Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes The DnA Poll 2021

A recent post by Gaseous Lad in his Retroboot Re-Read thread inspired this poll. Here's GL's post:


Now, I've seen criticism of DnA in general, and of Legion Lost v.1 in and of itself, but never like this.

I personally, love LLv1, it's my favorite multi-part Legion storyline of all time. But I also love a good, civil discourse about almost anything Legion-related. And I also find it interesting that DnA still stirs up such strong feelings, more than 15 years after they left the Legion.

So, the poll question: When *should* DnA have stopped writing the Legion? I say after Legion Lost.

The DnA Poll 2021 single choice
	After Legion of the Damned/Widening Rifts
	After Legion Lost v.1
	After Legion Worlds
	After Hypertaxis storyline (The Legion 1-8)
	After Computo/Robotica storyline (The Legion 9-14)
	Should have stayed longer
	Should never have written Legion
Votes accepted starting: 06/18/21 08:18 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

I'm going to have to go with 'should have stayed longer'. I did really enjoy their run, and I really disliked Simone's run that followed.

Thanks for getting this poll going, Supragirl.

I actually never read Simone's issues, I've always found her overrated. Sounds like I didn't miss anything.

She's written things that I've really liked, and things that I've really disliked. For me, she was at her worst writing Brainy. It felt overdramatic and took the 'Brainy goes crazy AGAIN' trope and made it worse.

Thanks for starting this Poll, Ann! I've been really thinking about this subject a lot lately, actually.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I will be getting back to doing a re-read of "The Legion" probably in the August timeframe, so my comment that Ann quoted was from the stories that I remembered which despite being much more recent, did not have the same stickiness that the first half of the Post-ZH reboot did. Hell, even the Threeboot for that matter. So many of my comments are based on my recollection of things

I voted "should never have written Legion." But I will say that I totally respect the opinions if folks who love the DnA Legion, as if you love world-bending Sci-Fi, I think they do a pretty good job.

That being said, I think that what they do doesn't really fit with the Legion itself. Notwithstanding the drama of the McAvennie editorship of the end of the v4 run, after LSH 100, which ended the 20/30c split of the team, the tone of the Legion needed to be updated. For whatever reason, they couldn't get anything going in 97-98 and the titles stalled in both interest and sales, so a shakeup was definitely needed (McAvennie himself comes right out and says this in the commentary for the first DnA Legion Omni).

But the challenge I had was that the shift into Legion of the Damned, then Widening Rifts, LL and beyond opened up two problems that soured me: First, it seemed like EVERY storyline, one after the other for years, was an Earth-Shattering epic with little time for the smaller, more human-centered stories that I felt were Legion hallmarks.

The second, and perhaps more importantly, was CHARACTERIZATION. The plotline, probably nine times out of ten, overrode the relationships between the characters - with the exception of LL, I will admit, because you can't write that kind of story and ignore those things. But I guess more to the point, a lot of the relationships that I had become invested in over the course of the reboot were tossed. Garth & Imra, that was messed up. Jan & Candi had a wonderful blossoming relationship that ended tragically for both. Spark & Cham's relationship was KIND OF acknowledged in one frame, then never heard from again. Vi & Zoe's close friendship over a number of years (in the comics of course) was only acknowledged after Kinetix had been completely transformed into something unrecognizable (which is a whole other thing). The only thing that was kept through was Jo & Tinya (*gag*).

I guess it did work for a bit - The Legion sold more than the end of the v4 books, and even more than LL. But fundamentally the Legion is about the relationships between the characters. When you alter one of them, OK, that makes for an interesting twist in the team dynamic (e.g., Lar & Shady in retro). When you toss most of the ones readers have been investing in for years? Not a great decision, IMO. (Like KC Carlson has said - Legion is super hero sci-fi with a dash of 90210).

So, again, DnA - absolutely good writers, especially around these kinds of big stories. But, IMO (and to my recollection), they dropped the ball on a lot of what made the Legion special in favor of a SciFi epic.

