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Legion Of Super Heroes

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20:14 / 25.09.04

Legion of Superheroes. Written by Mark Waid. Who will read It? What will be different from the previous thirty incarnations? Were they explained in Kingdom Come?

20:29 / 25.09.04

I know next to nothing about the Legion of Super-Heroes, in any of its forms. But I may check this out due to Waid. Still wish Brainiac 5 didn't have an arse haircut, though.

21:39 / 26.09.04

I love the Legion, always have been a massive fan, it was the only part of Zero Hour that had any real emotional clout, but it's getting a bit much with its constant revamps. The last revamp just ended up reading like something from the Ultimates line at Marvel.

So I'm going back to the old stuff, the collected hardback's are being ordered, and I'm going to be emersed in stories about Jimmy Olsen and the LOSubstituteH for a good while.

06:30 / 27.09.04

*sigh* Why can't there be more girls like Matter-Transformer Lass?

14:36 / 27.09.04

I dug the first few issues of the Chris Sprouse-drawn Legion back in the mid-90s, was it...? The recent post-Legion Lost revamp seemed decent; they had the very cool idea of Ra's al Ghul being President in the Legion's future. Copiel's art was decent back then.

As for this new version, I'm gonna give it a try. I'm hopeful that Waid & Kitson can work some magic and make me really care about the Legion.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

19:59 / 27.09.04

I hate to say it, but the only time I gave half a damn about the Legion was when Paul Levitz wrote it, but I kept buying it, hoping it would get better. It is such a cool idea (a group of super-heroes 1000 years in DC's future) and yet most of the time it's just an awful mess. Waid last run at the book was pretty good, and he worked pretty hard to give the series back it's optimistic take on the future.

Normally, I don't MIND a bleak future in my SF, but it doesn't fit this series, because it makes it feel like one of those damn "Days of Future Past" things they do on the X-Men whenever they can't think up a decent story. The Legion has 24+ members, and if they are ALL whining and bitching all the time, and everything is dark and moody, you can't keep track of them all.

And why does everyone have to do their version of the Levitz/Giffen Darkseid story? The last version (issue #25 - 30 I think) was such a shameless ripoff, they could have just reprinted the damn thing and it wouldn't have been much of a difference.

I EVER SO WANT to like the new version, since Waid and Kitson do good work together, but if it is another "Earth is destroyed and everyone hates the Legion" series, I'm dropping it like a Mayat Michaels comic.

20:06 / 27.09.04

When did Waid previously write the Legion?

06:06 / 28.09.04

Waid's premise actually sounds fairly interesting:

The team is like the Society for Creative Anachronism of the 31st century, with kids that idolize the heroes of our century. In a world that's so bland and sterile and polite, they want to raise hell and liven up the place. They believe in the heroic ideal, where initiative and action are important, in contrast with regimented and organized adults. Waid wants to talk more about society than technology in this go-round.

One of their rules is that everyone has to have a name that ends with Boy, Girl, Lad, Lass, or Kid. Brainiac 5 is the science advisor. There will be a broader range of ages, and Waid will play around with cliques. Members that join around the same time will likely wind up hanging out together. We can only take for granted that the three founders are the same.

I'll certainly give it a chance. I've been loving Waid's FF, the only real mainstream superhero funnybook I've been compelled to buy regularly in years (excepting NXM, which, you know).

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

08:58 / 28.09.04

As far as I can remember, Waid started with #59 and wrote until #70 either as co-plotter or scripter. He also worked on Legionnaires from #16 - 19.

I don't remember why he left, expecially since he was SUCH a big LSH fan, having worked on the index series before he was a pro.

Matthew Fluxington

12:01 / 28.09.04

I am very excited about this. I already like the Legion, though the majority of Legion comics are pretty bad. I have a huge love for the Giffen/Beirbaums Legion from the early 90s, and it sounds like Waid will be more like that in terms of tone. I've become a big Waid fan recently thanks to his FF run, so I'm eager to read this. I love the angle.

