#retroboot

[izzy-mizzie-boo]

AH—

That's- one of the arts that I like the most, I drew both in different AUs(I say AUs bc "years" would be weird, please anyone correct me q-q). The Melodys have different personalities from each other, but Threeboot and Retroboot have kinda similar vibes, but Threeboot being more sympathetic and empathetic than Retroboot.

Reboot and Cartoon have a more kind and soft personalities, but Cartoon ends up being more morbid than the Reboot one a few times.

Any questions, I'm open to answer it :>

[kingnd]

I don't have a lot of glowing admiration for Retroboot. Half the era dedicated to Earth-Man's bullshit, & the other fizzling out on The New 52's editorial trainwreck are major reasons why, but that's not saying I hate it entirely. Some of the back-up stories playing clean-up from L3W were good like Finally cementing Wildfire & Dawnstar's relationship, Or Geoff Johns depiction of Polar Boy being more in line with a "bright optimist who doesn't give up" from the Silver Age rather than Levitz & Giffen's "The Subs were an embarrassment & I'm Sun Boy 2.0" depiction, & The New Krypton Mon-El stuff was great.

Least Infinitus Saga was a decent story to leave off that Legion. I know the continuity is wonky on that story but still it's a slightly better note to leave off on than the New 52's endings of "Team broke up depressingly with some dead, & the other half being stuck somewhere in the past." Take the wins where you can

[spandexinspace]

Important

[judedeluca]

Geoff Johns saying "Fuck it" and using the Retroboot Legion in Justice Society after he was forced to use Bendis's Legion in Doomsday Clock is a level of gall and pettiness I feel obligated to support

[actuallyadcfan]

I've been rereading the dna legion run recently and it made me be even more upset at bendisboot. Like I hate bringing negativity this way, but it's so bad, you do different "darker" takes on the legion like dna like 5yl and you don't loose its spirit, but when you give every character the same stupid personality and have them all be jon kent supports....it just makes me fucking pissed

[dabruzzy]

More Legion redesigns feat. the Espionage Squad

Thought process for my redesigns under the read more:

So for Lyle I didn't want to change too much because I like his Reboot costume the best, though I think it's a bit bland. A bland design works well for him but he's my fave so I wanted him to have a better costume lol. I decided to go all in on the spy look, it's not like it's a secret anyway so he might as well look the part even more than he already does.

Tinya I wanted to make her look like a ghost, so it's basically a mix between her cartoon design and her Young Justice design. I like how in YJ she's wearing a hoodie, it feels like what a teenage superhero would wear, so I incorporated it into the cape.

Vi is mostly a mix between Retroboot and the cartoon, but I gave her shorts and combat boots as a bit of a callback to 5YL Vi because I love her. Also I wanted her to be visibly shorter than everyone else but I probably overdid it. She's really tiny.

Now you might be wondering, what the hell is going on with Cham's costume? Yeah, me too. He's the one I had the hardest time designing. I don't particularly like most of his costumes, I think a lot of them are pretty generic so I wanted to try something different but I don't think I accomplished what I wanted to do. I thought a really asymmetrical costume would fit a shapeshifter pretty well, and I also wanted to give it a water-like look to it since water doesn't have a shape. Something like Inque from Batman Beyond. But I didn't know how to do make it look good and also make him look like he belonged to the same team as everyone else so it's a bit meh.

And for Luornu I mainly took from the cartoon, now with more triangles. I also decided to stick to the Reboot's color scheme of purple and orange because her powers are more effective if she can trick people into thinking she hasn't split, and that's not doable if each duplicate is a different color. Plus Luornu Neutral is the balance between Orange and Purple and I like the idea of visually representing that by making her both orange and purple.

