Do I need any prior reading material before buying the omni?
Do I need any prior reading material before buying the omni?
Le Suck it, Dolphin!
-God I am so tired.
SCOTT SUMMERS AND EMMA FROST DESERVED BETTER.
Agreed. I'm a fan of several different Legion continuities, and totally fine with the 30th century setting having elements that are inconsistent with whatever is going on in the 20th century (since it'll all get retconned 2 years later anyway, so why even bother for consistency?).
But I'm also here for the hopeful future (with plenty of challenges!) full of dynamic and fascinating characters, not a bleak gritty dystopia full of unlikable protagonists. This bit seemed low on the 'hopeful' and full up on the 'gritty dystopia.' I don't read comics about heroism to get depressed. The real world has enough about it to cover that.
I have been reading funny book for a VERY long time...since John Forte was the penciller on this series, and the great Curt Swan did the covers.
The Giffbaum series remains by far my favorite run of comics, ever. Challenging, unpredictable and entertaining...and Giffen was a monster as a penciller. All of this, and Tenzil Kem! I am so glad to see this series get some of the adulation it deserves!
Giffen was a master layout artist, but the 9-panel grid was another issue i had with his run. His very blocky. craggy art style may have suited the series -- but I was not a fan. I think his style towards the end of the last series was a step in the right direction -- but he totally went off the rails in the Five Years Later run.
There were definitely, good, thoughtful stories being told, but the overall atmosphere just weighed down more and more heavily over time. Perhaps as an alternative (not in continuity) take it would have been more accepted. The SW6 batch/Legionnaires were brought in to lighten things up --- but I guess it was too little, too late.
Last edited by kcekada; 09-19-2020 at 06:25 PM.
You could see his bare hands though. It appears Bendis will finally realize Jim's original intention with the new iteration of Ferro Lad. In retrospect maybe it was good Ferro Lad was white because killing off a black character right after he's introduced would have looked bad in retrospect and tarnished his heroic legacy, giving it a different tone.
Legion of Super Bloggers review of issue #6 - The new Legion's first mission is to rescue Mysa Nal (The White Witch) from the hands of Mordru. Plus, a mysterious female prepares to confront Mordru herself - and she looks a lot like Supergirl.
http://legionofsuperbloggers.blogspo...-heroes-6.html
I hated what they did to Mysa Nal in Five Years Later. Levitz wrote her as a strong yet caring, capable and competent heroine. Giffen and the Bierbaums turned her into a bad romance novel cliche "woman falls in love with abusive villain so she can be abused and weakened while villain regains his villain credibility" Lifetime Movie character.
Agree. She always seemed like a basket-case in this book. Nothing like the character in Levitz's book.
I also hated Kono. Not only was she silly and immature, but also unnecessary. They could've tweaked Star Boy's powers and had him fill that power role. Why they threw away so many Legionnaires only to replace them with mediocre characters was always a head-scratcher.
I think you have to look at both Giffen and the Bierbaums in relation to how they differed from Levitz. I've heard it said that one reason Levitz and Giffen worked so well together, at least the first time they worked together on the Legion, was that they perfectly balanced out each other's tendencies to go in exactly the opposite direction of the other. Giffen was a non-sentimentalist who wanted to change everything, and then change everything some more, and not look back, while Levitz was a rather conservative writer who wanted to take things seriously but incrementally. He respected the Legion's history but would not hesitate to break away from anything he thought was too silly or dumb. It's why he refused to use characters like Matter-Eater Lad or Tyroc and threw out Kid Psycho as a token Legion sacrifice in CoIE; it's why he initially wanted to make Sensor Girl be Supergirl (because he wanted to use her but didn't like being told he couldn't), while he immediately killed off the pocket-universe Superboy as soon as that storyline fulfilled its function of preserving the Legion's origins (because he thought Superboy was pointless if he wasn't going to grow up to be the main universe's Superman); and it's why he ignored most fandom theories about the Legion like the one about Element Lad being gay and instead introduced Shvaughn as E-Lad's love interest. Meanwhile, the Bierbaums were ascended fans whose preferred era of the Legion was the Adventure Comics run and the early 70's, who wanted to incorporate as many fan theories into canon as possible, who had no qualms about embracing characters and elements from the Silver Age Levitz deemed silly, and who were always looking to the Legion's past for inspiration. The fact that together Giffen and the Bierbaums seemed to be be determined to dismantle as much of Levitz's run on the Legion as possible didn't endear them to me, either.
Last edited by Timber Wolf-By-Night; 09-21-2020 at 09:05 AM.
I was on board for seeing what happens to the Legion characters in their future. That's where I came in (back in 1967). The problem is this run soon became not that--because of the timeline changes. It wasn't Let's see where this character from the previous run has ended up some years later. Of course, this also means you don't have to take it seriously when they abuse a character that Levitz liked--because it's not really the same character.
One thing I notice from the legionofsuperbloggers is that Giffen's pages are just as good reduced in size. You could reprint his whole run in a digest comic and it would be okay. It clarifies something about Giffen's new style that I couldn't quite get a handle on. The way he draws is very spare--often with close-ups and lacking a lot of detail. You could take his nine panel grid and make it a sixteen panel grid--essentially with Keith drawing more on a larger board but reducing that art to fit a regular comic book page--and the art would be better. His panels are so empty that they are actually too large for what's in them.
A lot of what Giffen did was just breaking down the characters -- or in most cases, just discarding them. He hated Dawnstar and would have killed her - except Tom Bierbaum talked him into having her possessed and losing her wings --- which Giffen liked better (the guy has issues). Mysa was such a great character throughout her career (I thought Levitz took her backwards a bit --- as prior to his run, she seemed very confident and capable), but she was kinda just sad/pathetic in Giffen's run. She had a bit of redemption later one, but breaking everyone down to build them back up (and in many cases, just leaving characters broken -- like Dirk) was not a recipe for long-term success.
I'm trying to recall if there was any character whom he actually improved in his run, but can't think of one.