What Happened To The Legion of Superheroes?

[John Venus]

I have been interested in getting into the LoSH but have never been quite sure where to start. I own the TPB of the Legion arc that Geoff Johns and Gary Franky did during their Superman run but that run seems geared towards readers who had some prior familiarity with the characters. I also wasn't a fan of the villains just being thinly veiled Nazis, like, yeah, if you're doing metaphors then don't beat the audiences head over it. After a while I checked out Legion of 3 Worlds since it was a part of the Final Crisis cross over event of the time but that was a bad idea since that was another arc geared towards readers familiar with the concept. After that, I never really bothered with the Legion.

Still, I often hear about how the Legion used to be big back in the day and how they even competed with X-Men and the New Teen Titans and used to be a best seller for DC. So what happened? How did they go from a best seller to requiring three, now four reboots? I get the Crisis and Zero Hour played a part but I would like to know the details and which of the Legions you consider to be the best and a good starting point.

Do you think the Legion being the future of the DCU often hurt the franchise?

[caj]

This is just my opinion, but I think the book was hurt by:

1. the disconnect from Superboy.
2. the dark tone of the 5YL Legion
3. way, way too many reboots
4. bad editorial decisions
5. who are these people? changes to history that didn't fly with readers

[M@Bowers2014]

I voted Other because I love too many of the different Legion eras. I loved the Silver Age stories but I also loved the 5 Years Later era and even the Bendis Legion despite it not reaching it's potential. I can't wait to see what's next for the team.

[Doctor Know]

I have been interested in getting into the LoSH but have never been quite sure where to start. I own the TPB of the Legion arc that Geoff Johns and Gary Franky did during their Superman run but that run seems geared towards readers who had some prior familiarity with the characters. I also wasn't a fan of the villains just being thinly veiled Nazis, like, yeah, if you're doing metaphors then don't beat the audiences head over it. After a while I checked out Legion of 3 Worlds since it was a part of the Final Crisis cross over event of the time but that was a bad idea since that was another arc geared towards readers familiar with the concept. After that, I never really bothered with the Legion.

Still, I often hear about how the Legion used to be big back in the day and how they even competed with X-Men and the New Teen Titans and used to be a best seller for DC. So what happened? How did they go from a best seller to requiring three, now four reboots? I get the Crisis and Zero Hour played a part but I would like to know the details and which of the Legions you consider to be the best and a good starting point.

Do you think the Legion being the future of the DCU often hurt the franchise?

Oh, the Legion. From the height of popularity, rivaling the New Teen Titans. To demonstrative obscurity.

Several things did the Legion in.

A. Fallout from COIE.
For some reason, DC editorial decided that the effects of Crisis needed to remove all mentions and contributions of Superboy/Superman's influence on the Legion. Supergirl died during Crisis, so she was memorialized. Superboy was made a separate entity from Byrne's Superman. Laurel Kent (Pre-Crisis Superman's descendant) was now a sleeper agent for the Manhunters for the "Millenium" event, etc.

The Legion need Superboy/Superman, like the New Gods need Superman. They need that celebrity guest star appeal to be a boon to their book. You see how both Legion and the New Gods can and have fallen into obscurity without a recognizable face to increase their profile.
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B. Reboots: Where To Even Start?

A question that has trouble the Legion and DC Comics as a whole. With their frequent, repeated and constant reboots, revamps and "reality altering shenanigans".

This is a brief summary of Legion Continuity.

1. Pre-Crisis (1959-1985): Levitz's powerhouse years starting in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes vol 1 #234 (1978). Standout stories from this time would be: Earth War, Great Darkness Saga, the Curse, Legion of Super-Villains/Death of Karate Kid and COIE.


2. Post Crisis (1985-1994): Levitz ends his 11-year run with Legion of Superheroes vol 3 #63; with the Magic Wars (1989). All technology across the United Federation of Planets has been destroyed and the Legion have eaten losses in defending the galaxy. This is period covers the Five Years Later, Batch SW6, Mon-El being recast as the inspiration for the Legion with the name Valor (a name Superman gave him in the 20th Century), and Zero Hour.


A lot of tangled webs were weaved here.

Editorial 'fixing' post-COIE. Pocket Universe Superboy, Mon-El is now the inspiration for the Legion. Etc

The villainous Time Trapper's manipulations on the timeline before and after his death by Mon-El.

Time Trapper’s assistant Glorith made her own alterations to the timeline after her master died.

Add in the time displaced Legionnaires from the now adult Legion's past (the Batch SW6 cast). Interacting and supplanting their older counterparts in some cases. Killing off more of the older Legionnaires.

There was no unf*cking this mess. So, TPTB used Zero Hour as a chance to reboot and get a clean slate


3. Zero Hour: Reboot Legion (1994-2004): Clean slate thanks to Zero Hour, with somethings sticking around. Like Mon-El/Valor still being the inspiration for the Legion instead of Superman. Characters occupying the same roles they did previously. Standard reboot/jumping on point for new readers. Standout out stories would be Tom McGraw and Mark Waid's early run and Dan Abnett's (Marvel Comics Annihilation, Annihilation Conquest, GOTG 2008) 2000 Legion Lost run.


