Thursday, November 30, 2006

Legion TV schedule Dec. 2006

Via my TiVo schedule, since ToonZone doesn't have it ready, here are the airdates and episodes for the Legion show for December. All episodes are supposed to air at 10:00 a.m. local time on The CW Network.

Dec. 02 - episode 6 "Phantoms" (2nd airing)
Dec. 09 - episode 5 "Champions" (2nd airing)
Dec. 16 - episode 4 "Fear Factory" (2nd airing)
Dec. 23 - ???
Dec. 30 - ???

I don't know if they'll have new episodes on the 23rd and 30th. I'd suspect two more reruns then and then new episodes in January.

Also, don't forget that 12/9 is "Super Sing-Along Saturday", with Superman and Timber Wolf as part of the Kids' WB! Choir, which "will croon Christmas carols with a decidedly Warner Bros. twist, interspersing sing-along appearances between episodes throughout the morning lineup."

Previously:
schedule for Sept./Oct. 2006, Nov. 2006

Even more Vs. cards

From the official tournament FAQ, here are some more Legion-related cards (I'm not sure about which Darkseid cards to count yet) from the upcoming Vs. System CCG, some previously mentioned. The tournaments are this weekend.

Obviously, these are based on the post-Zero Hour reboot Legion, not the current one, from around the time of the "Foundations" storyline.

  • All Hail Darkseid!
  • Andromeda, Laurel Gand
  • Atrophos, Chief Blight Scientist
  • Connor Kent <> Superboy, Inspiration to the Legion
  • Dark Firestorm
  • Dark Matter Drain
  • Dominated
  • Dream Girl, Nura Nal
  • Five Against One
  • Joining the Darkseid, Team-Up
  • Karate Kid
  • Legion World
  • Live Wire, Garth Ranzz
  • Ra's al Ghul, Engine of Change
  • Return of the Demon's Head
  • Saturn Queen, Legion of Super Villains
  • Sensor, Jeka Wynzorr
  • Shrinking Violet <> Leviathan, Salu Digby
  • Time Trapper, Temporal Manipulator
  • Triad, Luornu Durgo
  • We Are Legion
  • Wildfire, Drake Burroughs
  • Youth of Tomorrow, Team-Up

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

More Cockrum obits

Due to his involvement with the X-Men, Dave Cockrum's obituary has now been written up in the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Associated Press, with those three reprinted in scores of papers and entertainment-based websites around the world. The AP story noted that he died in his Superman pajamas and a Batman blanket, and will be cremated in a Green Lantern t-shirt. (that surprised me - I figured it would have been a Nightcrawler one). Most of them mention how he reinvigorated the Legion before moving to the X-Men.

Evan Dorkin adds a Legion memory:

Costume design was a specialty of Cockrum's, who worked on DC's Legion of Superheroes book previously to the X-gig. LOSH is a book which practically demands bold and unique costumes in order to differentiate a seemingly endless load of bland, lookalike fratand sorority kids running around in a rocket ship clubhouse doing lots of silly crap. I read only one issue of LOSH as a kid (being fervently anti-DC at the time, I can't recall how I ended up with a comic from the dreaded "Distinguished Competition"), an issue which happened to feature the debut of Wildfire, a Cockrum-designed character I was instantly taken with. Wildfire died at the end of the story, and so did any further interest I might have had in the book. I didn't see Cockrum's art again until Giant-Size X-Men # 1 came out.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Sing Along with Timber Wolf!

This week's sign of the impending Apocalypse... a press release from KidsWB! as seen on AnimatedBliss.com.

I still haven't found out what the next few episodes are going to be. If we continue the pattern, it'll be two more weeks of reruns (12/2 and 12/9) followed by three new episodes.

KIDS' WB! HOSTS SUPER SING-A-LONG SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 ON THE CW

Popular Kids' WB! Characters Croon Carols-with-a-Twist During Top-Rated Saturday Morning Kids Broadcast Lineup

BURBANK, CA (November 28, 2006) - Move over Mitch Miller - the Kids' WB! all-star lineup of characters will have viewers following the bouncing ball December 9 when The CW's No. 1 rated broadcast slate of Saturday morning children's programming hosts its first Super Sing-A-Long.

Led by animated favorites from Superman to Scooby-Doo, the Kids' WB! Choir will croon Christmas carols with a decidedly Warner Bros. twist, interspersing sing-along appearances between episodes throughout the morning lineup. The antics begin at 7:00 a.m. ET/PT.

While the characters harmonize, viewers will be encouraged to sing along at home, following the "bouncing ball" as it dances over on-screen lyrics.

The Kids' WB! Choir includes Shaggy & Scooby-Doo ("Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue!"), Superman & Timberwolf ("Legion of Super Heroes"), Batman & Robin ("The Batman"), Slam Tasmanian & Danger Duck ("Loonatics Unleashed"), Omi & Kimiko ("Xiaolin Showdown"), Krypto ("Krypto the Superdog"), Johnny & Dukey ("Johnny Test") and Zick & Bombo ("Monster Allergy"). Even the ever-silent Tom & Jerry ("Tom and Jerry Tales") will take part in the musical festivities.

Monday, November 27, 2006

What if?

What if...

What if Carmine Infantino agreed to give the two-page spread from "Superboy" 200 back to Dave Cockrum even thought that was against DC policy at the time?

  • Cockrum stays at DC as the artist of the Legion. A character named Nightcrawler appears as a member of the Outsiders. The team appears a number of times in the Legion series. When Jim Shooter takes over from Cary Bates, the book soars to new heights of popularity under the Shooter/Cockrum team. Perhaps Shooter eventually rises through the ranks at DC from writer to editor and into management.
  • Mike Grell finds other work at DC between his gigs doing Aquaman and Green Arrow backups, and his simultaneous work on "Green Lantern/Green Arrow" and "Warlord".
  • Over at Marvel, Len Wein co-creates with another artist a different All-New, All-Different X-Men revival, a team which does not include Nightcrawler, Storm, or Colossus. Without his input and those characters, the title probably does not get the critical acclaim it needed to eventually become a fan-favorite and a cornerstone of Marvel Comics itself.


What if the rumors of Shooter coming back to work on "a" Legion book are actually him doing "The Last Legion Story" rather than on the animated book? In his own words from an interview with CBR in 2000, here's what happened with that.
MDT: When do you think you'll be forgiven for your transgressions: real, imagined or manufactured?

JS: I don't care. I think there will always be assholes. I don't care. I've never really cared. I can't say it hasn't affected me.

My phone never rings. Nobody ever calls me. Am I such a bad writer? Am I the worst writer in comics that no one can use me? In fact, a while back, I was looking for some work.

I called Paul Levitz and I said, "Paul, I got one Legion story left in me. Call it Jim Shooter's last legion story. Do like Watchmen, do it like a series, 8 books, whatever and bind it in a book." Because I know the only thing they're making money on is the trade paperbacks. I said, "Look, it won't interfere with anybody, it'll be set back in the time when I wrote the Legion. Won't interfere with continuity. It'll be Jim Shooter's last legion story, I think I got some good ideas." He said, "I can't wait to read it."

He was in San Francisco. He said, "Look I'll be in the office Friday, I'll call you. Put together a list of the reference you'll need, I know you don't have any comics at your house. And think about what artists you'd like to have. We'll talk Friday and get going on this."

The last thing I said is, "Y'know, Paul, you have some people working for you that don't like me and this will piss them off. Are you sure that's not going to be a problem?" He said, "They'll go to their corners and sulk for a little while, but it'll be fine. I'll take care of it."

Didn't get a call Friday, didn't get a call Monday. Called him Tuesday. "The scars are deeper than I thought. It would be too much hassle. They would make things difficult. You don't need that and I don't need that." I said, "Ok, that's fine."

There's more at Howling Curmudgeons from 2005:
It is widely believed that [former editor Mike] Carlin was responsible for spiking a proposal by Jim Shooter to do a "Last Legion Story" at DC, pitched to and accepted a few years ago by Paul Levitz, who knows a little something about the Legion. Carlin's opposition is widely believed to result from personal animus arising from Carlin's training as an assistant editor at Marvel during Shooter's last, acrimonious days there.

Of course, the rumors might be totally false, in which case this is just a mental exercise.

Who are the other writers on the animated comic?

Via Legion Clubhouse comes the lead entry in this week's "Lying in the Gutters". This rumor gets an "Amber" from Rich's LitG, which means "there's likely an interest involved or the likelihood isn't set".

