DavidG asks what he probably thought would be an easy question for me to answer
“There’s now about eleventy million versions of the Legion. My list of them in order of appearance below, yours may vary. How would you rank them and why?
“OG
Five years later/no Superboy
Archie legion
Threeboot
Retro boot
Bendis boot”
Now I gotta be honest, it too me a second to puzzle out what eras a couple of those were referencing. For example, I’d never heard the term “Archie Legion” before…shockingly, as it turns out, when I looked it up and it seems to be in common usage in referring to this particular era. More on that when I get to it.
Anyway, I’m going to address these general eras in order, staring with the “OG,” which of course stands for “Original Garth Ranzz:”
This is The Big One, the longest last incarnation of the Legion (continuing on into the next era, more on that in a moment), starting in Adventure Comics in 1958 and running straight through ’til Legion of Super-Heroes Volume…Three, I’m pretty sure, in 1989. (Again, doesn’t exactly end here, which I’ll address.)
Over this period of time we had a natural growth of the team, as members came on, dropped out, even died, with subplots and soap opera-esque elements keeping the readers involved and interested in the relationships of their favorite characters. This was a storytelling strategy that would work so well in later team books such as X-Men and New Teen Titans, and I think we can thank Teen Jim Shooter for coming aboard and showing the grown-ups how its done.
And it certainly worked on me…I really enjoyed the variety of characters and their interactions and the occasionally oddball stuff they all got up to, particularly in the Silver Age era. I’ve noted before I started reading Legion in the early ’80s, and worked my way backwards through back issue purchases and, later, the Archive editions, and still get a kick out of these comics to this day.
This was the era of the Legion that worked the best, I think, with its established history and long-standing relationships and plots and such. I wrote quite a bit about it before in response to a question from…hmmm, looks like a certain Mr. DavidG. Interesting.
Now, DavidG, you just asked me to rank these, really, and here I am just typing my little fingers off about this series and, well, probably every other Legion series on this list, too. But if I were to rank it, this Legion, the Original Stuff, is my favorite Legion.
And now here’s the “Five Years Later Legion:
…and I wrote about this at length some time ago, as did blogging brother Andrew. As such, I won’t go overboard writing about this era, running from ’89 to ’94 (ironically, about five years), but to say this is not an entirely separate incarnation of the Legion, but rather an extension of the original material. As implied by the “Five Years Later,” Legion continuity jumps ahead five years, everything is different, things are a mess, not everything is explicitly explained to you, so this ain’t a comic you can scan through in six minutes and say you’ve read it. You gotta sit down with it and absorb that story.
The storytelling and setting eventually…normalizes, so it’s easier to follow, but things get more complicated when a younger, more innocent version of the Legion shows up. A spin-off title, Legionnaires, is added to accommodate the extra characters, but eventually it all ends up getting rebooted by DC’s Zero Hour crossover event.
As far as ranking goes…I will say that I really did find this series a fascinating read at first, reading and rereading each new issue as it came out, and being rewarded for the effort. And I was caught up in the mystery of the young Legionnaires, though I wish that had resolved differently than it did. Still, this is a solid #2 in my Legion ranking.
That Zero Hour reboot brought us to this:
…the first actual complete fresh start for the Legion. Everything that had gone on before? Forget it, this is All New! And it was also…pretty good. This is the version of the Legion where Princess Projectra was a giant snake person, which seems to stick out in folks’ minds. Interestingly, this new reboot of the Legion did not cause the cancellation and relaunching, with new #1s, of the two ongoing Legion titles. There were #0 issues introducing the new status quo, then just jumped back into the series’ normal numbering and continued on. A rare show of restraint, I thought.
Oh, right, and this is the “Archie Legion” series, so called because the characters were so young, some of the art reminded folks of Archie character designs, and Jughead joined up as “Hamburger Lad.” One of those may not be true.
This was also the era that had the relatively dark, but effective, Legion Lost mini-series, where members of the team were trapped in unknown space dealing with new threats (and maybe a familiar one). I quite liked that series.
Okay, ranking, ranking…we’ll just call this #3 of my favorite Legion runs, but honestly the space between #2 and #3 is very, very small.
And now, the THREEBOOT:
…because, you know, this is technically the third full reboot of the Legion. Started in 2004, ended in 2009. Repurposes the team as working under, and against, an oppressive society that disapproves of their shenanigans. An interesting note about the series is that it temporarily changes its name to Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes when she comes to the future to join the group.
