[Legion Fan Club] Reader Y2 M6 LEGION 2019 ARRIVES ON DCU!

[Don-El]

[Legion Fan Club] and other interested parties, this month we are compelled to leap to the very very edge of Legion material digitized in our beloved DC Universe Library. Therefore, and without further adieu, we present:

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES CIRCA 2019!!!

Yes, as our virtual DC literary exploration ships approach the vast waterfall known as DC Universe Infinite January 2021, wherein we all are thrust 6 months forward in comic book time, drowning us all in a flooded abyss of suddenly-available comic books we’ll never ever find the time to fully enjoy, today we venture our ship into the most recent Legion waters, antediluvian you could say, you could say….

SUPERMAN (2018-) #14 Click for Superman (2016) 14 A final confrontation between Superman’s family, the House of El, and the monster who destroyed Krypton, Rogol Zaar leads to unexpected revelations about the destruction of Krypton, while also becoming the foundation for alliances that’ll stretch to the 31st Century.

SUPERMAN (2018-) #15 Click for Superman (2016) 15 At last, it’s the return of the Legion of Super-Heroes! The greatest super heroes of the 32nd century have traveled back in time not just to meet the heroes who inspired them, but to make an offer…but to which hero?

SUPERMAN (2018-) #16 Click for Superman (2016) 16 The Super Sons are back! But now Jon is five years older, and he’s sitting on the biggest decision of his young life.

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES: MILLENNIUM (2019-) #1 Click for LoSH MILLENNIUM 1 This epic story spans the course of 1,000 years and, for the very first time, connects all of DC’s future timelines!

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES: MILLENNIUM (2019-) #2 Click for LoSH MILLENNIUM 2 A gallery of all-star artists join our mysterious guide as they continue their 1,000-year journey toward the 31st century, inspiring Booster Gold to time-travel, debating fighting tactics with O.M.A.C. and making their way to the front door of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Questions to consider:

1. How big a fan are you of “older” Jon / Superboy?

2. Where does this version of Legion fall for you in the range of ages of Legion we have looked at before? Are they like the very young Legionnaires , the middle aged not quite married Levitz / Giffen Legion version of the early to mid-1980s, or like the older “5 years later” all grown up Giffen version of Legion?

3. At this introductory point in discovering Bendis’ version of Legion, what seems very different about them compared to previous versions if anything?

4. Which of the DC time periods / worlds from Millenium do you wish DC would run a series concerning or continue to run? President Supergirl? Tommy Tomorrow? Etc

Next month, we move to a “Quadruple Decker” Dagwood Sandwich approach to Legion reads!!!

[Don-El]

These are all fairly New to DC Universe…

[Meisaj]

These will be a good revisit.

[Vroom]

I’m in! Looking forward to re-reading these.

[Don-El]

And interesting version of Saturn Girl in Superman 16:

[Jay_Kay]

Huh, am I actually on time for a Legion entry for once? Even crazier since I was behind from when I was initially trying to read the series, and I think I was on issue #8 or so to start. Bendis does tend to be a speedier read, so I guess it’s not that surprising.

1. How big a fan are you of “older” Jon / Superboy?

Eh…I’m not one of those people who are like “Bendis ruined Jon 5eva!!!1!” However, I’m not entirely sure I see the point of aging Jon up in the end. Like…the character isn’t that much different than where he was before. Which feels wrong, considering he was basically in captivity with a weird evil version of his dad for several years.

I’m glad we didn’t get some “dark and gritty” Jon, don’t get me wrong, but I just feel like if they were going to give him this extra time away from his family, they could have put him in more interesting situations. Have him Quantum Leaping across the Multiverse. Or, if we want to have him on Earth 3, why not have him be a part of the Resistance against the CSA, maybe ends up leading a group of Teen Titans based on teen villains.

2. Where does this version of Legion fall for you in the range of ages of Legion we have looked at before? Are they like the very young “Legionnaires,” the middle aged not quite married Levitz / Giffen Legion version of the early to mid-1980s, or like the older “5 years later” all grown up Giffen version of Legion?