I understand that Jim Shooter will return to DC Comics in the summer, working on a "Legion of Super-Heroes" title.

This is the same super hero team that Jim Shooter first wrote when he was 13 years old.

It would make sense if Shooter were to do something for the upcoming comic based on the animated series, rather than for the regular series. Here's a ComicBloc discussion thread on the story.

(Jason "foenix" Gray says "I'm a huge Shooter fan, and welcome our gigantic Legion overlord.")

One writer who will not be doing the book is Vito Delsante (wikipedia). In a LiveJournal post yesterday, he listed the things he wanted to do in 2007 and the things he couldn't do. This was among those that he wasn't going to do:
Legion of Superheroes comic - I was asked to write it along with J. Torres and a few others. Unfortunately, Mike Siglain moving to 52 meant that he was no longer on the book, so one down.

However, after I commented on the post, he took it private so it's no longer visible unless you're authorized (and I'm not).

Cockrum proposal: LSH/Blackhawks teamup

The Dave Cockrum tributes keep coming in. Alan Kistler at Monitor Duty passes this link along: a proposal Dave had for a team-up of sorts between the Legion and the Blackhawks (who Dave enjoyed drawing). I had never heard of this before.

I'll let you read it without spoiling it, but it involves the Legion finding Blackhawk Island.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

A Death in the Family

Update 1 a.m. Monday: added CBA interview, Neil Gaiman links

Unless you've been travelling all day and have just logged in (pretty much like me), you've probably heard the sad news today that Dave Cockrum passed away Sunday morning.

My first Legion issue was #212, a year or so after Dave's last issue. My first Legion artist was Mike Grell, and he remains one of my favorite artists to this day. I didn't discover Cockrum's issues until a couple years later when I started looking for back issues. I didn't really know about his history with the Legion until much later, when I was able to piece things together and look at the run from the end of Adventure through Action Comics and into Superboy that I saw what an impact he had.

He was basically the first Bronze Age artist on the Legion, if you consider their Silver Age to have ended with the Action run, which was the end of Mort Weisinger's tenure as editor. He updated the look and feel of the 30th century, from the clubhouse to the costumes, dragging them all kicking and screaming into the 1970s. His stamp on the book was indelible and inspired the next artist, Mike Grell.

The two of them only did a single, otherwise unremarkable story together, the Devil-Fish story from Superboy 202. Cockrum pencilled it, Grell inked it. The Cockrum era was over, the Grell era began.

It's fairly common knowledge why Cockrum left the book and went over to Marvel (where he co-created the All-New, All-Different X-Men, including some characters adapted from some Legion designs) because DC refused to return the original artwork for the 2-page spread from Superboy #200, the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel (in DC's defense, at the time that was their policy). So who knows what might have been had Nightcrawler stayed in the 30th century, among many other things.
See the extended quote below for an interview with Dave where he recounts this.

Lots of tributes today from around the web. Here are some comments and reminiscings from others.

Mark Evanier:

When Murphy [Anderson] was asked to draw a Legion of Super-Heroes back-up story one day, he begged off — "too many characters" — and recommended Dave. Cockrum not only got that job but became the feature's steady artist and creative heart, helping to redesign the Legion and create new characters. Among his many strengths, he was a superb inventor of new costumes. Later, he did the same thing — only with greater success — when he and Len Wein revamped the old, cancelled X-Men strip into the new, highly-successful X-Men franchise at Marvel.

Johnny Bacardi:
I quickly fell in love with the amazing costume designs of these characters- some of the established Legionnaires even had groovy-looking new togs, and it was like a breath of fresh air to the previously Swan-stodgy Legion. So I set out to get as many Cary Bates/Cockrum SatLSH back issues that I could, through mail order or just being lucky enough to get them off some other magazine stand (no internet in 1974, remember, and no comics shops in those prehistoric days). Anyway, I eagerly picked up #202, and then came #203, featuring the "Wrath of the Devil Fish" story, which in my less-than-authoritative opinion is among the best things he ever did, art-wise. Then...#204, and Mike Grell. No more Cockrum. Whahoppen?

Mike Flynn, one of the founders of Legion fandom:
Of course, this is a sad and tragic loss for all of us as Legion fans, as comic fans, and, of course, as human beings. Dave was a fan just like the rest of us... he drew for FANTASTIC FANZINE, for Warren, worked as Murphy Anderson's assistant, all before telling Murray Boltinoff that "goddamn bet your ass" he was ready to be the regular artist for the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES strip in the back of SUPERBOY. Some of us might like to think that we had something to do with the strip's eventual rebirth, but it took an energy and a talent like Dave's to help others see what we saw.

Neil Gaiman reprints an essay he wrote a couple years ago for the Dave Cockrum Tribute Book:
The important stuff, the way I saw it was that super powers would allow you to survive school more easily. ...

I think that was why I loved the Legion of Super Heroes, back in my own personal golden age. There were lots of them. They lived in the future. And their powers seemed made for surviving school with. (There were school meals put in front of me that only Matter Eater Lad could comfortably have disposed of.) They had a clubhouse. They didn’t fight bank robbers, either. (Mostly they seemed to fight each other, even if they had been brainwashed by intergalactic evildoers. This also made sense to me. I had lived twelve years, and had come to the conclusion that bank robbers turned up more infrequently than they did in the comics.) And, most of all, for just a little while – oddly enough, while I was twelve – they had Dave Cockrum.

I ought to Google and find out what the first Legion story Dave drew was; on the other hand, I still know the first of his stories I read. It was called “Curse of the Blood Crystals”, and it was inked by Murphy Anderson. (I have always been a sucker for Murphy Anderson’s inking.)

And, almost immediately it seemed, Superboy’s comic had become The Legion’s, and Dave Cockrum was the Legion artist (Cary Bates was writing), and suddenly it was cool...

Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter has a good article about Dave. He even made a MetaFilter discussion.

In Dave's own words, here's the "secret origin" of his working on the Legion (from Comic Book Artist #6, from TwoMorrows):
CBA: You went over to DC from Warren?

Dave: Yeah. I started doing background inking, first for Tony DeZuniga (who was doing a lot of House of Mystery and stuff like that). They weren't running a stable yet, at that point. He was okay to work for, but his wife, Mary, was something else. She looked at my stuff and said, "Ehhh! Ten years, maybe, you might make it." I stayed long enough to work on five or six issues, but Murphy Anderson needed a background inker for the work he was doing on Curt Swan's Superman and Bob Brown's Superboy. He also got the "John Carter of Mars" strip, which I desperately wanted to help out with (being a John Carter fan all of my life) but Murphy wouldn't let me touch that. He'd say, "This is mine! Go away!" I worked for Murphy for about a year in a downtown Manhattan studio. It was great and I learned a lot, but the only trouble was that we did more bullsh*tting than working! So it turned out to be not that profitable and he finally closed down the studio.

While I was working for Murphy, the "Legion of Super-Heroes" strip became available. Murray Boltinoff, the editor, got Murphy to agree to ink it. Murray figured that Murphy would be responsible for the quality of the book and fix anything that I did wrong. Because Murphy was an old-time professional and I was the newcomer, Murray listed Murphy's name first on the credits, so everybody thinks that Murphy penciled those first three or four strips, when actually I did. It was the other way around: I penciled and he inked. But Murray thought that Murphy would be offended to be listed second, though he wouldn't have.

By the fourth "Legion" strip I did, Murphy was embroiled in "John Carter" and Superman, and he just couldn't help anymore. So he said, "You're on your own!" There was a lot of snowpaque on that art from correcting mistakes, but I got through it. It looked pretty slick and people said that it wasn't bad, so after that it was my book. Fan reaction was pretty good, because I was young and enthusiastic—and obviously the first one in a long time who much cared what was being done with The Legion—I even badgered Murray into allowing me to introduce new costumes, but he was timid about that. That was my best early work.

CBA: Around the same time were you doing some inking for Marvel? The Avengers come to mind....

