Festivus, which originated on an episode of "Seinfeld" in 1997, is a non-denominational holiday celebrated on Dec. 23 (or sometimes earlier, to avoid the Christmas rush). Instead of a tree, a simple unadorned aluminum pole is displayed, in opposition to the highly decorated Christmas trees. Two of the main elements of the holiday that involve people are the annual Airing of Grievances and the Feats of Strength. There are Festivus Miracles too, but they're not officially required.
So to celebrate, here are my list of Legion grievances. Please add your own in the comments, but remember they only can cover calendar year 2009 (so no whining about anything that happened last year). In no particular order:
- The first two are leftover grievances from 2008:
- The Superboy lawsuit is STILL not settled.
- Whatever happened to that Jim Lee/Paul Levitz Legion story that was supposed to come out months ago? Delayed until sometime in 2009, so I've heard, but nothing specific.
- The Legion is reduced to a backup strip for the first time since the early 1970s.
- In the Smallville episode, the Legionnaires saying: "The only way to stop Chloe is to kill her."
- The end of Final Crisis #6 had L1 Brainiac 5 showing the Miracle Machine to Superman. Not only had the Miracle Machine been eaten years before, but this scene was not seen or even referenced in L3W.
- Not only that the Legion v5 book was cancelled, not only that the Final Crisis/L3W story forced Jim Shooter's story to get cut by four issues, but also that Shooter either walked out on the last issue and forced a ghost writer or chose to use a pseudonym to close out the series.
- The latest retelling of the story of how Superman/boy joined the Legion lost the intention of the original story, how Clark Kent had to audition for a spot (even though it was all a joke). Now, they just asked him to join.
- It took 11 months for the 5-issue monthly L3W to come out.
Now to temper the List of Grievances, we also have some Festivus Miracles:
- George Perez. STILL on the Legion, even if L3W is delayed.
- The Legion on Smallville. The Legion. ON LIVE-ACTION TV. By Geoff Johns. And it's one of the highest rated and most-liked episodes of the season.
- Mon-El in a starring role in the Superman titles.
- The return of Adventure Comics, featuring (at least for now) the Legion.
- The return of R.E.B.E.L.S.
- Action figures!
- I hit my 1000th post.
- Paul Levitz will return to be the full-time writer on the Legion. The internet broke in half at the news that he was leaving DC Corporate.
- L3W returning all 3 Legions
The last of the Festivus traditions is the Feats of Strength, in which the guests wrestle with and try to pin the host to the floor. I think I've been doing that all year long with my trivia (see past quizzes here), but here are three bonus questions for you to wrestle with.
- Which Legion-related heroes and villains have been shown on both live-action and animated form?
- Who said this, and what were the circumstances? "Mmm... this is nice! I must kiss her again!!"
- Where did we see the Jaguar Court?
1.Which Legion-related heroes and villains have been shown on both live-action and animated form?
ReplyDeleteLive action: the Persuader and Braniac, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy.
Animated: We've seen almost all of the classic Legion and Substitutes, the Fatal Five, Tyroc (as well as several members of the Legion of Super Villans under the name of Light Speed Vanguard), Mordru, the Sun Eater, the Controllers.
No, Al, I didn't mean which have we seen animated and which have we seen live, I mean which Legion people have been seen in BOTH formats.
ReplyDeleteMiracles
ReplyDelete1) Getting to meet George Perez and get some stories re: Lo3W.
2) All the hard work keeping this website such a great source for info.
3) The LSH chronology at the cosmic teams website.
Strength
1) Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Mordru, Pete Ross, and Persuader. Insect Queen (?)
2) Superman kissing Saturn Woman in an adult LSH story
1) supergirl, superboy (clark), saturn girl, the persuader, lightning lad, Mordru (I believe he sang, I havent seen it), cosmic boy. Brainiac and lex luthor depending on your 'legion villain' mileage. Brainiac 5 if you count the ball in smallville that will become him.
ReplyDelete2) superman after kissing saturn woman at a legion christmas party.
Since no one has tackled #3 yet, the Jaguar Court was seen in the Five years later Legion Annual #1, where Ultra Boy entered a nonaggression pact with them even though they were allied with Mordru, thus preventing the Legion from facing Mordru before they were prepared to beat him.
ReplyDeleteMartian Manhunter has also been seen live and animated. Barely Legion-related.
ReplyDelete3) Legion Annual #2 Allies of Mordru.
ReplyDeleteI would modify one of your Festivus Miracles, to what I hope and believe to be to the joy of many:
ReplyDeleteL3W returning all four Legions
I count the "Five Years Later" edition as now being in its own universe out of the 52. Where Zero Hour never brought their adventures to a halt.
right at the end of the year: Mordru in the 21st century!
ReplyDeleteMordru was in the live action series on a jet ski! THis was the most obscure of the live action vilians unless you open the Bat-Book due to the 2oth cent stint in the old batcave -and or if they fought pengy et al in COIE then they are all animated and live action.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to push a campaign for WW and the Legion. Imagine B5 falling for Athena:)
About that Levitz/lee story - that might be in the new Secret origins that is being published before/during Braniac and the Legion and before Levitz takes over on Adv,
LLL
Erik