Also I should point out that Jim Shooter, writer from the original Legions, comes back to write the last dozen or so issues of this series. However, the final issue, #50, is credited to a pseudonym and I’ve never bothered to read it. I have it in a box somewhere should I ever decide to do so, but that seems increasingly unlikely.
How to rank it? It’s a brief-ish run, though not as brief as other Legion runs to come. It is good, though, and I like that it’s a shorter standalone read, even if the whole thing ends on a slightly sour note. (Or maybe it’s great…like I said, I hadn’t read that issue.) If I had to rank it, I’d put it maybe at #3.5, which is maybe cheating a little. This was a solid attempt at trying to do something a little different with the Legion while still honoring the stories that had come before. Shame it didn’t last longer.
Now, it’s about this point that I decided I was done with Legion (save for the classic reprints) for the time being. So I wasn’t reading DC’s next attempt at making the Legion work, the “retroboot:”
I realize that New 52 cover is jumping ahead a bit. This version of the Legion began in the “post-Infinite Crisis” era around 2007, first appearing in Justice League of America and Justice Society of America, then in other books before getting their own title. The “Retroboot” team is a return, more or less, to the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity of the Legion books from the original era. It’s not exactly 1:1, but close enough, I guess.
Somewhere in here the Final Crisis tie-in Legion of 3 Worlds shows up, teaming up all the reboots of the Legion into one big adventure, and trying to establish which Legion is the main continuity Legion now. (Spoiler: it’s this one, the post-Infinite Crisis one.)
This is the same Legion that makes it through the New 52 relaunch relatively unscathed, and even gets an additional title, Legion Lost. However, this era still comes to an end around 2015.
I can’t rank this, since I didn’t read any of these (except the Legion of 3 Worlds, and I barely remember that (outside of the George Pérez art). All I can say was that my interest in Legion had been diminished by the multiple reboots and didn’t feel like diving back into yet another attempt at this point. That’s not to say I *didn’t* like the reboots, but I certainly didn’t like getting invested in a series only to have it go away and be given yet another restart.
And then, here we are, the last on DavidG’s list, the Brian Michael Bendis scripted reboot from 2019:
By this point I’d been out of current Legion books for about a decade, so I was willing to give this new version a try. I did like the two-issue intro mini-series (Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium) where we follow an immortal character into the time of he Legion. But the new Legion series itself…the art by Ryan Sook was nice, but the story definitely felt like we were pushed into the deep end of the pool in regards to the setting and the number of characters. Using Superboy as the reader-viewpoint character should have been a natural “in” to everything, but in execution it all still felt cluttered and convoluted.
Most shocking was after the promotion and big build-up, this new series only got 12 issues (plus a two-issue “Future State” tie-in, among other appearances). I’d put this run at #4 on my list…I wanted to like it, I gave it a chance, but I don’t know if the sales were there or what but it felt like DC didn’t give it much of a chance. Could it have improved given more time? Sure. But what we got wasn’t enough and it wasn’t great, art aside.
I know I didn’t discuss every single appearance and iteration of the Legion here…I mean, there’s the Doomsday Clock tie-in, there’s the stuff going on right now in the Superman books, that sort of thing. Not sure what the future (cough) holds for the Legion, whether we have yet another new attempt at a series sooner rather than later. Will it be Absolute Legion of Super-Heroes? Might be one of the few ways to get it to sell for sure at this point.
BEWARE THE GIANT GOOFY SPACE FISH!
Mike: I’ve brought this up in polite company before, but at some point, wouldn’t most reboots of Legion just be different Earths? In LO3W, it is mentioned that one of those thee worlds was Earth-247, and then since they no longer had an Earth, well, we never find out.
But when the Legion came up I always thought that this would be one of the easier (possible) answers.
When you mentioned DOOMSDAY CLOCK, I thought about the various times we’ve seen one-off appearances of a portion of the Legion of Super-Villains, like when Jeph Lob wrote SUPERMAN/BATMAN. I think Morison had a few in his run on ACTION COMICS.
ABSOLUTE INFECTIOUS LASS. All I’ll say on that.
But am I that off in thinking some of the hoo-har at this point would be Earth-5, Earth-11, etc.?
My plan is coming together! Once every ten years I will get Mike to write about Legion stories. And one day….
