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

[Lee Stone]

A while ago on the thread I mentioned that I'd want to see some carry-over from the present in a Legion book. Perhaps Diana is still alive and ruling Themyscria, maybe there's still a Bat person swinging around Neo-Gotham, or the book uses a teenaged Clark Kent having his adventures in the future, whatever.

But the Terrifics has also made me realize that the Legion needs some roots in the past, too. The new Phantom Girl, who's supposed to be a ancestor to the Legion member, isn't a bad idea. Of course those characters would have family members in the 21st century who could be worked in. I'm not a big fan of the "Legion team stuck in the past" thing, but maybe if one or two of them ended up in the present day permanently it wouldn't be the worst thing ever.

Just more connective tissue to tie the Legion to the rest of the DCU, you know?

Well, we did have L.EG.I.ON. which served pretty much that purpose.

I mean, seriously, of all the planets in the 30th (or 31st century now), only Earth is present and inhabited in the current day? When we have planets like Rann, Thanagar and the Vega System all populated?
Speaking of which, I also found it a bit annoying that Rann, Thanagar and the Vega System were left almost untouched in the Legion. As if they were afraid of tripping up writers from using those planets in the modern day setting. When Earth is the planet that sees the most action and is constantly being threatened? Yet, it does still exist in the 30th (or 31st) century?
I guess that allowed writers the possibility of destroying Rann, Thanagar or one of the Vega worlds without contradicting something written in Legion... but still, if Earth could survive another thousand years with far more constant threats (on a yearly basis, no less), why couldn't they?

The lack of non-Earth planets being shared in the present and future added to the sense of disconnect.
And 1000 years is a long time. You could have the Legion visit Rann with absolutely no mention of Adam Strange, because no one on the planet would even remember him. And if, by chance, someone did they surely wouldn't know the finite details of his life that could compromise any stories still being written.

[Ascended]

That's a good point, Lee. Agreed completely.

Hell, since we're talking about Thanagar, why not use the Hawks in the 31st century? They get reincarnated (well, depending on which version we're talking about). Even if they're just living in a small suburb somewhere and not doing anything heroic at all, just having them cameo would help make the Legion's future feel like it spun out of the present day DCU.

[Jim Kelly]

It’s amazing that we got as much crossover as we did between the Schwartz universe and the Weisinger universe in the first couple of decades of the LSH.

Murray Boltinoff took over from Mort and he was just as much in his own universe. And even once Schwartz was the Superman group editor, Julie stayed out of the 30th century for the most part.

I guess it’s because Shooter, Bates and Levitz were young comic book fans that we got as much Schwartz as we did in the LSH.

But the Weisinger nature of the Legion has stuck with them. And DC still divvies up the properties to different editors, who often don’t like sharing what they control.

[mathew101281]

My main problem with the Legion is that it’s archaic. It’s a vision of the future that Is to tied to the past. We need a new future one more indicative of our vision.

[Hypestyle]

I think that there should be a green lantern member of the LOSH team. It could be a descendant of one (or more) of the current Green Lanterns.

[Thor-Ul]

My main problem with the Legion is that it’s archaic. It’s a vision of the future that Is to tied to the past. We need a new future one more indicative of our vision.

That is something than I agree with. But I don't think it would had to trash everything but but make a progressive transformation of the background, but always keeping the idea of a better future/utopia.

[Denirac]

Bendis just teased the Legion at his Panel:
A fan asked if Amethyst will maintain her Legion ties. Bendis says be patient with regard to any Legion story. "We're building....Legion is a huge undertaking."

[Jim Kelly]

My main problem with the Legion is that it’s archaic. It’s a vision of the future that Is to tied to the past. We need a new future one more indicative of our vision.

How would you write any story set in the future without it being "archaic?" You're always going to exist in your home time period and you can't filter out features of your existence--nor would it work otherwise, because there have to be some touch points for the audience.

The answer is to lean into that--not try to get away from it. Make the "archaic" aspect of your reality a feature in the future you're writing.

A lot of what I see in today's science fiction is like steam punk. I mean steam punk is just one version of this approach--it's essentially mashing up different time periods which gives the work a heightened style.

You can see this in works set in the past like THE WILD WILD WEST or MURDOCH MYSTERIES or PENNY DREADFUL. But you see it also in works set in the future or alternate realities like ALTERED CARBON or GAME OF THRONES or WESTWORLD.

When I re-read the old Legion stories, I play a game with myself where I imagine how this is actually working a thousand years in the future. I see the 20th Century-ness and Buck Rogers future-ness as style choices of the future. It could be nostalgia or it could be that they modeled their time on old records from the past (which have been damaged so they don't have a full record). It could be like STAR TREK's "A Piece of the Action" or "Patterns of Force."