Not much of this run is collected. But the beginnings are available on Amazon. You'll notice the issues kept the same numbering/volumes from Pre-Zero Hour volume. Legion Lost is out of print, but you may be able to find one used.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JK61GTW...8057767&sr=8-1


4. Threeboot (2005-2009): Mark Waid helps relaunch the Legion again. This time to mixed reception. The character designs were cool but not everyone jived with the new direction. Teenagers rebelling against conformity and performing as vigilante actors across the galaxy. Under the banner of the Legion. All the while still fighting crime and combating terrorism. The first two volumes were good, Teenage Revolution and Death of a Dream. After that, Waid added Supergirl to the book and all the stories seemed to revolve around Kara in the future. The book was even renamed to being Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes.


5. Post-Infinite Crisis Legion (2006-2013): Geoff Johns revives the Pre-Crisis Legion for his JLA story Lightning Saga in 2006. All events after COIE didn't happen to the Legion. John's applying the same retcon fixes he applied to Hawkman, GL and Flash. Other stories from this time would be Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion of 3 Worlds, Superman Secret Origin, Last Stand of New Krypton and Levitz's return to the Legion with The Choice and Consequences. There was a collective 'meh' with these stories. The stories that focused on the Legion weren't memorable and their appearances on the Superman books left them as glorified guest stars.


This Legion would presumably continue into the New 52. The two books Legion of Super-Heroes and Legion Lost 2011 didn't last long and were cancelled early into the New 52. Johns would again revive the Legion for his 2016 Rebirth event, with an appearance of Saturn Girl. However, nothing was done with them. In 2017 Johns would begin his much-delayed series Doomsday Clock. Saturn Girl plays a role early on in the story, but ends up lost in the sauce of story and wider alterations of DC at the time. As you know, Doomsday Clock was supposed to ride the wave of Rebirth and cap off the event. Frequent delays saw Doomsday Clock miss the wave of Rebirth and not finish until late 2019. By this point Scott Snyder's Dark Knights Metal had brought it's own changes to the DCU. And Bendis was signed on to DC to put his own spin on Superman and the LOSH. Doomsday Clark ends with Post-Infinite Crisis Saturn Girl and her Legion being erased from his history. They just fade away. Leading to the debut of Bendis' Legion.


6. Bendis' Legion (2020-2021) This one I know the least about. I'm sure someone would be willing to fill you in.

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C. Forgotten About By DC Editorial: Because the Legion operates mainly in the 30th/31st Century. They end up getting forgotten about/excluded from wider DC happenings. The Legion miss almost all line-wide events. The Legion centric stories don't reverse apply to the 21st century at all. And depending on whether they are connected to Superman, Supergirl or Superboy. They have no anchor to the 21st cast. Treated like an afterthought.

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D. My advice: As you can see from above, that took forever to provide abridged detail. If you are wanting to dip your toes into a Legion property that is accessible. I recommend the 2006-2008 animated series. The blu-ray containing all 26 episodes is available on Amazon and it is digitally available for streaming retailers (AppleTV, Vudu, Prime). The animated series does adaptations of notable Legion stories such as death of Ferro Lad, battling the Sun-Eater, Brainiac 5 vs Brainiac 1, battling the Dominators, Lightning Lad vs Lightning Lord etc. A good time and a lot cheaper than trying to track down OOP overpriced volumes.

https://www.amazon.com/Legion-Super-...s%2C193&sr=8-2

[j9ac9k]

Doctor Know gave us a pretty good rundown, so I will suggest another dimension to "what happened" which is that the team became synonymous with "a very large team" and while that was easier to pull off when all you had to do was treat them like Pokemon - each has a cool power and look and barely any personality - the more times changed and the average comic book reader became older and expected more sophisticated storytelling with more fleshed out characters and more believable scenarios/use of powers, the more difficult a large team of this nature became to write and the more difficult it's become to find a writer who can deliver. (which is why I bet the team's been split into separate titles at times)

[JThree]

I miss the Levitz Legion. However, the way things are going, I don't know if I would care to have it back.
--jthree

[kcekada]

A lot of popular DC books from the 80s eventually fell into disfavor. A lot of that had to do with the creative teams. Titans was on a long decline after Perez left. It's doubtful it ever would have achieved big number with him. Giffen departing Legion probably wouldn't have been as big a deal since he changed to a blocky, flat style of art towards the end of his run -- and his replacement Steve Lightle was liked right out of the gate. But Lightle was a slow artist (as was Cockrum in his day), and he left the title to be replace by capable Greg Laroque who was never really a fan favorite. When Maguire left Justice League, the book continued to sell and even thrive due to his replacement being Adam Hughes. But when Hughes left, the book also went into decline. Also happened on books like Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman, and even Superman. Batman apparently became immune to decline ever since the Michael Keaton movie. Prior to that, Batman books weren't selling that well -- same case for Superman books.

