[EDIT: The Legion poll is done; the relevant post has been deleted since the relevant plugin is no longer available, but thankfully this post tracks the results.]
Thanks to everyone who voted, it went better than I expected.
But how did it go, exactly? Let’s look at the results, as well as my answers.
Favorite pre-5YL Legionnaire
Total votes: 57
Winner: Brainiac 5 (11 voters)
Runner-up: Wildfire (6 votes)
Third place: Matter-Eater Lad and Saturn Girl, tied (4 votes)
Brainiac 5 would also have been my choice before I started the retrospective, but as I elaborated last year my vote would go to Saturn Girl.
This was one of the only three polls where you had to enter the name; as a result, I had to clean up the exact results because there were multiple spellings.
But also three people left the name blank. That’s partially my fault: I had considered doing this as a drop-down poll, but with dozens of choices it would have been impractical.
I was a bit worried this would attract too many joke answers, but the only one I received was a vote for Doctor Doom (did you vote for yourself, Victor?) which admittedly I did find funny.
Here are the full results: an impressive 20 Legionnaires received at least one vote!
Favorite 5YL Legionnaire
We beat the number of votes received by LSHv4 #40, which I’m incredibly proud of since that was one of my goals for doing this!
It’s absolutely WILD that this happened, though… I don’t know how well Volume 4 was selling, but even at its worst point it absolutely dwarfed the visitors to my site!
I’m attributing this to either a lack in clear indication that there WAS a vote in the letters page, apathy from the readers, or perhaps a combination of both.
Did any of my readers vote during the Volume 4 letters page poll?
Total votes: 48
Winner: Matter-Eater Lad (9 votes)
Runner-up: Chameleon Boy (5 votes)
Third place: Laurel Gand and “none”, tie (4 votes)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Matter-Eater Lad wins this one in pretty much a landslide.
You’re also not surprised that he’d be my pick, since I gave him a Legion Award.
There are however a few quirks in the answers!
The first thing is that 4 people didn’t like anyone. This is not the same thing as leaving the answer blank (only 1 such vote): three people wrote in “none” and one wrote in “none of them”.
Star Boy probably received a couple of boosts by being praised in the comments.
Surprisingly Blok received 1 vote despite showing up in this era only to die, as did both Bouncing Boy and Sensor Girl despite being quite minor characters in this era.
Legionnaires who originated in this era, Kent Shakespeare and Kono, received only 1 vote each.
The SW6 Legionnaires received a few votes as well!
We have another joke answer for DOOM (again in all-caps, which is extremely in-character) and a confusing vote for… Pierre.
Unless someone was misremembering the name of Invisible Kid II (that’s Jaques)… I don’t get the joke.
Favorite Substitute Hero
Last of the three free-answer polls. Honestly I don’t think I’ll use this style of poll much since it confused a few voters, plus getting the answers in a readable format is a bit of a pain.
The top results aren’t that much different from what I expected.
Total votes: 47
Winner: Night Girl (13 votes)
Runner-up: Polar Boy (10 votes)
Third place: Stone Boy (7 votes)
Polar Boy is indeed awesome, but Volume 3 and to a much lesser extent Volume 4 butchered him so much that it soured my opinion of him just a little… while Night Girl has long stopped being treated as a joke character, so she’d be my pick.
All the original Subs receive at least one vote, something I didn’t expect for Fire Lad… but I’d imagine that his massive 5YL improvement helped.
At least one person doesn’t like any of the Subs, writing in “none”. No blank answers this time.
Once again a joke answer with “DOOMBOT”, and an even more baffling one for Blue Devil who isn’t even a Sub. Or a Legion character.
Arm-Fall-Off Boy is a bit out of left field: is he a Sub anywhere? My blank spots are the “retroboot” and the Bendis continuity, but it might be from an adaptation I’ve yet to cover.
Congratulations for the deep cut for the person who voted Star Boy, who WAS briefly a member of the Substitute Heroes way back in the Silver Age!
Favorite continuity
This one had a higher number of votes, and it’s not even the poll with the most results.
Total votes: 62 
I’m not surprised in the slightest that the original continuity won by the largest margin of any of the polls, considering its importance and the demographics of the site.
My choice would be the Reboot, though. While the original continuity contains the highest number of my favorite moments, I found the reboot to be more consistent in its quality.
