Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes I have to ask...

I've been completely bored with the Waid/Kitson Legion for a good long while now. The only reason I haven't dropped it is because I've been collecting it since the early 80's. I recently visited this site, after a long absence, just to see if I was the only one who felt this way, when I saw the posts about the JLA/JSA/Legion crossover.

After work I immediately picked them up. I don't read the JLA or JSA and I haven't read the 52 series, so I'm not up to date on exactly what's going on. It doesn't matter - this is THE Legion featured to me... Wildfire! Dawnstar! Karate Kid! I was in heaven as I read these books.

I see there are tons of pages dedicated to this, but I am at work so I can't sift through it all. So, I'll ask a few questions while fearing the wrath of the fellow forum members...

What's the general consensus about this crossover and seeing this Legion back in action. Are these the favorite characters of you fans - or are you happy with the current Legion? Is there a chance that this will the team featured in a ongoing series again?

The general consensus is 'yay'.

I'm not a contributor to the general consensus; I'm a little more skeptical and wait-and-see when it comes to this Legion in the crossover: I know that this Legion is supposed to resemble the Levitz-era Legion, but I doubt that they will... but they may turn out to be good anyway. I expect DC's going to be doing something or other with them, but I don't expect the Waid/Kitson Legion to be going away soon (and I'm glad).

I have to say that I'm actually a lot more enthusiastic over upcoming solicitations for the threeboot Legion than I am over what's going on with the Legion in JSA/JLA.

I'm gung-ho in love with the JLA/JSA x-over and the apparent follow-ups planned for Action Comics and hopefully elsewhere.

I, too, have been bored with the Waid Threeboot for at least 2 years, although I occassionally held out hope (only to get burned again and again).

To me, seeing the 80s LSH back in action was like coming home again.

Also - this forum is more hospitable than many as to varying opinions. Don't fear being attacked; even the most spirited debates here rarely get personal (and those that do are not tolerated by mods).

Didio on Legion at Heroes Con, June 16, 2007, Charlotte NC
http://www.newsarama.com/heroes_philly07/DC/sat/dcu.html

Q: Is there any chance that, with Waid and Kitson leaving Supergirl and the Legion, will we see the "original" Legion members in their own series?

A: The Legion members in "The Lightning Saga" will appear in an upcoming issue of Action Comics, while the regular Legion series will continue, DiDio said, and it will all be made clear coming up.


Of course, we can't be sure DC is being honest with us now that they've admitted adding false solicitiations and deliberate misdirection to their bag of tricks.

Speaking for myself alone, I don't regard the "Lightning Saga" Legion at face value as the "Levitz" Legion. There are as many differences between the two as there are similarities, perhaps more differences under the surface than we're aware of at the moment. The old adage, "appearances can deceive" is truer than ever. I'm more wary than excited, I guess.

That's pretty much my attitude towards the crossover as well.

I am liking the JLA/JSA crossover, but not just because this version of the Legion is in it. I love the JLA & the JSA. I would not mind seeing more of this version of the Legion.

But I also like the Waid/Kitson version as well and would like to see more of it.

I will be OK with the Legion as long as they don't go all dark & gritty, 5 years later, trying to be like the X-men.

I've become so jaded toward the 3Boot that I'm not even really excited about upcoming hints re: Wildfire and Matter-Eater Lad. I'm more concerned Tenzil will be a 40 year-old lawyer, not a Legionnaire.

I'm more excited about the toonverse Legion and cautiously optimistic about the JLA/JSA LSH!

Now THAT'S a grandpa you don't wanna tell to "Eat It!"

How about a 40 year old lawyer who is a legionnaire?

On the plus side you could then have a Matter-eater Lad/She-Hulk cross-over.

I'm all over the JSA/JLA Legion. If DC doesn't try to make that Legion a title they are clueless. But when it comes to the Legion DC has been clueless for quite some time.

Before I recommend a series for the crossover Legion, I'd like to see some indication that there's more than nostalgia at work here.

I see your point Mathew. I got all the nostalgia I could take during the first couple of years of the reboot. New and different but rewriting the same old thing.
None for me thank you I'm trying to cut back.

However if we were to get a book about an Adult Legion that's grows naturally out of the Levitz Legion then I'm behind it 100% (at least for the first year, maybe two) Potentially that couold be very exciting.