Dave: I didn't start working for Marvel full-time until I had my little go-around with Murray and Carmine Infantino. DC wasn't returning artwork at that point, and Marvel was, but I asked for the double-page spread of the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel to be returned. I just wanted it for a souvenir, and Murray had said, "I don't see why not," and he apparently had it set aside to give to me. But Carmine came in the day I came by to pick it up and he said, "What's this?" Murray told him, and Carmine said, "You can't give this back to him. We don't do that." It was the only artwork that I had asked for back and I said, "Gee, guys, can't you bend the rules? It's all I'm asking for." He said, "Nope, can't do it." I said, "All right. See ya." (Just prior to this incident, I had gotten the Captain Marvel Jr. job from Julie Schwartz.) I then went over to Marvel and got some work, and asked Julie and Roy Thomas, "Do you guys mind if I keep doing Captain Marvel Jr.? Because I really tried hard to get that." Both of them said fine, but Carmine said, "No, he can't." So I made a clean cut with DC.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

J. Torres comments on animated Legion book

From a posting by J. Torres on the Comicbloc forums:

I'm not the only writer on the book. I've written issues #1 and #2 so far, and I'm working on a third story that will probably end up being used for #5 or maybe #6. Anyway, I'm hoping to contribute to the series as much as my editor (and schedule) will allow! Since the Subs are supposed to show up on the cartoon at some point, I can't see why they wouldn't end up in the comic book (and I'd love to write that issue!). The thing is, I hear the cartoon is struggling in the ratings so everyone please keep watching and tell all your friends or else they might not get to the episode with the Subs in it

It's news to me that the cartoon may be struggling, I hadn't heard of that elsewhere (and I've been tracking the ratings, which I'll get to in the next couple of days).

Of course, if they ever re-run any episode besides the Timber Wolf one, maybe more people would watch (if that's a problem). They've had six new episodes and four reruns so far - three new, three reruns, three new, and one rerun into the next cycle - with three of those reruns being the Timber Wolf episode.

Two Legion podcasts

I haven't had time to listen to either of them yet, but two Legion-related podcasts showed up in the last few days. If anyone has a chance to listen to them, please leave a note in the comments if there's any good stuff!

First, ComicGeekSpeak has a podcast in which, among other things, a bunch of fans discuss Legion trivia, posted Wednesday 11/22.

Can you name all of the Legion worlds in alphabetical order? Neither can we, but we brought a second Peter into the room to help us with our Legion of Superheroes Spotlight episode. Be prepared for loads of Legion lore as two Peters are always better than one.

Second, WordBalloon has an interview with Mark Waid, posted Friday 11/24.
Mark's been a DC comics fan forever, and says Adventure Comics #357 was a mind blowing experience. The comic featured a classic Legion Of Superheroes story, The Death Of Ferro Lad, written by teenaged Jim Shooter, and drawn by the legendary Curt Swan. Nowadays, Mark is making Legion history himself, as the writer of Supergirl and The Legion Of Superheroes, drawn by frequent Waid collaborator, Barry Kitson. Mark is also co-writing the weekly DC Comic "52". We get updates on both books, and delve into a bunch of other pop culture topics.

More Vs. cards

Previously: Vs. System previews for Ferro Lad, Live Wire, "We Are Legion", Dream Girl, Dark Firestorm, Brainiac 5.1, Dark Superboy, Fatal Five Hundred, Time Trapper, XS, "No Match for Darkseid", Dark Thanagarian

Here's a checklist of those cards known so far. Discussion, should you be interested, is at VSRealms and Metagame.



More card previews, via BatMite's pages here, here, and here:

Holy crap, is that actually Michael Golden art on the Mordru card?!

Cosmic King

Claudio Aboy

Mordru

Michael Golden

Legion HQ (Star City article)


Persuader


Chain Lightning



Via TCGPlayer.com:

Dominated (TCGPlayer article)

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Great Name Dropper

And now for something completely different - yet still on-topic.

As I've mentioned from time to time, I have a number of search feeds that get me the web sites I discuss here (bless you, RSS!). I get a lot of different things, from ebay auction items to blogs to newspaper articles, and I still have to cull through the posts about the American Legion, the Legion halls, the French Foreign Legion, the Legion of Doom, Imperial Legion, Legion Quest, "legion of fans", "we are legion", etc. Digging through those is where I find things like Shawn Harrison announcing he got the Timber Wolf part before the series was officially announced.

Something else I ran across a while back was a reference to a 1960's music group called "The Legion of Super-Heroes". That obviously couldn't have been a coincidental naming - at the time, the Legion was headlining in "Adventure Comics". All I could find is that they put out exactly one single on Amy Records, #971, in 1967. The name of the A-side song was called "The Great Name Dropper part 1", and the B-side was "part 2". It was only released as a single, and I haven't heard of anyone finding it on a compilation anywhere. Aside from the song lyrics, I wondered would the record sleeve itself have any comic-book Legion stuff on it? How much of a Legion (comics) collectible is this thing really?

Then a little while ago, a guy named John Peel died. I had never heard of him, but he was big in the music/radio business in the UK, and he had a famous box of his 142 favorite 45's, of which the Legion's was #103 (just ahead of the Mighty Avengers!). Lots of people started talking about that list and everyone wanted a copy of this single, myself included. Here's how one music discussion site described the song that he heard on Peel's radio show:

John Peel sometimes plays a very strange record from the early Sixties called "the Great Namedropper" by the Legion of Superheroes. The record has all the qualities of a normal go go record : a great beat, twangy guitars and female backing singers. However over the top of the music an announcer names lots of pop acts of the day (such as Boy Bennett and His Rockets, Rosie and the Originals and Butch and the Bells). People in the studio shout and clap whenever they hear a bandname that they like. It's a brilliant record. I don't know if it's available on any compilations though.

Today, I can't answer the last question about the record sleeve, but I finally found a site with a copy of the mp3 file - today's post on "Living Too Late", a blog from a girl in England who was born 15 years after the song came out. The top of the page has a link to the mp3 file on the YouSendIt site, so you have to jump through a couple of hoops to get there, but it's otherwise a free and painless download. The file contains both the A-side and B-side, separated by a few seconds of blank space.

The song reminds me a lot of those mid/late 60's "surf rock" garage bands, the ones that were "one-hit wonders" like The Rivieras, The Rivingtons, The Trashmen, The Kingsmen, etc. It sounds as if the band was just goofing off in the recording studio and the mic was left on.

I'll drop it onto my iPod.

Issue 24 review roundup

Yay Mon-el! And he's really Mon-el again!

Starting off the reviews, more as they come in:

  • Matthew at the Legion Abstract:
    Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining (yet) that we don't know what these guys are up to, or what Tarik the Mute's motivation is, or anything. That's fine. That will come out. And I know it's difficult. This comic book has a large cast, all of whom need some screen time, so there isn't a lot of time to spend on the villains**. All I'm saying is that I need a name for that guy in the green, with the orange eyes, who's stepping on Shadow Lass's head. (To invent an example.)

    Now some good stuff. Barry Kitson's art is at its usual high level. I was particularly intrigued by his rendition of Saturn Girl melding her mind with Phantom Girl's body as they visit the Phantom Zone. It's pretty cool.

    I liked Supergirl's stunt to defeat the LSV on Rokyn. I like Cosmic Boy's bitter, deadpan sense of humour. I like Ayla's warm personality.

    I sort of liked the scene where Cosmic Boy invites Supergirl to come back with the Legion instead of staying on Rokyn, but I was distracted. I couldn't help but wonder who was being manipulated here--me or Kara? Or both, I guess. I was definitely being manipulated...

    The comic wasn't as action-packed as I had hoped after last issue; basically the only fighting was Supergirl's scuffle with the LSV. But it did step along nicely, and next issue looks to have a lot more conflagration in it.

  • Ami Angelwings is a reviewer new to this site, who sounds as if she's younger than many of our veteran reviewers:
    I think what's great about the Legion of Superheroes is that they're not exactly part of the greater DCU, in that b/c they're in the 31st century, what they do has nothing to do with Batman, Superman or nebody else. B/c of that it's not necessary for the readers to know everything about the DCU. :) It's very self contained! ^^ Also all the characters are VERY likeable and very convincing as teenagers and young ppl who want to make a difference in the universe. I like the idea of various races, cultures and species from different planets co-operating together to do good :D And the names are so adorable! Yes it's girl/boy/lass/lad but it's cute that way xD And so simple! B/c they ALL do it like that, it makes it less stupid and just the way they want to name themselves :)

    The character interactions are soooo good, and even without a plot, every issue has been a joy to read! :D I rly rly do like and recommend this series in general. I just worry that they're gonna eventually send Supergirl home and that's gonna be it for this story :( But I'm enjoying it while it lasts!