I do remember that. With Umbra slapping Brainy into his senses (though I did like the part where Tasmia says, YOU CAN ASSERT YOURSELF Brainy)

I voted after Robotica, as the Hypertaxis and Robotica storylines were still ok. dream crime was still also kind of ok.

Though it was just ok, nothing after Lost really lived up to it. Understandable?

I was tempted to vote After Worlds, as there were a lot of interesting ideas introduced in Worlds. This would also have prevented Terrorform Zoe?

Re Terrorform Zoe, it was a horrible idea but I could have lived with it had it only been temporary

The Garth in Jan?s body thing was terrible and unnecessary.

Sensor evolving was? neutral I guess.

I found much of what they did later on a bit meh. I do like Dreamer finally joining the team though?

The only thing I found truly asinine was the two parter with sensor evolving and ra?s brought in to help. So much stupidity everywhere. Thom and Mon do nothing while dozens of Ra?s clones walk around (despite both having the powers to mop them all up). Shikari almost gives in to Ra?s threat to kill her. Gates was probably the only Legionnaire who came out well in that story? and of course the restoration of life to Xanthu was nice

The good things about Simone?s story IMO were Tinya stepping up as leader, and Nightwind and Infectious Lass being introduced.

LOL we must have cross-posted, Ibby.


snipped, 'cause 'nuff said.

Worlds still had her going into the Science Police, which I'm not sure about. I mean it's ok? But I would think after the Legion that would be a demotion. Dyrk went there since he didn't have powers. Zoe could actually be pretty formidable if written properly. I think they just had it set very early that they wanted to alter her, and that's the only way to do that was to make her SP to be caught in the Hypertaxis wave.


That's a negative from me. Seemed unnecessary just to add angst.


Ibby, this is probably the one thing I will give props on to DnA. I thought they did a great job pulling up Nura's character and kind of turning her into a badass.

And Ra's. :rolleyes:

yeah, and also Zoe going into the SP is weird... she's such a free spirit, the SP is more regimented. heck, DNA even alluded to this by having Shvaughn be all like "um I don't think it's a good idea..."

true, Sensor evolving was unnecessary. I mean, most people who didn't like her, I think, did not like her because she was an altered Projectra. her evolution did not solve that...

and I agree with you re many team relationships being ignored or watered down. Like the XS/Magno romance; Brainy/Gates was mentioned in like one scene; etc etc etc

After Legion Lost.

Legion Worlds was OK but mostly forgettable.

The Legion took an enormous nosedive after about issue #3.

I think I actually liked Legion Worlds more than Legion Lost.

I became frustrated with them pretty quickly after they started writing the ongoing. Hypertaxis just seemed incredibly goofy.

I kind of enjoyed Simone's arc, however, which at least demonstrated to me that there was no real reason to reboot the title once again.

I do remember being quite hopeful and optimistic for the ongoing. Hypertaxis had problems, but was still ok. Robotica was a step down, but still ok - I remember thinking, ah, finally, Thom, Jenni, Tinya are back. Brin and Nura are kind of here. I can forgive some kinks in the story, now that the gang is getting back together.

I don't think my disenchantment fully set in until around Dream Crime (the two-parter with Ra's and Sensor really made my enjoyment take a nosedive).

but indeed, there was little that could not be fixed. A Reboot was unnecessary for sure.

This was where Ra's was introduced as the Big Bad, right? I just remember thinking it was an odd choice to have this particular Batman villain as a Legion foe. Wouldn't someone like Vandal Savage have made more sense (as they kind of did in the Star Trek crossover) from a longevity perspective?


Yeah. Ra's, hypertaxis and all the wonkiness that came with that, Cub... Ugh.

I'll still not change my vote, as I stand by my view that the Legion needed a revamp, but didn't need DnA, but I would say that I recall enjoying Worlds as well, I think because they were character-driven stories, even though I had massive problems with some of their character choices across Damned, Rifts and LL. Then when they got to the ongoing, it really went off the rails for me.


I honestly don't remember enough about that part of the run to comment yet. But according to Waid's recent interviews, the decisions to reboot were purely management; he was just a hired gun for the Threeboot.

