Bits of Legionnaire Business
Bits of Legionnaire Business...
- Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep!!, on Action Comics Annual 11:
No, the sad fact is, right now Geoff Johns is the horse pulling the DC Universe cart, and whatever he says, goes. He IS DC continuity right now, no matter what anybody else writes. What he wants to happen for the Legion is what's going to happen, period, and now it looks like Jim Shooter is being booted off in favor of Johns. Johns has his pet theories about the "emotional spectrum" in Green Lantern, and now much of DC ret-conned to reflect that. He wanted the pre-Crisis Superman back, so he waves his wand and huzzah--with no notice or explanation young Clark Kent hung with the Legion, all colors of Kryptonite are back in play, etc. And if he wants to banish certain characters to the Phantom Zone, well, why the hell should he bother to inform Kurt Busiek, anyway?
Remember...DC doesn't have continuity, it has wikinuity. And Geoff Johns is the one with the eraser.
BONUS KONTINUITY KOP PREDICTION:
Hmmm...Young Chris Kent is trapped in the Phantom Zone for the foreseeable future. Geoff Johns is writing the Legion of 3 Worlds, and probably taking over the regular Legion title. Hmmm, do I smell a way to introduce a NEW Superboy to the Legion, one who is not Clark Kent and thus maybe not subject to the strictures of current legal proceedings?? You read it here first... - From the DC Nation panel at last weekend's Emerald City ComicCon in Seattle:
Another audience member jokingly asked if Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman were Skrulls. This led to Didio jumping off the podium to assist the fan with his questions after noticing the fan was carrying a whole sheet of questions.
Busiek, however, was willing to entertain the fan’s question and responded, “The answer to your question is that Iron Man is a Durlan.”
With regards to “DC Universe” #0, one audience member stated that they had difficulty following it, as it was so entrenched in continuity. The fan then asked if DC would be putting out more books that were “new reader”-friendly. Didio responded the Straczynki’s run on “Brave and the Bold” would be fulfilling that purpose, and turned the microphone over to the writer.
“In taking over the ‘Brave and the Bold’ for DC, what I want to do is make it a sampler platter for those who want to sample the DC Universe. They’re going to be standalone stories - at most two issue arcs, but mostly one issue arcs to try to bring together people who we haven’t seen a whole lot working together in the course of the DC Universe.”
Straczynski then went on to list some of his planned team-ups for the series, and it was quite a list: Batman and the (Jim Corrigan) Spectre, Lex Luthor and Swamp Thing, Deadman and Wonder Woman, Flash (Barry Allen) and the Blackhawks, Batman and Dial H for Hero, Constantine and Eclipso, Doom Patrol and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superman and Sgt. Rock, Two-Face and Hawk and Dove, Challengers of the Unknown and the Metal Men, and the Legion of Substitute Heroes and the Inferior Five.
The audience applauded loudly in approval at the last pairing. - CBR's Urban Legends Revealed covers Jim Shooter's return to the Legion the first time, in the early 1970s, as a result of an interview in the original Legion Outpost fanzine.
- The Platinum edition of Wizard #200 (but not the Gold edition) Wizard has a preview (the first five pages) of "Legion of 3 Worlds". Holy crap, check out that cover! Sweeeet.
- More lists: Den of Geek's 10 Comic Book Characters Who Should Never Make It To Film (including Arm-Fall-Off Boy) and Cracked's The 6 Creepiest Comic Book Characters of All Time (including Proty I).
- John Seavy looks at the Legion as a Storytelling Engine, those "variety of different elements that act to help the writer in generating ideas for stories", such as an instantly accessible premise and identifiable character names.
- DC Universe #0 has a second printing coming out on May 28, same day as Final Crisis #1. The new cover has new Perez art on the Legion section (but I haven't seen it yet). Newsarama talked with Geoff Johns about the issue.
- Although it's been cancelled, the animated Legion cartoon got Daytime Emmy nominations for Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Music Direction and Composition.
- Paul and John Review the Time Trapper (Not Approved), except for one instance which you'll have to see for yourself.
- The Spring 2008 issue of the San Diego Comic Con's magazine has a "History 101" on the Legion. For those of you who didn't know, the Legion's 50th Anniversary is a theme this year.
- Comics Should Be Good recently ran a reader's poll on the top 100 comic runs. The Legion made it twice: the Giffen/Bierbaum run at #44 and the Levitz/Giffen run at #29.
- Major Spoilers has their latest Hero History up, this one covering the White Witch.
- Progressive Ruin looks at some early 70s stories in a Legion-palooza: why does Clark really knock out Lana with those apples, the metaphysics of time travel, and being space-crazy.
- Christopher "Mighty God King" Bird's reasons #39 (Shadow Lass and The Shade) and #40 (Saturn Girl is the biggest badass on the team) on why he should write the Legion.
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11 comments:
"Remember ... DC doesn't have continuity, it has wikinuity. And Geoff Johns is the one with the eraser."
That's the best (and funniest) pop-neologism I've seen in years! Kudos to Slay!
O'course, it doesn't make much sense unless one pairs "continuity" and "wikinuity," and there's not as much of a charge out of it if one isn't a comics fan, but, still ... it's inspired word coinage.
I love Geoff's work with GL, loved his Action LSH issues; but I hate what's he's done to Clark Kent and his present-day cast. I've got a rant on the backburner, waiting to be written.
