The Future of Legion of Super Heroes Franchise & The Bendis Problem

[Sutekh]

By more traditional, I'd like to see much of the original personalities and relationships return. The only change I really liked was Cosmic Boy's turning into a cocky jock. Granted, I'd rather he had come up with much of the maturity he had in the earlier series since he is a founder, but the personality is one that follows from the character's history.

In the retroboot, IIRC, there was a poster of Cosmic Boy from his time as a young sports celeb on Braal in Lightning Lad's quarters and I kinda dig the notion of Rokk having been a bit of a celebrity as a teen (and now being even more of one as a Legionnaire). It creates a fun dynamic if the three founders come from very different experiences. Child sports star. Farm boy with a messed up family situation (thanks to Mekt). Studious wannabe cop.

That all said, while I could stand some real exploration of these older characters, I'd even more enjoy a story dealing less with the founders + Brainy, and more with younger and less-developed and diverse Legionnaires, like Tyroc, Myg, Glorith or Dragonwing or those from other continuities like Kid Quantum II, Dragonmage and Gazelle. I'd be fine with the 'old guard' being some of the 'newest' of the classic Legionnaires, like Dawnstar and Timber Wolf, and much of the first fifteen or so were retired.

[Digifiend]

https://www.instagram.com/p/COht05yBFAL/

Good question, Lazarus. Why is there only Superman and Lantern legacies? The only one they bothered to explain is Batman, which is apparently Damian's fault. Why no Wonder? The 90s Legion had a Flash, XS, but the current Legion doesn't (due to her link to Impulse and Flash, XS should be immune to timeline changes). There's also no Legionnaire from Thanagar (i.e. a Hawkman or Hawkgirl) either.

[HsssH]

I actually liked when Legion was mostly Superman related. Otherwise might as well revive JL 3000.

[j9ac9k]

Good question, Lazarus. Why is there only Superman and Lantern legacies? The only one they bothered to explain is Batman, which is apparently Damian's fault. Why no Wonder? The 90s Legion had a Flash, XS, but the current Legion doesn't (due to her link to Impulse and Flash, XS should be immune to timeline changes). There's also no Legionnaire from Thanagar (i.e. a Hawkman or Hawkgirl) either.

Don't forget there was also Thunder, a Shazam! legacy.(and of course Brainiac-5 has always been a legacy) And that's not counting the retroactive legacies that were created for L.E.G.I.O.N. Personally, with the Legion I think the fewer legacies from present day, the better. (and of course Olliver Queen's who was a tour guide )

[CaptCleghorn]

Don't forget there was also Thunder, a Shazam! legacy.(and of course Brainiac-5 has always been a legacy) And that's not counting the retroactive legacies that were created for L.E.G.I.O.N. Personally, with the Legion I think the fewer legacies from present day, the better. (and of course Olliver Queen's who was a tour guide )

I agree. A Legion team heavy on present day legacies reads too much like a Justice League story.

[Sutekh]

I agree. A Legion team heavy on present day legacies reads too much like a Justice League story.

Agreed. I don't mind there being Amazons, Atlanteans, Green Lanterns, etc. in the Legion *setting,* but I'd prefer that they not be Legionnaires, and not be used to much, as DC editorial is pants-on-fire-terrified of using something in the year 3000+ that contradicts something later established in their present-day comics (like Supergirl dying in Crisis) despite whatever they write in the present-day being a temporary thing that will only get undone 10 years later anyway (oh look, Supergirl's not dead anymore!).

Until DC can wrap their tiny lizard brains around the notion that the Legion future *isn't utterly dependent* on the crazyquilt DC present that gets retconned every decade anyway, using too much of their past lore in the future setting is an exercise in disaster.

And yeah, I don't really want the Legion to be Justice League 3000, either (although I would not be opposed to there having eventually been a Legion spin-off dealing with a 31st century Justice League, with a 31st century Amazon, Atlantean, Martian, Archer, etc. so long as they remained a second team of heroes, unrelated to the Legion, just as modern-day Earth can support multiple hero teams like the League, Titans, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, Young Justice, etc.).

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Never mind.