  • Rokk's Comic Book Revolution shows some rare praise:
    I’m psyched for Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes # for one reason and one reason only: Mon-El. That’s right. He’s back! This move alone has rejuvenated my rapidly fading interest in this title. I know, I’ll have to put up with several annoying scenes with the ever vacuous Supergirl, but it will be worth it just to see Mon-El back on this title.
    ...
    Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes #24 was a tale of two stories. The first half of this issue was more of the typical boring standard story that we have been getting on this title ever since Supergirl hi-jacked the Legion. On the other hand, the second half of this issue was a good read and rather interesting and engaging which is very much unlike the previous issues of this title.
    ...
    Once again, Waid shows in this issue exactly why I despise having Supergirl on this title. Supergirl makes the rest of the Legion totally irrelevant. But, what is even worse in this issue is that Supergirl is totally powerless and she STILL makes the Legion looking completely irrelevant.... I have been pretty harsh on this title ever since Supergirl hi-jacked the Legion. However, I really think that Waid is just about to turn the corner on the Legion and crank out a pretty entertaining story arc. Or at least I hope so.

  • DCU Boy at the Continuity Blog has a review of the last 6 issues. Interesting perspective on the whole arc so far from someone who is essentially unfamiliar with any of the previous versions of the Legion.
    This issue continues this series with great success, I still think this is series is highly underrated. ... The ending was good too, I look forward to next issue.

  • Graig at Rack Raids, the Four Color Valhalla:
    Waid, Kitson and team may have faultered a little following the end of their year-long introductory storyline, and initially the addition of Supergirl to the title was a hinderance, but in the past few Waid has really made it work, and with another gang as opposition to the team, were wading (no pun intended) back into some big-time fun superheroics.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

DiDio answers some questions

From the ComicBloc forum, DC honcho Dan DiDio took some time out to answer a bunch of questions to forum posters. Here's the first substantial Q&A:

I'd like to know why it was necessary to reboot Legion of Super-Heroes this last time after having been done so many times before. I'd like to know the thinking, or justification, of that for such a storied comic franchise and if there was concerns about alienating or upsetting long time readers.

- There are always concerns about alienating readers. The problem with Legion is that once Superboy was removed from the equation after the first Crisis, the series lost its biggest star and struggled for an identity. As things changed to help redefine the series, it kept moving away from the core concept and there was a sense of change for the sake of change. Things slightly different from their original inspiration but not radically different as to understand why it changed. We felt we wanted to go back to and restart the series rather than change it on the run. Mark came up with a concept we thought captured the spirit of the series so we gave it a restart since the incarnation at the time was flagging and close to cancellation. The bottom line is that LEGION was one of the top sellers for DC in the 80’s along with Titans and we wanted to make every effort to put it back on top.

VSapalooza!

Previously: updates in July, October, and November.

The official Sneak Preview is the first weekend of December. Here's one tournament in Warren Ohio, another in Kansas City, and one at Star City Game Center in Roanoke, VA.

Star City Game Center has images of the promotional playmat and t-shirt to be given to tournament participants:





I asked at these sites if the goodies are available to non-players, or if I could sign up for the tournament just to get the stuff, and they all told me that you have to be there at the tournament to get it. Check back on ebay in a couple weeks, I guess.



Man, you turn your head for one minute and there's a whole mess of stuff out there for the upcoming "Vs. System" card game. Scott over at the Legion Clubhouse got to most of it before I could.

Of course, I have no interest in the game itself, only the pretty pictures on the Legion cards, so I won't be discussing strategy or any of the non-Legion cards (like the Teen Titans or Infinite Crisis stuff), there are plenty of other places for that.

Interestingly, they appear to be using the post-Zero Hour Legion team, not the current version. Wonder if it's been in development that long.

These first few are from the Metagame.com forums:
  • Ferro Lad, Live Wire, and "We Are Legion" (on Metagame):


    Adam DeKraker


    Brian Bolland


    Kieran Yanner

  • Dream Girl:


    Stuart Sager

  • Dark Firestorm, one of Darkseid's Elite, from "Foundations":


    Phil Noto

From the VSRealms forums:

From VSParadise.com:

From the latest issue of Inquest, #140:

Kieran Tanner


Adam Archer


Richard Clark

One more via the Marvel_DC_TCG Yahoo list, it's Dark Thanagarian, another of Darkseid's Elite from "Foundations".

Kieran Yanner

Monday, November 20, 2006

Episode 1.04: Fear Factory

Yes, they did run episodes 1.04 (Fear Factory) and 1.06 (Phantoms) out of production order. However, most people don't care and call them by broadcast number instead of production order. Sigh.

Why they ran this episode a week before Thanksgiving instead of around Halloween is beyond me. This was a perfect Halloween haunted house episode with everyone facing their fears. I'm far from the only person who thought that.

Your torrents du jour: hi-def and regular.

Anyway, here's my wrapup.

  • Rokk's Comic Book Revolution:
    We also got some drama to balance out the comedy with the relationship between Superman and Brainiac 5. I really like the chemistry between these two characters. Clearly, Brainiac 5 has some deep rooted guilt of being the decedent of one of Superman’s biggest villains: Brainiac. It was interesting to see how Brainiac 5 is determined to make Superman face his own fears so that he may become the hero that the world needs Superman to be.
    ...
    All in all, “Fear Factory” was another fine episode. The Legion of Super Heroes Animated Series has been an absolute blast. There is plenty of humor, action and themes about friendship in each episode. The Legion of Super Heroes Animated Series is obviously designed for kids, but I think the creators have done a nice job making these episodes entertaining for older Legion fans as well. Personally, I love the “young” and “bright” feel to the animated Legion. After being forced to read the TMK Legion and the DnA Legion, I have had enough of the dark and grim Legion to last me a life time.

  • Matthew at the Legion Abstract:
    The thing about this episode is that there's really nothing about it that required it to be a Legion episode. The main theme was that heroes need to be able to overcome their fears, which is perfectly standard not only for superheroes but for any adventure genre (and therefore quite appropriate as a plot for a kids' show). I thought we were going to delve a little more deeply into the complicated Brainiac 5/Superman friendship.... But it didn't happen. What we got instead was Brainy keeping information from Superman (again!) so that Superman would have to face his fears (in this case, fear of killing Brainy when he brought down the station's computers; if Brainy had told him that the disc he gave him was a backup disc of Brainy's self, he wouldn't have worried). Which actually supports Your Obedient Serpent's theory that Brainy recruited Young Clark instead of Veteran Superman in an effort to train him up so he'll better be able to deal with Brainiac back in the 21st century.

  • Jeffrey Bridges at the Superman Homepage:
    This felt like a Halloween episode, and according to the production schedule it was the fourth episode produced but the sixth one aired (had it aired in production order, it would have come out on Nov. 4). Clearly it was intended to be a Halloween episode, so why Kids WB chose to air it now instead of Nov. 4 makes absolutely no sense.

    And I'm sure, for little kids, this would have been a spooky Halloween episode. But the whole "it's a haunted mansion!" where we're supposed to believe that superheroes who regularly fly all over the place and battle aliens would be scared of roller coasters and... aliens is pushing things a bit.

  • Darren Kramble, apparently watching via download in England, at Nerdsville:
    Hooray! New Legion episode! The thing that I really like about the animated LSH series is how much it resembles a sixties 'Adventure Comics' story brought to life. There is just something about the bonkers nature of these old stories that lend themselves to a twenty-first century kids cartoon show. The necessary lack of depth (or maybe more accurately, hyper-depth) is a Legion tradition....

    But 'Fear Factory' (Adventure Comics title: The Haunted House of Space) was another enjoyable episode. The episodes early flirtation with sub-Scooby Doo haunted house cartoons was nicely subverted as the episode progressed, looking at each character's hidden fears. That being said, I don't believe that Saturn Girl's greatest fear is a roller coaster, nor that she is not mentally strong enough to resist Quavermass' powers. Doesn't Super Thought Casting count for anything?

  • From Cat-Scratched-Victim:
    The production team does appear to be taking the original “feel” of the old stories into play for this series. This latest episode, Fear Factory, seems to have fit in with Halloween, it being about a haunted house and our heroes having to stay there for the night, but it seemed to have come late instead. Oh well. It was cute episode that could have been an old story from the days when the Legion comic was being drawn by the late Curt Swan or perhaps even during the Cockrum era. It was nice to see that.

  • Lizard_SF at Bowling With Sisyphus:
    his is a difficult episode to review; when it was good, it was very good, and when it was bad, it was seriously cringeworthy.

    The bad: The Legionnaires broke down way too fast. These are heroes, after all, and should be able to confront the fairly trivial fears presented with a lot more gusto. A chance for interesting psychological examination (what scares a hero) was squandered badly in this episode.
    ...
    IMO, this episode was a misstep and a missed opportunity. Not utterly unwatchable, but it reeks of wasted potential.

