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  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zeeguy91 View Post
    I really, really recommend the Levitz/Giffen run from the 80s. That stuff is the all-time standard for Legion stories and honestly, even still holds up today! The Great Darkness Saga in particular is one of the greatest stories in the DC canon.
    Agree completely. I try to re-read it every year. I still get excited while I'm reading it. #287 - 306 is some of the best comic book material ever written.

  2. #62
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by caj View Post
    Agree completely. I try to re-read it every year. I still get excited while I'm reading it. #287 - 306 is some of the best comic book material ever written.
    The series was brilliant in that it took old ideas, kept them valid, and expanded upon them. And this was all done with the best work of the day. The large cast was used although there were some more popular characters. As was mentioned, the use of interlac as a storytelling device fed into the Legion fandom.

    The turth is this isn't just another superhero team. There is so much more and if those qualities aren't remembered and used, the book fails. The advances into 21st century comic books need to be adapted, but how best to use them is a big judgment call.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptCleghorn View Post
    The truth is this isn't just another superhero team. There is so much more and if those qualities aren't remembered and used, the book fails. The advances into 21st century comic books need to be adapted, but how best to use them is a big judgment call.
    One of the unique joys of the Legion is that, for all it's daunting history and world / setting and laundry list of sometimes-whacky characters, it's a MUCH, much smaller playground than the present-day DCU, with it's Justice League, Teen Titans, Birds of Prey, Outsiders, Argus, Dr. Fate, Shazam family, Themiscrya, Atlantis, Cadmus, LexCorp, a half-dozen Green Lantherns, Gotham, etc., etc. to keep up with.

    Anyone who comments about the sheer overwhelming size and scope of it, clearly doesn't pay much attention to how overwhelmingly vast the present-day shared universe DCU is! It's actually much *smaller* in scope than the DCU, as a whole, and this makes it *easier* to get a grip on, IMO, than if I were concerned with, say, the Justice League, and 'only' had to know about Kryptonians, and Amazons, and Atlanteans, and Green Lanterns, and maybe Thanagarians, and Darkseid / the Fourth World, and Despero, and Amazo, and at least two different Flashes, etc., etc.

    The Legion's far-future setting gets the advantage of a fans familiarity with (and love of) the DCU, in references to the far-future of the Thanagarians, or the Flash museum, or whatever, and yet also is set far enough away from it that it can also totally ignore whatever elements it doesn't want to focus on (like, we may have little or no idea who is the current Spectre, for instance, or if there even is one...), and, best of all, IMO, they can bypass any line-wide summer-event nonsense (save the ill-conceived Manhunter crap, apparently...) and focus on their own stories, and not get dragged off the rails annually for an issue or two dealing with other people's cameos, since whatever apocalyptic stuff is shaking the universe over in the Justice League's corner of the time line, it's ancient history and possibly been utterly forgotten *one thousand years later.*

    Best of all, history seems fluid. Entire worlds have been destroyed, and mysteriously un-destroyed. Various people have died. And are back and running anywhere from months to decades later (hi, Barry Allen and Supergirl! Superman. Batman. Hal Jordan...). So the fact that there might be something or someone shown in a Legion story does *not* 'spoil' that nothing bad happens to said thing in the 'present day' stories. Just because a planet in the Legion's future is called 'Tamaran,' doesn't mean that it's the Tamaran of the 20th century, and that it couldn't be a new world, settled by survivors of that blown-up planet and named Tamaran as a recognition that it was their new home.

    Storytelling in the Legion's future is utterly liberating, compared to telling stories in the present-day DCU, and anyone complaining about the scope of the setting being an impediment makes me laugh, since it's so much *less* so than the alternative of fitting stories into the present.

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sutekh View Post
    One of the unique joys of the Legion is that, for all it's daunting history and world / setting and laundry list of sometimes-whacky characters, it's a MUCH, much smaller playground than the present-day DCU, with it's Justice League, Teen Titans, Birds of Prey, Outsiders, Argus, Dr. Fate, Shazam family, Themiscrya, Atlantis, Cadmus, LexCorp, a half-dozen Green Lantherns, Gotham, etc., etc. to keep up with.

    Anyone who comments about the sheer overwhelming size and scope of it, clearly doesn't pay much attention to how overwhelmingly vast the present-day shared universe DCU is! It's actually much *smaller* in scope than the DCU, as a whole, and this makes it *easier* to get a grip on, IMO, than if I were concerned with, say, the Justice League, and 'only' had to know about Kryptonians, and Amazons, and Atlanteans, and Green Lanterns, and maybe Thanagarians, and Darkseid / the Fourth World, and Despero, and Amazo, and at least two different Flashes, etc., etc.

    The Legion's far-future setting gets the advantage of a fans familiarity with (and love of) the DCU, in references to the far-future of the Thanagarians, or the Flash museum, or whatever, and yet also is set far enough away from it that it can also totally ignore whatever elements it doesn't want to focus on (like, we may have little or no idea who is the current Spectre, for instance, or if there even is one...), and, best of all, IMO, they can bypass any line-wide summer-event nonsense (save the ill-conceived Manhunter crap, apparently...) and focus on their own stories, and not get dragged off the rails annually for an issue or two dealing with other people's cameos, since whatever apocalyptic stuff is shaking the universe over in the Justice League's corner of the time line, it's ancient history and possibly been utterly forgotten *one thousand years later.*

    Best of all, history seems fluid. Entire worlds have been destroyed, and mysteriously un-destroyed. Various people have died. And are back and running anywhere from months to decades later (hi, Barry Allen and Supergirl! Superman. Batman. Hal Jordan...). So the fact that there might be something or someone shown in a Legion story does *not* 'spoil' that nothing bad happens to said thing in the 'present day' stories. Just because a planet in the Legion's future is called 'Tamaran,' doesn't mean that it's the Tamaran of the 20th century, and that it couldn't be a new world, settled by survivors of that blown-up planet and named Tamaran as a recognition that it was their new home.