17:28 / 28.09.04

This is my favorite bit:

One of their rules is that everyone has to have a name that ends with Boy, Girl, Lad, Lass, or Kid.

I just love the idea that in a thousand years, it will be really cool to call yourself "Matter-Eater Lad". Two points to Waid for resisting the urge to give them kewler names and playing up the fun, wacky ones.

20:27 / 28.09.04

Agreed, Octave.

11:45 / 29.09.04

Man, I used to love the Legion of Superheroes! (Hence the "Lad" in my name.) And Waid's take seems really great. When's it out?

Haus of Mystery

11:55 / 29.09.04

Matter-Eater Lad would be a great band name.

Matthew Fluxington

16:39 / 29.09.04

"Matter Eater Lad" is the name of a classic Guided By Voices song. Everyone will just think that yr a GBV fan.

A

12:10 / 30.09.04

I think that the goofy names and silly super powers (Bouncing Boy! Matter Eater Lad! Stone Boy!) are a large part of the appeal of the Legion, and giving them names like "Livewire" and "Leviathan" instead of Lightning Lad or Colossal Boy doesn't really work.

17:14 / 30.09.04

I think it's out in about 2 months...? Not sure, but I feel pretty certain it's not in the next few weeks.

12:51 / 05.10.04

Mark Waid said this in a recent interview on the series:

>> The names were easy. Once we made the deliberate decision that the Legion sees itself as, in a way, the Society For Creative Anachronism of the 31st century, it made sense that they’d have very traditional, almost old-fashioned super-hero-y names like “Karate Kid” and “Ultra Boy.” From there, those kinds of names became a “rule of the club,” which in turn informed in part which members we wanted to use. (I’m sure once we set this new paradigm clearly in readers’ minds, we’ll create the freedom to reintroduce characters like Wildfire and Timber Wolf without having to call them “Timber Wolf Lad” and “Wildfire Kid,” : ) , but initially, we elected to stay with a cast that fit that naming rule.)

Also, Star Boy will be African-American/black, since Waid said he wanted to address the lack of non-white Legionnaires.

14:56 / 07.10.04

Well, the Titans/Legion Special came out yesterday, which is superhero fun, and it's got a 5-page preview of the new Waid/Kitson Legion. Although Kitson's inks looked kind of light and a little choppy (he's listed as "artist" which means I guess he did pencils & inks, unless they're shooting from his pencils alone, which might explain it), the teaser looked fun.

Kids in the future are having a new movement back to our time. It's like a retro movement, because the kids of the future crave freedom, which the utopia of the future does not give them (parents can now put chips in their children to track them at all times, and the indication is that all children get these chips pretty much automatically at birth, so there's no escape).

A bunch of kids, fascinated with the ways and heroes of our time, create the Legion - a group of not only superheroes patterned after the way they see our time, but a group of kids who have gone off the genetic parentwatch radar. They've essentially all run away from home and are rebels, outcasts, WITH a cause.

Looks fun. The final page splash and the lead-in gave me a nice feeling.

16:16 / 07.10.04

It does sound very interesting. I got the issue of the Titans that kinda leads to this. The one in which our superboy is sucked into the future and lives with the Legion for a few months and even though it was all set up there was something really nice about our "too cool for a costume" clone to be wearing a more traditional supes costume... with the Legion belt.

18:48 / 07.10.04

There's a great moment in the Titans/Legion Special where Beast Boy calls the Karate Kid "headband lad". I truly laughed out loud.

01:36 / 08.10.04

Yeah, in the issue that I mention above, Beast Boy (when introduced to Karate Kid) says, "Wax on. Wax off." and Karate Kid just stares ar him blankly and notes, "Superboy is always saying that too."

