DeathrowAnime: by the way I actually thought of a Legionnaire that potentially interests me
DeathrowAnime: the crazy Starman in JSA right now
MissLupinthe3rd: I'm actually putting together a package of comics for Pind right now and slipped in a comic from the 70's (during the Legion's second great run) that recaps his entire Legion history
MissLupinthe3rd: There is a Thom Kallor in the Legion right now, too. It's just not clear if he and the previous Thom(s) are related...because he's black
DeathrowAnime: black as in the Captain Marvel look he's got going on in JSA or Luke Cage black
MissLupinthe3rd:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_BoyMissLupinthe3rd: Thom's a great character, pre, post and beyond Crises'
MissLupinthe3rd: That issue in the top right corner there, that's the one I'm sending Richard
DeathrowAnime: aha, I remember there being mention of Scalphunter in relation to Starman
MissLupinthe3rd: Ah, the fzzzzzzzzz stuff
DeathrowAnime: wait, so he's from Kingdom Come?
MissLupinthe3rd: Yes, no, yes.
DeathrowAnime: hence fzzzz
MissLupinthe3rd: ha ha, you're getting sucked into Starman continuity
MissLupinthe3rd: which INCLUDES now Legion continuity
MissLupinthe3rd: prepare for head explosion
DeathrowAnime: woot, I love head explosion
MissLupinthe3rd: As anyone I've tried to explain the Legion continuity will attest to, no you won't
DeathrowAnime: so is there tension between him and Brainy regarding Dream Girl?
MissLupinthe3rd: Star Boy? In this boot, no.
MissLupinthe3rd: primarliy because a) Dream Girl's dead
MissLupinthe3rd: and b) although she thought Star Boy was cute, she never said anything to him.
DeathrowAnime: so is the wiki article incorrect in referring to her as his girlfriend?
MissLupinthe3rd: No, it's correct.
MissLupinthe3rd: Legion continuity....hurts.
DeathrowAnime: how can I /not/ get dragged into this?
DeathrowAnime: it's so deliciously... convoluted
MissLupinthe3rd: Give up now and never talk to Legion mules about anything other then the weather
MissLupinthe3rd: Because as SOON as you understand what "SW6 Batch" is....you're stuck
MissLupinthe3rd: You have to understand, and I didn't till I got sucked in
MissLupinthe3rd: Legion fans are ENTIRELY different then most other comic fans
DeathrowAnime: if you're trying to scare me away, you're doing a terrible job of it
MissLupinthe3rd: It takes a certain sort of fan who can chat about Arm Fall Off Boy in a casual tone
DeathrowAnime: arm fall off boy?
MissLupinthe3rd: Okay.
MissLupinthe3rd: Super duper bare-bones Legion primer.
MissLupinthe3rd: Silver Age.
MissLupinthe3rd: The Legion are teenaged superheroes from 1000 years in the future, and the series runs as a backup in Adventure Comics.
MissLupinthe3rd: Superboy is a member, and he time travels into the future to take part in their adventures.
MissLupinthe3rd: The Legion is EXTREMELY popular, and eventually take over Adventure Comics.
MissLupinthe3rd: The membership of the Legion grows from three initial members (Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad) to about 30 or so
MissLupinthe3rd: including Collosal Boy, Ultra Boy, Dream Girl, Princess Projectra, Karate Kid, Brainiac 5, Matter Eater Lad, etc etc
MissLupinthe3rd: Some time in the mid-60's, through an interesting series of events, the series ends up written by a 13 year old Jim Starlin.
MissLupinthe3rd: This is the first Great age of the Legion
MissLupinthe3rd: And a lot of what comes after will either tribute it, or blatantly try to redo it.
DeathrowAnime: thirteen, wow
MissLupinthe3rd: At the tail end of the 60's due to political maneuvering by editor Mort Wesienger, the Legion is taken out of Adventure Comics and made into a backup feature in Action instead.
MissLupinthe3rd: Lower page count means that the stories are forced to not be big epic adventures
MissLupinthe3rd: but instead rather intense character studies of individual or small groups of Legionairres
DeathrowAnime: so kind of like the backups in 52?
