Favorite Legion of Super Heroes storyline

[Sutekh]

I never thought Levitz did a good enough job explaining how neither Imra or Nura didn't pick up that Violet wasn't Violet. Actress or not, Yera should not have been able to get past either one of them, especially for months.

I got the impression that;

A) Nura has zero control of her visions. They happen when they happen. She *might* get a random vision of Yera being unmasked, or she might get a random vision of Violet in the future with her new haircut dating Ayla. Or neither. Her visions tend to be of big stuff that affects either the entire team, the entire world, or her personally. Something happening to a teammate that she has little interaction with seems a bit obscure for her power to latch onto. But yeah, it's just random chance that she *didn't* get a vision involving Yera/Violet. Or a vision that the Earthgov vice-president was Universo. Or a vision that Orando was under attack and Karate Kid would lose his life freeing it. Or a vision that Brainy was gonna flip out and attempt to destroy the universe with Omega. Her visions have a spotty track record, at best.

I don't disagree that her precognition is not well-handled narratively, and should be a bit more consistently useful, but not plot-wrecking. That's a neat trick that even the best Legion writers haven't managed to pull off too often, IMO.

B) Imra, like most comic-book telepaths, seems to have some unwritten code of ethics about peeking into the minds of her allies, or teammates, and, all-too-often, not even scanning or verifying rando NPCs around them (leading to inevitable betrayals or impersonations, like the aforementioned Universo-pretending-to-be-Gupta, sneaking past her scrutiny). If she and Violet were written as besties who spent a lot of time together, I'd be more critical of her not picking up on Violet having different thoughts (since, even if she is scrupulous about not plundering her friends brains, there's gotta be some leakage).

I also think that teams with telepaths shouldn't have this sort of problem. The average X-team over at Marvel has at least one telepath, often times folk like Emma Frost with far more flexible ethical codes than Imra, and yet their teams also get infiltrated by Dark Beast or Mystique or tricked by 'not really reformed' villains like Sabertooth-pretending-to-be-reformed, so they have even *less* excuse for this stuff happening.

In both of these cases, it makes senses within the story that Nura and Imra might not catch on, but it also is closely tied into a comics-wide issue of writers conveniently ignoring powers that invalidate the plot they want to tell that month. Dawnstar can track anything, but never seems to be able to find the thing what needs to be found for this months mystery. Nura can dream the future, but doesn't seem to catch the important stuff that would short circuit the current plot.

A writer who sits down to write a story involving telepaths and precognitives and super-geniuses and people who can move at lightspeed needs to adjust their eight basic plots to accommodate the characters abilities. That isn't easy. But that's the job.

[Thirteen]

I never thought Levitz did a good enough job explaining how neither Imra or Nura didn't pick up that Violet wasn't Violet. Actress or not, Yera should not have been able to get past either one of them, especially for months.

I got the impression that;

A) Nura has zero control of her visions. They happen when they happen. She *might* get a random vision of Yera being unmasked, or she might get a random vision of Violet in the future with her new haircut dating Ayla. Or neither. Her visions tend to be of big stuff that affects either the entire team, the entire world, or her personally. Something happening to a teammate that she has little interaction with seems a bit obscure for her power to latch onto. But yeah, it's just random chance that she *didn't* get a vision involving Yera/Violet. Or a vision that the Earthgov vice-president was Universo. Or a vision that Orando was under attack and Karate Kid would lose his life freeing it. Or a vision that Brainy was gonna flip out and attempt to destroy the universe with Omega. Her visions have a spotty track record, at best.

I don't disagree that her precognition is not well-handled narratively, and should be a bit more consistently useful, but not plot-wrecking. That's a neat trick that even the best Legion writers haven't managed to pull off too often, IMO.

B) Imra, like most comic-book telepaths, seems to have some unwritten code of ethics about peeking into the minds of her allies, or teammates, and, all-too-often, not even scanning or verifying rando NPCs around them (leading to inevitable betrayals or impersonations, like the aforementioned Universo-pretending-to-be-Gupta, sneaking past her scrutiny). If she and Violet were written as besties who spent a lot of time together, I'd be more critical of her not picking up on Violet having different thoughts (since, even if she is scrupulous about not plundering her friends brains, there's gotta be some leakage).

A) Nura/Dream Girl - more of a side point/question rather than anything with her precognition catching on to Yera. Hasn't she been shown to be able to focus her precognitive sight so that she can see her opponents moves in a fight making her formidable hand to hand fighter? Maybe that was something from a different incarnation of the character? Threeboot?

B) Imra/Saturn Girl - haven't Durlans been said to have difficult to read minds because of their biological fluidity? So Irma would have noticed a change in accessibility to "Vi's" thoughts but not specifics, in that case.

[caj]

Interesting points all around. However, Imra was stranded on that freezing asteroid with Yera. I still think she should have picked up something from Yera there.

I'll excuse Nura, as she was Legion Leader and was probably focused on other things. However, I would think there should have been something in the Legion bylaws that if you discover a spy or intruder in the ranks, you MUST inform the Leader.

