From: [m--rr--w] at [fnalv.fnal.gov] (Sailor Elmo)
Subject: [LSH]  The Other General Information Post
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 95 22:38:34 GMT

The Other Legion General Information Post

OK, so you've heard people yacking about Legion this and Legion that and
you're wondering what the whole thing is about.  What is the Legion?
Is it worth reading?  Will I be lost if I try an issue?  Do I have to get a
tattoo or some sort of significant body piercing to get initiated into the
cult?

This document is here to help answer those questions.  It's posted on
New Comics Day every time a new Legion issue is due out.

What is the Legion?

  The Legion of Super-heroes is a team of people with super-powers operating
  in a science-fictional universe set one thousand years in the future of
  the modern DC universe.

  The team members are from many different planets and possess a wide
  variety of personalities and super-powers.  All of the team are young
  adults; for the humans, that means they're in their mid to late teens.
  The Legion also has a large supporting cast, including politicians,
  businessmen, rivals, police officers, and scientists.  Part of the appeal
  of the Legion is that its cast is so large and so diverse that you are
  bound to find someone you *really* like.

  The universe is the old science-fictional standard human-led federation
  of allied planets; in this case, the United Planets, headquartered on
  Earth.  The UP is barely older than the Legion and still a bit shaky,
  which has had an effect on its sponsorship of the Legion.  Crusty old
  gazillionaire businessman R.J. Brande co-sponsors the Legion, often
  in direct opposition to UP policies.

Is it worth reading?

  Yep.  Well, there are a lot of very vocal people who think so, at least.
  The writing is concerned primarily with thoughtful characterization of
  these young people and secondarily with spinning good yarns of good guys
  and bad guys.  The art is from talented newcomers who produce clear and
  attractive work with room for improvement.  Poster pages and impossible
  anatomies are generally avoided in favor of tight storytelling.  I'm not
  going to make any grandiose claims to great literary status.  The Legion
  is a standard superhero title.  It is, however, a very well done standard
  superhero title.  If that's your bag at all, you should give it a try.

  As of this writing, there are two titles: Legion of Super-Heroes (Lee
  Moder and Ron Boyd, art) and Legionnaires (Jeff Moy and Cory Carani, art).
  The books are written by Tom McCraw, Tom Peyer, Mark Waid, and Roger
  Stern.  Waid has just left the books; Stern has just joined them.
  McCraw coplots and colors; Peyer and Waid script and coplot.  Stern's
  role has not yet been set.  The books are edited by KC Carlson.
  Don't beware the committee-appearance of the writing team; the
  books are very collaborative with a unified feel.

Will I be lost if I try an issue?

  It'll probably take you a couple of issues to sort out the characters,
  but not much more than that.  As mentioned above, clear storytelling
  is a focus of the series, which means that what you need to know is
  on the page.

  If you want to go all the way back to the beginning, you don't have
  to go very far.  The Legion is less than a year old; it started with
  Legion of Super-Heroes #0 and Legionnaires #0, published in October 1994.
  The story of the team then continues in subsequent alternating issues
  of the two titles.

  I'll go into more detail below, but the issues after the #0 issues
  are not #1 issues, as you might expect.  Legion of Super-Heroes
  continues with #62 and Legionnaires continues with #19

  In addition, there are lots of friendly people on Usenet and the Internet
  who will be delighted to help answer any questions you might have.

I'm still worried about this whole Legion fandom thing.  What's up?

  Well, the short answer is that the Legion's been around since 1958,
  and in that time has spawned a lot of people who follow the book
  like it was some kind of religion, who delight in in-jokes and obscure
  trivia and fannish camaraderie.

  In other words, it's a whole lot like Trekkiedom, but much cooler :-)

  "But," I can hear you saying, "you just said the Legion started less
  than a year ago!"

  The long answer is that the Legion had a very long history.  It started
  out with a guest appearance in the old Superboy strip, made a bunch
  more appearances in the various Superman Family titles, and eventually
  got its own strip in Adventure Comics.  A 13-year-old Jim Shooter got
  his first job in comics writing for the Legion in Adventure, as it turns
  out.  From there, the Legion had a backup slot in Action Comics,
  then a few appearances as a backup in Superboy.  Eventually, they
  became the main feature, and the book was called "Superboy and the Legion
  of Super-Heroes".  Superboy periodically time-travelled to the Legion's
  time in order to be a member of the team.

  By 1980, the Legion kicked Superboy out of his own title, and they've
  had their own book ever since.  There have been four different series
  entitled "The Legion of Super-Heroes":  v1, a four-issue reprint series;
  v2, the continuation of Superboy's book; v3, the first deluxe format
  series; and v4, the second, and current, deluxe format series.

  This long history, full of great stories and neat trivia and wonderful
  things, took a fatal blow with the publication in 1985-1986 of "Crisis on
  Infinite Earths" and in 1986 with the publication of "The Man of Steel",
  whose collective result was that Superman had never been Superboy.
  This left a huge hole in Legion history.  Attempts to patch it led to
  further instabilities.  Finally, Zero Hour capped the Legion's long
  history, and the book (which by now had grown to two titles, Legion of
  Super-Heroes and Legionnaires) was started over from scratch with a
  completely new history.  Those are the #0 issues I mentioned above.
  The new history has many points in common with the old history and
  many new points as well.  If you know the old history, many of the
  developments of the new series are old friendly stories, but not all.

I want more!

  Head on over to http://www.peak.org/~djwilli/lsh.html for what's
  probably the best current Legion home page.  There's a very active
  Legion mailing list, [l s h l] at [netcom.com] (mailto: [l--ts--v] at [netcom.com],
  with "subscribe lsh-l" in the body).

  Other than that, start yakking with the rest of us.  You're in the right
  place.  Welcome to the Thirtieth Century!

  And, Long Live the Legion!
--
"LOGICAL FLAW COMICS: THE HULK.  Doctor Bruce Banner succeeded in aiding a
government team in creating the fearsome Gamma Bomb, the latest escalation of
the arms race.  This weapon, when dropped on enemy troops, turns even the
least of them into an eight foot tall green (or gray) monster which can lift
on the order of one hundred tons and is immune to bullets."--Mike Schiffer

elmo ([m--rr--w] at [physics.rice.edu],[m--rr--w] at [fnal.fnal.gov])