[neapoliting]

and jan!!!! JAN!!!!!

another alien to play with, the main things are obvious here, i think. i gave him four arms to emphasize his very magic-adjacent power - he's very posable with those arms and the many hands do a little do imply Creation, i think. the bug eyes are admittedly a bit of a mean nod to the progenitor design, but i also think they tie in nicely with a six-limbed alien, and they also look like lil gemstones, which is fun

the poncho is how i chose to break up the plain ole spandex, for the same visual reason as the arms. it makes him look a little Magicky, and it is very fun and easy to pose for using his powers. is it clear that i think element lad has the coolest powers?

i stuck to his pink, whites, and darks for the color palette - the green look never really did it for me. or that weird red one he had that one time. i took stuff from a few different designs, the silly thigh-highs from retroboot, the little poncho/cloak look from that one superboy's legion thing that i s2g nobody read. the one where he's catholic. i love that design

other than that, the personality is fun to convey with this one. jan can be so weird and engaging as a character - and maybe it's obvious that in that respect, i took a lot from his pzh iteration

[balu8]

The Justice Society of America #6: The Lightning Saga, Part 4- Three Worlds

by Geoff Johns; Dale Eaglesham; Ruy Jose; Jeromy Cox and Rob Leigh

DC

Source Dave Rash (comicartfans)

Legion The Justice Society of America v3 #6 p 16 and 17 of 23, in Dave Rash's 10. Legion of Super-Heroes - Retroboot (2007-2010) Comic Art Gallery Room (comicartfans.com)

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week (especially The Ultimates)?

Anonymous asked: Comics this week ? (also, have you dropped Immortal Thor ?)

Yeah my rent got raised and my medical bills hit me hard, so more cuts were needed alas.

Batman #148 -Dropped this as well, with the end of Zdarsky's Zur arc being underwhelming I can't justify continuing to read this. It's been merely ok, sometimes interesting, but far too familiar and repetitive in how it rehashes familiar story beats. Once again Batman drives the Batfamily away, only to acknowledge he needs them and reconcile. Until someone comes on board with a new story direction, I'm tapping out on Batbooks.

Kneel Before Zod #6 - Zod already scored himself a mistress? He and Sinestro can bond over their love of evil blue women. I thought for sure that other cell was a trap for Zod, glad he suspected the same and didn't take the bait until he was sure. I wonder if he and Emerald Empress are going to join forces? YJ made Ursa into EE, so perhaps Casey is taking inspiration from that. With the return of the Retroboot coming, will this Emerald Empress belong to that Legion's history? I'm expecting that to be the case.

My Adventures With Superman #1 - Even with my financial problems I still want to support MAWS any way I can, and happily I enjoyed this. No surprise with Campbell writing but it feels exactly as what it's been advertised as being, a lost episode of the show. Bloodsport is my Gluppo Shitto after how much I enjoyed The Suicide Squad, so I'm happy to see him appear here.. Another competing shady government agency in Checkmate too, I really want to see Bloodsport appear in the show. Frankly I wish he had gotten Slade's position as the second in command for Waller. I was wondering how they were going to differentiate Amazo from Parasite since they both do similar things, but MAWS Parasite doesn't actually copy powers merely absorbs energy, so now Clark is up against someone who can go toe to toe with him and has his own powers. That will be useful experience if he ever has to face Zod or Bizarro.

Ultimates #1 - Ahhh but this was easily the best first issue of the week. Camp is able to emulate Hickman's style while retaining his own voice, and of the Ultimate line he's the only one besides Hickman who managed to tell a complete story in an issue. We get Cap waking up and reacting to the United States no longer existing, Doom and Cap nudging Tony in different directions, Tony talking about how he hasn't yet "conquered time" (duhnduhnDUHNNNNN), the compression here is refreshing and makes the issue feel meaty. Camp even directly tackles the murkiness of Pym getting his powers. Hank was so afraid of becoming like 616 Hank that he refused to take Tony’s offer, but he still kept the orb. Seems like we won’t get the typical wife beater Pym storyline for this universe thank goodness. He and Janet are married too and Janet is perfect, reminds me of EMH Janet.