In terms of ages, I think it’s probably somewhere in the middle of the young Legionnaires and the Levitz/Giffen Legion – they have some history and experience, but have plenty more in store for them.

3. At this introductory point in discovering Bendis’ version of Legion, what seems very different about them compared to previous versions if anything?

Looking at the lineup of them all, something that comes to mind immediately is “diverse.” Not just in skin tone, but in body types and different kinds of costumes. From what they say in this version, this Legion is like a teenaged UN, with each member representing a different planet, and it definitely shows in how each exemplifies a different culture.

4. Which of the DC time periods/worlds from Millenium do you wish DC would run a series concerning or continue to run? President Supergirl? Tommy Tomorrow? Etc

The President Supergirl thing is definitely interesting – though I honestly never like stories where superheroes become part of politics. Like, I can believe in a lot of crazy things in superhero comics, but heroic politicians? That’s a hard ask!

While it’s over now, one that was going on at the same time that was interesting was Batman Beyond. Specifically, I would love to see Bendis do a run on that title. I feel like that would most play to Bendis’ strengths as a writer, and frankly, he would be a vast upgrade from the frankly boring dreg that Jurgens has been doing with the character, IMO.

[Don-El]

Thanks for stopping by the clubhouse this time around, @Jay_Kay !

I wonder, concerning Jon being imprisoned for all those years on Earth 3, if maybe Bendis was thinking about some of the recent news when he was actually writing this story, in the Philadelphia area, where somebody had imprisoned kids for like 5 years for nefarious reasons, or other similar news items at the time like that family in California around the same time that had like 12 kids they were mistreating. So perhaps Bendis is exploring what happens to someone’s mind and spirit when they’re trapped like that at a young age.

If I were Jon, I would just assume anybody over 40 is whack crazy in all probability.

I agree on your points about Batman Beyond in the Millennium series. Whether it’s D Jurgens or some other writer, it would be great to have them incorporate Rose into the storyline and also feature artwork that shows that dark underbelly of New Gotham in more of a “Legion Five Years Later” Giffen kind of feel (or like the late eighties / early nineties Valiant version of Magnus Robot Fighter with North Am having something really awful socially hundreds of feet below paradise on ground level).

President Supergirl idea is intriguing to me on a couple levels. First it’s interesting to finally see a super heroine that’s much older than 30, with the plot line being what’s next in life when you’re a little too old for superheroics. Interesting too how that crosses over into the Batman Beyond concept.

Which is more devastating: President Supergirl going senile, having dementia and blowing everything up or the fact that any president has the power of the nuclear suitcase and any president is human and could have a breakdown.

[Meisaj]

I’m going to come out and say I like the older Jon / Superboy. I think in most ways I’ve been indifferent to Jon in general, except for his relationship with Damien and the Super-Sons title. That is just excellent. I’m not sure I like the arc of how Jon got from a kid to aged up almost adult. That story did nothing for me. That may have to do with not being a fan of this version of Jor-El at all.

But I think all things considered, they treat Jon well. He’s not a battle hardened warrior like I feel most characters are represented as when they travel to the future and back, instead he still feels like a legitimate offspring of Superman, hopeful attitude and all.

It appears the whole story was to line him up to the Legion’s ages, which are somewhere in the middle / young age. Although that one Saturn Girl panel from Superman 16 you posted looks like she’s 12. Way younger looking than Jon.

I’ll agree with @Jay_Kay, this is a diverse Legion, and I’m all for it. It probably is the most distinguishing thing about the Legion so far, apart from how wordy the current issues of Legion are.

I liked the DC time periods from Millennium. I do think it could be a good series, or nice set of anthology mini-series. I was a little confused about the timeline… Supergirl as president before Batman Beyond? Humanity being wiped out and coming back in 1,000 years? I did like the Booster Gold interactions, but I unabashedly like all things Booster Gold.

I think Rose / Thorn made a great perspectives to see these eras from. Nice use of an otherwise obscure character. I think I last read comics with her in them back in the Death of Superman era. Not sure if she’s been around since then.

I also am perpetually confused by the lifespan of Kryptonians. Are they just longer lived than humans (I mean by Batman Beyond Superman has gray hair, same in Kingdom Come), super long lived but not immortal, or immortal (DC One Million)? I just picked up the latest Legion and was surprised by who was in it, looking not much older than Kara.

