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July 19, 2006

Comments

Matthew E

I've just spent a few minutes trying to come up with a response to your objections to the current SLoSH run, but I gave up; I'd need to write an essay. Suffice it to say that I disagree with almost everything you said about it.

I think the generation gap idea is an entirely sensible one (although I agree that we need to see more of what's behind it), and while I don't want every story, or even more than a few stories, to be about it, I like having it around.

Most of all, I think that the characters are being written better in this version of the Legion than they ever have before.

I believe that one of the things that's happening is that we're used to certain things about the Legion that don't exist yet in this version, because they're being built over time--the camaraderie, the esprit de corps, the galactic scope, the maturity and heroism of the Legionnaires. It makes sense that they wouldn't be there at the start, but in the meantime, we are getting some good stories.

If you don't like it, you don't like it; that's why they make chocolate and vanilla, and I'm not going to tell you you have to change your mind.

But to say, "The Legion is dead"? It's really, really not.

Marc

It'll come back, Matthew; it always does. But in the meantime, for me, it really is finished.

Dave Intermittent

Yeah, but what comics did you keep? Other than your signed and bagged complete run of Byrne's FF, of course.

I've never quiet been able to figure out what to do with the comics I don't want anymore. Selling them takes more effort than I want to expend, throwing them away seems wasteful.

David Van Domelen

I hung around a little deeper into Abnett & Lanning's run than Marc did, but never found their work to be worth reading. It might be good stories, but I didn't find 'em to be good Legion stories. The Legion of Warhammer 40K is what they gave us, IMO.

In my big purge of 2000, I kept all my Legion stuff. But in a more recent cleaning out, I ditched all my Abnett & Lanning issues.

And, while I'm finding the generation gap stuff heavy handed and occasionally tiresome, the rest of Waid's work on the title is enjoyable. Mind you, as a Transformers fan, I have come to a sort of equanimity regarding reboots with embedded homages. :)

Marc

I can't speak to Abnett & Lanning's first stories in "Legion of the Damned" or Legion Lost, which I feared would be exactly as you describe. But their later work in Legion Worlds and the new Legion series was quite good at recapturing the old Legion feel. They also had some of the better antagonists the Legion has seen recently.

Selling the comics was easier than I thought--the second store I called was buying back issues, I dropped off the boxes, and an hour or so later I got a price. Pennies on the dollar, but that's all most of them were worth and it was more important to me that I never have to carry the damn things again. I probably could have sold some of the more recent runs for more on Ebay, but I only had two weeks to pack up and move and time was of the essence.

If I hadn't found any takers in Nashville I would have tried to donate the comics to a children's hospital or some other charity. Even that posed its problems--would I really want to give a hospitalized kid Gerard Jones' JLA (where Obsidian tries to kill himself)? Or Dan Jurgens' Superman (where Toyman becomes a child murderer)?

Jesus, 90s comics really were unreadable.

Bruce Baugh

At a friend's urging, I checked out the Marvel mini-series Last Hero Standing and Last Planet Standing. I'd been meaning to look at Spider-Girl and that continuity sometime (I never did read the early M2 stuff), and these were billed as jumping-on spots, so...

I loved it. And I realized about halfway through Last Hero Standing that the dynamics of two generations of heroes were seeming familiar to me, in a happy way. Near the end it dawned on me. It was very reminiscent of those neat years in Levitz's run where the older Legionnaires had families and social duties and all, but tried to balance all of that with heroic service as well, and a lot of good character drama and humor spun out of it.

Might be a source of a Legion fix, depending on what parts of the Legion interest you. (I say this as another admirer of the Abnett & Lanning run, for reference.)

Tim M.

I agree with you 100% the Legion is dead ,Waid has no feel for the characters he said he was a fan and the series would be great but so far the only thing the current book has made me feel is sick and a strong desire for the true Legion to return.
Oh and their costumes are ugly.

Tim M.

The Original Legion needs to be re-created bring in Jim Shooter,Paul Levitz,Dave Cockrum,Steve Lightle,George Perez,and anybody else with talent who loves and understands the concept of the Legion and it's characters,put some effort into the series show their fans some respect give them back most of their history and personalites that made them great and one of DC's best selling titles for 30 years.
DC caused the problems with the Legion by taking Superman/Superboy out of their history now 4 re-boots later and most of their fans giving up on the title.
The J.L.A.,J.S.A.,Titans,and other team books have most of their history intact why can't the Legion of Super-Heroes.

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