Can we please get a new LEgion of Superheroes book!!!

[Lee Stone]

I loved the art in "Legion Lost" but those two Legion titles seemed to have no idea what they were about. DC should have stayed with one Legion title and they needed to launch it with a real Big Plan in place with a Big Story, rather than just "oh, here's another Legion title."

Not to mention, the two Legion books were the only books NOT in the New52 Preview book that came out to promote the reboot.

[Agent 37]

Hello, is there a definitive run or best received version of the Legion that any fans would recommend. I'm looking for a teen team book to fill the void of the Teen Titans disaster of a title.

I've heard lots of people talk about Legion of Superheroes, but I don't want to waste money going back and collecting a Legion series that wasn't well received or turned out brutal halfway through. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

[Lee Stone]

Hello, is there a definitive run or best received version of the Legion that any fans would recommend. I'm looking for a teen team book to fill the void of the Teen Titans disaster of a title.

I've heard lots of people talk about Legion of Superheroes, but I don't want to waste money going back and collecting a Legion series that wasn't well received or turned out brutal halfway through. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

My personal favorites would be-
1. The Levitz run from just before the Great Darkness Saga up thru Magic Wars.
2. The Abnett/Lanning run from Legion of the Damned thru Legion Lost, Legion Worlds and the 2001 Legion series.

The Giffen/Bierbaums 5YL run in the 1989 Legion series (which jumps ahead 5 years after that Levitz run) is pretty popular, too, and one day I'll get around to reading it.

I think the only incarnation I personally didn't care for was the 2005 Waid run.
And I totally skipped the era between Zero Hour and Abnett/Lanning so I have no opinion on the Legionnaires.

The Levitz run was continued (for the most part) in the 2010 and 2011 series but I grew tired of the Earth Man story (which ran thru the entire 2010 run) and when the 2011 series launched a bunch of my favorite characters had been ushered off to Legion Lost (a not-so-great title that's unrelated to the one I mentioned up top), so I began to lose interest.

But you'll find that each era of Legion (even the ones I didn't care for) has its fans.

[Flash Gordon]

Someone just give the Legion to King and let him do his thing already. Ideally I'd want the Prophet guys on it but that wouldn't happen. Morrison sadly wouldn't do it and Hickman has completely lost me with his Marvel work. King is the best bet.

[Starchild]

Hmm, I wonder what J. Michael Straczynski or Brian Wood can do with a Legion series?

[jules]

My personal favorites would be-
1. The Levitz run from just before the Great Darkness Saga up thru Magic Wars.
2. The Abnett/Lanning run from Legion of the Damned thru Legion Lost, Legion Worlds and the 2001 Legion series.

The Giffen/Bierbaums 5YL run in the 1989 Legion series (which jumps ahead 5 years after that Levitz run) is pretty popular, too, and one day I'll get around to reading it.

I think the only incarnation I personally didn't care for was the 2005 Waid run.
And I totally skipped the era between Zero Hour and Abnett/Lanning so I have no opinion on the Legionnaires.

The Levitz run was continued (for the most part) in the 2010 and 2011 series but I grew tired of the Earth Man story (which ran thru the entire 2010 run) and when the 2011 series launched a bunch of my favorite characters had been ushered off to Legion Lost (a not-so-great title that's unrelated to the one I mentioned up top), so I began to lose interest.

But you'll find that each era of Legion (even the ones I didn't care for) has its fans.

To supplement this:

I very much like the Giffen/Bierbaum 5YL run, especially the first 12 issues. It's the Legion I started with. Like any long run it has its periodic dips in quality, but I'd say they were after that point. Those first 12 issues put the team together again after a break, so they do work pretty well as an introduction to the team, though it's helpful if you have some knowledge of other goings-on in the DC universe at the time (such as the need to purge Superboy and Supergirl from the Legion ranks after Byrne's Superman reboot). It's fair to say though that it's not a teen team book. At this point the majority of the characters are adults.

They're also treated as adults in most of the Levitz authored runs.