There was also an interview with Camp where he outright states that he wants you to be uncomfortable with the Ultimates killing. It would be easy to make the charges of terrorism a mere smear but it looks like he intends to embrace the label and interrogate if terrorists can be heroes - exactly in line with the idea of the 6160 Ultimates being the equivalent to the 1610 Liberators. Curiously he teases that Doom's changing eye color might not be mere colorist error. If that's the case, my theory is that Maker merged Reed and the other three into one body, or even Reed and Doom, similar to how he merged the four hirelings in Ultimate Invasion #1.

[sebeth]

Legion of Super-Heroes: Rank the Versions

The Legion of Super-Heroes was my entry point into comic books. My uncle handed me a digest-sized reprint of their early Silver Age appearances, and it has been my strongest comics love since that point. Others come and go but the Legion (and its million characters) will always be my true love in comics.

I saw a thread on reddit the other day asking readers to rank the various versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes, so lets go:

The Original (1958 – 1989): This is an obvious number one. The original LOSH laid the foundations for every version, reboot, and homage to come. All the mainstays – heroes, supporting characters, enemies, locations – debuted in this run. The most classic moments and famous storylines occurred with this version. Easy number one.

The Reboot (1994 – 2004): Another strong version that successfully modernized multiple characters. Lyle Norg’s reboot had to quadruple his fan base. The White Triangle storyline was fantastic. This version had a few questionable choices but overall was very strong.

Five Years Later (1989 -1994) The most controversial version but I love it. Not a perfect run but the characters were awesome. I have never loved Jo Nah as much as I have in this run. Cosmic Boy, Night Girl, Kent Shakespeare, Infectious Lass, and Spider-Girl were other standouts. Roxxas was hilarious but terrifying in his insanity. The Subs were badass, fearless warriors in the resistance. Jacques had something to do besides utter random French words! Tyroc became something other than a walking cliches! Glorith was something other than a devolved blob of goo! Sun Boy’s downfall was painful and horrifying! Love this run!

Threeboot (2004-2009): Mark Waid returned to the Legion for another reboot and threw everything sideways. It was great! Lyle was vastly different than the reboot but still received more character development than his original version. Loved the Cosmic Boy and Brainy rivalry. The addition of Supergirl was unnecessary and the ending was weak but still – many enjoyable moments.

Legion of Super-Heroes (cartoon): Nothing ground-breaking but it was fun.

The Retroboot(2007 -2011). I wanted to love this more than I did. The storylines and characters were bland. It started off strong with the Lightning Saga, the Superman/Legion vs Earth Man’s Justice League, and the Legion of Three Worlds storyline. Even the first year of the title wasn’t bad – Earth Man joins the Legion, Titan is destroyed, etc but it turned into forgettable blandness. Way too many new characters were introduced that weren’t memorabIe. I did love the spotlight on Night Girl and her relationship with Cosmic Boy. Tyroc again was something other than a stereotype. Legion Lost didn’t amount to anything – too bad as it was an interesting concept.

The Imperial Guard (Marvel): A Legion by any other name is…the Imperial Guard. I remember reading their first appearance in a Classic X-men reprint and I immediately tagged the group as a Legion homage. Always fun when they make an appearance. I love that Marvel keeps the group strong even though the team is an homage to a competitor. The Guard won the trial of Jean Grey/the Phoenix. Gladiator defeated the Fantastic Four. Gladiator and the Guard were standouts of Marvel’s 2000 cosmic runs. Love it.

Bendisboot (2019): Speaking of blandness, there is this hot mess. I didn’t even finish the run and that is the only time I can say that about a Legion run. Team books are not Bendis’ forte – his Avengers run should have proven that so I am unsure why DC thought he would be a good choice for a writer of the biggest team in the comic book industry.

There are other versions that I didn’t list simply because they only appeared for an issue/episode so there’s not much to rank. I did enjoy most of the “one-shot” Legions.

