The Legion has a time machine.
So why is it that the only place they ever go, ever, is the present day DC Universe? Surely there are all sorts of other places they can go?
It doesn’t have to be Shadow Lass, of course. “Talokian” just sounds kind of like “Connecticut,” and I like bad wordplay sometimes. And it doesn’t have to be Camelot, either. (Although more opportunities for the Legion to meet up with Etrigan are, in my book, always to be wanted. Mostly because Etrigan is bad-ass, and rest assured I am fully on board with Etrigan being an evil bastard rather than a heroic demon, because the former is awesome and the latter is kind of dorky.)
But there are options aplenty. Anybody who has ever watched an episode of Doctor Who knows this to be true. Pick an interesting historical setting. For style points, make it one with some strange thing that has never been explained, and explain that strange thing (preferably in a convoluted manner involving Brainiac Five blowing something up in the name of Science). The Tunguska Event, for example, is suitably mysterious (we think it was a meteorite, but we can’t be sure), and involves a large explosion, so there’s one right there that comes pre-suitable.
But wait! How about “how did the Aborigines get to Australia?” (Nobody knows.) Or “where’s the Ark of the Covenant?” (Nobody knows that either, except possibly for a few people and they aren’t telling if they do.) Did the Legion get involved in the quiet, subtle feud between Belisarius and Justinian? Did they at some point run into the Comte de St. Germain? (Actually, he probably made it to the 31st century. Seeing as how he is the Comte de St. Germain and all. Hey, maybe he’s R.J. Brande!) Do they know what happened to Judge Crater? Maybe he was a monster of some sort. Maybe they were responsible.
All of this should not be taken to transplant the Doctor’s storytelling model onto the Legion – nor, for that matter, Booster Gold’s, considering that Booster has the “hero who travels through time and fixes things” niche and I don’t think anybody should mess with it or make it redundant. No, the Legion doesn’t travel through time and do heroic things proactively. For them, it is entirely reactive – the Legion just has a knack for getting shoved to the ass end of time by some horrendous cosmic force and having to deal with that. (I mean, come on, their greatest foe is called the “Time Trapper.” That is kind of a hint.)
And of course, time travel doesn’t have to be limited just to Earth, and the Legion knows about the dangers of time travel and not altering the flow of history and blah blah blah responsibility-cakes. Imagine shoving them back to the Dominion homeworld just before the invasion of Earth (the one with the Khund and the Thanagarians and the Gil’Dishpan, not the one just recently in the 31st century with the robo-virus). They’ve got a front row seat at a decimating event in Earth’s history, but a necessary one. Think there might be conflict?
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I really haven’t bought any Legion of Superheroes comics, but I would buy yours.
Terrifically entertaining.
Naahhh…. Tunguska was Nikky Tesla’s fault. Spider Robinson said so.
Tyr shot JFK
Psst. “Engine”, not “model”. 🙂
I like the idea (especially the Comte St. Germain bit), but I have a problem.
The Doctor’s niche is the reactive niche. It’s very rare for him to go anywhere with the express intent of stopping wars/fighting the Master/blowing up Daleks/picking up platonic TARDIS-mates. He chooses the time, but not the events.
I’m a little unclear. Are the Legion choosing to go to these places or not? If it’s the Trapper sending them there, then the fact that they have time machines is essentially irrelevent. If they are choosing to go to these places on their own, then they’re doing the Doctor thing. And, if they’re finding out that the Trapper is doing something evil and using their time machine to go to these places and stop him, then they’re back in Booster’s territory.
That said, some Booster Gold-LSH team-ups could be sweet.
Also, moral dilemmas make for tasty reading.
If they travel to other periods, I wish they could visit new places besides the Dinosaurs, King Arthur, Wild West & WW2. They could for instance meet the first superhero team: the mythical Argonauts!
The Tunguska meteor already gave powers to Fireball (Russian member of the Young Allies, the DC counterparts to the Invaders).
But we know there is no such things as continuity (or George Washington would be a Illuminatus in the DCU, according to the Time Masters mini-series…).
My mind is still wrapped up in the modern Legion going back and witnessing the events of the Invasion. Imagine how Brainiac 5 would respond to seeing Valor. Muhahaha
That said, some Booster Gold-LSH team-ups could be sweet.
Someday, we’ll get to see the Brainiac 5-Booster Gold-dinosaur scene that’s been promised since issue 1 of the current volume.
Shadow Lass should go with that look more often.
Booster Gold-LSH team-ups are the stuff of his fucking origins; He got to the eighties by hotwiring a busted up old Legion time-sphere, he can fly because he has a Legion flight ring, and his energy blasts and forcefields are a rewired Brainiac 5 belt. Brainy, Chameleon Boy, and Ultra Boy were the first people he ever fought.
They should team up all the goddamn time.
Also- on the subject of ‘Alien History’ and the Legion… I’ve been thinking for a while now that given the manic flailing that DC seems to do with the Legion franchise and it’s place outside the normal DC Universe allows it the ability to be experimental (and neglected). In any case… there could totally be a Vertigo series in the ‘dawn of the United Planets’ telling the stories of the colonization of the Legion-era Earth colonies (which is MOST of the Legion planets, frankly. There’s like 4 core Legionnaires that are actual non-human aliens, compared to a lot of environmentally adapted colonists) and the various politicking that caused major events historically (from the Legion’s perspective).
I was mostly thinking that Vertigo really needs a freaking SF book, and that a Legion-history narrative would really fit that ‘almost sorta, but kinda not’ continuity feel that a lot of Vertigo books have (like Sandman, Hellblazer, and Madame Xanadu.)
The idea of Jonah Hex being named after Jo Nah is gorram brilliant.
I hope you don’t cut these off at 50 as you were planning to do. I get a kick out of reading them and you seem to have an endless supply of great ideas. 🙂
Re: Booster Gold and the Legion.
How much of Booster’s origin actually is in the historical record? And how well is it known? I would love to see the look on Braniac 5’s face when some less-informed Legionnaire starts gushing over meeting one of the members of the Justice League.
And then asks Booster if it’s true he was once Jaime Reyes’ lover.
I LoSH/Jonah Hex story set during his post-apocalyptic future adventures period would be totally boss…
If they ran into another group of heroes (or similar); Which group would have jurisdiction?
Whoever punches harder, of course.
what if they went to the future?
ps Jonathan, sometimes they choose to time travel, some times there forced by the Time Trapper, and sometimes it happens by accident(it happens to Ultra boy more than the rest)