefer that most of the Legionnaires use what's already on their plate, than go asking for second helpings. Limited powersets, in a team book, especially, promote synergy and teamwork and different people having different niches and strengths and weaknesses, which I like.)

Entirely too many 'fix the Legion' notions I see online want to do things that make the Legion no longer be the Legion (like cut them down to five to eight members, or relocate them to the 21st century, or getting rid of the 'silly' names and individual costumes in favor of a more militarized / unified look and presentations, and, IMO, all of those ideas are non-starters). Like the Legion or don't like the Legion. But trying to change them to attract the gaze of people *who don't like the Legion anyway* seems like a foolish pursuit.

I'm not going to market my peanut butter to people who don't like peanut butter. It just doesn't make sense. For the same reason, I'm resistant to notions that they should 'fix' the Legion to please people who don't like the Legion, especially if said 'fix' is to make them more like other teams, like the Justice League or Outsiders or Omega Men or Teen Titans or Justice Society or Doom Patrol.

Technically yeah, Though the Legion's origin Story was never written until Superboy #147... well into the Adventure Comics run. My general assumption was that when the three founders visited Superboy, the club was already formed (meaning there were other members that simply did not make the journey back in time to initiate Superboy). Before you object, just remember... things can change. Originally you had to write your whole name on your shirt to be a member.



I wouldn't be so quick to blame the reboot. After all it was the original Crisis on Infinite Earths that did away with all Kryptonians save for the revamped Superman. Hence Superboy became Pocket Universe Superboy (and they killed him) and Supergirl ceased to exist after Brainiac-5 had one last chance to remember her before she was erased from all time. We even lost Dev-Em the Kryptonian, who became David Emory of Titan. The Five Years Later Legion had Valor and Andromeda in their place, same for the SW6 Batch, so by reboot the originals were out of circulation completely. I think they wove an interesting tale together to get the 20th century Valor from R.E.B.E.L.S. into the then new Superboy's book get him tossed into the "Stasis Zone", and then have Superboy travel forward in time to release him. The Supergirl of that time was Matrix/Linda briefly met the Legion in Supergirl Annual #2 in the story "I Lied for Love"



Different Supergirl, not the original.

In the New 52, That Superboy fought with the Ravagers in concert with the Legion Lost characters, and Supergirl (yet another Supergirl) from Justice League United met the Legion



Too true... and we have a new Supergirl again (Not the same one from the New 52, and a new Superboy (who is about nine years old).



This could work for both the JSA and the Legion with maybe some sort of connection through the Controllers (who just popped up in Hal Jordan and the GL Corps) whom they have tied to the Guardians of the Universe again. Though with the JSA they might come from a world where it's still WWI.



Don't even go there... they make enough of a mess of continuity as it is.



Maybe they can change the powers slightly, or the names. you know, Make "Bouncing Boy", "Pinball" or "Pong" (for something retro), re-name Ultra Boy, "Thunderbird" (to go with his Logo). The Letter column should be brought back for the Legion. They used to do the Bits of Legionnaire business to suggest such things.





My opinion is - that after several years - DC has no plan for the Legion,Just the gnawing, niggling thought that they should have done something with it.

I have my own theory about Ultra Boy's chest symbol.

'Jonah' is a name of Hebrew origin that means 'dove'.

'Marla' (or Merla or Mirla) is a name of Latin origin that means 'blackbird'.

And, of course, when they both traveled back to Superboy's time, the used the aliases of Gary and Ben CRANE.

So the new Legion could be inspired by either Birds of Prey or Hawk and Dove.

Great post Klar.

When the LSH does make a come back, I do hope the new writer(s) either update character powers, origin story or add new characters.

1) if they modify an origin story of a character(s) that were been genetically modified by the parents or planet government to include powers
2) if the Legion will accept "androids" / "cyborgs" / "immortals" / "gods" as members