mrhan

I've read only the issues Mike Grell did and sort of lost interest after that. I know DC integrated him into the DC universe when he showed up in the 1st GA series; which I thought was a dumb move. Whatever happened to the character?

davidh777

I read past the Grell era but the magic was basically gone. Didn't the character make a cameo in the first Crisis?

Patman

FYI: The Legion will be on Smallville tonight (8 p.m. EST on the CW).

fujishig

So can someone who's currently up on DC continuity tell me what's up with the Legion?

Waid and Kitson's legion is over, and I know there was a Final Crisis mini about the Legion... are they bringing the Legion back, and if so, which version?

Laertes

I would say we still don't know.

FC: Legions of Three Worlds won't wrap until June (major delays). IN case you don't know, it's the epic meeting of three legions, the ones we've seen before. Right now, we have the "first" Legion (which is the Levitz/Giffen era, but ignoring the "five years later" stuff, apparently), the post-Zero Hour Legion and the "current" one that Waid and Kitson created.

Who knows what we'll have at the end. My guess is that it'll be some mixture of all three, as DC seems intent on trying to make everyone happy (ie--return of Hal Jordan, but Kyle gets to stay; return of Barry Allen, but Wally gets to stay), but heavily-weighted to the "first" legion. That's purely a guess.

fujishig

Thanks for the update, I had no idea it had been delayed.

While I liked Waid and Kitson's Legion, did it have that big of a fan following? The title changed drastically once Shooter began writing it anyway. Also, the post-Zero-Hour Legion tried so hard to be the pre-Zero-Hour Legion, that fans started complaining. While it's going backwards, I think most would be pleased with a pre-five-years-later Legion. I loved FYL, but at the end there they backed themselves into a corner and had to create that Legionnaires group and title to try to revamp. There was tons of character development that I suppose will be forgotten, like Shvaughn/Sean Erin and Element Lad.

Even though Johns is writing it, I'm not entirely happy with Barry coming back, either.

Laertes

Yeah, Wally is still the Flash to me. I like Wally graduating from being Kid Flash to the Flash. Now he's just one of many.....

I also liked the Waid and Kitson Legion. Haven't read Shooter's part of the run. And I liked the original LSH (mostly) because they aged. They went from kids to (presumably) early 30s (late 20s?), which was pretty cool.

fujishig

Shooter's run was largely forgettable, I think, at least in the context of what Waid and Kitson had already established. It also just seemed to end abruptly... maybe because of poor sales? Or maybe because of the Legion of Three Worlds stuff, though you'd think that that's what they pay editors to coordinate (DC editorial has been awful lately).

The problem I have with Barry is that to a ton of people reading today, Wally is THE Flash. This was not necessarily true with Kyle as GL, especially the hacked together way Hal was written out and then treated over the years, so I understand the GL reboot. But Barry's death was significant, it was from a much longer time ago, and for years and years and years everyone from the DC higher ups to Waid would mandate that he wasn't coming back. Nobody that I know of was clamoring for his return. In fact, prior to Crisis wasn't his book canceled due to low sales anyway?

Johns is awesome, though, so I'll reserve judgment until it's out. Flash continuity is already tarnished to me with the way they wrote out Bart.

What made the whole Giffen/Bierbaum's 5 years later Legion work, to me, was the progression. They had to deal with the real turd that Crisis left behind, in the disappearance of any kind of Superboy and his catalyzing impact on the Legion's formation. So they went buck wild with it, replacing Superboy with Mon-el/Valor (and Supergirl with Laurel Gand), and proceeding into the future. They tied it into Waid and Kitson's L.E.G.I.O.N. run, which was in the present, as the precursor to the Legion (swapping a key character to the future). They did just zany, off the wall stuff... I mean, some of the most popular Legionnaires were MIA for years and years and years. The Legion of Substitute Heroes had become an effective commando squad. I really wish they collected the run, along with L.E.G.I.O.N., but I'll make due with the back issues. At least they're releasing Levitz era trades now.

Did they reveal yet how/why the original Legion met up with Superman in today's continuity? He obviously has memories of them now.

Laertes

I am only reading trades of the LSH right now, except for LOTW, which I am buying as the issues are released, so I'm not sure if they've shown exactly how Superman knows the Legion. Last I recall, we've just been told that Superman knows them and that they were instrumental in his growing up, but other than that, I don't think we know what exactly is in continuity, whether he was Superboy there, etc., but I stand to be corrected.

Yeah, I was in my late teens/early 20s during the Giffen/Bierbaum run. I gave up (in anger) when Lightning Lad was revealed to be Proty II. It made sense, but I was upset. Plus, I just found the run unspeakably bleak.

I have read some of my back issues, though, and enjoy the run. I would also like to have the trades.

I agree with you re Wally and Barry. Wally has been the Flash for a long time, and was, as far as I can recall, the only kid sidekick to take the mantle. It all seems cheapened now. I don't know anyone, except on boards, who wanted Barry to come back.

I heard Shooter's run on the LSH ended really quickly. I also understand that his last issue was not exactly what he wanted. He didn't take credit for writing it. I gather, based on internet chatter, that he wasn't happy that his version of the LSH was being shuffled off the stage for whatever Johns is planning for after LOTW.

davidh777

possible reissue of the Great Darkness saga?

