And Don't Forget to Turn Your Freaking Cellphones Off

One of the blogs I check every day is Christopher Bird's Mighty God King. It's one of the ones where I don't even bother putting it in my RSS feed because I know that I'm going to be checking it anyway and there's going to be something new and worthwhile there. (Plus, Mr. Bird, like me, is a member in good standing of the Most Puissant Order of Toronto-Based Comics Bloggers, which in itself is sufficient recommendation.)

Anyway, there's a semiregular feature on Mighty God King called Why I Should Write the Legion, which I (and many others) quite enjoy. He's got a lot of neat ideas about the Legion.

Anyway, that's not the kind of thing I do here, for a few reasons:
1. I regularly review Legion comics. Sometimes I'm complimentary and sometimes not. For me to do that and also to have articles saying 'I should write the Legion,'... people might think I meant it*.
2. Ideas are cheap. Writing talent is rare. (Well, rarer.)
3. I do have some aspirations as a writer. But I don't do fanfic. No offense to those of you who do. But it's on the other side of this line that I drew.

But my imagination has been captured by something and now I have to type it out. At the San Diego convention this year, there was a brief mention--I imagine most people missed it--of some director who, in defiance of all reason, sanity and common sense, is intent on someday making a Legion movie. And all this in the middle of all the discussion about The Dark Knight and the Watchmen trailer.

So I thought, what if you were sitting in a darkened theater, getting ready for your screening of Breasts, Fighting and Explosions II, and you encountered the following?

--

OPEN ON

Aerial POV of a golden, shining futuristic cityscape, stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions. Spaceships and hovercars flit around.

The skyline is dominated by a gleaming golden tower that features an insignia with a shooting star inside a capital L. A CAPTION reads, "METROPOLIS, 3011 A.D.".

PULL IN ON

An upper floor of the golden tower. As we get closer, we can see that on this floor is a classroom.

CUT TO

The classroom. A distinguished gray-haired man is lecturing at the front of the room. There are thirty desks, most occupied by teenagers, but four are empty.

CUT TO

One of the students, a skinny brown-haired boy, is taking notes intently.

CLOSE UP ON the ring on the boy's finger, a thick golden ring with the L* insignia on it.

CUT TO

Another student, a blond green-skinned boy, is writing furiously but obviously paying no attention to the lecturer. He's also wearing a golden L* ring.

CUT TO

Yet another student, a dark-haired guy with sunglasses, zoning out and chewing on the stylus he's supposed to be writing with. And taking bites out of it. He has a ring too.

CUT TO

Another student, a tall, gorgeous, muscular blonde girl, also with a ring. She's paying attention, but not taking notes.

CUT TO

Another student, a platinum-haired girl taking notes, but not enthusiastically. She has a ring too. For no apparent reason, she stops writing and stares into space, ahead and off to her right.

CUT TO

The green-skinned boy and skinny brown-haired boy, who notice the girl staring, and put down their styluses.

PLATINUM-HAIRED GIRL (raises hand): Mr. Latham?

LECTURER: Yes, Dream Girl?

DREAM GIRL: Can we go now?

MR. LATHAM: We still--

A RED LIGHT at the front of the room starts flashing on and off, and a siren blares. All the students bolt up from their desks and rush out the door, without any of them getting in each others' way, calling out tactics as they go:

BLACK GIRL: Resource Raiders--

BLOND BOY: --asteroid belt--

DREAM GIRL: Bye, Mr. Latham!

ORANGE-SKINNED BOY: --espionage squad--

RED-HAIRED BOY: --split into two groups--

CUT TO

A mining asteroid, under attack by small, laser-blasting spaceships and black-helmeted ground troops.

CLOSE UP ON miners running away from the attackers. They're panicking. Then the lead miner's expression changes, and he points into the sky ahead of him.

CUT TO

A silver spaceship, with two dozen teenaged superheroes, the students from the classroom, flying out of an airlock toward the asteroid. One group attacks the raiding spaceships, the other swoops down to engage the ground troops.

