Legion of Super-Heroes - You Think You Know Comics? 

I some How feel like Batman Beyond was suppose to be on this team

How would you feel knowing that Bendis is writing the new current Legion book.

Long Live the Legion!

And Saturn Girl's name is Imra and she married Mon-El

@@bluescreen7669 No? She's married to Garth Ranzz. They have four kids, and in the continuities where they're too young to be married they're simply dating. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad are arguably the most iconic romance of the Legion, and Imra and Garth's marriage is one of the first of two superheroes on the same team to get married.

Yes, she married Lightning Lad.

At least you still have your old comic books. I had so many, plus other books and magazines, that I had to rent a 10x10' storage space. It was PACKED, side to side, front to back, and bottom to top. And someone broke into it and completely cleared it out!!! I had most of my Legion stuff still in my home, but the rest of it gone and unrecoverable.

@@jimgilbert9984 Sorry to read that. Actually, when my parents died, and we sold the house the collection went cheap. Still have all my old LSH comics though.

@@ScottSherman1 Thank you for your sympathy. As I've advised others asking about where they can read earlier LSH stories, I bought the "Showcase Presents" trade paperbacks featuring the Legion, as well as the hardcovers. I also have the new, HUGE compendium, "Five Years Later," which, of course, begins to chronicle the first reboot. And as I said, most of my Legion stuff was with me when the rest of my comics and other books were stolen.

Correct!

Nightcrawler was designed by Dave Cockrum for a Legion spinoff that didn't get purchased. He repurposed the character as an X-Man. The Storm design was also for this DC book, though not at all the same character.

They never did ! I found them superior to the rest. I started reading them in 62 and found them at the grocery store at the comic book stand. Along with FF4 and Metal Men.

I remember that and had the comics.

I used to get told off for saying it - Mum said it turned her stomach! 😄

OH MY GOD HES THE BEST ONE

***** yeah I don't blame the 50's/60's era DC, I blame the folks who decided to wait until the Zero Hour (pun not intended) to reboot the Legion. Instead of right after COIE like every other DC book.

***** Okay, now I'm divided on the whole thing, not because of the Supergirl/Brainiac 5 stuff, but because you basically said that the Anti-Monitor was probably never a real threat to the future to begin with. IDK if I like that.

***** AAAAAAAAAARGH!!! (time travel hurts my brain)

Yeah, which worked for the most part. I personally think they should have just brought back Laurel Kent and rolled both characters into her.

D.C. Stranded you haven't met the inhumans

Me 😭

NOT John Byrne!!! He did well with the Fantastic Four, but he completely screwed up Superman. Everything he did eventually was undone because it was so horrible!

Man I am with you and everything you said up to Silver Surfer. They were hard to get ! Very hard and so I went grocery shopping with my mother so I could go to the comic book stand. I had the same FF 4 with Silver Surfer. Hey I also had the 1st X-Men. YES I remember Dr. Fate !!! He was one of my favorites and was hard to find back then. Wasn't he a member of the Justice Society on Earth 2 ??? We have to be the same age ! Remember the Metal Men ? What a great comic. I also liked Dial H for Hero. I enjoyed teams the most. You can buy those old LSH issues on Amazon Kindle, the art work is great.

You can buy some of that on Amazon Kindle, I did !

Actually, Lightning Lad didn't really come back to life. It turns out that when Proty "sacrificed" himself in the attempt, his life force, mind and soul were transferred into LL's body. He took up and lived LL's life, never revealing the lie. This was revealed in the LSH 1992 Annual with a revamped Timber Wolf bursting from the book as the cover art. It was in the second story of the issue. No one knows about it except other protoplasmic lifeforms and Garth's sister, Ayla, and she only found out when she stumbled upon Garth communing with those protoplasmic beings and overheard them.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a Legion story since that HORRIBLE Future State two-issue mess. Unless you count Brainy guest starring in the Action Comics House of Kent storyline.

I think Booster's ring was the one given to Superboy, which he took into the past. As for not mentioning the flight rings, there's about 1000 things that weren't mentioned. There's way too much to put in one video.