And the more we learn about the United Planets, in the original classic run, the more we see different planets have their own identity--resembling different nations or time periods from Earth. Which supports my take that the colonists modeled themselves after records they had from Earth. And sometimes maybe those records were totally fiction--but that's the model they used for constructing their societies.

In any event, this kind of conceit is necessary in science fiction, because it allows the stories to speak to us. And you have to give them creative license, suspend your disbelief, for the story to work. If you need a way to explain that to yourself, then make up some excuse. For example, pretend that this is all being transmitted from the future in Interlac, but it has to be translated and altered into images you can comprehend. So in the 1960s, it was translated and altered to make sense to those readers. And for 2018, you have to imagine a different translation and series of images.

Part of reading is decoding. So whenever we look at a comic book, we're decoding it for ourselves. Don't blame the comic book if your decoder malfunctions.

[CaptCleghorn]

Bendis just teased the Legion at his Panel:
A fan asked if Amethyst will maintain her Legion ties. Bendis says be patient with regard to any Legion story. "We're building....Legion is a huge undertaking."

Oh, please. Granted, Legion isn't something you can just whip up quickly and spit out, but it's ONE, maybe two books. it's a single franchise which has some ties to the present day heroes, but needing it to tie into every damn JL and/or Batman story is ridiculous. Add to that, they've had five years. Much of that may not have been used for planning a new series, but with Rebirth Special there's been almost two and a half years since we first saw Saturn Girl and a ring pop up. I'm inclined to think that's been enough time to come up with something.

[Zero Hunter]

I always just go with the Reboot explanation about why the future is not as advanced as it probably should be. That said that sometime in the past there was a major event that nearly wiped out humanity and by the Legions time they are advanced but not nearly as much as they would have been if the disaster had not happened. I always put the event a little after Booster Gold's time somewhere in the 26th or 27th century.

[LordUltimus]

Put them in the Golden Age instead of space.

[Jim Kelly]

Prior to the Legion of Super-Heroes, there was a bunch of other super-heroes that Superboy met. I remember some fans put together a list for an alternate Legion with those characters in it. I know Marsboy was one of them. I forget which other candidates thay had on their list--but Power-Boy of Juno, Kral of Titan, Swift Arrow and Queen Lucy of Borgonia (aka Supergirl) would be likely members.

As well, you could probably make a good list for a Legion of Super-Pets to predate Krypto and his gang.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

How would you write any story set in the future without it being "archaic?" You're always going to exist in your home time period and you can't filter out features of your existence--nor would it work otherwise, because there have to be some touch points for the audience.

The answer is to lean into that--not try to get away from it. Make the "archaic" aspect of your reality a feature in the future you're writing.

A lot of what I see in today's science fiction is like steam punk. I mean steam punk is just one version of this approach--it's essentially mashing up different time periods which gives the work a heightened style.

You can see this in works set in the past like THE WILD WILD WEST or MURDOCH MYSTERIES or PENNY DREADFUL. But you see it also in works set in the future or alternate realities like ALTERED CARBON or GAME OF THRONES or WESTWORLD.

When I re-read the old Legion stories, I play a game with myself where I imagine how this is actually working a thousand years in the future. I see the 20th Century-ness and Buck Rogers future-ness as style choices of the future. It could be nostalgia or it could be that they modeled their time on old records from the past (which have been damaged so they don't have a full record). It could be like STAR TREK's "A Piece of the Action" or "Patterns of Force."

And the more we learn about the United Planets, in the original classic run, the more we see different planets have their own identity--resembling different nations or time periods from Earth. Which supports my take that the colonists modeled themselves after records they had from Earth. And sometimes maybe those records were totally fiction--but that's the model they used for constructing their societies.

In any event, this kind of conceit is necessary in science fiction, because it allows the stories to speak to us. And you have to give them creative license, suspend your disbelief, for the story to work. If you need a way to explain that to yourself, then make up some excuse. For example, pretend that this is all being transmitted from the future in Interlac, but it has to be translated and altered into images you can comprehend. So in the 1960s, it was translated and altered to make sense to those readers. And for 2018, you have to imagine a different translation and series of images.

Part of reading is decoding. So whenever we look at a comic book, we're decoding it for ourselves. Don't blame the comic book if your decoder malfunctions.

I think the poster you're replying meant that the vision of the future that the Legion represents is itself archaic. That it is an embodiment of values and ideas of what the future could, would, or should be from a bygone era. A vision that is perhaps too clean, too sure of itself in its optimism, too caucasian-centric, too hetero-normative, too much an extrapolation of 1950's-1960's ideas of the future (and of those decades' ideas of what America was in the present and what it would or could be in the future). The ideas of the future more often being explored today are definitely more dystopian or at least less bright, less cheerful, and less optimistic that humanity will be able to solve all its external problems (poverty, hunger, illness, etc.) and its more internal problems (greed, hatred, discrimination, sexism, all the -isms and -ations), much less pull together as a species and find a way to explore the universe, build colonies, etc.