As much as I enjoyed the 5YL LSH at first, ultimately it was hobbled by controversial continuity (the Glorith / Time Trapper reboot) and questionable characterization (Sun Boy a misogynist quisling; Lightning Lad a fake; Star Boy a freakin’ HOCKEY COACH?!!).
I’d also like to single out for especial infamy the ‘Bloodlines’ annual in which the Bill & Ted-style ‘hero’ hypnotically commands the female members to strip for him — Congrats DC, you succeeded in getting me to quit reading the Legion after 15 years!
The first year of 5YL was brilliant. I didn’t appreciate it as much at the time (it was a shock to the system!), but it’s so tight in retrospect. After that first year, though, it starts to get a little unfocused. By the time the war with the Khund members comes around, it’s lost all of that tightness.
But it did give us Kono, so all is forgiven.
The Bronze Age iteration of the Legion is my favorite iteration; especially when drawn by Dave Cockrum, Mike Grell, James Sherman, and early Keith Giffen–before his art started getting too cartoony and Steve Lightle.
As I always say, restore the Dave Cockrum costumes and as much of the Paul Levitz continuity as possible, and you have a great looking and well-plotted comic. It also helps if you have an artist who enjoys drawing realistic looking future Sci-Fi tech, and not a cartoony/Archie-type art style.
I’ve never read “Five Years Later,” and it doesn’t sound like something I would enjoy much. I have flipped through a few issues of it in dollar boxes and I think the art looks really bad (Giffen took the characters way off model), and the costumes look worse. Also, the whole concept of jumping ahead five years just seems gimmicky and lazy to me –although I suppose that has become a fairly common trope in comics over the last few decades to sucker people in, unfortunately.
Also, the concept of devolving the Legion back to Archie-esque or Bendis-esque young teens, and jettisoning decades of classic characterization, is uninteresting to me. I think the median age of the Legionaries should be about twenty-five, with some married members pushing thirty (Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl; Bouncing Boy and Dou Damsel), and some new recruits being about nineteen or twenty. Mostly they should be capable young adults at this point, not feckless teens; and that is pretty much how they were presented in the Bronze Age in stories written by Jim Shooter, Cary Bates, Paul Levitz, Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, etc.
I’m curious to know why that one issue mentioned, no. 50, was credited to a pseudonym (was Jim Shooter the writer?). It takes me back to the Bronze Age when Jim Starlin wanted his name taken off a Legion story for some reason, so “Steve Apollo” was used as a pseudonym.
One interesting idea, which I don’t think has been explored yet, would be to reveal an as yet unknown iteration of the Legion of Super-Heroes on pre-COIE Earth Two. Maybe Earth-Two Superman met them when they time-traveled back to the late 1930s or early ’40s. Or maybe Wonder Woman or The JSA encountered them. They could have costumes somewhat in the style of the Golden Age character from the future, Gary Concord, Ultra-Man, or somewhat in the Buck Rogers/Wilma Deering 1930s futurist aesthetic.
I agree that the first year or so of 5YL is amazing: a complex story that references decades of Legion continuity while being its own thing. And Giffen + Gordon were at the top of their game. The art was dynamic, but it never gave too much away.
Too bad DC gave into the complaints about the intricate plotting and killed what made the book unique. Giffen’s tendency to broad comedy and big, dramatic gestures (e.g., blowing up Earth) didn’t help, in my opinion.
I really wanted to like the Bendis/Sook Legion. The redesigns were so pretty! But by the end of the run, I still couldn’t tell you who some of the characters were or what powers they had. Why have 35 characters on the team when you’re only going to focus on 8?
I may as well mention this, too: I absolutely love Curt Swan and George Klein’s rendition of the Silver Age Legion. They managed to give each character a distinct face and body type, even when the team had 20 members. Beautiful stuff.
@ Thom H.
I think that the Swan/Klein Legion art looked a lot better and less stiff once Jim Shooter started providing rough draft layout pencil art.
Personally, I prefer John Forte’s art on Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes stories–it seems a bit more sleek than Swan’s art.
I’m not a big fan of Giffen’s broad comedy–except in actual comedy comic books such as Ambush Bug, where it landed well. But when it is overused in superhero comics it becomes tedious.
I think an ongoing problem in modern comics–beyond the absurd amount of reboots– is this or that “acclaimed writer” being given license to twist long established mainstream comics characters to fit said writer’s narrative instead of being a good steward of those characters and cultivating what makes them heroic to begin with. That is why Bronze Age comics will always remain the best in my opinion–because the ’70s and early ’80s marked the zenith of talented writers and artists working in service of the characters and the hero’s journey.
