I didn't need to marry the whole 80s 'grim n gritty' attitude to the Legion, that defeated the whole purpose of the Legion as an optimistic future. Which doesn't mean that it has to be as sunny as the 60's Legion all the time; pre-5YL, there were some darker, less optimistic stories, and not all had happy endings. I just think pre-5YL, there was a better mix of stories, as opposed to the non-stop shit storm of 5YL.

Right.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the second issue of 5YL, didn't somebody KILL Blok by punching him really hard and having him collapse in a pile of rocks, then the characters is never mourned or mentioned again?

If that's respect, what's your definition of contempt? If that's powerful, what's your definition of weak?

I think it was. They respected them enough to put them through the wringer and get the best stories out of them that they could. Maddening, and I don't agree with every single decision, but very, very powerful.

Giffen and the Bierbaum's certainly had an extensive knowledge of Legion history but "deeply respectful"? There goes my temper again ...!

Ah well, too late now.

And that continues here.

While I collected all of Busiek's run on Avengers, I didn't get time to read it until Bendis was doing the writing chores. I don't know if Bendis' take on the team - which emphasized the ludicrousness of team books in general, in my eyes - or my own antipathy for the team, but I was not as impressed with the run as I'd hoped to be.

I miss that, and I'm really surprised that Marvel doesn't do it anymore; it's advertising at little to no cost to them. It takes significantly less time and effort than coordinating a massive crossover, but can lead to the same cumulative effect: drawing new readers to a title

I loved that old Kulan Gath two parter in X-Men. Off the top of my head, easily one of my favorite two part stories of all time.

... It seems like 99% of people writing about comics in the Internet say they want “fun, optimistic superhero comics that don’t take themselves too seriously nor change the characters from my childhood too much.” But I think a larger public of superhero fans still likes (or at least buys) the comics with darker themes. Ultimates sold well, Supreme Power seemed to sell well. New Avengers too.

Rene, I would never pretend to be remotely in touch with the tastes of the majority of comic readers. The only titles that I read that sell remotely well are "All-Star Superman" and "All-Star Batman & Robin". I am the guy with a couple Vertigo titles, the few creator-owned titles and a Showcase (or Marvel Essentials) volume.

From my vantage point, it seems like the majority of comic fans enjoy what Brian once called "Algebraic Plotting". Dark stuff certainly happens, but it is done in such a way that characters have 'light-switch' personality changes. If Max Lord can go bad out-of-nowhere, then he can be reformed just as easily once the editorial winds blow another direction. None of it has any weight, because none of it is grounded in what has gone before.

Giffen's "Five Years Later" was, by contrast, deeply respectful of the long history of the Legion. That was part of what made it so damn dense. Moreover, Giffen had a deep history with the title, so it was not some random big-name outsider making these changes. It was a member of the 'family'. Finally, it turned the entire premise of the Legion inside-out.

If you stop and think about it, the Silver Age idea of the Legion is a little creepy. They are kind of like stalkers, but that is covered by the Utopian cheerfulness. The idea was more or less that everything turned out so awesome in the 30th Century that they wanted to meet Superboy, who was the start of the upward trend. Giffen stood that on its head by jumping five years into the future and showing that things were a lot less awesome just a few short years later.

Given all that, those issues may be the darkest thing to ever come out of the Big Two. It is hard to imagine something that would have a comparable impact.

Now, I'm not saying all the titles should cross over with each other. Mid-90s X-men titles abused this by constantly using the slightest mention to cross-promote each other (ie, a character in X-force would think "Hmm, his powers remind me of Cyclops" then BAM "Wanna know what Cyclops is up to? Check out the latest issue of X-men to find out!" Ugh), sometimes there would be half a dozen references to other titles in 1 issue.

But other titles should at least acknowledge big events going on, like Planet X. Or, they could do what Claremont did, Claremont used a nice trick (I know, blasphemy to suggest Claremont did *something* better than Morrison lol) during the Kulan Gath story, where Kulan Gath took over New York; he had the Avengers, Dr. Strange, and Spider-man guest star. Now, of course, other NY based heroes wouldn't have belonged in a story like PX like they would have during the KG story, but a panel or 2, either in X-men or other titles, wouldn't have hurt.

I hated 5YG Legion mainly because I felt like it pissed all over the Legion and it's past history. The constant reboots also hurt the title, but that you can't blame the creators for, those were edicts from higher powers. Plus, Giffen may have tried to be more innovative with his artwork, but there were times when it was just too cluttered to understand what was going on, he would routinely obscure people's faces, no differentiation between characters and the background, etc. A confusing mess.

But I'm sure we'll get a thorough rundown of "Amazons Attack" once we get closer to the top ten.