Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Is the Teen aspect so important?

I just pulled out my box of LSH (inspired by the most recent LSH Archives HC) and I have to admit: I LIKE THE LEGION WHEN THEY AGED.

As I get older, I have less interest in teenagers and a growing dislike for adolescent fantasies written by 30-40 y.o. men for other 30-40 y.o. men. I grew up, WHY CAN'T THE LEGION?

As for the lad/lass code names? Just attribute it to the culture of the 30th century UP. What's cool and/or appropriate changes across time and place, so is it so inconcievable that lad/lass, boy/girl would change value that far in the future in another language (if you buy that we're reading Interlac translations)?

The teen thing bugs me so much, I couldn't follow the Teen Titans (even though I like Geoff Johns and love the art), and I'm probably going to drop the LSH when they get rebooted again. After over 20 years with the team, I realize THIS ISN'T MY LEGION. I don't have much in common with these kids in their future.

And that's sad.

Jorge, I didn't imply that Waid should/will model the new series on Adventure. Imo, we'll see echoes of all the past eras. My point was that the basic concept of the LSH is tightly intertwined with its early characters and any attempt to separate them would unravel the whole fabric. It's for this reason the Adventure-era Legionnaires are much more likely to endure into the relaunch, not to mention Waid's personal bias towards them. I don't believe for a moment that the later recruits you list are as well loved (sorry, Kent Shakespeare does not have tons of fans). It's a moot point anyway, as Waid has expressed indifference towards most post-Adventure Legionnaires (specifically oldbies like Wildfire and Dawnstar and v.3 recruits Quislet and Tellus). He seems to agree with you on the age question, however. If not for Superboy, the new team would most likely be in their early twenties, perhaps closer in age and sensibility to the Cockrum/Grell era than to either the Adventure or v.3 Levitz eras. On the other hand, he didn't seem broken-hearted about the age thing either.

I can't argue your point that Adventure-era characters are no guarantee of success. The SW6 Batch failed to save v.4. The 1994 reboot, heavily populated by juvenile Adventures, *was* a success in its first two years but took a plunge after that. Even I admit these characters were portrayed TOO YOUNG. On the other hand, I think Levitz portrayed them TOO OLD in v.3 and his attempt to revitalize the LSH circa 1985 by retiring the founders and introducing new members and cadets was only modestly successful. Coincidentally (or not) LSH readership started becoming stagnant around this time and v.4, for all its vocal supporters here, just continued the downward slide. Ageing core characters were certainly not the sole cause, but they didn't help, imo. Hopefully Waid will find the right formula this time. If nothing else, they will *look* older if Kitson's teaser image is anything to go by. That's okay with me.

TC, it's allright sorry if it seemed like I was getting rascally. I was just defending Blok, Tellus and Kent Shakespeare.

I agree with everything you said and honestly find it hard to see a Legion without Jo, Brainy, and Cham (vs the founders) as I said before.

I think if we look at IK and IK II we see that while IK might have been more popular IK II was still a fan fave and a legacy character.

Might work better as an elseworld but the concept of legacy heroes a few generations removed from the classic Legion sounds fun for me.

Jorge

I'm all for an Elsewords or other non-canon story featuring descendents of the Legionnaires. As SUPERBOY'S LEGION showed, you can have a lot of fun playing around with the concept of the Legion.

For the "real" Legion, however, TC makes a very good point that interest in the team began to wane when Levitz retired the founders. I know that was true for me, though I'm not really sure why. It sounded like a logical outgrowth of the Legion's development that the oldest members would retire and turn the group over to others. But perhaps that was the problem: It was entirely too logical. Without these characters, the Legion becomes a faceless, corporate entity. It loses the personal touch that makes us care about the characters.

A similar analogy could be found in Star Trek. When STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION was announced in 1986-87, fans were in an unproar that these new characters were replacing their beloved old ones. But the makers of Star Trek did the wise thing by continuing the old cast in the movies while the Next Generation took over on TV. Compare this with many other attempts over the years to continue a concept with entirely new characters (the New Monkees, anyone?).

Geez, this thread is still going. Every time I see it pop up I worry people are gonna see it as me on a anti-teenage rant. Which it never was.

Now we are talking about legacy heroes and the progression the team aging wise.

He Who Wanders you make a good point with interest declining once the founders quit. It's true. The thing is there was no strong characters at the time to really take up the mantle. Polar Boy was leader? ouch. The rest of the good characters were too busy with their own lives to really care.

Again I hate to use this damn example for the 3rd time in a row but! If we saw Brainy, Ultra Boy, Cham, and Violet used as they were in v4 in the end of v3...and the title was never cancelled...I doubt we would say the team lost interest when the founders left. Except for Rokk the founders didn't have much to do with v4.

Jorge