To be fair, the work Coipel did on Legion was nowhere near the quality he attained at Marvel. He was just starting out -- and his art was pretty rough on Legion. DnA's GotG did okay numbers -- but it was eventually cancelled. That said -- it was a quality product. The same cannot be said of Bendis's Guardians work.
Yeah it's a mix of things.... WHY is the future bad? This is part of what killed Discovery with their "Burn" plotline. The reason it happened was just stupid. The idea of a catastrophe fragmenting the Federation isn't an inherently bad idea. But the rationale was stupid in TWO ways: one... it's some super-mutant alien from a race that doesn't normally have powers like this. Two: it doesn't make sense in-universe. The explanation was that the crazy fish alien caused most of the dilithium(a fictional element) in the galaxy to become dangerously unstable. This caused it to be unusable for use in matter/anti-matter reactors, and any reactors that had it would explode... catastrophically and destroyed all starships with one turned on. M-AM reactors were a common tech in Star Trek so sorta works. BUT... they're not the only one. Romulans in particular had quantum singularity manipulation tech that didn't use dilithium at all. also... interstellar travel didn't NEED M-AM reactors... they were just one of the easy ways. It's just one of those things where the explanation doesn't work in-universe.
But yeah, it needs to have a rationale that makes sense internally, as well as not being insanely hopeless. And Disco doubled down on the hopelessness by stating that people had FAILED to come up with an alternative? Made ZERO sense.
I think part of why LoSH had issues is that, like MC2 in Marvel, it was a possible future that limited present-day stories by showing aspects of what the future WILL be. Stuff like the Corps war in Green Lantern. That didn't happen in the past relative to the original LoSH setting.
I think Coipel tried to put in too much detail, and sometimes.... well... kinda covered up his own work.
I’ll don the mask and wear the cape
If I am super, how can I wait?
The Legion being hundreds of years (the exact 1000 year thing is silly) is one of its greatest strengths when it come to dealing with changes in current DC Universe's status quos. Time and the existence of Earthwide disasters make most events in the present day not needing to affect the Legion's time. The Lanterns are changing with amazing frequency nowadays. Rao only knows what they'll look like in five years real time. About the only thing that might be tough to deal with is destroying a planet that the Legion uses. Even then, though, a new version can pop up in that much time considering the type of Universe we're dealing with.
I’ll don the mask and wear the cape
If I am super, how can I wait?
Go full Kang the conqueror with it
Have the legion look different with each appearance and have the characters point out that no two versions of the legion are the same
Endless franchise potential and comedic value
You can even have a modern legion living in the present day with the 31st century legion still around at the same time
Time travel allows for ridiculous and improbable possibilities
Timey whammy dummy stuff
Last edited by Vathlonian; 08-16-2021 at 07:53 PM.
Or set a title in an 'Elseworlds' type universe, where past continuity has no bearing and any character from any point in Legion history can appear. The possibilities are endless.
Personally, I think Legion is finished as an ongoing series (but I would love somebody to prove me wrong).
I'll just stick to the period that I really enjoy (80s Levitz / Giffen run).
Since there's a multiverse, just reintroduce a slightly updated version of the "original" team coming back in time for some storyline. (This is Superman's Legion, not Jon's - they each can have their own) Then hopefully follow them back to their timeline and we stay there. Keep the essential history of the Levitz era team, with the character relationships we know, but like anything else, the history and some backstories can we tweaked. For diversity use a lot of the characters who already exist like XS, Kid Q, Computer, Invisible Kid II, Tyroc, Dawnstar, bring in some new ones. Same with non-humanoids - Gates, Tellus, even a giant snake (who isn't Jeckie) and a few new ones.