MissLupinthe3rd: The Legion remains very popular, and is eventially moved into Superboy's book, making it 'Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes'
MissLupinthe3rd: Now here's where things start to slow a bit...for a bout a year. Did I say Jim Starlin? I meant Jim Shooter
DeathrowAnime: oh okay, I always forget he was a writer
MissLupinthe3rd: Anyway, Shooter leaves and things flounder a bit...until Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen come on as the creative team.
MissLupinthe3rd: This becomes the Legion's second great age....so great that they TAKE OVER Superboy's book.
MissLupinthe3rd: It becomes "Legion of Superheroes" alone, and Superboy is forced to spin off his OWN book into a new Superboy book.
DeathrowAnime: interesting, I really really like Levitz's Power Girl stuff
MissLupinthe3rd: LOSH is DC's top selling title, with Teen Titans close behind. In Marvel likewise, X-Men is a top seller....team books are doing GANGBUSTERS business.
DeathrowAnime: is this when Cockrum was involved?
MissLupinthe3rd: I have some Levitz issues. They are GREAT stuff. Huge cosmic space adventures. A whole Legion academy
MissLupinthe3rd: Most likely, thoug I dont' know for sure.
MissLupinthe3rd: Then...the Crisis hits.
MissLupinthe3rd: This effectively ******** the Legion over.
MissLupinthe3rd: You see, the Legion editors had been preparing a storyline for the crisis involving a character named Sensor Girl...who was supposed to end up being an amnesiac, re-powered Supergirl
MissLupinthe3rd: They were told flat out that Supergirl no longer existed...and oh yeah, neither did Superboy.
DeathrowAnime: why not superboy?
MissLupinthe3rd: You can imagine with 25 years of continuity featuring two of DC's marquee characters how much this ******** things up.
MissLupinthe3rd: Because Byrne was rewriting Superman at the time and declared that Superboy never existed
MissLupinthe3rd: Levitz left the legion and Giffin took over writing.
DeathrowAnime: oh how I love John Byrne
MissLupinthe3rd: To try to make things make sense, he put Mon-El retroactively into Superboy's place (and coined the phrase "Ret-con" if I recall) and created Laurel Gand to fill Supergirls
MissLupinthe3rd: Things did not get better for the Legion, as Giffen came up with what seemed like a great idea at the time, and is honestly a precurser to the 52 idea: The 5 year gap.
MissLupinthe3rd: Essentially, in a month, the story suddenly opened up '5 years later...' with the Legion broken up and in the middle of a very 80's style intergalactic war.
MissLupinthe3rd: Things start to get very confusing here and frankly downright depressing. It isn't received well by the fans and entire pages of issues are dedicated to explaining what the hell is going on. In text form.
MissLupinthe3rd: I'm getting too detailed, so let me pull back a bit.
DeathrowAnime: sure, but don't do so for my sake I'm enjoying all this
MissLupinthe3rd: The Five Year Gap preceeds what's known as the Khund War. The Legionairres are all grown up and splintered, ect ect. I'm also ignoring some sort of Pocket Universe thingy that I NEVER really understood
MissLupinthe3rd: But apparently was an attempt to put Superboy back into Legion continuity without disrupting Byrne's work
MissLupinthe3rd: Anyway.
MissLupinthe3rd: you can see where this was getting complicated.
MissLupinthe3rd: DC decides to cater to both diehard Legion fans and casual ones by launching a NEW Legion book, just called "Legionairres."
MissLupinthe3rd: starring....the SW6 Batch.
MissLupinthe3rd: Who are.....CLONES of the original Legionairres who have been in stasis for years.
MissLupinthe3rd: Legionairres is a rather lighthearted book, light on the continuity, heavy on the pool parties
MissLupinthe3rd: it also introduces the concept of renaming 'uncool names' in the Legion
DeathrowAnime: uncool names?
MissLupinthe3rd: Lightning Lad becomes "Live Wire," Sun Boy is "Inferno"
MissLupinthe3rd: Laurel Gand is "Andromeda"
DeathrowAnime: isn't Livewire the name of that STAS villain?
MissLupinthe3rd: yah. You note she didn't debut in comic continuity until recently. They're keeping the trademark alive.
DeathrowAnime: I wasn't aware that she pulled a Harley
MissLupinthe3rd: Anyway, the Legion continuity is just plain confusing. There's two books using essentially the same characters running on two completely different wavelenghts, and sales are falling.
