DC - Post Zero-Hour (new titles)
A.F.Mark
most posters to r.a.c.m. ) seem to dislike the fact that DC are trying to
become a "Marvel-like" comic company in order to increase sales. No insult
intended to you all (and I myself are no fan of Marvel in general) but there
are 2 crucial points here - first, DC is a business and thus its concern
is making profits, so they cannot be expected to do anything but try to appeal
to a large (larger) sector of the comic-reading population. Second, the fact is
that, just because certain "formulas" are being used to create the new
titles (esp. Manhunter, Fate and Xenobrood) , this does not mean that this will
be done badly - after all, (IMHO) Milestone have already proven that it is possible to do "superheroes" of one sort or another without it being boring
or generally a waste of trees...
Furthermore, a fair amount of the stuff sounds fun - Starman for instance.
Finally, to accuse DC of seemingly coping Marvel's ideas is like saying that
Marvel is the one-eyed king in the country not of the blind, but of the 3-eyed
people - DC has far more to offer than Marvel in terms of history and tradition
so I fail to see how it can suddenly become a copy of Marvel.
However, I must admit that it is vaguely worrying that, for example, they are
disregarding a few decades of dr.Fate lore and pretending that the helmet is
simply another magical artifact, as opposed to the receptacle of a lord of
Order, but that it is really the only case i know of in which such utter
disregard (a la Marvel, one might argue) for the past is being exercised.
Anyway, don't take it personally you out there - i just feel that your all
having a (possibly justifiable - who knows? It's too early to tell .. )
"kneejerk" reaction at the idea of yet more retcons - I think the people
involved, several of which are quite talented, should be given the benefit
of the doubt.
Bye for now,
--
a...@ukc.ac.uk, "You can be the President,
aka I'd rather be the Pope;
The Pope You can be the side-effect,
I'd rather be the dope... " Prince, "Pope"
Michael A. Chary
I dislike the Zero Hour proposals that I have read thus far
because:
1) I have seen companies try to revamp characters and "start"
over from the beginning and, if I might make a gross generalization,
it never works. Superman worked, I guess, and Batman. But
otherwise none of the attempts I have seen have increased the
popularity of characters.
and
2) One Marvel is enough and we now have three of them.
(re: 1) It might be strong to say it never works but so far
none of the old line DC heroes from before Crisis seems
to be doing anything in particular except for Supes and
Bats. Wonder Woman is essentially where it was to begin with
although I believe the sales have increased. Otherwise we're
on our third Hawkman, god knows where The Atom is, Green Arrow
was okay but now stinks out loud and really hadn't changed that
much *anyway*, how many Green Lantern titles have
there been, and don't get me started on LSH.)
--
"You were clinically dead for six minutes -- what was it like on
the other side."
"There was an *INCREDIBLE* duty free shop, but I didn't have any money."
-Bizarro "Ipsa scientia potestas est." - Roger Bacon
Mean Mister Mustard
Michael A. Chary <ma...@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>
>I dislike the Zero Hour proposals that I have read thus far
>because:
>
>1) I have seen companies try to revamp characters and "start"
>over from the beginning and, if I might make a gross generalization,
>it never works. Superman worked, I guess, and Batman. But
>otherwise none of the attempts I have seen have increased the
>popularity of characters.
Flash? Justice League? Even Wonder Woman -- maybe she's about the same
now, but in the first few years of the Perez revamp, she was doing *much*
better than she'd been doing pre-Crisis.
>(re: 1) It might be strong to say it never works but so far
>none of the old line DC heroes from before Crisis seems
>to be doing anything in particular except for Supes and
>Bats. Wonder Woman is essentially where it was to begin with
>although I believe the sales have increased. Otherwise we're
>on our third Hawkman, god knows where The Atom is, Green Arrow
>was okay but now stinks out loud and really hadn't changed that
>much *anyway*, how many Green Lantern titles have
>there been, and don't get me started on LSH.)
Green Lantern was doing fairly well for a while, even built up his own
franchise, and then -- poof.
Hawkman got hobbled by a number of revamps and continuity changes that
weren't really necessary. Why did they have to put Hawkman's arrival on
Earth forward by a decade or so, screwing up continuity so much that it far
outweighed any benefit from getting a "clean slate"? And if they had to do
it, why not do it *right after the Crisis*, like they did with every other
title? Then you wouldn't have screwups like a retroactively nonexistent
Hawkman & Hawkwoman appearing in JLA.
It's this pointless, ill-conceived "retcon for retcon's sake" attitude that
I don't like about many of the post-Zero Hour books. I thought the point
of Zero Hour was to fix and patch old retcons/continuity errors, not create
new ones.
I don't think all of DC's revamps have been failures -- on the contrary,
I think most of them were highly successful. But I fail to see why so many
unnecessary changes are being made. On the bright side, at least Zero
Month is the time to make them; better now than four years down the road,
when the changes will have new years of continuity to foul up.
Marc
Michael E. McKean
In article <2t2avi$1...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, ma...@po.CWRU.Edu (Michael
A. Chary) writes:
|>
|>(re: 1) It might be strong to say it never works but so far
|>none of the old line DC heroes from before Crisis seems
|>to be doing anything in particular except for Supes and
|>Bats. Wonder Woman is essentially where it was to begin with
|>although I believe the sales have increased. Otherwise we're
|>on our third Hawkman, god knows where The Atom is, Green Arrow
|>was okay but now stinks out loud and really hadn't changed that
|>much *anyway*, how many Green Lantern titles have
|>there been, and don't get me started on LSH.)
|>--
Am I alone among longtime Legion fans in liking what Giffen and the Bierbaums
did with the LSH? This includes the retcon concerning Valor/Mon-El, Superboy,
and Laurel Gand. I thought
they took a problem thrown in their face by their superiors and did an
original job
of reconstructing Legion history. That the Legion would be inspired by
an interstellar
hero like Valor actually makes more sense than the idea they might be inspired
by an Earth-bound Superboy, particularly given the importance Valor has
(in the current
continuity) in the colonization of the future UP sector of space by humans. The
entire Invasion! storyline and the existance of the LEGION also play
well into providing
a historical foundation for the LSH. All these retcons also explain why
space seems
to be so populated by humans, something that makes never made much
sense. Convergent evolution can only explain so much.
I have also enjoyed the characterization of the LSHers by the Bierbaums
(far exceeding
anything seen in the Legion before they came on board), the plots
developed by Giffen
and T&M, and the mystery surrounding the five-year gap. Overall, LSH v4
1-50 was the
best period the Legion has seen in my opinion. And I have read all but a
few Legion
stories, so I include the Shooter/Swan, Levitz/Giffen, and other
creative periods of
Legion history when I say that.
LSH has declined since T&M left and I fear that the same will happen to
Legionnaires. I am somewhat hopeful that Zero Hour will revive these
mags some, but
I wouldn't make any bets on it. Oh well, I've read the Legion for 21
years, including
some rather bad periods, and I can wait until the next creative burst.
Mike McKean
The Great Elmosby
> This includes the retcon concerning Valor/Mon-El, Superboy, and Laurel Gand.
Laurel was an impressive retcon. And for a change forced on them from
above, the Valor/Superboy switch was practically elegant, even if V's name
was pretty stupid.
> That the Legion would
> be inspired by an interstellar hero like Valor actually makes more sense
> than the idea they might be inspired by an Earth-bound Superboy,
Except that the Earth-1 Superboy was hardly Earth-bound and was well-known
galaxywide.
> I have also enjoyed the characterization of the LSHers by the Bierbaums
> (far exceeding anything seen in the Legion before they came on board),
I respectively disagree with as much vehemence as I can muster. 94% of
their successful characterization was carried over from Levitz. Jan was
a fan leftover that they garbled badly. Nura is a grotesque parody of
herself. And any Legionnaire introduced after the Adventure era was
ignored or abused.
> Overall, LSH v4 1-50 was the best period the Legion has seen in my
> opinion.
> Oh well, I've read the Legion for 21 years, including some rather bad
> periods,
I've been reading for just 15 years, but I've also read virtually
everything LSH-related, and in my opinion, v4 1-38 was the worst period
the legion has seen. Oh, the Conway years were bad, but they were just
bad. v4 was offensive.
--
"REAlISTIC ORIGIN COMICS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR. Flying in the first spacecraft,
they and their ship are bombarded by cosmic radiation. They manage to pilot
the ship back to earth, but the rays have changed them forever. That's right--
they all get radiation poisoning and die."--Paul A. Estin et al.
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
Michael E. McKean
(The Great Elmosby) writes:
|>mmc...@ucsd.edu (Michael E. McKean) writes:
|>> This includes the retcon concerning Valor/Mon-El, Superboy, and
Laurel Gand.
|>
|>Laurel was an impressive retcon. And for a change forced on them from
|>above, the Valor/Superboy switch was practically elegant, even if V's name
|>was pretty stupid.
No argument here, particularly with regard to V's name. Not my favorite
aspect of the change, though I'm used to it by now.
|>
|>> That the Legion would
|>> be inspired by an interstellar hero like Valor actually makes more sense
|>> than the idea they might be inspired by an Earth-bound Superboy,
|>
|>Except that the Earth-1 Superboy was hardly Earth-bound and was well-known
|>galaxywide.
That is true, but the Earth-1 Superboy/Superman disappeared with the Crisis
proper. What Giffen and the Bierbaums had to deal with was the Pocket Universe
Superboy, which was a poor patchwork job at best. Its most important
contribution was to keep Superboy's contribution to Legion history intact. And
Supes was a critically important member in the ADVENTURE/SUPERBOY days.
The Valor/Laurel retcon allowed the LSH to keep two extremely powerful members
in the Legion ranks even without Kal-El. That is, the Valor/Laurel combo
essentially replace the Superboy/Mon-El combo from the pre-Crisis days. The
introduction of Laurel was more important in this regard than she was as
a Daxamite replacement for Supergirl, who was never important as an LSH member.
|>
|>> I have also enjoyed the characterization of the LSHers by the Bierbaums
|>> (far exceeding anything seen in the Legion before they came on board),
|>
|>I respectively disagree with as much vehemence as I can muster. 94% of
|>their successful characterization was carried over from Levitz. Jan was
|>a fan leftover that they garbled badly. Nura is a grotesque parody of
|>herself. And any Legionnaire introduced after the Adventure era was
|>ignored or abused.
We may have to agree to disagree here. While it is true that much of their
characterization is carried over from Levitz, I think T&M made characters
like Dirk, Rokk, Cham, and Tasmia far more 3-dimensional. Sun Boy had always
been one of my least favorite characters, but T&M made me care for him and I
was both surprised and saddened at his death. Agreed, though, that Nura is
one of their worst characterizations. I disagree, though, on Jan. I'm not sure
what you mean by a "fan leftover," but I think expanded on Paul's character
and made him more human, more real to me. I only wish they had spent more time
on him. LSHers introduced later did not get much attention, agreed.
|>
|>> Overall, LSH v4 1-50 was the best period the Legion has seen in my
|>> opinion.
|>> Oh well, I've read the Legion for 21 years, including some rather bad
|>> periods,
|>
|>I've been reading for just 15 years, but I've also read virtually
|>everything LSH-related, and in my opinion, v4 1-38 was the worst period
|>the legion has seen. Oh, the Conway years were bad, but they were just
|>bad. v4 was offensive.
|>--
Actually, I was getting kind of bored with the Levitz Legion. The changes made
in Volume 4 made the entire atmosphere more bleak, less a future paradise than
had been true before. But the revised 30th century also has a grittier,
more real
feel to it for me, more like the feel of a good science fiction novel or movie.
The difference between the "old" and the "new" Legion is like the difference
between "Star Wars" and "Blade Runner"; both are good, but the latter film is
better science fiction and I prefer it. Keith, Mary, and Tom took the
Legion and
the 30th century universe away from the standard super-hero motif and made it
more like a good science-fiction comic. That is why I liked the changes.
Paul Levitz started moving the Legion in this direction I think, but K,T&M took
it much further and made the Legion exciting.
Mike McKean
ans...@woods.uml.edu
> I respectively disagree with as much vehemence as I can muster. 94% of
> their successful characterization was carried over from Levitz. Jan was
> a fan leftover that they garbled badly. Nura is a grotesque parody of
> herself. And any Legionnaire introduced after the Adventure era was
> ignored or abused.
>
>> Overall, LSH v4 1-50 was the best period the Legion has seen in my
>> opinion.
>> Oh well, I've read the Legion for 21 years, including some rather bad
>> periods,
>
> I've been reading for just 15 years, but I've also read virtually
> everything LSH-related, and in my opinion, v4 1-38 was the worst period
> the legion has seen. Oh, the Conway years were bad, but they were just
> bad. v4 was offensive.
I would like to COMPLETELY AGREE here...
This version(v4) of LSH is not only offensive it is a mockery of all that
the LSH ever stood for. Definitely, there have been several BAD periods in
LSH history, but NEVER have we had such blatent disregard for history
as this, the most dispicable LSH work EVER done.
Conway was bad, but T&M are easily the worst ever. They made the LSH, a force
of benevolence, a force striving for a better future, into a ragtag band
of Hooligans, murderers, and pitiful shadows of once loving and caring
PEOPLE.
Obviously they are fiction, but to some of us they were a pleasent diversion
from reality. They gave a tiny light of hope, that perhaps mankind has a
bright future. Even at the worst, the Magic Wars, the Earth War, there was
always an ending of building, a feeling that though everything has been
broken, there is a tomorrow worth rebuilding for. This legion has lost that.
T&M have taken my dreams, and for that I can not forgive them. This was
as close to rape as can be acheived in comics. I refuse to sit here, and
pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes, because the fact is
the crime is the whole of the work, not any single part. When read as a
whole, this lsh sits like vomit in my throat, and that is the saddest
thing.
Though i don't really care who agrees, I would bet big money that most of
you feel the same, at least to some degree. If anyone would like to join me
in an invasion of the LSH offices on 6th ave, let me know...
Steve Anstey
BUT you can call me nastey...since that is what I am.
PS I don't care what you say..life is like a banana.
The Great Elmosby
^^^
Um, that should be "respectFULly disagree". One of these days I'll think
faster than I type.
--
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
CWM
>I would like to COMPLETELY AGREE here...
>This version(v4) of LSH is not only offensive it is a mockery of all that
>the LSH ever stood for. Definitely, there have been several BAD periods in
>LSH history, but NEVER have we had such blatent disregard for history
>as this, the most dispicable LSH work EVER done.
>
>Conway was bad, but T&M are easily the worst ever. They made the LSH, a force
>of benevolence, a force striving for a better future, into a ragtag band
>of Hooligans, murderers, and pitiful shadows of once loving and caring
>PEOPLE.
>
>Obviously they are fiction, but to some of us they were a pleasent diversion
>from reality. They gave a tiny light of hope, that perhaps mankind has a
>bright future. Even at the worst, the Magic Wars, the Earth War, there was
>always an ending of building, a feeling that though everything has been
>broken, there is a tomorrow worth rebuilding for. This legion has lost that.
>
>T&M have taken my dreams, and for that I can not forgive them. This was
>as close to rape as can be acheived in comics. I refuse to sit here, and
>pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes, because the fact is
>the crime is the whole of the work, not any single part. When read as a
>whole, this lsh sits like vomit in my throat, and that is the saddest
>thing.
>
>Though i don't really care who agrees, I would bet big money that most of
>you feel the same, at least to some degree. If anyone would like to join me
>in an invasion of the LSH offices on 6th ave, let me know...
>
Somebody needs a hobby.
Meanwhile, back in the 3-dimensional space-time continuum, I'd have to
give the Levitz era the nod over the T&M years, but that's not really a
dig at T&M -- it's just that Levitz had a positive genius for balancing a
plethora of characters in an incredibly complex continuity. T&M never had
Levitz's grace at keeping everything in balance, but that's a far cry
from being "bad."
T&M took chances, they gave their readers credit for being able to figure
out things without having them all spelled out. Most importantly, they
weren't afraid to take drastic detours away from established continity.
Sure, I disagree with some of the choices they made, but an occassional
misstep is a small price to pay when the alternative is stagnation. Most
of the changes they made worked. The ones that didn't have little to do
with the Bierbaums and a lot to do with a clueless DC editorial
establishment that had no idea what to do with the 30th century, and
never let the Bierbaum's follow any one concept for more than 5 issues
without scrambling it all up through editorial fiat.
That is, they worked if you're not an anal-retinitive continuity wonk
still stuck in the Weisinger years. Miss the happy-cheery technocratic
utopia of the good old days? I miss it too. I also miss where they used
to put 400-word summarys of the entire plot in the cover word balloons.
Unfortunately, neither will fly in the '90s. If the Legion is to survive
into the next millenia, it cannot continue to cater exclusively to an
aging and dwindling fan-base drawn from the Shooter and Levitz eras. It
will have to keep pace with the changes in the comics market. That's all
T&M tried to do, and they did just as good as job at it as they were
allowed to.
The '60s are gone, the '80s are dead. This is the '90s. I miss the
Bierbaums already.
--
Chris W. McCubbin / To be "matter of fact" about the world is
C...@IO.COM/CWMF...@AOL.COM / to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy
Freelance writer/editor / at that, as the real world is strange and
games/comics/fiction/opinion / wonderful -- Robert A. Heinlein
Tom Johnston
>... it's just that Levitz had a positive genius for balancing a
>plethora of characters in an incredibly complex continuity. T&M never had
>Levitz's grace at keeping everything in balance, but that's a far cry
>from being "bad."
When dealing with a book with such a rich and varied cast of characters
and history, the ability to keep things in balance seems extremely
desireable.
>T&M took chances, they gave their readers credit for being able to figure
>out things without having them all spelled out. Most importantly, they
>weren't afraid to take drastic detours away from established continity.
>Sure, I disagree with some of the choices they made, but an occassional
>misstep is a small price to pay when the alternative is stagnation. Most
I guess I don't see avoidance of stagnation as justifying the way they
wrote the title. Levitz's run did not seem stagnant, but he still
managed to use most of the established characters and stay true to the
history of the title.
>of the changes they made worked. The ones that didn't have little to do
>with the Bierbaums and a lot to do with a clueless DC editorial
>establishment that had no idea what to do with the 30th century, and
>never let the Bierbaum's follow any one concept for more than 5 issues
>without scrambling it all up through editorial fiat.
>That is, they worked if you're not an anal-retinitive continuity wonk
>still stuck in the Weisinger years. Miss the happy-cheery technocratic
Nope. Name-calling directed at those who didn't like the T&M LSH
doesn't accomplish anything. Their changes didn't work for me, and
I'me certainly not an anal-retentive continuity wonk stuck in the
Weisinger years.
>utopia of the good old days? I miss it too. I also miss where they used
>to put 400-word summarys of the entire plot in the cover word balloons.
>Unfortunately, neither will fly in the '90s. If the Legion is to survive
I don't believe that such a downbeat approach was necessary for the book to
"fly in the '90s." There are some upbeat books still kicking out there,
and they lack the established fan base that LSH had.
>into the next millenia, it cannot continue to cater exclusively to an
>aging and dwindling fan-base drawn from the Shooter and Levitz eras. It
>will have to keep pace with the changes in the comics market. That's all
>T&M tried to do, and they did just as good as job at it as they were
>allowed to.
I disagree with the apparent underlying assumption that keeping the
book a little more upbeat is catering to an aging audience. Is there
some reason to believe that new comics readers buy exclusively dark,
depressing, nihilistic titles?
Mean Mister Mustard
>of benevolence, a force striving for a better future, into a ragtag band
>of Hooligans, murderers, and pitiful shadows of once loving and caring
>PEOPLE.
Care to give us some specific examples? And to explain why the rest of
us should agree with you?
>T&M have taken my dreams, and for that I can not forgive them. This was
>as close to rape as can be acheived in comics.
ooooooooooooooooookay...
I refuse to sit here, and
>pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes
Well, that's convenient.
Marc
Mean Mister Mustard
The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>
>I respectively disagree with as much vehemence as I can muster. 94% of
>their successful characterization was carried over from Levitz. Jan was
>a fan leftover that they garbled badly. Nura is a grotesque parody of
>herself. And any Legionnaire introduced after the Adventure era was
>ignored or abused.
Whether it was carried over from Levitz or not, I think most of their
characterization *was* successful.
>I've been reading for just 15 years, but I've also read virtually
>everything LSH-related, and in my opinion, v4 1-38 was the worst period
>the legion has seen. Oh, the Conway years were bad, but they were just
>bad. v4 was offensive.
Well, they lost me towards the end of the Terra Mosaic, and some of the
fill-in issues (like the Khund War) were pretty bad, but v4 from issue 1
to around issue 27, and *especially* the first 13 issues, made for some
pretty good reading. The early issues' refusal to "talk down" to the
readers was particularly nice, and a lot of it (like the Mordruverse, like
Laurel, like Venado Bay) still gives me a rush when I read it.
I still don't see what was "offensive" about v4, except perhaps for the
excessive retconning. And most of that seems to have been forced "from
above."
Sure, the past produced some great Legion stories. But they can't go on
telling the same stories forever, nor can the same creators go on telling
them. After v4 rekindled my interest in the Legion, I went out and bought
the last year or so of Levitz's run... and *then* I found out why they were
so cheap. :( Perhaps the greatest "offense" a comic can commit is to have
poor quality, and I didn't see any of that at the start of v4.
Marc
Michael A. Chary
Well, that's not *exactly* what i meant. I was speaking about
how often revamping a book tends to work and about how many
different origins and retcons the poor LSH has had asince
the mid to late eighties (hell, half the time I expect my collection
to dissapear in a "Crisis wave") As the ret-cons in general
well, IN PRICIPLE I do not have a problem with retcon but
T&M&G did a bunch of them and most were truly pointless.
I know I have said this before but was there any special
reason why Schvaugn Erin could not have stayed a woman?
Is the Beirbaum's point that only a man could run the
science police? They never *did* anything with it!
They also never did anything with Kid Quantum. They had
that fairly decent story about the Proteans but they
never told us why Kid Quantum had to be the guy to the
extent that they had to pry him into continuity. I mean
heck Kid Psycho was allegedly dead too, why niot use him?
Or why not use Chemical King? or Lyle Norg? or Tharok?
Instead they had to make their own "dead" character.
I know that he helps explain why there aren't any artificial
powers allowed but they could have thought of something else.
Why Kid Quantum? For that matter Proty/Garth was pretty pointless
(although I can't think of what they could do with the story
to make me happy with it;)) And look what they did to Dev-Em?
they ret-conned him in who's who, adventures of Superman (badly, 'cuz
Vi shouldn't have been able to do anything to him) and now
the LSH title! What are they accomplishing? To be fair the
Beirbaum have nothing to do with the latest one although they can have credit
for it if they so desire, I doubt they do;) And, they retconned
Dream Girl so she's fifty! Dream Girl is the one who doesn't
take carte of her appearance? Nura Nal? That Dream Girl?
Well, I am not going to bother providing
my exact LSH hash marks, but I've reading a while and
the Nura I knew would not have gained forty pounds and twenty years in a five year
period.
Anyway, but I still think that IF she did have to change
physically that dramatically, they should have done something with it.
Ken Arromdee
Michael E. McKean <mmc...@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>That the Legion would be inspired by an interstellar
>hero like Valor actually makes more sense than the idea they might be inspired
>by an Earth-bound Superboy,
Superboy being Earth-bound was itself the consequence of a retcon.
>All these retcons also explain why
>space seems
>to be so populated by humans, something that makes never made much
>sense.