[CaptCleghorn]

Didn't Imra go out of her way not to pick up her teammate's thoughts unless she really wanted to? That seemed like what would have happened in the Legion at that time.

[Zero Hunter]

I got the impression that;

A) Nura has zero control of her visions. They happen when they happen. She *might* get a random vision of Yera being unmasked, or she might get a random vision of Violet in the future with her new haircut dating Ayla. Or neither. Her visions tend to be of big stuff that affects either the entire team, the entire world, or her personally. Something happening to a teammate that she has little interaction with seems a bit obscure for her power to latch onto. But yeah, it's just random chance that she *didn't* get a vision involving Yera/Violet. Or a vision that the Earthgov vice-president was Universo. Or a vision that Orando was under attack and Karate Kid would lose his life freeing it. Or a vision that Brainy was gonna flip out and attempt to destroy the universe with Omega. Her visions have a spotty track record, at best.

I don't disagree that her precognition is not well-handled narratively, and should be a bit more consistently useful, but not plot-wrecking. That's a neat trick that even the best Legion writers haven't managed to pull off too often, IMO.

I did like in one of the reboots were she could go into sort of a battle trance. It was like she was asleep but still moving so she could fight hand to hand using her powers and being able to see her opponents moves before they thru them and could counter attack. I wish they had picked up on this more.

[Sutekh]

I did like in one of the reboots were she could go into sort of a battle trance. It was like she was asleep but still moving so she could fight hand to hand using her powers and being able to see her opponents moves before they thru them and could counter attack. I wish they had picked up on this more.

Yeah, both Reboot and Threeboot Nura were able to do the combat precognition thing, and when Levitz came back and did the Retroboot, it seemed that Nura had picked up that power as well.

I kind of prefer it to classic 'has to take a nap to use her powers, and then has no control of them (and often misinterprets them for dramatic reasons)' golden age Nura.

In my fanon, 'Dream Boy' from the Threeboot was even more of a specialist in that sort of two-seconds-in-the-future combat precognition, maybe even one of those 'pre-cops' from the third issue (IIRC) whom Nura distracted mid-fight by telling him that his wife was going to leave him next week. (Whether it was true or not, that's cold!) I liked when they bragged about how their precognition worked, making fighting people hand to hand like watching an old movie, since they knew what was going to happen before it happened. (Nura taking advantage of both being smarter at using precog than the precops, but also capable of much longer 'range' precognition, more than a few seconds into the future.)

[kcekada]

I don't have just one.

Great Darkness Saga is a favorite because it got me reading Legion again after about a 5-year absence where I stopped reading DC and fell in love with Marvel. It helped that Dave Cockrum was working on X-Men in 1976. Also GDS made use of the Subs and reservists -- and gave Supergirl one of her greatest moments before Crisis.

Legion of Super Villains is also up there -- mainly because of it elevating Light Lass back to Lightning Lass and giving Projectra her 'killer' moment. Also -- Steve Lightle!

But I also love three of the Silver Age tales I read as reprints -- Computo, Super Stalag of Outer Space, and first Mordru story. These all had very dramatic moments and a couple even had a death or two.

[Nomads1]

So many... Let's see a few:

Legion Lost (the 12 issue maxi-series)
The White Triangle saga (the story that showed us the Post-Zero Hour Legion was seriously great.)
Superboy's Legion (much like in the Nail, Alan Davis gave us a definitive version in an alternate reality story)
Who is Sensor Girl? (Paul Levitz showed us that, even without Giffen, his Legion was awsome)
The Great Darkness Saga (yeah, it's the all-time greatest for a reason)
Foundations (DnA's attempt to do their own GDS with the Post-Zero Hour Legion. Not as praised as the original, though, IMHO, pretty good!)
The One-Shot Legionnaire (Short, but sweet, with art by the great Dave Cockrum. It is even better when read together with its sequel, but I think there are few stories that have ever stood out in my memory as "The Death of Erg-1" did.)

There are many others I truely love, but these are the ones that, for me, stand-out. Great stuff all around.

Peace

[Nomads1]

The first couple of Earth War issues are amazing with stellar art by Sherman and McLeod. This splash page hooked me on the Legion immediately as a little kid and I've never looked back.

Attachment 138470

Had Sherman and McLeod been able to satay on and conclude Earth War, it probably would have rivaled the GDS as the greatest Legion story of all-time.

This is the next one that jumped out at me as a kid. I still remember my Uncle buying this for me when he was in town visiting for the first time. This issue made me an Ultra Boy fan for life. He can only use one power at a time but he took on the entire Legion and almost got away. Amazing.

Attachment 138471

I was an Ultraboy fan even before this, but this story really put him under the spotlight.

I preferred James Sherman to Mike Grell. Grell was too stylized on Legion -- putting characters in awkward poses. He improved vastly by the time he created Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters. Sherman's style was closer to Dave Cockrum's -- the run that made me love the Legion.

Agreed. Cockrum > Sherman > Grell.