I'm sorry, I don't have a link to it, but if it helps the story takes place in Legion of Super-heroes #37-38. #38 is titled "The Greatest Hero of them All."

Start with the "Showcase Presents Legion of Super-heroes" collections. They're in black-and-white, but they're still great stories, though from a more "innocent" time in the industry. Then pick up the new, HUGE hardcover compendium, but be prepared for quite a few shocks. It presents a grittier version of the galaxy "5 Years Later" (the title of the book as it takes up five years after the last issue if the first Legion). There was an economic collapse, the Legion was disbanded, and most of the characters have gone through some changes. It picks up when Chameleon Boy ropes a depowered Cosmic Boy into helping him reform the team. VERY good writing. Then there's return to the original LSH in the "Superman and the Legion of Super-heroes" mini-series (available in trade paperback), and again in the Legion Final Crisis mini-series (also available in trade paperback). Check'em out!

pious83 The Legion feature in "Adventure Comics" in the 1960s was very popular, and the regular Legion title was one of DC's best-selling books for most of the 1980s -- and featuring almost no crossovers with other series or characters. A book like that will succeed with the proper writing, artwork, and marketing. That's what DC (and Marvel) sometimes forget.

ShutEmDownNow Exactly. They forget even the popular characters were new once and had to be established on their own. Yet even now they feel compelled to plaster Batman, Spider-Man etc into new books instead of just focusing on the groundwork of good storytelling.

The Slick Android Yes. The "New" Teen Titans series (by Marv Wolfman and George Perez) of the early-to-mid 1980s was the crown jewel of DC's line-up at the time. And the roster of Robin (Dick Grayson), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), Kid Flash (Wally West), Changeling (a.k.a. Beast Boy), Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven is still the one by which all other Teen Titans rosters must be measured.

If you want the whole history, they have the old Legion's stories in trade paperback "Showcase Presents" black-and-white editions or the Legion hardcover color collections. There's also a HUGE compendium collection that's just started coming out, starting with the "5 Years Later" storyline that picks up the Legion 5 years after the Mage Wars and after an undocumented but mentioned economic collapse of the United Planets. It starts off with the Legion having been disbanded, and Chameleon Boy ropes a depowered Cosmic Boy into helping him get everyone back together. If you're a long time Legion reader, some of the grittiness and changes to the characters will absolutely floor you. So you should read the earlier, more "innocent" stories first to get the full impact of the changes. The Legionnaires books you read are the second reboot of the team. The "5 years later" stories is the first reboot and is closer in content to the original stories and characters. They had to do the first reboot because of history being out if whack after the Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series so that Superman never joined the team as Superboy. Mon-El, name changed to Valor, had to take Superboy's place as the inspiration for the Legion. The reboot you read, with characters like XS and Gates added in, as well as xenophobic Daxamites, was done to try a fresh approach to the team, something to lure in new readers who hadn't necessarily read the original or even the first reboot stories. I hope this helped.

Well, back in the seventies, I used to think it was cool that every episode in the comics included a roll call at the beginning of who would appear in that particular episode.

The way you described how to write the stories is how it was done. They only used all of them for the really epic battles, as seen in the LSH Final Crisis mini-series. However, their name is apt. They are a legion. Besides, with that many members, you as a writer have a broad selection of personalities and power sets to choose from for your stories.

What these guys said below is true. I always noticed that they never used Super Boy or Mon-El or Ultra Boy if they could defeat the villan or villans. Even as a young boy I noticed that. If they had an all powerful villan then where does having Bouncing Boy etc. in the story have a purpose?