No, they don't. There are too many human-like aliens even in the 20th century
for this idea to work. Heck, Valor himself is one of them.
--
Ken Arromdee (email: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
ObYouKnowWho Bait: Stuffed Turkey with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes
"You, a Decider?" --Romana "I decided not to." --The Doctor
CWM
Tom Johnston <tpjg...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>When dealing with a book with such a rich and varied cast of characters
>and history, the ability to keep things in balance seems extremely
>desireable.
An ability which the Bierbaums possessed, though not quite to the same
remarkable extent as their predicessor.
>I guess I don't see avoidance of stagnation as justifying the way they
>wrote the title. Levitz's run did not seem stagnant, but he still
>managed to use most of the established characters and stay true to the
>history of the title.
See, when I grade, I give credit for audacity. It's better to aim for
something new and achieve a flawed success than to keep rehashing the
same old thing. Levitz was audacious in his own way, and the Bierbaums
were trying to push the envelope in theirs.
>Nope. Name-calling directed at those who didn't like the T&M LSH
>doesn't accomplish anything. Their changes didn't work for me, and
>I'me certainly not an anal-retentive continuity wonk stuck in the
>Weisinger years.
*shrug* If the shoe don't fit, I'm not going to try to make you wear it.
If you're not a wonk, than I concede your right to follow your own
tastes, but respectfully suggest you're not giving the run enough credit
for the many things it did right.
>I don't believe that such a downbeat approach was necessary for the book to
>"fly in the '90s." There are some upbeat books still kicking out there,
>and they lack the established fan base that LSH had.
My point was that the comic book could not survive if it insisted on
maintaining the same sort of happy-smiley utopian society that it was
established with. Did the adjustment have to be as extreme as Giffen and
the Bierbaums made it? Maybe not, but again, audacity is a *good* thing.
>I disagree with the apparent underlying assumption that keeping the
>book a little more upbeat is catering to an aging audience. Is there
>some reason to believe that new comics readers buy exclusively dark,
>depressing, nihilistic titles?
Reality check. The current Legion is not particularly dark (except in
comparison to its inordinately bright origins), only occassionally
depressing, and by no means nihilistic.
do...@earlham.edu
>> This includes the retcon concerning Valor/Mon-El, Superboy, and Laurel Gand.
>
>Laurel was an impressive retcon. And for a change forced on them from
>above, the Valor/Superboy switch was practically elegant, even if V's name
>was pretty stupid.
why Valor is a bad name (whereas "Matter-Eater Lad" and "Gas Girl" are not
bad names). :)
--Doug (yeah, yeah, I know. Still, isn't
"Gas Girl" about the worst super-
hero name to come out of the '60s?)
do...@earlham.edu
tpjg...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Tom Johnston) writes:
>c...@indial1.io.com (CWM) writes:
>>T&M took chances, they gave their readers credit for being able to figure
>>out things without having them all spelled out. Most importantly, they
>>weren't afraid to take drastic detours away from established continity.
>>Sure, I disagree with some of the choices they made, but an occassional
>>misstep is a small price to pay when the alternative is stagnation. Most
>
>I guess I don't see avoidance of stagnation as justifying the way they
>wrote the title. Levitz's run did not seem stagnant, but he still
>managed to use most of the established characters and stay true to the
>history of the title.
Yeah, well, tell it to Tyroc. I've made no secret of the fact
that I think Levitz' ability to handle large casts was overrated, and I
also feel that he went seriously downhill towards the end of v3. (In the
earlier issues he created memorable villains; anyone *really* want to see
the return of Hrymyr (sp?) the Elemental? Anyone care?) However, I also
think that discussions of this topic are like discussions on
talk.abortion: everyone comes in with their opinion, and they justify them
to each other, but seldom is anyone convinced. I'm not going to push it.
I also *seriously* suggest dropping the "lynch T&M" talk. First
of all, ad hominem attacks are not valid criticism. Secondly, it's
horribly immature. Thirdly, it's a dead horse; there are new menaces now,
like Tom McCraw. :) Kindly restrict your criticism to the actual issues;
the cheap attacks get really tiresome.
Perhaps we just need something like the Geek Code that the LSH
fans could put in their .sigs: little letters that show exactly how we
feel on T&M, Levitz, Kid Quantum, LEGIONNAIRES, and Tom McCraw. (Elmo
could put T&M---- somewhere in there, whereas I'd chart out at T&M+, probably.)
>>utopia of the good old days? I miss it too. I also miss where they used
>>to put 400-word summarys of the entire plot in the cover word balloons.
>>Unfortunately, neither will fly in the '90s. If the Legion is to survive
>
>I don't believe that such a downbeat approach was necessary for the book to
>"fly in the '90s." There are some upbeat books still kicking out there,
>and they lack the established fan base that LSH had.
I dunno if Chris was talking about the tone or just the level of
realism. Levitz and T&M (yes, I also give credit where it's due) both
gave us different but realistic views of the 30C. It's just that, when
compared to the real world, techno-utopias always seem kinda, well,
implausible. "Grim=realistic" was the scourge of comics in the late
'80s-early '90s, but it can also require less suspension of disbelief.
(At least, I doubt anyone will contend that the Weisinger era didn't
require a strong, healthy dollop of WSoD. The LSH was exempted from a lot
of things that Superman went through, but they *did* get turned into
babies so the Time Trapper could, um, rob a bank, and Garth *did* lose his
arm to an enormous pickle. I'm very fond of the ADVENTURE era, but they
have to be read differently from most modern comics.)
>I disagree with the apparent underlying assumption that keeping the
>book a little more upbeat is catering to an aging audience. Is there
>some reason to believe that new comics readers buy exclusively dark,
>depressing, nihilistic titles?
>
Well, that was the market for a while, but I think DC's getting
away from that. Notice what their big push lately has been: teenage
supers. I don't know about ANIMA or DAMAGE, but THE RAY and SUPERBOY are
both pretty light. (Especially compared to the sort of thing that was
prevalent in the HAWKWORLD era, another book I liked, actually. I have
reasonably catholic tastes.)
I would hasten to point out, BTW, that T&M also engineered
LEGIONNAIRES, a title which is definitely not dark. ("Nihilistic" depends
on your opinion on retcons, and different people find different things
depressing. I found the way Vi treated Tenzil depressing, but that's
because I was projecting from my own life.)
--Doug
Mean Mister Mustard
> Y'know, someday someone's going to have to explain to me exactly
>why Valor is a bad name (whereas "Matter-Eater Lad" and "Gas Girl" are not
>bad names). :)
We're just lucky that Tenzil, after eating the Miracle Machine, didn't
become Gas Guy. :)
Marc
The Great Elmosby
> <ans...@woods.uml.edu> wrote:
>>Conway was bad, but T&M are easily the worst ever. They made the LSH, a force
>>of benevolence, a force striving for a better future, into a ragtag band
>>of Hooligans, murderers, and pitiful shadows of once loving and caring
>>PEOPLE.
>
> Care to give us some specific examples? And to explain why the rest of
> us should agree with you?
Most of the new characters, e.g. Kono (hooligan), Sade (murderer).
Jan's a pretty pitiful shadow.
But to take a slightly different tack, the LSH never existed under T&M&K.
They never took action, they never had a plan, a meeting, a strategy.
There were a few old members wandering around and a bunch of new schlubs
dashing around, and nothing got accomplished. There was no team, no team
spirit, no team identity, and no soul.
> I refuse to sit here, and
>>pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes
>
> Well, that's convenient.
The Most Cretinous Features of LSH v4
"With Friends Like This..." Dept:
1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
"Drake who?" Dept:
2. Where is Wildfire?
3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
"Everybody Is *Somebody's* Favorite" Dept:
4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
(Ann #2)
5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
"Might Have Saved a Few Lives" Dept:
6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
forgot to tell her. (#42)
"Mary, Mary, How Does Your Limb Grow" Dept:
7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
have her wings back.
8. Loomis: Either that "cellular damage" is localized, in which case it
can be excised and the arm regrown, or it's system-wide, in which case he's
dead.
8a. Gim Allon: Chop off that crippled leg. Grow a new one.
"Huh? Did you say someth--<KABOOM>!!!" Dept:
9. Blok's heroic death. (#3)
"Advances in Psychotherapy" Dept:
10. They can cure Mekt's psychoses, but not Ral's stuttering.
"Previous Transcribers to Bierbaums: `Bite Me!' " Dept:
11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
"By the Light of a Silvery Asteroid Belt" Dept:
12. Blowing up the moon without ending all life on Earth. (#18)
13. Having a bomb that can blow up the moon and *keeping it a secret*.
13a. Replacing the moon with a satellite as a desperate, last-ditch effort.
Earth doesn't need a moon.
"Having It Both Ways" Dept:
14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
"Foreshadowing: Your Guide to Quality Literature" Dept:
15. Blowing up Earth with toxic sludge. (#38)
16. Sex-changing Shvaughn Erin. (#31?)
"It's Just as Stupid, but It's *Our* Stupid Name" Dept:
17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
"That *Is* Alchemy!" Dept:
18. Changing elements by changing electron bonds. (LGS #1)
"I Want a Nice Lingering Death, Just Like Him!" Dept:
19. Dirk: Injured in #19, hallucinating in #28, euthanized in #36.
Never mentioned again.
19a. Dirk being injured at all by a powersphere. (v2 #287?)
"Sexism Lives" Dept:
20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
"What's an RPG" Dept:
21. Anything you want to know about the characters? Read the Sourcebook!
Or the Postcards! Or Who's Who! Just not the comic!
"Who Is That Strange Child on the Poster?" Dept:
22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
"AAAAH! I'm Wearing a Circus Tent!" Dept:
23. Al Gordon on Timber Wolf.
"What Twin Sister? What Telepathic Wife?" Dept:
24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
"Hand Me That Shoehorn" Dept:
25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
"The Trouble With Robots" Dept:
26. The meaning of B.I.O.N. revealed...in the lettercol, five issues later.
27. Kono disables B.I.O.N.: What *were* those wires for?
28. A gravity plate can hold someone with Daxamite-plus strength,
and not effect anyone else in the room.
29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
30. Was it ever actually stated that B.I.O.N. couldn't use more than
one power at a time?
"You've Just Possessed a Legionnaire! What Are You Going to Do Next?" Dept:
31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
"Flashbacks Are Green" Dept:
32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
"What Activated Metagene?" Dept:
33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
"But She's Kewl" Dept:
34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
after Jo can't be all bad."
"There Are No Corollaries" Dept:
35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
"It's Who You Know" Dept:
36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
"Nice Uniforms" Dept:
37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
coach. (#4?)
" `Vanity of Vanities', Says Qoheleth" Dept:
38. Nura Nal, who's excessively vain and exceedingly athletic, getting fat.
--
"_Legion_of_Super-Heroes_ is one of those mags that should have a stake
driven through its staples, its covers lopped off, and garlic stuffed into
its panel borders to insure it will never come back from the dead again."
--Tony Isabella, Comics Buyer's Guide #1010
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
The Great Elmosby
> excessive retconning.
I was offended by their *lack* of respect for Legion history. Oh, they
knew their trivia, no one can fault them for that. But they changed the
big stuff on whim, without thought, and never got the spirit of the Legion
right. From a post I made a while back:
Top Ten Changes If T&M&K Were Writing Star Trek:
10. Riker cheated to get through Starfleet Academy.
9. Picard is Wesley's real father.
8. During their time together, Q beat Vash ruthlessly and sadistically.
7. Sisko's not black, he's one of seven intelligent members of Odo's race.
6. Five Words: United Federation of Asteroid Belts.
5. Sulu's real name is Hikaru Dax.
4. Nurse Chapel is really a man, but fortunately Spock's gay.
3. It's not Spock's spirit in Spock's body, it's Jem's.
2. The Federation's greatest enemy are the Borgith: Great cosmic power,
itty-bitty intellect (and purple lingerie).
1. Odo was on the first Enterprise, you just don't remember him.
Those are the sorts of things they did to the Legion--very fanficcy stuff,
massive changes, extreme characterization.
> After v4 rekindled my interest in the Legion, I went out and bought
> the last year or so of Levitz's run... and *then* I found out why they were
> so cheap.
Because Giffen was starting to run things? Because Levitz was tired and
had used up all his ideas?
:( Perhaps the greatest "offense" a comic can commit is to have
> poor quality, and I didn't see any of that at the start of v4.
>
I agree. v4 started with a great deal of potential. It just never lived up
to it.
--
"There is no heroism in vanquishing a weakling or a fool."
--Irwin R. Blacker
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
Josh Mercer
>mmc...@ucsd.edu (Michael E. McKean) writes:
>> This includes the retcon concerning Valor/Mon-El, Superboy, and Laurel Gand.
>Laurel was an impressive retcon. And for a change forced on them from
>above, the Valor/Superboy switch was practically elegant, even if V's name
>was pretty stupid.
Agreed, but I started reading the book with v4.
One interesting thing reading racm is now McCraw is doing things to the
characters that v4 Giffen/Bierbaum fans find as offensive as Levitz fans
found the beginning of v4..
IMHO, if McCraw is being "respectful" to the " history of the Legion,"
the old fans can have it. The book has been so dumbed-down from early v4 that
it's not even readable anymore, and has gone into the drop column after
the last issue. I tried to make it to zero month, I really did...
Mean Mister Mustard
Willie Neumann <r...@hypact.com> wrote:
>
>we've been shown Fate's predecessor in the past, I don't believe he was ever
>wearing a helmet
Well, all the times I've seen Nabu depicted in ancient Egypt, he has worn
the helmet. (This may not have been the case in the 1940s, but I know
recently the ancient Nabu has always been shown with the helmet, at least
when in his full-power incarnation -- which looks like a classical version
of the modern Dr. Fate costume). A recent Spectre issue, as well as Nabu's
cameos in Time Masters and Legion of Super Heroes all show him this way.
> so perhaps the Lords of Order can reorganize their
>"dwellings" at will.
It stands to reason. After all, Kilderkin can house himself/incarnate
himself as a cardboard box... :)
Marc
Abhiji...@transarc.com
Since this topic has started up again, let me give my 2 cents.
Pros :
1) Tom, Mark, Keith (henceforth TMK) were well ahead of Levitz in terms
of characterization. Levitz was good at strong characterization, but he
never went deep into a person's head the way TMK did. TMK were also
capable of some amazing characterization in just a few panels. For
instance, the scene with Shadow Lass mourning Mon-el in issue #4 gave
her more depth than in any comic she's been in in the past 25 years.
Also, the scenes inside Sun Boy's head are an amazing piece of work, as
good as anything Alan Moore ever did.
2) TMK were also willing to take chances and try complex plotlines.
Their early issues are full of hints and jokes slipped in on a scale
that rivals Watchmen. They were also willing to do things in a
"non-superheroish" way : eg. the way in which they took on Mordru the
first time around and emerged victorious is superior to any of the
non-superheroic ways Neil Gaiman's protagonists have won battles.
3) They did have a vision for the Legion, at least in the early issues.
There is a lot of strong emotion in the early V4, as we see what the
world has come to and we see that the legion wants to put it together.
4) They had an encylopedaic knowledge of past Legion lore, probably
even more than Levitz.
5) Levitz was clearly slipping in the last issues of the title. Magic
Wars is a weak piece of work, compared to Levitz's earlier epics. [ Too
bad it wasn't written after or concurrently with Books of Magic, that
way he could have used some of the background Gaiman set up. ]
6) Editorial problems and restrictions screwed them up quite a bit.
7) Laurel Gand (sniff) was a truly brilliant creation.
8) They were far better at humor than Levitz.
Problems
1) TMK were BAD at juggling multiple plots. They would often finish of
plotlines in a rather absurd manner (chronal howtizer, Nabu sending
Ultra Boy back to our time, BION's defeat). It's just pathetic that
they couldn't tell us what Black Dawn was about in 50 issues.
2) They introduced truly annoying and meaningless retcons (Proty as
Lightning Lad, Kid Quantum) etc. None of these seem to have any
purpose other than to tick everyone off.
3) I can understand writers more willing to write characters they like.
Levitz himself didn't use Tyroc or Tenzil much. But writing Wildfire (a
very popular Legionnary) out for 50 odd issues goes beyond that.
4) With the trouble they had covering all the LSHers, you'd think they
would have more sense than to introduce 20 odd more characters in the
LGS.
5) Towards the end on both series, they were clearly petulant and
writing in an unprofessional manner. You can almost see their lack of
effort.
6) Giffen's art.
The frustating thing with V4 is that it could have been so much better
with better editing and a little more effort. It could have been a true
comics masterpiece, popular both creatively and with the public. If
Levitz had been a member of the team, with veto powers, fer instance ..
Abhijit
Willie Neumann
>However, I must admit that it is vaguely worrying that, for example, they are
>disregarding a few decades of dr.Fate lore and pretending that the helmet is
>simply another magical artifact, as opposed to the receptacle of a lord of
>Order, but that it is really the only case i know of in which such utter
>disregard (a la Marvel, one might argue) for the past is being exercised.
Something I read gave me the idea that the helmet transformed *itself*,
rather than was the victim of some mystical blacksmith or something. When
we've been shown Fate's predecessor in the past, I don't believe he was ever
wearing a helmet, so perhaps the Lords of Order can reorganize their
"dwellings" at will. Of course, since this is a post-Zero Hour title, if
they couldn't before, maybe they can now.
R David Francis
Back at Last (sporadically, at least)
R...@hypact.com
Tom Johnston
>In article <2t390r$i...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>Tom Johnston <tpjg...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>>I guess I don't see avoidance of stagnation as justifying the way they
>>wrote the title. Levitz's run did not seem stagnant, but he still
>>managed to use most of the established characters and stay true to the
>>history of the title.
>See, when I grade, I give credit for audacity. It's better to aim for
>something new and achieve a flawed success than to keep rehashing the
>same old thing. Levitz was audacious in his own way, and the Bierbaums
>were trying to push the envelope in theirs.
A writer should be brave enough to allow the logical growth of
characters and the progression of plots. The T&M stuff just seemed
so removed from the earlier series that I didn't care for it. They
changed so many things that the book was scarcely recognizable. A
little too much audacity for my tastes.
>If you're not a wonk, than I concede your right to follow your own
>tastes, but respectfully suggest you're not giving the run enough credit
>for the many things it did right.
It did several things right. I liked the early issues a lot, and the
use of Valor to fill the void left by Superboy was a good idea. The
Annual in which Glorith sent Tinya back in time was really well done.
>>I don't believe that such a downbeat approach was necessary for the book to
>>"fly in the '90s." There are some upbeat books still kicking out there,
>>and they lack the established fan base that LSH had.
>My point was that the comic book could not survive if it insisted on
>maintaining the same sort of happy-smiley utopian society that it was
>established with. Did the adjustment have to be as extreme as Giffen and
>the Bierbaums made it? Maybe not, but again, audacity is a *good* thing.
First, I believe it could have survived. There are a lot of other
books from Marvel and DC that survive that can't have much more of
a readership than the previous incarnation of LSH. Second, there must
be some limit on the audacity. It has to be tempered with some consideration
for the work being produced. The alternative, audacity for audacity's
sake, would result in making pointless change after pointless change,
simply for shock value.
>>I disagree with the apparent underlying assumption that keeping the
>>book a little more upbeat is catering to an aging audience. Is there
>>some reason to believe that new comics readers buy exclusively dark,
>>depressing, nihilistic titles?
>Reality check. The current Legion is not particularly dark (except in
>comparison to its inordinately bright origins), only occassionally
>depressing, and by no means nihilistic.
In all fairness, I quit reading the book quite some time ago. One of
the more recent issues that I read had the death of Sunboy. Also, at
some point I saw the issues introducing the SW6 batch of Legionairres,
with some of the SW6 batch being killed during their escape (sorry, it's
been a while since I read these, so details may be wrong.) And then
there was the murder of Blok, and the changes to several of the other
characters. The series was extremely dark, to my tastes. As another
poster to this thread has pointed out, the book really seemed to lack a
soul. [ This year's annuals sound very light in comparison, and I may
give one or both a try. ]
Mean Mister Mustard
In article <1994Jun8...@fnalo.fnal.gov>,
The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>
>The Most Cretinous Features of LSH v4
>
>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
Obviously a bit of humor (and as such, it was a lot funnier than "Echo-
Chamber Chet," or a lot of other Tenzil zaniness).
>2. Where is Wildfire?
>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
>
>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
>
>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
>(Ann #2)
No doubt about it, a lot of members got shafted. TMK should've at least
given us updates on where the other LSHers were, and done it a lot sooner
than they did. On the other hand, I was glad to see the Legion get "pared
down" a little -- I just wish we'd learned what happened to those who
didn't make the cut.
Karate Kid is pretty annoying (his death, not the character). If a third
Legionnaire had to die, why not at least make it one who's adult version
had survived?
>5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
Frankly, I'm not surprised that no one does...
And I'm rather glad they don't...
>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
>have her wings back.
Yes, but she's only been out of Starhaven for a few days. And before she
left that grove, she wasn't in any position to ask for their return.
>9. Blok's heroic death. (#3)
It's a shame Blok died, but I think he got a *better* death than most
comic characters -- we saw how much his death affected everyone (esp. Mysa).
And let's face it, not every hero is going to have the opportunity to die
after making The Ultimate Sacrifice, and delivering some Claremontesque/
Stanleeesque Monologue. Especially when a psychopath like Roxxas (great
character) is gunning for them, and they don't even know it.
>"Advances in Psychotherapy" Dept:
>
>10. They can cure Mekt's psychoses, but not Ral's stuttering.
Maybe Ral comes from a whole PLANET of stutterers... :)
I would say this falls under the "Big Freaking Deal Department," myself.
So a character stutters. So what?
>13. Having a bomb that can blow up the moon and *keeping it a secret*.
You've mentioned this before, and I still think that making it public
would be *even dumber*. For one thing, the Doms were trying to keep their
presence a secret. For another, holding Earth hostage with a weapon, even
a moon-sized one, could never last long... especially with two Lar Gands
running around.
>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
>
>15. Blowing up Earth with toxic sludge. (#38)
>
>16. Sex-changing Shvaughn Erin. (#31?)
No argument here. Even I didn't care for these issues. However, these
don't reduce the high quality of other parts of v4.
>"It's Just as Stupid, but It's *Our* Stupid Name" Dept:
>
>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
Ummm, Legionnaires isn't part of the discussion. (Thank God. Then us
T&M defenders [well, okay, v4 defenders in my case] would have our work
cut out for us.)
Actually, I dislike most of the SW6 names. Gossamer? Puh-LEEZE. But I
don't think the boy-lass-lad stuff would work so well today (at least, not
with all 20 SW6ers... keeping a few, like Cosmic Boy & Saturn Girl, works
just fine).
>"That *Is* Alchemy!" Dept:
>
>18. Changing elements by changing electron bonds. (LGS #1)
If you're going to start picking apart comics for their Bad Science, then
you have a lot of other comics to hate... v4 hasn't been any better or worse
in this respect than other comics. Remember the issue where Mon-El towed
a white dwarf? Written by Legion God Paul "Cain't Do No Wrong" Levitz.
>19. Dirk: Injured in #19, hallucinating in #28, euthanized in #36.
>Never mentioned again.
Well, mentioned a few times (like annual 3). And possibly, maybe, back in
that containment suit. But yes, his postmortem brushoff is a shame.