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 1: Prologue to Darkness (Paperback)
~ Paul Levitz (Author), Keith Giffen (Illustrator)
This title will be released on September 14, 2010.

http://www.amazon.com/Legion-Super-H.../dp/1401229298

fujishig

Didn't they already reissue this a couple of years ago? And they continued with other tpbs, including an eye for an eye... or is it no longer in print?

davidh777

Hmm, I wasn't aware of a Great Darkness reissue around the time of the Eye for an Eye release. Add in the Ferro Lad/Legion of Supervillains compilations and the Showcases and it's a pretty good time for Legio readers. I wonder if the Showcases will get past where they stopped releasing Archives.

davidh777

Just ran across the DC Comics podcast of the Legion's 50th anniversary panel at Comicon. Pretty good listen, though it was hard to figure out who was speaking (Grell, Johns, Levitz, Giffen, and others were there). The last question was whether the Archives would resume, and Levitz said they have no plans to release more since people can buy the back issues for less than an Archives would cost. Maybe so, but then I'd have to find them, and they'd be musty and not looking good on my shelf.

JasonF

Like you, I prefer collections to back issues. But I was putting together my wishlist for C2E2 and I realized that the only issue I'm missing is the first appearance of Dawnstar. So that's cool and exciting -- hopefully by this time next week, I will have completed my LSH collection!

davidh777

JasonF

I should clarify that almost all my early stuff is filled in via Archives. So while I have a couple dozen issues of Action and Adventure, it's not like I have an actual copy of Adventure 247.

davidh777

^ I'm still impressed.

Just doing some quick math, and the Showcase Presents are roughly 20+ issues and the Archives were I think 10. Showcase 4 should take us to around Archives 9, so we'll need to see at least two more Showcases to get past where we got stuck on Archives. Legion was the only series I've ponied up for multiple Archives so obviously I would pay for the color, but Showcase is better than nothing.

JasonF

There were 12 archives, which took us through Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes 223. After that, there's another 100 or so issues of that run (v2, in LSH-fandom parlance because it eventually dropped Superboy from the title and evolved into "The Legion of Super-Heroes," volume 2 -- volume 1 was a 4-issue series from the ealry 70s reprinting some of the Adventure Comics stories), the 63-issue Baxter run that started in the early 80s (v3), the run that started with Giffen and the Bierbaum's "5 years later," ran through Zero Hour, and up to Legion Lost (v4). Then there's Legion Lost, followed by the Legion (which is the back half of the Abnett/Lanning run), then the book that started with Waid/Kitson and ended with Jim Shooter and Francis Manipul (which I guess would be v5, although I've never heard anyone call it that).

You've also got Legionnaires, which started as a spinoff of the Giffen/Bierbaum stuff featuring their "SW6" characters but after Zero Hour turned into a second book featuring the one-and-only team.

Then there are the spin-offs: Karate Kid, Wanderers, Valor, L.E.G.I.O.N./R.E.B.E.L.S, Timber Wolf -- I've got most of those but there are a few issues of L.E.G.I.O.N. and Karate Kid I need to fill in.

Plus, if you're really anal-retentive, there have been a bunch of issues of the Superman and other books lately featuring various Legion characters -- Mon-El, Starman, and so on. I've got some of that stuff -- the Lightning Saga and the "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" storyline that Johns did, but I know there's a lot of stuff I'm missing from the last few years in terms of "Legionaires in the 21st century." Someday, I need to sit down and figure out which issues of JSA/Action/Adventures of Superman/whatever have Legionnaires then figure out if I'm Legion-obsessed enough to get them.

As for Showcase, there have been 3 so far that go up to Adventure 368, which corresponds roughly with Volume 7 of the Archives (Volume 7 actually ends with Adventure 367 and Volume 8 picks up with 368 -- don't ask me why they decided to split them up differently for the Showcases).

brayzie

I thought Alan Moore's take on the Legion, which he called The League of Infinity, was nice.

davidh777

Looks like my link is now dead, replaced by a HC with a later date:

Legion of Super-heroes: The Great Darkness Saga (Deluxe Edition) (Hardcover)
~ Paul Levitz (Author), Various (Illustrator)
List Price: $39.99
This title will be released on November 23, 2010.

http://www.amazon.com/Legion-Super-h.../dp/1401229611

I had Showcase 3 and some Archives handy so I checked whether some of the peripheral stories could have made the difference. The only non-Adventure issue in these particular volumes was a Jimmy Olsen story and that was in both, so that's not the case at least in this situation.

davidh777

We're still rolling!

Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4

Hokeyboy

The LSH is my favorite superhero team of all time, probably my favorite DC superhero comic of the 80s, and the way the team has been assraped by DC between, say, 1989 and 2008, has been disgraceful. I actually enjoyed the 5 Years Later early stories and didn't mind the Glorith/Mon-El/Valor retcon TOO much, but the entire property was shot to shit when they introduced the clones, destroyed Earth, and that ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL "Legion Outlawed" subplot where they Legion became criminals and they decided to continue but in costume... featuring Brainiac 5 in a wig and fat suit. So bloody stupid...

Adam Tyner

Awww...you didn't like the Post-Boot Legion? Those are some of my favorite Legion comics. They got pretty lousy right around the time half the team was stuck in the 20th century, but I thought almost everything leading up to that was great.

davidh777

Now has cover art

Laertes

That is super-ugly.