A retrospective on Legion Volume 4 - the Five Years Later Legion

Before we jump headlong into the Zero Hour reboot, I wanted to spend this column discussing the whole Five Years Later Legion, good and bad, and wrap everything up with some final thoughts. It's been a very fascinating reread, almost like riding on an insane roller coaster, and I didn't think it would be fair to anyone who's been following this up to now to not write this and give everyone a chance to sum up their own thoughts below. So please share your takes in the comments below.

For those of you who love this version wholeheartedly, I'm going to be nice this time and let you know that the entire first section of this column is going to only focus on the positives.

The second part, however, is not going to be as kind. So you may want to stop reading before that point.

Before I start, I wanted to share a couple of my sources, where I got a lot of the quotes and sales information from:

The Legion Omnicom Sales Information

Love Live The Dream - an Oral History of the 5YL Legion

I also wanted to make a promise that I will not say anything negative about Matter-Eater Lad during this column.

LSH #5

The Good

Let's be blunt to start - the first 12 issues may just be the best year-long run the Legion has ever had. Everything works perfectly. That's even more impressive when you consider the limits and stresses that the creative team was under.

One day I come in and Mark Waid says we have a problem. The Superman group are not fond of what you’re doing with the Legion, so they don’t want you mentioning Superman or any of the Superman mythos characters in the book. And I thought, “Really, we’ve got a book about a group of characters that were inspired by Superboy and now I can’t mention him anymore?” - Keith Giffen

 

It wasn’t just Superboy and Supergirl. It was all things 20th century. Having Superboy and Supergirl carved out, even though Paul (Levitz) had previously done a nice explanation for how they could have existed, that was the first stage.

Then the Green Lantern Corps, the Thanagarians, all of that was stage two, you can’t touch any of that stuff.

Mon-El became stage three. The Superman office said Mon-El is no longer tied to the Superman universe in any way, shape or form, and you can’t call him Mon-El any more, because he has the same last name — “-El” — as Kal-El and therefore people will be confused. Which was ridiculous. But they held the keys. They were driving the car.

It was a death by a thousand cuts. - Mark Waid

 

Just imagine trying to write the Legion of Super-Heroes in 1989 and finding out that you can't use Superboy, Supergirl, Superman, the Green Lantern Corps, the Thanagarians, and, finally, Mon-El. It's understandable that the creative team would immediately have their hackles up and be irritated by these developments. Just think of all the changes you'd immediately have to make... and they did:

• No inspiration for the team so you have to figure out why they got formed in the first place
• Two longtime members gone
• Two of the most dramatic events of the series (Superboy's death and the battle with the Time Trapper) wiped out of continuity
• The loss of one of the DCU's most important alien worlds
• Rond Vidar must go through a very dramatic change
• Finally, what do you do with Mon-El? How can you use him moving forward?

I was impressed with how good issues 4 and 5 were before I knew this back story. Now? I'm blown away with how well this team handled those problems.

I mentioned before that I think issue 5 is one of the best single issues of this run and any run. Knowing that it was thrown together to solve the massive number of problems that DC gave them makes it even more impressive. According to many different sources, it was Mary Bierbaum who came up with the idea for this story, so I give her a very big tip of the cap.

Looking at the whole Giffen run, you can't help but be impressed by just how mature the book is. No, I don't mean swearing and sex. I mean mature concepts and themes. This was a book written about adults with adult problems. Rokk is dealing with the imminent birth of his child while suffering through the horror that his home world is going through. Jo has to finally face the death of his longtime love and learn how to move on. Cham faces the pressure of living up to his father's legacy while running one of the biggest corporations in the galaxy. Vi knows that her planet committed war crimes and has to decide whether her loyalty is to her friends or her home. Dirk has sold out completely to achieve everything that he thinks he wants - fame and fortune costs.

Also, no more pretty costumes. No more flight rings. No more saluting the flag.

That style of storytelling demanded more of the reader. Gone are the comics of the 70's and 80's, where the reader would spell out everything that happened in issues past either through captions or exposition. Now, if you couldn't figure out what was going on - tough luck. The creative team expected the readers to focus, pay attention to what was going on, and if they didn't already know them, learn the names of all the characters. You can't be Cosmic Boy if you're an adult without powers. You're Rokk. And the readers needed to learn that.

The violence was no longer clean and sanitized. Roxxas' attack on the Legion HQ was brutal and vicious, with blood everywhere. Seeing Cham take a bullet to the head, completely out of nowhere, stunned most readers. Having multiple team members need time to recover was unheard of in most comics. The series broke with the conventions and cliches of the form and made its own rules.

