Cancellation followups
“The Threeboot Legion never really lived up to its potential,” said Elmslie, who contributed to Timothy Callahan’s Teenagers From the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes. “Mark Waid, followed ably by [Tony] Bedard and Shooter, built a lot of strengths into it, including a plausible, well-conceived premise for the Legion’s place in the world, and the strongest and most subtle characterization the Legionnaires have ever had. (And Kitson’s art — followed ably by [Dennis] Calero and Manapul — was tremendous.) But the stories were too long and slow, the villains were mostly ciphers, and fans were split on whether Waid’s innovations were any good or not. Still, if we had to pick one of the three Legions to star in a comic book … the Threeboot version has the most story potential going forward.”
And remember how he said that Tony Bedard would be writing the Legion after Shooter's run was over? Oops, what he really meant was that Bedard would be writing a L.E.G.I.O.N. book. Slight difference.
In the wake of the “Legion Of Superheroes” cancellation LITG’d back here, I can confirm that Tony Bedard is writing a new “L.E.G.I.O.N” series based on the eighties/nineties series.
At that older link, he wrote:
More San Diego creator talk tells me that the Jim Shooter’s "Legion Of Super Heroes" title ends with issue #50.
It will be replaced with a new Tony Bedard LSH project, and the Levitz/Giffen Legion project will also see publication.
Here's what we discussed in this space at the time. And I'm sure that someone in the comments here noticed that issue 50 would be roughly concurrent with the end of L3W, so it's not like it was a major stretch to link the two.
NRAMA: ...Do you think the Legion will be around another 50 years from now?
JS: It wouldn’t surprise me. There’s something wonderful about this series. Even if it were to go away for a while, it’ll be back.
Think he might have been hinting at something?
...Not that DC canceling stuff or a Legion title biting the dust is ever news, but I had to wonder: how many times out in official fashion is that for this series? Six? Seven? Eight?
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9 comments:
Shooter did quit at the beginning of the year. He was meant to attend the Bristol Con with DC, but as a result, this didn't happen. However shortly afterwards he was talked back. Because he'd written enough in advance, no beat was missed.
This comes from a number of DC creators, including certain individuals involved with Legion books.
So, "so much actually".
And LSH/L.E.G.I.O.N. is splitting hairs in this context, surely?
Thanks for coming to my little corner of the blogosphere.
Regarding the Shooter situation, I just find it hard to believe that nobody else has come forward to confirm the story after all this time, even via anonymous sources. I have no reason to NOT believe you, I'm just skeptical due to the odd nature and sole source of the story.
But regardless, it's a moot point now anyway.
And as for LSH/L.E.G.I.O.N., I don't believe it's splitting hairs. Two different teams, one in the future and one in the present. That's like saying it would be splitting hairs for mixing up the JLA and JSA because they both have "Justice" and "America" in their names.
The legion mailing list is still around? Last time I tried to rejoin, Kynn's majordomo told me to go pound sand
Yes, there are several of them still around, all on Yahoogroups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Legion-List is basically the successor to the old LSH-L list, and has been around since 1999.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LSH-pics and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LegionPics are for posting pictures of Legion-related stuff.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klordny2020, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apa247, and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/APA-LSH are APA-related.
The following have various levels of discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Legion_3008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LegionFiction
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/legion_3004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelegionhq
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LegionOfSuperHeroesClubHouse
There are also a number of RPG-type groups. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/ to search.
I'd love more Vril Dox. actually screw L.E.G.I.O.N just give me the dox family in their own crazy book.
ridiculously different animals.
L.E.G.I.O.N. was a lame trendy attempt at tying the LSH to the 20th century DCU.
as a fairly AR legion completist, have finally judged them not worth collecting, save the lar, jo guest issues. we thought phase was tinya forever (who's who thought so too, but who's who also thought tyroc was actually from brigadoooooooooon). and i suppose that the jittery blob *IS* RJ, but really... is he RJ *enough*?
BAH! (wiggles antennae dismissively)
I think it was my observation that LSH #50 and 3 Worlds #5 and the last month of the 50th anniversary were all bunched up almost together. 3 Worlds has gained a skip month, which I think now puts its last issue just after LSH #50, which marks the whole thing as that much clearer of a setup.
Realizing that LSH #50 would occur at the end of the Legion's 50th anniversary leads me to think that some pieces of this were planned out five years ago. In particular, that Keith Champagne issue and the Gail Simone 4-issue story that closed out The Legion after DnA's last issue: bet you $5 that they were add-ons to make the 50's line up right.
I'm one of those like liked L.E.G.I.O.N. It was a lot darker and more mature and I've always considered it the "Adults" Legion, in contrast to the proper Legion which I consider as the teen/young adult Legion. There are many counter balances which seperte the two into a nice tasty bundle.
The LoSH is found on a group's ideas and the membes co-op on friendly terms, while L-DOTS is founded on a single person's idea with everyone else pulled into it regardless of what THEY want or think. L-DOTS can get away with allure, swearing, blood and death to a respectable levels while LoSH has to keep all that tamed to minium to avoid problems. Overall L-DOTS is a darker toned series while LoSH is of a lighter tone. L-DOTs also makes the reader believe that the universe is really hostle and shows the work the heroes of its day are up against whereas the LoSH shows the end product of a thousand years of progress.
Though primary I think the three characters that made L-DOTS (and I'd struggle to accept a new one without them) were Vril, Stealth and Lobo. If two of those three were in, thats fine. Without Stealth, Vril has no counter balance to his character who attempts to resist his dominate personnality. Without Vril, Stealth is too tarty/bitchy to be likeable. Those two on their own are good enough but without Lobo, you don't get the "random" tensions, you just get the "expected" tensions. Lobo's release in R.E.B.E.L. only worked because the storyline was kept intense and there were not many issues left after it in which the reader was allowed to grow to miss him.
I'd add a few characters to your list of who needs to be included in L.E.G.I.O.N.
You have to have Captain Comet, who is as much a balance to Vril as Stealth. And I'd like to think that one or both of the Beks ought to be included.
I'd quibble about Lobo, but agree that, like him or not, he added an interesting element to the book.
My only worry about the new L dot is that it's going to be overly Vril heavy. The last few appearances of L have pretty much been Vril walking on screen, snarking off and then walking off. We haven't really had a chance to see any of the other characters that make the concept really interesting to me.
murray
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