Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Angst? What Angst?: Monstress of the Postboot continuity. Her backstory reveals that she was the Spoiled Sweet daughter of an industrialist on Xanthu, and was shocked to see him swat away a worker during a tour of one of his factories. She went to help the worker and discovered that he had with him a gene bomb that went off and mutated her into her current state. After that, her father no longer had time for her and she was shunned by both sides of Xanthian society. Despite all that she is still quite cheerful and pleasant to be with, and her hope for the future and a happy ending were never squashed. This might make her a Stepford Smiler, except she never denies or pretends that something isn't wrong.
  • Alien Scrappy: Proty
  • Base Breaker
    • Monstress. There are those who found her to be annoying She-Hulk rip-off, and those who found her pleasant and an awesome character.
    • The first reboot Wildfire and Sensor, both were radically changed from their original counterparts to the point of outright alienating fans of said characters.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Wildfire's "Sultan" fantasy when he temporarily regained his body in Legion v2 #299.
  • Broken Base: Infamously.
  • Complete Monster: Saturn Queen is so very much this in the current Legion of Supervillains arc, having gone completely insane and lost any small scrap of goodness she once had. Her master plan is to plunge all of existence into chaos to allow an ancient Eldritch Abomination ultimate power, and create a universe that's a bit like the place the Event Horizon visited...only less cheery. She's essentially a female Joker, with the power of mind control and an even more nihilistic and insane world view.
  • Crazy Awesome: The Legion Of Substitute Heroes
  • Ensemble Darkhorse
    • Gates' first appearance was as part of a Failed Draftees Montage; he was brought back to join the team, and became a popular member.
    • XS and Kinetix are two of the most popular Postboot characters, to the point that any fan who wants a sketch of the latter will get one from Jeff Moy.
    • Wildfire; brought back from the dead (originally was supposed to have been a one-shot character) twice due to fan response (the second time, the first issue after the writers who dropped a bridge on him left the book).
    • Also Shvaughn Erin, Dawnstar, Dream Girl, V4 Matter-Eater Lad and Shrinking Violet.
  • Ho Yay
    • Notable between Brainiac 5 and Superman in the cartoon, but also present to varying degrees of blatancy in the comics, particularly with Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass.
    • Not to mention that time Brainy kissed Lyle in front of everyone. Sure, it was on the cheek, but they still blushed.
    • The reboot Legion featured a hint-dropping as to the true nature of Brainy and Lyle's relationship into a running gag. Fans paid particular notice of a panel where Brainy has a folder on his computer with Lyle's name on it, and won't let anyone see what's inside...
      • That started during the preboot, actually: the Secret Origins story concerning Lyle positively dripped with innuendo, although it was rarely seen in the series itself.
  • It Was His Sled: Darkseid's status as the main villain of the Great Darkness Saga. Despite the reveal only happening at the end of the penultimate issue of the story, it's pretty much widely known amongst comic fans (and people buying the trade paperback, seeing as Darkseid is on the cover) and is the big selling point towards getting people to read the storyline.
  • Memetic Outfit: Saturn Girl's Grell-era bikini, which has resurfaced in several Mythology Gags in both the Postboot and the Threeboot.
  • Tear Jerker
    • Monstress's death, and its demonstration of what Jan has become.
    • Also: At the end of Legion of Three Worlds, even though they never even knew her, the Retroboot Legion erects a memorial for her at their headquarters. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it thing, but very emotionally satisfying.
  • Unfortunate Implications: The Dominators are skinny, yellow-skinned humanoids with squinty eyes, huge teeth, and a big red disk on their foreheads. Sound familiar?
  • The Scrappy: Lori
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: The Great Darkness Saga featured Darkseid as the villain. This actually was clever and original back then.
  • Shocking Swerve
    • Post-Zero Hour Princess Projectra was actually a giant snake who used her illusion powers to pass as human in the issue she joined, until she revealed the surprise. An Author's Saving Throw was set up but never pulled off, where she became a pink naga after being exposed to a biological weapon designed to cause instant evolution towards it's victims, with the option of turning her fully human if fans rejected the new look. Unfortunately, the second reboot canceled that incarnation of the Legion, and the plot device never triggered.
    • Projectra was first subject to a (somewhat) shocking swerve in the 1980s when she was dragged out of retirement by Paul Levitz when he unmasked Sensor Girl. Sensor Girl was originally supposed to be Supergirl, who in an "out" to keep her around after her death in Crisis, would be running around with the Legion with a mask on, using her Kryptonian super-senses as her main super-power.
    • More overtly was the fact that Kinetix was supposed to become the '94 Legion's version of the Emerald Empress, having turned evil after losing her powers and being forced off the team. But the positive fan response to the character, plus their realizing where the plotline was probably going, led to the swerve where fan favorite Shrinking Violet turned out to have the Emerald Eye instead.
    • In the 5YL continuity, it's revealed that Lightning Lad had been dead since early in the Legion's history, and that Proty (who was thought to have sacrificed himself to bring Garth Back from the Dead) had been impersonating him all these years after accidentally committing Grand Theft Me on the corpse. And had married Saturn Girl, and had two kids with her. The fans did not rejoice.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In the story transitioning from the Reboot to Threeboot Legion, when the reboot Legion is cut off from the timestream, Shikari is thrown clear and ends up on Earth in the Threeboot timeline. Shikari never shows up in the Threeboot LSH book, and nothing is ever done with this plot thread until Infinite Crisis, when the Reboot world (Earth-247) is shown among the worlds Alexander Luthor is manipulating... and Shikari is suddenly back with her team, with a reaction amounting to "Oh, there you guys are." Particularly irritating since Shikari's race has an inborn pathfinding ability which has previously been shown to be able to direct teleportation through interdimensional space...
  • The Woobie
    • Lighning Lad's been brainwashed, killed, lost an arm, had his brother go insane, you name it. He isn't known as "the unluckiest Legionnaire" for nothing. The first reboot made it even worse: Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy don't even pretend to hide their sexual tension and Saturn Girl shamelessly shuns Garth to spend just about all of her free time with Cosmic Boy
    • Ferro Lad
    • Wildfire
  • WTH Costuming Department: Tyroc, deliberately done as a Writer Revolt against the Unfortunate Implications of the Legion's first official black character being an Angry Black Man. His Retroboot costume is different.
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