[orange-s-mario]

Supermen:

this is going to be a long one

1. Kal-L/Clark Kent/Superman

this guy is the actual golden age superman. This universe was basically were they put him since Earth-Two and Golden Age Superman stories; had some inconsistencies. 2. Kal-El/Sonn/Clark Kent. First he was Superboy, then he was Superman

I love this guy. He's great. He feels alienated all the time and is also almost always going through it. He is NOT well at all. He also has a large dating life - mostly with women with L. L. initials; most notably Lois, Lana, and Lori. He also remembers Krypton due to supermemory. He is friends with the Legion of Superheroes (Original)

NON-CLARK DETOUR #1 3. Ar-Val, the tyrant Superman

Kal handpicked a Kandorian successor after some tests, due to Clark losing his powers. It didn't quite go well and ended in tragedy for Ar-Val 4. Not a Superman but a "Skyman," Klar-Don, a predecessor to Superman

He's basically just Superman on Krypton; Although it seems like he just has Flight due to his Flight Belt (the other Superman past lives only had one power; Erok the magnificent had a potion that made him have super-strength, and Skuldor had V-goggles which let him use X-ray vision). He works for the Daily World, he has a friend named Jol-Lar, there's a Lois, and a Perry. I like to think he's the ancestor of Vol-Don (a member of the Kryptonian lookalike Squad

-End detour

5. Kal-L/Superman

This is Earth-Two Kal-L. He's basically golden age Superman with a few differences to make him standout from Earth-One Superman. He also married Lois, and met Lana again after he married Lois. There's also only 4 other survivors of Krypton. He's also great. also I want to give a shoutout to his "Mr. and Mrs. Superman" S logo.

I just think it's neat

6. Clark Joseph Kent/Kal-El

...he was literally born on this planet. At least at first. THIS GUY has THREE ORIGINS. First Man of Steel, then Birthright, then Secret Origins. Secret Origins adds Superboy back to his mythos. He has met all versions of the Legion, but was specifically part of "Original" Legion (Retroboot)

NON-CLARK DETOUR #2

7. Steel 1 (the only Reign of Supermen character to NOT claim he was Superman)

He's cool. Also when Christopher Priest was writing him, he was basing him off Dwayne Mcduffie, I just wanted to let you know that. He's had multiple origins as well, but I think the gist is that the new 52 beginning stuff happens first and then Death of Superman.

8. Eradicator... 2(?)

HE WAS AN EGG. his lore gets pretty complicated, especially due to all the weird absorbing other people's consciousness parts; He was actually made by a different alien, but Kem-L made him a xenophobe. Or something like that. I think all Post-Crisis Eradicator appearances are the same guy? Apparently not; New Krypton Eradicator is a different one, but he DOES have the og's memories. So it's a David Conner situation. He can sense things from not the main universe being in the main universe. He changed and grew as a person because of Guy Gardner 8.5 Eradicator...3 ?

(apparently not the same guy; this guy must have even more identity issues then post-david connor eradicator)

9. Superboy (Kon-El, later Conner Kent)*

He also has two origins. His original origin links him to many Jack Kirby concepts and makes him one - a DNAlien, a metahuman made by genetically modifying human DNA. He was the clone of Paul Westfield (westfield is evil btw). Johns retcons this into a half-Luthor half-Superman clone (superman is good btw), who always is worried about turning EVIL due to EVILLL GENES. Anyways Young Justice (2019) revealed he was on gemworld during flashpoint so he survived. He's also met the legion (reboot) *He has referred to himself as Superman

10. Cyborg Superman (Hank Henshaw)

he has Reed Richard's origins, except his crew doesn't really survive. He became a mass of energy and basically can't die. Much more of a GL villain, but has become a Superman villain again recently

-End detour

11. Kal-El/Clark Joseph Kent

This Superman starts out as a Champion of the Oppressed like his golden age counterpart, then quickly gets into bigger and bigger ideas like a 5th dimensional being trying to sell out Superman. He also met a version of the legion that doesn't exist anymore due to saving him. He died and also maybe he got better (see Sideways) and also he fused with the post-crisis guy, leading to:

12. Superman Reborn (Kal-El/Clark Joseph Kent)

yeah sure this makes sense. (it does not, Superman has a bunch of contradictions with just post-crisis and post-flashpoint) 12.5 Infinite Frontier Superman (Kal-El/Clark Joseph Kent... maybe also Sonn?)

everything is canon now. How does that work with the various versions of Superman? It doesn't. This is where we are now. There really hasn't been much changes to Superman lore though. The biggest thing was probably Lex being a superhero in early metropolis. The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that this Clark has met all the legions

NON-CLARK DETOUR #3 13. Alexander "Lex" Luthor

After Prime Earth Superman died, many people took to the skies to carry on his legacy. One of such people is Lex Luthor

14. Kong Kenan, the New Super-Man

Kenan is imbued with the chi of Prime Earth Superman and gains superpowers, He develops and changes and grows as a person and learns how to use his powers as well as learns more about his family. Highly recommend New Super-Man

15. Denny Swan

He was hit by a sentient bolt of energy that carried a mutated genome of Prime Earth Superman so he thinks he's Superman, He blew up.

16. Emperor Super-Man/Super-Man Zero

A prototype Super-Man, also made by infusing him with the chi of prime earth superman; he was lab-grown

[izzy-mizzie-boo]

As I "promised", here is Mel's sketches!

As you may notice, she doesnt's smile... much. She normally keeps a serious demeanor and a tired gaze, since she's mostly seem in the lab working in something, if she isn't there, you can keep in mind she might be traveling through a few planets searching for specific stuff for her projects. As she always says:

"Fresh ingredients make a perfect meal."

Normally when she returns to the Legion's headquarters, she's visibly very tired, and it's pretty common find heeer... laying down on floor... Sleeping. Or even sleeping on the lab, but reminder, these just happen because she didn't reach her bedroom in time, she would never sleep on floor because she wants to, is just the tiredness level that overtakes her.

[kingnd]

Ah so this is where Jenni's been since the Retroboot barely used her post L3W.

[spandexinspace]

Did Vril grow his hair out because he was tired of being the only family member who couldn't wear it in a ponytail

[judedeluca]

I have seen almost no Legion fan on here talking about the fact that Blue Beetle #7 featured guest appearances from the Five Years Later Legion, specifically Kent Shakespeare, Laurel Gand, Celeste Rockfish, and Devlin O'Ryan fighting against B.I.O.N.

Was everyone just underwhelmed with it or did no one know? Because this is the first time we've seen a different Legion besides the Retroboot and the Hell Legion-I MEAN the Bendisboot appear in a new issue.

[cursedcomics]

Dream Job: Writing Legion of Super Heroes.  Pt. 4

Am I a better writer than Paul Levitz?  Hell no. Like 99.9% of comic writers, I can confirm that I am not.

But I think his last run kind of proves that you just can’t just have a talented writer write DC out of this problem.  The Legion is undermined by a structural problem that you have to fix.

I am not better than Paul Levitz, but I am the right writer for this moment.

I am a great plotter who can see the end goal and is solid with dialogue.

One of the glaring problems with the Legion is that a superhero book succeeds long term based on the strength of their rogues gallery.

That is why Batman and the Flash are so long lived.

The Legion hasn’t had a great rogues gallery since Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen torched the value of Mordru and the Time Trapper in the Great Darkness Saga.  (Now to be fair to Mr. Levitz, his second Time Trapper was fantastic and “Legion scaled” and a vast improvement over what came before, but I still question the decision to burn both of your feature villains to prop up a mort like Darkseid.  It was the equivalent to having Wonder Woman villain Triangle Man do a drive by in Gotham and kill the Joker and the Penguin in order to make him seem like a serious Batman villain.  You would never make that call.  But they decided to make that call to “make the stakes big”. That worked, but it only worked in service to that story. It really hobbled the Legion concept long term at a time when the Crises’s aftermath was eating away at the brand.)