Excuse me, but what are those hints? Somehow I've missed them.

Well, a solicit for an upcoming issue mentions a "matter-eating lawyer", and that looks a LOT like Wildfire on the cover of the latest solicit.

Check the solicitation thread at the top of the page!

Tenz is now mentioned by name!

This is what makes me even MORE interested. I don't want 'Levitz' Legion. I already have it and can take it off the shelf and read it any time I want. This looks to be a subtle new take on almost ALL of Legion history. It will be watching for and spotting those subtle differences that add to the enjoyment.

I learned long ago that no matter how hard you try to return to something in your past their will always be a difference. Why not cherish the difference rather than let it sour the experience.

I'm all for that, but if we're going to get something different, how about we get something different different, like, oh, I don't know, the threeboot Legion. There's a lot of potential there that a good writer could do great things with. (Not that Waid's not a good writer, but I don't think he ended up fulfilling the promise of his own contributions to Legion lore.)

I agree, I love this new Vi, would like to further explore Element Lad, Shady has depth and the Brin and Jeckey relationship could be so much fun. I miss the writing style that made the late 70, early 80's Legion such a joy to read, one at a time or all in a huge pile.

That said MY LSH will always revolve around Drake and Dawny, A married Garth and Imira, Chuck and Luornu running the academy and a Female SP's Shvaughn an GiGi dating their way through the team.

I think your take on the Legion(s) is a good articulation of how I feel. I can look at every legion on the market and find something about it that is not to my satisfaction, but, whoa, I just said "every Legion on the market," and I have to use the fingers of more than one hand to account for them all.

I like the WaK Legion, warts and all. Barry's art, Mark's dialog, the characterizations are all satisfying extensions of the familiar Legion I had last read in the 80's. I would have loved shorter arcs and more closure, but I won't lament the shortcoming at the expense of enjoying what was truly exciting to me about this run.

My 9-year old has seen a couple of of the cartoons and I plan to send her off to grandparents' houses this summer with my Legion Showcase -- maybe I'll buy a copy for her and keep mine in the ziploc bag. To me the cartoon is not significantly better or worse than other cartoons, but, then again -- it's a Legion cartoon. I never expected to see animated Legionnaires talking on the TV.

The comic book adaptation of the cartoon is modestly interesting to me, but it gives me a chance to bring Legiony goodness into the lives of my kids -- cause daddy's not opening the short boxes of Cokrum/Grell issues for these hellians until they can put up some collateral and sign a legally binding rental agreement.

Legion in Action, Legion in JLA, Legion in JSA, Legion in Justice -- none perfect, none capable of unifying the horrendously fractured continuity of the Legion -- but, to me, all satisfying, individually and in the aggregate.

I love a DC universe that has Legionnaires popping up like dandelions.

Maybe I'm just easily entertained or have an overly superficial interest in comics to appreciate the horribleness of it all. I love the Legion exactly as it (they) is (are).

Washington, DC recently had a big Shakespeare festival. Most every arts venue in the city had some sort of Shakespeare production -- Shakespeare purists could pick at each one as too commercial, too outlandish, too conventional, but to me, there was a great delight in the fact that I was in a city with Richard III, MacBeth, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Coriolanus, and Titus Andronicus all being played in some form over the course of a few months.

The Legion is my other Shakespeare -- a collection of characters and myths, dialogs and scenes, that are available to many creative talents to expand, reimagine, redeploy, slaughter, lampoon... I welcome any creator who adds to the body of Legion
lore.

Maybe I'll see if Michael Kahn would like to produce a version of Othello set in the 31st century in which the Moor of Venice wears a disco-bondage mankini and elf booties. Surely that would be above criticism!

Ahhh...one that loved not wisely, but too well.

Oh, I agree with you, absolutely. Just sayin' it for the sake of people who view the "Lightning Saga" Legion as a born-again "Levitz Legion" and are pinning their hopes on a pre-Crisis renaissance that may never materialize, or may turn out to be something very different than what they bargained for. I'm not one of them - not in the least - but I'm wary on their behalf because of the head games DC is playing these days. Look how DC just mercilessly teased and deflated the hopes of all the hyped-up fans of <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Barry Allen</span></span>.