Bendis made a mistake by rebooting the Legion yet again.
Bendis made a mistake by rebooting the Legion yet again.
"Never assign to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity or ignorance."
"Great stories will always return to their original forms"
"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable." James Baldwin
Here’s an idea I had that I’m admittedly unsure of: you know how there’s sometimes that thing of locking Clark’s knowledge away in some versions, so he doesn’t change time whenever they recruit him?
What if it applied both ways, and Clark had to make sure not to share much specific information as well... because the centuries between timelines means that sometimes Clark and his affiliates are picked up by different Legions sometimes?
Basically, have more than one Legion that could be the future of Clark’ timeline, and play some “timey-wimey” shenanigans with how they interact - like maybe a refugee from one legion ends up in another, maybe the Hypertime rules are in effect and the presence of duplicates forces them to either merge or one erases the other, and maybe Time Trapper is playing a visible chess game to try and concretely tie “our” Superman to a specific Legion eh wants for whatever nefarious purposes he has.
Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?
I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP
"Never assign to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity or ignorance."
"Great stories will always return to their original forms"
"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable." James Baldwin
I know I'm almost certainly in monority on this, but I prefer the Legion when it disassociates itself from the Super-Mythos (be it boy, Girl or Man), when it manages to stand on it own. If they were to retry it again, unlike in the last attempts, I'd try to stay away from the House of El.
Peace
It's the 32nd century, the United Planets is gone, the Earth has been abandoned. There's no Science Police and no Legion of Super-Heroes. A bunch of young people from different worlds come together to create a new Legion. As they do so, they try to retrieve memory tapes from the past--as most of the historical records are lost and there's great schisms between worlds, with alternate facts about the universe.
Civilizations are at war over what is true and what is fantasy. Going from one planet to another is like entering a completely different reality. No one can even agree on a common reckoning of time--so the 32nd century is just an arbitrary designation.
The main interest would be with these young people (six or seven) as they explore their universe and attempt to form a cohesive Legion of Super-Heroes. But as the series would unfold, there would be room to tell legends of the old Legion and the United Planets and what might have happened in the missing time.
I’d go with the early issues of Legionnaires with the following:
Rokk Krinn / Lodestone
Imra Ardeen / Scanner
Garth Ranzz / Live Wire
Luornu Durgo / Triad
Tinya Wazzo / Apparition
Reep Daggle / Chameleon
Querl Dox / Brainiac 5
Dirk Morgna / Inferno
Gim Allon / Leviathan
Salu Digby / Shrinking Violet
Jo Nah / Powerhouse
Jan Arrah / Alchemist
Thom Kallor / Gravitor
Ayla Ranzz / Spark (or Gossamer)
Tenzil Kem / Consumer
Nura Nal / Oracle
Val Armorr / Steelfist
Projectra / Visionary
Lar Gand / Valor
Tasmia Mallor / Umbra
Andrew Nolan / Ferro
Chuck Taine / Bouncer
and so forth.
Pull List: Currently Empty
It would be a continuation of the Levitz team.
It would disband because of (plot).
Superman will visit the future sometime after it being disbanded and discover the (plot).
He would inspire some of the old members to revive the team to fight back the (plot).
A new team is born with a mix of old members and new, while keeping all the history of the Levitz timeline.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.
If he loved the Legion as much as he said he did... why would he reboot them?
You'd think he'd try to strengthen whichever era was his favorite.
It was like Byrne doing Doom Patrol. Same thing.
He always made time for drawing them, like in the Who's Who or the covers of the Doom Patrol Index...
But when given the chance to do the characters, he reboots them. And his run is now considered one of the least favorable.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.
Why are people complaining about the Legion being rebooted? How is it supposed to stay static when the current continuity keeps shifting? It was already rebooted before Bendis touched it with the New 52.
Reading List (Super behind but reading them nonetheless):
DC: Currently figuring that out
Marvel: Read above
Image: Killadelphia, Nightmare Blog
Other: The Antagonist, Something is Killing the Children, Avatar: TLAB
Manga: My Hero Academia, MHA: Vigilanties, Soul Eater: the Perfect Edition, Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, Witch Hat Atelier, Kaiju No. 8
Reading List (Super behind but reading them nonetheless):
DC: Currently figuring that out
Marvel: Read above
Image: Killadelphia, Nightmare Blog
Other: The Antagonist, Something is Killing the Children, Avatar: TLAB
Manga: My Hero Academia, MHA: Vigilanties, Soul Eater: the Perfect Edition, Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, Witch Hat Atelier, Kaiju No. 8
This is my basic internal conflict over the Legion.
I don't much like the new Legion Bendis has crafted. It's arbitrarily different, in a way that misses a lot of what was unique and cool about my favorite DC team.
Rimbor is feudal instead of run by gangs, Cosmic Boy is literally described as a one-percenter instead of an impoverished athlete trying to get a better life for his family, Mon-El's not even a bloody Daxamite, Element Lad looks like a drunken Bizarro half the time, they straight up tell Superman to his face, "We don't give a shit about you," and also I just straight up don't really care that much about Jon S. Kent, no matter his age. I mean some of those are fairly petty, some are more substantial criticisms, but they're all bones I have to pick with Bendis' Legion.
But like a lot of fans, I also think that the Legion's perennial instability over the last fifteen years is a major cause of its apparent failure. They went nearly 40 years without a reboot, then had a good, solid revamp that could have lasted a long time - only to toss it away ten years later for an endless stream of reboots that just got confusing - even for me, and I'm a bona fide Legion fan. If I dictate a reboot, what's to stop that from getting rebooted again in another two to four years? Part of me thinks that in order to encourage stability, a new writer who picks up for Bendis should just keep his version going until it's better established.
But then again, I wouldn't really want Bendis' reboot to be the Main Ongoing Legion if it did become stable, not for ten years, not for forty years, because unlike some of Mark Waid's weird fumbles, most of the changes I dislike are in the worldbuilding, and not subtler things like characterization that could be changed by a new incoming writer. So... yeah. Internal conflict about it, like I said.
Last edited by Adekis; 01-24-2021 at 05:09 PM.
"You know the deal, Metropolis. Treat people right or expect a visit from me."
I think we just need a hard reversion to the pre-New 52 version.
It was the last tenable setup.
For what it's worth, I think it works better if Supergirl has real history with the team and is aged up to Dick/Donna/Wally age. Which is conveniently her age more or less on the CW.
Yeah, she's 25 in season 1, 30 now. In the comics she's only 16, so Kara definitely needs to be aged up. She originally debuted before the Teen Titans formed, her age should reflect that. If Dick is in his mid 20s, it makes sense that Kara should be as well. The only problem is that aging Kara Danvers up results in Power Girl Karen Starr losing one of the things that makes her stand out (Earth 2 Kara has always been older than the Earth 1/0 version).
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I don't know why so many people hate their superhero names. It's not like Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Shadow Lass are any more ridiculous than a name like Green Lantern or Aquaman.