I think the Ra's reveal was issue 5...

I'm not sure how to respond to the poll. IMO, after "Dream Crime", specifically "Foundations", is when DnA began to get that not-so-fresh feeling. But given the options as they are, I'll go with "stay longer", so they could have wrapped up their loose ends, theoretically.

Yeah, I have to say that Foundations was where I went from being frustrated but still willing to give them a chance, to actually quitting the book.

Oddly enough, this arc got decent promotion from DC, and I was stoked for it. But it just came off as a really dull, half-hearted GDS rehash. I wouldn't be surprised if the basic idea (plus Kon-El Superboy) was DC-dictatedfor a sales push. It certianly shows in DnA's uninspired storytelling there. Chris Batista's art is nice but can't spark those dull story bones. Obviously, a lukewarm (at best) sales response buried DnA for good.

I still would have rather they had been allowed to complete the run instead of Gail, so they could tie up those loose threads. I feel they deserved that consideration.

Thinking more specifically and honestly about my response yesterday to Ann's quote from my other post, I can be much more specific about my issues with DnA.

My issues as I described earlier can be best described in this one panel (attached). I don't know who's ultimately the director here - if its Coipel given free rein, DnA in their writing of the page, MM for editorial direction, or something other from above. But the fact that there have been four or five years, at this point, of Legion stories that quite specifically show the characters of Shrinking Violet and Kinetix basically going through hell and back together for each other (being very specific here - about the issues with the Emerald Eye, Mordru and the aftereffects on Vi, which were revisited at least three times over the following couple years), and then after a horrible crisis have them as far apart on the frame as possible, shows either writer's ignorance or editorial malfeasance. Salu's hanging out on her own and Zoe's hanging with Jazmin and Val? Jenni and Dyrk just got together a couple issues prior? What?

Whether this is ignorance or the soft homophobia that DC editorial applied to the Legion at the time (oh, we can't have Vi & Kinetix together too close in frame!), we'll likely never know. But at the very least it showed some level of ignorance of what had come before. That DnA would not even acknowledge the V&Z friendship rang completely false to what had come before. Or if it had some story basis, it could have been told, but it wasn't. And that tainted all I saw after regarding the Legion and DnA.

It is what it is. DnA's Legion run will always be tainted to me because of this one frame. Not like one dude's opinion matters to McAvennie, DnA, or DC. They all got their cash. Or anyone, really. You can call me oversensitive. I really don't care. But at the end of the day, I will never be convinced they gave a S*** about the Legion's history or legacy. (e.g., the more recent comments about the Darkseid story)

I'll still re-read their run. And I'll still comment on it. But fair warning that it is absolutely biased.

And that's the truth.

Again, if you love DnA, I think that's great. They had some good storytelling chops. But, they had blinders on their glasses for the characters they wanted to play with.

I respect your opinion but I think you might be reading a bit too much onto it. You don't seriously think DnA or Coipel or the editors went "We need to show 25 characters in the same panel but let's make absolutely sure that these two specific ones are shown as far away as possible", right?


I'm not sure what you mean, but if that's they play favorites and/or tend to ignore other writers' work if it contradicts their vision of the character... well that's true for every writer, especially for a large team like the Legion. Even writers who are ridiculously skilled at juggling a huge cast and giving everyone a good characterization (Levitz immediately comes to mind) are doing the same thing.

I voted "they should've stayed longer" but I'm fine with them leaving when they did, even if I disagree with rebooting again.

I was enjoying the book when they left and I've liked almost everything they have written on the Legion, but there were signs that they were starting to write themselves into a corner on various subplots.
They had been on the series for quite some time and I think it was a good moment to shake things up on the creative team. I don't know if Simone would've been a good match as a regular writer, she didn't really get a chance to do anything and I'm pretty sure there were no long term plans for her.
She knew she was writing just a couple of issues before a reboot, right?