Legionnaires is a teen version of the team, first as a (sort of clone, it's complicated) younger version of the adult team running concurrently in the Legion of Super-Heroes title, and then after Zero Hour as a teen reboot that runs all the way through to the Abnett/Lanning titles. That post Zero Hour period is complex, since the two titles interleave to the point where for long stretches it becomes practically a fortnightly title, but since it was a reboot it's another useful starting point if you don't know the team.

50's/60's comics are obviously an acquired taste, but the Adventure Comics run has a lot of very iconic Legion stories and character defining moments, the introduction of most of the core team members, the early work of Jim Shooter, and a certain charm all of its own. And the team are very definitely teens at that point. It's my second favourite run after 5YL. It's difficult to get hold of in an affordable form at present though.

I can't comment on the Waid threeboot run, because it occurred during a reading hiatus for me and is still on my to-do list. It was the return of the classic team after that which brought me back to the Legion again.

[Nomads1]

My personal favorites would be-
1. The Levitz run from just before the Great Darkness Saga up thru Magic Wars.
2. The Abnett/Lanning run from Legion of the Damned thru Legion Lost, Legion Worlds and the 2001 Legion series.

The Giffen/Bierbaums 5YL run in the 1989 Legion series (which jumps ahead 5 years after that Levitz run) is pretty popular, too, and one day I'll get around to reading it.

I think the only incarnation I personally didn't care for was the 2005 Waid run.
And I totally skipped the era between Zero Hour and Abnett/Lanning so I have no opinion on the Legionnaires.

The Levitz run was continued (for the most part) in the 2010 and 2011 series but I grew tired of the Earth Man story (which ran thru the entire 2010 run) and when the 2011 series launched a bunch of my favorite characters had been ushered off to Legion Lost (a not-so-great title that's unrelated to the one I mentioned up top), so I began to lose interest.

But you'll find that each era of Legion (even the ones I didn't care for) has its fans.

I'd sure be up for a new Legion book, and I'm not picky about which version they'd use (even though the post-Zero Hour reboot/DNA Legion is my favorite).

As for the recomendations above, excellent all of them, and I'd second it, with one addition. There was a lot of good stuff in the first few years of the Post-Zero Hour Legion of Super-Heroes. As a modern retelling of the Legion mythos, the series gave depth to many Legion characters that hardly had any kind of distinct personality before, makeing several generally overlooked Legionnaries favorits of mine (Triad, Umbra, Cos) and intruducing great new Legionnaries to the team (Gates, Sensor, Kid Quantum II, Monstress). Were all the versions of the reboot better? No. Personally, I still prefer classic Timber Wolf and Wildfire, but the series was pretty much awsome right up to when half of the team get stuck in the 20Th century. After that, Legionnaries kept going strong (despite many not liking the cutesy art of Philip Moy) and story quality on the LSH book varied a bit more, but wwas okay until the team reunited in LSH #100. After that, IMHO, the book lost a bit momentum until DnA came abord, and it became awsome again.

Peace

[mathew101281]

How do you guys feel about loosing the "boy, girl, lass and Lad" monikers? To me those really only work if you think the team should lean young. Legion is an interesting team because historically they are seen more in a teenage superhero light, but most of their good stories come from adult legion eras. All this is a round about way of asking "how old do you think the Legion should be?"

[Nomads1]

How do you guys feel about loosing the "boy, girl, lass and Lad" monikers? To me those really only work if you think the team should lean young. Legion is an interesting team because historically they are seen more in a teenage superhero light, but most of their good stories come from adult legion eras. All this is a round about way of asking "how old do you think the Legion should be?"

I have absolutely NO problem with the Legion being young. They don't need to all be teens, though. Young adults in their 18-21 years would work for me.
As for dropping the boy, girl, lad, lass from the code-names, I'm all for it. It was something that I liked in the Post-Zero-Hour reboot, when you went from Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass, Element Lad, Triplicate Girl, Chamaleon Boy, and others to Apparition, Umbra, Alchemist (though this was only in the SW6 Legion, not the reboot), Triad, Chamaleon respectively. I think it opens up in creative terms not to always be stuck on the boy/girl and the age bracket that this implies.

