Jim Shooter Returns to Legion of Superheroes

[JulianPerez]

WHOA. YES!

Every few years, like clockwork, somebody says "Jim Shooter is coming back to do Legion again." Eventually, I've mentally started to put them in the crank file along with rumors like "Philip Pullman or Mark Hamil are going to be writing AVENGERS."

Is this what they call a "circular irony?" Here you have Jim Shooter taking over the Mark Waid Legion, which was inspired by...Jim Shooter! Mostly, Waid's even USING Shooter's Legion roster! And whose idea was it to have the Legion as hip, young kids standing up to The Man and mind-controlled grownups? Jim Shooter!

What I find hilarious is, Jim is asked what he feels about Waid's Legion and he says, "Oh, I like it." Gee, no kidding! 

Anyway, I'm very excited. At first, I was very hostile to the Waid reboot, but I gave it a chance and I've since changed my mind. (Not entirely; Waid's Brainiac 5 is an irritating Wesley Crusher type.)

A million little things won me over: Colossal Boy being from a planet of giants and his power is he can shrink to six feet. The one that did it for me was the Dream Girl issue. Not since Levitz's "smart blonde" era has the character been so formidable.

Gerry Conway, Interview: "There are so many people who have stories of the things Jim [Shooter] has done that we have to weigh the possibility that he really is ... [laughter] as bad as they say."

Well, by all accounts Jimmy's an A-1 jerk. That doesn't necessarily make him a bad writer, artist, or even editor.

Also, I think it's pretty radioactively ironic that Gerry Conway should be critical of anyone's EIC style. The guy was EIC for two weeks, and in that time, both Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber left Marvel.

The common rumor is that Conway pushed Englehart off AVENGERS because Conway coveted the title for himself. But whenever he's asked, Conway said "the only title I wanted was Spider-Man." Well, what a coincidence: Conway created SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN!

Jim Shooter only good run was on The Legion, he pretty much fail to impress with anything else, like Secret Wars 2 for example

Shooter's run on AVENGERS was pretty great, and very popular at the time and today. If you were to give a list of the top ten Avengers stories of all time, the arc with Count Nefaria and the Korvac Saga would be up there. Not to mention the introduction of Ms. Marvel and Jocasta, Henry Peter Gyrich, and the Beast/Wonder Man friendship.

I can think of several comics he did post-1980 that were pretty good:

His New Universe title, STAR BRAND. My favorite part was when he goes into space...and when returning to earth, actually forgets where his house is on the map! Amazing stuff, great and lovable characters. My favorite is poor Duck, hard luck Lana times a million. It was all so unique. I'd put his STAR BRAND as one of the top forty comics of all time, actually.

There was also his pulpy, cool MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER for Valiant.

And I actually liked SECRET WARS I. The Wasp nursing the Lizard back to health, which inspires him to fight for good? The Beyonder placing Magneto with the "heroes" instead of villains? The X-Men being "segregated" from the other heroes? The Enchantress trying to seduce Doctor Doom, Doctor Doom stealing the Beyonder's powers...it was fun stuff with the big Marvel characters.

[DBN]

I'm still wondering what part of hell froze over and who sacrificed what to make this happen.

But, it is good news. The WaK Legion is sticking around and John & Meltzer can have their faux, retconned Legion.

[Super Monkey]

Jim Shooter only good run was on The Legion, he pretty much fail to impress with anything else, like Secret Wars 2 for example

Shooter's run on AVENGERS was pretty great, and very popular at the time and today. If you were to give a list of the top ten Avengers stories of all time, the arc with Count Nefaria and the Korvac Saga would be up there. Not to mention the introduction of Ms. Marvel and Jocasta, Henry Peter Gyrich, and the Beast/Wonder Man friendship.

I can think of several comics he did post-1980 that were pretty good:

His New Universe title, STAR BRAND. My favorite part was when he goes into space...and when returning to earth, actually forgets where his house is on the map! Amazing stuff, great and lovable characters. My favorite is poor Duck, hard luck Lana times a million. It was all so unique. I'd put his STAR BRAND as one of the top forty comics of all time, actually.

There was also his pulpy, cool MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER for Valiant.

And I actually liked SECRET WARS I. The Wasp nursing the Lizard back to health, which inspires him to fight for good? The Beyonder placing Magneto with the "heroes" instead of villains? The X-Men being "segregated" from the other heroes? The Enchantress trying to seduce Doctor Doom, Doctor Doom stealing the Beyonder's powers...it was fun stuff with the big Marvel characters.

Korvac Saga was pretty cool, I forgot all about that one. I never read Star Brand. Magnus was ok, the few comics that I read during the Valiant era of Magnus were ok but nothing super great or anything. The only cool parts were already created before the character got there: http://www.toonopedia.com/magnus.htm

SW1 was pretty cool, Mike Zeck did a good job with that one.

The thing is though that he has had more misses than hits. All of those examples were a while ago.

That said, since you are the biggest shooter era Legion fan here, I am sure that you will be able to tell us if the TPB will be worth getting or not.

 

[MatterEaterLad]

The Shooter Legion is worth it, though I still think hero worship is a little over the top. Shooter built on a solid foundation but a lot of the praise is a little hyped. For example, the Sun-Eater saga was good but contrary to urban fanboyh legend, there wasn't that much put into Ferro Lad's character before his sacrifice - I knew about as much about Proty before his sacrifice. He re-used his own creation (absorbium) from his Superman/Eterno story, to me not that clever but maybe pleasing the continuity guys. And while Karate Kid was interesting (though somewhat Batman-like), Nemesis Kid had a really dumb ability (IMO).

Sometimes I think people just want to like Shooter because of his age and the fact that he often laid out panels before or while writing - somewhat like the "hip" Marvel method.

I'm too old to understand a lot of writer or artist cult adulation....

[TELLE]

So, Star Brand, Secret Wars, and Magnus?  These are the post-80 titles.  I agree that the 70s Avengers was well-done (although my memory is clouded by nostalgia)  --but it was helped immeasurably by the art.  Not so Shooter's 80s work, where the whole Marvel line, in part a result of Shooter's editorial policy of downplaying artists and preferring to work with newcomers and yes-men, suffered from crappy art and the occasional flicker of good art/fan favourites rarely stayed on books for long (Art Adams, Michael Golden, Bill S, Paul Smith spring to mind).  The exception to this being maybe the writer-artist/cartoonist types like Byrne, Miller and Simonson (--but what exceptions!).  You can see Shooter doing what he did best with Star Brand (a somewhat more realistic, 80s take on Green Lantern) and really trying to shake things up in a pulpy, soapy way with Secret wars, but both series fall down in the art department and SW could never live up to its premise and ultimately stood revealed as basically a last gasp marketing push to inject some life into the fading Marvel brand.

Today's Comics Reporter wonders how Shooter will handle a world without thought bubbles and narrative text:

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/go_read_jim_shooter_on_unreadable_comics/

[Klar Ken T5477]

I liked his work on his Valiant Harbinger series-- from what I saw of it -- had a nice modernist LSH feel -- which i think Heroes took a nod from.  (Mind you Ive onlysee the first ep of the first season and am playing catch up -- so no spoilers please)

[DoctorZero]

Shooter may be able to do a good job on Legion, especially if he's given the freedom to work in his own ideas.  His writing career, however, has been spotty.  He's done some really great stuff and turned out some of the worst clinkers ever seen.