The fact is, unless one is able to experience the slow burn of it developing monthly and be surprised by the villain reveal, it's not going to be the same. That said, I read it in tpb and knew who the villain was, but I still loved it.

I had the slowburn of the monthly wait, and I have to say, living in Brazil, with the irregularity of American Comics distribution, and without the advantages of TPBs reprints and the internet, it was a real challenge having to track down the sequential issue. IN fact, it took me over a decade to track down the over-sized conclusion. And, I have to say, it was totally worth it.

Peace

[M@Bowers2014]

Had Sherman and McLeod been able to satay on and conclude Earth War, it probably would have rivaled the GDS as the greatest Legion story of all-time.

I agree with this 100%. I actually like Staton's art but the sudden shift in art style was jarring. Such a shame. Another favorite Legion story is the one and done tragedy of Invisible Kid's death drawn by Grell and inked Neal Adams if I remembering correctly. Which also reminds how epic the first Legion Annual was with the introduction of Invisible Kid II.

[kcekada]

I don't think Adams inked Grell on his first issue -- Grell inked himself. Honestly, I thought it was his best work -- oddly enough. Maybe inking Cockrum's pencils on the previous issue gave him a temporary boost. Or maybe he was just too rushed after his first issue. I'm not saying he didn't do good work from time to time, but he was very inconsistent.

I only read a few of Sherman's stories. He came on board just as I was dropping DC. I actually didn't mind Abel's inks on Sherman. For some reason his inking really worked with Curt Swan's on the Mordru 2-parter. But judging from the pages shown here, I wish they had been able to use McCleod for all of James' run: http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blo...ns-legion.html

[JThree]

Did anybody else think of the "Omega" storyline where Brainiac 5 went insane and set Omega on the Legion using the Miracle Machine. That one stands out in my mind. First story where one of the good guys really did go "bad" and tried to kill everyone else. Usually those mystery stories reveal some guest star as the traitor/judas, not one of the regulars.

--jthree

[Nomads1]

Did anybody else think of the "Omega" storyline where Brainiac 5 went insane and set Omega on the Legion using the Miracle Machine. That one stands out in my mind. First story where one of the good guys really did go "bad" and tried to kill everyone else. Usually those mystery stories reveal some guest star as the traitor/judas, not one of the regulars.

--jthree

While I thoroughly enjoy the Omega storyline, its behind the scenes workings sort of take out a bit of its lustre for me. It was treated as a sort of fill-in story, despite its great overall importance (Brainy is revealed insane, Matter-Eater Lad loses his own sanity when he is forced to eat the Miracle Machine, The Legion's HQ is once again totalled, etc...). It was created by Jim Starlin who intended it to be published in the same oversized story format that the Legion was being published at the time, yet, its publishing was pushed about a year into the future, when the Legion had gone back to the 22 pages format, so the tale had to be adapted. Starlin was a bit upset to how DC treated his story, so he refused to have his name attached to the story, hence it was credited to "Steve Apollo." It is the follow-up for the murder of Ann Rydd storyline, which foccusses heavily on Ultra-Boy, yet he barely has a couple of lines in the Omega storyline. Wildfire is clearly shown as the leader of the team (as he was when the story was supposed to be published), yet Lightning Lad, who had just been elected team leader a couple of issues before, barely has any lines in the story. The addaptation clearly left other plotholes in the story. Had it been published in the right sequence, I'm sure an oversized two-parter Legion story by the legendary Jim Starlin (who had already established a reputation as a great "cosmic" writer), with so many important ramifications would be an undisputed milestone. As it is, for me at least, it still leaves a taste of what could have been in my mouth.

Peace

[M@Bowers2014]

I don't think Adams inked Grell on his first issue -- Grell inked himself. Honestly, I thought it was his best work -- oddly enough. Maybe inking Cockrum's pencils on the previous issue gave him a temporary boost. Or maybe he was just too rushed after his first issue. I'm not saying he didn't do good work from time to time, but he was very inconsistent.

I only read a few of Sherman's stories. He came on board just as I was dropping DC. I actually didn't mind Abel's inks on Sherman. For some reason his inking really worked with Curt Swan's on the Mordru 2-parter. But judging from the pages shown here, I wish they had been able to use McCleod for all of James' run: http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blo...ns-legion.html

Yeah, looks like you're right in that Grell inked himself on Superboy & the Legion of Super-Heroes #203. I agree that it's his best issue he did on the book. It's so much better than what came after that I guess I assumed it was Adams or something.

[Sutekh]

Superboy's Legion (much like in the Nail, Alan Davis gave us a definitive version in an alternate reality story)

Yes! Easily my favorite of the 'alternate Legions!' Brainy and Lyle as clone-sibs? Light Lass with light / laser powers? Garth and Ayla as snobby aristocrats? Star Boy with his classic 'Superman-plus' powerset? All sorts of goodness in that AU. Also, my favorite use of Superboy in a Legion story. I was not always a big fan of his in the classic stories, but he really pulled this whole story together.