1. Five Years Later
-This is so good. Well, it’s so good until Giffen leaves. The Bierbaums do a good job, too, but then Tom McCraw starts writing on his own and.. no. But the First three plus years of this are amazing. Yeah, there’s grim and gritty here, but the characters fight against it and win, until they don’t.
2. Original
-This is this high mainly on the merits of Levitz and Shooter. The book, pre-Shooter was not as bad as Shooter would have you think, but it is a very DC Silver Age book that did the bright future thing years before Star Trek. If you’re going to try anything from here, try Shooter or Levitz first, especially the latter’s Great Darkness Saga, which is a bit overhyped but really is the peak of the book pre-5YL.
3. Archie Legion
-This really has two phases. Waid kicks it off, Stern and Peyer write it for years as the “Archie Legion” and it is a great modernization of the original era. It ain’t Watchmen, but it’s fun and looks great.
Second phase comes a bit after #100. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning come in, do Legion of the Damned, and then the clearly Voyager-inspired Legion Lost, catch us up on the people left behind in Legion Worlds, and relaunch with the book title just “The Legion.” This is a darker era than the Archie one, but it’s really quite well done. Shame they don’t get much rope after a story that’s an updating of the Great Darkness Saga (which was popular enough to get a TPB at the time).
4. Threeboot
This really has three phases: the original version of the book, Supergirl being shoved into it, and then Shooter’s return.
Before Supergirl got added to the book, Waid and Kitson really invented everything. The Archie Legion was a fresh coat of paint, this was more of a renovation that barely kept the same skeleton. It’s interesting. The book was not improved by Supergirl being stuck in it, likely to goose sales.
I loved Shooter’s return to the book. His character work was still on point and this was the book where I discovered Francis Manapul.
Overall this is above the retroboot because of Manapul and how different the first phase is.
5. Retroboot
This is a mess. Individual stories here are great (Johns’s Superman and the Legion, Legion of Five Worlds) and Levitz’s stuff is good if you liked his older stuff. But the Lightning Saga that kicked this off is terrible, as is the New 52 Legion Lost.
I’m afraid to read it:
Bendis– I like Bendis but the Legion seems so outside of his wheelhouse I cannot imagine it being good.
I always wondered what an Earth 2 legion would be like. Maybe the members powers, and the future itself would be more magic based like the characters in he original JSA were?
@ Chris B.
Good point! Personally, I think an Earth-2 Legion–if it was shown through retroactive continuity as travelling back through time to the late 1930s/early 1940s to meet Superman, Wonder Woman, or the JSA, would be very Buck Rogers-esque in terms of costume aesthetics, jet packs, helmets, etc.
DC could actually even have an Earth-2 Legion time traveling all the way back to 1935 and meeting the first DC superhero– Dr. Occult. Maybe they need him to help defeat Earth-2 Mordru? Also, would the Earth-2 Legion even have a Brainiac 5 if there was never a Brainiac who invaded Earth-2? Or does an Earth-2 Brainiac exist and we have just never heard of him?
For that matter, what if there is an evil iteration of the Legion from the 31st century from pre Crisis Earth-3 who modeled themselves after Ultraman and the Crime Syndicate?
And I would love to see a pre-Crisis Earth Charlton story arc or Elseworlds where the 1960s Charlton Action Heroes (with the original Steve Ditko, Pat Boyette, and Pete Morisi costume designs and personalities) crossover to Earth-Watchmen and Captain Atom defeats Dr. Manhattan while Peter Cannon outmaneuvers Ozymandias.
Also, has there ever been a Legion story where they have encountered and fought the immortal Vandal Savage in their own era of the 31st Century?
Sean:you’re on board with the other multiverse worlds, though if I’m correct, one Legion did find out they were from Earth-2. Right?
5YL later was okay for awhile, at the comic shop we cut orders drastically. I think the 5 year jump was because of “Magic Wars” and I can’t remember if the reader didn’t need more info. You know, skip the Great Disaster and we get Kamandi. Giffen’s art was bad (no offense to him), I remember one page I couldn’t figure out because Giffen used an *extreme* close-up of Evillo’s face. That’s one example.
I’m still of the just used different Earths. Make it so they can’t say exactly what the 21st century was like or that there were multiple worlds.
Lastly, and I know his is a gimmick, but why are the Legion always 1000 years from present day? Why not give us vintage Legion and set it in 1956-7?
