Part of the problem is attempting to figure out canon for the LSH at the moment. The current book and the LSH in Action are not the same, and so far we don’t know how they do and don’t relate to each other. Or any other version from the past. 
Wow. What an asshole.
Didn’t they do that in “Jack” a few years ago?
Or maybe it was Star Trek—either one of the famed time travel episodes, or one of the three (maybe four. Or more.) times they blew up the ship, only to have an inferior (or just completely identical) counterpart take it’s place.
It’s worse than that: Harry’s alive again, and Peter’s back to mechanical webshooters. For all we know, Pete may be back in college or high school. Wonder how this is going to interact with Venom existing at all?
I’ll never know. I’ve officially bought my last Spider-Man comic.
From what I’ve heard, Straczynski actually wanted to take his name off of the last two OMD issues, but when your boss is also your artist your ability to protest is limited. Like I said before, blame Quesada. This is wish-fulfillment for him, like how DiDido always wants to kill Nightwing.
See here, partway down.
I like JM and am looking forward to the Twelve, so felt like blame should be properly placed.
Cripes…that’s not nostalgia, that’s outright atavism. What’s next—are they going to use the Yellow Kid as his archnemesis?
The “current” LSH and the Action LSH don’t relate at all to each other, continuity- or canon-wise. They’re separate continuities, like Marvel’s mainstream (616?) and Ultimate universes.
Tengu is referring to the Giffin “Five Years Later” canon, which would seem to be a possible continuity for the Action LSH, based on hints in the Lightning Saga.
I suspect, however, that is not the case – based on wildly different characterization of certain characters in Action (Dawny vs. Bounty, Spider Girl, etc.), hints that events which occurred in “Five Years Later” aren’t covered (e.g., Polar Boy as leader), and the style choice to go back to the retro costume designs instead of the lots o’ pockets designs of “Five Years Later.”
A pity, 'cause that was one of my favorite LSH periods (Tenzil Kem for the Defense!), and because the last thing the LSH needed was yet another deviant continuity.
That is why I have that part about “Or any other version from the past.” It is the LSH that Superman had adventures with, but it doesn’t actually fit with the other Legions that Superman had adventures with. So Tengu saying that 2 of his favorite couples being broken up or rendered non-canon doesn’t really make sense, since we don’t know what is and isn’t considered canon. Apparently, at this point in time we have 3 different Legion’s that are considered in continuity. The current one in Action, the one in the current series, and the one that Kon-El spent time with. (I know it was rebooted, but the adventures still happened. And not with the current Legion. And if I remember correctly, it was tied into the Future Titans that lead to the current storyline in Titans. :p)
Wasn’t Kon-El’s LSH revealed to be one of the alternate Earths that Alex Luthor created in Infinite Crisis? All of those were destroyed or absorbed back into New Earth… so I’m not sure that particular LSH is still “in-continuity.”
And by “in-continuity,” I mean “reachable by some means,” not “once existed to interact with current-continuity characters.” Because the Crises make that definition rather… confusing.
edit, forgot to add: Although according to the Lightning Saga, there are supposed to be three, “in-continuity” versions of the LSH, so the reboot LSH might still be the third one. Somehow or other.
I love that one of the Skrulls in that image is Howard the Duck
It, or one as much like it as the one in Action is like the pre-Zero Hour version, most likely is, as XS was mentioned by name by Starman when discussing the Legions of Three Worlds, and Kid Quantum I, in his post-ZH look, was among the Captains Atom in Countdown Arena (Ah, James, no matter the continuity, you’re born to die, or at least pretend to).
And, yes, Dawnstar and Wildfire have been broken up - Brin’s comment about her ‘not wanting to play Find the Battery any more’ makes that clear.
Vi and Ayla are more a matter of implication, but - the divergence point between this version and the pre-Zero Hour version is clearly pre-Gap - even if we assume Karate Kid’s time in the 21st century is replacing his time in the 20th century, so the divergence doesn’t have to take place before his death, Blok is both still alive, and still a member, Cos still has his powers, and White Witch was a member until given to Mordru as a hostage - meaning the period when their relationship happened…didn’t happen.
Now, there are anomalies - Superman knew Projectra as Sensor Girl, when in the original continuity, she didn’t take that identity until after Crisis, Una, in Countdown, mentions two other selves*, suggesting Luornu’s whole, which didn’t happen until almost Zero Hour in published books - but even if they were together, the fact that Brin and Ayla came back to Metropolis together is highly suggestive.
So, probably removed entirely from continuity, and if not, most likely broken up, with only a slender bit of wiggle room for them to be together. (Chiefly the idea that it may simply be coincidence that Brin and Ayla were travelling together - not really enough to hang any hope on.)
