Long Live The Legion!!! Legion of Superheroes: Millenium with Bendis and Sook An

[Konja7]

I have to agree with both Sutekh and kcekada.

People do complain about accessibility.
But people complain about accessibility in any book that’s run longer than a year. I just think it’s lazy and selfish to demand a book start over for them instead of them making an effort to get into the established storylines.

If long-running narratives were all that bad, Walking Dead would be dead by now. Game of Thrones would be forgotten.
The MCU would’ve been over five years ago.
The X-Men wouldn’t be as big as they are.
Heck, we wouldn’t even still be talking about the Levitz Legion and the Wolfman Titans. And we especially wouldn’t be calling them two and the Claremont X-Men the ‘Gold Standards’ of comics writing.

I don't know if it is lazy and selfish, but you can't blame that people don't want to enter in something pretty complicated where you couldn't know all the story (that isn't funny for all people).

At the end, DC and Legion probably need this people to be a success, since the Legion doesn't have enough fanbase to survive.

[Frontier]

I kind of understand the accessibility argument, but at least for me, half the fun was diving in backwards and figuring it out for myself.

Same here .

[caj]

I kind of understand the accessibility argument, but at least for me, half the fun was diving in backwards and figuring it out for myself.

I've said before that I had an amazing time matching up all those symbols with the correct Legionnaire during the Levitz/Giffen era. I was only familiar with about a dozen Legionnaires when I began reading the book and I loved learning more and more about Legion history.

[Lonewolf36]

Comic companies confuse me as a whole. Back when i first starting reading comics accessibility was not on my mind. Wasn't reboots every 10 years or so that you could jump in fresh. When something was relevant to the story or character you got a side not go see issue so and so which made me want to track down that back issue to find out what happened This helped the comic shops bring in revenue. Now a day why would i want to collect a back issue or trade when most of the time there irrelevant to whats going on now and would just confuse a new reader that much more. The comic companies have for the most part shot their selves in the foot by trying to gain new reader at the cost of losing old readers. They also costing comic shops revenue with the constant reboots. Comic companies as a whole have put there selves were they are today and have caused the closure of numerous comic shops to boot. Trying to make comics accessible to new readers have for the most part lost more readers than they ever gained.

[Lee Stone]

I don't know if it is lazy and selfish, but you can't blame that people don't want to enter in something pretty complicated where you couldn't know all the story (that isn't funny for all people).

At the end, DC and Legion probably need this people to be a success, since the Legion doesn't have enough fanbase to survive.

It may not seem lazy and selfish when it’s just a grumble or an opinion.
Until DC gives in to their demands and sacrifice dedicated fans for it and after one or two issues those new readers drop it because they realize that the real reason they couldn’t get into the Legion was because the concept didn’t appeal to them.

[Zero Hunter]

That is the problem with a reboot. Sure it will be a good jumping on point for some people, but it will also be just as a good a jumping off point. Everytime the Legion has rebooted it has gained some fans but lost others. With Bendis especially this is going to be true because the guy is kinda polarizing. He may bring in his fans, but they will all usually leave the book when he stops writing it, and if long time Legion fans like me don't read the book because we don't like his new take who is left when Bendis leaves? Nobody, and the book gets cancelled again.

I stuck around even through the 3-boot which I hated under Waid/Kitson because I was a die hard Legion fan, but from what I have seen and heard of this Ben-Boot I just cant bring myself to get hyped about going by the character designs and Bendis's past work on team books, especially cosmic team books.

[Konja7]

That is the problem with a reboot. Sure it will be a good jumping on point for some people, but it will also be just as a good a jumping off point. Everytime the Legion has rebooted it has gained some fans but lost others. With Bendis especially this is going to be true because the guy is kinda polarizing. He may bring in his fans, but they will all usually leave the book when he stops writing it, and if long time Legion fans like me don't read the book because we don't like his new take who is left when Bendis leaves? Nobody, and the book gets cancelled again.

I stuck around even through the 3-boot which I hated under Waid/Kitson because I was a die hard Legion fan, but from what I have seen and heard of this Ben-Boot I just cant bring myself to get hyped about going by the character designs and Bendis's past work on team books, especially cosmic team books.

The problem is that current fandom of Legion doesn't seem to be enough to mantain a book in the current market.

So, even if DC doesn't alienate old fans with a reboot, it wouldn't be enough to mantain a comic of Legion. So, DC only can hope new fans appear and they stay even without Bendis.


To be clear, Bendis isn't really a big seller by his name. So, it will depend if his story can attract new audience.

I hope this is like Naomi (not like Young Justice).

[Lee Stone]

The problem is that current fandom of Legion doesn't seem to be enough to mantain a book in the current market.

