Legion Of Super Heroes fans - what would you like in a new book?

[LordUltimus]

I love this Annual because it does give a reason why so many of the UP worlds are human looking. The Dominators took thousands of humans captive during the Invasion event, and experimented on them giving many powers. Valor frees the captives soon after and because they have been so altered by the Dominators they are settled on other worlds as sort of a buffer zone between Earth and the Dominion, many of which latter go on to become charter members of the United Planets. I know Polar Boy, Triplicate Girl, and others all come from planets seeded by Valor in this storyline. I wish it would be made full cannon again.

I agree. It's not as if DC ever uses those planets in the modern day anyways.

[Sutekh]

But I find it easier to believe that the United Planets is mostly made up of planets that were colonized by Earth humans some time in between now and the 30th century. And the reason for some of the super-powers is genetic science giving the coloinists adaptations for the conditiions on those planets--and some of these adaptations changed their physical appearance. That explains why so many of them look humanoid and why they have a common culture and language that unites them.

The really strange aliens should be mostly outside of the United Planets and in the further reaches.

Yeah, Winath, Braal, Titan, Orando, Bgtzl, Cargg, Imsk, Rimbor, etc. all seem to be settled colonies of Earth, while Durla, Colu, Talokk VIII, Great Mother Ocean/Hykraius, etc. seem to be actual alien worlds with alien peoples. I think even the least science-minded writer or reader can agree that humanoid life didn't evolve on *Titan,* of all places! (My own fanwank involves telepathic refugees from Earth fleeing there to live in the H'san Natal base there, and founding their own colony, but I'd suspect that most DC writers have no idea what a 'H'san Natal' is, or that they had a base on Titan.)

As for names, I like a mix of them. There are some lads, lasses, boys and girls, but there are also some Timber Wolves and Dawnstars and Wildfires, to mix things up, and a few Legion-verse heroes who just use their own names, or nick-names (Mon-El, Dev-Em, Rond Vidar, Harmonia Li, etc.). I prefer that to *everybody* having the same concept of what's 'a cool name,' since these are people from entirely different cultures, in most cases. Uniformity in pretty much anything, including code-names, costumes, etc. seems wildly improbable.

The only 'smaller group' I'd want to focus on would be a few flashback adventures to when the team was younger, as well as temporary mission teams, in a UP so big and busy that all twenty five of them can't all even be in the same space sector at the same time, let alone on the same mission.

A flashback to the early days (pre Brainy, pre Superboy, I really dislike how the last Adventure flashback run worked so hard to shoe-horn Brainy in even earlier, since, IMO, he already kind of sucks all the oxygen out of the room...) could be funky with just the first five Legionnaires, Garth, Imra, Rokk, Tinya and Lu. That sounds like a pretty neat lineup for a one-off adventure, before Lyle, Gim, Reep, etc. show up and the team goes back to being dude-heavy.

[Sutekh]

I agree. It's not as if DC ever uses those planets in the modern day anyways.

And when they do, IMO, it's pretty terrible. We are supposed to believe that Earth (and a few other planets) have changed radically over the last 1000 years, but Khundia, the Dominators, etc. are *exactly* the same, culturally and technologically in the Legion's time, as they were during the 20th century Invasion event? Ugh.

If stories set in the modern day want to use a world like Talokk VIII or Winath (which I wouldn't even want to have human-looking people on it yet!), I'd prefer that they try to remember that they are telling a story of that world *1000 years prior to it's Legion version.* It should be as different from the Legion version as Superman's Metropolis is from the 'Metropolis' mega-city of the Legion's time that extends from Boston to Atlanta is. Ditto for worlds and cultures introduced in the 'modern-day' of the DCU, like Thanagar or Tamaran. If shown in the Legion's time, they should be radically different (and since time is fluid, and always changing, the fact that a world named Thanagar exists in the future is no guarantee that the world called Thanagar in the present-day won't get blown up six times over the next 25 years... Nobody is 'locked in' to anything or 'restricted' from writing whatever they want, since heroes die and are reborn, cities get destroyed and rebuilt, and yes, entire *planets* come and go and come again, in the fungible world of comic-books).

I love me some tight continuity, but primarily when it's an *opportunity* for good storytelling, not when it's seen as a straightjacket forbidding the telling of a compelling story because 'some other writer killed that character off-panel for an event nobody remembers a year after it happened' or 'didn't Tamaran/Khandaq/Coast City get blown up/punched to death/destroyed, *two or three times*, 1000 years ago?'

[caj]

And when they do, IMO, it's pretty terrible. We are supposed to believe that Earth (and a few other planets) have changed radically over the last 1000 years, but Khundia, the Dominators, etc. are *exactly* the same, culturally and technologically in the Legion's time, as they were during the 20th century Invasion event? Ugh.

If stories set in the modern day want to use a world like Talokk VIII or Winath (which I wouldn't even want to have human-looking people on it yet!), I'd prefer that they try to remember that they are telling a story of that world *1000 years prior to it's Legion version.* It should be as different from the Legion version as Superman's Metropolis is from the 'Metropolis' mega-city of the Legion's time that extends from Boston to Atlanta is. Ditto for worlds and cultures introduced in the 'modern-day' of the DCU, like Thanagar or Tamaran. If shown in the Legion's time, they should be radically different (and since time is fluid, and always changing, the fact that a world named Thanagar exists in the future is no guarantee that the world called Thanagar in the present-day won't get blown up six times over the next 25 years... Nobody is 'locked in' to anything or 'restricted' from writing whatever they want, since heroes die and are reborn, cities get destroyed and rebuilt, and yes, entire *planets* come and go and come again, in the fungible world of comic-books).