[Don-El]

Yeah, New Krypton was a fun place to visit this week in the new Legion comic for sure. Along with being surprised at the one character still being around like you were, I am also wondering who the other folks were flying around with him.

I guess the theory at DC is, if a Kryptonian stays under a yellow sun mainly, they live a long long long long time.

[Meisaj]

It is an interesting thought though. If new Krypton e xists, the power structure in the Legion universe has shifted radically.

It’s another tweak to this Bendis Legion.

[Jay_Kay]

@Don-El

maybe Bendis was thinking about some of the recent news when he was actually writing this story, in the Philadelphia area, where somebody had imprisoned kids for like 5 years for nefarious reasons, or other similar news items at the time like that family in California around the same time that had like 12 kids they were mistreating. So perhaps Bendis is exploring what happens to someone’s mind and spirit when they’re trapped like that at a young age.

Hmm…that’s a possibility. But I think if that was what Bendis was doing, he really didn’t take advantage of it, at least not as much as he could have.

Considering the rumor mills that were going on for a while, I think the real reason was editorial mandate. Back when 5G was going to be a thing at DC, Jon would have been fully aged up to be the new Superman, and doing it here was their way of making it more gradual his eventual turn.

You know, mulling over these issues more, I think the problem I have with this story overall is that it feels like Bendis was trying to combat his problem of “decompressing” his work, but he’s compressing everything that shouldn’t, and decompressing things he shouldn’t. It just wastes the potential of all the plots he does.

Like, the idea of Krypton, Tameran, Appa Ali Apsa and others having this shadow council/government and Rogal Zar being an experiment of theirs that blew up in their faces? That has potential, that could be a cool story, but we barely get to see them in this story and they basically just stand there and do nothing. Meanwhile, in the previous arc, we had…three, four issues of the book of Jon telling his story which, considering how little content there actually was, could have easily been told in one.

Stuff like this makes me wonder if Bendis actually gets editorial notes anymore, or if everyone is too scared to do it because of how big a name he is. Like there’s so many cool ideas here, but I think Bendis could have done a few more drafts to make them work.

[Don-El]

I bet you’re right about the 5G connection. I guess we’re lucky Jon only aged to 17 or 18.

B Bendis has often been a conundrum to me as a writer. Over at Marvel, he absolutely came up with some incredible out-of-the-box rethinking / retooling of characters that have been around forever. At the same time, I can remember issue after issue of New Avengers that were basically like 12 block panel pages of people with their faces not even changing talking and talking and talking and talking.

So I guess the good outweighs the bad in the Bendis situation. You need to shake the carpets of old dust and get the new ideas rolling, hire Bendis.

As was noted earlier, this new version of Legion that he’s come up with is fabulous with all the diversity and different body types and all that, amazing stuff.

At the same time, we’ve gone three issues of the current run of the new Legion with just about zero happening.

[Jay_Kay]

@Don-El

I can remember issue after issue of New Avengers that were basically like 12 block panel pages of people with their faces not even changing talking and talking and talking and talking.

Yeah, I think that kind of style works better on some books better than others. Like, one of the best issues Bendis ever did of Ultimate Spider-Man was the early issue where Peter was telling Mary Jane that he’s Spider-Man. That was literally two teens sitting in a bedroom, but between the subject matter and if you have an artist that works well with that kind of story.

I think with New Avengers, that tended to get more of the big action artists like David Finch, and while he can do some good storytelling and stuff, you get him for books about big scary people and monsters beating the crap out of each other, not for pages of dialogue.

@Don-El

At the same time, we’ve gone three issues of the current run of the new Legion with just about zero happening.

I was going to get into that when we eventually talked about the book proper, but that is something that I think is a problem with that book. Moreover, a bigger issue is that while with a team name like the “Legion,” you expect a large cast, but I think with that large a cast, it becomes next to impossible to have all the characters having their moments to shine.

[Don-El]

My plan going forward is to feature whatever the latest issue here of Legion is along with the traditional older readings monthly.

