Pretty much every LEGION story since 1994 (Post-"Zero Hour") has been a major W.T.F. !

I'm at a loss to understand the popularity of the 2001 Abnett/ Lanning LEGION series, that I finally sampled, which to me is indistinguishable from any X-MEN titles published in the last 15 years:

    1) Heroes that are indistinguishable from the villains, with grim, angry, bratty-looking faces, going on and on with the villains in exchanges of intimidating tough talk about their ability to rough each other up.
    And have tough sounding code names, and behave like ultra-tough intensively trained commandos, instead of a friendly group of heroes.

    2) Among themselves, the Legionnaires having angry confrontational exchanges that are completely alien to the characters I know and love from the Levitz-era and prior.
    Even in the "Five Year Gap" storyline (Which I'd previously considered the darkest LEGION storyline), the characters had camaraderie and a strong sense of doing only what was necessary, and didn't have a relentless bad-attitude posture, gloating about their ability to pound others into pulp.

    3) The characters all look like they're, at most, in their early teens.
    With LEGIONNAIRES series, this was somewhat forgiveable, because they regained a youthful sense of fun and playfulness. But now they've become pointlessly tough and serious little kids, in a dark future.

    I was equally repulsed by the previous LEGION LOST series, for the same reason.

    4) The whole point of LEGION, from its beginnings in the late 1950's, was this bright near-utopian future, that human civilization has resolved all of its problems and created the next best thing to a perfect society. I'm turned off by the darker future LEGION has become since the mid-1990's.


And really, the Abnett/Lanning LEGION issues I sampled have the Legion's 30th-century future as barely even a backdrop.

Like I said, it's a story indistinguishable from any recent issue of the X-MEN, and it could just as easily be a story set in the present, rather than the 30th century, the way it is written.

I really think Abnett and Lanning are tremendously talented writers, as demonstrated by their story contributions in the 9-11 tribute book put out in early 2002.

But I was very un-impressed with their work in LEGION, or in their ICEMAN limited series for Marvel. I fail to see why their new LEGION book was selling so well.

Unless it's precisely because their book was a cloning of X-MEN, and simply capitalizing on its similarity to that top-selling drek.



The recent Waid/Kitson LEGION is the first palatable version I've seen in the last 12 years (i.e., the first version in 12 years to be somewhat consistent with the Levitz-and-prior version of the Legion).
And even that has stretched its plot over so damned many issues, I've grown bored with a series I had early on been very excited about.
Again, WTF !