  • Vincent J. Murphy at Spandex Justice:
    ...For the second week in a row, we get the "If I do this, I might die" speech (last week, it was Phantom Girl, this week, Brainiac 5). It starts to ring a little hollow when they play that card too often. That, combined with the rather pedestrian plot (and the solution, which is basically "wreck things"), didn’t thrill me. The episode was a clunker.


And now a dissenting review, from Ryu I's World of Inanity:
After prying myself away from FFXII I decided to download the first episode of the Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon because it looked so incredibly, horribly bad that I figured it had nowhere to go but up (and I was cleaning; needed something to look forward to).

E. Gads.

They PAY people to design art like this?!

Brainiac 5 is a transformer?! (Dude, like...he turns into a Gundam)

Okay, really? Brainy is Data. Data who turns into a Gundam. And is really, really short.

And the themesong is so disco!

It's HORRIBLE! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

But really, so incredibly awful that it amused me somewhat. Hey, at least Clark's personality was all geeky and adorable.

Validus rocks!

Courtesy of BeaucoupKevin comes this meme...






Previously: beefcake/cheesecake appreciation week, armed gorilla week, snakes on a blog, talk like a pirate day

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Trivia 5 answers

The answers to trivia quiz #5:

1. A question in honor of Election Day - who would Dr. Mayavale have voted for in the 1952 US Presidential Election?

Dr. Mayavale wore an "I Like Ike" button around his neck.


2. Another Election Day question - which Legionnaires were involved in planetary-level politics? Whose parents were?
I didn't count Planetary Champions or last survivors, I was looking for politicians.
* Pre-Zero Hour: Projectra was the daughter of the King and later became Queen of Orando. Colossal Boy's mother was President of Earthgov, as were later Invisible Kid II and Tyroc. The mother of Dream Girl and her sister White Witch was High Seer of Naltor. Matter-Eater Lad was a Senator on Bismoll.
* Post-Zero Hour: Apparition's mother was President of Earthgov.
* Animated series: Phantom Girl's mother is President of the United Planets.

RJ Brande and Leland McCauley were both Earthgov Presidents post-Zero Hour, but their offspring (Chameleon Boy and Celeste Rockfish, respectively) were Legionnaires pre-Zero Hour only, so they don't count.


3. In honor of the upcoming Veterans' Day/Remembrance Day, which Legionnaires were war veterans?
My original answer was just Cosmic Boy and Shrinking Violet, both soldiers wounded at Venado Bay in the Imsk/Braal war. I wasn't considering those who fight Huge Threat level battles as Legionnaires (Earthwar, Great Darkness, etc.). Matthew had some ideas about battles in v4 (Xolnar) and the post-ZH reboot (Robotica), but I also would have taken anything where a Legionnaire was on official business with a military operation. I don't remember what else counts as military battles, so I'll give you that as a bonus question.


4. The LSV had a character named Chameleon Chief, who despite his Durlan appearance could not have been one because his power was very different than a normal Durlan's. What was his power?
He had the power to change the shape of other things, not himself.


5. In Adventure 300, how did Saturn Girl develop Serum XY-4, a temporary antidote for poisoning by lead radiation, to let Mon-el out of the Phantom Zone for a while?
a) She used Brainy's Potential-Factors Reorganizer Complex to soften his fate by bisecting and multiplying his urgal psytrops, which temporarily counteracted his lead poisoning.
b) With her super thought casting power, she was in telepathic contact with Mon-el while he was in the Phantom Zone. Mentally, she diagnosed the harm done to his body and figured out what chemical elements would counteract his lead poisoning.
c) She used some negative id elements complicated by F-type ancestral karmatics to zero out the mechano-tracers that sought to recondition his reflexes, which temporarily counteracted his lead poisoning.
d) She initiated the shield grid and reconfigured it to emit a deflector pulse using the auxiliary deflector array in the saucer section. Then she reconfigured the deflector dish to emit an anti-chroniton pulse, which temporarily counteracted his lead poisoning.
Obviously, the answer is (b). Answers (a) and (c), by the way, are verbatim from Adventure 301 where Brainiac 5 was trying to cure the teenage Luthor in the 30th century. Answer (d), of course, is from any number of Star Trek episodes.


6. Put these pre-Zero Hour events in chronological order.
a) Brainiac 5 frames Ultra Boy for the murder of An Ryd.
b) Brainiac 5 creates the Infinite Man in a botched experiment.
c) Brainiac 5 creates a Supergirl sex robot.
d) Brainiac 5 creates Computo which goes on a rampage, killing a Legionnaire.
e) Brainiac 5 nearly destroys LSH HQ with a piece of a white dwarf star.
f) Brainiac 5 cures Danielle Foccart, but blows up the LSH HQ.
g) Brainiac 5 creates Omega which goes on a rampage, goes insane, and is indirectly responsible for blowing up the LSH HQ.

a - Superboy/LSH 239
b - Superboy/LSH 233
c - Superboy 204
d - Adventure 341
e - LSH v3 ???
f - LSH v2 Annual 1
g - Superboy/LSH 250

The correct order is d, c, b, a, g, f, e

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

J. Torres, Scott Beatty to write the animated comic

Looks like I was right about a couple of things the other day - J. Torres is indeed going to be one of the writers of the upcoming series based on the animated show, and it was already common knowledge (or at least available knowledge).

After Comics Worth Reading and Crocodile Caucus commented on my conclusion that Torres was going to be a/the writer, Heidi at The BEAT confirmed it with an October 16th article in Publishers Weekly about comics and graphic novels based on animated properties (emphasis added by me):

DC publishes comics and digests that mimic the animated style of The Batman Strikes!, Teen Titans Go! and Justice League Unlimited. These titles are aimed at a general audience outside the comic book specialty shop system, but they don't rival the sales of top manga titles in bookstores. However, DC continues to pursue this audience: it just launched a Krypto comics miniseries. In addition, Legion of Superheroes, based on DC's long-running SF superhero title, has been a hit this fall on the Cartoon Network and the Kids' WB, and DC is planning an ongoing periodical comics series based on the cartoon written by J. Torres, Scott Beatty and writers from the show.

The Physics of Superheroes

Thanks to Matthew for pointing this one out.

Newsarama has an interview with James Kakalios, author of "The Physics of Superheroes", whose book tries to semi-plausibly explain the physics of what goes on inside a comic book, from Flash's aura to the Hulk's strength and beyond. The interviewer asks if Kakalios has been in contact with current creators, to help them out. He mentions one exchange with Gail Simone on "The All-New Atom" and this exchange with Mark Waid on the Legion:

When Mark Waid wrote that Supergirl suddenly shows up in the year 3000 and people are trying to figure out how she got there and even she’s not sure how she time traveled. I said, “I know how this happened.” But I waited until the next issue and then I saw that it was going to be presented as a big mystery. I sent them an email saying “This is the mechanism by which she probably did it.” He wrote back saying, “That’s much better than what I was thinking of. I got to see if I can change this now.” So that’s fun. But so far in the storyline he hasn’t explained how she’s shown up in the future. So I’m waiting to see whether my mechanism pops up or not.

The apparent explanation that we've seen is that a zeta-beam transports across space, so a messed-up zeta-beam transports across time. Or is that just a red herring in 52?

Monday, November 13, 2006

Rob Hoegee chat this weekend

TitansGo.net is hosting a chat with the Legion's story editor Rob Hoegee this weekend, for those of you who may be interested. Rob, of course, was the former story editor on the Titans show, and that site is still going strong.

The Q&A chat, on IRC, will be this Sunday, November 19th 2006, starting at 8:00 PM Eastern time (5:00 PM Pacific time). See TitansGo! for all the details.

Coming in February

The February solicits are out... one Legion book, one reprint book, and one surprise appearance.