    Storytelling in the Legion's future is utterly liberating, compared to telling stories in the present-day DCU, and anyone complaining about the scope of the setting being an impediment makes me laugh, since it's so much *less* so than the alternative of fitting stories into the present.
    I mean, if you're focusing on the DCU as a whole this argument works, but most readers probably aren't buying every single book DC is putting out let alone following what is happening in all of them.

    So if you compare Legion to simply one of these properties, yes, it is pretty vast.

  5. #65
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    During its classic run, I feel like the Legion was easy to jump into, even if you had never read it before or if you missed some issues. If you wanted to know more about a character's background, you could find that out, but the stories always let you know what you needed to for the given story--and it wasn't cluttered with a lot of exposition. But I don't know how much readers can take of exposition--perhaps Roy Thomas would garrote them (but his run was mercifully short).

    Speaking of unique story tellers, I always find it fascinating that the 14 year old Jim Shooter crafted his comics stories in hand-made comic books, which the DC staff then had to adapt into professsional form (Sheldon Moldoff or Curt Swan with George Klein finishing Jim's efforts).

  6. #66
    Incredible Member joebleau's Avatar
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    The Legion too big ? ...ok lets compare the justice league membership and the Legion

    125 members for the JLA all period ( pre post crisis and rebirth)
    97 for the LSH ... ( 247 prime ect) i even count the futur Legion from the legend of the dead earth 853rd century...

    if you tell me it'S not fair all the 125 leaguers are not in the book at the same time .... just read the recent issues ... everybody is a members and they even take characters from all the multiverse ( i didnt count them.

    oh and if you want compare it with the +200 members of the avengers or the X-men

  7. #67
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    The most fun I had when I started reading the Legion was learning who everyone was, who was dating (or married to) who, what their powers were, and what their real names were. I couldn't get enough of it.

    It was a fun challenge to piece it all together. Luckily, Levitz gave plenty of information, but left out just enough to keep you wanting more. I was desperate to get my hands on back issues - and this was before I had a comic book shop in my area. The stories, the art, the coloring and shading, costume changes - WOW, I couldn't get enough and couldn't wait for the next issue.

    Coming in at the beginning of the Levitz/Giffen era (lucky me!!!!), I also had the amazing challenge of matching up all those symbols with each Legionnaire. It was a blast.

    And while I've gone on record saying I don't care for some of these new looks for the Bendis Legion, just look at how so many of us were obsessed with figuring out who was who. That's what being a Legion reader/fan is all about.

  8. #68
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    I always thought that diving into a series, figuring out all the continuity, learning all the back stories, searching out past issues and building up your own head canon is what comic book fandom is all about. Sure when I was a little kid, this seemed like a lot of work, but by the time I was a teen that was my drug. Yet modern comics seem to undercut that by constantly having reboots that remove all that business from the fan experience. So maybe new fans have a different relationship with comic books--I dunno.

  9. #69
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    WTF... God damn it dc, you ruined legion for me... I didn't know that they turned lightning lad black... :/ He was my favorite character... I'm not even white, i'm some what asian mixed (my guess is tartar) middle eastern, and i liked that ginger boy lightning lad... I'm all for social justice but... i won't get this book.

  10. #70
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    Is that Bouncing boy blonde ? damn it dc... he's no bouncing boy, he's a lenister. I can't believe this each and every character looks off... that cosmic boy looks like someone with colera peed all over him....
    Last edited by Gurz; 10-17-2019 at 02:34 PM.

  11. #71
    DC Enthusiast Tony's Avatar
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    I will be buying the Legion of Superheroes SA Omnibus. This comic by Bendis is not worth my time.

  12. #72
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    I can explain away all the changes as being part of the weird Legion universe that exists in the future (just like I did with all the previous retcons and reboots); however, what bothers me is the time DC will waste with this reboot-retread, when they could be building on all the previous continuity with brand new characters and brand new adventures.

  13. #73
    insulin4all CaptCleghorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Kelly View Post
    I can explain away all the changes as being part of the weird Legion universe that exists in the future (just like I did with all the previous retcons and reboots); however, what bothers me is the time DC will waste with this reboot-retread, when they could be building on all the previous continuity with brand new characters and brand new adventures.
    And that is the problem with reboots. A reboot is someone thinking they can take an idea and improve on it instead of adding to an ongoing story. Instead of playing in someone's sandbox, you're taking those toys and making your own sandbox. But that sandbox isn't the same as the sandbox that became a popular play spot, it's the design of the new creators.

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Stone View Post
    It was so innovative that Levitz' storytelling style used in Legion was named the 'Levitz Paradigm' and is up there with Wally Wood's '22 Panels' and Stan Lee's 'Marvel Style' (Plot>Art>Script) as techniques many new comics writers study.
    Yep. The way Levitz wrote the Legion was so detailed and specific that even Hickman uses it in his own writing.

  15. #75
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    I was looking forward to the Legion coming back. Guess you really do need to be careful what you wish for. I am not against reboots or redesigns, but this is too much of a departure. For goodness sake, why did they feel the need to race bend Lightning Lad? I know the Legion has an abundance of white characters (due to being created in the 50's), but you don't remedy that by changing existing characters. You achieve it by creating new characters.

    The Legion doesn't need constant reboots. It has a rich history and strong foundation. All it needs is for creator's to come in and build on upon that. It just seems strange that Bendis claims he is a fan, but instead chooses to do his own "thing." I am enjoying his Superman stuff, but I just can't bring myself to invest in this.

    It is probably for the best. DC is just going to blow everything up when their next Crisis happens.

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