It's a decent time to be a Legion fan these days. I mean, you have two to choose from!
Been going over some Legion forums and checking out sales charts on both current versions of the my favourite future super team. So what do we have?
In Action Comics right now, we have what I call the Levitz Legion--the 'adult Legion' I remember from the Eighties. My Legion. Geoff Johns is doing a superb job with this story,giving the entire book a true Legion feel. And it has Dawnstar. Gary Franks does a very, very good Dawnstar. That alone makes this title worth picking up. And the sales seem to reflect this--Action Comics # 861 sold 56,000 copies. Pretty solid. Still, Buffy the Vampire Slayer outsells it, which I type only because I never envisaged a point in my life where I would do so.
Over in the other Legion--the titular Legion of Super-Heroes--we finally have a writer there who isn't trying to reinvent the wheel only to make it a more cooler wheel. Jim Shooter may have his detractors, but since I've never had to work for him, I'm not one of them. He is a solid writer, and after the stumbles and disappointments of the WKRP version of this Legion, it's nice to actually feel like I'm reading a proper Legion book again. The sales aren't as great as Action, coming in around 33,000--but that can be attributed to Johns' star power and the steady core of fans who buy anything with Superman in it. Sadly, it's still the WKRP Legion, but Shooter writes it as if it's the Levitz Legion. I can almost imagine him asking to do his own, proper version, being told 'no', then just doing his best to ignore the whole 'teen rebellion' aspect.
You see, I don't think Waid and Kitson ever really got it. The Legion isn't about irony. It isn't about Ultra Boy banging Triplicate Girl. It's about a super powered team of friends who border at times on the ludicrous, but are all the more awesome for that. Look at Ultra Boy, for example: he's a guy who has all of Superman's powers, but can only use one at at a time. That's ludicrous--if you take as a base that having all of Superman's powers at all isn't. And that's why it's awesome.
Same with Stone Boy, one of the worst...I mean...more challenging Substitute Heroes. A guy who can turn into rock, but doesn't do anything after that. Or Arm Fall Off Boy. Or Chlorophyll Kid, who thinks he can talk to plants but can't. That's the Legion. Having Saturn Girl's people lose the ability to speak because they're telepathic isn't. That's just ludicrous, with no fun factor involved.
And that, dear readers, is why the WKRP version of the Legion never failed to gel with me. Mark Waid--who I admire as a writer--tried to hammer the Legion into something it isn't.
For now, we have Geoff Johns and Jim Shooter, who do get it.
Me, I'm just enjoying it while it lasts.
3 comments:
Dude, one booboo in your otherwise-excellent post I could just overlook, but this one has *gasp* at least two of them! How can this happen, you rightly ask? I wish I knew, although I'm inclined to blame it on that $1000/day Listerine habit of yours.
So first off, I loved your comment about Ultra Boy, but then you totally palmed the ball by saying "can only use one at at a time"... yeah, it's that annoying "double at" that, let's face it, eventually wrecked Hemingway's writing career. Don't let it end yours!
Then there's the statement about "why the WKRP version of the Legion never failed to gel with" you. "Never failed to gel?" So it gelled with you every time? So you're, like, the # 1 fan of the WKRP version of the Legion? Wow, I totally didn't see that one coming from the way you were knocking Waid's LSH earlier! :-)
Not quite a booboo but still a missed opportunity was your description of how Stone Boy can "turn into rock but doesn't do anything after that"... it's not so much that he doesn't do anything as it is that he's petrified in the literal sense! The dude can't move a muscle on account of those muscles being... well, solid as a rock!
I also think you missed the boat a little bit on what Waid was trying to do with the Legion. He honestly thought that he was taking what had appealed about the Legion in the 60s and updating it for the 21st century, not trying to hammer it into something different. The fact that some of the ideas in those Legion stories were intentionally ludicrous was pretty groundbreaking for straight-up superhero comics back then, and so every re-tread since then has kind of missed out on that, playing it kind of safe. I'll give you that Mark's latest Legion didn't work, but I can't fault him for his intentions at doing something that stands out from the crowd.
Other than those quibbles (!), I loved your review. I was surprised you didn't mention the third Legion currently in comics, which of course is the series set in the cartoon universe, though! Who would ever have believed the LSH could have this much exposure at once! And there's still a big Legion story coming, to explain away why there are two versions of them running around in the main DCU right now.
It's a great time to be a Legion of Super-Heroes fan right now!
When I was a tousled-haired young lad during the Silver Age, 'Saturn Girl' was pretty hot.
I think the plump guy in the group, 'Bouncing Boy,' who fought interplanetary injustice by turning into a big round bouncing ball, secretly wanted to bounce up and down on Saturn Girl.
Or Lana Lang for that matter. But then, who didn't?
You're right--I should have caught those errors, Matt.
Thanks for the thoughts on the Waid-Kitson Legion. I can see that's what Waid intended for the WKRP Legion, but that purity of intent was ruined by what I felt was an untenable premise: that an entire generation of 'adults' would be so in love with conformity that a 'teenage rebellion' would occur on the level that Waid envisioned. Sure, it's an extrapolation of teenage rebellion, but I'm not sure that it's a basis for a superhero team. It made the Legion out to be snotty assholes. Again, part of my problem was this need to reinvent the Legion yet again, since I still thought the Abnett-Lanning Legion still had years of decent storylines in them, and was there anything ever really wrong with the Levitz version?
I thought about including the cartoon version of the LSH, but geek reasoning took precedence. Since that version doesn't occur in the mainstream DCU, I left it out. Which isn't to say it isn't enjoyable--I've read a few issues, and it's not bad. You're right--who would ever think so much Legion would be available? Good days indeed.
As for the next big Legion event, I'm doing my best to remain unspoiled.
Sonny--Saturn Girl is my favourite, so I won't argue her sexiness. I refer you to the Abnett-Lanning run to see some very fine examples of her pulchritude. The entire page dedicated to her...ummm...'assets'...remains a Legion favourite among many fans.
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