Stylistically, Giffen and Gordon created a sci-fi world unlike any that had been seen before. From the clothing choices to the grimy ships to the technology around the characters (having human-sized, blue robotics walking around was genius), you were immersed in the world of this new Legion. This book has its own style and it looked like nothing that the big two comic companies had created before.

Speaking of the style of the book, I want to make a separate call-out to Tom McCraw, Todd Klein, and John Workman. McCraw's coloring was stunning and made the book really stand out, either from his choice of palette or lack of color on some pages. When it was dark, it was really dark. But when they needed to brighten things up for effect, it worked just as well.

On a complete aside, put me in the group of comic readers that think comics should not be recolored when they're reprinted. I know that coloring techniques are leagues better now than decades past, but new doesn't always mean better. There are certain books where I don't think anyone could do a better coloring job than what came before - think of those Alan Moore Swamp Thing books. Also, the art isn't just the penciller and inker. Why are we okay with completely changing the colors but not the inks?

Nowadays, Todd Klein is a lettering master who makes every book better. When he was working on the Legion (and Workman did some great work, too), it was amazing to read what he did. The team was firing on all cylinders.

Yet even with such a great creative team, the editorial staff found four amazing pencillers to come in and help. They went on to bigger and better work and fame with different projects and creators. Chris Sprouse, Brandon Peterson, Jason Pearson, and Stuart Immonen all got their starts on this Legion book, carrying on the tradition that the Legion is a great training ground for young artists. I've always thought that if you can handle drawing the Legion, you can handle drawing anything.

As you read over this run, including the Legionnaires book, you can see each of them grow and develop on the book. I'd like to believe that working off Giffen's breakdowns helps any young penciller wanting to learn how to draw a comic book. Yes, I'm sure that the nine-panel breakdown was stifling, but it forces the artist to make choices and tell everything they need in those small panels.

Finally, this book was perfect for long-time Legion fans with the uncountable Easter Eggs and the bringing back of all the old characters. Seeing characters who hadn't appear since the 60's pop up in the issues made all old school Legion fans excited and want more. There was a push to focus on the Legionnaires who never got their just treatment in the previous two decades. So if you loved Tenzil and the Subs, you couldn't help but love seeing them get starring treatment.

Okay, there ends the glowing praise. So if you worship this version of the Legion, maybe it's best to close the tab and leave this column with a smile on your face. I'm even going to break this up with a couple of great drawings so you aren't tortured with what's coming.

The Last Supper??

LSH #8

 

Before I start, let me just say that, unless I actually share a quote or a number, this is all my opinion and, in many cases, complete conjecture. I am not saying that I know everything, or am speaking from any position of authority. I'm guessing, I'm feeling, I'm trying to put two and two together. But please don't take this as any word of truth. Just my humble opinion, right?

I also may ramble a little. Sorry...

The Bad

Now, the harsh truth. Based on what we know now, there's absolutely no way to look at this run as anything other than a complete failure.

Okay, I know that's rough. But at the end of the day, a creative team has two primary goals aside from telling good stories:

• Either maintain or increase sales
• Leave the book in roughly the same shape it was in when you started

This creative team did neither.

Let's start by talking about sales. Up until the mid-80's, the Legion was matching or beating Superman, Batman, and the Justice League in sales. In 1985, the reprint book Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes was outselling both Batman and the Justice League of America.

Unfortunately, sales data is "sparse and fuzzy" from 1985-95, so I'm going to go with the sales numbers from Legion Omnicom and some the numbers I've found from comichron.com.

Omnicom's firm sales data ends at the end of 1988 (LSH v3 #55) and returns in 1994. So, sadly, we don't really have any great numbers for the 5YL Legion. A lot of this is conjecture, guessing, and comparing numbers to other numbers. Not the best, I agree. But better than nothing. To keep it simple, I'm going to use the Comichron rankings for sales.

In September 1989, the first issue of Legion vol 4 was ranked 23 in units sold.

In October 1989, the second issue was ranked 43.

Nothing to really judge with that. First issues, especially back in the 80's and 90's when collectors were going crazy and buying every first issue they could grab, sold incredibly well. And dropping 20 slots in the rankings isn't that bad of a drop. Actually, if the Legion held at 43, or somewhere close to there, they'd be sitting a little bit higher than the v3 series. The last issue of the v3 series was ranked 56 in units sold.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. By August 1991, issue 22 (the next data point I could find) was ranked 76th. Issue 27 - 68th. Issue 28 - 74th.

