Threeboot:
The Threeboot era is what really killed the Legion for a lot of people. Not even that it was particularly BAD, but just the fact that fifty years of stories meant NOTHING, yet again- Legion fans had suffered through this once before, and more if you count all the Retcons and “fixes” that just buggered things up further (the origin had been retold about four or five times by this point). To go through it AGAIN was too much- most people swore off of reading new Legion books, since nobody wanted to read a book where everything would potentially disappear. Hell, the Legion had about twelve distinct “versions” of continuity by this point, if you include all the “soft reboots”.

In Threeboot, by Mark Waid (who started off the Reboot, too), the kids were throwing off the shackles of a parent/old person ruled universal government, instead acting like youthful freedom fighters. Jim Shooter returned to the book once Waid left, but ultimately, the book didn’t have a whole lot of fans, despite being very “high concept” (then again, “High Concept” usually means “Doom Patrol Fandom”, ie. Nobody Reads This Crap). 

Post-Infinite Crisis:
Soon, it was cancelled and Geoff Johns and company decided to bring the OLD-SCHOOL Legion back, returning the old Superman/boy backstory. Johns even wrote The Legion of Three Worlds, featuring ALL THREE TEAMS combining together to fight Superboy-Prime, and they resurrected some Titans characters who’d died- Kon-El/Superboy and Bart Allen/Kid Flash. Just because- it’s a pretty big story, though seeing the Legion teaming up with DC heroes other than the Super-types is always weird. It’s a hell of a book, though turning a Legion story into a Superboy/Impulse (vs) Superboy-Prime story feels like it disrespects the characters a little bit.

This version of the team lasted only a couple of years. Because…

The New 52:
-DC’s controversial, regreatful “New 52” era led to ANOTHER incarnation of the team, with two books out simultaneously- Legion Lost (featuring some of the “cool” cast members like Wildfire & Dawnstar), and the standard book, which more or less acted as the previous book did- not really a reboot (Grant Morrison & Geoff Johns had similar deals with their books). UNFORTUNATELY… well, DC’s idiotic decision to launch fifty-two new books AT THE SAME TIME resulted in fans swarming over Action Comics #1 and the relaunched Batman, Green Lantern and other books… leaving all of these tertiary books to wither and die. Seriously, “#1s” are always big sellers, but you shouldn’t revamp the entire line simultaneously, because the “big name” books will take the lion’s share, leaving thirty-ish other books to drop in sales.

And of course Legion Lost died quickly (with the cast trapped in the 21st century), and the main book lasted only a little longer, being cancelled with LOSH #23, dying only two years after its relaunch. It saw a team comprised of Legionnaires from many timelines, and a return of the “Lost” crew, but the book vanished for a few years, until Brian Michael Bendis, formerly Marvel’s top writer, moved to DC and wrote his own book, which lasted about twelve issues before it ended.

The Legion As A Whole:
There was also a cartoon running from 2006-08, which mainly took the most iconic versions of each characters, but had little to do with continuity. And they added Superboy X, who is actually more ’90s than any ’90s character I can think of. And that includes the hero with the reversed baseball cap and blood powers, and all the guys with pockets & giant guns.

The biggest trouble with this series is that now fans don’t TRUST IT- the continuity is too dense for even the biggest pros to make sense of anything, the line’s been rebooted so many times it actually stands as a solid warning against EVER rebooting a series ever again (rendering stories null and void just annoys long-time fans, and nukes the “history” of any book; it also causes fans to not trust that the CURRENT stories will ever matter). The failing of two Legion books in “The New 52” era has similarly poisoned the concept, to the point where it’ll probably take a considerable effort/idea to get a new LOSH book launched. Really, for a hardcore LOSH fan, you’re kind of hooped, and have to relive the old days as much as anything.

The goofy names really don’t help. I have no idea why they thought that so many of them needed to be called “Lad” or “Lass”- were those common terms in the 1960s? Because they make the team sound like it was written by 1800s Scotsmen, nowadays! Last time I posted stuff about the Legion, a few commented that silly names like “Matter Eater Lad” and “Shadow Lass” cause a lot of people who might otherwise check out Legion books… NOT to. It’s too hard to take seriously, and so people just bail on the concept without even looking in. I’ve found that I actually have to try and convince people “No, NO! You really have to look at them! Ignore the stupid names and pretty boring costumes! It’s really good! I swear!”

In all, you’ll hardly ever find a roster larger than this, especially all in one team at the same time- it’s pretty much a constant that the Legion will include lots And LOTS of characters. As a result, every fan has their own favourites, but you’ll rarely see all of them get the limelight. In fact, you can go entire TRADES without seeing some characters say more than a single line of dialogue. Each writer has their favourites that they’ll push, only exacerbating this. The main characters are usually Superboy, Mon-El, Brainiac-5, Supergirl, the lead trio (Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad & Cosmic Boy), and usually an alternating character or two that’s getting focused on.

For the builds, I’ll mainly be doing a “Best Of” for characters that can waver a bit between versions, focusing on the more powerful versions. I probably won’t include Threeboot-era stuff at all (nor the current continuity), though I’ll make some notes of it. Characters that REALLY differ between versions will have some different builds- in any case, I’ll make note of which types tend to be different. I’m hoping to get builds done of the ENTIRE Legion, which includes all the subsidiary and side characters (Shvaughn Erin and stuff like that), trainees and junk like that. Once I’m done, I’ll go through The Legion of Super-Villains too, since most of those characters tend to get skipped over.