@@glantern3 Against an all-powerful type of villain, Bouncing Boy is a get-in-your-face annoying distraction. We saw that in the Final Crisis LSH miniseries during the battle of Metropolis when he smashes into Earth Man (who absorbs energy from his opponents, which allows him to copy his opponents' powers, making him a one-man Legion). This is especially useful against a foe who uses physical powers as opposed to energy blasts as Chuck is pretty much invulnerable to physical attacks when he inflates himself for bouncing. Chuck knows his powers make him a comical figure. They even wrote a story about it wherein a group of wannabe heroes was visiting the LSH HQ and he was randomly chosen to tell how he became a Legionnaire. He laughed at himself and self-deprecatingly told his origin story. In this case, he was able to teach the visitors to have hope and that their chances of becoming a Legionnaire were just as good as his, no matter how absurd their powers might seem at first look (I think that this aspect of his character is why he was chosen to be the lead teacher (with his wife, Duo Damsel) of the Legion Academy). Each Legionnaire has his/her strengths and weaknesses. Each serves in his/her own way. And sometimes the mission they are assigned to cannot be resolved by their powers. For example, when Mon-El and Shadow Lass escorted Rond's body to Oa (in the miniseries mentioned above), they met Ion. Because Lar could empathize with Ion's 1000 years of isolation and loneliness (because of his exile in the Phantom Zone), he was able to convince Ion to join the fight against Superboy Prime. It wasn't the fact that they were both Daxamites that made the connection possible, nor was it their powers, it was their shared experience that did it. When you're in the Legion, there will eventually come that day when everything depends on you, whether it's your powers, your skills, your wits, or your sheer stubbornness and grit that's required to get the job done. There's another story in which Mon-El's powers didn't win the day, but rather his compassion and acceptance of others... After more than a thousand years of polluting the oceans, the people of Earth finally got around to cleaning up their own mistakes by building huge automated cleaning stations. One of the stations mysteriously shut down, and a team of Legionnaires was sent to investigate (and Lar was on that team). They discovered sabotage, committed by an amphibious and reptilian creature. The critter was able to easily defeat the team (including Mon-El). However, when fighting proved fruitless, Lar offered the creature one of his telepathic ear plugs, and they worked it out through communication instead of fisticuffs. Lar noticed that despite the station being shut down, the massive amounts of pollution were still missing. It turns out the critter was a mutant that survived by absorbing the pollutants as nourishment; as he swam around, his body cleaned up the pollution. The station was depriving him of food, so he sabotaged it. The Legionnaires left the station shut off and the creature swimming free. Try thinking of the less flashy Legionnaires that way, doing what they can with what they have. After all, in the present, Batman and Green Arrow contribute a lot to the Justice League, even though they don't have any powers. And Bouncing Boy was so well liked that when they revamped the LSH several years ago, they included Chuck on the team as an engineer without powers. He was also a featured member of the team in the TV cartoon show. The challenge for the writers was in how to use the various power and skill sets to tell a good, entertaining, and plausible story, despite some of the characters' seeming lack of power. That's what separates the good writers from the so-so writers.

@@jimgilbert9984 Nicely put !!! Sorry I didn't see your response sooner. I am not as updated on the newest comics as you are although I had about 50 issues that I started buying in 1962 and on. Remember the death of Ferro Lad? Remember when one of Triplicate girls bodies died? I remember when Mon-El got out of the Phantom Zone etc. I always thought that Element Lad was one of the most powerful Legionnaires but they really never used him the right way. Thanks for responding. Ohhh by the way you can get these issues on Amazon Kindle. One of my favorites from childhood that I couldn't find very many of is Dr .Fate. Well I bought a Kindle version !!!

As are mine. I got the first one they offered. It's gold-plated, fitted to my ring size, and came in a ring box. The others I have are plastic, one-size-fits-all, and came free when I bought a special issue of the book. The first plastic one is better than the ones they gave out to commemorate the birth of the latest version of the Legion.

in that scene, we were seeing present-day superman's memorial statues of his friends from the future. the second wildfire (a non-statue) is a hint that they've returned to the present for this story. i think it was the lightning saga.

It was the present day. One of the Wildfires was a statue; the other was the actual Wildfire who traveled from the future to the past to participate in the Justice League Lightning Saga storyline. If you're referring to the guy behind Wildfire with the blonde hair and green-and-dark blue costume, that was Element Lad (power of transmutation).

Most of it would be based off of it seen in the Silver Age and the movie would take place in a very Jetsons-like futuristic world

They've actually had versions of Legionnaires in both Smallville and Supergirl.