(But not nearly as shameful as the fact that in LEGIONNAIRES, none of the
characters have come to grips with their "older selves" deaths. Isn't Lyle
a little disturbed at being killed by Garth and Imra's son? And wouldn't
a lot of humans have reason to HATE Dirk?)
>19a. Dirk being injured at all by a powersphere. (v2 #287?)
Could've been too much power even for him. Could've been hurt by shrapnel,
which lowered his resistance to heat/radiation. (You're thinking of the
issue where Dirk withstands an overheating reactor on Brande's world, right?
Different situation -- no actual explosion.)
>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
You could've stopped with "Shvaughn becomes a man," and still made plenty
of converts.
>21. Anything you want to know about the characters? Read the Sourcebook!
>Or the Postcards! Or Who's Who! Just not the comic!
Annoying in the extreme, ain't it?
>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
Preferably figment.
>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
Or, as Ayla says, didn't want to notice.
>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
See Ivy.
>26. The meaning of B.I.O.N. revealed...in the lettercol, five issues later.
So? Really, Elmo, I wouldn't think that *you* would need to stretch to
find reasons to dislike v4...
>29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
>invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
Daxamite invulnerability plus ultra-invulnerability, etc, etc.
>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
Makes me wonder if the whole "Bounty is an evil parasite" deal wasn't a
retcon when it was finally revealed...
>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
33a. Don and Dawn Allen, children of the *biggest* thorn in Earthgov's side,
are executed. Message sent to dissidents (and poor Iris) is far greater
than anything they could've gained from putting them in the chambers for
months, eventually getting around to mindwiping them, etc.
Besides, who's to say that the Doms didn't get all the info they needed on
superspeed *before* they executed the Allens?
>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
>after Jo can't be all bad."
Well, hell no, look at Veilmist! :)
(She's over there... and over there... and over there...)
Besides, I like having her around. ("oh, no... someone LIKES some the things
from volume 4... my... energy is draining...")
>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
Also, that Jo got hit by a chronal howitzer, and not a real howitzer. (Of
course, we at least saw some evidence there).
And McCraw had Jo challenge Lar about not remembering that Phase looked
just like Tinya... then again, the guy had 1000 years to forget...
>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
Just like Shvaughn getting promoted once she's... er... Sean. Maybe some
future storyline will involve a class-action lawsuit, complaints to the
EEOC, etc.
On the other hand, so they got jobs? Does their good fortune really irk
you that much?
>37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
>coach. (#4?)
I would reverse this. The team in issue 4 is playing some futuristic,
possibly interesting sport. Three years later, they're playing a cheap
baseball ripoff, which is only then called "batball." Which should've
been changed?
I don't think volume four has been perfect, and I think I'm about as critical
of some of the later "Terra Mosaic" stuff as anyone else here (I make no
apologies for Earth Blowing Up Because We Polluted It, the lame batball
issue, etc.). But volume four had a lot of good in it (most of which has
been mentioned to death in other posts).
You obviously don't like v4, and you're entitled to your opinion, but that
doesn't mean that the comics are necessarily *bad.*
Frankly, it looks like you were reaching on some of these... and while it's
not surprising that they would annoy you (a lot of them annoyed me too --
Sean? Kid Quantum? was there really a need?), personal dislike doesn't
always equal Bad Work, let alone Horrible Offense to All That Has Gone
Before.
Marc
Tom Galloway
I tend to agree with Abhijit's pros, and would add most of the Omnicoms
as a useful and interesting way of providing extra background information
or perspective.
> Problems
> 1) TMK were BAD at juggling multiple plots. They would often finish of
> plotlines in a rather absurd manner (chronal howtizer, Nabu sending
> Ultra Boy back to our time, BION's defeat). It's just pathetic that
> they couldn't tell us what Black Dawn was about in 50 issues.
I'd add this as problems juggling multiple characters. People would
disappear for extended periods for no apparent reason...often right
after a dangling plot for them was established.
I suspect this relates to something that was consistent in the writing as
implied above. Namely, no character in the book seemed to have strategic
abilities greater than a newt. Which led to a fair number of idiot plots; the
plot only worked because everyone involved acted like an idiot. Also, the deus
ex machinas mentioned above. Unfortunately, this first established itself
early on, and can't be laid at the feet of editorial interference. In the
reformed Legion's first case, Cham recruits Jo and a powerless Rokk (and gets
Kono and Furball in the bargain, but he didn't know about them in advance) to
attack Mordru, one of the two most powerful foes of the Legion, in order to
get Mysa back.
OK, point 1. Mysa was never all that important to the LSH, close to Cham, or
critical to the team, old or new. There's no real reason for her to be #3 on
the recruitment list, particularly since others would be a lot easier to
recruit first, and she's not in imminent, have to do something about it right
now, danger. Point 2. When asked what strategy he has for them to go up
against Mordru, Cham replies that he'll use the old Daggle charm. Excuse me?
That wasn't a joke? That really was all the strategy he had? Then why did he
bring Rokk or Jo? And why didn't they look at him, laugh, and get the hell out
of there?
If the characters consistently can't plot, unless done for farce it probably
means the writer isn't too good at it either.
The other big problem with LSH v.4 was their set-up. The UP is in a state
of economic collapse. The Dominators have taken over Earth via political
means. The Khunds are at war with the UP. The Dark Circle is a religious
cult making inroads on UP worlds. And absolutely none of these are things
the LSH can do a damn thing about, at least in terms of being superheros.
The closest would be to turn it into a war book vis a vis the Khunds, but
that would be pretty anti-Legion itself. There's no wonder the LSH never
seemed to actually do much; the very situations set up in the book
couldn't have been designed much better in terms of their not being able
to do anything about them. And since the writers apparently didn't want
the LSH to be interplanetary police or even search&rescue types, the
team seemed to be drifting in search of a purpose.
What this book needed was a strong plotter, whose vision for the book was
one the Bierbaums' scripting ability could work well with. I think what
really frustrates LSH fans is that their strengths were mostly on display
in the first 12 issues (the storyline being getting the Legion back
together, that providing a sense of purpose), with v4 showing a lot of
promise. After that, the weaknesses of the set-up and the writing started
showing up bigtime, leading to a sense of frustration and wondering how
what seemed so promising could decline like it did.
"By the way, there was a Legion of Super-Pets"
"But it isn't a nominee because:
1) It would be redundent.
2) It was only an auxiliary of the Legion of Superheroes
3) DC admitted its existence in Who's Who, and
4) There are a lot of humorless Legion fans out there, and some of them
probably have guns." --World's Worst Comics Awards
tyg t...@hq.ileaf.com
Mean Mister Mustard
>> I still don't see what was "offensive" about v4, except perhaps for the
>> excessive retconning.
>
>I was offended by their *lack* of respect for Legion history. Oh, they
>knew their trivia, no one can fault them for that. But they changed the
>big stuff on whim, without thought, and never got the spirit of the Legion
>right. From a post I made a while back:
[very funny list deleted]
>Those are the sorts of things they did to the Legion--very fanficcy stuff,
>massive changes, extreme characterization.
That's what I meant by "excessive retconning." The pointless stuff that
they did just to make their personal Legion stories see print, and fit in
continuity. Hell, I have some neat ideas for LSH stories that might have
been, but I wouldn't go back and screw up the book just to make them "True."
(A ridiculous idea, anyway, that any story needs to be made "in continuity"
to be better... as Alan Moore said in his "Last Superman Story," they're
*all* imaginary.)
> :( Perhaps the greatest "offense" a comic can commit is to have
>> poor quality, and I didn't see any of that at the start of v4.
>>
>I agree. v4 started with a great deal of potential. It just never lived up
>to it.
In principle, I agree with you -- I thought the series really declined
after a while. But I do think the first part of it lived up to all its
potential. (I guess we just see the quality as sloping off at different
points in time.)
Marc
Mean Mister Mustard
Con #6...]
>6) Giffen's art.
I really liked Giffen's style for v4. I thought it was really suited to
the tone of the series, and the method of storytelling: risky, complex,
strong characterization, nice overall design. I loved the nine-panel grid.
I also loved the way the lettering and coloring meshed so well with the
art. It's a shame Todd Klein didn't stick around, his letters (esp. for
Roxxas and the Dominators) were terrific as always. And however many
people disparage Tom McCraw's writing (I still don't), I think his coloring
can't be faulted. The color-coded captions that replaced thought balloons
were especially nice.
>The frustating thing with V4 is that it could have been so much better
>with better editing and a little more effort. It could have been a true
>comics masterpiece, popular both creatively and with the public. If
>Levitz had been a member of the team, with veto powers, fer instance ..
Better... more CONSISTENT editing was definitely needed. Having three
editors in the first year didn't help any, and they've been playing
editorial hopscotch ever since.
I don't know if Levitz would've wanted to be on the editorial/creative
team, nor do I know if that would've resulted in better comics. The sense
of daring that fueled the creation of Laurel, the use of Roxxas, the
Mordruverse, etc., might have been lessened.
Just My Humble (I think I can hear Elmo laughing at that one) Opinion.
Marc
The Great Elmosby
> IMHO, if McCraw is being "respectful" to the " history of the Legion,"
> the old fans can have it.
It's currently a bizarre and somewhat unpalatable mix of Legion Classic,
Legion Giffen, and Legion Image. I like the way he's got a *team*.
I like that he's trying to execute plots as if he weren't being paid
by the word (comparing LSH v4 to Dickens, as someone did earlier in the
thread, is not necessarily a compliment). I hate that he's using
Image-type plots. I dislikee that he's throwing arbitrary and unlikeable
changes at the characters. I dislike the codenames and the costumes--but
at least the characters are recognizable.
There are three phases in Legion v4:
1-38: T&M&K: Controversial
39-49: T&M: Just plain bad
50-current: TMcC: Just plain bad
With Mark Waid coming on board, the book may very well straighten out.
Karsten Loepelmann
>This version(v4) of LSH is not only offensive it is a mockery of all that
>the LSH ever stood for. Definitely, there have been several BAD periods in
>LSH history, but NEVER have we had such blatent disregard for history
>as this, the most dispicable LSH work EVER done.
On the contrary, I saw v4 as the most *realistic* portrayal of super-heroes
since _The Watchmen_. I was always really miffed when Levitz would write a
scene where one LSHer chided another by saying "Cool down." or some such. In
reality, such `advice' would only serve to get that person's ass chewed out,
but good. Trust me, I've seen it happen among friends often enough.
As for `disregard' or history...no. A *selective* regard for history, OK.
T&M brought back Tenzil, who Levitz mostly ignored; on the other hand, they
did away with Blok, who Levitz created. The LSH of the mid-70s *ignored*
history--go back and read your back issues.
>Conway was bad, but T&M are easily the worst ever. They made the LSH, a force
>of benevolence, a force striving for a better future, into a ragtag band
>of Hooligans, murderers, and pitiful shadows of once loving and caring
>PEOPLE.
Hooligans? Do you mean Rokk? He was just striving for a better future, too--
by getting rid of the forces occupying Braal. Do you mean Jo? He was
fighting a corrupt government underground (and turning a tidy profit, too--
Imagine that!)
Murderers? Do you mean Jeckie, who killed Nem-- oops. That was *Levitz* who
wrote that. Do you mean Star Boy, who kiiled-- oops. That was, um Shooter?
In v4 #1 Rokk and Lydda are shown to be "loving". So are Imra and Garth.
T&M made the LSH less a bunch of goody-goodies, and made them more into real
people, with real flaws. They still strove for a better future, they were
just less successful.
>Obviously they are fiction, but to some of us they were a pleasent diversion
>from reality. They gave a tiny light of hope, that perhaps mankind has a
>bright future. Even at the worst, the Magic Wars, the Earth War, there was
>always an ending of building, a feeling that though everything has been
>broken, there is a tomorrow worth rebuilding for. This legion has lost that.
LSH v4 was still about all those things. First of all, there still *was*
(will be?) a future. That's not a bad start--especially in a comic book
Universe where the fabric of the cosmos is being threatened every month. And
hope, well. Why would the LSHers band together if they had no *hope* that
they could change anything. Maybe the subtlety of the message escaped you.
>T&M have taken my dreams, and for that I can not forgive them. This was
>as close to rape as can be acheived in comics. I refuse to sit here, and
>pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes, because the fact is
>the crime is the whole of the work, not any single part. When read as a
>whole, this lsh sits like vomit in my throat, and that is the saddest
>thing.
Aye Carumba! A lousy *comic* book taking away your dreams? I hate to use
this line ("In case of emergency..."), but: It's Just A Comic Book. As for
the rape issue...I think that was handled in an issue of Cerebus a couple years
back. I don't remember any sexual assaults taking place in V4 of LSH. If
LSH V4 was *so* bad, don't read it! Don't buy it! In the name of *heaven*,
LOOK AWAY!!
>Though i don't really care who agrees, I would bet big money that most of
>you feel the same, at least to some degree. If anyone would like to join me
>in an invasion of the LSH offices on 6th ave, let me know...
Um, there are *no* LSH offices. There are, however, *DC Comics* offices in NY.
Of course, having said that, I hope you're not a disgruntled postal worker...
Shiny, happy,
KAL
--
Karsten A. Loepelmann, Master of his domain (*psychology*, that is :-)
"Back off, man. I'm a scientist." -- Dr. Peter Venkman
kloe...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca /// klo...@psych.ualberta.ca
ans...@woods.uml.edu
Second I hate being called a wonk of any sort.
Third, after much consideration, I decided..with definite reserve..that I
went way to far in my little tirade.
I still don't like the v4 all that much. And I tend to go with the 'lost
soul' theory of LSH. BUT, that doesn't mean that everything done in LSH
during the first 50 issues of v4 was bad. I guess my feelings do stem from
the change in attitude, which goes back to the end of v3. I didn't like the
dark tone then either. The one redeeming thing was the looking off into the
galaxy with hope. Hope is something I like, and something that comics have
been lacking in recent years.
When I refer to the 'bad' writing of T&M, this isn't to say every idea was
bad. What I am saying is that they seemed to not know how to deal with
the ideas once started. Writing isn't just dialog, characterization, grammar,
and plot. Writing is all these things together, and good writing can
only develop when all these things are working towards a common goal. That is
to say, every piece of dialog gives information, all information builds
characterization which gives motives for the plot. They had all the
ingredients for fantastic writing, but they kept getting lost. They seemed
to leave out far to much information at some points(WHERE THE HELL IS
EVERYONE? WHY ARE WE DOING WHAT WE ARE DOING?) , and some of the
characterization never materialized into motive(DREAMY's WEIGHT GAIN,
SUSSA TURNING HERO). THis all left the plot convuluted. That isn't to say
that with a good reading you couldn't follow it, but there is a difference
between subtlety and convolution. They tried to be subtle, and ended up
confusing.
I don't know if I went to far with the T&M are the worst of all time.
Certainly They are my least favorite. I do, however, have to grant you that
'HOLY PAUL' had some weak stories throughout his tenure. v4 had/has promise.
0hour seems to be a dark shadow on the horizon, frankly, I think we/they
should just accept the gliches as part of the pie, and move along.
It is editorial's responsibility to maintain continuity, not writers.
Of course I say that not knowing if I will like the results, I just know that
given the same set of circumstances..I deal with what is and work from there,
rather than rewrite all history.
All I ask in the future is that EVERYONE refrains from calling me a wonk.
I am one of those LSH fans with a gun..and I am not afraid to use it...
(er well maybe I am..but I wouldn't admit it to a continuity crook)
MR NASTEY
Rick Jones
>thread, is not necessarily a compliment). I hate that he's using
>Image-type plots. I dislikee that he's throwing arbitrary and unlikeable
>changes at the characters. I dislike the codenames and the costumes--but
>at least the characters are recognizable.
Well, as to the plot, remember he's also been told to put the
Legion on hold until Zero Hour. So, he was supposed to do two things.
The first was to do something that would bring in new readers. The
cut cover, along with the "outlaw" plotline and some of the Image-y
changes, was designed for that. Hopefully, once that is done, and
Zero Hour finishes painting in its continuity patches, they
(are McGraw and Waid going to be co-writers, or what?) can tell stories
they want. Secondly, they had to tell a story that did not do anything
that couldn't be fixed by Zero Hour. Notice all of the changes done
(except for Celeste's body's death) can be easily undone by someone
with Time Control powers.
>With Mark Waid coming on board, the book may very well straighten out.
A-MEN. He does a stellar job on Flash, and can probably tell a
great Legion Story.
I'm hoping they turn over the elections to the fans again.
Remember, a vote for Kem means a hovercar in every garage and a wrench
in every pot.
--
Rick Jones "The seven beasts, they spoke to men in this
alb...@bcm.tmc.edu place. Whispers in dreams, and they speak to me."
Systems Support Center "Do tell."
Voice: 713-798-7352 --Hellboy #2
Mean Mister Mustard
>Legion Giffen, and Legion Image. I like the way he's got a *team*.
>I like that he's trying to execute plots as if he weren't being paid
>by the word (comparing LSH v4 to Dickens, as someone did earlier in the
>thread, is not necessarily a compliment).
Amen. To the McCraw good points and the slam on Dickens.
>I hate that he's using
>Image-type plots. I dislikee that he's throwing arbitrary and unlikeable
>changes at the characters. I dislike the codenames and the costumes--but
>at least the characters are recognizable.
Now that "Legion on the Run -- Again" is over, I hope all of these features
will disappear.
Nevertheless, I like McCraw's writing overall, and I think Mark Waid can
help him lose some of the things we don't like, while keeping what's good.
All I know is that I'm a lot more interested in the Legion now than I
was toward the end of the Bierbaums' run.
I credit this to McCraw's writing.
Marc
Karsten Loepelmann
Y'know, Greg, I really like your point-by-point lists. Allows for qwik-'n'-
easy counterpoints :)
>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
In the first place, Brainiac is a dumb combat choice. In the second place,
Celeste whould have been done away with long ago.
>2. Where is Wildfire?
See the Black Dawn miniseries. What do you mean, "There is none?" Editor!
>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
This was bad, especially because the real Drake appeared shortly thereafter.
(Is it going to be this hard to disagree with you??)
>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
Having All Dead Guys miraculously back again thru the incredible miracle of
cloning^H^H^H^H^H^H^H temporal copying diminishes the deaths of the originals.
>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
...which everyone assumed meant that Ganglios had 'joined the Dark Side.' Geez,
they coulda been having a philosophical discussion, and he was playing the
devil's advocate. Maybe.
>5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
Why?
>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
>forgot to tell her. (#42)
It's really tough to defend anything in #42... Maybe the force shield had a
7-yr. latency before it, um...
>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
>have her wings back.
You mean you really wanted her to return the next issue with wings and feathers
and all? This is *not* an X-book, you know. I am quite enjoying her gradual
return to her old self. Mainly because I diliked her old self.
>8. Loomis: Either that "cellular damage" is localized, in which case it
>can be excised and the arm regrown, or it's system-wide, in which case he's
>dead.
Maybe he wears his wound as a badge of pride; as a symbol for the horror of
Venado Bay. I think something might have been mentioned about this early on
in V4. (I can't really believe you think that this is a "Cretinous Feature"
of V4. Do you really like Loomis so much--or are you reaching?)
>8a. Gim Allon: Chop off that crippled leg. Grow a new one.
Eh? One guy has too few limbs, another has too many. Buh? He seems to be
doing perfectly fine with the SPs.
>9. Blok's heroic death. (#3)
Shocking, innit? Not predictable, even. Hmm...
>10. They can cure Mekt's psychoses, but not Ral's stuttering.
Ral Benem's speech impediment seems to have cleared up recently, indicating
that itwasn't so serious. (You know, many deaf people don't want to be 'cured'
with a cochlear implant? Deaf culture is something in and of itself. In the
future, when *anything* can be cured, these subcultures may be prevalent.
Sorry. There I go being all psychological. :)
>12. Blowing up the moon without ending all life on Earth. (#18)
If there is no multiverse, then we can infer that quantum mechanics does not
govern the DCUniverse. Thus, the `other' physics allows for the above apparent
paradox.
>13. Having a bomb that can blow up the moon and *keeping it a secret*.
Don't forget, the LSH was able to keep the truth behind the *Concentrator*
secret!
>13a. Replacing the moon with a satellite as a desperate, last-ditch effort.
>Earth doesn't need a moon.
(See retort to point no. 12.)
>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
Do you want to read about cultural effects, or do you want to read about super-
heroes saving the universe. (I don't remember, did you *like* the text pages
or not? I know you loathed the fact that much info was given out in the
Sourcebook)
>15. Blowing up Earth with toxic sludge.
Do you really want a real-world explanation of How to Blow Up the Earth? I
think you are arguing with the fact that the Earth was destroyed almost
casually, not with the particular means used to do so. Anyway, RJ Brande will
have a new New Earth made in a few years.
>16. Sex-changing Shvaughn Erin.
OK, I *hate* this one, too. OK? Are you happy? :)
>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
This would have worked had McCraw not re-retconned the clones into temporal
copies. Really.
>18. Changing elements by changing electron bonds. (LGS #1)
Not this one again! It's from WWLSH, not V4!
>19. Dirk: Injured in #19, hallucinating in #28, euthanized in #36.
>Never mentioned again.
Well, he *is* dead. And since Wildfire's using his body (right?), we'll
hear about Dirk again.
>19a. Dirk being injured at all by a powersphere. (v2 #287?)
Huh? I don't get it. He's not invulnerable. Or is this another quibble with
the fact of it happening/how it happened?
>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
You're really reaching here. You read this and got ticked off?
>21. Anything you want to know about the characters? Read the Sourcebook!
>Or the Postcards! Or Who's Who! Just not the comic!
>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
Editorial interference, forcing the Khund War storyline on the creative team.
And I'm *glad* that Ivy never became a member. Did anyone like her. Ick.
>23. Al Gordon on Timber Wolf.
OK, so TW wore a poncho. So did Laurel Kent. You're miffed over a *costume*
design?
>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed.
Geez, I gotta agree with you again. This was an odious `plot twist'. Just
for the sake of having something "interesting" happen in the Annual. Feh!
>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
D'oh! I'm agreeing with you again. And *this* one really fried my ginch.
Shoulda been a part of LGS all along, not LSH.
>"The Trouble With Robots" Dept:
>26. The meaning of B.I.O.N. revealed...in the lettercol, five issues later.
Believe It Or Not. Or something like that...
>27. Kono disables B.I.O.N.: What *were* those wires for?
If you ask a question like that you're going to get a really stupid Star Trek:
TNG answer filled with a bunch of made-up gobbledegook that you'll like even
less than the 'Proton Jelly' justification for the EarthFall. Consistency!
There's no way for anyone to do right by you, eh? :)
>28. A gravity plate can hold someone with Daxamite-plus strength,
>and not effect anyone else in the room.
Easy--it *projected* a gravity field. No? Um, it just really *startled* BION.
>29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
>invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
Yes; it depends on *how* the invulnerability works. By increasing molecular
density, or by positing some kind of Intrinsic Field (Ob Watchmen ref), or...
>30. Was it ever actually stated that B.I.O.N. couldn't use more than
>one power at a time?
>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
Maybe to avoid detection? It worked on Dawnstar's friends and allies who
knew her for several years. Flying was no biggie to Bounty. It just wanted
to skrag people.
>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
Aargh! Agreement once again. I am sooo ambivalent about her now, I just don't
care anymore. Yawn!
>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
Well, we didn't actually *see* how they were captured. Maybe by BION.
>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>now a trusted team member.