21:17 / 08.10.04

In an odd bit of coincidence, the first comic I ever read -- the one that got me hooked on the medium -- was the same one that first hooked Paul Levitz and the Bierbaums: Adventure no. 310 ("The Doom of the Legion"). (And also, like Levitz, I discovered it in a barbershop.) To my knowledge it was the first Legion story that pictured, however briefly, every member existing at that time. And I've followed them ever since.

With each reboot, I've rolled my eyes and sighed deeply, but have enjoyed the rides nonetheless. The Legion, moreso it seems than any other title in comics history, has always been written by people who love and revere the characters and their history. I'm looking forward to the new series.

20:39 / 10.10.04

I spent last week reading, for the first time (bar one TPB) the first year of post-Zero Hour Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion of the Damned, Legion Lost and Legion Worlds. With the exception of Worlds, I loved every damn issue.

I finally get it. It's just so much damn fun! So many characters, so much history, a whole new world to learn.

That's what I loved about comics in the first place. Too many people these days are harping on about there being too much history and it's all too hard to keep track of everything. I love it. When I first started reading comics, half the fun was tracking down back issues and learing about the character's history. Legion has lots of characters, lots of history and I really enjoyed immersing myself in it.

I really loved "Lost". I got the first real "oh my god" comic-moment shock that I've had in ages during the last issue when you-know-what happened to you-know-who. (Spoiler-free!) It actually affected me.

So, er... rambling a bit here. To wrap up, Post Zero Hour Legion - Yay. New Legion - no bloody idea. Will wait and see.

17:56 / 17.11.04

They're starting to post preview images of several pages from this, but the ones on www.comicscontinuum.com are too damn small to read...

21:33 / 17.11.04

The art looks great.

03:14 / 18.11.04

I recently read Lost, and it kind of hooked me into reading Worlds and what followed. I liked Lost quite a bit, and Worlds had it's moments (really, you're bound to get some good stuff when you're switching artist and focus each issue), but what followed with R'as and then Darkseid was kind of crap. Or rather, not to my taste. "Lost" worked really well, focusing on a small group of characters, but the regular series that followed didn't seem to deal with the expansive cast too well. I'm kind of awestruck by the skill exhibited in the mid-80s Legion (Levitz? Giffen? not sure), insofar as writing a giant cast is concerned.

04:15 / 25.11.04

see, I really liked the last run. Started reading at legion lost, then progressed backward into the 'rifts' and 'blight' arc. It was futuristic and fun. I agree the Darksied arc was less than it promised but I still liked the set up.

Really disliked the way the legion were dispatched in the Titans crossover. Seemed such a tacky way to do it. But I guess it was done to leave the door open if the waid reboot fails. It just seemed a waste to wipe the slate clean again.

But the preview art for the new stuff is really good and it might be great, so I'll reserve judgement of it till I've read it...

22:11 / 03.12.04

There's a new article about this over at comicbookresources.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=4506

It really looks pretty good...

00:59 / 05.12.04

Anyone remember the Legion parody in "Normalman", where the roll call lasted for the entire series?

02:47 / 06.12.04

Well, having seen the preview pages, I'm definitely sold on this. My favorite bit is Colossal Boy/Micro Lad; was the "His super-power is that he can shrink to six feet tall" idea in the original series or is that Waid's clever twist?

13:19 / 11.12.04

Clever twist.

20:40 / 21.12.04

New preview up at PopCultureShock:

http://www.popcultureshock.com/reviews.php?id=3718

Looks good!

01:57 / 30.12.04

First issue is out. It's good - but I don't like the choice to have the background of the cover be white. I much preferred all the ads I saw with either an all-black or green background...it's just a design thing that bugs me.

The colors in the book are also kinda faded and muted...maybe it's the paper it's printed on?

But design and color issues I had aside, good, fun book.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

20:29 / 30.12.04

That has got to be the biggest up I've ever heard for a super hero comic on this board... not written by Morrison (and I AM giddily enjoying JLClassified before you think I'm just being my usual grouchy self).

Everyone buy ten copies.

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