The Legion book sports a nifty Barry Kitson cover:



SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #27
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Barry Kitson & Mick Gray
Cover by Kitson
Sibling rivalry confronts the Legion as Lightning Lad and Mekt Ranzz are forced to go from head-to-head to side-by-side! But will even the combined might of these brothers be enough to fend off the Dominator’s Enforcers?
On sale February 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US




The Superman/Batman book sports a nifty Alex Ross cover:



SUPERMAN/BATMAN: THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD TP
Written by Edmond Hamilton, Jeph Loeb and others
Art by Curt Swan, Ed McGuinness and others
Cover by Alex Ross
Collecting the best team-ups between the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight, from the pages of SUPERMAN #76, WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #142, 159, 176, 207, MAN OF STEEL #3, BATMAN & SUPERMAN: WORLD’S FINEST #7, SUPERMAN/BATMAN SECRET FILES 2003 and SUPERMAN/BATMAN ANNUAL #!
Advance-solicited; on sale March 14 • 192 pg, FC, $19.99 US



The surprise is this one, which travels to Ventura, the gambler's planet (and home of the Luck Lords), with this nifty George Perez cover:



THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1
Written by Mark Waid
Art by George Pérez & Bob Wiacek
Covers by Pérez
The greatest team-up title of all time is back! A proud DC tradition is restored as writer Mark Waid (52, SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES) and legendary artists George Pérez (THE NEW TEEN TITANS, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS) & Bob Wiacek (ORION) put Batman and Green Lantern on the trail of what could be the greatest weapon in the DCU!
The trail leads to Ventura, the gambling planet...wanna bet what’ll happen if they don’t get their hands on the weapon?
Retailers: This issue will feature two covers by George Pérez that may be ordered separately. The Cover A spotlights Batman; Cover B spotlights Green Lantern.. Please see the Previews Order Form for further details.
On sale February 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Edited by Joey Cavalieri

J. Torres to write new series?

I was all set to announce what I thought was a scoop, only to find that it was apparently some sort of common knowledge. I have a number of RSS search feeds, all looking for Legion stuff somewhere online, and one of them brought me this:

CANADA'S THE BEGUILING DEBUTS "DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION: EXTRA CREDIT" GRAPHIC NOVELS

Now, I normally (OK, never) would include a Degrassi link here, but buried at the bottom of this press release on CBR is this bit about the Degrassi writer (emphasis added by me):

J. Torres is the writer of the monthly Teen Titans Go and Ninja Scroll comic books, as well as a regular contributing writer to Batman Strikes and Legion of Super Heroes for DC Comics. He is also the author of the Degrassi: Extra Credit series of graphic novels, and won the award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer in the 2006 Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Awards. Born in Manila and raised in Montreal, he currently resides in Toronto.

Now, since he doesn't write the regular DCU book, he must be the writer of the new series based on the animated show.

There's nothing specific on his web site, JTorresOnline, but an anonymous poster here yesterday said that this person removed signs of confirmation recently (as if to wait for the official announcement). Let's do a little sleuthing....

He also has a message board, with a single (visible) Legion forum called "Legion Headquarters" for discussion of the series. He also has a hidden forum called "LOSH Talk", with a single post saying "Hmm... Now why would this forum be here?" on Sept. 22nd. By itself that's not out of the ordinary, but in the regular message board there are forums called "TTG Talk" (Teen Titans Go!) and "TBS Talk" (The Batman Strikes), both for books he contributes to. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that he'll be writing or at least contributing to a Legion book.

I've never read any of his books, anyone have any opinions to share?

New Superhero Clubhouse

I added the new Superhero Clubhouse over on the right to the Legion blogroll.

Welcome to the Superhero Clubhouse, a Legion of Superheroes blog! The LoSH is a 31st century superhero group comprised of idealistic teenagers from across the galaxy! I'm Qulore Dox, the daughter of Brainiac 5, and I've decided to come back to the 21st century to explore the heroic deeds of the Legion and other superheroes in order to one day join the Legion myself.

She joins the handful of Legion-centric blogs on my Legion blogroll, to go along with Get-a-Life Boy's LSH Blog, the Legion Abstract, and The Planetary Chance Machine.

There's one big Legion-centric message board (Legion World) and one that's just starting out (The Legionaire), and many of the other forum sites have a dedicated or shared Legion board as a sub-section (ComicBloc, Comicboards, DC Comics, rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh, Superman Through the Ages, Television Without Pity, Legions of Gotham).

And of course, the Legion Wiki site.

It's been a long while since I maintained the old Legion of Super-Resources page, back when the Web was just websites (from around 1996-2002 or so). Rather than rehash and update that, I'll take suggestions from the audience. What are some good Legion websites out there that are current (or at least not terribly outdated)?

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Episode 1.05: Champions

Update 11/13: Added Jeffrey Bridges' and Reed Solomon's reviews at the bottom




Another fun episode. This was Matt Wayne's second episode (he also wrote "Timber Wolf", episode 1.02). Lots of nice visual touches, from the use of interlac to Jo Nah's wink at the end to Validus being disguised as a dwarf.

Speaking of interlac, for those of us TiVoing the show so we can pause on those shots to translate, we had a sign reading "bat man lives" during one scene. After the Filament Jump podrace, the leader board read "Lightning Lad, Mekt Ranzz, Tarl, Jo Nah, Drake Burroughs, Mota, Tenzil Kem". Now it's clear who Tenzil was supposed to be, but why did they call him Camden Mismullion several times? Left unclear was whether Jo, Tenzil, and Zzok are now affiliated with the Legion, but we'll see.

Update Sunday night: OK, I'm an idiot. "Camden Mismullion" is bad closed-captioning for "Kem the Bismollian".

Continuity: last week's show was production #1.06, but it aired as 1.04. After seeing this week, it makes sense now to do it that way since in "Phantoms" the Science Police didn't like the Legion, and this week the UP President proclaims how helpful they are.

Oh, and the closed captioning referred to the "Khuns" (misspelled or deliberate?). Were the Fatal Five working with them to destroy the UP dignitaries? I guess we'll see.

I loved the commercial for Little Deepzorg, and I loved how the announcers worked it in to the action. "And Lightning Lad's down! That's another notch on the Persuader's axe. Waiting for Lightning Lad to get up, our coverage of this attack is brought to you by Little Deepzorg Snack Cakes. Little Deepzorg, the snack that made Deepzorg famous."

Best line of the show: Superman (looking at buffet table): "Mmm. Hey, crab legs!" Ambassador (who looks like a plate of crab legs): "Hey, monkey face!"

Here are the torrents for the normal and hi-def versions of the episode.

For a full detailed review, see my LegionWiki episode writeup.

On to the reviews...
  • Matthew at the Legion Abstract:
    Perfectly good episode. Continues the pattern of having a *lot* of action packed into a short period of time, and yet still getting a lot of story handled. ... The most important thing about this episode was how it put Lightning Lad on display. ... One thing I didn't like was the subplot about Phantom Girl not getting along with her mother. It was cliche from start to finish, it wasn't funny, it was all over the place in terms of characterization and I would rather it had been left out entirely.

    As I mentioned in a comment there, I didn't see it as Tinya not getting along with her mom. I saw it as a typical teenager with a mom who keeps embarrassing their kid (like every teenager's parents) and making sure her daughter meets a nice boy (like every teenage girl's parents). That would be keeping more in line with the tone of the show.

  • Rokk's Comic Book Revolution liveblogged it again.
    What has really impressed me about this animated series has been the creative team’s knowledge and appreciation for the Legion’s history. In fact, it seems the animated series creative team seems to have more respect for the Legion’s history than the comic book creative team. (Damn it, I took another shot at the comic. Sorry. Sometime I can’t help myself.)

    All in all Episode #5 was another great episode. The creative team is doing an excellent job and I thought that “Champions” was a fun story. You had plenty of action and adventure for the young viewers and several nice references in the story for the older long time Legion fans. This Legion of Super Hero Animated Series continues to impress me with each and every episode. It is rare that I find a cartoon superior to its comic book counterpart, but that is certainly the case in this situation.

  • Commenters at the ToonZone message board were all over the place:
    One person wrote
    I did'nt like it. This was a waste of an episode. I hate "cliche" episodes...something dating back all the way the "Superfriends/Wonder-Twins" hour. It was an episode designed to teach kiddies good sportsmanship. BORING/TIRED. Its been done 12849815387125871256 times already in the toon world, we didn't need another one.

    While another wrote:
    I liked this episode... yeah, we've seen "the characters get involved in an Olypmic games" stuff before, but this was still entertaining. Plus it's a followup to last week's throwaway line about Phantom Girl's mom being the president...

    Best parts for me:
    - the bits between Phantom Girl and her mother, and with the crowd
    - seeing some DC comic references (the Khunds, etc.), including seeing Matter Eater Lad showing up.
    - seeing Ultra Boy show up... because, well, Ultra Boy's handsome. (Hey, if I get to see a zillion posts commenting on how "hot" Catwoman/Lois Lane/Harley Quinn/etc. are, I figure stating this is fair game... ) :-) Though seemed kind of vague about whether or not he'll become a Legionnaire from the ending...