Why I keep this up is because of how Roy Thomas shunted most of the Quality heroes to Earth-X in All-Star Squadron. The multiple Earths could always be rejiggered. But that’s me, a 66 year old man yapping away.
I have to cast a vote in favour of the 5YL Evillo issue just for its use of Matter-Eater Lad — teleported to an infernal dimension, he’s assured that escape is impossible thanks to the “unbreakable shackles of unendurable agony” he’s trapped in.
When we cut back to him a couple pages later, he’s escaped — by eating the shackles, of course. You know it’s coming but it’s still funny.
@ Wayne
I don’t know if a specific iteration of the Legion ever found out that they were from Earth-2. I have never read the reboot, threeboot, Archieboot, or Bendisboot Legion comics. I read the Legion fatefully from the late ’70s to the late ’80s– basically, most of the Bronze Age run, and then filled in some earlier Bronze Age issues by Bates, Shooter and Cockrum, and some Silver Age issues of Adventure Comics from the late ’60s featuring the Legion (and I picked up the Adventure Comics digest sized issues in the ’80s that reprinted classic Silver Age Legion stories starting with their first appearance), but once the Baxter series of the ’80s by Levitz, Steve Lightle, Greg LaRocque, etc. ended, I was out of reading the Legion until the New 52 happened.
So, there are a lot of Legion books I’ve never read, but, again, when I see examples of the artwork and the aging up of the Legion by five years or the later de-aging of the Legion to young teens, and all of the ugly costume redesigns, and everything else, I feel like, “why bother?”
I will say that even by the time of the Baxter series, which did have some nice art from Lightle, I wasn’t that into all of the story arcs with the death of Karate Kid and Princess Projectra as Sensor Girl, etc.
It does seem that Bronze Age Legion peaked with “The Great Darkness Saga,” and, shortly after that Giffen adopted his Jose Antonio Munoz, and dropped his Jim Starlin meets Philippe Druillet/Heavy Metal Magazine art style, unfortunately. But from Legion no. 285 through 300 I think Giffen did great work! After Legion no. 300, he started redesigning a lot of the characters’ costumes, and not necessarily for the better, in my opinion –although the Timber Wolf redesign was okay. And then around Legion no. 307 or no. 308, the cartoony, Munoz-esque art style began.
I do think that Terry Shoemaker, Dan Jurgens, and Karl Kesel did some nice art for Tales of the Legion. And, although the New 52 Legion book seemed like a mess, there was some nice artwork by Francis Portela on some issues.
But I think the single best drawn issue of the Legion of Super-Heroes is no. 262, “The Planet That Captured The Legion,” with stunning art by James Sherman;the body language and personality of each Legionnaire is conveyed to perfection.
Re: Roy Thomas and Earth X–what I recall is that either he had made a faux pas, or else editor Len Wein, allowed him to use Earth-X characters on Earth-2, because Roy wanted to use Plastic Man and Phantom Lady, in particular, as part of the All-Star Squadron. Also, Captain Triumph was featured in the cover art of issue no. 1, even though he wasn’t created until 1943. Also, Roy created Firebrand II, Danette Reilly (as an homage to his wife), and made her the sister of the original Firebrand (Rod Reilly), who was a Quality Comics character. It is even possible that Roy wanted to use the Golden Age Wildfire (a female flame-powered character from Quality Comics) in All-Star Squadron, but that the idea was nixed because the Legion has a character named Wildfire.
Anyway, eventually there was that whole story arc in All-Star Squadron where Uncle Sam convinced some All-Star Squadron members to go fight the good fight on Earth-X, after a lot of the B, C and D list Quality Comics characters were killed off while fighting Baron Blitzkrieg, I believe. Those characters killed off included Invisible Hood, Red Torpedo (or was it Blue Tracer…or both?), Magno the Magnetic Man, Neon the Unknown, Red Bee,and maybe others. I think Miss America lived. There was a convoluted plot where Hour-Man had been helping Uncle Sam on Earth-X, hence explaining why he was suddenly dropped from the JSA roster (although in published DC Comics reality in the early ’40s I guess he was dropped from the team because he wasn’t considered popular enough?).