Aww, you're just saying that because she was their *enemy* before. (And *I'm*
just writing that because I'm getting tired. Jeez, was there *that* much wrong
with V4? Why didn't you write about what you *liked* about V4 and then I could
counter with what I hated about it... :)
>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
Hmm...*I* know! You're smarter than Brainy! You must have 13th level
intelligence. (Really, `super-smarts' must be *the* most difficult power to
write.)
>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
As long as the team keeps winning, I'm sure no one would mind too much.
>37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
>coach. (#4?)
These last couple are pretty minor quibbles. You could pick stuff like this
out of any issue of just about any comic on the market. I mean, it's not a
retcon, it's just your opinion of the uniform of a team playing a future
sport that doesn't exist. Maybe there's a full-contact part to the game
that we haven't seen yet.
>38. Nura Nal, who's excessively vain and exceedingly athletic, getting fat.
OK, with this last one I am going to agree wholeheartedly. Mostly because I
agree with you on Nura, but also because I'm now very tired. (I shoulda
checked the length of this post first :-)
Overall, you raise some good points. Others are truly minor quibbles. But
then, when you establish an opinion (i.e., "I hate V4"), everything you read
is coloured by that opinion.
Me, I'm more worried about what Zero Hour's going to do to the 30th century...
CWM
shouldn't quibble, but . . .
Re. Tyroc, unless I've missed something, I don't think v4 has EVER shown
Tyroc using his powers. I think that was Levitz's main pain with the
character . . . he didn't like all the WOOOooooeEEEEAAaaaah stuff that
you had to show to let the reader know what Tyroc was doing (plus, nobody
really knew what his powers could DO).
Levitz didn't really have the option of re-introducing the character,
completely ignoring all his super-human powers, and instead chronicling
his rise in politics. One of the things I liked about the Bierbaum era
was that they COULD do things like that.
Michael A. Chary
re: the White Dwarf business, at *least* Levitz had the guts
to admit he was wrong and apologize for that hogwash in the
letter col. TMK in response to similar objections
simply said "Well, educated opinions may differ." I
asked them about this at a con, btw, their source was
The Los Angeles Times according to Mary.
Let me reiterate, I not have a problem with the retcons in
principle but *THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING WITH THEM*.
The only two things that struck me as indefensibly stupid
were Dream Girl's appearance and the Proty is Garth nonsense.
I'll even give them that the last one --Proty/Garth-- might
possibly work but there is no way that Nura would defy
*every single scrap of characterization* and let her appearance
slide. I mean here was a LSH leader for Chrissakes during
a pretty horrific period and she suddenly grows older inh
five years running the UP's most prosperous planet? Please!
Beyond those two things, I just think if they are going to
retcon dsomething they should have a reason for it.
Why does Schvaugn *have* to be a man. Why does Kid Quantum
*have* to be in the history? Why is J'onn J'onz (who was
Grell's Where's Waldo joke) suddenly make an appearance?
They never gave a reason for most of there
retcons and that stinks.
"their" retcons I mean, but hell, twenty issues ago in
Adv. 320 Brainiac five in between panels went back in time
and changed the spelling of "their" to consildate the homonyms;)
Carl Fink
[lots of hilarious stuff I won't repeat]
Thank you, Greg. I needed that. I have such bad feelings about
the current LSH, that the relief of laughing at your post was
tremendous. First positive feelings I've had about the book since
V4#13.
Did they *ever* get around to explaining Ivy?
--
Pray, v.: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in
behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
--"The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce
Carl Fink ca...@panix.com CARL.FINK (GEnie)
Carl Fink
[deletia]
> Pros :
>
> 1) Tom, Mark, Keith (henceforth TMK) were well ahead of Levitz in...
~~~~
Who? Are you avenging the Shvaughn Erin storyline by changing Mary
Bierbaum's sex?
I agree with most of your posting. I blame the problems with V4
largely on bad editing. Well, partly on bad editing.
One strength of the Bierbaums, an area in which they clearly
outstrip Levitz, is dialoging. Levitz's dialog often seemed odd or
forced, the Bs did much better.
Carl Fink
> IMHO, if McCraw is being "respectful" to the " history of the Legion,"
> the old fans can have it. The book has been so dumbed-down from early v4 that
> it's not even readable anymore, and has gone into the drop column after
> the last issue. I tried to make it to zero month, I really did...
I believe Al Gordon and Mark Waid take over soon. Based on Flash,
I have some, if not high, hopes. Kurt Busiek tells me that he's seen
their plots, and they sound good.
Joev Dubach
>Finally, to accuse DC of seemingly coping Marvel's ideas is like
>saying that Marvel is the one-eyed king in the country not of the
>blind, but of the 3-eyed people - DC has far more to offer than Marvel
>in terms of history and tradition so I fail to see how it can suddenly
>become a copy of Marvel.
Wait, lemme try to get this simile straight:
"In the kingdom of the trioptic, the one-eyed company is a loser."
"See, there's this one-eyed king, but, like, all the other people have
three eyes. Freaky."
"People with three eyes are cool."
"Blind people suck."
"Suicide kings and one-eyed jacks wild, and no using the Eye of
Agamotto to see the opposing companies' hands."
Nope, no luck. Actually, I have a request for you, the reader. Go
back up to that quoted bit. Read it again. Draw a diagram. Grok it.
Ignore my feeble attempts at humor; the quote speaks for itself.
Joev
do...@earlham.edu
ma...@po.CWRU.Edu (Michael A. Chary) writes:
>for it if they so desire, I doubt they do;) And, they retconned
>Dream Girl so she's fifty! Dream Girl is the one who doesn't
>take carte of her appearance? Nura Nal? That Dream Girl?
>Well, I am not going to bother providing
>my exact LSH hash marks, but I've reading a while and
>the Nura I knew would not have gained forty pounds and twenty years in a five year
>period.
>Anyway, but I still think that IF she did have to change
>physically that dramatically, they should have done something with it.
First of all, the "fifty" thing is off base. She may look older
because of the weight and the platinum hair, but it's also an artistic thing,
not anything T&M can be blamed for. Show me where the text says "Nura is
fifty" and I'll believe you; otherwise it's just a case of sloppy art
making her look older than she is.
You may notice that the exact amount of weight fluctuates...by
artist. Hence, your figure of "forty pounds" is probably off-base too.
Quibbles aside, are you contending that people don't gain weight?
Or that they don't grow up and stop obsessing on their appearance?
(Levitz' Nura was annoyingly shallow about her looks. It's called
character development. Look into it.) Or are you just saying that fat people
can't be attractive?
(Myself, I chalk it up to the same reason Captain Picard is bald.
By the 30th Century, I'd hope mankind has matured enough to stop assigning
value judgements to physical traits.)
As to "doing something with it," what? Nura appeared in a handful
of issues during T&M's run, and she was never terribly essential to any of
them. Even a comment about her new looks would have been out of place,
just as commenting on Mekt's male companion would have; it's not news to
them, and it would have been rude to say anything. (Or would you have
preferred a long Levitz-style plot where, after her fat nearly kills
someone, she agonizes and finally decides to go to Brainiac 5 to get it
removed, only to have it send her into another dimension which an evil
being disguised as Beast Boy is trying to escape, and finally gets out
when someone detonates a Plot Device? Let's not blow things out of
proportion. Putting on weight, well, it happens.)
--Doug (and before anyone says anything, I
don't want to hear any comments about
the number of appearances she made
in v4. That's another issue entirely.)
Mean Mister Mustard
Michael A. Chary <ma...@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>
>re: the White Dwarf business, at *least* Levitz had the guts
>to admit he was wrong and apologize for that hogwash in the
>letter col. TMK in response to similar objections
>simply said "Well, educated opinions may differ." I
>asked them about this at a con, btw, their source was
>The Los Angeles Times according to Mary.
My point in bringing up the White Dwarf was just to point out that
science errors are committed in just about every comic (and just about
every sf novel, too), even those written by PAUL.
>Beyond those two things, I just think if they are going to
>retcon dsomething they should have a reason for it.
>Why does Schvaugn *have* to be a man. Why does Kid Quantum
>*have* to be in the history? Why is J'onn J'onz (who was
>Grell's Where's Waldo joke) suddenly make an appearance?
Agreed. Although I wouldn't call J'onn a retcon... at least, not until
some writer down the road kills J'onn in the 20th century, and then the
LSH writer in 2004 has to make a "pocket Mars" to explain the 30th C J'onn,
and... oh god... it begins AGAIN...
Marc
Ronald Snelgrove
run, but I will admit that, while I didn't care for much of what v.4 had to
offer, at least it tried to be different and strike out in new directions.
Now as to what I think really honked most people off. We all know that
T&M had no choice in certain respects. They had to write a post-Crisis LSH
without Kal-El, et al. That's not their fault, but what made me angry (and I
know it wasn't just me) was the *unneeded* retcons. Effectively eliminating
Garth, inserting a useless character into the early Legion mythos *for no
reason* other than to be able to say "This is how it *really* was." The
re-gendering of Svaughn Erin for no real reason. It's not that I have a
problem with Jan being gay since I don't have a problem with gay people. In
fact, it might have been an interesting storyline, but the retconning of
Officer Erin is what makes it stick in my craw.
If the writing team had made one or two minor changes (or one biggie),
there would have been some noise to be sure, but it would have subsided after
awhile. But since they kept throwing retcon after retcon at us, it seemed to
quickly become nothing more than a case of long-time fans getting the reins and
trying to go back and change all those little bits that they didn't like by
the prior writers, rather than moving strongly forward and marking out new
territory.
<gasp><wheeze>
Dennis
Michael A. Chary
I would not have a problem with Nura's weight gain --and they were so
obvious that she had gained weight and the she let her appearance go that
it *must* have been a conscious thing rather than an artistic
fluctuation-- if they had said, "She has been stressed about
Naltor's economy collapsing." or something similar. BUt, rthey didn't
and Nura being less than concerned about her appearance ignores
all of her previous perfectly good "character development" (I have
looked into it and what happened to Dreamy ain't it. What happened
to Dreamy was, hey I bet in the last five years Nura got fat and now
she's a blond Liz Taylor (who still has gorgeous eyes)). Nura
was a brilliant scientist (established in her first appearance).
Nura was a flirt (alsdo established in her first appearance.)
Nura was a great, resourceful intelligent leader with an iron will
(established many times but in the Great Darkness Saga and when
she told Atmos what to do with himself in particular). These
were not idle mentions these were traits that distinguished
Nura from Light Lass and Jecky. This was HER character.
For twenty or so years this was *her* character, just
for example, look at an issue an just before the Levitz Universo story
when Brainiac 5 is taking care of Nura in sick bay. She flirts
with B-5, Brainy says to himself some to the effect that she's
brilliant but he doesn't understand her flirtatious front.
She was the third or fourth most skill fighter in the legion
and she was constantly complaining about her nails breaking.
Shallow? Perhaps, but it was still Nura's character for
a *long* time and before TMK changed it *I* think, speaking for
no one but myself, they should have explained it in the story.
The Great Elmosby
> The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>>I agree. v4 started with a great deal of potential. It just never lived up
>>to it.
>
> In principle, I agree with you --
> points in time.)
OK, where do you see it? At #13, I was starting to be dissatisfied.
*They* seemed to think that #12 was a big arc-closer, the triumphant return
of the Legion, exclamation point. I thought it meant that things might
finally start happening, that we'd got past the prolog into the story.
And then the next issue was a Tenzil yuk-fest. Funny, but way the hell out
of place for the kind of serial story they were trying to do.
By the early twenties, I was thoroughly convinced that these clowns didn't
know what they were doing, that their long-term plotting skills were
completely nonexistent.
By the thirties, I was *certain* they were *out to get me personally* :-)
--
"If we kept on believing what we learned from comic books, we'd all be a lot
better off."--David Handler
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
CWM
pettiness, absurdity and general out-of-touch-with-reality mindset of the
anti-v4 crowd.
In article <1994Jun8...@fnalo.fnal.gov>,
The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>
>Most of the new characters, e.g. Kono (hooligan), Sade (murderer).
>Jan's a pretty pitiful shadow.
Actually, the new, deeply spiritual Jan is one of T&M's very best
characterizations, IMO.
>But to take a slightly different tack, the LSH never existed under T&M&K.
>They never took action, they never had a plan, a meeting, a strategy.
>There were a few old members wandering around and a bunch of new schlubs
>dashing around, and nothing got accomplished. There was no team, no team
>spirit, no team identity, and no soul.
Yes, it's a book about a bunch of people who used to be a super-team and
grew out of it. That's one of the reasons I love this series.
>> I refuse to sit here, and
>>>pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes
>>
>> Well, that's convenient.
>
>The Most Cretinous Features of LSH v4
>
>"With Friends Like This..." Dept:
>
>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
The new Legion is not perfect in their mastery of their powers. This is a
GOOD THING. Perfect super-heroes are boring. Celeste goofed up trying to
use her new powers, what on earth is "cretinous" about that?
>"Drake who?" Dept:
>
>2. Where is Wildfire?
>
>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
Where indeed? Why is it such a high crime to have unanswered questions in
a comic? Perhaps the single best thing T&M did was re-introduce
unanswered questions into the Legion continuity. This is a point which we
will return to repeatedly.
>"Everybody Is *Somebody's* Favorite" Dept:
>
>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
Life's a bitch, eh? The world of the current Legion is a dangerous place.
This is a GOOD THING.
>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
>(Ann #2)
People change as they grow older. Some acquire new and rather scary
political views. Even Legionnaires.
>5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
Who says they've forgotten him (it?)? Why would a discussion of Quislet
add anything to the comic book.
>"Might Have Saved a Few Lives" Dept:
>
>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
>forgot to tell her. (#42)
Brainy's always done things like that.
>"Mary, Mary, How Does Your Limb Grow" Dept:
>
>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
>have her wings back.
There's still a lot about Dawnstar we don't know. Maybe her wings can't
be regrown through simple genetic reconstruction. Maybe she just hasn't
had time. Maybe she considers her period of winglessness part of her
current spiritual journey.
>8. Loomis: Either that "cellular damage" is localized, in which case it
>can be excised and the arm regrown, or it's system-wide, in which case he's
>dead.
>
>8a. Gim Allon: Chop off that crippled leg. Grow a new one.
>
>"Huh? Did you say someth--<KABOOM>!!!" Dept:
>
>9. Blok's heroic death. (#3)
Sometimes people die suddenly and senselessly. Life's a bitch.
>"Advances in Psychotherapy" Dept:
>
>10. They can cure Mekt's psychoses, but not Ral's stuttering.
>
>"Previous Transcribers to Bierbaums: `Bite Me!' " Dept:
>
>11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
>with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
And why not?
>"By the Light of a Silvery Asteroid Belt" Dept:
>
>12. Blowing up the moon without ending all life on Earth. (#18)
Shocked! Shocked I am to think that *pseudo-science* might have crept
into a (gasp!) LEGION BOOK. How could they DO such a thing - THAT'S never
happened before!
Yeah, and Levitz once dropped a Neutron star through the clubhouse roof.
Live with it.
>13. Having a bomb that can blow up the moon and *keeping it a secret*.
Wouldn't you?
>13a. Replacing the moon with a satellite as a desperate, last-ditch effort.
>Earth doesn't need a moon.
>
>"Having It Both Ways" Dept:
>
>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
What makes you think it's casually available? It's illegal, dangerous and
unpleasant.
>"Foreshadowing: Your Guide to Quality Literature" Dept:
>
>15. Blowing up Earth with toxic sludge. (#38)
>
>16. Sex-changing Shvaughn Erin. (#31?)
What's your point?
>"It's Just as Stupid, but It's *Our* Stupid Name" Dept:
>
>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
Triad is a much better name than Triplicate Girl. Half the syllables,
just for starters.
>"That *Is* Alchemy!" Dept:
>
>18. Changing elements by changing electron bonds. (LGS #1)
Shocked! Shocked I am . . . (see above).
>"I Want a Nice Lingering Death, Just Like Him!" Dept:
>
>19. Dirk: Injured in #19, hallucinating in #28, euthanized in #36.
>Never mentioned again.
>19a. Dirk being injured at all by a powersphere. (v2 #287?)
Some people die nasty, ugly, lingering deaths. Life's a bitch.
>"Sexism Lives" Dept:
>
>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
You have some kind of problem with the concept of "irony"?
>"What's an RPG" Dept:
>
>21. Anything you want to know about the characters? Read the Sourcebook!
>Or the Postcards! Or Who's Who! Just not the comic!
As it should be. Facts should be used in fiction, recorded in
sourcebooks. Death to endless exposition! Once again, the Bierbaum's
refusal to spoon-feed us ever continuity detail is one of the best things
about their writing.
>"Who Is That Strange Child on the Poster?" Dept:
>
>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
Obviously, Ivy was at one time slotted to become much more important to
the core team than she finally became. Knowing this is an interesting but
completely irrelevant insight into the books creative process. Hardly a
crime against decency.
>"AAAAH! I'm Wearing a Circus Tent!" Dept:
>
>23. Al Gordon on Timber Wolf.
A stupid costume? In a *Legion* book? Shocked! Shocked I am!
>"What Twin Sister? What Telepathic Wife?" Dept:
>
>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
Nobody knew, including Garth.
>"Hand Me That Shoehorn" Dept:
>
>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
I wish everybody would just quit whining about Kid Quantum, OK? He fills
a small but pesky continuity hole left by the departure of Supergirl.
He's not nearly as gratuitous as everybody likes to pretend he is,
continuity wise. (Actually, I do have a serious conceptual problem with
K.Q., but it has nothing to do with his origin. I'll explain further if
anybody cares).
>"The Trouble With Robots" Dept:
>
>26. The meaning of B.I.O.N. revealed...in the lettercol, five issues later.
>
>27. Kono disables B.I.O.N.: What *were* those wires for?
>
>28. A gravity plate can hold someone with Daxamite-plus strength,
>and not effect anyone else in the room.
>
>29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
>invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
>
>30. Was it ever actually stated that B.I.O.N. couldn't use more than
>one power at a time?
OK, the fight with BION was a particularly absurd ish. It happens. They
can't all be gems.
>"You've Just Possessed a Legionnaire! What Are You Going to Do Next?" Dept:
>
>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
This is a serious question, not a criticism -- where on Earth did you get
the implication that Bounty amputated Dawnstar's wings? Is that in a
sourcebook somewhere?
If not, don't jump to conclusions.
>"Flashbacks Are Green" Dept:
>
>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
Oh quit whining. We waited longer to find out anything about Dawny's
origin. Once again, unanswered questions are GOOD THINGS.
>"What Activated Metagene?" Dept:
>
>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
They were also the children of the most prominant anti-Dominator
agitator. Tyrannys are like that.
>"But She's Kewl" Dept:
>
>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
>after Jo can't be all bad."
Either that, or "we need all the help we can get." Anyway, didn't this
happen after the Bierbaums left?
>"There Are No Corollaries" Dept:
>
>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
Huh?
>"It's Who You Know" Dept:
>
>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
You consider this unrealistic? Of course, Thom is also an athlete and
celebrity . . .
>"Nice Uniforms" Dept:
>
>37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
>coach. (#4?)
So they decided to change the nature of the game. Writer's perogative.
>" `Vanity of Vanities', Says Qoheleth" Dept:
>
>38. Nura Nal, who's excessively vain and exceedingly athletic, getting fat.
Never seen THAT happen in real life, have we? (Actually, I'd prefer a
trimmer Dreamy too, but I can't seriously call the Bierbaum's
interpretation of the character preposterous. Dreamy is portrayed in the
series as a woman who's decided she no longer has to prove anything to
anybody but herself. I kinda like her for that.)
>"_Legion_of_Super-Heroes_ is one of those mags that should have a stake
>driven through its staples, its covers lopped off, and garlic stuffed into
>its panel borders to insure it will never come back from the dead again."
>--Tony Isabella, Comics Buyer's Guide #1010
I kinda feel the same way about CBG. (OK, cheap shot. So sue me.)
>elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
CWM
>knew their trivia, no one can fault them for that. But they changed the
>big stuff on whim, without thought, and never got the spirit of the Legion
>right. From a post I made a while back:
>
>
>10. Riker cheated to get through Starfleet Academy.
> 9. Picard is Wesley's real father.
> 8. During their time together, Q beat Vash ruthlessly and sadistically.
> 7. Sisko's not black, he's one of seven intelligent members of Odo's race.
> 6. Five Words: United Federation of Asteroid Belts.
> 5. Sulu's real name is Hikaru Dax.
> 4. Nurse Chapel is really a man, but fortunately Spock's gay.
> 3. It's not Spock's spirit in Spock's body, it's Jem's.
> 2. The Federation's greatest enemy are the Borgith: Great cosmic power,
> itty-bitty intellect (and purple lingerie).
>
> 1. Odo was on the first Enterprise, you just don't remember him.
>Those are the sorts of things they did to the Legion--very fanficcy stuff,
>massive changes, extreme characterization.
Interesting comparison. I just turned in a column for White Wolf Magazine
(national slick gaming mag) that discusses fandom in general, and Legion
and Star Trek fans in particular. The points are not, I'm afraid,
particularly flattering to the fans. Look for it in September.
>> After v4 rekindled my interest in the Legion, I went out and bought
>> the last year or so of Levitz's run... and *then* I found out why they were
>> so cheap.
>
>Because Giffen was starting to run things? Because Levitz was tired and
>had used up all his ideas?
Actually, because by that time Levitz was more-or-less running DC, and he
didn't have enough time to do the book right anymore.
> :( Perhaps the greatest "offense" a comic can commit is to have
>> poor quality, and I didn't see any of that at the start of v4.
>>
>I agree. v4 started with a great deal of potential. It just never lived up
>to it.
Not completely, no, but the fault lies almost completely with obnoxious
editorial interference, not with the Bierbaum's work.
Ken Arromdee
Mean Mister Mustard <ma...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
>Ummm, Legionnaires isn't part of the discussion. (Thank God. Then us
>T&M defenders [well, okay, v4 defenders in my case] would have our work
>cut out for us.)
It was retconned in the main book, for the main character.
>If you're going to start picking apart comics for their Bad Science, then
>you have a lot of other comics to hate... v4 hasn't been any better or worse
>in this respect than other comics. Remember the issue where Mon-El towed
>a white dwarf? Written by Legion God Paul "Cain't Do No Wrong" Levitz.
Yup, it was bad. It also came at the end of a period of decline, and wasn't
typical Levitz... _and_ he actually printed letters in the letters column
about it and admitted making a mistake.
>Makes me wonder if the whole "Bounty is an evil parasite" deal wasn't a
>retcon when it was finally revealed...
No, it was rumored long before, including Keith Giffen point-blank denying to
my face the rumor that Danwstar was possessed by a male spirit (this was
around the time of the first few issues).
--
Ken Arromdee (email: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
ObYouKnowWho Bait: Stuffed Turkey with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes
"You, a Decider?" --Romana "I decided not to." --The Doctor
stpj...@uctvax.uct.ac.za
> In Article <2t3jl4$l...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
> ma...@po.CWRU.Edu (Michael A. Chary) writes:
>
>>for it if they so desire, I doubt they do;) And, they retconned
>>Dream Girl so she's fifty! Dream Girl is the one who doesn't
>>take carte of her appearance? Nura Nal? That Dream Girl?
>>Well, I am not going to bother providing
>>my exact LSH hash marks, but I've reading a while and
>>the Nura I knew would not have gained forty pounds and twenty years in a five year
>>period.
>>Anyway, but I still think that IF she did have to change
>>physically that dramatically, they should have done something with it.
