Superman and the Legion (updated)

Apparently I stopped reading this ComicBloc thread too soon.

According to Geoff Johns, we haven't seen the last of the Lightning Saga Legion, as mentioned at the cons over the weekend:

You'll see more of them soon...

...it's called SUPERMAN AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES.

We'll find out more today at Newsarama, and of course we'll update this. A change in the Supergirl/LSH title, or a whole 'nother title with a whole 'nother group?

(hat tip: Scott at Legion Clubhouse)

Over at Newsarama, they've got a "post-game wrapup" with Johns and Meltzer. They discuss the JLA/JSA/LSH crossover, how it all came about, how they were originally going to do it One Year Later, how Countdown dovetailed into it, how the return of the Flash was conceived, and lots more. The newsy Legion bits:

NRAMA: ... Let's talk Legion of Super-Heroes. Wally wasn't the only one who came "back." When you were looking at how this story would end, how did you pick which Legion characters would stay behind?

GJ: I’d always planned on using Starman in Justice Society of America since my early discussions with Alex Ross about the book. Originally, we weren’t going to delve into Starman’s backstory as quickly, but since the crossover was happening earlier on and the original Legion was involved, we ended up focusing on him quite a bit more — which incidentally is fine with me. Thom’s become one of my favorite JSoA members in record time. And for that reason, I was always intent on keeping Starman in the Justice Society — and we needed him for our second major story arc "Thy Kingdom Come" (the prologue to that begins with #9). So Starman was always going to stay.

BM: I actually had planned to have Karate Kid return. But then they liked the idea of him being here as they were building Countdown, so he remained.

NRAMA: So if Geoff has always planned on using Starman, was that the reason for the Legion tie-in?

BM: The interesting part here is, I think I pitched Geoff the Legion part before I even knew that Starman was on JSA. His first reaction was, “oh, that’ll be perfect with Starman…” For awhile, we even plotted out that each Legion member would be “hidden” as a new character in seven different One Year Later books. So Dawnstar would be some character with wings in Teen Titans, and etc, etc. And that seemed cool. For a day. But in the end, it just seemed overly coincidental that every team had a new Legion-ish member and nobody noticed.

NRAMA: Now that we have a few members staying behind here in the current DCU, will we see the Legion again anytime soon?

GJ: Well, as I said earlier, Starman is a member of the Justice Society for the foreseeable future. And they’re moving Karate Kid into Countdown. But the Legion of Super-Heroes, the team that Superman spent time with when he was a teenager, have retreated back to the 31st century. What happened to them? Why are they reluctant to tell Superman? Why won’t they ask Superman for help? These are all questions that’ll be answered in "Superman and The Legion of Super-Heroes," which is Gary Frank’s first arc in Action Comics, beginning with issue #858.

We’ll find out what’s happened to the Legion since the first Crisis hit and why we haven’t seen them since then – but more importantly, it’s a story about how a man helps his childhood friends and how vital Superman and the Legion are to the future.

NRAMA: You dropped a hint about that Action storyline when you had the Legion members talking about "not telling Superman" about their future. Were there a lot of Easter eggs like that in this storyline? Things that will be followed up on later, in other stories?

BM: As with every issue we’ve done so far, there’re nuggets and hints for the future.

Go read the Newsarama article for more.

Hmmm... "We’ll find out what’s happened to the Legion since the first Crisis hit and why we haven’t seen them since then"? I thought that Paul Levitz (with Steve Lightle and Greg LaRocque) took care of that with issues 19-63 of the v3 series, and even Giffen/Bierbaum in the v4 series. Is that all being retconned away now? No Pocket Universe, Universo Project, Magic Wars, Black Dawn, Five Year Gap, Dominator Chambers, SW6 Legion, Legion on the Run, or Zero Hour?