The “threeboot” received a surprisingly high 3 votes, while I expected the “retroboot” to be low in the results… it would make sense that the majority of people liking it preferred the original.
The 5YL era is clearly the black sheep; not unexpected, as I don’t imagine too many 5YL superfans would stick around my reviews too long. I have endless respect for those who do, though.
Considering its reputation among the fandom, if the person who voted “Bendis” didn’t to it to be funny and genuinely likes it the most… please let me know, since its reputation among Legion fans is quite abysmal.
Favorite pre-5YL era
With so many eras, it’s interesting to see that the votes are quite varied… with the expected outlier.
Total votes: 57 
Yeah the Great Darkness Saga is fondly remembered for a reason.
I’m glad to see that my favorite one, the post-GDS Levitz era, is second place! Tied with the classic 60s Shooter, which is also one of the expected high results.
I’m also glad to see that the Cary Bates era received at least SOME votes, considering it has its ups and downs. I would have expected to see 70s Jim Shooter a bit higher.
When did you become a Legion fan?
This is one of the two polls with the highest number of votes received, and the only “serious” one.
Total votes: 64 
Only two people chose the jokey answer (unless they’re time travelers).
Looks like my audience is quite varied! Including a heartwarming 16 people who I converted to the Legion.
I would count myself either in the 90s (when I first read the GDS) or the 2000s (when I started looking for EVERY Legion story).
If you were not a Legion fan before discovering my site, did I turn you into one?
This one confirms the results of the previous poll.
The fact that I managed to turn 16 people into Legion fans is my proudest accomplishment on this site. You guys are one of the reasons why I started this site in the first place.
The other reason is insulting Jimmy Olsen.
Total votes: 62 
Should Superboy be a Legionnaire?
This will probably be worthy of a dedicated post at some point, after I’ve reviewed more continuities.
Total votes: 63 
I expected to see a majority of voters wanting Superboy to be a member, but it’s fascinating to see the split in the two options.
My vote would have been for the third option, though… every time the Legion is too linked to Superman they end up being screwed over by the editors, and I believe the Reboot in particular proved that they don’t need him.
Best Brainiac
Honestly this one was mostly to test the functionality of a poll with a lot of options, as I really didn’t expect MOST of the options to receive ANY votes.
Total votes: 63
I fully expected Brainiac 5 to win this in a landslide, especially if we included his temporary Reboot upgrade of Brainiac 5.1 (good character development, stupid name).
Notable to see that Vril Dox II received more votes than his father (because of L.E.G.I.O.N. I assume), but also that the computer Brainiac gets slightly more votes than the original alien one.
I might do the same poll with just the villainous options.
I also wonder if Brainiac 13 (a real upgrade he received in the 2000s) was a serious answer or not, because while it COULD be a joke he wasn’t a bad villain.
Best non-Legion future hero
Another one where the winner isn’t exactly a surprise.
As is the fact that Atmos didn’t receive a single vote; I’m very proud of my readers for that.
Total votes: 58 
The Heroes of Lallor coming as a distant second makes sense, considering that apart from the Subs they’re the ones who received the most number of stories.
I’m quite glad that Dev-Em got at least some recognition! I would have been tempted to vote for him, as I found him to be one of the few cases where Levitz didn’t use the character to his full potential.
Surprising to see Workforce get some recognition, considering I haven’t covered the Reboot yet and that they’re not exactly the main focus.
Not as surprising as the freaking Wanderers getting votes! I guess that saving a planet by having sex with dinosaurs left an impression.
And yes, reminding the universe that insanity happened remains my life mission.
Should I do polls again?
This is the other poll receiving the highest number of votes.
Total votes: 64 
Well the jury is out, I will definitely come up with more polls in the future.
Although considering there was way to vote “no”, you probably figured out that I had already decided.
I was VERY surprised by Wildfire getting second place for Best pre-5YL Legionnaire and a slightly surprised by Night Girl winning Best Sub (although not by much); the other answers more or less reflect what I expected (assuming the Bendis answer is a joke one).
Let me know in the comments what you think of the results!
“But also three people left the name blank.”
Now there needs to be a Legionnaire called Blank.
“Star Boy probably received a couple of boosts by being praised in the comments.”
Woo-hoo! I’m an influencer.