Peace

[Robotman]

Someone just give the Legion to King and let him do his thing already. Ideally I'd want the Prophet guys on it but that wouldn't happen. Morrison sadly wouldn't do it and Hickman has completely lost me with his Marvel work. King is the best bet.

King would no doubt write an amazing book but it would need a big name artist to get it off to a good start and give it a chance of surviving. King is one of the best writers out there but his name alone doesn't generate much buzz.

[Thor-Ul]

Abnett had his time on Legion; it started strong and got progressively weaker as it went. Legion Lost and Legion Worlds remain two high water marks in Legion history, for me.

Let see if he can work alone in Titans hunt before any advanced jugment. Also with great expectatives in earth 2 about him.

My number one choice for the Legion is Grant Morrison. That won't ever happen, but his body of work plays with a lot of the themes I believe are at the heart of the Legion.

I don't think Morrison is the most suitable writer for the Legion. At least I don't think than the narrative of Morrison is the most suitable for a Legion book. And Morrison is one of my favorite writers.

Of everyone else, I think Tom King is the best choice; I'd take him before, Hickman, I'd take him before Roberts.

But I'd be happy with any of those four -- Grant Morrison, Tom King, John Hickman, and James Roberts.

Good options all of them, but I also would like to give King a chance.

Geoff Johns' orientation and interest is ill suited to the Legion. Superman and the Legion was a good story...but it was a good Superman story. That's what it meant to be, and that's fine, but it wasn't a Legion story. Legion of Three Worlds was a horrendous misunderstanding and misappropriation of the franchise, in my mind

Legion of three worlds is a good Superman story, but it put the Legion back as a Superman background characters, the 30th/31st century as a place where Superman is going to have adventures. It put the Legion back to their roots and the problem it was that must have a stage the characters already had get over. I'm not against Superman/Superboy/Supergirl appearances, but the Legion doesn't had to revolve around them.

Also, if he were drawing it, I'd be down to have Keith Giffen involved in some way.

I would limit him to covers

As always, here's my opinion on the Legion: http://heshouldreallyknowbetter.blog...ed-legion.html

I suppose than a new series writer (either Tom King, Hickman or Dan Abnett, my options) would have a lot of work to make the Legion work again but I think than Deniz Camp nailed it in a lot of points with his analysis. But again it must be clear which is the raison de etre of the Legion in the big context the DCU.
For example, the big context of the 30th century as a technological utopia is one of the main elements of the Legion. Depiste what the 5YL defender could say, the Legion identity is better understand in that context. So, why would need the 30th century superheroes? And remember the explanations from the 50s are not valid today.

[j9ac9k]

How do you guys feel about loosing the "boy, girl, lass and Lad" monikers? To me those really only work if you think the team should lean young. Legion is an interesting team because historically they are seen more in a teenage superhero light, but most of their good stories come from adult legion eras. All this is a round about way of asking "how old do you think the Legion should be?"

At this point, considering the biggest drawback to the Legion attracting new readers has always seemed to be the long history, I'd say that they should be teenagers. Reintroduce them fresh with the Nu52 Superman. Build it again from the ground up. They should also lean into the "Lad/Lass" names. It's part of the point - using those cheesy names based on old-fashioned super-heroes is what *makes* them counter-culture! Rather than the snarky,"Eat it Grandpa" version, it's their optimism and belief in old-timey heroes that makes them different in the 31st century. (and let's face it, the 21st century as well) Obviously, even now, those names seem stupid to a lot of people - which is *exactly* why they should be kept! It informs just how much these kids are "out of touch" and removed from their contemporaries. (but y'know, in a good way )

[colonyofcells]

The boy girl names can easily be retained if the Legionnaires are still in elementary school or high school.

[Agent 37]

Thanks for the recommendations (Nomad, Jules, Lee), I appreciate it.

I'll check on comixology and see what my options are!

[Flash Gordon]

Hmm, I wonder what J. Michael Straczynski or Brian Wood can do with a Legion series?

JMS wouldn't finish it.