Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow first time post from chris batista

I would like to give a big shout out to all Legion fans. I had the great pleasure to work on the Legion with the amazing DnA. My interest in the Legion began with the Cary Bates,Mike Grell days. Been a fan ever since and fulfilled a fanboy dream doing the book. The Legion was one of the hardest projects I had ever done, but also the most fulfilling. I am currently working on 52 with the great Keith Giffen on layouts. I would be happy to answer any questions and look forwrd to hering form you all........LLL!

Welcome to Legion World, Mr. Batista.

The art on 52 has been great.

Why, Chris Batista! We've been waiting for you.

Thanks for joining up Chris!

I'm sure the gang is preparing a long list of questions regarding your run as I type this.

Chris! It's great to see you doing so well. (oh yeah, it's Ronda Pattison here!) I have to confess I haven't been following 52, but I'm sure your work is terrific; I've always thought so. Your art for Legion was an absolute pleasure to work on.

I hope you have some fun here; everyone is so friendly and kind. That's why I'm still here even though I haven't worked on Legion in ages!

Hi

Well, since he prompted me, I do have one...

Was it your choice to put M'Onel [back] in the Valor costume? (I read something about that months before it happened saying your really wanted to do it (from a con report around the time you were announced as the ongoing artist, so sometime during summer 2003 while Dream Crime was still coming out), then could never find the site again, but it did happen in your last arc.)

Welcome to Legion World! It's always such a pleasure to have some of the Legion's creative talents (past or present) join us here. Have fun!

Welcome Chris Batista Lad! At Comic-Con this summer Legionworld member Caliente and I were behind you in microphone line at the Legion cartoon panel Q & A but we didn't realize it was you at the time

It's been a nice welcome. Thanks to everyone.Great to hear from you Ronda. You were one to convince me to drop by Legion World, just took me awhile to get here. Just wanted to answer REBOOT's question about Mon el. First of all he was always one of my fave Legionaires. Second...I always hated that costume with the giant M on it. The red boots belong on Captain Marvel not Lar Gand. Third....I wanted to do an update of his classic suit (which I eventually did) and still maintain that iconic simplicity. I made it a jacket instead of a shirt and dropped his blue undies. Fourth.....By changing his costume I wanted to force any writer to acknowledge the change and hopefully make him a bigger focus in the book. I felt he deserved much more attention than Superboy.

My question...

From what I've understood about the Academy students who appeared in LEGION #25, they were all designed by you and the point was to make them interesting looking enough to warrant doing something with them later on.

Did you have any specific ideas about any of them? And if so, what were they?

We had our own guessing game about them, here .

Glad to see you here Chris, You're one of my favorite artists. Hope you enjoy your stay!

in response to the academy students question...I don't have the artwork in front of me so I'll try to remember. DnA gave me a few names and let me play with the rest. I threw in Polar Boy(I just felt he needed to be there).I insisted on Kent Shakespeare not that anyone argued. Comet Queen, Stone Boy[with a better name I hope}, a Rocket Racoon homage to add a little more diversity to the team's bodytypes.I seem to remember some kind of reptilian character in a containment suit, he or she may have been a speedster type. I think Quislet was there but don't remember. For the most part I wanted to make fans react and ask questions. Some of them were just designed without a story. I had to come up with a specific number of recruits. Hopefully fans would dig them and want to see more of them. DnA had some really great plans that they never got to put in motion. They wanted the Legion to get even bigger hence their name. It would have been hell on any artist but would have been worth it. On last note...DnA were originally supposed to have 5 issues to wrap up their run but it was cut down to 2. It would be impossible to wrap up all those storylines, so they had to settle for the Singularity which had been left dangling for a while. There was a great resolution to the Cub story that I was dying to draw.

hey Chris !!

i'm glad you've found the time [ in between your fab artwork on '52' ] to join us here on LEGION WORLD !!

i really enjoyed your run on 'THE LEGION' [ your designs for the SERVANTS in the 'Foundations' storyline were cool, did they look that way in the script, or was it all down to you ??

and as my favourite character is ULTRABOY, i'm interested to hear more on the planned CUB storyline, please tell us more ....

cheers

from

Matthew.

