Any point to the Legion of Super Heroes anymore?

DC Comics just canceled a batch of its worst-selling nu52 titles, including LEGION OF SUPER HEROES, which had sunk to 16,148 in monthly orders as of March. That's the basement for sales. More people are (barely) reading VIBE and PHANTOM STRANGER.

Mark Waid, an old school fanboy and lifelong Legion fan, was outraged on Twitter.

Mark Waid ‏@MarkWaid 21h
Holy shit, did DC just end the Legion franchise after 40 years of continuous publication?
#AnotherProudNew52Moment

But with respect for Waid, the question isn't why DC canceled LEGION.

Almost nobody was buying it. That's why.

The question is why DC insists on repeatedly rebooting and relaunching this quaint fan favorite from the Silver and Bronze ages despite consistently weak sales. It was a fun little comic in its prime, but there hasn't been an audience for it in ages, in part because DC's constant reboots so badly screwed up its continuity. See also: Hawkman, Firestorm, Doom Patrol, etc., etc.

(Hell, DC is struggling to sell its two monthly Green Arrow comics, and that character has a popular television series!)

And the answer, I guess, is that DC has nothing else to offer.

At present, fans are buying Batman and Green Lantern and some more Batman.

The rest of DC's moldering pantheon of heroes from the last 40 to 75 years -- not so much.

Understandably, no comics pro in his right mind wants to create anything new for DC or Marvel, having seen four generations of creators get dicked over by the publishers.

So in another 12 to 18 months, we can expect to see LEGION OF SUPER HEROES, Vol. 14, No. 1, another reboot, thrown at the marketplace wall to see how long it might stick.

Because what the hell.

At this point, DC's quiver is empty and it's stalling for time.

Lawson wrote:

The question is why DC insists on repeatedly rebooting and relaunching this quaint fan favorite from the Silver and Bronze ages despite consistently weak sales. It was a fun little comic in its prime, but there hasn't been an audience for it in ages, in part because DC's constant reboots so badly screwed up its continuity. See also: Hawkman, Firestorm, Doom Patrol, etc., etc.

DC is rebooting so often these days they should change their name to Microsoft

Heh!

With the LEGION reboots, the weird thing is, every other reboot DC brings back an old LEGION writer like Jim Shooter or Paul Levitz to try and recapture the magic of 1968 or 1980 or whenever -- except they're stuck with the grim-and-gritty tone of today, and they may or may not get to use Superboy depending on his reboots and/or pending copyright lawsuits with the Siegel family, and nobody knows if this time it's supposed to be adolescent Legionnaires or grumpy middle-aged Legionnaires or what.

Lawson wrote:

At present, fans are buying Batman and Green Lantern and some more Batman.

Or maybe just Batman.

According to the most recent sales data, Green Lantern's buzz is fading.

11/2012: Green Lantern #14 -- 78,499 (-14.5%)
12/2012: Green Lantern #15 -- 74,363 (- 5.3%)
01/2013: Green Lantern #16 -- 72,884 (- 2.0%)
02/2013: Green Lantern #17 -- 71,060 (- 2.5%)
03/2013: Green Lantern #18 -- 69,801 (- 1.8%)

11/2012: Green Lantern Corps #14 -- 49,594 (- 2.3%)
12/2012: Green Lantern Corps #15 -- 47,841 (- 3.5%)
01/2013: Green Lantern Corps #16 -- 45,387 (- 5.1%)
02/2013: Green Lantern Corps #17 -- 44,497 (- 2.0%)
03/2013: Green Lantern Corps #18 -- 44,215 (- 0.6%)

11/2012: Green Lantern: New Guardians #14 -- 47,062 (- 3.0%)
12/2012: Green Lantern: New Guardians #15 -- 45,136 (- 4.1%)
01/2013: Green Lantern: New Guardians #16 -- 43,770 (- 3.0%)
02/2013: Green Lantern: New Guardians #17 -- 42,285 (- 3.4%)
03/2013: Green Lantern: New Guardians #18 -- 42,028 (- 0.6%)

11/2012: Red Lanterns #14 -- 40,779 (- 4.7%)
12/2012: Red Lanterns #15 -- 39,071 (- 4.2%)
01/2013: Red Lanterns #16 -- 38,223 (- 2.2%)
02/2013: Red Lanterns #17 -- 35,839 (- 6.2%)
03/2013: Red Lanterns #18 -- 35,203 (- 1.8%)

11/2012: Green Lantern: The Animated Series #8 -- 5,961 (- 8.5%)
12/2012: Green Lantern: The Animated Series #9 -- 5,464 (- 8.3%)
01/2013: Green Lantern: The Animated Series #10 -- 5,263 (- 3.7%)
02/2013: Green Lantern: The Animated Series #11 -- 5,211 (- 1.0%)
03/2013: Green Lantern: The Animated Series #12 -- 5,115 (- 1.8%)

Man, that's a lot of Green Lantern every month!

