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

[Thor-Ul]

Was hoping with the November previews we would see a glimpse of hope to see a LOSH monthly. Sadly I was wrong.

There still is the possibility than something comes this year. However, if nothing is announced in december this year, at least in the solicitations for march/april 2022, I would classify this volumen as cancelled and the Bendisboot as a failure. I still giving this version a chance, a very small chance, to see if DC can do something with them.

[Timothy Hunter]

Did anybody want another reboot?

[InfamousBG]

Did anybody want another reboot?

Nope. No. Not a chance.

[Nomads1]

Did anybody want another reboot?

Only if it meant going back to an older version (at this point, I'd take any of the previous versions). I really want to forget the Bendis version ever existed. Just that.

Peace

[Thor-Ul]

Only if it meant going back to an older version (at this point, I'd take any of the previous versions). I really want to forget the Bendis version ever existed. Just that.

Peace

My opinion, too. But I will wait to see if DC is willing to do something with Bendislegion, even destroying them in the most painfull way possible.

[mathew101281]

Only if it meant going back to an older version (at this point, I'd take any of the previous versions). I really want to forget the Bendis version ever existed. Just that.

Peace

Rarely has a franchise about the future been unable to escape its past. I don’t think the old Legion, works nowadays. Bendis was the wrong writer to bring it to life but he had the right idea. I think the Legion could do with a complete overhaul from the ground up. It’s vision of the future is really archaic and unrepeatable.

[CaptCleghorn]

Rarely has a franchise about the future been unable to escape its past. I don’t think the old Legion, works nowadays. Bendis was the wrong writer to bring it to life but he had the right idea. I think the Legion could do with a complete overhaul from the ground up. It’s vision of the future is really archaic and unrepeatable.

You may very well be right. At the least, you make a very good point and raise an excellent question. Obviously, the early Silver Age version of the Legion is not viable today. Even its heyday with Levitz and Giffen is dated in many respects. The work that DC has is deciding what makes the Legion the Legion and what can the aspects curtailing modern success be changed to?

One can state, correctly, that space opera, a variety of characters, personalities, and powers with a galactic setting is prime material for a comic book series. But even if a pristine, premium set of tools is given to a carpenter who doesn't have plans or talent, those tools will go to waste. What do people think needs to stay and what needs to go?

[Bruce Wayne]

Rarely has a franchise about the future been unable to escape its past. I don’t think the old Legion, works nowadays. Bendis was the wrong writer to bring it to life but he had the right idea. I think the Legion could do with a complete overhaul from the ground up. It’s vision of the future is really archaic and unrepeatable.

Bendis is an outsider from Marvel whose strengths are mainly in street characters. He had no business on the Legion. DC shouldn't have even put him on Superman/Action.

[Vathlonian]

Legion is in this weird position where its greatest selling points are the very things that hold it back and shaking things up too much would lead to the final death of the franchise

Bendis had the right idea of racially making them more diverse and tying it deeper with the present-day DC universe

but that is it

[Dataweaver]

IMHO, he didn't go anywhere near far enough in making them “racially diverse”. First, why can the cat majority of Legionnaires pass for human? My main problem with what was done with Lightning Lad (other than the fact that the same thing wasn't done to his twin sister) is that you still can't tell Winathians apart from humans. Give every Legionnaire who isn't already distinguishable from Earth's population a visual overhaul. Go ahead and keep most of them humanoid; but give them inhuman skin tones, “rubber foreheads”, and other visual cues that they're not humans. There should be enough visual diversity in the Legion that having brown skin and short, curly black hair vs. pink skin and red hair, or any of the other “races” on Earth, tend to get lost in the mix.

[CaptCleghorn]

IMHO, he didn't go anywhere near far enough in making them “racially diverse”. First, why can the cat majority of Legionnaires pass for human? My main problem with what was done with Lightning Lad (other than the fact that the same thing wasn't done to his twin sister) is that you still can't tell Winathians apart from humans. Give every Legionnaire who isn't already distinguishable from Earth's population a visual overhaul. Go ahead and keep most of them humanoid; but give them inhuman skin tones, “rubber foreheads”, and other visual cues that they're not humans. There should be enough visual diversity in the Legion that having brown skin and short, curly black hair vs. pink skin and red hair, or any of the other “races” on Earth, tend to get lost in the mix.

A) QFT
B) What they said
C) This
D) All of the above

[Thor-Ul]

Bendis is an outsider from Marvel whose strengths are mainly in street characters. He had no business on the Legion. DC shouldn't have even put him on Superman/Action.

DC put Bendis on Legion because they think of Legion as "teenagers of the future" and Bendis made a huge part of his reputation on Marvel writin the ultimate teenage hero: Ultimate Spider-Man. Why do you think they give him also the control of Young Justice? Every reboot has repeated the formula of resetting the Legion to being teenagers. With the new52 they tried to do that to the Teen Titans and to Wally West. And you can see how that worked. The Legion has not permit to grow and that is what made them more damage.

[H-E-D]

I liked most of Sook’s designs, especially Saturn Girl’s.

As for Bendis’ writing, it wasn’t his strongest, but I don’t think that was because it was Sci-Fi instead of street level. I think it was actually because he leaned into a pseudo-anthology format. That isn’t a terrible suit for the Legion per se, but it not something Bendis is great at. Especially when he falls into the jam issue trap, which is exactly what he did here.

[Lee Stone]

Rarely has a franchise about the future been unable to escape its past. I don’t think the old Legion, works nowadays. Bendis was the wrong writer to bring it to life but he had the right idea. I think the Legion could do with a complete overhaul from the ground up. It’s vision of the future is really archaic and unrepeatable.

Interestingly, it and Star Trek are the only two futures I can think of that aren't dystopian.
Dark, depressing futures are over-done.

[Dataweaver]

Interestingly, it and Star Trek are the only two futures I can think of that aren't dystopian.
Dark, depressing futures are over-done.

Excepting the newest Star Trek shows, of course. (Discovery, Picard, etc.) Hopefully, Strange New Worlds will go back to the optimism of clastic Star Trek.

And yeah, you could do worse than to think of the Legion as “Star Trek, but with superpowers”.