>
> First of all, the "fifty" thing is off base. She may look older
> because of the weight and the platinum hair, but it's also an artistic thing,
> not anything T&M can be blamed for.
Actually I think Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen are to blame. Way back in Tales
of LSH there was the origin story for Mysa (the White Witch), Nura's sister.
Their mother was the High-Seer and it was revealed that the job was so
strenuous that premature aging occurred. So although Nura is only as old as the
othe LSH characters (30-something) she actually looks something closer to 50.
The bit about letting her shape go and putting so much weight on I disagree
with because it seems totally out of character with the vain Dream Girl that I
know.
ciao
Justin "way down south in the new new South Africa"
Tom Galloway
>Thank you for this beautiful post, which so perfectly illustrates the
>pettiness, absurdity and general out-of-touch-with-reality mindset of the
>anti-v4 crowd.
Gee, this was in reference to Elmo being somewhat humorous about numerous
problems with v4. I guess I should toss this out for your consideration:
"So the rest of this groundbreaking column will be closed-captioned for
the humor impaired. After each attempted joke, the humor element will
be explained in parentheses, so that you humor-impaired individuals can
laugh right along with the rest of us." --Dave Barry
>In article <1994Jun8...@fnalo.fnal.gov>,
>The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>>Most of the new characters, e.g. Kono (hooligan), Sade (murderer).
>>Jan's a pretty pitiful shadow.
>Actually, the new, deeply spiritual Jan is one of T&M's very best
>characterizations, IMO.
OK, I can agree with this, and Jan was a reasonable outgrowth of elements
(sorry) that Levitz established.
>Yes, it's a book about a bunch of people who used to be a super-team and
>grew out of it. That's one of the reasons I love this series.
Um, huh? If they "grew out of it", why on Tallus would they reform said
team? If anything, you're the one who should be complaining about how they
didn't carry the concept far enough and should have just followed the various
experiences and interactions of the former Legion members (which, in truth
might have been much more workable given the ouevre and writing they
apparently wanted to do).
>>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
>The new Legion is not perfect in their mastery of their powers. This is a
>GOOD THING. Perfect super-heroes are boring. Celeste goofed up trying to
>use her new powers, what on earth is "cretinous" about that?
Sigh. Apparently you don't recall the issue (which, btw, was McCraw's first
writing, but presumably was approved by T&M). Celeste didn't use her powers
at all. She threw the switch on a Brainy designed teleporter, but first
set it so that he'd arrive nekkid. And she knew just what situation he was
going into. The equivalent would have been Dwight Eisenhower ordering the
first division of troops to land on Omaha Beach to go in naked, with no
weapons. This is called "deliberately endangering a teammate" usually a
whatever is the equivalent of court martial offense.
>Where indeed? Why is it such a high crime to have unanswered questions in
>a comic? Perhaps the single best thing T&M did was re-introduce
>unanswered questions into the Legion continuity. This is a point which we
>will return to repeatedly.
One has to return to it....there were so many of them. The point is that people
also want to see some of them wrapped up eventually, particularly when it's
obvious that the writers are deliberately writing around answering them.
>Life's a bitch, eh? The world of the current Legion is a dangerous place.
>This is a GOOD THING.
On the other hand, the feeling of "Hmm, seven issues have passed. Time for
a death. Get out the enhanced with supporting characters Planetary Chance
Machine again." got pretty tired pretty quick. LSH has always been one of
the better books in terms of team member deaths, but the body count in v4
quickly got ridiculous and a cliche (in #50, we'll blow up the sun! And
in #100, the galaxy! were proposed as reasonable expectations the way things
were going)
>>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
>>(Ann #2)
>People change as they grow older. Some acquire new and rather scary
>political views. Even Legionnaires.
Your point? Notice that Elmo didn't complain about Dirk's turning to the other
side and note the words "one panel appearance". If one intends to do this
with a character, one should use the character a bit more and show why this
character has changed.
>>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
>>forgot to tell her. (#42)
>Brainy's always done things like that.
Give me one example. Just one. Keep in mind that his whole point in giving
her the power was supposedly to protect her; lot of good that does when
she's not aware of the power. Not to mention that Lu never got pissed off at
Brainy since had she known of the power she certainly could've saved the
lives of her students and friends at the Academy during the Khund attack.
Brainy can be absent minded at times, but this was stupid, pure and simple.
>>11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
>>with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
>And why not?
Because it's stupid? Unnecessary? Ego over and above the cause of duty?
>>12. Blowing up the moon without ending all life on Earth. (#18)
>Shocked! Shocked I am to think that *pseudo-science* might have crept
>into a (gasp!) LEGION BOOK. How could they DO such a thing - THAT'S never
>happened before!
>Yeah, and Levitz once dropped a Neutron star through the clubhouse roof.
>Live with it.
Yeah, but this was *really* bad science, nothing pseudo about it. Not to
mention that Levitz published letters about the problems with the white
dwarf, while TMK did not publish mine and Paul Estin's letter pointing out
all the goofs, simply mentioning it with the dismissive comment that "informed
scientific minds can differ". Given that the letter was posted here and
vetted by a fair number of scientists, we'd still like to know who these
informed minds are, and which branch of the Close Cover Before Striking
Institute Of Technology they got their degrees from.
>>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
>What makes you think it's casually available? It's illegal, dangerous and
>unpleasant.
But available in pharmacies.
>>"Foreshadowing: Your Guide to Quality Literature" Dept:
>>15. Blowing up Earth with toxic sludge. (#38)
>>16. Sex-changing Shvaughn Erin. (#31?)
>What's your point?
See the nice sarcastic title to that section, courtesy of Bloom County?
What foreshadowing? Both simply popped up out of the blue with no indications
that they were the case. Yes, I know, "life's a bitch".
>>"It's Just as Stupid, but It's *Our* Stupid Name" Dept:
>>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
>Triad is a much better name than Triplicate Girl. Half the syllables,
Coming up, the real reason for the 25 member limitation; all the LSH uses
single letter code names. They're shorter, after all.
>>21. Anything you want to know about the characters? Read the Sourcebook!
>>Or the Postcards! Or Who's Who! Just not the comic!
>As it should be. Facts should be used in fiction, recorded in
>sourcebooks. Death to endless exposition! Once again, the Bierbaum's
>refusal to spoon-feed us ever continuity detail is one of the best things
>about their writing.
There's spoon feeding and there's the hiding of useful information in non
primary sources. Particularly when the writing then proceeds on the assumption
that people have read the non-primary material. At the very least, this
material should have been given in the Omnicoms (which I liked).
>>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
>Nobody knew, including Garth.
Excuse me? Where did you get that idea? Garth had clearly known for a number
of years, and I believe it was even stated that he was aware right after
the resurrection.
>>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
>>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
>I wish everybody would just quit whining about Kid Quantum, OK? He fills
>a small but pesky continuity hole left by the departure of Supergirl.
>He's not nearly as gratuitous as everybody likes to pretend he is,
>continuity wise. (Actually, I do have a serious conceptual problem with
Excuse me? Laurel was the Supergirl hole filler. Unless you mean that both
KQ and Laurel were said to the 9th member to join. What does KQ have to do
with Supergirl at all? KQ is completely gratuitous, as shown by the lack of
having him for a few decades before his first appearance and his prompt
disappearance from LSH right after his first appearance, having served no
purpose but pissing off a lot of fans in said first appearance.
>>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
>Oh quit whining. We waited longer to find out anything about Dawny's
>origin. Once again, unanswered questions are GOOD THINGS.
Not when the character is a complete cypher and disappears from the book
for no apparent reason for months at a time (in fairness, for some reason
T&M were constrained by doing much with her until it was determined if
Al Gordon's Point Force series would happen. Still...). And as I recall,
Dawny's origin was revealed within a year or two of her intro.
>>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
>>after Jo can't be all bad."
>Either that, or "we need all the help we can get." Anyway, didn't this
>happen after the Bierbaums left?
Not quite. While only officially asked to join after they left, she was
hanging out with LSH as much as anyone before that.
>>"There Are No Corollaries" Dept:
>>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
>Huh?
It's very simple. Mordru brings back all dead Legionnaires. Brin is not
among them. Brainy deduces that Brin is not dead, and will return to the
30th century. Brainy does not also deduce that since Tinya and the SW6 Valor,
both known to have suffered time related accidents or attacks, aren't there,
they too must still be alive and eventually returning to the 30th century.
>>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
>>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
>You consider this unrealistic? Of course, Thom is also an athlete and
>celebrity . . .
Who's never been shown playing batball in his life. Magic Johnson being
named coach of the Lakers makes sense. Magic Johnson being named manager
of the Dodgers would result in a giant "Say WHAT!?" from pretty much
everyone.
>I kinda feel the same way about CBG. (OK, cheap shot. So sue me.)
Very cheap, given recent events.
"To tell the truth, I don't think I would've chosen a dark, drippy cave as a
clubhouse for a group of borderline depressive teen-agers, Polar Boy."
--Chlorophyll Kid
tyg t...@hq.ileaf.com
Mean Mister Mustard
Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <2t5cif$b...@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>,
>Mean Mister Mustard <ma...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>>>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
>>Ummm, Legionnaires isn't part of the discussion. (Thank God. Then us
>>T&M defenders [well, okay, v4 defenders in my case] would have our work
>>cut out for us.)
>
>It was retconned in the main book, for the main character.
Elmo pointed out that this list was somewhat dated. Before I knew that, I
assumed he meant the more recent Legionnaires codenames (which aren't
retcons, but most of them stink).
>>If you're going to start picking apart comics for their Bad Science, then
>>you have a lot of other comics to hate... v4 hasn't been any better or worse
>>in this respect than other comics. Remember the issue where Mon-El towed
>>a white dwarf? Written by Legion God Paul "Cain't Do No Wrong" Levitz.
>
>Yup, it was bad. It also came at the end of a period of decline, and wasn't
>typical Levitz... _and_ he actually printed letters in the letters column
>about it and admitted making a mistake.
Well, I could've used any number of examples of Bad Science. Like, "Yellow
sun rays probably won't give you super powers no matter where you come from"
or "Even if we ignore the question of where Colossal Boy draws his mass
from, he still shouldn't be able to support himself when he gets that huge."
Guess what? IT'S A COMIC BOOK.
>>Makes me wonder if the whole "Bounty is an evil parasite" deal wasn't a
>>retcon when it was finally revealed...
>
>No, it was rumored long before, including Keith Giffen point-blank denying to
>my face the rumor that Danwstar was possessed by a male spirit (this was
>around the time of the first few issues).
Well, supposedly the whole Proty-Garth thing was rumored for a long time
too (God, let's not start that argument again), but that doesn't mean the
writers actually intended it from Adventure 312. Giffen's denying it may
mean they had something else up their sleeve at first, and changed plans
later. I think it related to that one panel in v4 #3, where a MordruProbe
is spying on her and we see some guy shooting at her.
Marc
Mean Mister Mustard
The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>ma...@wam.umd.edu (Mean Mister Mustard) writes:
>> The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>>>I agree. v4 started with a great deal of potential. It just never lived up
>>>to it.
>>
>> In principle, I agree with you --
>> (I guess we just see the quality as sloping off at different
>> points in time.)
>
>OK, where do you see it? At #13, I was starting to be dissatisfied.
>*They* seemed to think that #12 was a big arc-closer, the triumphant return
>of the Legion, exclamation point. I thought it meant that things might
>finally start happening, that we'd got past the prolog into the story.
>And then the next issue was a Tenzil yuk-fest. Funny, but way the hell out
>of place for the kind of serial story they were trying to do.
I agree. Although I thought 1-13 were brilliant, and they left me eagerly
awaiting a conflict with Earthgov, the history of Kent Shakespeare, Jo's
odyssey, etc -- the Tenzil issue was okay, but anticlimactic. Then came
the Khund War (YAWN) and the eminently forgettable Dark Circle issue. The
only good things were the Giffen backup pages, which kept my hopes up, and
revitalized Troy Stewart and the SUBS.
>By the early twenties, I was thoroughly convinced that these clowns didn't
>know what they were doing, that their long-term plotting skills were
>completely nonexistent.
Things picked up for me right around here -- the issue where the moon blew
up being one of my favorites, actually, and the following Venado Bay one
being even better. This quality continued up to the issue where Sun Boy
flashes back through his life, with various ups (Quiet Darkness, BION, the
Spider Girl stuff) and downs (Lobo, Lobo, Lobo) along the way.
Then Pearson's art started getting *really* hideous. And then, IMHO, the
plotting went out the window. (The SUBS go into the chambers, stay there
a few months... and then leave without doing anything! And that really neat
henchman, Grinn... he dies off-panel! And Universo keeps talking about how
evil he is... and does nothing!) 29-38 are not exactly my favorite issues.
In fact, I thought the Kid Quantum and Proty-Garth issues were among the
better ones (and people would probably like them more today if there had
been any ultimate point to or plot development with these retcons).
After Earth blew up (it was almost a relief -- almost), things went up and
down a while. The Mordru story had a promising start, but quickly
degenerated into zombie fighting. Oh, yes, and more Tenzil Kem "hilarity."
I actually think things have more or less picked up since McCraw came
aboard (well, he's been aboard, he was just the cabin boy...). Now that
he no longer has to cool his heels and wait for Zero Hour, we'll see what
happens.
>By the thirties, I was *certain* they were *out to get me personally* :-)
They were. Don't you remember how they replaced Frothing-at-The-Mouth Lad
with Kid Quantum?
Marc
Abhiji...@transarc.com
do...@earlham.edu writes:
> Quibbles aside, are you contending that people don't gain
>weight? Or that they don't grow up and stop obsessing on their
>appearance? (Levitz' Nura was annoyingly shallow about her looks.
>It's called character development. Look into it.)
Firstly, Tom and Mary's Nura seems far more shallow than Levitz's. Even
Levitz's version didn't go so far as to have men in G-strings hanging
around her. And Levtiz's version was a skilled fighter, a scientist and
very intelligent and strong willed. So its a not a case of her
becoming less shallow.
Secondly, people do gain weight and all that, but not someone who's as
vain and concerned about her appearance and has the financial
resources of Nura.
Thirdly, Nura was at least 30 in her later days in Legion. People do
not normally change character that dramatically at 30plus. Its not like
an 18 year old growing up.
> By the 30th Century, I'd hope mankind has matured enough to stop assigning
> value judgements to physical traits.)
Except, that its clear from LSH and LGS that it ain't so.
> As to "doing something with it," what? Nura appeared in a handful
> of issues during T&M's run, and she was never terribly essential to any of
> them.
...
>(and before anyone says anything, I don't want to hear any comments
>about the number of appearances she made in v4. That's another issue
>entirely.)
But its not. If you show a character at a point B quite different from
earlier point A, then you should show how they changed as well.
I'm not a big Dreamy fan, but I can understand why fans would be upset
over this (I'd be upset if something similar had occured to Imra,
Jeckie or Tinya).
ma...@wam.umd.edu (Mean Mister Mustard) writes:
>
> >Beyond those two things, I just think if they are going to
> >retcon dsomething they should have a reason for it.
> >Why does Schvaugn *have* to be a man. Why does Kid Quantum
> >*have* to be in the history? Why is J'onn J'onz (who was
> >Grell's Where's Waldo joke) suddenly make an appearance?
>
> Agreed. Although I wouldn't call J'onn a retcon..
J'onn is definitely not a retcon. However, they didn't write him
particularly well. They didn't write him badly, but they didn't write
him too well either. There was nothing distinctive about him to say :
this is J'onn. It could have been any big green guy.
Abhijit
Michael A. Chary
Allright, nolo contendere, J'onn J'onz appearance was not
a retconn. I was thinking that his *suddenly* choosing
to hang out with with other Superheros after *years* of
not doing so except at one wedding (Gee, J'onn, we were
really bummed out that your annual fishing trip fell
on the times when Mordru tried to invade Earth *and* Darksied
*Universo* , maybe next time) indicated that he wasn't there
and there was no reason to suspect he was except that Grell put
him in that puzzle. It was not however a retcon. I astill
don't see why it *had* to be JJ.
Michael E. McKean
|>Josh Mercer wrote:
|>
|>> IMHO, if McCraw is being "respectful" to the " history of the Legion,"
|>> the old fans can have it. The book has been so dumbed-down from
early v4 that
|>> it's not even readable anymore, and has gone into the drop column after
|>> the last issue. I tried to make it to zero month, I really did...
|>
|>
|> I believe Al Gordon and Mark Waid take over soon. Based on Flash,
|>I have some, if not high, hopes. Kurt Busiek tells me that he's seen
|>their plots, and they sound good.
|>--
I certainly hope so. My interest in the Legion has sunk dramatically since they
assumed these ridiculous costumes, silly code-names (I like them without
the code names
and I had no difficulty recognizing them, at least when Giffen did the
layouts), and the
let's-have-Unviverso-take-over-again-doing-exactly-the-same-thing-he's-d
done-twice-before-
without-anyone-realizing-it plot line began.
Al Gordon and Mark Waid have a good track record and I am getting more
hopeful that
things will improve. Certainly hope they stay on a couple years at least
and give the
Legion some stability. As good as I think the Bierbaum/Giffen era was
(and I will
now admit, after reading all these posts, that it did have its problems.
We could
still have a gay Jan without necessarily having Shvaugn become Sean.
Ever hear of
"coming out"?), it is time to move beyond a Universe in which the LSH is
outlawed
on Earth or inside UP space and return to some sense of normality.
Hopefully that
will happen after Zero Hour.
Mike McKean
Gayle Gamble
>>with better editing and a little more effort. It could have been a true
>>comics masterpiece, popular both creatively and with the public. If
>>Levitz had been a member of the team, with veto powers, fer instance ..
>
>Better... more CONSISTENT editing was definitely needed. Having three
>editors in the first year didn't help any, and they've been playing
>editorial hopscotch ever since.
>
>I don't know if Levitz would've wanted to be on the editorial/creative
>team, nor do I know if that would've resulted in better comics. The sense
>of daring that fueled the creation of Laurel, the use of Roxxas, the
>Mordruverse, etc., might have been lessened.
>
>Just My Humble (I think I can hear Elmo laughing at that one) Opinion.
>
>Marc
>
>
Perhaps what TMK REALLY needed was Karen Berger.
Gayle Gamble
gam...@alc.com
The Great Elmosby
> The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>>Jan's a pretty pitiful shadow.
>
> Actually, the new, deeply spiritual Jan is one of T&M's very best
> characterizations, IMO.
Excuse me, but T&M got the "deeply spiritual" part from Paul. What I don't
get is how the cheerful outgoing hermit (three things that go great
together) that Celeste and Devlin met on Trom is related to either the
dichotomous introverted leader that Shvaughn fell in love with or the
deeply focused concerned boyfriend that watched over "her" as she became
"him".
> Yes, it's a book about a bunch of people who used to be a super-team and
> grew out of it. That's one of the reasons I love this series.
And just screw the rest of us, huh?
>>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
>
> The new Legion is not perfect in their mastery of their powers. This is a
> GOOD THING. Perfect super-heroes are boring. Celeste goofed up trying to
> use her new powers, what on earth is "cretinous" about that?
It wasn't a goofup. It was deliberate. She did it as a joke. And the
rest of the group thought it was funny. That's cretinous. She
deliberately sabotaged a last-ditch offensive in a desperate situation,
and everyone laughed about it. If you don't see why that's cretinous,
you're a cretin, too.
>>"Drake who?" Dept:
>>
>>2. Where is Wildfire?
>>
>>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
>
> Where indeed? Why is it such a high crime to have unanswered questions in
> a comic?
It's a high crime to ignore one of the most popular Legionnaires for more
than three years solely because you, the writers, personally don't like
him...ignore him to the extent of not mentioning his name...flaunt your
dislike by taunting the readers with cover copy. It's disrespect, part
of a pattern of T&M&K telling the readers "You don't like what we're doing?
Fuck off."
>>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
>
> Life's a bitch, eh? The world of the current Legion is a dangerous place.
> This is a GOOD THING.
Missed the point again, Chris. Keith brought Karate Kid back just so he
could have the pleasure of killing him a second time. That's childish.
>>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
>>(Ann #2)
>
> People change as they grow older. Some acquire new and rather scary
> political views. Even Legionnaires.
Every character is somebody's favorite. Somebody's favorite Tellus is
deemed worthy to make only one panel's appearance in four years of
T&M(&K)'s work on the title. And in that one panel, he appears to ally
himself with one of his teammates' oldest enemies. That's still more
disrespect for the fans.
>>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
>>forgot to tell her. (#42)
>
> Brainy's always done things like that.
Give me any other example where he's created a deus ex machina and
forgotten about it or even concealed it for more than, say, a half a year
(six issues).
>>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
>>have her wings back.
>
> There's still a lot about Dawnstar we don't know. Maybe her wings can't
> be regrown through simple genetic reconstruction.
Why not? They're coded in her DNA--she inherited them from her mother.
> Maybe she just hasn't had time.
Doesn't matter. It is such an obvious thing to do that they have to
explain why she hasn't done it.
>>11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
>>with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
>
> And why not?
Because phrasing it like that is insulting to the previous writers?
Because it doesn't make sense for Ral to have a stutter, since current
techniques are almost completely adequate for curing them?
>>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
>
> What makes you think it's casually available? It's illegal, dangerous and
> unpleasant.
And yet, somehow, a Science Police officer was able to conceal her use of
it? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
>>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
>
> Triad is a much better name than Triplicate Girl. Half the syllables,
> just for starters.
That's no excuse for saying "History happened *our* way, not *their* way."
Arrogant and disrespectful, that is.
>>"Sexism Lives" Dept:
>>
>>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
>
> You have some kind of problem with the concept of "irony"?
Evidently you do, 'cuz that's a joke up there.
>>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
>
> Obviously, Ivy was at one time slotted to become much more important to
> the core team than she finally became. Knowing this is an interesting but
> completely irrelevant insight into the books creative process. Hardly a
> crime against decency.
It is, nonetheless, additional evidence that these clowns were not, in
fact, even remotely brilliant but were instead a bunch of directionless
yahoos writing down anything that sounded remotely kewl before dashing
off to the next inane "plot" twist.
>>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
>>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
>
> I wish everybody would just quit whining about Kid Quantum, OK? He fills
> a small but pesky continuity hole left by the departure of Supergirl.
While it's vitally important, apparently, that Ultra Boy be the twelfth
member to join and not the eleventh, it is somehow not important that
the fourth member to join was Triad and not Triplicate Girl? I'm confused.
>>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
>>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
>
> This is a serious question, not a criticism -- where on Earth did you get
> the implication that Bounty amputated Dawnstar's wings? Is that in a
> sourcebook somewhere?
I figured it out from hints and little bits of side information, just like
I'm supposed to. Hey, I don't have to be spoonfed this stuff, you know.
>>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
>
> Oh quit whining. We waited longer to find out anything about Dawny's
> origin. Once again, unanswered questions are GOOD THINGS.
Fourteen issues (226 to 240) versus #8 to #, uh, geez, maybe #53? For
*part* of the answer? You got a weird idea of "longer".
>>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
>
> They were also the children of the most prominant anti-Dominator
> agitator. Tyrannys are like that.
Really stupid tyrannies, maybe. The sole purpose of the Dominator
occupation of Earth was metagene research. Yet, somehow, we're expected
to believe that they're going to throw away two nearly identical activated
metagenes? Reading between the lines, as I'm apparently supposed to do,
the only conceivable conclusion is that the Dominators faked the execution
and stuck the Allens in a pod.