Thanks a lot Matthew. Ultra Boy is one of my faves as well. He is fun to draw as well. The servants designs were all left up to me. Thanks for the kind words. I can't remember the specifics of the Cub story. I feel that only DnA should tell that story, not my half assed recollection. The most I can relate is that is was meant to be done in 2 issues focusing on Cub, Uboy and Twolf. At least one of those issues was going to be an issue long fight scene between Jo and Brin. I would have loved to draw that. I loved the dynamic between those two characters. I really dug DnA's take on TWolf and he was great to draw. Makes me sad that we never got around to it. I think it would have been one of our best stories. Ultra Boy is the most requested character as far as sketching for fans goes. Twolf is the second. Peace...............

Great to see you here Chris! I have to say I'm disappointed you didn't get to draw a lot of Garth as himself in the last series. But I do own two of the pages (including the "love scene") you did during the Universo storyline which had Imra dreaming up the real Garth. I also just got a couple of pages with Jarth talking to Dr. Gym'll that were done by you and inked by Chip Wallace. Some of the best pieces in my collection. Now, if you'll just draw the Legion back-up in 52...

Hi Chris, welcome to the board. I guess my big question would have been about Cub, which you've answered as best you could. So I'll just say I thought your time on the book was absolutely top notch, and I'm sorry it was curtailed by the end of that particular Legion's stories. I thought Dream Crime was really good, and the Saturn Girl spotlight issue was really well done. I'm glad DC is still keeping you around and on such a high profile gig. Nice to know the Legion's tradition of helping usher in fresh talent to bigger and better things continues.

Thanks for stopping in after such a long time away from the book, and you should tell Mr. Keith Giffen how nice we are. There hasn't been a pages-long debate about the merits of the nine panel grid in far too long.

Hi Chris! No questions, just lettin' you know that I was very, very impressed with your art on the Legion and wish your run on the book would have been alot longer. That cover you drew w/ the entire team must have been a nightmare, but the results were faboo!!

Thanks a lot Lightning Lad. I have to say I was pretty happy with how that love scene came out and am glad that a real Legion fan owns them. Just to let you know, DnA always had plans to seperate the two characters, Jarth was only temporary. If there is A legion backup in 52 I would love to draw it but I feel the honor belongs to Barry Kitson, as it's his Legion now. I hope you got your hands on some Olivier Coipel's Legion work. I thought he was outstanding on the book. He gave the future some real grit and made the Legion sexy without being cheesy. His work on the title was very intimidating and inspiring.

Also big thanks to Matlock and Lil Rhino. You all have made this very rewarding for a first time poster. I'm currently drawing two nine panel page courtesy of Mr Giffen. Makes you work that's for sure. The cover was my only one for the Legion and it's special to me, plus I had the madly talented Andy Lanning on inks. We were supposed to be reunited (with dan abnett as well)on Nova for Marvel. Unfortunately I had a prior comittment on 52 on it just did'nt work out. You should read the mini, it's great. Kev Walker did great job on it as well. I just read hear that it's going to be a series. I hope it's a hit. DnA have long deserved the spotlight.

F'n'A to have you here Chris!

"Seperate"? That's interesting - I could have seen Jarth hatching into Garth at some point, but I wouldn't have expected Jan to return given, not so much the fact that he was killed, but the Progenitor stuff. Is that what you meant or am I misreading?

Yes Jan and Garth would have become seperate entities with their own bodies. I think Jan's essence would have been from before his evolution into the Progenitor, stored in the memory crystals somehow. DnA would explain it far better than I. There also may have been a potential return of the Omniphagos somewhere along Jan's rebirth. They had a plan for everybody.

Welcome Chris!
Love your work on 52. Anthing there you can tease us with?

Great to have you onboard Chris! Your Legion work was always a treat and I'm glad to see your continued work on "52". As a longtime "Rom" fan, I also loved how you updated the Spaceknights (I hear they're making an appearance in "Annihilation" - hopefully not just to get annihilated) - too bad the new incarnation never took off. I think I read that Starlin only did it for the paycheck which is too bad.

Legion-ralated question:
Who are your all-time fav Legionnaires (aside from Mon) and which were your favorites to draw?

Non-Legion related question:
What other projects do you have down the pike? A little self-promotion never hurt...

Great to have you here Chris! A lot of big fans your work around here, including me (I think your 52 stuff is the best you've done so far!).

VERY interesting to hear about DnA's plans for the reboot Legion. Too bad we never got to see them. Actually, one of the things that bothered a lot of fans was the sense that some of the stories towards the end dragged out a bit (Universo storyline, Darkseid story). Could you give any insight to an attempt on the editors parts to spread these stories about so they'd fit a trade paperback? It seems DnA were more comfortable in doing 2-3 issue stories that 'grew' gradually into another 2-3 story, instead of one 'set 5-6 issue TPB story'.