Okay, so we're seeing a trend here now that we're into the third year of the book's existence. Let's remember that issue 22 is the second part of The Quiet Darkness. So even with Lobo and Darkseid, sales were much lower than before.

Then the next drop - issue 31 is ranked 113th. Okay, maybe the loss of Giffen on art is hitting harder than was expected. But this is just six issues after the SW6 Legion has arrived. Remember this later on in this column.

One thing to point out is that May 1992, the month that issue 31 hit, a big first issue hit the stands: Spawn #1. It was published by Malibu Comics (they weren't officially Image yet, according to the records) and and the number one seller.

Moving forward a year, to May 1993, and the news has gotten even worse. Legionnaires #4 is ranked 134th and Legion #45 is ranked 160th. I don't have exact numbers on Legionnaires #1, but according to the Omnicom data, it was the best-selling Legion book in five years. Four issues later, it's dropping like a rock.

Only the diehard fans remain. By February 1994, Legionnaires #13 is ranked 153rd and Legion #56 is ranked 158th. DC and Marvel are losing market share like crazy, Image is in complete control, and we've watched the Legion slump to their worst sales ever.

There are some blips on this downward slump, slight spikes here and there, so I'm guessing there were people who jumped on when, for example, Adam Hughes drew an issue. Or when Legion hit #50. But for the most part, it's just a downward trend that keeps dropping year after year, even after Zero Hour.

You can argue that sales were dropping on almost all DC books and I can't really argue against that. I took a look at the April 1993 numbers and if the book isn't starring Superman or Batman, or a Vertigo book, it basically sits between 30,000 to 66,000 in sales. Image completely dominates the top 50, Valiant next, with Marvel filling up most of the rest of the top 100. Even Topps comics is selling more issues than almost anything DC.

The early nineties were a weird time to read comics. Night Glider #1 (I honestly have no idea what this was) sold 180,000 comics for Topps and the Legion of Super-Heroes #44 (47,000) barely outsold Cerebus 0 (45,000). All you needed was a number 1 or 0 on your book and you were guaranteed to sell.

Which makes it even more insane that, after the Zero Hour reboot, they didn't restart with number 1 issues.

You could also wonder why, if the sales were so bad, DC released not one but two spinoffs - Valor and Legionnaires. But I don't think those spinoffs were ever because they were happy with the way Legion was selling. It was because DC was chasing market share over individual title sales. With three Legion-related books, they knew they were going to sell at least 120,000 comics each month to Legion fans. After all, if you bought one, you bought all three. They went with cheaper talent, so the books were cheaper to produce, which is probably another reason why sales were where they were. But DC could post numbers to show they were increasing the total number of comics sold.

We've all said that DC never puts any support behind the Legion. This was the time they did. They allowed one of the biggest names in comics at the time to do whatever he wanted with a mid-tier book that had once been one of their biggest sellers. It was the perfect opportunity to pick up new readers who loved the Justice League and propel the Legion into the 90's. It didn't achieve that at all.

 

The second thing I mentioned that creative teams need to do is leave the title in basically the same shape as when they started. I use Giffen's run on Justice League as the perfect example. When he and J.M. DeMatteis ended their run on both the America and Europe versions of those titles, they left every single character in virtually the same condition as when they started. It was the perfect place for the next creative team.

The simple fact that DC, and probably the writers as well, felt that the only way to continue with the Legion was to reboot it entirely tells you everything you need to know about how they left the title. You can argue that there were many ways to fix this. But that's not what happened. DC Comics made the decision that so much damage had been done that it was just easier to start over. That should never happen.

What did I learn from reading the Legion volume 4?

I know that this is going to sound like I was incredibly naive, or still am, but the biggest thing I learned from reading and re-reading this series is the difference between a professional writer and a fan writer.

Let me explain.

As I've mentioned before, I don't think I could tell you, with any certainty, who Paul Levitz's favorite Legionnaires are. And I've read and reread his issues again and again.

I doubt I could tell you who Grant Morrison's favorite Justice League members are after reading his run on that series. Same with Peter David on X-Factor. Or Kurt Busiek on the Avengers.

In fact, for most books, professional writers give very few clues as to who they love the most. I think they all understand that every character has their fans and, even if they disagree, someone loves that hero or villain. So there's a level of respect and care taken.