Even X-Men has had peaks and valleys, but that series attracts the upper echelon of talent -- especially artists -- that benefits sales.

But let's face it -- rebooting is not good for a franchise that was once popular. Maybe you can do it with a book that was never popular --- or you can do it organically like All-New X-Men did by keeping a couple of core characters and bringing in new blood. Legion reboots really only attracted decent numbers for the launch, so it's beyond me why DC went back to that well so often. Frankly, I credit it to ineptitude.

[LifeIsILL]

While we're at it what happened to the Omega Men?

They were like GOTG but way better written and more fascinating.

[Bruce Wayne]

A lot of popular DC books from the 80s eventually fell into disfavor. A lot of that had to do with the creative teams. Titans was on a long decline after Perez left. It's doubtful it ever would have achieved big number with him. Giffen departing Legion probably wouldn't have been as big a deal since he changed to a blocky, flat style of art towards the end of his run -- and his replacement Steve Lightle was liked right out of the gate. But Lightle was a slow artist (as was Cockrum in his day), and he left the title to be replace by capable Greg Laroque who was never really a fan favorite. When Maguire left Justice League, the book continued to sell and even thrive due to his replacement being Adam Hughes. But when Hughes left, the book also went into decline. Also happened on books like Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman, and even Superman. Batman apparently became immune to decline ever since the Michael Keaton movie. Prior to that, Batman books weren't selling that well -- same case for Superman books.

Even X-Men has had peaks and valleys, but that series attracts the upper echelon of talent -- especially artists -- that benefits sales.

But let's face it -- rebooting is not good for a franchise that was once popular. Maybe you can do it with a book that was never popular --- or you can do it organically like All-New X-Men did by keeping a couple of core characters and bringing in new blood. Legion reboots really only attracted decent numbers for the launch, so it's beyond me why DC went back to that well so often. Frankly, I credit it to ineptitude.

I think there is a demographic issue at work. The fanbase for LoSh and Titans simply aged out and once comics moved out of the mom/pop shops, there was no new blood and DC was stuck with two franchses in decline and a fanbase largely from the Wolfman Years (for Titans) and the Levitz/Giffen era for (LoSH). I remember once upon a time that the Legion had a large internet fanbase with its own web encyclopedia that would put the current wikis to shame, but eventually people just dropped out.

X-Men on the other hand was big enough that it was signal boosted and could get new blood especially after the Singer movies became a hit. And even then I think we are seeing diminishing returns given so many of the new Krakoa books don't have a long shelf life outside of X-Force and Wolverine and UXM.

Though I think the constant reboots also definitely screwed over LoSH. The failure of the DnA-Coipel book and Threeboot was the nail in the coffin since thats the point where the loss in readership and exit of fans made it impossible to save. All these attempts from Johns to Bendis to even Hickman simply can't reverse the general declines in numbers of readers who dropped out.

[j9ac9k]

While we're at it what happened to the Omega Men?

They were like GOTG but way better written and more fascinating.

Did you see the Tom King book that came out 2015?

[kcekada]

Legion still has a great concept that would pull in decent numbers (I guess only Manga really sells these days). It's an army of super-heroes defending the universe. Everyone has unique powers (for the most part), and they have some great villains. It's only the execution that keeps getting in the way. Too many writers have an agenda, and too many artists are afraid of it.

I will say that if Olivier Coipel's artwork wasn't so rough in his early days (in comparison to his work at Marvel), the DnA run probably would have done better. But they were already fightning an uphill battle with fans who didn't want to see the book rebooted -- or didn't like the direction it took (and I was one of those guys).

[MajorHoy]

About your poll "Preferred Legion Era?", also see the thread "https://community.cbr.com/showthread...f-Super-Heroes" which was started back in July of 2020.

[Sutekh]

Legion still has a great concept that would pull in decent numbers (I guess only Manga really sells these days). It's an army of super-heroes defending the universe. Everyone has unique powers (for the most part), and they have some great villains. It's only the execution that keeps getting in the way. Too many writers have an agenda, and too many artists are afraid of it.

I will say that if Olivier Coipel's artwork wasn't so rough in his early days (in comparison to his work at Marvel), the DnA run probably would have done better. But they were already fighting an uphill battle with fans who didn't want to see the book rebooted -- or didn't like the direction it took (and I was one of those guys).

Yeah, I didn't recognize him at all when I started picking up his Thor work, and I *loved* that art, only to be surprised to find out he'd done some Legion work before, that I checked out and was... underwhelmed.

[j9ac9k]

FWIW, I loved Coipel's work on "Legion." I'm pretty sure it was intentionally rougher on "Legion Lost" because it was a darker story. I did, however, hate the other artist they had on the mini. I also loved DnA's Legion - I was not a big fan of the "Archie" Legion. (I liked Moder, but couldn't stand Moy)

[caj]

About your poll "Preferred Legion Era?", also see the thread "https://community.cbr.com/showthread...f-Super-Heroes" which was started back in July of 2020.

Thanks, MajorHoy.