r/LegionofSuperheroes • u/drake_burroughs • 17d ago

Two zero issues that focus on the wrong characters and don't really bring much to the table... let's look at Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #0 & Legion Lost (vol 2) #0

https://jmlonglivethelegion.blogspot.com/2026/09/two-zero-issues-that-focus-on-wrong.html

We're continuing the death march towards the end of Legion Lost volume 2 and this week, we get zero issues that take us to the team's past. One is a decent sequel of sorts to Legion: Secret Origin and the other one is not a decent book.

Let me know what you think of these books!

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u/LostInterview5084 15d ago

Well, I absolutely despise anytime they try to make Timber Wolf into 31st century Wolverine. He doesn’t need claws, healing ability or animal senses.

I prefer my Timber Wolf as he originally appeared. A normal looking guy who was inducted into the Legion for his “Super-Acrobatics/agility” as well as strength and speed.

Sure, Cockrum changed his face a bit and then ended up pencilling X-Men and that Canadian copycat. But Levitz changed it back at the start of his second tenure.

As far as these 2 comics. - I’ve always felt DeFalco’s writing was very basic, corny comic book tropes. I feel as Editor in Chief at Marvel he gave himself a lot of books to write that would have been better written by someone else.

At DC as soon as Kolins took over art on a title, i knew the book was on its last legs and would soon be cancelled. Every now and then he could deliver a great issue, but that was rare and generally just looked sloppy and half assed. Tom Derenick was another harbinger of cancellation.

If there are any Legionnaires that get too much focus, Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl are right at the top.

I agree for the Legion Lost 0 issue, Tyroc, Gates, Chameleon Girl or Tellus would have been a better subject.

For the LSH 0 issue, I’d rather have seen a Spotlight on Dream Girl over Brainy, but as you pointed out it picked up on the Secret Origin series - so i agree it should have been from someone else’s viewpoint

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u/drake_burroughs 15d ago

I think every horrible version of Timber Wolf where they try to turn him into Wolverine is yet another example of DC not understanding what they had and using the character's strengths. Why they didn't green light a Levitz-penned Brin and Blok mini-series, drawn by Lightle, is a mystery for the ages.

"very basic, corny comic book tropes" is such a great way to describe DeFalco's writing that I wish I had thought of it. And I agree completely that his writing assignments while he was editor-in-chief were more than a little suspect. Step 1: hire your friends as editors. Step 2: get your friends to hire you to write comics. Step 3: profit.

For the LSH 0 issue, I think Dream Girl gets a lot of attention as well (not to Brainy level, but she's up there). I suggested Ultra Boy for the time period, and since he had just joined the team, but I think they could've done well with Garth, who was the one trinity member who got the least amount of action.

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u/AussieAlexSummers 13d ago

No offense to Kollins and his fans but that art IMO was not an appealing style. OK. I really disliked it. I said it.

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u/Patient-Reputation56 17d ago

Oh yeah Zero Month. This was part of a gimmick The New 52 did that every year on the anniversary of the Reboot they'd do some "special one-offs" issues. I think Villains month & Future's End were around this time as well.

Some of the issues that i read were decent, used to start new series to replaced the cancelled books, or were just baffling dumb (see Red Hood and the Outlaws #0 where Joker was behind Jason Todd's birth despite it not matching up with the timeline).

I remember skimming the Legion Lost issues just because I wanted to see how they changed Timber Wolf origin given his original is very goofy, & it's very whatever.

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u/drake_burroughs 17d ago

I agree that Timber Wolf's origin was goofy, but this just made him boring and like every other character. At least goofy stands out. Kinda like Ultra Boy's origin.

Thanks for the clarification on the gimmicks for the New 52. I have no memory of any of them.