  • Over at the tivocommunity message board:
    I like how they've made Phantom Girl a very skilled fighter, phasing in and out and giving the Persuader a tough time as well as rescuing her mother the President. So far she's the female character with the most personality. The writers must be fond of her.

  • Jeffrey Bridges at Superman Homepage:
    This episode felt mostly like a jumble. Until the Fatal Five showed up it had no real lasting bearing on anything, and I surmise the only reason the Fatal Five is going to prison is so that they can meet up with Alexis Luthor.
    ...
    On the whole, the writing here was the weakest of the season, just barely above the second episode only because it somewhat advanced the story with the Fatal Five.

    The action scenes are still the highlight of the show, however. I've never found super-powered battles so much fun to watch on any show before.

    But really guys, try a little harder with the writing unless you only want the very youngest of your audience to stick around for the whole season.

  • Reed Solomon's Zone of Surly Geekery:
    This episode could easily have fallen into cliche, but a few things kept that from happening. The fact that this was not only an olympics type event but also included aliens prominently made it amusing. I liked the announcers who managed to comment on everything that happened and even worked the commercials into the story (I need to get some Little Deepzorg snack cakes..) The episode was watchable all the way through. And had a lot of nice touches (Like Tinya and Jo Nah's first meeting) .. plus you can't go wrong with having a bismollian in an episode.
    ...
    You know, if the remaining episodes turn out like this or better I might just buy the DVD's.


I'll be adding more as they show up in my searches (or leave comments).

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Wizard World Texas '06: new series in the works

At Wizard World Texas in Dallas this weekend, Bob Wayne had this to say at the DCU panel, as quoted on Comics Continuum:

Asked if there will be a comic book based on the Legion of Super Heroes animated series, Wayne said "We have not announced doing a comic book, so when you hear about that, act really surprised."

Looks like Comics Continuum is the only one at this convention. Newsarama and CBR don't have any reports at all.

Haven't even heard any rumors about who's doing the writing or art chores on the book.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Blogiversary!

Sometime between 9 and 10 pm last night, I had my 50,000th visitor since I started this blog exactly one year ago today. That's pretty good timing. Thanks to Google Analytics for the free cool stats, but most importantly thanks to the comics blogosphere for coming back.

For my one year blog anniversary (my blogiversary), I'm giving away a free copy of Adventure 247, the original appearance of the Legion from 1958. See this post for the details. I am still figuring out the details but it should be by the end of the month.

Top Ten ways people get here:

  1. Google
  2. direct link
  3. Wikipedia (for my entry on the Legion animated show)
  4. the Comics Weblog Update-A-Tron 3000
  5. Legion World message boards
  6. The Legion Clubhouse news/info site
  7. Blogger
  8. Comics Should Be Good! (old site)
  9. ToonZone forums (discussion on the animated show)
  10. The Absorbascon

My top Ten search engine queries:
  1. Adventure 247
  2. Adventure247
  3. legion+of+superheroes+cartoon
  4. "ronn-karr"
  5. adventure+247+blog
  6. legion+of+super+heroes+animated
  7. adventure+247
  8. legion+of+super+heroes+jlu
  9. legion+of+super+heroes+cartoon
  10. "legion+of+super-heroes"+animated

You have to scroll all the way down to #121 for "Dude where's my pants", #192 for "Jessica Alba Nude", and #268 is "Tinya got her groove back". Everything else is a (relatively) normal search.

Top Ten highest hit counts:
  1. Feb. 18, 2006 (442) - first look at animated show concept art
  2. Apr. 2, 2006 (433) - Warren Ellis-related April Fool's Day joke
  3. Apr. 1, 2006 (421) - more visitors from Ellis
  4. Apr. 26, 2006 (384) - Wil Wheaton's audition
  5. Sept. 23, 2006 (374) - animated show premiere
  6. Apr. 25, 2006 (372) - official announcement of animated show
  7. June 23, 2006 (362) - Newsarama link to licensing show info about Superboy/Superman swap
  8. July 11, 2006 (356) - animated show updates
  9. May 3, 2006 (349) - Wil Wheaton announced as voice of Cosmic Boy
  10. Sept. 30, 2006 (349) - animated show episode 1.02

Thanks to my loyal readers for keeping me afloat for this past year. It's been fun and I hope to have more of the same for the next year.

Trivia #5

More trivia, with bonus added calendar-related material...

1. A question in honor of Election Day - who would Dr. Mayavale have voted for in the 1952 US Presidential Election?

2. Another Election Day question - which Legionnaires were involved in planetary-level politics? Whose parents were?

3. In honor of the upcoming Veterans' Day/Remembrance Day, which Legionnaires were war veterans?

4. The LSV had a character named Chameleon Chief, who despite his Durlan appearance could not have been one because his power was very different than a normal Durlan's. What was his power?

5. In Adventure 300, how did Saturn Girl develop Serum XY-4, a temporary antidote for poisoning by lead radiation, to let Mon-el out of the Phantom Zone for a while?
a) She used Brainy's Potential-Factors Reorganizer Complex to soften his fate by bisecting and multiplying his urgal psytrops, which temporarily counteracted his lead poisoning.
b) With her super thought casting power, she was in telepathic contact with Mon-el while he was in the Phantom Zone. Mentally, she diagnosed the harm done to his body and figured out what chemical elements would counteract his lead poisoning.
c) She used some negative id elements complicated by F-type ancestral karmatics to zero out the mechano-tracers that sought to recondition his reflexes, which temporarily counteracted his lead poisoning.
d) She initiated the shield grid and reconfigured it to emit a deflector pulse using the auxiliary deflector array in the saucer section. Then she reconfigured the deflector dish to emit an anti-chroniton pulse, which temporarily counteracted his lead poisoning.

6. Put these pre-Zero Hour events in chronological order.
a) Brainiac 5 frames Ultra Boy for the murder of An Ryd.
b) Brainiac 5 creates the Infinite Man in a botched experiment.
c) Brainiac 5 creates a Supergirl sex robot.
d) Brainiac 5 creates Computo which goes on a rampage, killing a Legionnaire.
e) Brainiac 5 nearly destroys LSH HQ with a piece of a white dwarf star.
f) Brainiac 5 cures Danielle Foccart, but blows up the LSH HQ.
g) Brainiac 5 creates Omega which goes on a rampage, goes insane, and is indirectly responsible for blowing up the LSH HQ.

Answers in a few days.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Vote!

If you don't vote, you shouldn't get to complain.

(P.S. Don't vote for Desai!)





    Presidents of Earth/EarthGov, Pre-Crisis:
  • ??? ???? - Jul 2978: name unknown (assassinated in office by Universo)
  • Jul 2978 - Oct 2983: Kandru Boltax
  • Oct 2983 - Nov 2985: Marte Allon
  • Nov 2985 - Nov 2989: Mojai Desai
  • Nov 2989 - Apr 2995: Tayla Wellington (re-elected 2991; assassinated in office by Dominators)
  • Apr 2995 - May 2995: none
  • May 2995 - Jun 2995: Jacques Foccart (appointed after Earth's liberation; resigned)
  • Jun 2995 - Sep 2995: Troy Stewart (in office at Zero Hour)

    Presidents of EarthGov, Post-Zero Hour
  • ~2980 (start/end unknown): Malcolm Thawne
  • ~2994 - 2995: Jeanne Chu
  • 2995 - 3000: R. J. Brande
  • 3000 - 3001: Leland McAuley (killed in office by Ra's al Ghul)
  • 3001 - ????: Winema Wazzo (in office at Infinite Crisis, 3001)

    Presidents of EarthGov, Post-Zero Hour
  • unknown

Monday, November 06, 2006

Big name voices?

According to an article in the Los Angeles Daily News, some big names are doing guest voices on some Kids WB shows.

IF THE VOICE SOUNDS FAMILIAR: What do Jerry O'Connell, Serena Williams, Brandon Routh, Brooke Shields and Louis Gossett Jr. have in common besides being famous and successful? They're doing guest voices this fall on Kids' WB shows. ... And we're told "Legion of Super Heroes" and "Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" will be featuring some big names ahead as well.

We already know (here and here) that Wil Wheaton will be the voice of Cosmic Boy for the last three episodes. Wonder if he's who they're talking about, or if there will be more?

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Fashion Inaction - and Ringo on the Legion?

Apparently it's some big costume weekend or something, maybe in honor of Halloween.