>>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
>>after Jo can't be all bad."
>
> Either that, or "we need all the help we can get." Anyway, didn't this
> happen after the Bierbaums left?
Started during the Zombie War. Besides, who said this was an anti-Bierbaum
screed? I'm merely pointing out, in an allegedly humorous style, the
really stupid parts of the entire run.
>>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
>
> Huh?
In simple words: If there are 17 dead or presumed dead Legionnaires and
your team is faced with the reincarnations of 14 of them, you do *not*
conclude that one and only one of the other three presumed dead
Legionnaires is actually alive.
> You consider this unrealistic? Of course, Thom is also an athlete and
> celebrity . . .
Since when is he an athlete? His major recreation was holographic D&D.
Since when do celebrities--whose only resume is their celebrity--manage
sports teams?
--
"Wood has been the preferred building material for thousands of years, because
it is one of the few materials that will rot as well as burn."--Dave Barry
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
Rick Jones
[regarding Star Boy]
>Since when is he an athlete? His major recreation was holographic D&D.
>Since when do celebrities--whose only resume is their celebrity--manage
>sports teams?
Exsqueeze me? Not an athlete? Elmo, old pal, Star Boy was
a Legionnaire, which requires being in excellent physical shape.
But, let me point out, as the flames start to rise, a point
which might help explain why Elmo is Frothing-At-The-Mouth Lad.
Each individual problem Elmo has with the TMK Crew is not (with the
possible exception of the ProttyGarth, Sean/Shvaughn, and Kid Quantum
hat-trick) why he's so Frothing. It's that they kept doing things
that bothered him.
If, for instance, the only thing they did that really annoyed
a reader was ProttyGarth (which, by the way, you'd think the Luck Lords
would have caught, but I digress...), well, you'd have some grumbling
readers. But TMK kept doing it. They managed to do something almost
every issue that annoyed some reader. And Legion fans (especially
those with long memories) have a lot of buttons to push, and TMK
pressed just about all of them. Once that event horizon has been crossed,
a reader now is looking for the little things to piss them off, instead
of letting them slide when the rest of the story is good. Under
a set of writers that the readers respect, the readers are willing
to let some gaffes slide (like the White Dwarf bit under Levitz), but
under writers they think of as poor, gaffes are just one more nail in
the coffin.
Now, if you want to talk about really painful experiences,
I could talk about Titans Hunt....
--
Rick Jones "The seven beasts, they spoke to men in this
alb...@bcm.tmc.edu place. Whispers in dreams, and they speak to me."
Systems Support Center "Do tell."
Voice: 713-798-7352 --Hellboy #2
do...@earlham.edu
c...@indial1.io.com (CWM) writes:
(Missed a few on Karsten's post.)
>In article <1994Jun8...@fnalo.fnal.gov>,
>The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>
>>"Previous Transcribers to Bierbaums: `Bite Me!' " Dept:
>>
>>11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
>>with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
They're just following Levitz' lead. According to him (in the
original LSH Sourcebook, c. 1985) the Legion never used jetpacks, just
that "earlier chroniclers" showed them. So much for respecting earlier
writers' works; what's wrong with the jetpacks?
>
>>"What Twin Sister? What Telepathic Wife?" Dept:
>>
>>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
>
>Nobody knew, including Garth.
Actually, Garth did know that, I think. So long as he had the
memories, any changes his sister noticed could be chalked up to (gasp!)
the effects of dying and coming back to life. If you show me an issue
where Imra probed deeper into Garth's thoughts than just surface level, I
will accept your point on that one.
>>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
>>after Jo can't be all bad."
>
>Either that, or "we need all the help we can get." Anyway, didn't this
>happen after the Bierbaums left?
Under T&M she was around, but they kept a wary eye on her. I
believe it was KC Carlson's idea to have her join, though. (Read the CBG
interview with him from last year...it's scary. When will the LSH books
get good, consistent editing?)
--Doug
do...@earlham.edu
>Michael A. Chary <ma...@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>>
>>Beyond those two things, I just think if they are going to
>>retcon dsomething they should have a reason for it.
>>Why does Schvaugn *have* to be a man. Why does Kid Quantum
>>*have* to be in the history? Why is J'onn J'onz (who was
>>Grell's Where's Waldo joke) suddenly make an appearance?
>
in the 30C, and why does one of them look exactly like his ancestor? Why
did the Luck Lords (oh, yes, the *real* Luck Lords, forget the ones
Shooter created, they were just fakes) have to interfere in Garth's life?
Why did the Invisible Kid serum *have* to give Jacques weird,
uncontrollable powers that bear no resemblance to anything Lyle ever had?
--Doug (Negatron Bomb!)
do...@earlham.edu
ma...@wam.umd.edu (Mean Mister Mustard) writes:
>Well, I could've used any number of examples of Bad Science. Like, "Yellow
>sun rays probably won't give you super powers no matter where you come from"
>or "Even if we ignore the question of where Colossal Boy draws his mass
>from, he still shouldn't be able to support himself when he gets that huge."
>Guess what? IT'S A COMIC BOOK.
Someone has to explain to me the "draws mass from the heart of
stars" sometime. (The real cause of Black Dawn, in my book.)
--Doug
do...@earlham.edu
kloe...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Karsten Loepelmann) writes:
>mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov (The Great Elmosby) writes:
>
instead.)
>>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
>
McCraw issue. Sucked.
>>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
>
Editors determine the cover. Carlson's fault (he was editor then,
wasn't he?) Sucked.
>
>>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
>
Or, Gerry Conway's Ghost Claims Revenge on Legion Clones. :) (Yes,
we've hashed this one out in E-mail, and I'm not defending it.)
>>5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
>
>Why?
Yeah...how often did the characters during Levitz' run remember
Chemical King?
>>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
>>forgot to tell her. (#42)
>
McCraw issue. Sucked.
>>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
>>have her wings back.
>
Maybe her culture doesn't like the idea of her just re-growing
them without going on some sort of vision quest. After all, she couldn't
marry the man she wanted just by deciding to, either...besides, they
needed to heal her mind first.
>>8a. Gim Allon: Chop off that crippled leg. Grow a new one.
>
Hm, a plot idea that grew out of Levitz working with a Shooter
story. Yeah, the biggest cretins in LSH history team up. :)
>>13. Having a bomb that can blow up the moon and *keeping it a secret*.
>
Well, obviously the Dominators brainwashed anyone who left them,
in order to preserve their secrets. :) Secret enormous weapons are a
comic-book tradition.
>>13a. Replacing the moon with a satellite as a desperate, last-ditch effort.
>>Earth doesn't need a moon.
>
Tell that to the marine lifeforms whose reproductive cycle depends
on the tides.
>>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
>
First let's go into the biological and cultural effects of having
a race that can triplicate, or eat matter. Anyway, it's not casually
available any more, it's illegal.
>>18. Changing elements by changing electron bonds. (LGS #1)
>
Blame the woman who wrote WWLSH. Anyway, Levitz approved it.
>>19. Dirk: Injured in #19, hallucinating in #28, euthanized in #36.
>>Never mentioned again.
>
Chemical King. Killed by Levitz and cohorts in SLSH #238, avenged
in #239, no funeral, never mentioned for years. Invisible Kid. Killed in
SBOY #204, no funeral, not mentioned again for years. Kid Psycho. Killed
CRISIS #3, no funeral, never mentioned except in a throwaway.
>>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
>
I agree that this one is a reach. Anyway, in the 20C it would be
seen as a gesture of realism--and 30C culture *is* sexist, they just hide
it better.
>>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
>
Try Al Gordon vs. everyone else. Why they let the inker have so
much input is beyond me.
>>23. Al Gordon on Timber Wolf.
>
Al Gordon stuff. Sucked.
>>"The Trouble With Robots" Dept:
>>26. The meaning of B.I.O.N. revealed...in the lettercol, five issues later.
>
Oversight. It happens. The editor should have caught it.
>>27. Kono disables B.I.O.N.: What *were* those wires for?
>
Something Important Internally. If the Hulk reached into a car
engine, ripped out a random handful of stuff, and the car stopped working,
would you complain? Would you want someone to itemize the damage?
>>29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
>>invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
>
Layering. If it's a biological forcefield, putting one over
another means that any damage not stopped by the first one is stopped by
the second.
>>30. Was it ever actually stated that B.I.O.N. couldn't use more than
>>one power at a time?
>
Does it matter?
>>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
>>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
>
Gee...removing an obvious identifying feature that allows you to
do something any starship can do. Tell you what...you explain *how* she
can flap those wings fast enough to achieve FTL, and I'll concoct a better
explanation. :)
>>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
>
Al Gordon. Sucks.
>>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
>
All together now: WE DIDN'T SEE A BODY.
>>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
>
Young Valor wouldn't be there any more than the SW6 Jeckie, Val,
or Cham were. And maybe he suspected that Jo would go all psycho if he
heard that she was alive? (Anyway, I think leaving her out was more of a
problem, since there's a good chance she *is* dead by now.)
>>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
>>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
>
That's something that could easily happen in the real world.
Don't tell me the 30C is beyond nepotism.
>>37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
>>coach. (#4?)
>
Gee, conventions have changed in a thousand years. Some of your
earlier complaints were valid, but this is exceedingly feeble.
>>38. Nura Nal, who's excessively vain and exceedingly athletic, getting fat.
>
Already answered this one. I hated the old Nura, because Levitz'
portrayal of her was exceedingly shallow for a while (not to mention
sexist). And she became athletic because she was a Legionnaire, not out
of any great devotion to it.
--Doug (who's tempted to try something like
this for Levitz, but knows he'd get
flamed, so has only two words: Negatron
Bomb!)
Abhijit Khale
>>In article <2t5s1r$h...@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>,
>>Michael A. Chary <ma...@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>Why is J'onn J'onz (who was
>>>Grell's Where's Waldo joke) suddenly make an appearance?
>>
> Why do 2/3 of the classic Justice League have direct descendants
>in the 30C, and why does one of them look exactly like his ancestor?
Where do you get the 2/3rds number from ? Batman, Superman, Flash,
Green Arrow, Hawkman and Hawkgirl have descendants in the 30th C.
To my knowledge, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Atom, Black Canary,
Red Tornado, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Elongated Man, Phantom
Stranger, Aquaman and Firestorm don't.
That's only 7/19. Even if you restrict yourself only to founding
members, its still only 3(batman, superman and flash)/7.
BTW, I liked J'onn's appearance. I'm just disappointed they didn't do
a bit more with him. Say a comment about the old Justice League, or
about Gypsy (without giving away any future details). And I found
the implication that he may have been involved with Dreamy annoying.
Abhijit
Nathan Elke
comments, however I'll say right now I find 'Cretinous' to be EXTREMELY
strong wording, and generally not deserved:
In article <1994Jun8...@fnalo.fnal.gov>,The Great Elmosby spake thusly:
:>The Most Cretinous Features of LSH v4
:>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
:>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
Yes, I'd say it could've been fatal, and wasn't treated correctly by the
rest of the 'team'.
:>2. Where is Wildfire?
:>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
Wildfire is my favorite Legionnaire, and I was not 'offended' at this; I
knew they would eventually get to Drake, and was content to wait for it,
similar to how I am waiting for Windfall in the new 'Outsiders' title.
:>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
:>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
:>(Ann #2)
:>5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
Yes, everybody is somebody's favorite, but >some< characters have to have
bad times, too.
:>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
:>forgot to tell her. (#42)
Yes. Stupid. Somewhat like Brainy, but still stupid. Of course, Brainy
might've figured Luo wouldn't take the news well anytime before that.
:>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
:>have her wings back.
:>8. Loomis: Either that "cellular damage" is localized, in which case it
:>can be excised and the arm regrown, or it's system-wide, in which case he's
:>dead.
:>8a. Gim Allon: Chop off that crippled leg. Grow a new one.
All three of these beg one question: Where does it say in the LSH
universe that they can 'grow back' limbs easily? They couldn't when
Garth lost his arm, and it was never said (to my knowledge) that the
ability was given to the universe after that (It could've turned out
to be unreproducable with other technologies). I've been reading Legion
for quite some time, and I don't remember any limbs being regrown. I
could be wrong, but I'd like to see references.
:>9. Blok's heroic death. (#3)
Well, the visions that surrounded his death made me think that Giffen had
the idea of Blok's buried remains becoming the seed for a new race of
Dryads, so I didn't mind his death >as< much. Again, as above, bad things
have to happen to some characters, and some of them may be favorites of
someone.
:>10. They can cure Mekt's psychoses, but not Ral's stuttering.
Look how long it took with Mekt, and there are still others that have not
been cured (Roxxas, before the 'dead alive saga'). Maybe it takes time?
It may be a result of occurances during the occupation, and wouldn't be
treatable before the occupation was ended. Also, I doubt he would be free
to simply go for treatment, since he was part of the underground, and,
let's face it, stuttering isn't a big whoop when you're fighting for your
life and the liberation of your planet.
:>11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
:>with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
Strange way of explaining, but not totally unheard of. Look at Star Trek,
where Klingons have always had the ridges, they just weren't shown as
such in the 60's.
:>12. Blowing up the moon without ending all life on Earth. (#18)
I don't know physics, so I don't know if that is impossible, but two
examples of sci-fi (Space: 1999 and When Worlds Collide) use that concept.
:>13. Having a bomb that can blow up the moon and *keeping it a secret*.
:>13a. Replacing the moon with a satellite as a desperate, last-ditch effort.
:>Earth doesn't need a moon.
Don't remember this part.
:>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
If they had the time to do it, fine, but I wouldn't want to see such a
topic take up a large part of the story. A text page at the end would
be fine.
:>15. Blowing up Earth with toxic sludge. (#38)
You didn't like the affect or the means?
:>16. Sex-changing Shvaughn Erin. (#31?)
I didn't like it, but I found it interesting.
:>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
:>18. Changing elements by changing electron bonds. (LGS #1)
:>19. Dirk: Injured in #19, hallucinating in #28, euthanized in #36.
:>Never mentioned again.
I'm sorry, but in my life, I've never noticed people wandering around
continually referring to dead friends and relatives. Maybe your
experience is different.
:>19a. Dirk being injured at all by a powersphere. (v2 #287?)
In #287 he was prepared for it, and walked into it gradually. The
explosion took him by surprise. Also, I'm sure there is a
difference between a nuclear plant and a nuclear bomb blast.
:>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
So? The previous Chief was a woman...Gi Gi.
:>21. Anything you want to know about the characters? Read the Sourcebook!
:>Or the Postcards! Or Who's Who! Just not the comic!
Yeah, that did suck, even if I have the sourcebook/who's who/postcards.
:>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
So, things didn't turn out as they planned. Shit happens. Look at Mr.
Terrific's murderer, or any of the thousands of unresolved/not developed
plotlines in all comic books.
:>23. Al Gordon on Timber Wolf.
Trivial point, and >very< subjective.
:>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2) It was
explained that Ayla suspected, but would hide the truth from herself. It
was also mentioned that Imra was probably doing the same thing, and,
remember, she hasn't probed his mind >that< deeply, except when he was
feverish and hallucinating.
:>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
:>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
I don't have a problem with it. You do. Different strokes for different
folks, I guess.
:>26. The meaning of B.I.O.N. revealed...in the lettercol, five issues
later.
Certainly wasn't a burning question in my mind.
:>27. Kono disables B.I.O.N.: What *were* those wires for?
Don't remember the specifics.
:>28. A gravity plate can hold someone with Daxamite-plus strength,
:>and not effect anyone else in the room.
Bad science, definitely. Cretinous? Hardly.
:>29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
:>invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
Same thing was done with the Composite Legionnaire in World's Finest.
Combined invulnerability of Superboy, Mon-El, Supergirl and Ultra Boy
made him stronger than any one of them.
:>30. Was it ever actually stated that B.I.O.N. couldn't use more than
:>one power at a time?
Don't remember.
:>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
:>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
Never said she did.
:>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
Boy, you don't like unanswered questions, do you? I assume the problem is
because of Emerald Toilet, and not knowing what may happen when editors
from on high rain down their orders about Green Lanterns.
:>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
:>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
Sometimes sacrifices must be made to provide a lesson to the underlings
one rules.
:>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
:>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
:>after Jo can't be all bad."
In a war situation, anyone not on their side is on our side.
:>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
:>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
If that's from the annual, I cannot find a copy of it (Anyone willing to
send me one? I'll reimburse)
:>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
:>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
Even if his qualifications >are< limited to that, it's not like it hasn't
happened in the universe before.
:>37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
:>coach. (#4?)
>Very< trivial.
:>38. Nura Nal, who's excessively vain and exceedingly athletic, getting fat.
THIS is the one that bugs me. I'm glad my wife isn't reading this
newsgroup, as she is, to be blunt, fat. You (and others on this point say
things like 'but she's intelligent; she's a scientist'
FAT PEOPLE ARE NOT IGNORANT IDIOTS, YOU...
------------------------------------------
Breathe in, Nathan. Breathe out.
As I was saying...being overweight does not make you stupid. It makes you
overweight. If you want a real world example of someone who was vain,
gorgeous, into the opposite sex, flirty, etc., consider Xaveria Hollander.
Yes, the Happy Hooker. She is now at least 200 lbs, and loves it. She
still loves sex, wears bikinis on the beach, and is enjoying life. Nura is
the leader of a planet, and can indulge in anything she wants. She has,
and obviously loves it. If she realizes she doesn't need to starve herself
to feel good about herself, GOOD. As long as any weight-centric characters
like those real-life netters who are attacking this turn in her life don't
bother her in the comic, she will do fine. As it is, if someone in the
comic called her a fat, stupid slob, she'd probably get them...good.
--
/-------------------------------------------------------------------------\
| 'Thank you Jamie,' came the Doctor's muffled response, 'and you're a |
| brave wee chap, so you can go first.' |
| |
| el...@willow.usask.ca: Nathan Elke, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada |
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------/
Virgilio (Dean) B. Velasco Jr.
>
>Where do you get the 2/3rds number from ? Batman, Superman, Flash,
>Green Arrow, Hawkman and Hawkgirl have descendants in the 30th C.
I know who the Flash's decendants would be. How about the rest?
--
Virgilio "Dean" Velasco Jr, Department of Electrical Eng'g and Applied Physics
graduate student slave, roboticist-in-training and Q wannabee
Beam me up, Scotty. |I practice the safest form of sex| Why did the chicken
It ate my phaser. | known. It's called abstinence. | cross the Mobius strip?
CYE...@kentvm.kent.edu
kloe...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Karsten Loepelmann) writes:
>
>T&M made the LSH less a bunch of goody-goodies, and made them more into real
>people, with real flaws. They still strove for a better future, they were
>just less successful.
>
>>T&M have taken my dreams, and for that I can not forgive them. This was
>>as close to rape as can be acheived in comics. I refuse to sit here, and
>>pick out, panel by panel instances of their crimes, because the fact is
>>the crime is the whole of the work, not any single part. When read as a
>>whole, this lsh sits like vomit in my throat, and that is the saddest
>>thing.
>
>Aye Carumba! A lousy *comic* book taking away your dreams? I hate to use
>this line ("In case of emergency..."), but: It's Just A Comic Book. As for
>the rape issue...I think that was handled in an issue of Cerebus a couple years
>back. I don't remember any sexual assaults taking place in V4 of LSH. If
>LSH V4 was *so* bad, don't read it! Don't buy it! In the name of *heaven*,
>LOOK AWAY!!
>
I've been reading this group for awhile and all this LSH talk has got me to
delurk. My first legion experience was the death of Invisible Kid in SB/LSH
I was about 10. Legion was always one of my favorites at that age it had a
very high "cool factor". As I got a little older they didn't excite me as
much until the Levitz/Giffen issues. The stories were more interesting and
the characters seemed more like people and less like cardboard stock super-
heroes.At that time I really enjoyed how well thought out the 30c. Unlike
any comic I had read before LSH was a completly different world. I enjoyed
being in it for what I consider one of the greatest superhero stories, The
Great Darkness Saga.All in all that time was the peak of my comic reading.
I sort of drifted away from the Legion a little after Vol 3. I was exploring
different stories and styles none of them really superheroes. The last super
herobook I read was Watchman #12. It was the last word in superheros and it
was the last comic I bought for 6 years.
Which brings me to about a year ago when I venture back into a comic shop.
I picked up a few of the old titles I used to get just to see what was going
on and to see if any of the old excitement was there. For most it was like
nothing had changed at all. Over the course of six years I could still pick
up an issue and still know what was going on for the most part. The heroes
were all the same. Many went through radical changes and yet didn't change
at all. That is except the Legion. I was scared and confused at what had
happened to the same groug of teens that I knew. The world of the 30c had
grown ulgy for them. It wasn't a beautiful and sunny SciFi wonderland it
was real and it was bad. At the same time I was shocked at what had been
done to the heroes I knew I was also glad to see a book that had
progressed in the time I stopped reading it.
I still don't know all of what went on with the LSH but I buy backissues now
and then and it really interests me to see the heroes I knew grown up. It
frightens me to see whats happened to some of them and its sad to see at how
bleak it is. But people do grow and people change and it a nice refreshing
change to see comic heroes change in a real way.
I still reread the old Levitz/Giffen for the fun of it but I know I can't
go back and in a way I'm glad. Nostolgia will get you knowwhere.
Charles
allan b goodrich
This is really about the Tornado Twins....
How did the Doms get the metegene? Did they have to keep the donors
(heh..) alive for this? Who sez the Doms didn't get all the crap they
needed BEFORE they offed Don and Dawn? It could be possible.
Plus, this new character Rush (oooh...superspeed....how ORIGINAL) is
supposed to be based on the Allen's bio codes or something. Read the
text page in 51 or something. It was an awful ish tho. Taylor/McCraw.
pete sez keep Chris Taylor out of my Legion...
allan b goodrich
Side note: Remember that Mordru night of the Living Dead thing? Where
were the three dead SW6ers? The young Cham, Karate Kid(sob), Jeckie?
For that matter where the hell were the Legionairres?
Actually, who cares?
But seriously, the first point. Where were they? Were their bodies
completely obliterated by the destruction of the chambers? Or the death
of the planet? That didn't stop a few of the dead ones, in the
Bloodlines annual (puke) a few of the Legionairres were supposedly
running around trying to stop the cadavers.
Oh well. Never mind. -pete-
Michael A. Chary
The problem with Nura's appearance has nothing to do with her
intelligence or her attrctiveness. It has to do
with her *characterization*. For all the rest of
her characterization, including a rather stressful
tenure as LSH when she had to defend the universe
she was concerned about her appearance. Not obsessed mind you,
if she were obsessed with her appear ance she wound not have become one
of the best fighters in the LSH. She was concerned however. It was her character.
If a writer is going to change twenty years of characterization, then they should
explain why.
CWM
The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>c...@indial1.io.com (CWM) writes:
>> The Great Elmosby <mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov> wrote:
>>>Jan's a pretty pitiful shadow.
>>
>> Actually, the new, deeply spiritual Jan is one of T&M's very best
>> characterizations, IMO.
>
>Excuse me, but T&M got the "deeply spiritual" part from Paul. What I don't
>get is how the cheerful outgoing hermit (three things that go great
>together) that Celeste and Devlin met on Trom is related to either the
>dichotomous introverted leader that Shvaughn fell in love with or the
>deeply focused concerned boyfriend that watched over "her" as she became
>"him".