Should have stayed longer, with provisions. I really disliked the inclusion of Superboy in this run, don't know if that was mandated by editorial or DnA's idea. Same with Ra's al Ghul and Darkseid, taking 20th century villains into the Legionverse. They could have invented new villaina for those roles. Other bits - Cub, their take on the Fatal Five - didn't work for me, but you never get 100% on a run.

Mostly, I liked the greater focus on sci-fi themes; hypertaxis might have been a bit goofy, but the idea of a robot uprising/attack really appealed. Legion World was grandiose but fascinating. I liked Dream Crime, using an established Legion villain. Relationships got kind of messy, but had emotional weight. We got the Academy back. It felt like the future.

I will freely admit that I most likely am. But I will still maintain that the choices were curious for that frame.


And that's a totally fair point. Not everyone is PL - not even close - and that may be another reason why I was disappointed in DnA. Lots of interesting concepts, with Legion characters, but not the relationships.

She had to have been made aware. I would hope so, at least.



Both very true. The sci-fi element absolutely was their best attribute.

I'm not sure if Simone knew about the reboot, but Keith Champagne apparently didn't. I remember his excitement at the fact that DC let him write a fill-in that would have long-term consequences for the character of Wildfire (the idea that he was exhausting his energy over time).

I didn't particularly care for that story but now I feel really bad for him :-(

Gosh, that does indeed sound very sad for Keith

I'm aware he wrote issue 34 - did he expect that it was going to lead to more Legion gigs?

No, that was the point. He figured with only having one issue, they wouldn't let him do anything that had a consequential effect on one of the characters, and was surprised that they agreed to it. But, of course, it turned out not to be consequential at all since that version of the Legion ended a few months later.

Wow! "Should have stayed longer" is currently in the lead!

Even though I voted for "After Legion Lost v1", I also love it when polls go in an unpredictable direction.

Oof, looks like I may have been thinking with some nostalgia blinders when I originally commented, because I had forgotten about some of the absolutely dismal stuff that has been brought up in this thread.

Sneckie's 'evolution' was unnecessary and terrible. The Ra's stuff dragged on for too long. I wasn't a huge fan of reinventing Universo as Imra's cousin, but I did overall like that arc. I love the superpowered baby trope, so the Cub stuff didn't grate on me, but the pointless drama in Jo and Tinya's marriage did.

As a huge fan of big scifi shows like Star Trek, I did like how large the Legion felt towards the end, with Legion World and the Academy making a comeback. It was a really interesting concept I wish was expanded on more. So I stand by my original vote, that they should have stayed on longer, but I can admit their run was by no means perfect.

I voted should have stayed longer....there was a lot of meh stuff but I would have liked to see it progress somewhere, and overall I do feel like the series had a distinct identity of its own that I was enjoying more than not.

So in the words of Dale Cooper, "when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must always pay strict attention."

While it's not exactly simultaneous, it's pretty close. We have this discussion happening and when moving my comics collection to my new house, I happened to open one box of several (the lightest one with the fewest contents) and what was staring me in the face? The DnA issues.

So once the move is completed, I'm gonna re-read the whole thing again. I am personally going to focus on how things feel between issues 15-18 or so, after MM was removed from the book (basically when the masthead logo changes).

But I appreciate folks like CA calling me on the carpet. And I'll be happy to eat crow if warranted.

I enjoyed pretty much all of their run so I voted for more.

The winnah, by a mile -- "Should Have Stayed Longer!"

This has been a very educational -- and, to reiterate, a refreshingly unpredictable -- poll.

My thanks to all who participated.

So I had a conversation today and I'd like to change my vote to "Should have stayed longer"

Interesting. Could you please elaborate, GL?

I can promise that when the time is right I can share a four hour discussion about it.

I can be patient when I need to.

I voted After Legion of the Damned/Widening Rifts. If there was a skip Legion Lost option I would have voted that. I didn't like the Element Lad/Progenitor as mass murderer aspect of Legion Lost.

What I remember of the DnA run is that they always started off great, but none of their stories ever had a satisfactory ending. They were great with the buildup, but awful with the payoff at the end.

^Agree with that! A lot of the story endings simply didn't hit the right emotional highs for me.

