[Legion Fan Club] Monthly Reader Y2 M1 Deluxe Life After Crisis

[Don-El_52]

Welcome back to Year 2 of [Legion Fan Club] excellence!

We kick things off this new reading year with a selection from a very unique time both for Legion and DC, when some comics were published on thicker smooth paper with better coloring, Deluxe Editions, with no ads and more pages!

This really amped up the enjoyment back then of reading these sci fi adventures! For us present day Legion Fans, it means less issues per reading due to the number of pages per comic book (to contrast, New 52 comics had 17 pages each. Current day comics have 23).

Here then is “Legion Deluxe Life After Crisis.”

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #17 MORE STORY! NO ADS! 29 pages! LoSH Deluxe Format 17 Someone is targeting R.J. Brande, the founder of the Legion of Super-Heroes!

(we read #16 and 18 during our Crisis tie ins December 2019)

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #19 LoSH Deluxe Format 19 The Controller summons the five formerly-lost Legionnaires into Limbo, where he gives them the chance to destroy the menacing war-world his Sun-Eater was being prepared to deal with.

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #20 LoSH Deluxe Format 20 The Legion vs. the warrior Tyr and his entire moving planet—barreling straight for Earth!

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #21 https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/legion-of-super-heroes-1984-21/bde137e5-c229-42d4-ba41-5e1b34ea38d0/

A new Fatal Five are in the making and the mystery behind Sensor Girl mounts!

(Spoilers ahead) Things to Ponder:

1. This is definitely the “pairing off into couples” era of Legion. Lots of either married couples or soon to be married couples, or couples in distant romantic relationships, and then the rare single Legion member who spends time commiserating that everyone else seems happy and in love. Does that dynamic and culture help the storylines or hold them back when they are in the field during conflicts, in your opinion? Why?

2. Are you intrigued with the mystery of Sensor Girl? If you didn’t have Google to tell you, which missing characters would you have guessed may be Sensor Girl, hero and villain? Which clues seem most compelling this time around?

3. Do you feel the trans-tube system that travels through the Earth’s core for anyone who wants to use the service in Issue #21 would ever be seriously considered as a mode of travel regularly used?

4. Each issue starting with #18 ends with a short special feature of a current Legion character. Which of these was the best story for you issues #19-21? What did you find interesting about that particular short inserted story?

                   Issue #19 Invisible Kid
                   Issue #20: Dream Girl / White Witch
                   Issue #21  Quislet / Wildfire
   

In June: fast forward to post Zero Hour Legion!

[JasonTodd428]

Sounds like fun.

[Meisaj]

Just finished reading the comics.

The pairing off seems, odd I guess. In a lot of team comics seems like their one main couple, and anyone else is sort of outside or leaser importance. I’ve lost track of how old the Legion is supposed to be in this era. It’s seems of that the Legion would progress from teens to adults when other superheroes barely age.

I have no clue who Sensor Girl is. Which actually kept me from googling her? I always feel like the mystery character typically gets spoiled to the reader way to early in an arc to make it a satisfying trope, but here they are doing a great job. Brainiacs obsessiveness is spot on as well.

Didn’t the trans tube get used in the Total Recall remake a few years ago. It was intriguing in that movie because it dealt with the shift in orientation you would have to deal with traveling through the core. I think it’s a neat idea, but unfeasible. It makes a great chat in private spot though.

Quizlet was interesting for a backup. I don’t have a handle on that character yet. To be honest it seems difficult to keep quizlet and compute separate. Aren’t they both depicted as flying orbs more or less?

[Don-El_52]

@Meisaj Funny enough, as a junior higher, I wrote a short story for English class around 1968 about what might happen if a hole was drilled to the center of the earth to drain the core as a heat source etc. In my darling adolescent story, once the core was drained, a central metal sphere remained, suspended in place and of course there were dead creatures all over it.

But enough sharing time, lol, When I decided to jump a few issues ahead to read after Crisis in the mid 80s, we ended up missing the introduction to the new team members, like that little fella from another dimension, Quizlet. Here is the issue, nice cover for it. We totally need to read this as a group sometime Legion of Super Heroes (1984) 14

[Meisaj]

I always liked journey to the center of the earth stories. My wife loves the movie The Core, strictly for its cheesiness.

That was a weird introduction for Quislet. But a good issue overall. I think Legion recruit issues are interesting in that they are radically different from how other teams get members. Most teams either recruit established characters, or a new member joins through a whole story arc dedicated to them that establishes some back story. In the Legion of is just a whole bunch of new characters introduced and voted in over the course of one issue. Back stories be damned!

[Don-El_52]

I’ve been searching high and low to see if any of these new characters show up in some previous story. We might find out they do later as we read these gaps we have yet to read. The Legion Academy does show up earlier in the 80s. I am pretty sure that the Comet character was earlier but the others I’m not sure of.

[Meisaj]

Isn’t this Peacemaker in the background?

[Don-El_52]

Lol, it sure looks like him

[AquamonC137]

@Don-El_52, hey man hope all is well. I was trying to send ya a DM but it said you weren’t accepting messages. Is everything cool? Also did you see Mr. Waid answer to my legion question?

[Don-El_52]

Everything’s fine I don’t know why that message to you. Yes I even gave you a thumbs up

[Don-El_52]

The new reading will be hopefully posted tomorrow night for the Legion Fan Club. It was great when Brian M. Bendis visited DCU a couple weeks ago, that he told us all that he would love to do more Legion comics, that’s great news! I sincerely hope he gets the chance behind the first 12 issues.

Concerning the current reading in the deluxe format right after crisis, I can’t help but notice Keith Giffen is pretty much nowhere to be found. I don’t know if he was all wrapped up with Ambush Bug and things like that at the time. I think Justice League with all the crazy stuff K Giffen did with the JM deMatteis came a year after (but maybe the team was busily creating it in 1986).

I do know this: the Legion was best in the 80s when it was Paul Levitz with Giffen collaborating on the plot. When it’s just Paul L, it’s pretty good reading, as we also saw in the runs between 2009 to 2013, but it does lack some of the magic compared to when he was collaborating with Giffen. I feel the same way about when Giffen akes over Legion at the end of the 80s with his bleak vision then. It’s entertaining but it lacks some of the fun creativity in my opinion.

here’s a fun panel from I believe it’s issue 19 of our reading I really like these two characters a lot, Fila straight a lot of a fun concepts of Legion through the years.

[Don-El_52]

The new reading for Legion will have to go up tomorrow, time just flew I guess!

[toonatonian]

Quizlet. Serious? There is a character named Quizlet… Isn’t that what a popular study app is named?
Is someone associated with the app secretly a huge DC Legions Fan?!
So many questions…

[toonatonian]

Excuse me? Quizlet… I am so amused by this! I did I live this long & not know that a popular study app & a DC Legions character shared the same name!
Oh wait! Most likely it’s because I didn’t even know much of anything about the DC Legions of Superheros were a thing, until my Super Fan Friend, @Don-El_52 showed me the Future via his love of the Legion with my enjoyment of ModPodge. Sorry, not sorry for resurrecting an older post, but I just started to learn of this Legion this week.

[Don-El_52]

Lots of worlds to love here for sure @toonatonian ! Too funny about Quizlet.