Eventually, around issue no. 50 of All-Star Squadron, Roy had basically all of the Quality Comics characters go to Earth-X, including the “classic” Freedom Fighters–Uncle Sam, Ray, Black Condor, Phantom Lady, Doll Man, and Human Bomb. He also had The Jester, Alias the Spider, Midnight, Firebrand I, Manhunter, and, I think, Miss America, the Blackhawks, and Plastic Man move to Earth-X. I don’t know if Kid Eternity was accounted for–and that presents its own conundrums because E. Nelson Bridwell made Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel Jr. (from Earth-S), and Kid Eternity (from Earth-X) brothers at one time, for whatever reason.
And then there were obscure Quality Comics characters that were never mentioned, but maybe Roy would have shown The Clock, Lady Luck, Bozo the Iron Man, Madam Fatal, The Mouthpiece, Stormy Foster, Torchy, Wildfire, Wonder Boy, Merlin the Magician, #711, etc., on Earth-X eventually if All-Star Comics hadn’t been cancelled.
I actually wish DC would let Roy Thomas continue All-Star Squadron from where he left off–and get Jerry Ordway, Rick Hoberg, or another similar artist to draw it.
Also, it would be fun if the Golden Age JSA ended up on several parallel Earths and encountered the Fiction House characters here, the Nedor characters there, the Victor Fox Publications characters on yet another Earth, etc.
The Abnett/Lanning run might be the strongest continuous period of the book, as the Silver/Bronze age run definitely went through peaks and valleys. I think Legion Lost holds up better than Great Darkness Saga as the best Legion story, but that might be due to my fondness for the classic members who had kind of been phased out by the time of the latter. Really hoping they eventually omnibus this run, but not holding my breath.
The really early Silver Age stuff holds up surprisingly well. Still corny like typical DC of the era, but the “unimportant” nature of the characters allowed a lot more experimenting and drama. The whole Death of Lightning Lad saga is way ahead of its time, considering. Same with Saturn Girl being the team leader and most effective member for a lot of the early stuff.
My pitch for the Earth-2 Legion is that they are from the 21st Century- 100 years after the JSA. 2040 A.D.
Earth-1 LSH is inspired by Silver Age Superboy, hence the goofy names and the one-note powers.
Earth-2 is inspried by Social Justice Superman from the early issues of Action Comics. Superman is still alive but very very old. The other JSAers died of old age in the 1990’s.
And yeah, the Buck Rogers “future” jetpack costumes are a must.
@DK
It sounds like an interesting premise!
Of course, there could be other JSAers who are still around–but very old. Earth-2 Wonder Woman, due to being an Amazon, could have a decelerated aging process. Earth-2 Green Lantern, Alan Scott, might still be around due to his power ring allowing for longevity; the same could apply for Earth-2 Starman, Ted Knight, due to energy absorbed from his cosmic rod, and Earth-2 Hour Man, Rex Tyler, due to Miraclo use. Then there’s Jay Garrick, who could have a decelerated aging process due to the Speed Force and/or lab accident which gave him his powers. Also, Earth-2 Atom, due to his powers, could be shown as having decelerated aging. Then there are the magic-based characters, Dr. Fate, and The Spectre, who would be immortal and thus there host bodies of Kent Nelson (or whoever is Dr. Fate by then), and Jim Corrigan (or whoever is the Spectre by then), would probably still be around. And there are the reincarnating Hawkman and Hawkwoman.
I haven’t kept up on all of the continuity (or discontinuity) of the JSA over the last 30 years of their appearances, but I gather that some of the G.A. JSA characters I mentioned already met their demise in Zero Hour or other published Crisis-type events, but if the Earth-2 Legion concept was a Black Book or Elseworlds story it could have its own continuity freed up from the constraints of past published continuity. Or, it could also feature legacy JSA/Infinity Inc. characters in supporting roles–and maybe even go into the third generational wave of Earth-2 superheroes– if Jade, Helena Wayne, Jessie Chambers, Lita Trevor, or Power Girl, etc. have become mothers.
It could interesting if Helena Wayne and Dick Grayson of Earth-2 had a son who grew up to become third wave superhero “The Bat.” I think the last time I noticed them–about ten years ago in the Convergence: Detective Comics two-shot–Helena and Dick were in a relationship and he was going to take over the mantle of Earth-2 Batman. So, it would make sense that eventually they might have a son who could go on to be The Bat.
Another thing to consider with an Earth-2 Legion, would there even be a Mon-El (as his Silver Age origin is so linked to Superman)? Would Earth-2 Ferro Lad still be alive because another Legionnaire made the ultimate sacrifice? Would Power Girl be an honorary member of the team?