[Jay_Kay]

Cool – looking forward to them! Going to try to keep up with this as well as catch up on what I missed.

[RexRebel]

1. How big a fan are you of “older” Jon / Superboy?
   Indifferent to it, as I did not really see the point of aging him up for Legion, it’s time travel they could’ve taken him from a few years into his future. But, I do think Legion should have a Superboy or Supergirl.
2. Where does this version of Legion fall for you in the range of ages of Legion we have looked at before? Are they like the very young Legionnaires , the middle aged not quite married Levitz / Giffen Legion version of the early to mid-1980s, or like the older “5 years later” all grown up Giffen version of Legion?
   Seems to be n the middle of the pack, but I do remember that one old LSH story where they were all older than they seemed as folks lived longer.
3. At this introductory point in discovering Bendis’ version of Legion, what seems very different about them compared to previous versions if anything?
   The lineup obviously, they seem to be primarily picked for planets and not powers.
4. Which of the DC time periods / worlds from Millenium do you wish DC would run a series concerning or continue to run? President Supergirl? Tommy Tomorrow? Etc
   President Supergirl, it would be amazing to see , how that happens.

[RexRebel]

Enjoyed the reread as well.

[Don-El]

Yeah I agree I think they’re picked more for the planets than for the powers, which is exciting in a lot of ways. Hopefully the new stories for Legion will focus slowly on the various planets represented by the redesigned Heroes.

Of course like Bendis I’m also hoping that the new Legion series goes well beyond 12 issues.

I had read the Millennium issues, but I had not read the Superman issues of this, so that was fun to finally catch up on those this time around.

[Don-El]

@jihaehae , did you already read all these?

[jihaehae]

I did! I feel weird replying on a two-year-old thread, but I guess I will anyway haha

1. I’ve gotten used to “older” Jon/Superboy/Superman(!) by now, but I remember at the time I wasn’t a huge fan because of the impact it would/did have on the Super Sons dynamic :“”) It also seemed unnecessary to me considering that at the time it would have made Kara, Conner Kent, AND Jon all around the same age, which just felt redundant to me; I wouldn’t have minded if he just used Kara or Conner or even young Jon or Jon-from-five-years-in-the-future instead of aging him up specifically for this. (And considering the concurrent Young Justice run, I feel Bendis really could have just used Conner for Legion without losing much over on the YJ run, but ah well.)
2. Seems like they’re supposed to be between 15-20 ish (I would guess late teens on average), based on the art/comparison with 17-year-old Jon, and the somewhat kiddish way they’re portrayed? Like I don’t think an older Legion would have made the mistake of showing up a little early the way this Legion did, or if they did I think they would have observed first instead and realized their mistake instead of barging in excitedly like this Legion, so it made Bendis Legion seem younger haha (Though that is a very full beard on Tenzil, so maybe he’s older? Or maybe he’s just a prodigious beard-grower lol)
3. I agree with everyone else that diversity on the roster is definitely more obvious, both in terms of race/alien races and body types! (Is Cos supposed to be Asian? Because I am all for Asian Cosmic Boy lol) The costumes are really slick too!
   In general though they seem really determined to shoehorn the entire Legion into this introduction and that kinda continues through at least the first few issues of the Legion run? Usually in the past they’d do just the founders showing up to interact with the chosen Superfam member, or another small group maybe with Brainy to drive the time bubble, but Bendis really just did that to the artist, huh? :“”) I guess it makes a great visual impact and probably attracted new readers to follow Jon to the Legion title really well. I think it got a bit too crowded in the actual Legion title, but in these introductory lead-up stories it worked well to stuff everyone in imo.
4. I am confused about the decision to use Rose/Thorn for Legion?? I’ve only read minimal stuff about her before this (I think like one Connor Hawke adventure and one Batman?) and she seems cool and everything, but just why? Does this turn out to be a really genius decision later down the line and I just need to wait? I don’t hate it or anything, I’m just wondering what the reasoning was lol It seems like she sort of replaces Shvaugn as Legion liaison but I’m wondering why he didn’t just use Shvaugn?
   But to actually answer the question, definitely Batman Beyond era haha