Is LoSH an idea whose time has passed?

[Trey Strain]

The answer is, the LoS the way it used to be is an idea whose time has passed. If you do it that way again, it won't work.

[Jim Kelly]

The beauty of the Legion is it's an open concept. The only limit is the imagination of the writers and artists. You have many planets that are each distinct from the other--advancing at different rates of speed. You have Orando which is still stuck in feudal times--allowing tales of knights and princesses--the rough, lawless planet of Rimbor--and then there's the nuclear devastated planet of Durla, a post-apocalyptic world of shape-shifters.

[KOSLOX]

Honestly I think Green Lantern Corps kind of occupies the same space, the only real difference (to me) is age and LoSH has a wider variety of powers.

[Vakanai]

Maybe it just needs a writer to give it a very hyped up run to get people curious. Maybe someone like Morrison?

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Maybe it just needs a writer to give it a very hyped up run to get people curious. Maybe someone like Morrison?

If one of the problems people have with the Legion is that it's hard to understand and keep everything straight, then I don't think Morrison should be anywhere near this.

[Vakanai]

If one of the problems people have with the Legion is that it's hard to understand and keep everything straight, then I don't think Morrison should be anywhere near this.

I don't know if that's a problem people actually have or not, just that Morrison has a whole fanbase who will follow him on the book, drum up sells, and at the least temporary interest.

[Zero Hunter]

Maybe it just needs a writer to give it a very hyped up run to get people curious. Maybe someone like Morrison?

Morrison is a lot more polarizing than most fans think. For a lot of people you either love him or hate him, and that is not the kind of guy you want a title like Legion. You want to appeal to everyone and not just the Morrison fanboys (who will all leave the book the minute Morrison does anyway). The best thing is to get someone like Geoff Johns writing it with Jim Lee doing art for a year. I would even say Bendis but he is not good on team books at all. You need an A+ list writer and and A+ artist right out of the gate to really get the series back on a solid foundation, and they have to have a very broad appeal and not just a core group of fans.

[Thor-Ul]

There are a lot of good and bad observations but mostly I like how this thread has developed.

To answer the OP, yes the Legion still has a basic core concept than can work today but has need of a serious reworking. I totally agree with DrNewGod about how the Legion future have a vintage feeling in a not good sense. As I said before in other posts, if something,what is failing is thant the concept of utopia is more hard to sell in these days. The legion born in a time when most people believed than technology would resolve every problem of humanity. Now, we understand than not every problem can be solved by technology and even there will bring new problems.

The Legion started as the future as it was seen in the 50s, 60s. A place were Superboy could hang with his friends but which later grew in their own. It was not only the future but an utopic future where mankind, thanks to the influence of Superman, had reach their full potential. That basic core still works today, but it needs to be nuaced. Not in an opposite way, but to shade it and transform that 50s future in today's future.

Did the Crisis damaged the Legion? I don't think so. The Crisis itself didn't make the damage on the characters, but how the solutions were set. (If Hawkworld would had been set in the past, DC would have save a lot of problems). For me most of the problems came with the 5YL era. I think than the change of tone, from a hopeful tomorrow into a decadent warlike era, transforming all those characters from representatives of hope into failures from their former selves doesn't went well with the readers. I don't argue about the quality, but the 5YL era did such a damage than has been avoided since then. It is understable however to try that path. After Watchmen and The Dark knight returns, everybody wanted give the dark and gritty feeling a bite. But that scope doesn't work in every concept. That's why they went to a new take on the utopic future with the first reboot after Zero Hour, which brought back the utopia concept back. What I don't understand is why they rewrote everything again with the threeboot, which it was what gave the impresion than anyone now could invent their own version and the Legión doesn't have a proper reality anymore. If something good had the threeboot was the effort in make it a more contemporary vision of the future, but that could be reach without any kind of reboot. That can be done in a subtle way.

Translating them to the present is also another thing than was tried in two fashions: first, with L.E.G.I.O.N. where the 20th century analogs were the protagonists and essentially worked as a Legion in the present and more recently with the Legion Lost title, which also failed. The Legion lost in the present time works as an arc but not to support an ongoing title. And in any moment L.E.G.I.O.N. could be reactivated. But itself is a different concept.

