Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lardy's Roundtable: How forgettable or unforgettable was SLSH/LSH between Earthwar and Levitz II/Giffen?

That's about as simple and perfect as I've ever heard it put. Agreed 100%.

I think the allegorical type of sci-fi stories can work well in a Legion comic, but I think that the recent trend of always setting them in Metropolis or on Earth is usually not the way to go.

Many Legionnaire home worlds have barely been used. Why not set an allegorical-'contempory' commentary type story on one of them? There'd still be consequence, since it'd be a leading character's home planet, butwouldn't be the main focus of the 'home' setting- which is what gets old quickly, I think.

For the more out-there allegories, there's plenty of existing planets/planetoids/asteroids/moons to choose from.

Of course, an original world is always a possibility, too.

"recent trend of always setting them in Metropolis or on Earth is usually not the way to go."

Maybe I'm not following your train of thought on that? Earth setting seems (to me) to be one of the things that would distinguish a Legion story.


Legion has for me always been kind of a first contact with our own future type story. I think part of the interest in "first contact" type stories is they rely on comparing what we have to what they have, our morals to their morals and of course, misunderstandings. If the stories are not based upon future Earth how would they distinguish from stories set in the present day but on a more advanced world?

I'm thinking of the old/young tension in the current boot and the related privacy coccoon thing and how tiresome I found it.

If it'd been only Lallor that had the age split and Bgztl that was typified by a lack of public interaction both ideas would've been more palatable, to me.

Visiting an allegorical society can be entertaining and thought-provoking; having it as the *main* ongoing setting and background takes too much focus away from the characters, IMO.

Sci-fi and Superheroes are not competing genres to me....

The Superhero is a subgenre of Science Fiction, the Superhero was borne entirely out of the Science Fiction Genre.

Aliens from other planets definitely qualifies as Science Fiction...and that's what the first Superhero was. The guy who put the Super in Supehero is an Alien from another planet. Just like Chameleon Boy.


I don't see it as an either or thing...the more superheroey it becomes, the more science fictiony it becomes...I definitely want other aspects of sci-involved...but I don't feel like playing up the superhero action is toning down the science fiction action.

I agree with much of what you just said...


But I'v always thought the Legion needed more than one HQ. These guys are the defenders of the Galaxy...having only one base is like basing all the Police for the United States in Los Angeles or something.


There should be at the minimum 2 HQ's...one on Earth is fine, but they need to have at least one on a planet in the frontier region of the UP territory as well.


I mean what is the scope of the Legions reponsibility? At the mimimum, they are the defenders of the United Planets. I've seen their responsibilities increased to a much larger degree than that often, often at a galactic level, actually I've seen them given the task of defending the entire Universe as well...and they've served as the Time Police on many occassions. They've served as a branch of the UP Military...hell they've served as the UP Military, and the Military aspect of the team is inherent in their Legion name.

More bases...more members IMO.


And to go along with that, more monthly titles

This reminds me of Star Trek, again. (It should; I've always thought of the Legion as superheroes in Star Trek's world rather than our world.) The Federation was created as a pseudo-USA, pseudo-UN, pseudo-20th-century society. It was to be the audience's point of reference, a familiar world through which our experience of odder worlds could be mediated.

And this is what I realized was one of the major problems with Star Trek as SF. There shouldn't have been one default civilization. The different Federation worlds should have been regularly seen, each with their distinct traits. So should major non-Federation worlds. Trek gradually developed some of this, but never to the extent I'd like.

In a universe like this, there should be no one society that's entirely familiar.

Also, I do wonder how compatible superheroes and SF are. Yes, superheroes can function perfectly in an SF setting. But I once realized why non-humanoid Legionnaires seemed odd. (Not that I mind them; there should be more.) "Superhero" requires defining "super-powers", which requires a definition of "normal/non-powered". For a non-humanoid, we don't have a baseline expectation of what its abilities are. Thus, such a character seems to be an SF character and not so much a pure superhero.

Not that I mind that. SF characters that are superheroes only from our perspective can still be marketed as superheroes, and I do want the Legion to lean a bit that way.