  • From Queer Legion (QL): Cos's Costume Cavalcade

  • Blockade Boy's redesign of new costumes (the Legion of Substitute Costumes) for Spider-Girl, Polecat, and Chlorophyll Kid

  • Finally, and most interestingly, it sounds as if artist Mike "Ringo" Wieringo could have been the artist on the current series instead of Barry Kitson. According to post #298 on Ringo's Daily Rambles (which accompanies a nifty image of the Grell-era Lightning Lad):
    Back when I was in discussions with DC about going over with Mark Waid to work on their planned LEGION relaunch book when Mark was removed from FANTASTIC FOUR by Bill Jemas, I went out and bought a bunch of the LEGION ARCHIVES books.
    ...
    So anyway-- here's a sketch of LIGHTING LAD in his Cockrum-designed duds. It's a hoot to draw the character-- and especially with the hair styles and mutton chops that were so prevalent in 1970's comics characters. Fun stuff.

    He goes on a bit about the reprint collections and how they're great for people who have too many comics, plus he talks about the Cockrum and Grell issues in the Archives, which inspired the sketch.

    Did anyone else know that it might have been Wieringo instead of Kitson?

    If you scroll down a bit to entry #291 (I can't figure out how to link directly to a page on his site), you'll see Mike's take on the 1970s Karate Kid as well.



Previously: Fashion Inaction from Cosmic Boy, Night Girl, Phantom Girl/Stargrave/Laurel Kent, Colossal Boy/Cosmic Boy

Animated season 2: No Darkseid

In case you missed it, series Story Editor Rob Hoegee posted here the other day with an update to the 10/29 Comics Continuum article that said

a source indicated to The Continuum that a second season for the series is "a good possibility." If a second season happens, Darkseid might be a major villain.

In a comment here, Rob said
No Darkseid in season 2. Sorry to spoil your speculation fun.

A source close to production told me that there's still no official word on Season 2 yet.

Episode 1.06: Phantoms

Here's my weekly review roundup. It's nice to have another new episode, since we just had the third airing of "Timber Wolf" in reruns. It's the first of three all-new episodes (these three will air in reverse production order, so this was production episode 1.06 but the 4th to air).

That Drax was creepy with a capital KREE. A number of people are suggesting he's involved somehow with General Zod from the Phantom Zone; we did see someone there who looked somewhat like him (as well as Doomsday and Faora) but nobody came out and said it for certain.

Lots of interesting items in the script, stuff that the target audience (6-11) would get but stuff that we do:
1. Why does Brainy keep a lead sphere with kryptonite handy? Is he expecting something?
2. What happened to Drax's monsters at the end? Drax went back to the Phantom Zone, but one monster was last seen tied up by Timber Wolf and Phantom Girl, the other was toying with Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad.
3. Computo is the name of the computer system running the LSH HQ. Nope, nothing wrong with that name!
4. Was Drax "born" in the human sense (mom and dad, baby growing up) or was he created? He said he was born in the Zone but time doesn't really move for those in the Zone.
5. Drax is nearly identical genetically to Superman - they're related? Drax is a clone?

Here are the torrents for the hi-def and regular versions of the episode.

On to this week's commentaries:

  • Rokk Krinn of the Comic Book Revolution, who liveblogged the episode again:
    All right, this was another great episode. This was a nicely paced action packed episode. Plus, we got a little more insight into Phantom Girl’s character as this episode fleshed out her personality a bit more. I really dig Phantom Girl’s character. She reminds me of Summer Roberts from the O.C.
    ...
    I only have two very minor complaints. One, that I hope we see are more Legionnaires. ... The second is where in the world was Chuck?

  • Posters at the ToonZone forum have some interesting points and commentary. Apparently the Phantom Zone projector from an episode of Superman: The Animated Series looks just like the one from this episode, and Drax's pet monsters bear more than a passing resemblance to Bizarro's "pet" in another episode. Also some speculation that Drax might be a brainwashed Mon-el (immunity to kryptonite), or a cross between Bizarro and General Zod.

  • Matthew at the Legion Abstract raises some very interesting and complex questions about Brainiac 5.
    But [the kryptonite is] another indicator that Brainy's done a lot of thinking about his relationship with Superman. This is something I don't recall being explored in any depth in any other versions of the Legion. Clearly Brainy wants the two of them to be friends--he is, after all, relieved that the Kryptonite got sucked into the Phantom Zone with Drax. But he also thought it necessary to have it in the first place.

    He analyzes Brainy's behavior over the last few episodes and offers a suggestion as to why he specifically targeted the point in time where they met Superman:
    Brainy intentionally set the Legion's encounter with Superman at a point in history when there was no way that Superman would recognize the name 'Brainiac'. He didn't want things ruined by Superman's experience with his evil ancestor. And it worked. But that's a tricky thing to keep not only from Superman, but also from the rest of the Legion, and I'd be shocked if this didn't all come out in a future episode.

    Matthew was also the first one that I noticed who pointed out that the hellhounds were never both taken into custody, since Drax left without them.

  • Jeffrey Bridges at Superman Homepage:
    On the whole this was a pretty good episode.

    Again the absolute highlight was the action and battle sequences, which probably made up 75% or more of the episode. I can't say enough how creative and fun to watch they are. They're still the best part about the show, I think.

    The story was good, if sparse, but there's a lot of unanswered questions. I'm guessing this is because Drax, and whoever he was talking to (Zod? He *did* have a "Z" on his chest, after all) will appear again in a later episode.

    If so then I have no problems with it, but if we never see or hear from Drax again I'll have to revise my stance on that.
    ...
    Regardless, it was still a lot of fun to watch and as long as they continue the Drax story in a future episode I'll be quite pleased.

    Just leave the deus ex machina endings in the Phantom Zone, okay guys?

  • Lizard_SF's Xanga review:
    [Drax is] apparently the child of Phantom Zone criminals, born in the Zone, which opens up a whole can of worms which will never be addressed on a kids TV show, such as, "How do phantoms have sex?" and "If you could live forever and there was nothing to do but have sex and all the available women were Kryptonian dominatrix uber-hotties, what kind of hideous crime would you commit in order to get that sort of 'punishment'?"
    ...
    Overall, a solid episode, and evidence that this series is strongest when telling their own stories.

  • James You Ignorant Scut's LJ page:
    Okay, this on was pretty good, although why "Drax" was running around with a big Z on his chest is beyond me. ... I can’t say that I was happy to see that the Science Police don’t like the Legion as I think this should have been part of the basic set-up and introduced well before now. It was a jarring aspect of the story and didn’t wring true. I still think that the animation could be better, although I can get past it as long as the quality of the writing holds true. ... And it would be really nice if they were to start cycling in some of the other team members as well.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Toywatch: Battle Dice cancelled

Update 11pm: added response from Matt Forbeck



You may recall earlier this year that the Battle Dice game from Playmates Toys was going to provide some Legionnaires in DC waves 3 and 4. Unfortunately, Playmates decided to cancel the game with Marvel wave 2 and no DC heroes will be released.

Here's the list of what was supposed to be waves 1-4 of the DC set. Livewire, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy were to have been in DC wave 3, while wave 4 would have had Brainiac 5.1 and Ultra Boy (plus someone namd Thunder, but no idea if that was the Legionnaire, the Teen Titan, or someone else).

No word on whether any DC heroes made it into production or not, and I don't know (yet) whether any prototypes exist.
I asked the game's designer Matt Forbeck whether any wave 3 or 4 figures might exist as production figures or even prototypes. He replied:
I’m not in the Playmates office, so I can’t say for sure. However, I don’t believe any prototypes ever got back the first wave for DC Battle Dice. There could have been a few Wave 2 figures, but I’d be surprised to learn any Wave 3 or 4 figures were sculpted. Sorry!

For more on Battle Dice, check out Matt Forbeck's site, or the Popdice fan site and its forum.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Vs. System CCG update

Previously: updates in July and October.

  • Information on some of the cards in the Legion deck that comes out next month for the Vs. System CCG, via the TCGPlayer.com and VSRealms.com message boards: among those getting cards are XS, the Time Trapper, Superboy, Mordru, Computo, and the Fatal Five (either as a team or individually). The stats are meaningless to me but check out the pages if you're interested in how they play. Apparently the new issue of Inquest has the info, sounds like it's out this week.

  • VSRealms.com has a forum set up "for collection and discussion of all the DLS(?) previews from around the net!" but as of this moment, it's empty.

  • Here's a list of the known cards in numerical order.

  • This thread on VSRealms found a couple of images from former Legion cover artist Tom Feister that Tom says will be in the set: Flight Ring and Mon-el (or M'Onel, based on the costume).

    Flight Ring by *gatchatom on deviantART


    Mon-El by *gatchatom on deviantART