[Thor-Ul]

Morrison is a lot more polarizing than most fans think. For a lot of people you either love him or hate him, and that is not the kind of guy you want a title like Legion. You want to appeal to everyone and not just the Morrison fanboys (who will all leave the book the minute Morrison does anyway). The best thing is to get someone like Geoff Johns writing it with Jim Lee doing art for a year. I would even say Bendis but he is not good on team books at all. You need an A+ list writer and and A+ artist right out of the gate to really get the series back on a solid foundation, and they have to have a very broad appeal and not just a core group of fans.

Hickman would be the best bet right now. I would give Lupaccino a chance in the pencils too.

[Ascended]

Hickman would be the best bet right now. I would give Lupaccino a chance in the pencils too.

You know, I'm a huge fan of the artist, and if the book was going in a straight up four color superhero-y kinda direction, absolutely. Great choice. Perfect choice, really.

But.....I feel like it would make the book blend in (stand-out art, but blending in nonetheless). And I figure the Legion shouldn't blend in if they want to have a real shot at being relevant again.

I still say they should go in a different direction. And not just a status quo change or a reboot, but thematically and tonally and visually. It shouldn't just be standard superheroics (in SPPAAACCCEEE!!!!) it should be.....something.......more. I don't know what that is. Cyberpunk or full-on sci-fi Vertigo rated M for Mature or weird as hell Young Animal craziness or retro pulp or what. I don't know. But something that isn't just the love child between the Teen Titans and Star Trek. Or maybe that "Titan Trek" balance just needs to be struck more evenly. I dont know. But I think if the Legion looks like a standard superhero comic, with standard superhero costumes and names and powers, and a setting we can find in other franchises.....I don't think enough people will care, unless it's got a stupid huge name like Johns, Bendis, Snyder, King, etc. And how long would DC let a name like that languish with the Legion when they could be writing Batman or Justice League? Hell, Bendis is already dipping his toes into Batman and his first Superman story isn't even finished yet.

[CaptCleghorn]

You know, I'm a huge fan of the artist, and if the book was going in a straight up four color superhero-y kinda direction, absolutely. Great choice. Perfect choice, really.

But.....I feel like it would make the book blend in (stand-out art, but blending in nonetheless). And I figure the Legion shouldn't blend in if they want to have a real shot at being relevant again.

I agree, and this is one of the reasons I would love to see Jonathan Hickman on LSH. I credit Hickman with a lot of the graphical look of both Pax Romana and his Avengers work. It would look like a future book.

[SmokeMonster]

To me, this cartoon nailed the appeal and potential of Legion of Super Heroes.

It's fun and colorful with that unique 60's-style future.

And I love the fairytale-like story of a young Clark being whisked away to this fantasy world where there are others like him, where he no longer has to hide his true self, where he's told he's "the chosen one", etc. It's like DC's Harry Potter, bespectacled special kid and all.

I'd love to see the Super Sons team on this property, Tomasi and Jiminez. Heck, maybe have young Jon be the one who goes to the future, mistaken for young Clark.

[Lee Stone]

I loved Barry Kitson's art in this run. It was my favorite Legion art since early Giffen. And I loved the inclusion of Supergirl as well.

But I was not a fan of most of the story ideas and characterization from Waid. The whole 'rebel Legion' didn't do it for me.

I agree.
Loved the character designs.
But, when I actually read it... it pretty much followed the basic premise that society was a utopoia and the Legion were bored and became anarchists.
It made them appear to be more villains than heroes to me.

[Overhazard]

I like the legion, I don't think it needs to be fixed too much, but what I would like to see is more diversity among them, and I'd also like the book to have a real sense of exploration. Cosmic DC doesn't really go beyond the lanterns and the new gods.

I don't think bringing them to the present is a good idea. I like the whole retro-future stuff too, I just think it's part of their charm, too many changes could make it a boring stiff shell of itself.

[Dr. Ellingham]

The Legion ascended due to its association to Superman, piggybacking on his popularity.

It then spun off on its own because its characters and settings were gripping to teenage fans - at the height of the X-Men / Teen Titans soapy team book era of the 80s. But unlike the X-Men or TT, it lost its popularity someplace after Crisis and never got it back.

So none of that applies anymore. Outside of comics, only its association to Superman can push it forward. Inside comics? I don't think it's viable to sustain an ongoing comic. There may not be enough 80s/90s fans around to support it anymore.