As for that L3W cover, I peed my self a little.... Though I can't see Quislet :<
I'm a bit perplexed by Slay's comments as well. The only time I've heard Geoff Johns directly address his involvement with the Legion (in a Newsarama interview) he said, "I’d love to write more Legion after this sometime. Maybe a Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes book."
Which at least for now, would be distinct from Jim Shooter's title. When specifically asked about Shooter, he said, "Jim Shooter is a legend to the Legion, Francis Manipul is doing a fantastic job alongside him, of course, they’ll be in this."
Personally, I'm just thrilled someone's finally trying to make some sense of the series of Legion reboots that have left me somewhat confused over the years...
Bart--
I'm not referring to any particular comment Geoff Johns made; rather, I was talking about the pattern his writing has shown.
In two of the biggest books he has been writing, Action and JSA, he's mananged to work in his version of the Legion (and in Action he managed to tie into his Green Lantern story). He and DiDio like to call it "the original Legion," but the costumes/membership sure aren't consistent with that. But whatever...
He then establishes that the current Legion is not the one Super(boy)man hung with...meaning Shooter's Legion is from some alternate timeline, and hence not the "real" Legion.
He then spends *7* issues of Action on a Legion story. This is no passing fancy...constantly featuring them in one of DC's flagship titles, with alternate covers and all, gets "his" Legion far, far more exposure than Shooter's run has ever been given by DC.
And despite his assertion that "of course, they'll [Shooter and Manipul] be in it," A) They're of course not involved whatsoever in LO3W, and B)It's not credible at this time that DC would publish a *second* ongoing Legion title (third if you count the Johnny DC book). So if his "Superman and the Legion" book comes about, it has to be at the expense of Shooter's book, as opposed to being distinct from it. And coupled with the (so far unconfirmed) reports that Shooter is off the Legion about a dozen issues earlier than planned, it looks like that's exactly what happened.
I have no quarrel with Johns, nor am I particulary defending Shooter's run. And I certainly wasn't accusing him of any chicanery. But it's been pretty obvious that he desperately wants to write the Legion, and it looks as if DC is giving him what he wants.
And I hope you realize that "making some sense of the series of Legion reboots" almost inevitably will result in...another reboot.
Which leaves us in another reboot nightmare. Or (as I might think it will be the case) Action Legion will start from where the AC run ended. Does it make sense to think that the Action Comics Legion was the team around the first Crisis?
ricardo--
The Action Legion, when they showed up in JLA/JSA Lightning Saga, had a team that featured Karate Kid and Sensor Girl simultaneously. This was followed up in Countdown by Karate Kid dying in the past on an alternate Eart.
Since the original pre-Crisis Legion featured a)Karate Kid dying in the future soon before Crisis b)and dying well before Projectra became Sensor Girl, and c)she didn't become Sensor Girl until AFTER Crisis...I don't know where the heck Johns' "continuity" stands, although it sure seems to be contradciting his claim that this was the 'original" Legion...
In one of the issues, one of the Legionnaires made a comment referring to the fact that KK had come back, as in that he was dead, but got better. This has not yet been explained.
There were other retcons, some of which can easily be explained, such as Wildfire's suit being related to Red Tornado (this was a new suit that incorporated technology from Red Tornado that his old suits didn't have) and Dream Girl's powers being related to The Dreaming ("hey Nura, did you know that the Naltorian dreaming power is related to The Dreaming?" "No, how about that!").
The whole of the Legion series after Crisis up through the Mordruverse reboot can probably still be considered in continuity, with the exceptions of only a few stories (the Conspiracy 4-parter for example).
Michael--one problem with the "Up to the Mordruverse soft reboot in continuity" idea: Blok. Yeah, I guess he could have been, er, put back together again, but he was destroyed before Mon-El punched out the Trapper, wasn't he?
I think we're dealing with an alternate Legion where selected things after Crisis happened (up to, but not including the Conspiracy, say, or maybe all the way to the Magic Wars) and other things didn't. And then, adventures we never saw continued for the past X years. I think Johns has essentially said just that, hasn't he?
In other words, I think v4 fans might be out of luck here. (Which I'm kind of ok with; I liked the first year of v4 a lot, but felt it sort of collapsed after that.)
So it is not far-fetched to think that Johns chose a version of the LSH that is quite probably the one around the time COIE happened, right? You heard me first...
As for the v4 fans - we don't expect anything for almost 15 years... Except for a new LSH adult book in that vein, with chronology/real time working...
I believe it was in the most recent Action (or JSA) that Starman (who's been established as the Thom Kallor of both the pre-Crisis Legion AND Kingdom Come made a comment to the effect of "Karate Kid is dead . . . AGAIN!" and that Thom's seeming "madness" is from his mind trying to assimilate information that Nura gave him about the future (not from, say, eating a Miracle Machine. But I digress . . . )
I'm thinking that Johns' explanation as to how the Action Legion and the Pre-COIE Legion are the same will be that the Time Trapper has been "playing" with their history and that things that seemed to be in continuity have been fluid (which is a better explanation for me than "it's magic") so that some characters can come back from the dead (to be killed off by Keith Giffen more than once).
Maybe it's because I'm about Geoff Johns' age and I grew up with the same stories as he did, but I really disagree with Slay's comments about it being a bad thing that Johns IS DC continutiy right now. Unlike a lot of what came after COIE, I feel that Johns has enough respect for DC history to be able to move it forward without having to s#it all over the past.
Feh, Blok is there, but no Quislet!!!
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