Enough Stick. More Carrot, Please
The Legion Omnicom (which should be your first stop for Legion-related news) has a tidbit of news from this weekend's comic-book convention in Bristol. Dan DiDio has said that the Legion's backup stories in Adventure (yes, I know that DC wants us to call them "co-features". DC can eat applesauce) will start off spotlighting individual Legionnaires and then eventually move to featuring the whole team. And if they're successful, it's possible that the Legion will get their own title sometime down the line. It wasn't clear from the attribution how much of this was straight from DiDio and how much was interpolated by the article writer.
Well.
I said before that, in such a situation, I would want to introduce DiDio to the dictionary definition of "increased", but (if all this is straight from him!) it seems that I'd also need to show him "commitment", because this isn't one. But it's no big thing. (I think.) Here's what I figure:
1. It is inevitable that the Legion will appear in their own title again someday. Inevitable. (And DC is being very shrewd in setting up such a title: all the appearances of the retroboot Legion so far have been calculated, far as I can tell, to increase the Legion's appeal and exposure to mainstream DC readers.) Even if DC has no current plans for a regular Legion comic (which I'm not at all sure is true), it'll happen someday anyway. DC just doesn't have that many characters who can carry their own titles in the long term. The Legion, collectively, is one of them, and eventually DC will go to that well again. There is supply and there is demand and eventually the two will get back together. And I'm sure DiDio knows this as well as anybody.
2. Still, DiDio can't exactly tell Legion fans that it's okay for them to blow off Adventure because there's a real Legion title coming down the road in a year. He wants to put as much juice as he can under Adventure. Which is all very well. But it does not satisfy me.
So if you want to buy Adventure, go to it. But if you don't want to, don't worry about it.
Labels: Legion of Super-Heroes
posted by Matthew E @ 10:58 PM
15 Comments:
I'll be buying Adventure for Conner Kent in any case, but if this is where Johns will re-define the Legion members and their backstories, I'd think Legion fans would be pretty interested.
He's pulled off some pretty successful retcons before, and Johns has been thinking about the Legion for a while now, so I wouldn't blow this off as just a placeholder for them until the next Legion monthly.
I don't have the slightest objection to the plans for Adventure. If it had come along two years ago I would have been thrilled.
My problem is, if this is all we're getting, it isn't much.
It's not a placeholder for a Legion monthly. It's a poor excuse for a Legion monthly.
I've been collecting the Legion since the Earthwar saga. I won't be subscribing to Adventure. I will sit it out until the Legion get's their own title again. Hopefully, the backup stories from Adventure will be collected in trades.
Make sure you write a paper letter to DC telling them what you're doing and why. If you don't, they won't know.
I agree that it's hard to deduce how much of what was reported was straight from Didio and how much of it is interpretation, so... no point in my going off on a rant about what Didio says and what Didio does.
But... I also agree that if this is the big plan that Didio keeps talking about for the Legion, then his big plan needs some work.
Totally agree that the Legion will be back in its own book before long. But boy oh boy is it disappointing to have to wait months and months and then get scraps.
I did write a letter to DC (Levitz and Didio) explaining how unhappy I was with the way that the threeboot ended. I haven't heard anything from Didio, but Mr. Levitz sent me a short note explaining that Dan has interesting plans for new Legion material coming soon and that he shares my disappointment that it is not in current production.
Murray
Well, that sounds promising. That's the thing about this: there is a basis for hope. In some ways that makes it worse, because you can't just say, "Well, to hell with DC Comics, then." Hope is how they play you on the line.
Yep! They get you with the hope every single time.
I wasn't sure how to interpret Levitz' comments. I'd like to think that he meant that there are some really awesome ideas out there that are just waiting for the right timing...
...but he could just as easily have meant that the Adventure Comics material is the stuff that Didio has waiting for us, and that unfortunately, we need to wait until August (fingers crossed) to see it.
The first option leaves me with a lot of hope - the second one... not so much.
Murray
The way you put it, it sounds to me like there's more Legion stuff coming beyond Adventure. After all, Adventure, be it never so well done, isn't going to satisfy the appetite of any Legion fan, presumably including Paul Levitz.
That's a great way to look at it. Here's hoping that you're correct and that there's a wonderful story just waiting to be told... and then lots more wonderful stories after that, too.
Murray
but if we want to show legion support... shouldn't we buy the book they're in? It's great to think it'll come, but that kind of attitude is always courting disaster. I think we should treat this like any other trial run and show our support by buying the books. taking the "not enough legion in this" approach will just tell DC that people aren't interested in the Legion, not that we're waiting.
The problem is, buying a book or not buying a book is a very blunt and inarticulate instrument. If it's not what you want, but you buy it anyway, you're telling DC that it is what you want. And life is too short to buy stuff that you don't want.
So I say, buy it if you want it, don't buy it if you don't want it, and write DC a letter explaining why you chose the way you did.
I haven't decided whether I'm going to buy it or not. Probably I am, but then again my case is a little different: Through this blog I've unofficially committed to the Legion not just as a fannish interest but as an actual hobby, and as such it behooves me to keep up with what's going on to a certain extent. We'll see.
The comicbookresources reporting of the same panel is a little different. In that report of the Bristol convention, there is very little mention of the Legion, but has a very different interpretion... one in which Dan Didio seems to be very excited to be relaunching a book starring Superboy and the Legion.
So... we just have to wait and see what we're going to see and go from there. :)
"Likewise, the return of Superboy was inevitable and pre-planned, right from his death in “Infinite Crisis.” Connor Kent will take the lead in the relaunch of “Adventure Comics,” so named because, as DiDio joked, “I was just dying to do a book called ‘Adventure Comics starring Superboy and the Legion of Super-heroes!’” Although the exact timing of his return had been up for discussion, once “Final Crisis” came together, they realized the time was right. The return of Superboy also brings the story of Superboy-Prime to its end. "
I saw that, yeah. I don't know what to make of it.
I have no problem with solo Legionnaire tales; as long as it's a good creative team I would enjoy them as much as a story with the entire team. If the stories are less than 22 pages, it's still better than no Legion content at all.
I generally am a "Wait for the trade" kind of guy with most books, but for low-sellers that I want to keep afloat, I vote with my dollars by buying the monthlies. I've been buying each issue of REBELS and Superman (adventures of Mon-El) to encourage the production of more Legion-related material, and I will be buying Adeventure month in and out for this same reason.
I don't have a problem with little solo stories either. I'm just not satisfied with having only that.
And you should buy whatever you want for any reason you want... but just remember that when you vote with your dollars, the message DC gets is not necessarily the message you're trying to send.
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