Well, Levitz established Jan's spirituality, and the Bierbaum's made it
the cornerstone of his adult life. A logical and effective character
progression. As for "cheerful outgoing hermit," that's one reason I love
this version of Jan. He's complex. He lives alone not because he hates
people, but because he's genuinely searching for enlightenment in
solitude. He's less introverted and shy because he's grown up. He was
watching over Sean's transformation, because this was somebody he cared
about who was in pain. There's nothing at all contradictory in Jan's
nature - he's just a more complex character than 90% of the people in
comics. Apparently you have a problem with that.
>> Yes, it's a book about a bunch of people who used to be a super-team and
>> grew out of it. That's one of the reasons I love this series.
>
>And just screw the rest of us, huh?
Well, if you dismiss a revolutionary and effective new direction for the
book just because it's different . . . yeah, screw you.
>>>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
>>>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
>>
>> The new Legion is not perfect in their mastery of their powers. This is a
>> GOOD THING. Perfect super-heroes are boring. Celeste goofed up trying to
>> use her new powers, what on earth is "cretinous" about that?
>
>It wasn't a goofup. It was deliberate. She did it as a joke. And the
>rest of the group thought it was funny. That's cretinous. She
>deliberately sabotaged a last-ditch offensive in a desperate situation,
>and everyone laughed about it. If you don't see why that's cretinous,
>you're a cretin, too.
I misremembered the incident. So sue me.
>>>"Drake who?" Dept:
>>>
>>>2. Where is Wildfire?
>>>
>>>3. "Guess Who's Back--Wrong!" (Cover to #40)
>>
>> Where indeed? Why is it such a high crime to have unanswered questions in
>> a comic?
>
>It's a high crime to ignore one of the most popular Legionnaires for more
>than three years solely because you, the writers, personally don't like
>him...ignore him to the extent of not mentioning his name...flaunt your
>dislike by taunting the readers with cover copy. It's disrespect, part
>of a pattern of T&M&K telling the readers "You don't like what we're doing?
>Fuck off."
T&M started the series with a lot of members unaccounted for, and
re-introduced them one or two a year. I'm sure they would have got around
to Wildfire eventually . . . maybe even Quislet. A tactic like that,
however, doesn't work unless you have the intestinal fortitude to hold
back some of the more popular characters until near the end. I was
perfectly willing to wait for Wildfire to come back at the proper time.
No need to rush things.
>>>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
>>
>> Life's a bitch, eh? The world of the current Legion is a dangerous place.
>> This is a GOOD THING.
>
>Missed the point again, Chris. Keith brought Karate Kid back just so he
>could have the pleasure of killing him a second time. That's childish.
To tell you the truth, I don't give a rat's ass what Giffen thought of
Karate Kid, or what sort of personal pleasure he got out off blowing him
up. I'm just concerned about the story, and in the story it worked. Wars
are like that.
>>>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
>>>(Ann #2)
>>
>> People change as they grow older. Some acquire new and rather scary
>> political views. Even Legionnaires.
>
>Every character is somebody's favorite. Somebody's favorite Tellus is
>deemed worthy to make only one panel's appearance in four years of
>T&M(&K)'s work on the title. And in that one panel, he appears to ally
>himself with one of his teammates' oldest enemies. That's still more
>disrespect for the fans.
Oh crap. A writer who never does anything he think might disappoint a
"fan" is a hack. Tellus's (apparent) turn to the far right is a
completely legitimate and rather audacious character development.
>>>6. Luo's had that force field power for seven years now and Brainy just
>>>forgot to tell her. (#42)
>>
>> Brainy's always done things like that.
>
>Give me any other example where he's created a deus ex machina and
>forgotten about it or even concealed it for more than, say, a half a year
>(six issues).
Things LIKE that, Elmo. Not that exact thing before. He's always
conducting exotic and dangerous research and not telling anybody what
he's up to. Remember Computo? Remember when the other Legionnaire's tried
to take over the multi-lab and had no idea what most of the stuff even did?
>>>7. Dawnstar's been unpossessed for more than a year and still doesn't
>>>have her wings back.
>>
>> There's still a lot about Dawnstar we don't know. Maybe her wings can't
>> be regrown through simple genetic reconstruction.
>
>Why not? They're coded in her DNA--she inherited them from her mother.
>
>> Maybe she just hasn't had time.
>
>Doesn't matter. It is such an obvious thing to do that they have to
>explain why she hasn't done it.
Or maybe not. Maybe there's a completely different reason. Maybe we'll
find out why when it's important to the plot. The point is, every
question does not have to be immediately answered. Have you ever heard of
"dramatic tension"?
>>>11. Ral's always stuttered, it's just that T&M were the first writers
>>>with the guts to write him like he talks. (Lettercol, #30-something)
>>
>> And why not?
>
>Because phrasing it like that is insulting to the previous writers?
>Because it doesn't make sense for Ral to have a stutter, since current
>techniques are almost completely adequate for curing them?
Once again, I do not care about the writer's attitudes. I only care about
whether or not it works in the story.
>>>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change drug.
>>
>> What makes you think it's casually available? It's illegal, dangerous and
>> unpleasant.
>
>And yet, somehow, a Science Police officer was able to conceal her use of
>it? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
Of course a science-police officier would be exactly the kind who COULD
secure a confidential supply of the drug and keep her habit a secret.
>>>17. Retconning Triplicate Girl into Triad. (#19?)
>>
>> Triad is a much better name than Triplicate Girl. Half the syllables,
>> just for starters.
>
>That's no excuse for saying "History happened *our* way, not *their* way."
>Arrogant and disrespectful, that is.
It is neither arrogant nor disrespectful to acknowledge that your
audience today is not the same as your audience three decades ago. Lu's
original codename was incredibly silly, so they gave her a simpler and
more contemporary one. This is, IMO, the kind of small but significant
cosmetic alterations that retcons are good for -- things that make the
book more appealing to a modern reader without really affecting
continuity at all.
>>>"Sexism Lives" Dept:
>>>
>>>20. Shvaughn becomes a man--and immediately gets promoted!
>>
>> You have some kind of problem with the concept of "irony"?
>
>Evidently you do, 'cuz that's a joke up there.
Fine. Just out of curiousity, how many of your other "flaws" are just
cheap gags?
>>>22. Ivy: Legionnaire or figment?
>>
>> Obviously, Ivy was at one time slotted to become much more important to
>> the core team than she finally became. Knowing this is an interesting but
>> completely irrelevant insight into the books creative process. Hardly a
>> crime against decency.
>
>It is, nonetheless, additional evidence that these clowns were not, in
>fact, even remotely brilliant but were instead a bunch of directionless
>yahoos writing down anything that sounded remotely kewl before dashing
>off to the next inane "plot" twist.
Do you have any idea how much you sounded like a Kennedy assassination
theorist just now?
>>>25. Kid Quantum: The first dead Legionnaire. You've heard of him. You
>>>know you have. You just don't remember. (#33?)
>>
>> I wish everybody would just quit whining about Kid Quantum, OK? He fills
>> a small but pesky continuity hole left by the departure of Supergirl.
>
>While it's vitally important, apparently, that Ultra Boy be the twelfth
>member to join and not the eleventh, it is somehow not important that
>the fourth member to join was Triad and not Triplicate Girl? I'm confused.
Ultra Boy? What in God's name are you talking about?
>>>31. Just why did the Bounty-entity amputate Dawnstar's wings, which
>>>enable her to fly through space at FTL speeds?
>>
>> This is a serious question, not a criticism -- where on Earth did you get
>> the implication that Bounty amputated Dawnstar's wings? Is that in a
>> sourcebook somewhere?
>
>I figured it out from hints and little bits of side information, just like
>I'm supposed to. Hey, I don't have to be spoonfed this stuff, you know.
One of the secrets to appreciating books that leave plot-points open is
to accept mysteries as mysteries, and not fool yourself into thinking you
know what really happened. Speculation can be fun, but remember, the
authors probably want to suprise you.
>>>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
>>
>> Oh quit whining. We waited longer to find out anything about Dawny's
>> origin. Once again, unanswered questions are GOOD THINGS.
>
>Fourteen issues (226 to 240) versus #8 to #, uh, geez, maybe #53? For
>*part* of the answer? You got a weird idea of "longer".
Actually, I was thinking that we didn't find out anything meaningful
about Dawnstar until the very end of the Levitz years. Then again, #240
is one of the half-dozen issues from that era I don't yet own, so maybe I
just missed it.
>>>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>>>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
>>
>> They were also the children of the most prominant anti-Dominator
>> agitator. Tyrannys are like that.
>
>Really stupid tyrannies, maybe. The sole purpose of the Dominator
>occupation of Earth was metagene research. Yet, somehow, we're expected
>to believe that they're going to throw away two nearly identical activated
>metagenes? Reading between the lines, as I'm apparently supposed to do,
>the only conceivable conclusion is that the Dominators faked the execution
>and stuck the Allens in a pod.
Tyrannies are, by definition, "really stupid." And you're right, of
course - it's perfectly good comic book logic to assume that the twins
aren't dead at all. So why the whining?
>>>34. Spider Girl, who met the team when breaking into headquarters, is
>>>now a trusted team member. The logic here is apparently "anyone who lusts
>>>after Jo can't be all bad."
>>
>> Either that, or "we need all the help we can get." Anyway, didn't this
>> happen after the Bierbaums left?
>
>Started during the Zombie War. Besides, who said this was an anti-Bierbaum
>screed? I'm merely pointing out, in an allegedly humorous style, the
>really stupid parts of the entire run.
Well, I'm not going to criticize the post-Bierbaum issues until after
Zero Hour, but I don't have anything to say in their defense, either.
>>>35. Brainy deducing from the "Legion of Dead Heroes" that Brin is
>>>still alive, but not that Phantom Girl or young Valor is.
>>
>> Huh?
>
>In simple words: If there are 17 dead or presumed dead Legionnaires and
>your team is faced with the reincarnations of 14 of them, you do *not*
>conclude that one and only one of the other three presumed dead
>Legionnaires is actually alive.
Whatever. Of course, Phantom Girl is presumed to have died in the buffer
zone, and young Lar in the time stream, so neither one of them could be
expected to leave a physical corpse behind for Mordru to re-animate,
right? Maybe the writers were one step ahead of you there.
>> You consider this unrealistic? Of course, Thom is also an athlete and
>> celebrity . . .
>
>Since when is he an athlete? His major recreation was holographic D&D.
>Since when do celebrities--whose only resume is their celebrity--manage
>sports teams?
Of course he's an athlete. He dated Dreamy for 10 years didn't he? Plus,
look at the sequence where he's called back home to be planetary
champion. Thom is one buff guy. And celebrity atheletes are *exactly* who
gets to manage sports teams.
Abhiji...@transarc.com
>From: el...@willow.usask.ca (Nathan Elke)
: Elmo Froths
:>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
:>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
>Yes, I'd say it could've been fatal, and wasn't treated correctly by the
>rest of the 'team'.
Actually I don't have that much of a problem with this. This was
clearly played for laughs (much as the Matter Eater lad thing in LGS
was). We could draw up probably two dozen examples of the Giffen
Justice League showing incredibly poor strategy, because Giffen wanted
to get in a laugh. Heck, I can even point on Avengers story where the
She Hulk is wearing a Wasp designed costume and is about to jump into a
fight, when the Wasp says to her "No. That's a original costume. Don't
damage it !". [ At that point, Jennifer strips to her underwear and
joins the fight a minute or so late ...]. I didn't see the Wasp (then
Avengers leader) get court-martialled for this.
As long as it doesn't happen all the time, its no big deal. Recognize
it as a joke.
:>12. Blowing up the moon without ending all life on Earth. (#18)
This by itself didn't bother folks so much as the arrogance of T&M in
replying to letters disputing their science. When Levitz goofed, he
apologized for it.
:>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change
:>drug.
I've said before that this whole argument is bogus. We can change sex
in our world now, and it hasn't had such a major impact.
Besides, how about considering the cultural effects of the anti-aging
stuff shown in S/LSH #235 ? Or of having a society full of telepaths ?
Or a race of people who can predict the future ? Etc.
:>4. Keith Kroaks Karate Kid Again (#32)
:>5. Tellus's one on-panel appearance extols the virtues of the Dark Circle.
:>(Ann #2)
:>5a. You'd think someone would remember Quislet.
>Yes, everybody is somebody's favorite, but >some< characters have to have
>bad times, too.
Actually, I believe Quislet was mentioned in LSH annual #2.
I don't think there was anything bad about not remembering him. Hint to
Elmo : try and point out the number of times Tyroc was mentioned in the
main comic after his departure and till LSHv4.
But killing karate kid again was a bit of a low blow.
:>32. Celeste's origin? Powers? Personality? History? Motivations?
>Boy, you don't like unanswered questions, do you? I assume the problem is
>because of Emerald Toilet,
No way. ET was conceived sometime in the middle of last year.
:>36. Thom being named manager of the Naltor Dreamers, his qualifications
:>seemingly limited to being married to the team owner. (#37)
>Even if his qualifications >are< limited to that, it's not like it hasn't
>happened in the universe before.
:>37. Thom coaching a team wearing hockey-like uniforms when he's a "batball"
:>coach. (#4?)
>>Very< trivial.
These are both very trivial and no big deal at all. Thom is an
ex-legionnary, for crying out loud. He's a celebrity.
:>38. Nura Nal, who's excessively vain and exceedingly athletic, getting fat.
>THIS is the one that bugs me. I'm glad my wife isn't reading this
>newsgroup, as she is, to be blunt, fat. You (and others on this point say
>things like 'but she's intelligent; she's a scientist'
>FAT PEOPLE ARE NOT IGNORANT IDIOTS, YOU...
I don't think anyone's said that. Those are two separate threads.
Thread 1
TMK opponent : TMK's Nura is shallow
TMK defender : Levitz's Nura is shallow too.
TMK opponent : No, she was a scientist and very intelligent.
Thread 2 is about Nura's obesity and whether it squares with her vain
personality.
>Nura is
>the leader of a planet, and can indulge in anything she wants. She has,
>and obviously loves it.
She used to indulge herself when she was in the LSH too, but was still
very vain about her appearance.
By itself, its not a big deal at all, but TMK did lots of things that
annoyed people. Some of them like the Kid Quantum or the Garth/Proty
thing annoyed a lot of people. At some point, people get ticked off
enough to look for every little wrong point and bring it up. I used to
defend TMK two years back, but it became harder and harder to do so.
Abhijit
Michael E. McKean
|>In Article <2t68fh$g...@indial1.io.com>
|>c...@indial1.io.com (CWM) writes:
|>>
|>>>"What Twin Sister? What Telepathic Wife?" Dept:
|>>>
|>>>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
|>>
|>>Nobody knew, including Garth.
|> Actually, Garth did know that, I think. So long as he had the
|>memories, any changes his sister noticed could be chalked up to (gasp!)
|>the effects of dying and coming back to life. If you show me an issue
|>where Imra probed deeper into Garth's thoughts than just surface level, I
|>will accept your point on that one.
|>
To support this point: As I recall, it is Imra's policy not to probe another
person's thoughts unless absolutely necessary. So please tell me why she would
need to do so with Garth, her lover and husband. Also, the romance
between these
two really only got going after Garth's "resuurection" in ADV #312, so
in a sense
Imra fell in love with Proty, not Garth. Even if she had detected at
some point that Proty's
psyche resided within Garth's body rather than the original psyche of
Garth himself,
I find it likely that she would have fooled herself into believing
otherwise. That was the
thrust of annual #3. Most people I know have a great capacity to fool
themselves and
I see no reason why Imra would be any different.
Mike
Tom Galloway
> :>1. Celeste teleports Brainy into a combat situation so that he arrives
> :>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
> it as a joke.
There's a problem. This sort of thing works when the tone of the book is
light-hearted (i.e. early JLI, Tenzil issues, etc.). It doesn't work when
the tone is serious. And, in the Wasp/She-Hulk example, Jennifer had a
choice and also knew what to expect. Here, Brainy was all that was
transporting in to rescue several trapped LSHers (a strategy problem in
itself. Jo with super speed or invulnerbility on would've been a much
better choice). It was a joke that didn't fit the tone of the situation,
and was an incredibly stupid one to boot.
> :>14. The cultural non-effects of casual availability of a sex-change
> :>drug.
> I've said before that this whole argument is bogus. We can change sex
> in our world now, and it hasn't had such a major impact.
Nope. The problem is that it's not easy to change sex, and it's effectively
irreversible (at the least, very expensive). Thus, the only ones changing
sex in this society are ones doing so as a one-time, one-way, experience.
See John Varley's Eight Worlds stories for a society where sex changing is
easy. In particular, if you can find it, his short story Options dealing
with the start of the society that results from easy, reversible, fully
operational, sex changes.
> Besides, how about considering the cultural effects of the anti-aging
> stuff shown in S/LSH #235 ? Or of having a society full of telepaths ?
> Or a race of people who can predict the future ? Etc.
LSH has been traditionally weak on this, true. It'd be quite interesting
to see what Varley could do with the LSH universe, as his work shows the
ability to invesigate the nuances of things like that and incorporate them
into a society.
"Desaad: Master, I have found it! Doom plus Magic plus IRC plus netnews
plus MUDding!"
"Darkseid: You cringing fool! That is *not* the Anti-Life Formula, it is
the No-Life Formula!" --Dave Van Domelen
tyg t...@hq.ileaf.com
Kenton L. Campbell
> In Article <1994Jun7...@fnalo.fnal.gov>>>Laurel was an impressive retcon. And for a change forced on them from
>>above, the Valor/Superboy switch was practically elegant, even if V's name
>>was pretty stupid.
> Y'know, someday someone's going to have to explain to me exactly
> why Valor is a bad name (whereas "Matter-Eater Lad" and "Gas Girl" are not
> bad names). :)
I agree. In fact, I often find myself pronouncing "Valor" as "Val-Or",
which even keeps the flavor of Kryptonian names.....
--
--
-- Kenton L. Campbell ---------------------- 01klca...@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu --
-- Ball State University, Muncie IN ----------- 01klca...@BSUVAX1.BITNET --
Jonathan I. Ezor
Michael E. McKean <mmc...@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>In article <1994Jun9.1...@earlham.edu>, do...@earlham.edu writes:
>|>In Article <2t68fh$g...@indial1.io.com>
>|>c...@indial1.io.com (CWM) writes:
>|>>
>|>>>"What Twin Sister? What Telepathic Wife?" Dept:
>|>>>
>|>>>24. Garth *is* Proty, just no one ever noticed. (Ann #2)
>|>>
>|>>Nobody knew, including Garth.
>|> Actually, Garth did know that, I think. So long as he had the
>|>memories, any changes his sister noticed could be chalked up to (gasp!)
>|>the effects of dying and coming back to life. If you show me an issue
>|>where Imra probed deeper into Garth's thoughts than just surface level, I
>|>will accept your point on that one.
>|>
>|> --Doug
>
> To support this point: As I recall, it is Imra's policy not to probe another
>person's thoughts unless absolutely necessary. So please tell me why she would
>need to do so with Garth, her lover and husband.
Hmmmmm....it occurs to me that in *so* many SF stories about
telepaths, the element that telepathy brings to, well, sex is
frequently mentioned. Even those that are only quasi-telepaths (e.g.
the people in Niven/Pournelle's "Oath of Fealty" with embedded neural
links to Millie the Computer, through which they also can communicate
with each other) use the link as much as possible. Can it really be
that Imra and Garth *never* attempted the ultimate intimacy? Or that
she was so, um, distracted that she never noticed that the person she
was with wasn't thinking like Garth? I have to agree that I was very
disappointed in this plot line (i.e. Garth was actually Proty)--they
should have tried it with some other LSH'er, preferably one who spent
a little less time next to a telepath!
>Also, the romance
>between these
>two really only got going after Garth's "resuurection" in ADV #312, so
>in a sense
>Imra fell in love with Proty, not Garth. Even if she had detected at
>some point that Proty's
>psyche resided within Garth's body rather than the original psyche of
>Garth himself,
>I find it likely that she would have fooled herself into believing
>otherwise. That was the
>thrust of annual #3. Most people I know have a great capacity to fool
>themselves and
>I see no reason why Imra would be any different.
>
>Mike
{Jonathan}
--
Jonathan I. Ezor
Internet: je...@panix.com
Mean Mister Mustard
>In article <ohy9eTuSM...@transarc.com> Abhiji...@transarc.com writes:
>> :>nude, surprised, and weaponless. (#42)
>> it as a joke.
>
>light-hearted (i.e. early JLI, Tenzil issues, etc.). It doesn't work when
>the tone is serious. And, in the Wasp/She-Hulk example, Jennifer had a
>choice and also knew what to expect. Here, Brainy was all that was
>transporting in to rescue several trapped LSHers (a strategy problem in
>itself. Jo with super speed or invulnerbility on would've been a much
>better choice). It was a joke that didn't fit the tone of the situation,
>and was an incredibly stupid one to boot.
Well, who ever said that Legion fans had no sense of humor?
This incident was obviously a joke. This was clearly not supposed to be
an example of LSH tactics, nor was it meant to be taken seriously. When I
first read it, I saw no reason why people would be grousing about it
A YEAR AND A HALF LATER...
Marc
Michael E. McKean
sex--that
would actually make sense. But I think it unlikely Imra and Garth made love
before he died in ADV #304, so she would not have a prior sexual experience
with which to compare notes. This does not mean that she would not have
detected some change in Garth's telepathic signature. Indeed, because Proteans
themselves are telepathic, she might even have recognized Proty's mind.
But remember that she fell in love with Proty, not Garth. My guess, and Annual
#3 seems to confirm this, is that down deep she knows but has deliberately
lied to herself to convince herself otherwise.
Mike
The Great Elmosby
> I've said before that this whole argument is bogus. We can change sex
> in our world now, and it hasn't had such a major impact.
We don't have Pro(fem/men)-quality sex change, not casual, not reversible,
and not biological. Have a look at John Varley's work (e.g. Steel Beach)
for an example of the cultural effects I mean. I think if he had the option,
Dirk would probably have tried sex from the other direction.
Heck, I'd be satisfied if Rond or Anton Relnic showed up as the opposite
gender, if only to be met with "Hey, the change looks good on you" or
"Geez, you're even uglier as a woman". *Anything* to indicate that Profem
and Proman exist outside #34.
> Besides, how about considering the cultural effects of the anti-aging
> stuff shown in S/LSH #235 ?
How old is Anton Relnic? I think he's about 150 and has close to a century
of diplomatic experience. #235 does handle the cultural effects fairly
well: "Why do you think these men and women are called `Kid' or `Lass'
well into their twenties?"
> Or of having a society full of telepaths ?
Agreed. A good writer would do this. A good writer makes his societies
real in the background, by mentioning elongated lifetimes or changing
genders or telepathic verification of business deals. Unfortunately,
the Legion hasn't had many writers who were interested in doing real SF.
--
"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of
people."--LTC Gerald Wellman of MIT ROTC, on the military ban on gays
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
Carl Fink
seen flying nap-of-earth, rathez Lmke harrier jum-jets or
A10-thunderbolts...
It was a truly amusing experience!
---
**********************Dart Past The Eagle************************
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* ,| <| | ' )\ ,| <| | ' )\ ,| <) *
* >\ >\ >\ >> >\ >\ >\ >> >\ >\ *
*************************And Be Free*****************************
* o_, (o_ o, o_, o_, (o_ o, o_, *
* <| | ' )\ ,| <| | ' )\ ,| *
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****************************IN*LVX*******************************
Stephen Wray <swr...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>
Department of Computer Science,phone: x8359, fax: +64 9 373 7453
University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
: The University of Memphis
ingesting pellets is twofold. First, the pellets accumulate in the
gizzard where they are ground into very fine particles as the pellets grind
against themselves and food. The fine lead particles are much more easily
dissolved in the birds stomach and then absorbed. (Note: if you r
Ken Arromdee
> Yeah...how often did the characters during Levitz' run remember
>Chemical King?