It's been awhile since I've read it other than LL but in general I'd say I enjoyed all of their stuff.

I'm rereading Legion Lost as we speak here, and honestly, its like sifting through glass shards for me to get through.

I don't like the art - early Coipel is NOT my thing and early Alixe aping early Coipel plus Lanning's heavy handed inks = nothankyou.

The story is OK and well told, extremely internally consistent, but it is about two issues too long (its just set up for a year and the "one character focus a month" approach), dragging around the Singularity section.

It's a good SciFi story, but just an OK Legion story. The problem is the Characters, the characters, the characters. We get the "out of control Imra" "lovestruck Ultra Boy" and "Bitch Umbra" tropes all together as if nothing had progressed over five years of stores. The only characters that I ended up not hating were either marginal (Cham), new (Wildfire & Shikari) or killed off.

I also remember I hated the whole Progenitor nonsense. Was that DnA? I didn't like that development at all.

Correct, Progenitor is Jan Arrah. I was also not a fan of this or him killing Candi. I wonder if getting rid of Candi was because of her being too similar to a couple Marvel characters?

GL, I never thought of that, but it sure makes a lot of sense. It's a good thing I love the Legion, because while there is a lot of great stuff, there's a significant amount of crap as well.

aka the life of a Legion fan.

I have mixed feelings about the whole Jan/Candi developments.

I can't deny that DNA were the ones who made me love Candi, as opposed to just like. Of course, they did it so her death would be a bigger gut punch. It worked, and they wrote her well before her death.

Jan's fate: at least on my first read, it held. It made sense in a way, if I don't think too hard about it. And it sure was sad...

Ibby, you touched on the challenge with this book - its a great first read due to the dramatic beats. A re-read is fun because you get to see the little details that are the clues for the Saturn Girl reveal, but it also exposes a lot of problems with the book. For example, Jan is more of a chemist than a transdimensional astrophysicist, and I don't care how long he had to live to figure out how to get the equations right without a computer in one try. That's a Brainiac 5 thing.

As more of a classic Legion fan, I've always found some of the Reboot characters hard to get a grip on, but Candi has, at least in the books I've read, had the most compelling and fun characterization. Particularly on a team so full of people having drama, she was a breath of fresh air, just sort of cheering up the room with her sunny disposition and welcoming nature (which made me, as a reader, feel welcomed!).

I was annoyed at her death, to not even advance another characters story, but to instead destroy that character! (Kind of the opposite of fridging, in that the lady doesn't die to advance the dude's story, but to instead tear him down and show how unredeemably bad he was now).

On the other hand, regarding Candi's upbeat and pleasant personality being a breath of fresh air, Gates' curmudgeonry was also fun, if the exact opposite and not at all a breath of fresh air!

As much as I love Kid Quantum 2, I feel like she didn't get nearly as much personality or development as Candi or Gates (or Shikari or Kinetix or XS, who also seemed to get a bit of focus, as opposed to characters like GEAR and Thunder, who did not, that I saw).

On a 'Legion of One World' composed of characters that *don't* appear in every continuity (like the Founders and Brainy, etc.), Candi would totally rate as someone unique to one version of the Legion, but also fun to have on any team!

Set, I am also more of a classic Legion fan. I love the stuff before the Legion got rebooted and continuity became something that could be retroactively rewritten.

These are really good points Set. Candi (once they finally settled on a personality for her during the Emerald War story) was a good character to have around due to her disposition, and it was also good to have a character with a totally different body type on the team, and a female at that. Jasmin didn't start getting much development until Legion Lost, when she became the star of the DnA era - and it was a good thing because she needed it, and she is still the first PoC to lead the team!

And now that you mention it - Johns basically played Kinetix the same way, just offing her to show how bad Superboy Prime was.

yeah, this bit - with Jan figuring out how to re-enter normal space - always gave me pause. Jan was never before shown to have the kind of scientific knowledge to make these complicated calculations!

And I do find it a shame, that a female character (Candi) with such a different body type (and some angst about her looks!), was one of the casualties of Legion Lost!