I love me some tight continuity, but primarily when it's an *opportunity* for good storytelling, not when it's seen as a straightjacket forbidding the telling of a compelling story because 'some other writer killed that character off-panel for an event nobody remembers a year after it happened' or 'didn't Tamaran/Khandaq/Coast City get blown up/punched to death/destroyed, *two or three times*, 1000 years ago?'

I thought L.E.G.I.O.N '89-93 did a pretty good job with some of those worlds. I may be in the minority but I was interested in what they did - especially Colu.

[LordUltimus]

The best way I can see for the given reason for the various races not being involved in anything is to have them around the same tech level as Earth, and evolving around the same rate. And even then I'd like for them to have Lanterns amongst them to keep a presence in the present DCU.

[Kurt Busiek]

I have seen the likes of Kurt Busiek say that he would give the Legion a pass if it was offered to him unless he was allowed to do a hard reboot, allowing him to radically redesign the majority of Legionnaires not from Earth so that they would clearly look far more alien and not like a group of almost all white human teens, but that was several years ago.

And that's not quite what I said, either.

I do have ideas that would require a reboot -- but back then, what I said was the the Legion's been rebooted too often, so I shouldn't do it. These days, it seems like any Legion revival would be a new beginning, so a reboot of some sort wouldn't be off the table. But the characters would be recognizably themselves, with the right personalities and emotions and all.

At least, right up to the point where something I think of as intrinsic to a character, someone else thinks is an outrage, and I'd hear about it for the next 20 years.

But I think it's possible to adjust the characters and their backgrounds and flesh them out with interesting textures without losing what readers have liked about them all these years.

I'm not expecting it to happen, mind you -- I think DC will find a way to relaunch the Legion long before I'd be available -- but maybe someday I can do a LEGION series like BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT, where I can produce something that suits my ideas but off in its own private continuity...

[j9ac9k]

I'm not expecting it to happen, mind you -- I think DC will find a way to relaunch the Legion long before I'd be available -- but maybe someday I can do a LEGION series like BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT, where I can produce something that suits my ideas but off in its own private continuity...

Farmer and Davis's "Superboy's Legion" is a great example of creators just doing with own thing with the team and not being part of any other thing. I believe it was an "Elseworlds," but DC seems open to all sorts of tangential creative visions these days, so I hope you get your shot!

[Jim Kelly]

I think if you have great classic stories--as with the New Gods and the Legion--it's a shame to throw those out, even if the continuity changes a bit. Like when Busiek did THE POWER COMPANY, even though a lot of DC continuity had changed, he tried to incorporate as much of the classic DC stories and characters as he could into his run.

I've been re-reading some of the early Legion stories and there are a lot of internal contradictions in the stories, so even if nothing changed, you'd still have to make sense of those early stories in a way that establishes a consistent continuity between them. So I think there's room to change the foundations of the Legion--but I still want a new Legion story to have the convenience of referring back to the classic tales by the great comic writers and artists of the past.

[Sutekh]

Farmer and Davis's "Superboy's Legion" is a great example of creators just doing with own thing with the team and not being part of any other thing. I believe it was an "Elseworlds," but DC seems open to all sorts of tangential creative visions these days, so I hope you get your shot!

Superboy's Legion is one of my favorite Legion stories, even if it is 'out of continuity.' And yeah, anything by Kurt Busiek would be welcome. I love his gift for mining continuity in stories like Avengers Forever, seeing it less as a straightjacket and more as a series of opportunities and plot seeds just waiting to be nurtured.

[Thor-Ul]

And that's not quite what I said, either.

I do have ideas that would require a reboot -- but back then, what I said was the the Legion's been rebooted too often, so I shouldn't do it. These days, it seems like any Legion revival would be a new beginning, so a reboot of some sort wouldn't be off the table. But the characters would be recognizably themselves, with the right personalities and emotions and all.

At least, right up to the point where something I think of as intrinsic to a character, someone else thinks is an outrage, and I'd hear about it for the next 20 years.

But I think it's possible to adjust the characters and their backgrounds and flesh them out with interesting textures without losing what readers have liked about them all these years.

I'm not expecting it to happen, mind you -- I think DC will find a way to relaunch the Legion long before I'd be available -- but maybe someday I can do a LEGION series like BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT, where I can produce something that suits my ideas but off in its own private continuity...

I always could enjoy a history of the Silver Centurions.

[Kurt Busiek]

I always could enjoy a history of the Silver Centurions.

Their history isn't terribly Legion-esque, really.

[caj]

One of the covers of Doomsday Clock #9 from the January solicitations.

[CaptCleghorn]

One of the covers of Doomsday Clock #9 from the January solicitations.

The blood drop on the ring harkens back the initial Smiley face button. I mean, it's a gruesome scene, but artistically brilliant.

[silly]

One of the covers of Doomsday Clock #9 from the January solicitations.

I do hope that at the conclusion of Doomsday Clock, the LSH will be re established again in the DCU.

[bearman]

I know it’s not a popular position, but I thought the Giffbaum semi-reboot address a lot of the issues mentioned here (problems with code names, mature storylines)...plus the great Tenzil Kem!