He had a nice flashback issue in #59 (great compared to the rest of the series
at that point). Furthermore, people did remember that he existed, we saw his
statue, and he was generally a part of history.
>>>27. Kono disables B.I.O.N.: What *were* those wires for?
> Something Important Internally. If the Hulk reached into a car
>engine, ripped out a random handful of stuff, and the car stopped working,
>would you complain? Would you want someone to itemize the damage?
Finding wires in BION like the ones shown is about equivalent to finding Lego
blocks there.
>>>29. Two copies of genetic information on how to make a Daxamite
>>>invulnerable makes you *twice* as invulnerable?
> Layering. If it's a biological forcefield, putting one over
>another means that any damage not stopped by the first one is stopped by
>the second.
The implication is that having two Daxamites gets you something. If it's
layering, all he'd need would be the force field from one Daxamite, copied a
few times.
>>>30. Was it ever actually stated that B.I.O.N. couldn't use more than
>>>one power at a time?
> Does it matter?
Sure it does. If your villain's powers are poorly defined, the story becomes a
farce.
>>>33. Don and Dawn Allen, who have working superpowers, are executed by
>>>the Dominators, who are collecting people with superpowers.
> All together now: WE DIDN'T SEE A BODY.
The story becomes nonsense if you don't assume they really died.
--
Ken Arromdee (email: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
ObYouKnowWho Bait: Stuffed Turkey with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes
"You, a Decider?" --Romana "I decided not to." --The Doctor
Ken Arromdee
>>>Beyond those two things, I just think if they are going to
>>>retcon dsomething they should have a reason for it.
>>>Why does Schvaugn *have* to be a man. Why does Kid Quantum
>>>*have* to be in the history? Why is J'onn J'onz (who was
>>>Grell's Where's Waldo joke) suddenly make an appearance?
> Why do 2/3 of the classic Justice League have direct descendants
>in the 30C, and why does one of them look exactly like his ancestor?
Having descendants is a fairly common thing. _Lots_ of people have
descendants. (I don't think there's any such thing as 'indirect descendants').
Heck, just about everyone in the 30th Century should be descended from just
about everyone in the 20th.
>Why
>did the Luck Lords (oh, yes, the *real* Luck Lords, forget the ones
>Shooter created, they were just fakes) have to interfere in Garth's life?
Because they are villains. The existence of villains is not on a par with
the existence of retconned characters.
>Why did the Invisible Kid serum *have* to give Jacques weird,
>uncontrollable powers that bear no resemblance to anything Lyle ever had?
Well, for one, because it's probably not a good idea for the plot to have a
safe, predictable, invisibility formula that can be mass-produced and issued
as standard equipment in the same way flight rings or transsuits are.
Basically, plot devices which write or rewrite history, are a lot more
annoying that plot devices which don't.
Ken Arromdee
>> stuff shown in S/LSH #235 ?
>How old is Anton Relnic? I think he's about 150 and has close to a century
>of diplomatic experience. #235 does handle the cultural effects fairly
>well: "Why do you think these men and women are called `Kid' or `Lass'
>well into their twenties?"
#235 was for all practical purposes retconned away, and good riddance.
Instead, we have characters actually aging, if only a little bit.
I wouldn't be surprised if there _was_ some anti-aging technology in the
3oth Century, though.
Abhiji...@transarc.com
v...@giskard.eeap.cwru.edu (Virgilio (Dean) B. Velasco Jr.) writes:
> In article <> kh...@tektite.col\
> orado.edu (Abhijit Khale) writes:
> >
> >Where do you get the 2/3rds number from ? Batman, Superman, Flash,
> >Green Arrow, Hawkman and Hawkgirl have descendants in the 30th C.
>
> I know who the Flash's decendants would be. How about the rest?
Superman : was Laurel Kent, but this was retconned away.
Green Arrow : Oli Queen, a tour guide
Descendants of both Batman and Hawkman also turned up in an LSH
storyline which culminated in LSH annual #1 (I don't believe they were
even named, and they died in those stories).
So, technically, only 5/18 members of the classic JLA have been shown
to have 30th century descendants. Possibly 7/18, if you assume that
Hawkwoman and Black Canary were the women concerned.
The whole idea of descendants being significant 1000 years later is
hokey, of course.
Abhijit
Alice in Glenns
>The whole idea of descendants being significant 1000 years later is
>hokey, of course.
Well, it was pretty hokey, but I think Bruce Wayne's descendant was a
sort of scraggly-looking kinda insignificant P.I. that died on Winath,
right? If I remember right, the twin cops were looking down on the
guy and making jokes at his expense until they realized he was a
descendant of Batman. I think he'd been hired by Timber Wolf to find
Ayla, died hunched over a console. That one I thought was pretty
neat, if very brief.
Pax ex machina,
Glenn
......................................................................
"Hey! Don't any evil girls' names end in 'o'?"
--- T.O. Morrow
g-car...@uchicago.edu, if you must know
......................................................................
do...@earlham.edu
>> Besides, how about considering the cultural effects of the anti-aging
>> stuff shown in S/LSH #235 ?
>
>How old is Anton Relnic? I think he's about 150 and has close to a century
>of diplomatic experience. #235 does handle the cultural effects fairly
>well: "Why do you think these men and women are called `Kid' or `Lass'
>well into their twenties?"
you even assume the anti-aging stuff to be canon; frankly, I'd rather
not). Larry Niven has explored the effects of extreme extended lifespan.
Terry Pratchett explored it in STRATA. Using it as an explanation for the
comic-book aging is really a touch of the surface.
And I agree, I'd love it if they'd go deeply into the cultural
effects of Profem. I'd certainly try it if it existed and could be
switched on/off without too many side effects, and I imagine many people
would do the same. But then, I also really want to know what happens to a
pregnant Cargg(g)ite.
Y'know, maybe it's time to revive TALES OF THE LEGION. Go into
the side issues that the series leaves untouched. Levitz used partially
for stories that would have slowed down the main book (like Mysa's origin)
and I'd really like to see some work put into that sort of thing. (At the
very least, they could bring back Omnicom. Remember the one with the two
different versions of Venado Bay, from a pro- and anti-viewpoint? How
about one on the history of Profem, from the _Journal of Chemical
Education_?)
>
>> Or of having a society full of telepaths ?
>
>Agreed. A good writer would do this. A good writer makes his societies
>real in the background, by mentioning elongated lifetimes or changing
>genders or telepathic verification of business deals. Unfortunately,
>the Legion hasn't had many writers who were interested in doing real SF.
Mayfair sourcebook, "The universe of the 30th century was initially
designed by four men whose science fiction background was extraordinary
and primarily centered in the golden age of science fiction..." SF of the
time was a) positive about the effects of technology, and b) not as
heavily sociological as the SF of the '60s. Some of the assumptions (such
as fast, easy FTL travel) are so ingrained that they don't update well.
--Doug
Ken Arromdee
Mean Mister Mustard <ma...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>I think the point was, why is the JLA lineage so obvious, and so significant?
>A thousand years is a lot of time. Pope Sylvester II was hot stuff during
>the last millenium, but today we have no clue who's directly descended from
>him -- and even if we did, it's highly unlikely that his descendants would
>be targets of assassination, or that any one of them would resemble him
>*exactly.*
The "exactly" part may be a little weird, but the reason they're assassination
targets is simple: the villain was a frozen 20th century Justice League
villain (guessable to be Professor ivo and later revealed as such).
Mean Mister Mustard
Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <1994Jun9.1...@earlham.edu>, <do...@earlham.edu> wrote:
>> Why do 2/3 of the classic Justice League have direct descendants
>>in the 30C, and why does one of them look exactly like his ancestor?
>
>Having descendants is a fairly common thing. _Lots_ of people have
>descendants. (I don't think there's any such thing as 'indirect descendants').
>Heck, just about everyone in the 30th Century should be descended from just
>about everyone in the 20th.
I think the point was, why is the JLA lineage so obvious, and so significant?
A thousand years is a lot of time. Pope Sylvester II was hot stuff during
the last millenium, but today we have no clue who's directly descended from
him -- and even if we did, it's highly unlikely that his descendants would
be targets of assassination, or that any one of them would resemble him
*exactly.*
The Allen twins are a little different, being the first generation of
offspring. But Oli Queen, the unnamed descendants who got killed, etc.
are not 100% realistic. And therefore must be PURGED to make the Legion
continuity TOTALLY PURE AND PERFECT! :-)
Marc
Mean Mister Mustard
Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>
>The "exactly" part may be a little weird, but the reason they're assassination
>targets is simple: the villain was a frozen 20th century Justice League
>villain (guessable to be Professor ivo and later revealed as such).
Yet another example of tying Legion continuity just a little too closely
to 20th Century DC continuity. In the years since that story, Superman
has been retconned out of the JLA (Ivo never encountered the JLA during
Superman's brief membership while Jurgens was writing), Ivo has been cured
and presumably reformed, and I don't even want to think about how to
reconcile Hawkman's Thanagarian descendants with the fact that the Hawkman
Ivo would've met was a reincarnation of an Egyptian prince.
I sincerely hope that after Zero Hour, the Legion is "insulated" from
changes in 20th century continuity. All this Green Lantern/Darkstars
stuff is another example of a 20th century change (perhaps only a temporary
one at that) playing hell with the Legion.
Marc
Eivind Gladheim Oestreng
>In article <2tb04i$i...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>,
>Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>>In article <1994Jun9.1...@earlham.edu>, <do...@earlham.edu> wrote:
>>> Why do 2/3 of the classic Justice League have direct descendants
>>>in the 30C, and why does one of them look exactly like his ancestor?
>>
>>Having descendants is a fairly common thing. _Lots_ of people have
>>descendants. (I don't think there's any such thing as 'indirect descendants').
>>Heck, just about everyone in the 30th Century should be descended from just
>>about everyone in the 20th.
>I think the point was, why is the JLA lineage so obvious, and so significant?
>A thousand years is a lot of time. Pope Sylvester II was hot stuff during
>the last millenium, but today we have no clue who's directly descended from
>him -- and even if we did, it's highly unlikely that his descendants would
>be targets of assassination, or that any one of them would resemble him
>*exactly.*
The JLA lineage was not that obvious, nor that significant. OK, so it was
significant in the sence that a frocen 20th century villain wanted revenge on
the JLA and his robot hench-men went after their desendants. Having Oli Queen
look exactly like Green Arrow were done just for fun I think. The Batman
desendant was a broken down detective that did not look anything like Bruce.
The only desendant that have played a significant role in LSH was Laurel Kent,
and she was retconned into a manhunter-robot.
>The Allen twins are a little different, being the first generation of
>offspring. But Oli Queen, the unnamed descendants who got killed, etc.
>are not 100% realistic. And therefore must be PURGED to make the Legion
>continuity TOTALLY PURE AND PERFECT! :-)
I wonder what would happen if comics ever became 100% realistic. Guess we
couldn't call them comics anymore. :-)
- Eivind.
Mean Mister Mustard
Eivind Gladheim Oestreng <E...@stud.hsn.no> wrote:
but first, I proclaimed:
>>The Allen twins are a little different, being the first generation of
>>offspring. But Oli Queen, the unnamed descendants who got killed, etc.
>>are not 100% realistic. And therefore must be PURGED to make the Legion
>>continuity TOTALLY PURE AND PERFECT! :-)
>
>I wonder what would happen if comics ever became 100% realistic. Guess we
>couldn't call them comics anymore. :-)
My point exactly. :-)
Marc
The Great Elmosby
> mor...@fnalo.fnal.gov (The Great Elmosby) writes:
>>#235 does handle the cultural effects fairly
>>well: "Why do you think these men and women are called `Kid' or `Lass'
>>well into their twenties?"
> That's not quite on the same level as really *exploring* it (if
> you even assume the anti-aging stuff to be canon; frankly, I'd rather
> lifespan.
Who says it's extreme? If I recall, #235 doesn't specify. IMHO, a doubled
lifespan isn't going to have the extraordinary effects of Niven's
boosterspice (which gave a nearly unlimited lifespan), and a doubled
lifespan is what I'd use if I were writing the book. Social adolescence
would extend into the late twenties (much as it extends into the late teens
now and as it extended only into the early teens in paleolithic times.)
> I also really want to know what happens to a pregnant Cargg(g)ite.
Good question. I would guess that all three bodies are pregnant, but
then I assume that one body is the default; T&M seemed to assume
that three bodies was the default.
At some point, the mother stops triplicating the fetus and the fetus starts
triplicating when the mother does. Hmm...after birth, though, I'd expect
that the infant doesn't triplicate--it lacks the stimulus of the mother
doing so. I'd guess it picks it up again around the first year or two
as it's learning to do other complex tasks.
Now, can a Carggite get pregnant in only one body while triplicating?
What happens when she recombines? Hypothesis: Generally, Carggites
stay tripicated for only short periods; they experience a kind of
separation anxiety. This follows from the default=one theory. Therefore
we don't really have to deal with the question of a triplicate not
recombining for the full period of gestation.
Now, let's say that recombination more or less "averages" over the three
bodies, combining memories, injuries, etc. A zygote-stage pregnancy would
*probably* get wiped out in the recombination. I would probably decide
that Carggites find greater intimacy in non-triplicated sex, anyway.
> Y'know, maybe it's time to revive TALES OF THE LEGION.
They are. Legionnaires, post-ZH, will be the second LSH book.
>>the Legion hasn't had many writers who were interested in doing real SF.
> The other problem is that, as Levitz pointed out in the first
> Mayfair sourcebook, "The universe of the 30th century was initially
> designed by four men whose science fiction background was extraordinary
> and primarily centered in the golden age of science fiction..."
Ouch. Excellent point.
> SF of the time was not as heavily sociological as the SF of the '60s.
I have to concur with this. The kind of SF Hamilton et al. were doing
wasn't modern SF, and that's the kind of SF I was talking about.
(Funny, as much as I don't care for, say, LeGuin's SF, that's exactly
the kind of SF I'm looking for here :-)
--
"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."
--W. Somerset Maugham
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
Rick Jones
>At some point, the mother stops triplicating the fetus and the fetus starts
>triplicating when the mother does. Hmm...after birth, though, I'd expect
Could be. I'd guess that, "for safety reasons" Carggites
don't triplicate when they're preggers. While it doesn't apparantly
cause any strain, and the triplicating is essentially "magic" (in
the way that mass comes and goes from and to nowhere), I'd hypothesize
that once a Carggite gets knocked up, a hormonal fail-sage stops
them from triplicating. (In the way that Perigrine in Wild Cards lost
her ability to fly once she was pregnant.)
>Now, can a Carggite get pregnant in only one body while triplicating?
>What happens when she recombines? Hypothesis: Generally, Carggites
>stay tripicated for only short periods; they experience a kind of
>separation anxiety. This follows from the default=one theory. Therefore
>we don't really have to deal with the question of a triplicate not
>recombining for the full period of gestation.
On the other hand, it might be more "fun" to have an orgy for six.
I will leave the details of Carrgite sex to folks who really need to
get out more. ;-)
>They are. Legionnaires, post-ZH, will be the second LSH book.
But I wonder if it will be a> like the X-books were just after
the split into Uncanny and Adjectiveless X-Men, where the team was
split into two teams that didn't interact as much, or b> like the
Superman titles, that directly dovetail into each other.
And I do hope that some of the kids hang around. I'm sure that
folks like Dragonmage and Computo will still be around, but I like
the Lil' Legion and it'd be a shame to get rid of them, just because they're
hard to explain. {Of course, I'm one of those rocket scientists who
could understand Earth-1-2-3-S-X-C-Cminus at age eight.}
--
Rick Jones Waitress! Waitress! Bring me some coffee.
alb...@bcm.tmc.edu Make it as hot as you can.
Systems Support Center And bring me a light in this everlasting night at
Voice: 713-798-7352 The Highway Cafe of the Damned! --Austin Lounge Lizards
Mean Mister Mustard
>> I also really want to know what happens to a pregnant Cargg(g)ite.
>
>Good question. I would guess that all three bodies are pregnant, but
>then I assume that one body is the default; T&M seemed to assume
>that three bodies was the default.
>
>At some point, the mother stops triplicating the fetus and the fetus starts
>triplicating when the mother does. Hmm...after birth, though, I'd expect
>that the infant doesn't triplicate--it lacks the stimulus of the mother
>doing so. I'd guess it picks it up again around the first year or two
>as it's learning to do other complex tasks.
This may tie into a question I've always had about the Carggite triplicating
ability: what's the point of giving it to a race? (I'll leave out the
question of how a race could *evolve* it, since the lame "evolution"
explanations of the 60s have wisely been retconned away.)
I mean, Ice powers make sense if you want people to colonize a hot world
(not much sense, but a little), and even Bismollian abilities have a
practical side on a world where everything's poisonous. But how does
splitting into three help a planet survive?
It could be that Cargg's environment is very hostile towards organisms,
esp. babies who don't have fully developed or seasoned immune systems.
Perhaps the Dominators designed the Carggites to produce three times as
many offspring -- by one pregnant body getting all three pregnant after
they merge, perhaps? Or by one pregnant Carggite triplicating and
producing three fetuses?
On the other hand, perhaps the Dominators planned to eventually give the
triplicating ability to *other* races, so they could have three times as
many magnetic warriors, three times as many ice-creating warriors, etc.,
and the future Carggites were just guinea pigs on whom the triplicating
ability was tested. Beats the hell out of me why the Dominators would
want three times as many Bismollians, though! :-)
>Now, can a Carggite get pregnant in only one body while triplicating?
>What happens when she recombines? Hypothesis: Generally, Carggites
>stay tripicated for only short periods; they experience a kind of
>separation anxiety. This follows from the default=one theory. Therefore
>we don't really have to deal with the question of a triplicate not
>recombining for the full period of gestation.
>
>Now, let's say that recombination more or less "averages" over the three
>bodies, combining memories, injuries, etc. A zygote-stage pregnancy would
>*probably* get wiped out in the recombination. I would probably decide
>that Carggites find greater intimacy in non-triplicated sex, anyway.
This is logical. However, to ensure maximum survival/propagation, the
triplicating would be more valuable if pregancies could be triplicated...
this would seem to fit in with the default=three theory, which generally
hasn't been shown to be the case (Luornu is an exception; most Carggites,
we're told, can't handle the shock of having a body die).
Still, if pregnancies *could* be tripled, then that would have some neat
effects on Cargg... population control would be pretty important, esp. once
the Carggites tamed their world, and more children began surviving...
Also, if the triplicating power were designed for reproduction, then it
might only be given (initially, anyway) to women. This could result in
Cargg being a matriarchy...
Marc
Ken Arromdee
>ability: what's the point of giving it to a race? (I'll leave out the
>question of how a race could *evolve* it, since the lame "evolution"
>explanations of the 60s have wisely been retconned away.)
Simple. If somebody triplicates, and one body gets injured, they can rejoin
and have a less severe injury by averaging (unless all three bodies happened
to get injured in the same way, or unless one body actually died.)
Michael A. Chary
I think the elegant hand wave (oxymoron alert) is that Cargg(g)
is a magic world (like Orando and Zerox(?)) and the Dominators
probably simply made the original settlers more susceptible
to mystic influences somehow. (Maybe they were try ing to give them
superstrength, I'd certainly like for Luorno to have Superstrength
to a tiny extent (three times normal) because it would explain how
a Khund spy who beat the fire out of superboy was unable to
beat two unarmed teenage girls (yeah, yeah, I know any one opponent
andf she was two, nonetheless...;) Certainly given the existence of
magic the Dominators would do research in it;))
--
"You were clinically dead for six minutes -- what was it like on
the other side."
"There was an *INCREDIBLE* duty free shop, but I didn't have any money."
-Bizarro "Ipsa scientia potestas est." - Roger Bacon
Mean Mister Mustard
Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <2td4lp$5...@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>,
>Mean Mister Mustard <ma...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>>This may tie into a question I've always had about the Carggite triplicating
>>ability: what's the point of giving it to a race? (I'll leave out the
>>question of how a race could *evolve* it, since the lame "evolution"
>>explanations of the 60s have wisely been retconned away.)
>
>Simple. If somebody triplicates, and one body gets injured, they can rejoin
>and have a less severe injury by averaging (unless all three bodies happened
>to get injured in the same way, or unless one body actually died.)
Logical enough. Again, this sounds like something the Dominators would
want to combine with other powers, to make more formidable warriors; let's
face it, triplicating isn't all that great a power (unless, of course, the
Dominators planned to give all their test subjects "tri-jitsu" training,
or expose them to Brainiac 5's force field belt for years at a time :) ).
It would also be useful on to have an army of triplicators: you only need
logistics, food, etc. for (say) 1000 soldiers, but when they go into battle,
they suddenly become a 3000 person force. And, as you say, they can better
resist injury. So the Doms would've been glad to have an army of Carggites
(or lower-caste Dominators with Carggite powers).
But again, when it comes to colonizing a world (which was Valor's goal, more
than it was the Dominators'), I think the biggest asset of triplication
would be if it applied to pregnancy and birth.
I wonder how (back in the old, pre-UP days) nearby planets felt about being
near a planet of people who could triple themselves? Probably a little
nervous... also, if the UP Militia is smart, it has a big recruitment
program on Cargg. It might even use Luornu as its "celebrity endorser"!
After all, the UP would like to have a triplicating army to repel the
Khunds; and if Cargg is a matriarchy, the Carggites would have good reason
to fight a Khund invasion.
Marc
Ken Arromdee
Mean Mister Mustard <ma...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>It would also be useful on to have an army of triplicators: you only need
>logistics, food, etc. for (say) 1000 soldiers, but when they go into battle,
>they suddenly become a 3000 person force. And, as you say, they can better
>resist injury. So the Doms would've been glad to have an army of Carggites
>(or lower-caste Dominators with Carggite powers).
That applies to any power. The Dominators would love to have an army of
people who can emit frost, control magnetism, or have Valor-like powers. One
suspects their ability to reliably recreate these powers is pretty much
equally low for all cases....
Abhiji...@transarc.com
> > I've said before that this whole argument is bogus. We can change sex
> > in our world now, and it hasn't had such a major impact.
>
> We don't have Pro(fem/men)-quality sex change, not casual, not reversible,
> and not biological. Have a look at John Varley's work (e.g. Steel Beach)
> for an example of the cultural effects I mean. I think if he had the
>option, Dirk would probably have tried sex from the other direction.
I have read John Varley's work. But my contention is that the changes
caused by this innovation are literally insignificant compared to those
by other changes :the presence of telepaths and Nalotrians, for
instance. Or the presence of time travel and time viewing devices
(pre-Crisis).
You're holding TMK up to a standard that no Legion writer before has
met and precious few DC writers have anyway, and that seems unfair to
me.
Abhijit
do...@earlham.edu
ma...@wam.umd.edu (Mean Mister Mustard) writes:
>Also, if the triplicating power were designed for reproduction, then it
>might only be given (initially, anyway) to women. This could result in
>Cargg being a matriarchy...
>
It might be, actually. The Dark Circle issue (v4 #18) showed that
it had a female ruler, at least.
--Doug (Very good, class. Your next
question: What happens when a
Bismollian throws up?)