CUT TO

Heavy fighting between the superheroes and the raiders. The red-haired boy, flying by, blasts a raider spaceship with a bolt of lightning. In the background, a dark-haired boy, grown to giant size, punches another spaceship out of the sky.

CUT TO

A swanky reception hall on a planet with a green sky. It's full of aliens of every description. An elegant white-haired man, flanked by four teenagers, enters the room. The teenagers (blue-skinned girl, boy with a glass faceplate, winged girl and curly-haired blond boy) are all wearing golden rings.

CUT TO elsewhere in the reception hall.

A BULKY, MEAN GOLDEN-SKINNED ALIEN DIPLOMAT: The Earth ambassador's guards are children?

BULKY, MEAN GOLDEN-SKINNED ALIEN AIDE: Those children are Legionnaires, Excellency.

DIPLOMAT (frowns): Ah, the Legion...

CUT TO the mining asteroid.

TEENAGE BOY IN PURPLE OUTFIT, to some others: Then who sent the Resource Raiders?

CUT TO

A fleet of alien spaceships diving toward Earth, firing energy-blasts.

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: TEN CENTURIES IN THE FUTURE

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: THE UNITED PLANETS IS INVADED

CUT TO the four teenagers on the green-sky world, flying above a city.

BLUE-SKINNED GIRL: But what if the ambassador is the traitor?

CUT TO fighting scenes between bulky, mean, golden-skinned alien invaders and superheroes:
- the dark-haired kid with sunglasses grabs an energy rifle from an alien soldier and bites it in half
- a red-haired girl floats a platoon of invaders helplessly up in the air
- a black girl races through a line of advancing alien invaders at superspeed, disarming and knocking them over
- a blond boy brings down a strafing spaceship with a burning beam of sunlight
- two black teenagers, one boy and one girl, stand back to back as invaders charge them from either side:
BLACK BOY (over his shoulder to the girl): Long live the Legion?
BLACK GIRL (over her shoulder): Long live the Legion!
The two unleash a barrage of power, the boy weighing his targets down to the ground, the girl freezing her targets motionless in quantum bubbles.

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: EARTH'S ONLY HOPE

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: IS THE MOST BELOVED SUPERHERO TEAM OF ALL TIME

CUT TO the deck of a spaceship. The tall blonde girl, looking battered but still moving easily, is confronting the golden-skinned alien diplomat.

TALL BLONDE GIRL: On the contrary, sir. It's always been our humanity that's saved us.

CUT TO

The skinny kid and a dark-haired girl, running down a darkened hallway. They turn a corner and are confronted by a dozen figures in black robes and hoods. The two teenagers share a look, and the boy disappears while the girl shrinks down to nothing.

CUT TO a different darkened hallway. A big rocky guy is punching his way through black-robed figures while the green-skinned boy strides along behind, dictating into his ring.

GREEN-SKINNED BOY: ...didn't invade on their own! There's a darker force...

CUT TO the classroom, at night. A purple-robed wizard, with silver hair and beard, gestures, and three of the teenagers (the boy in the purple outfit, the red-haired lightning-thrower, and a blonde girl) fall to the ground screaming, covered in crawling red energy.

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: COMING TO THEATERS SUMMER 2011

CUT TO

The green-skinned boy, hiding in a closet, talking to someone over a communicator in his ring.

GREEN-SKINNED BOY: There's only one thing we can try.

CLOSE-UP ON THE GREEN-SKINNED BOY.

GREEN-SKINNED BOY: We need Superman.

CUT TO

Top of the golden tower, at night. A battered Dream Girl is surrounded by invading aliens at the edge of the roof. If we look, we can see that there's no ring on her finger.

DREAM GIRL: Long live the Legion!

Dream Girl steps gracefully off the top of the tower, and falls out of sight.

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES: EARTHWAR

CUT TO

Black screen with caption: THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT

CUT TO

The purple-robed wizard, wearing a halo of flames, standing under an arch made of helpless captives, as an angry Superman flies at him, full speed, fists first. There's a golden L* ring on his left fist.

--

Would you see this movie?

* which is not to say I wouldn't like to write the Legion. How cool would that be? But I have no idea what it takes to write a comic book properly and won't pretend that I do.