On the Legion, there was absolutely no doubt who the favorites were and which characters they didn't like. Some examples:

• Why did Blok die in issue #4? The original plan was for Shvaughn Erin to die, but Mary Bierbaum likes her, so she was saved. Blok was chosen for two reasons: Giffen hated drawing him and Tom Bierbaum saw him as just a background Legionnaire and unimportant.
• Why did Rond Vidar survive being tortured by Mordru and end up with Laurel? Again, one of Mary Bierbaum's faves.
• Why was Rokk front and center on the team even though he was powerless and, to be completely honest, did very little for most of the series? Giffen's favorite.
• Giffen hated Dawnstar's design so they had to get rid of the wings, the costume, and the entire personality.
• The Evillo stories from the 60's are some of Tom Bierbaum's favorite Legion stories, so they had to bring him back multiple times.
• Their own creations, Devlin O'Ryan, Kono, and Celeste Rockfish, got far more use and were never shown in a less-than-flattering light. I've joked about Devlin being the solution to every problem in every situation. He was the Mary Sue (or Gary Sue) of this book.
• Their most hated Legionnaires (and this one I don't need research for, I just know it) getting little to no use and if they were used, they were made to look horrible: Colossal Boy, Dream Girl, Star Boy, Lightning Lad, Sun Boy

I remember seeing a story that DC was going to choose which characters were going to die by drawing names out of a hat and, at the time, I thought that was insane. Now I think it might be the best way to do it.

 

Another thing I learned was just how damn important Keith Giffen was to this whole process and, doubly so, how important it is for him to have an editor who could reign him in.

Here are a few quotes to ponder:

 

Keith is one of the really great imaginative talents of my generation. I always felt that he was such a generative force. 30% of his ideas were absolutely brilliant, 30% were things that you could shape into something that was fun for whatever was going on, even if it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. And the remaining chunk, somebody should have stopped him from ever having thought, much less putting it in print. - Paul Levitz

 

This is an observation that J.M. DeMatteis made: when you work with Keith, you spend a great deal of your time trying to keep him from going off a cliff. You’re like, Keith wants to do something and you know it’s insane, and you yank him back and you yank him back and you finally talk him from going over that cliff. - Tom Bierbaum

 

I honestly think that this Legion run is Keith Giffen at both his best and worst. His creativity, talent, and imagination were on full display with each issue he worked on. As I've said before, these stories connected with people on every emotional level. You may have loved it. You may have hated it. But you felt something.

He was playing with characters that he knew inside and out and doing it better than almost anyone else could have. No one doubts his love for the Legion.

He was pushing boundaries, breaking conventional story-telling, and making the reader work for everything they got. It made the stories more compelling and engaging.

But...

To use the quotes above, he was continually driving off that cliff and using ideas that someone should have chucked.

I'm sure Giffen would have agreed with what I'm about to write, even if he may have been too grumpy to not argue with me.

The best editor Giffen worked with, according to him, was Andy Helfer. What did Helfer do that none of the Legion editors did? Stopped him and made him keep coming up with ideas until they arrived at the best one. In fact, when you read about how Giffen and DeMatteis worked together, it was a completely equal partnership - DeMatteis could change any of Giffen's plots without warning him and push the book is a different direction.

I don't think it's much of a surprise that the Legion's brightest point came when Karen Berger, another well-respected editor, was helming the book. I'm fairly certain she kept pushing and pushing, asking Giffen to come up with better and better ideas and reject the ones that she didn't think would work.

But with the Legion volume 4, I honestly don't think that happened. Yes, Giffen listened to the Bierbaums, Al Gordon, and his editors. But does anything actually think they had any massive sway over him? Do you think Mark Waid, then a young editor fresh to the comics, stood up to one of the best-selling comic creators and said, "Have you got a better idea because that one doesn't really work for me?" Or did they just throw ideas at him, got excited when he said yes, and agree with every new concept?

For further proof of just how important Giffen's input was, just read any issues after he left. It's fairly obvious who was the creative force behind everything good. I honestly don't know if anyone could've done a worse job.

 

Finally, the third thing I learned from this series is that the creative talent have no clue who actually reads their books or why they like them.

I figure that there were three distinct groups reading this version of the Legion:

• The old Legion fans - the ones who loved the Legion of the 60's
• The new Legion fans - the ones who loved the Legion of the 70's and 80's
• The new, new Legion fans - the ones who started reading with this new incarnation

The creative team really only cared about the first group of fans and seemed to have contempt for the second. But I would argue that the second was the largest group and the one that pushed the sales numbers.

My proof that they didn't understand who they were writing for was in the introduction of the SW6 Legion. Giffen stated that this was his response to everyone saying that volume 4 wasn't their Legion and that he would give them their Legion. So they gave them the 60's Legion.