True, and Trek also had a tendency (common of other shows of its era, as well) to treat American society as the Pinnacle of all civilizations, something that backwards alien societies should aspire to. The episode "The Omega Glory," for example, took its allegory to ridiculous extremes by having Yangs (Yankees), Kohms (Communists), an American flag, and the preamble to the Constitution. The allegorical message: Alien societies should strive to become just like us.

Allegorical alien societies should not be used just to point out how Wonderful we are. They are best used, I believe, to challenge some aspect of our society and make us look at it in a different way. I seem to recall that The Next Generation did a somewhat better job of this.

Good point. It wouldn't be hard, however, to establish baseline expectations for each society, race, or species. The trick is to not overwhelm the Legion with minutiae that would distract the reader from the main characters.

I remember a letter column from the '60s in which one fan suggested that Element Lad could have a Trommite extra eyelid, for example, that would give him additional protection against bright lights. Mort replied that it would be too difficult and cumbersome to consider such differences for every Legionnaire, so it was best to treat them as normal humans.

Mort's response was probably wise for the time. But as comics and readers have become more sophisticated, I think we can handle the concept of baseline expectations for alien cultures. And really, once such expectations have been established, they don't need to be referenced again, except in stories wherein they're relevant. Few stories, after all, have to remind us that most Winathians don't have lightning powers.

I actually don't mind if they veer further into sci-fi and away from SHics once in a while.
I'd rather it be too sci-fi than too SH (i.e. Conway era).

As much as I know that many of the Legionnaires are *supposed* to be aliens, I've never been able to consider most of the Legionnaires as 'alien.' Chameleon Boy? Sure. But Garth, Imra, Rokk, Jan, Lu, Salu, etc. have always seemed less like aliens and more like earth-colonists who have lived on their own worlds, forming their own societies for many centuries.

I will suspend disbelief that a teen could be a telepath, from a society of telepaths, or that her boyfriend / husband could have gotten electrocuted by a space-elephant-looking-thing and can now throw lightning bolts from his hands, but my suspension-of-disbelief chokes and dies when confronted with the notion that humanoid life (kinda Scandinavian swimsuit model-looking life) could evolve on Titan and then interbreed with identical earth-normal-humans (Irish-looking humans, at that!) who grow up on some planet larger than earth.

Call it Valor, call it Controller interference, call it 'the Great Diaspora of 2127,' I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, Imra, Garth, Rokk, Val, Salu, Lu, etc. are all similar enough genetically to breed because they are all from the same place, originally.

That's a good point, Set. It certainly makes things more convenient if the human-looking Legionnaires (and European-looking, at that!) can trace their lineage back to earth.

But, either way, I'm comfortable with the notion that they are from alien worlds and that each world may produce unique evolutionary effects on their biology.

Amen to that.

Like I've said, if we veer just a little further into scifi territory (maybe not quite as far as TMK, but closer), the Legion should get more cutting edge with what it depicts socially and politically. Mainstream comics are still so far behind with these.

Sci-Fi tends to equate to "cutting edge". Whether you liked it or not, just think about how much more cutting edge TMK LSH was with things like its homosexual characters and the like.

The LSH needs to step up again and depict the kind of things that the other superhero comics won't. Moving the needle a little more towards its sci-fi side can enable this like it did before. Sci-fi films and TV shows have always been the innovaters of bringing more modern ideas (ironically) among the mainstream media.

So, really, it takes a more futuristic book to attack modern controversial subjects, even if subtly, to pave the way for others. With homosexuality in particular, it'll be important until Peter Parker gets a gay roommate, Jimmy Olsen has a lesbian sister or Alfred Pennyworth comes out of the closet! Maybe if the Legion shows the way, those things will happen.

That's why I think the Legion, at this time, shouldn't be more about envisioning a far-out future that we could barely imagine so much as it should be a mirror into our own society.

In the pre-Crisis universe, wasn't Krypton a colony world (the "Kryp" and "Tonn" story)? Thus, human life was older than civilization on Earth. It appears there was a diaspora, but before recorded history.

Let the flame begins! From Lying In The Gutters, with GREEN light:

CONTAINING MULTITUDES
<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">
More San Diego creator talk tells me that the Jim Shooter’s "Legion Of Super Heroes" title ends with issue #50.