[Nomads1]

I see here people arguing about legacies that should join the Legion (Batman, Amazon, Atlanteans, Lanterns, etc... ) and how to tie more the Legion to the present day, and while all these might prove intresting ideas, maybe they should be applied to some other new team or book, because it never was what the Legion was about. You had the inspiration from the 20th century (first Superboy/Superman, then in the reboot Legion, the heroic age), but that was it. The Legion always crafted it's own mythos (many which were retroactively inserted into the "current days"), and that is something I no longer see when I look at the Legion. That is why I can't recognize the LSH when I look at this steaming hot pile of crap that Bendis wishes to pass on as it. That is why Bendis is soo terribler to write this book, and pretty much every other high concept comicbook in the industry, he doesn't know how to build on the mythology, much less create his own (an intresting one, at least). He's a passable grounded stories guy, and that's it. I admit that the industry is shaping up to something that really doesn't want me as a reader any longer, but it's painful to see so many great things being ruined.

Peace

[kcekada]

Yeah -- aside from the Superboy/Superman link -- the Legion never need any other connections to JLA. I liked the idea of a hidden Green Lantern who was not part of the team. I wouldn't mind seeing what's going on with Amazons, but don't want a bunch of JLA counterparts in the Legion. That would be boring.

[Korath]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO4sNVuBcfn/

I think this is new ?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I really like this art style for Bendis' Legion. Lean into this more. Make it the Zoom LSH. Sook was a great starting point, maybe they can really mix it up and go for a much, much younger audience.

And introduce a bunch of alternate timeline LSHs to boot. Classic. New Coke, 5 Years Later Coke. Etc.

[Robanker]

I really like this art style for Bendis' Legion. Lean into this more. Make it the Zoom LSH. Sook was a great starting point, maybe they can really mix it up and go for a much, much younger audience.

And introduce a bunch of alternate timeline LSHs to boot. Classic. New Coke, 5 Years Later Coke. Etc.

Everything can improve a bit with a dash of the Grell Legion.

[CaptCleghorn]

I really like this art style for Bendis' Legion. Lean into this more. Make it the Zoom LSH. Sook was a great starting point, maybe they can really mix it up and go for a much, much younger audience.

And introduce a bunch of alternate timeline LSHs to boot. Classic. New Coke, 5 Years Later Coke. Etc.

I've often said the Legion needs a look that identifies it as a future story. I don't think I would have said "Zoom LSH", but you have a most excellent point.

As for the alternate Legions, YES! Every team in present day big two superhero comics deals with alternate versions of themselves up the wazoo. The Legio' alternate versions are describes as "different futures". Sorry, there are alternate dimensions in the 31st century as well as the 21st.

Everything can improve a bit with a dash of the Grell Legion.

So true.

[Sutekh]

As for the alternate Legions, YES! Every team in present day big two superhero comics deals with alternate versions of themselves up the wazoo. The Legion alternate versions are describes as "different futures". Sorry, there are alternate dimensions in the 31st century as well as the 21st.

I like the idea of not just alternate futures, but alternate *pasts*, so that a Legion mission might involve going to Tamaran, and somebody from the 21st century be all like, 'Wasn't Tamaran destroyed?' and the future peeps are like, 'Maybe in your timeline. Doesn't affect us.'

And thereby, it be established that the Legion future is NOT 'the future' of every single present-day DCU story. So if Thanagar or Atlantis or Amazons or Green Lanterns are shown in a Legion story, that is no guarantee that they are going to not get blown up in the next present-day event (as they so often do), and no Legion story needs to be 'edited' because some editorial muckety-muck killed all the Green Lanterns and now they have to run back and pretend they've all been dead for centuries (which will become irrelevant a few years later when they are all suddenly alive again in the present-day, making that 'correction' in the Legion future describing them as dead for centuries actually *wrong*!).

[Adekis]

I'm not as bothered by the race bending as by other background changes. Ultra Boy being Desi is totally inconsequential compared to him no longer being a streetwise punk. Cosmic Boy being east Asian barely registers, but making him explicitly a one-percenter is a disgrace, and it goes against everything that Rokk Krinn stands for. And so on and so forth!

Many Legionnaires have unnecessary changes to their backstory, no doubt made because Bendis just didn't have the fannish background needed to understand why Lar has to be a wanderer, why Rokk's family has to be economically precarious, or why Jo needs to be moving beyond a criminal past. Fans definitely don't need to read 60 years of Legion history to understand that, they just need an ongoing version of the Legion that uses those classic traits for the characters! You don't need to read Golden Age Captain America to understand what kind of character he is, because it's pretty much consistent with who he is now! And it should be that simple for the Legion too.

To say nothing about the Orientalism and stereotyping involved in the costumes of characters like Dawnstar and and Karate Kid's redesigns, but that'sa different issue.

If you tweak the offending costumes and return the characters' backstories and personalities to factory settings, as far as I'm concerned you can keep the race bending. Maybe stop drawing Jan as a drunken Bizarro though?