Before it slips too far below the horizon behind us, let's take one last look at Legion Lost.
Here
are the best things about Legion Lost v2, the
comic book series that ran for seventeen issues before it was cancelled
as of this month.
6. It was a second Legion comic. It's always good to have more than one Legion comic on the shelves.
5. They were trying something. I like it when they try stuff.
4. This comic book put Tyroc in a prominent role for the first time
since, oh, the late '70s, which is entirely welcome; Tyroc's a fine
character when properly handled and I hope we get to see more of him.
3. Legion Lost put Gates in the forefront,
something that hadn't happened since the late '90s. Plus, Tom DeFalco
even had him make a couple of political comments,
which is an aspect of his character I had been missing.
2. Pete Woods's art style was not at all typical of Legion artists,
which was appropriate, as Legion Lost was not at
all typical of Legion comics.
1. In the months leading up to
Legion Lost #1, Fabian Nicieza posted a series of
comments on Legion-related threads on prominent comic-book-centric
message boards. But not as himself. He posted them as Alastor, and
Alastor was in the middle of trying to get some justice from the United
Planets for his dead sister. Nobody knew until later that these posts
were intended to be a preview of the comic book; in fact, it wasn't
clear what was going on at all. I thought it was brilliant: it was a
genuinely new way of laying the groundwork for a comic book, it tapped
into the Legion tradition of involving the fans, and it did a good job
of introducing and developing Alastor. Very impressive indeed.
6.Yes it is.It's one reason the reboot Legion rocked the '90s.Them were the days.
ReplyDelete5.Well,to a point.Bad ideas rarely produce good comics.
4.Call Tyroc home.
3.Gates,ditto.
2.Pete Woods was the best part of Legion Lost.He should draw the Legion again someday.
1.Those posts were the best writing this title had.
About 5., I wouldn't say it was a bad idea per se... just a difficult one to do well. I put it to you that if the same personnel had been working on a clearly-second-title Legion comic with a different premise, the results would have been similar.
ReplyDeleteYou also have to take into consideration that the Alastor story arc was completely trashed by DeFalco when he came on board. While I was a bit unsure how I felt about Nicieza's story, I liked some of the stuff he was doing (he was actually formatting the comic like an episode of the show, Lost). But after DeFalco threw most of it in the garbage, it was a tough comic book to get through month to month.
ReplyDeletePete Woods definitely knocked this thing out of the park each month though.
This is Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea, by the way!
Hi!
ReplyDeleteWell, yeah, I know there was a change in direction. But when I criticize this series, I'm not so interested in pinning it on either DeFalco or Nicieza specifically*; it's more, how did DC allow things to get to this stage in the first place? Did Nicieza have a workable vision, or not? If he didn't, why greenlight the comic? If he did, why throw it out in favour of DeFalco?
--
* not that I think either one did such a great job
I'm reluctant to give this title the credit for rehabilitating Tyroc's character. Levitz used him a couple times in the pre-New 52 series to great effect. That's what set the character onto a suitable place; Legion Lost expanded on this, admittedly, but did only expand not establish.
ReplyDeleteLevitz deserves some credit, yes, but he never put Tyroc out front-and-centre the way Legion Lost did.
ReplyDelete