It will be replaced with a new Tony Bedard LSH project, and the Levitz/Giffen Legion project will also see publication.

I'm also told that the junior book "The Legion Of Super Heroes In The 31st Century," is also coming to an end with issue 20.

The future seems an uncertain place.</span></span>

I've already said somewhere else this is a shot in the head, because Tony Bedard is a fill-in writer so far. I bet sales will skyrocket downwards.

Yeah,the only way it would sale is if it looked like this.

That's the one... I would like to have this one as a print or litho or whatever - I think it is near perfect, much better than the other one with Superboy leading the squad upwards... I don't like the emphasis on big blue...

I loved the Superboy connection but agree on the preferred poster. This one just says, write the story, sign the cast and somebody get Jon Favreau on the line.

So what kind of storyline would you all like to see appear in an LSH title that might not have appeared in a previous LSH story or that did, but wasn't exactly used to its potential?

What I would like to see--and this goes for comics across the board--is a return to shorter arcs or even "done-in-one" comics with more substance than what I've read lately.

I'm currently reading the SHOWCASE PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN anthology. Even though the stories, written between 1959 and 1963, are shorter and simpler, they are well-constructed and usually have a good pay-off. Most ongoing series or arcs of today don't bother with a pay-off. Everything is continued or contains some cliff-hanger that is supposed to make the reader buy the next issue (as if good storytelling alone wouldn't do that).

GL writer John Broome also makes a liberal use of science in most of his stories, which at least gives a nod to the importance of science in our universe and how it might apply to the world of super-heroes. Some of it is quite dated by today's standards, but it shows that Broome brought more to the table than "comic book knowledge." Many comic book writers today seem to know nothing but the minutiae of the Marvel and DC universes--which may explain why comics appeal to such a small audience these days (that and the three-dollar price tag).

Apart from that, any type of story will work, so long as it's well thought out in terms of beginning, middle, and end.

Yeah, the one-off (or even the truly complete multi-parter) has become a bit of a lost art. I'm sure this due largely to the comparatively downtrodden state of the comics industry. Multi- parters and cliffhangers theoretically do two things to help sales: a) the serialized nature gets readers to come back to see what happens next and b) make for convenient material to collect in the lucrative trade collections.

I think this is done well and not-so-well in comics. Though one could argue that the "Sinestro Corp War" was really a larger piece of the Green Lantern tapestry, I did feel it told a complete and very entertaining story, though we know more is to come. And one can hardly argue the success The Walking Dead has had with its serial nature.

But some mega-stories like "Infinite Crisis" and "Civil War" are just so damn unsatisfying as standalone stories it's ridiculous. I hated how IC had like 5 minis leading up to it and the events in them were so integral to the plot. And Civil War was so unresolved and illogical with the characters that Marvel used Secret Invasion to explain away the inconsistencies. *groan*

Some comics are doing a good job at fitting in good one-offs between or around the arcs, though, like Iron Fist and Booster Gold, off the top of my head.

A huge group like the Legion definitely needs more character-centric one-offs, like Levitz did fairly often and even Waid did early on. I'd say the modern Legion is probably better served mostly with arcs, though, when all or most of the team is involved.

You've touched on another one of my gripes about comics today: Marvel and DC need a constant stream of mega-events to drum up sales and media attention. These "events" are the comic book equivalent of summer blockbusters: big on explosions, low on story. Events are poor substitute for good storytelling--another dying art, it seems.

I'm glad that some comics still offer satisfying stories, but it seems like you have to go through an awful lot of dreck to get there.

Oh yes. My favorite arcs have been four to five issues long (Eyes of Tara Markov, Great Darkness Saga, Universo Project), and not these year-long drag-fests that we've been seeing since the Warren Ellis / Brian Bendis / etc. crew become the hot new thang.

As for done-in-one, comics like Who Is Donna Troy are also a favorite, but in the case of a huge team like the Legion, I don't think I'd want to see more than two feature stories a year, lest it become more of a Legion Showcase comic with one character per issue.