Now you may or may not agree with that assessment of the fallout of the Great Darkness saga.  That’s fine.  There is a lot more to this.  That’s only the start of what went wrong with the Legion’s Rogues.

The Legion has all the elements of a dominant rogues gallery, but collectively the writers under the mandates of editorial leadership haven’t been able to put that together. 

In every timeline management has pushed, there have been variations on Legion villains.  Sometimes they were decent.  Often times they just sucked. 

Glorith sucked in the original timeline.  She rocks in 5 years later.

The Fatal Five rocked in the original timeline but the Emerald Empress was killed and Validus was revamped to be the son of Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad and removed.  In the Reboot timeline, they have a mort replacement for Validus. 

That is yet another problem with just returning to a more productive legion variant timeline be it the retroboot or the reboot or whatever.

Conceptually what you want to do is cherry pick the best variations of each villain and organically plant them natively into the new timeline, whole and unmolested.  Same voice. Same History (if known, A logical history that explains their historic thought process, otherwise).  Same motivations. That is what my stories are written to do.

In the original timeline there was generally a perception that the big three were Darkseid, Mordru, and the new better Time Trapper.  By time 5 years later rolled around, Darkseid was, I don’t know.... living in Florida in a retirement home in his second career as an evil step mother.....Mordru was never the same after having his ass handed to him.  And super awesome new Time Trapper was taken out in a fantastic story (Legion #50).

In 5 years later they recast Glorith as the Time Trapper and pitted her against Mordru.  It made Glorith Legion villian 1 and Mordru legion villian 2.  it worked a little, but still, Mordru was never as great as he had been because so much effort was put into elevating Glorith.  And still, at the end of the day, Glorith just took the place of the time trapper.

While I want Mordru at the top of the Legion Rogues Gallery, I want a list of heavy hitters all fighting Mordru for control. 

I don’t want just the Time Trapper vs Mordru.  

I don’t want Mordru vs. Glorith.  

I want the Time Trapper vs. Mordru vs. Glorith vs. Darksied vs. Lady Styx vs. Pulsar Stargrave vs. Computo vs. Starfinger vs. The LSV vs. the Ruling Court of the LSV vs. The League of Super Assasains vs. the Fatal Five vs. future Mr. Mxyzptlk vs. Satan Girl vs. Moebius vs. Universo vs. The Composite Superman vs. Bion vs. The Progenitor vs. Grimbor and Charma......

(Now I know many people read that and think “Geez, doesn’t he have any ideas of his own?”  Of course I do.  But I have to slave my desire to create something new to do this job right.  Flooding a comic with my ideas and characters would only create yet another “flavor” of Legion that fans would find inferior to the Legion they personally love. 

I want to bring back everyone’s favorite individual Legion ...to at least some degree.   I love all of those characters and I feel a mission in my heart to do them justice and put them out there ---their true selves --- for the next generation of fan and DC comic writer.

It will feature a fair amount of retold tales and origins...It is tough to write these kind of “retold tales” and give them vibrant energy. It grates against the creative instincts of most comic writers who spend their time working very hard to come up with something fresh.  I am very much a technician and a researcher.  I am well suited and focused to do this job.)

The Legion has all of the elements of a truly elite rogues Gallery,

I am dedicated to polishing them up and showcasing them to a new generation.  My new shared timeline will allow the best versions of all of these villains to return at their historic best to the current DCU.

I am not the greatest comic book writer DC could hire, but they just tried hiring the most accomplished and decorated comic writer they could hire....An award winning comic writer....And it didn’t work. 

Finding just another skilled writer to make another random fresh take hasn’t worked the last several times and it isn’t going to cut it now. They need someone who can write to fix the systematic problems with this slumbering media asset.

I am the writer they need at this moment.