Except that, for most of the fans, this wasn't their Legion either. It was the creative team's Legion. But it wasn't the fan base's Legion.

The fan base didn't want teenagers running around in bright costumes and saluting flags. They wanted heroic young adults who lived in a bright, positive future and had romantic and emotional lives they could either relate to or aspire to. They wanted the Legion that they had lost just two years earlier, not the Legion the creators has lost 20 years ago. Was it any wonder that these new heroes just didn't connect with the readers and sales dropped once they joined? For a majority of readers, this just made the book more inaccessible. It's bad enough that you're making the Legion they love look bad, but now you want to take away what little story the older Legionnaires actually get and replace them with characters they barely know or remember?

The fan base was fine going on this journey with the creative team when they thought they were going to get their heroes back. But by year two, by the time the SW6 Legion was introduced, they knew they were never getting them back. So they dropped the book. They just didn't want to be lied to anymore and watch their heroes get destroyed.

Think of it this way - imagine you've been tasked with trying to reboot the Legion now. Would you purposely antagonize your largest collection of readers? If you're Brian Michael Bendis, then yes. But I hope you'd be smarter.

Or would you spend some time to figure out what your readership wants? You'd ask DC who's reading these comics and figure out what they want. At the end of the day, you want to tell good stories that connect with the largest number of fans, right?

This series often felt like a book that was trying to only appeal to one group of readers at the expense of everyone else.

Insert sarcastic joke here...

And finally, what did DC learn from this series?

(Really? You're not done yet? My legs are getting tired from sitting here so long!!)

Let's imagine two things. First, what DC thought they were getting when they approved this Giffen-led reboot back in 1989: another Justice League.

Here's one of the most popular creators working for DC. He made the Justice League relevant again and sales skyrocketed. He led the successful Invasion mini-series. Ambush Bug sold like mad. He understand aliens and comedy and sales. According to Waid, DC was so excited about this new start that they were planning three books - Legion, Legion Academy, and something else. Expectations and excitement was high.

And then the first pages rolled in. I'm sure they were wondering, "Why is Giffen trying to be Alan Moore?" and "Why aren't they using their code names?" and "Why is it so dark?" and "Who's going to buy this?"

For three years they sat and watched and wondered when they were going to get the Legion book they were expecting. With each question, or comment, or criticism, Giffen pushed back and made the book darker and more incomprehensible for new readers. The original plan of breaking the team apart, putting it back together, and returning the universe to the way it was ended.

I mentioned before that Giffen needed a strong editor to rein him in. DC learned that critical lesson that they needed to be in better control of their own characters. I can't think of another time when they would let one creator wreak such havoc on their characters outside of an Elseworlds tale. I mentioned many rereads ago that it's stunning DC let him do this to the Legion when they wouldn't let Alan Moore break the old Charlton heroes for Watchmen. DC would never let this happen again.

Editorial reins tightened. Company-wide decisions became the norm and creators bristled at the newfound controls. I would argue that this was the last time either DC or Marvel let a creator took over a long-running book and cede complete control over it to them. If you can think of another, please let me know.

 

The second thing to imagine is what would've happened if the Legion had been handed to a creative team that just kept things going and didn't break the wheel, so to speak.

Just imagine DC handing the book to a writer like J.M. DeMatteis, Roger Stern, Peter David, or a young Grant Morrison.

Or artists like Barry Kitson, Steve Epting, or Dan Jurgens. Heck, I think if they had just gotten Chris Sprouse or Brandon Peterson a little earlier it would've worked.

And hire someone like Kevin Maguire to draw covers. Or Brian Bolland.

I will grant you that the book probably doesn't have the same emotional impact that this run did. It also wouldn't have called back to the 60's era of Legionnaires. But I'd also bet good money that it would've never been rebooted.

And that's the other thing DC learned, perhaps to their detriment. Don't try to push too far. Keep things safe and simple and nothing gets broken. Although, to be honest, I am fairly certain that Morrison would've broken something if he was writing the Legion.

 

Okay, time to put volume 4 to bed. I'm going to apologize now if this column came across as a bit of a meandering mess. I had too many ideas to go over and I didn't want to write a 100,000 word essay. So I'm jumping around and hoping it all makes sense.

I'd also like to thank everyone who went on this journey with me and everyone who made a comment or two or twenty. It's always great to know that I'm not the only person who spends way too much time thinking about a comic book that came out 30 years ago.

Next week, we start with Zero Hour and the Archie Legion. This should be fun... I'm already removing the sentence "This isn't my Legion" from my vernacular...