Irony can be a bitter brew.
When DC announced that Legion of Super-Heroes was being canceled with #50, before Jim Shooter's story was completed, everyone knew that it was so the current version of the Legion would be finished at the same time as Final Crisis and Legion of 3 Worlds. That way there would be a clear field for the shiny new continuity Geoff Johns would be giving us when he took over in Adventure Comics.
The problem, of course, was that meant that Jim Shooter's story line, intended to run through #54, would have to be somehow wrapped up 4 issues prematurely. Not to mention, it meant ending the Legion's 50th anniversary year with a plethora of bad publicity (along with the cancellation of the cartoon and the Johnny D.C. title).
And, as a final embarrassing consequence, Shooter didn't even write #50. We're not privy to the back room scuttlebutt yet, but either he refused or was canned, because the rushed conclusion to the epic story was published under an obvious pseudonym, "Justin Thyme." So the big send off to this iteration of the Legion was actually scripted by persons unknown, landing with kind of a thud. Which also seems to mean that after all the hoopla that DC made after signing Shooter to write Legion, DC has apparently burned their bridges with him, not even offering him any other assignments (Shooter himself has said he might do some work "for another company").
What's the irony in all of this, you ask?
Simple. Legion of 3 Worlds is running so late (only just releasing issue #3 this week) that they could have let Shooter have the last 4 issues to finish up as he wished, and probably still had Legion wrapped up before Lo3W finished up. So the bad publicity, the pseudonym, the burned bridges...not necessary at all.
Hell of a way to run a railroad, as my grandfather used to say.
(Let me just note, in fairness, that Shooter's is probably not blameless in all of this. It was naive of him to expect to be given free reign to do a frakking 18-issue story arc--although presumably somebody in DC editorial signed off signed off on that idea--and frankly, I didn't think it was all that great a story. And given Shooter's legendary...persnicketiness...it's possible that he left DC no choice but to run with the unsigned rushed ending they did in #50.)
When DC announced that Legion of Super-Heroes was being canceled with #50, before Jim Shooter's story was completed, everyone knew that it was so the current version of the Legion would be finished at the same time as Final Crisis and Legion of 3 Worlds. That way there would be a clear field for the shiny new continuity Geoff Johns would be giving us when he took over in Adventure Comics.The problem, of course, was that meant that Jim Shooter's story line, intended to run through #54, would have to be somehow wrapped up 4 issues prematurely. Not to mention, it meant ending the Legion's 50th anniversary year with a plethora of bad publicity (along with the cancellation of the cartoon and the Johnny D.C. title).
And, as a final embarrassing consequence, Shooter didn't even write #50. We're not privy to the back room scuttlebutt yet, but either he refused or was canned, because the rushed conclusion to the epic story was published under an obvious pseudonym, "Justin Thyme." So the big send off to this iteration of the Legion was actually scripted by persons unknown, landing with kind of a thud. Which also seems to mean that after all the hoopla that DC made after signing Shooter to write Legion, DC has apparently burned their bridges with him, not even offering him any other assignments (Shooter himself has said he might do some work "for another company").
What's the irony in all of this, you ask?
Simple. Legion of 3 Worlds is running so late (only just releasing issue #3 this week) that they could have let Shooter have the last 4 issues to finish up as he wished, and probably still had Legion wrapped up before Lo3W finished up. So the bad publicity, the pseudonym, the burned bridges...not necessary at all.Hell of a way to run a railroad, as my grandfather used to say.
(Let me just note, in fairness, that Shooter's is probably not blameless in all of this. It was naive of him to expect to be given free reign to do a frakking 18-issue story arc--although presumably somebody in DC editorial signed off signed off on that idea--and frankly, I didn't think it was all that great a story. And given Shooter's legendary...persnicketiness...it's possible that he left DC no choice but to run with the unsigned rushed ending they did in #50.)
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