Or maybe I'm putting words into his mouth, I don't know. 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.

[caj]

Or maybe I'm putting words into his mouth, I don't know. 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.

The problem with that scenario is that so many long-time Legion fans (some, not all) like the characters in the costumes and not just the power they represent. Rokk Krinn, Imra Ardeen, Garth Ranzz, etc... are who we loved and cared about. I also liked the romantic relationships. I want to see Jo Nah and Tinya Wazzo as a couple and not matched with anyone else. If you start replacing long-time characters and relationships with other people/aliens, then you might as well call them something other than the Legion of Super Heroes.

Even in Mark Waid's Threeboot, he had the characters and the code names, but very few of them resembled those characters in their personality or actions. Give us the REAL LSH or I couldn't care less about it. That's just me.

[Sutekh]

I think the poster you're replying meant that the vision of the future that the Legion represents is itself archaic. That it is an embodiment of values and ideas of what the future could, would, or should be from a bygone era. A vision that is perhaps too clean, too sure of itself in its optimism, too caucasian-centric, too hetero-normative, too much an extrapolation of 1950's-1960's ideas of the future (and of those decades' ideas of what America was in the present and what it would or could be in the future). The ideas of the future more often being explored today are definitely more dystopian or at least less bright, less cheerful, and less optimistic that humanity will be able to solve all its external problems (poverty, hunger, illness, etc.) and its more internal problems (greed, hatred, discrimination, sexism, all the -isms and -ations), much less pull together as a species and find a way to explore the universe, build colonies, etc.

I feel like the best Legion stories have dealt with external threats, like Darkseid or the Fatal Five or the Khunds or Dominators attempting to tear down their (mostly) Utopian future-society, with some isolated pockets of 'things done gone wrong' like Rimbor to spice up the 'utopia' aspect.

When Earthgov itself or xenophobia or anti-Legion sentiment has been the 'villain,' it's felt a little less appealing to me. I don't want a team of bickering jerks in a crappy dystopian future, fighting a hopeless battle to protect a bunch of jerks who are trying to tear them down anyway.

I want a team fighting to preserve a future that *doesn't* suck, instead of just being a bunch of unlikable people in a crappy future with no hope.

For that, I can watch The Walking Dead.

Certain problems that you mention, such as poverty and hunger, we could eradicate *now,* if we had the will. Vat-grown meat (not to mention non-meat sources of nutrition) is already a thing that can be done, and resource scarcity is something we artificially maintain because our economy is dependent on it. I doubt that sort of thing will even be seriously considered until this generation is dead, because too much is invested in the status quo, but in 1000 years? Nah.

I think the Threeboot covered that pretty well, that the average resident of Metropolis didn't even have to leave their apartment, for *years,* and that people, in general, weren't hungry or homeless or desperate for anything.

It's not even taking away the narrative option to present less-than-rosy future events as challenges to overcome, since the UP alone is chock full of worlds that aren't Earth and have very different situations and cultures (such as Talokk VIII, Durla, Colu, Braal, etc.), not to mention non-UP worlds like Khundia and Sklar and Apokalips, and borderline cases that are practically dystopian already, like Rimbor or Avalon.

Earth doesn't have to be a festering pit, too, as the option of crapsack worlds already exists in even the rosiest interpretations.

Or maybe I'm putting words into his mouth, I don't know. 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.

While I don't want the Legion set in a dystopia, I *do* support the idea of more diversity. Various 'boots and one-offs have toyed with these notions, and there are versions of Violet and Cosmic Boy and Karate Kid that have looked Asian (or biracial/Asian), a version of Star Boy that was black, even a version of Phantom Girl (in Superboy's Legion) who looked like her familye came from India. I'm cool with that sort of tweaking, for the most part. Few, if any, Legionnaires are purely defined by their skin-tone or ethnicity (since most of them are from other planets settled by people from Earth over the last 1000 years anyway).

On the other hand, sometimes people yaw the other way. Apparently, Shooter *hated* how alien Manapul drew Gazelle, in the back half of the Threeboot, and told the artist to draw her more 'human-looking.' That was, IMO, a step in the wrong direction.

I'd definitely like a few more non-humanoid team-members, and / or some renewed focus on the few that already exist, like Tellus. I felt it was a huge misstep to introduce the idea of Variable Lad, and then have him not join the team along with most of his humanoid Academy peers (although having Chemical Kid, Dragonwing and Harmonia Li all join certainly upped the Asian demographic, and Glorith joining, as well as Tyroc returning added some non-white faces as well).