Waid seemed to try to combine the showcase issue (the Trips-centric issue) with the 12 issue running arc concept, and, IMO, didn't really do a great job juggling the two themes. Either the character study would get sold short, or the running plotline would seem spotty or rushed, and I don't think that's a problem with Kitson, so much as a problem with the basic concept, as I've noticed the same sort of sketchy wrap-ups in the Ultimates or the mega-crossover-events, as, by the time the year-long event is done, most of the readers seem to be disappointed by the conclusion which was so long in coming.

It seems that everyone has forgotten how to write a self-contained story. Some of my favorites currently, Peter David on X-Factor and Shooter on the Legion, both have succumbed to this, and take far too long to get a story moving. With the Legion, it's a little easier for me to accept, since we're in a constant state of re-discovery, finding out which aspects of the threeboot are being retained and which ones (such as the generation wars thing) are being downplayed, but in the case of X-Factor it's super-annoying, since I already know these characters and would like to see something actually happen that doesn't involve the bad guys getting bored and walking away or whatever.

The end of the first Kitson arc was a prime example of what frustrates me. There was no real closure. The vast armies of super-baddies, including Terror Firma, who had destroyed multiple planets and probably killed billions of people just 'got away with it' and were offered Legion membership, while their leader vanished and was never mentioned again (which, to be fair, was kinda how his power works) after Brainy's little experiment. Instead of "Whoo-hoo! We win!" it was like, "Oh, big mistake. Our bad. Sorry about your planet, Projectra."

After an entire year of build-up, the ending felt very much like a not-terribly-impressive lover failing to finish the job. "I waited all this time for it to get good and they fell asleep? Argh!"

I think that problem is a direct result of taking a year to get anything done, storywise. By issue twelve of wheel-spinning, I don't think Waid could have put sex, chocolate and magic down on the page and satisfied me.

Too much build-up.

As far as arcs go, I am a big fan - as long as they really are finished in a satisfying way, which they are ofthen not...

My absolute favorite is a mixture of short stories and large, more-than-one-year-spanning arcs as we saw back in the 90s in Babylon 5 (until the 5th season disappointment, that is).

The problems with arc like these is that either the architects of the arc often don't see the end - which means a lot of the original intention gets lost, see Straczynskis Squadron Supreme which was simply dropped in the middle of a good story - or it is that successful that TPTB force you to drag the end out, which often happens with successful TV shows like Prison Break or 24 (which tend to get ridiculous later on...)

In the 5YL Legion, I got a lot of what I wanted - but it was not finished acurately due to Giffen leaving, and before that, DC intercepting ("write Superboy out of history").

Waids attempt at telling a story for me is not real story arc. His Terror Firma with the ridiculous bad guy whose power was to be forgotten - ironically, I actually forgot his name, seems to be working - never came up to anything. Shooters current arc writing is much more up to par in my eyes. But as many of you are complaining about, he does not do the little short stories which make so many "arc-tired" people happy...

So which way will storytelling as an artform and in the Legion in particular go? I for my part like my "Lost" and "Heroes" and "5YL", but I can understand that not everybody wants to invest so much viewing/reading into his entertainment. So the question is, who is able to provide the right mixture? Geoff Johns? Alan Moore? Neil Gaiman who did well on all accounts on Sandman? Certainly NOT Grant Morrisson...

CK, I loved "Babylon 5," too (even the fifth season!), but one difference between it and other ongoing arcs is that "B5" was written, JMS always claimed, as a TV novel. That is, he had a beginning, middle, and end in mind from the very start.

The way the story progressed bears this out. JMS took chances that probably wouldn't have been feasible in most ongoing series: i.e., the station breaking away from earth, the main hero being replaced in the second season, other characters undergoing significant and permanent changes, political tensions coming to a head and then being resolved--all in the service of advancing the overall story toward its inevitable conclusion.

That's why B5 was much more satisfying to me than any other TV series. (In fact, for years I joked that "B5" ruined other sci fi TV series for me--and it did, although "Farscape" was a delight in its own right.)

For other TV or comic book series to do what "B5" did would require them to truly have a plan that might end the series and the marketable familiarity of the characters for good. But since most series operate under the mentality of "milk 'em for all they're worth," they keep going until they simply run out of steam.