So, even if DC doesn't alienate old fans with a reboot, it wouldn't be enough to mantain a comic of Legion. So, DC only can hope new fans appear and they stay even without Bendis.


To be clear, Bendis isn't really a big seller by his name. So, it will depend if his story can attract new audience.

I hope this is like Naomi (not like Young Justice).

Granted, DC wouldn’t have this problem if they hadn’t kept rebooting Legion.
Each time it rebooted, it lost readers and after the newness wore off, less new readers stayed to replace the older ones.

[billee0918]

Edited. My reply was covered a few pages back

[Bruce Wayne]

Granted, DC wouldn’t have this problem if they hadn’t kept rebooting Legion.
Each time it rebooted, it lost readers and after the newness wore off, less new readers stayed to replace the older ones.

The general comic readership contractions that started in the 90s had far more of an effect than "rebooting". They didn't really reboot TT and yet it's in the similar situation as LoSH as a once top selling book that's seen better days. And we are seeing the same cracks appearing on the x-books. It just had a more dedicated fanbase than LoSH and TT to weather the storm.

[byrd156]

Same here .

To me this is one of if not the most important draw of comics for me. A massive undiscovered history that is just waiting to be explored. I'll never understand the idea of constant reboots/relaunches.

[byrd156]

The problem is that current fandom of Legion doesn't seem to be enough to mantain a book in the current market.

So, even if DC doesn't alienate old fans with a reboot, it wouldn't be enough to mantain a comic of Legion. So, DC only can hope new fans appear and they stay even without Bendis.


To be clear, Bendis isn't really a big seller by his name. So, it will depend if his story can attract new audience.

I hope this is like Naomi (not like Young Justice).

The only reason the fanbase is so small is because they either don't have books or are getting crap while being barely marketed. DC keeps smothering their own properties then say that no reads those books or cares.

[CaptCleghorn]

The only reason the fanbase is so small is because they either don't have books or are getting crap while being barely marketed. DC keeps smothering their own properties then say that no reads those books or cares.

I'm going to make some assumptions about what DC thinks. This is something I hate seeing and try to avoid, but here I go. There is no way DC can possibly believe Legion fans don't care. The Legion has one of the more vocal and energetic fanbases of the big two superhero stuff. That being said, I also believe the fanbase is aging and shrinking. I wouldn't e surprised if there was less of an influx of new readers than for other successful franchises.

Now franchises need to change and adapt. DC has certainly tried to shift and shuffle and reboot the Legion over the last few decades. We had Giffen's critically acclaimed Five Years Later version which did alienate some longtime fans. Waid had his "Eat it, grandpa" version which was less than accepted. I truly believe to be successful that changes LIKE THESE are necessary. Every shift in style is a crapshoot. One may know more and understand the market and changes become more of an educated guess.

The most frequent "fix" is the reboot for Legion. Now if all you do is retell the same damn stories and revamp characters with the same names without recognizing history and what endeared those characters to us is a mistake. Giving Garth Ranzz the name of Livewire instead of Lightning Lad or giving him a different style haircut is a purely cosmetic move. If the characterization and stories aren't good, any attracted readers won't stick around. "ooooohh, this is an updated version of the Fatal Five" or "a Mantis Morlo for the 21st (31st) century" aren't enough.

The concept of a huge team of teenage superheroes from dozens of different planets in the far future is a concept that is extraordinary and can be built upon more and more. Starting over, meh. If some stuff didn't work, look elsewhere and ignore it. Is it a detail filled franchise? Yes. So have a webiste noted in every issue with details. Easy peasy. The beauty of this is this gives a sense of the future as well, even if it's a minor thing. The Legion had fans vote for leaders in the past, let's get different some more.

[Sutekh]

To me this is one of if not the most important draw of comics for me. A massive undiscovered history that is just waiting to be explored. I'll never understand the idea of constant reboots/relaunches.

Exactly. Tolkein didn't have to 'reboot' the Lord of the Rings after every book to make it 'easier to understand' for people who didn't remember all those characters and locations and events and persnickety details about elven linguisitics or halfling culinary habits from the previous books.

The richness of the setting *was part of the appeal* not 'a barrier to entry.'

[j9ac9k]

Exactly. Tolkein didn't have to 'reboot' the Lord of the Rings after every book to make it 'easier to understand' for people who didn't remember all those characters and locations and events and persnickety details about elven linguisitics or halfling culinary habits from the previous books.

The richness of the setting *was part of the appeal* not 'a barrier to entry.'

Yeah, unfortunately, Tolkein isn't writing comic books. They should just admit the writers are the ones who are intimidated by or incapable of writing a rich, complicated Legion more than readers being able to penetrate it.