I can remember when poor Hal was reduced to an eight-page backup feature in the bimonthly THE FLASH.

Lawson wrote:

...the weird thing is, every other reboot DC brings back an old LEGION writer like Jim Shooter or Paul Levitz to try and recapture the magic of 1968 or 1980 or whenever -- except they're stuck with the grim-and-gritty tone...

That's the issue with a great many comics today. At least Marvel & DC it seems, the fun is gone, replaced by the "grim and gritty." I remember when the Legion was fun, it was a kids club with a cool clubhouse. (Allen Moore did a great Legion homage in the Supreme).

Some stuff doesn't need to be dark and serious in order to be relevant. It doesn't translate, and why should it.

Is it just that the people buying comics today want everything that way?

Joe Lee wrote:

Is it just that the people buying comics today want everything that way?

In a self-fulfilling prophesy, Marvel and DC decided that readers wanted superhero stories featuring nonstop blood, gore and rape, and after enough years of that nonsense, those were the only readers left. In March, the average comic published by DC sold fewer than 31,000 copies. Marvel's not much higher.

A few years back, an interviewer asked Geoff Johns about his trademark move -- having a character get decapitated very much onscreen, with blood spattering everywhere and a horrified look on the victim's face. Johns laughed and said he grew up playing extremely violent video games, so this was natural storytelling to him, and he assumed it would attract the young 'uns, too.

Watching the sales continue to slump, I'd say no.

I suspect that the reason DC keeps brining back these lukewarm titles from the past is so that they can keep the trademarks active.

It might be an urban legend, I pick up a lot of factoids that might not be true, but I seem to recall that both Marvel and DC co-own the word "Super-Heroes" as a trademark and that DC had an interest in keeping LEGION on the stands to prevent their ownership of the term from lapsing.

kurt wilcken wrote:

...It might be an urban legend, I pick up a lot of factoids that might not be true, but I seem to recall that both Marvel and DC co-own the word "Super-Heroes" ...

Oh its no urban legend, here you can read about one of the latest incidents, Hunter interviewed the victim...

http://lxng.blogspot.com/2013/03/mute-point.html?m=0

This might explain some things, including Before Watchmen...

http://comicspaladin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/kevin-tsujihara-dc-comics.html?m=1

kurt wilcken wrote:

I suspect that the reason DC keeps bringing back these lukewarm titles from the past is so that they can keep the trademarks active.

I suspect you're right.

But DC publishes so many reprint books, for LEGION and its other franchises, that I wonder if those wouldn't suffice. Do you have to print new material to keep that copyright?

Lawson wrote:

But DC publishes so many reprint books, for LEGION and its other franchises, that I wonder if those wouldn't suffice. Do you have to print new material to keep that copyright?

My understanding is you can't just keep copyrighting the same piece over and over. You can copyright a new issue. You can Trademark and/or Copyright a logo. Trademarks can be renewed. Which is why the first issues of Superman, or the first few Tarzan Novels have fallen into Public Domain, but you can't use the logos or the names prominently on a PD version. You can copyright a new character, hence everyone getting new alter egos, in the silver age or Hawkman or Blue Beetle being completely reinvented. I'm sure that's oversimplified and inaccurate.

"Copyrights, trademarks, and patents, whats the difference..."

http://www.clickandcopyright.com/copyright-resources/copyright-trademark-or-patent-whats-the-difference.aspx

I'll miss the LSH, but I haven't read the book in a while. No, wait, actually, I did buy an issue last year that had nice art by Walt Simonson, but I can't remember anything that happened in the story. I think it was one of those "day in the life" issues between major adventures? It felt like an issue from an earlier decade, but I did not feel any great need to read the next issue. Oh well.

Lawson wrote:

Joe Lee wrote:

Is it just that the people buying comics today want everything that way?

In a self-fulfilling prophesy, Marvel and DC decided that readers wanted superhero stories featuring nonstop blood, gore and rape, and after enough years of that nonsense, those were the only readers left. In March, the average comic published by DC sold fewer than 31,000 copies. Marvel's not much higher.

A few years back, an interviewer asked Geoff Johns about his trademark move -- having a character get decapitated very much onscreen, with blood spattering everywhere and a horrified look on the victim's face. Johns laughed and said he grew up playing extremely violent video games, so this was natural storytelling to him, and he assumed it would attract the young 'uns, too.

Watching the sales continue to slump, I'd say no.

For what it's worth, I see that Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond are all consistently on the Netflix Streaming Recommendation Queues, like Popular on Netflix, and Popular on Facebook. So some people are enjoying the all-ages adventures of these characters. Enough to keep them on these lists.