The first reboot occurred in the first issues of the Five Year Later series, in what I call the Three-Issue Sidestep. Basically, in the first issue Mon-El confronts The Time Trapper. The Time Trapper warns Mon-El if he destroys him everything he did will be undone, including his creation of The Legion. Mon-El could not let the Time Trapper continue and destroyed him, certain that The Legion would continue to exist. Next issue: The Universe is what it would have been had The Time Trapper not created The Legion. The Legion never existed and Mordru has ruled the Universe for 17 years. However, over the years Mordru made little comments about some kind of Legion and the previous timeline. Some individuals pieced together the comments from Mordru and with the assistance of Glorith created a spell that would restore the old timeline with The Legion existing. Next issue: A new timeline is created that is similar to the old one with the following major changes: (1) Glorith took The Time Trapper's place and created The Legion, (2) Valor took Superboy's place in Legion history, and (3) Laurel Gand took Supergirl's place. The new timeline continued until the "Zero Hour" event completely ended this timeline. Then a completely new timeline was created with a new version of The Legion.

Jimmy Olsen was made an honorary member of the Legion for all the help he had given Superman. Similarly, both teenaged Pete Ross and Lana Lang were also made honorary members.

Always trying to rewrite something that was perfect in my mind. Write it for teens as we the fan base got older and more sophisticated.

He doesn't go into a lot if detail. It's a short video that tries to cover almost 50 years of comicdom. Here's what you do... If you know the "old" Legion from the 1960s to the 1990s, get a copy of the new, HUGE compendium that picks up "Five Years Later..." (the actual title to the LSH compendium). In the intervening 5 years, the United Planets suffered an economic collapse, the Legion was disbanded, the galaxy became a grittier & darker place, and the Legionnaires all went through a lot of changes. Then there's the second reboot, with the title "Legionnaires," which features a new but similar origin, as well as new members such as XS (a black speedster and granddaughter of Barry Allen), Gates (an insectoid teleporter), Kid Quantum, and even the Conner Kent Superboy. After that came the so-called "three-boot," the third reboot which featured a team that rebelled against adult authority figures. It eventually included a time-lost Supergirl as a member. The original team showed up as adults in a team-up with Superman in the "Superman and the Legion of Super-heroes" mini-series (collected in a trade paperback). They appeared again with the rebooted Legions in a Final Crisis supposed crossover, even though the story had nothing to do with Final Crisis except for coming out at the same time. It was more of a crossover with the Sinestro Corps War, the end of which had Superboy-Prime tossed into the time stream. He ended up in the Legion's time and freed the Legion of Super-Villains from prison, added Mordru to their ranks, all to destroy the Legion because they were Superman's friends. Brainy brought the other 2 Legions to the mainstream universe to help the mainstream Legion fight the bad guys because the main Legion was overwhelmed (quite a few of their members were missing). This Final Crisis mini-series is also available in trade paperback. I hope that clears up some of your confusion.

Yep, technically there are 6.

KAKAAAAAAAAAA

The pocket universe... In order to manipulate the LSH, the Time Trapper had to create a pocket universe in which Superboy could come into being for him to interact with the Legion. This came about after the Crisis on Infinite Earths event. History was thrown out if whack by the Crisis, and as part if the history shake-up, Superman didn't start his career until he was an adult. No Superboy = no Legion. That would have screwed up the TT's plans. So he created the pocket universe for the LSH to interact with. Every time they traveled to the past, he'd shift them into the pocket universe; every time Superboy would travel to the future, he'd pull the same stunt with the Boy if Steel in reverse. This was revealed in a Legion story that resulted in the death of Superboy. Recently, another Crisis event resulted in restoring Superman's youthful adventures with the Legion, but it looks like another Crisis since that time changed things AGAIN so that the Superboy who spends time in the future is actually Superman's son, Jon Kent (they redid the Legion, also AGAIN, to suit this change). I really wish they'd stop screwing with the LSH! Every time some new writer comes along and manages to convince the head honchos at DC that he's got a great new take on the LSH, they give him the reins to the team and characters. They justify it by saying that all of the Legions exist in the future, that the future isn't written yet, so we can have many possible futures, each with its own Legion. SIGH!