- Actually, the context for this also suggests favourite #3, Luornu/Chuck, is also out, or at least liable to get rocky. There’s more wiggle room in this one (Una does say her other two selves might not feel the same way about Val), but still, I swear, they’re out to kill me.
On the whole, I’m glad for the rewind to pre-Gap - there’s only a handful of elements I want to see brought back from the post-Gap Legion - Vi/Ayla, the relationship between Brande and Cham, Proty!Garth, Kono - but this gives an opportunity to bring them in again, while ejecting (or doing better), the stuff that didn’t work - get rid of the deaths or bad characterizations of the non-humanoid Legionnaires (and Sun Boy), do the SW6 kids and Sean Erin in ways that aren’t mind-rendingly stupid…but some of the apparently lost elements are disappointing.
Maybe Spider-Man is a skrull and has been since the beginning of Civil War. That would explain the whole business with Mephisto, because the REAL Spider-Man would never have done something so goddamn stupid.
I’ve also read somewhere that they’re going to stop one of the Marvel titles because the main character will be revealed as a Skrull.
Reading up more on wikipedia it cites Geoff Johns as stating “that this incarnation of the Legion shares the same history as the original Legion, up to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths” – which throws out a whole lot more of continuity than I’d thought – not only the Giffen era, but a lot of the end of the Levitz era (e.g., the original story when Sensor Girl showed up).
So it does look as though they’re going to pick-and-choose their favorite continuity bits from the Levitz/Giffen eras, and bring those forward, while dropping others. And we’re just going to have to guess at which is in, which is out.
Which really doesn’t help at all in clearing up LSH continuity, as they’d implied these storylines were intended to do.
Hmmm…that’s intriguing. That means it’s someone with their own dedicated book, not just one of the Avengers or New Avengers. Any guesses? I don’t think it can be Iron Man, or Dr Strange. The Punisher wouldn’t make much sense, but I guess it could be.
Ironically, it throws out slightly less than I thought - I’d been working under the assumption that Karate Kid in Countdown had come from after the divergence point - putting it in, at the latest, 1984 (or, 2984, from their POV, I guess). This gives…oh, two years or so extra before it becomes completely speculative, in my mind.
But this easily allows for Quislet to still be a living member, so I’m yet more torn.
I didn’t see where the LSH that Kon-El was in was destroyed in Crisis, but that doesn’t really follow, since the alternate worlds didn’t exist when he had his adventures. And it might be reachable, since they are apparently putting different versions on different Earths. (My guess, the Legion in Action is from Earth-1, the one that they have said nothing about. That allows Xs and other fun people like Quislet. The current LSH is the one on New Earth, so Supergirl didn’t jump universes when she traveled back and forth.)
Frankly, if they are starting from COIE, then I am pretty happy about it. There was some good stuff after the 5 year gap, but overall I was turned off by it.
A likely theory, when pre-ZH characters first started appearing, but highly unlikely, now, given Starman’s various comments about 30th century maps of the Multiverse in JSA. As the Multiverse was mapped, he, Karate Kid, and Una would know they weren’t on their Earth. But none of them have said anything to that effect - in fact, they’ve repeatedly mentioned history-as-they-knew-it, and expressed surprise about how it had diverged from history-as-it-actually-happened - and KK and Una were confused by their meeting with Supergirl, which is inconsistent with the idea that they’re from a different Earth.
Read up a bit in the wiki article (up above where I linked to, earlier); the reboot LSH was Earth-247 in Infinite Crisis. Shikari (who survived the whiteout, then went unused) got re-united with her LSH in Infinite Crisis. All of those alternate Earths got destroyed or folded into New Earth.
And during the time Kon-El was with the LSH, we were still under the Hypertime physics of time-travel. All of those alternate Earths could have been reached at that time (and in the LSH-Teen Titans crossover, the Persuader did so). But all we really know now is that particular LSH hasn’t shown up again, at all.
Actually, the fact that they don’t recognize Supergirl from her trip is a point in favor of them being from a different Earth, if she was part of the New Earth Legion. And the fact that Starman was dumped on a different Earth on his trip from the future to our present would indicate that he was diverted there while jumping universes. Them not mentioning they are from a different Earth is not too surprising, they were not exactly honest about their purpose in this time period to begin with. And it explains them being surprised at differences in history, the history of Earth-1 is very different from New Earth’s history. No JSA, Superboy the first hero showing up, all the fun from the Silver Age that has been folded into New Earth and changed by the existence of the JSA.
I view that as as more like someone from Texas commenting on how they make barbeque in South Carolina while visiting there.
I did read the article about that. But it also said we don’t really know their status post Crisis. New Earth was the only actual survivor of the Crisis, the other 51 are spin offs of it, not leftovers.