MissLupinthe3rd: There's also some manner of solo book for Mon-El that renames him Valor and gives him modern day adventures or something
MissLupinthe3rd: So.
MissLupinthe3rd: What does DC do when things get too complicated?
DeathrowAnime: zero hour?
MissLupinthe3rd: MASSIVE COMPANY-WIDE CROSSOVERS!
MissLupinthe3rd: Bingo.
DeathrowAnime: woot
MissLupinthe3rd: Zero Hour's prime reason for existing is to reboot the Legion hard, rather then soft like post-Crisis.
MissLupinthe3rd: Legionairres becomes the main, only LOSH book.
MissLupinthe3rd: All of the SW6 batch looks and costumes are used, though some of the 'less cool' characters are pretty much removed from continuity
MissLupinthe3rd: bye bye Bouncing Boy and Matter Eater Lad
DeathrowAnime: D: not matter eater lad
MissLupinthe3rd: Reboot Legion doesn't do bad. A LOT of it is just retelling Silver Age stories in an updated setting.
MissLupinthe3rd: Lots of new Legionairres and new takes on legionairres show up. Like XS, Impulses cousin
DeathrowAnime: how does Impulse's cousin end up in the thiry whatever century
MissLupinthe3rd: Series runs about 10 years, which is respectable, before the gas just seems to run out. It's abruptly ended with several plot threads still hanging.
MissLupinthe3rd: Impulse is from the 30th century. And that is a whole thing that can get me really sidetracked trying to explain.
DeathrowAnime: 3
DeathrowAnime: 2
DeathrowAnime: 1
DeathrowAnime: fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
MissLupinthe3rd: heh
MissLupinthe3rd: Since it's coming time for another Crisis, they decide to essentially THREEBoot the Legion
MissLupinthe3rd: Completely cold. no relation to ANY previous Legion incarnation.
MissLupinthe3rd: At least that's the initial concept. Names, powers are intact, but that's it. Waid restarts the Legion with completely redesigned characters and a sort of a "Youth Movement versus complacent old people" theme
DeathrowAnime: oooh, I like the sound of that
MissLupinthe3rd: The idea was that people who didn't pick up the last version of the Legion, because they felt they had to know tons of Legion history to 'get' it, would be attracted to the book because it was a cold reboot with no ties to the old Legions
MissLupinthe3rd: I'm not sure how well that concept works out for a few reasons, but that's a different rant.
MissLupinthe3rd: Following Infinite Crisis, Waid wanted to rename the book "superboy and the Legion of Superheroes" again, but for logistical reasons couldn't use Superboy
MissLupinthe3rd: cuz....he was dead
MissLupinthe3rd: So, he coopted Supergirl instead.
MissLupinthe3rd: Which is where we are right now, except of course for the fact that the original Silver Age Thom Kallor, Starboy, is running around in the JSA
MissLupinthe3rd: I hope you've found this l ecture interesting, and now I'll be taking questions from the audience.
DeathrowAnime: so if I understand correctly, we don't know if the Thom Kallor in JSA is the Thom Kallor in the Legion currently
MissLupinthe3rd: He can't be, because the Thom in the Legion is a young black man.
MissLupinthe3rd: The Thom in the JSA is clearly the Pre-Crisis Thom.
DeathrowAnime: okay because I'm behind on JSA
DeathrowAnime: I've only seen him "in costume"
MissLupinthe3rd: He's been referencing Silver Age Legion bits for the last two issues, and at the end of issue 2 takes off his mask revealing the same face you see on that top lefthand issue in the wiki article
DeathrowAnime: so who's the other one then?
MissLupinthe3rd: Lower right corner?
DeathrowAnime: wait, wait I know
DeathrowAnime: fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
MissLupinthe3rd: That's the Star Boy who's currently in the Legion
DeathrowAnime: and they have the same name?
MissLupinthe3rd: Yes.
DeathrowAnime: dare I even ask
MissLupinthe3rd: All I can say is "The Secret of 52 is that the Multiverse Still Exists"
MissLupinthe3rd: Can I show this conversation in the Bistro?
DeathrowAnime: you most certainly can
*dies* 
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