I was one of the two who voted for Workforce. I thought it was a very well-done idea. It makes absolute sense that Brande’s rival would create his own superhero team, and its membership played with our assumptions about when/if certain characters would join the Legion. Workforce also provided a nice contrast to the Legion in that the latter was formed for idealistic reasons and Workforce had a more mercenary/business approach.
My bad. I was the ‘Pierre’ vote. I did intend to write in ‘Jacques’ but had a mental lapse.
Also, I think I may have been one of the blank votes for the first question. After returning to the site a second time, I entered a blank there to see if it would show me any graphs. It didn’t, but it did get me thinking that there may have been people who voted twice for whatever reason (e.g. I suspect the two Wanderers votes may be the same person).
The plugin for the polls does keep track of the IP address of the voter, so double checking I see that a couple of blank votes do share the same IP address. Not all of them though, some blank votes have an IP address that doesn’t show up twice. I think a few shared your problem while others just voted blank by mistake.
However the blank votes are the only ones showing repeated IP addresses, so thankfully the problem doesn’t invalidate the results.
That includes the two Wanderers votes, by the way, they were from different IP addresses. I find it more likely to believe there are two Wanderers fans out there, rather than one guy so obsessed with them that he voted from two separate places or to bother setting up a VPN for this very odd specific purpose 🙂
Also checking from the IP addresses: as I imagined the votes for Doctor Doom, DOOM and Doombot were from the same IP address… and it’s also the same IP address that voted Bendis so yeah, that was indeed a jokey answer.
So, you are telling us that Bendis is having a role in Doom’s plans?
I’m not sure what to think of that yet.
“Legion of Super Heroes?” Hah! These so-called superheroes – who use their gifts on false and twisted versions of justice – are not worthy of this attention. These ideas are for lesser minds who simply cannot accept what truly must be done for the true benefit of society and turn to beacons of false hope, their “heroes,” and turn their backs on those who are willing to make the sacrifices that must be made for the TRUE greater good. That is what sets me apart from individuals such as Richards and these heroes.
None but DOOM, archaeologist, work for the true benefit of the world and so that is why he is the only one fit to be the winner of this poll.
And no other mortal man will ever be a substitute for DOOM.
(I’m the guy who voted for doom/doombot just on a different device)
I forgot to mention in my previous comment, I just chose Bendis because since I’m not a legion fan I don’t know much so Bendis was the only option that I have ever heard of
Read a Legion issue written by Bendis and a Legion issue written by anyone who isn’t Bendis. I can almost guarantee the issue written by someone who isn’t Bendis will be superior.
The deep cut Star Boy as Sub was me! My reason for my Star Boy love applies to him in all categories.
I was the lone voter for Ultra Boy as best pre-5YL Legionnaire.
I just like the idea of someone with Kryptonian/Daxamite level powers who can still be taken out by a surprise attack. I think Jo would have carried a solo series/miniseries quite well, if properly written.
I didn’t vote for him in the 5YL poll, because by then, he never turned his invulnerability off unless he absolutely needed to – boring.
Original continuity will always be special to me. I came in in the middle of it, and it has the weight of history behind it. Even when it became 5YL, as dreary as that was, it was connected to the original history.
I didn’t immediately welcome the reboot because losing all that history really stung. The reboot won me over because it was so consistently well written. If I hadn’t been immersed in the original for so long, from such a young age, the reboot would certainly be my favorite.
The threeboot has its charms, but it’s too far from the Legion’s premise. Also, while the reboot smartly started at the beginning, the threeboot started in the middle and never gave us the Legion’s origins. Without a beginning, it feels unmoored. By having a crowded Legion from the very start, it skimped on characterization. It was the flanderized Legion, where formerly complex personalities were reduced to one-note characterizations.
I welcomed the return to original continuity with the retroboot. It wasn’t quite the original, and Johns and Levitz clearly had different ideas about where the break point between continuities was, but it felt like coming home to old friends who had been missed for too long. Even if some of the retcons were questionable, nothing was ever as bad as 5YL.
The big problem with the Bendis boot was Bendis. He seemed determined to avoid giving us stories. Each issue would give us a few tidbits, but hours d’ouvres don’t cut it when the audience is accustomed to getting a full meal. We never got the full story on this Legion’s origins, and we never ever learned the full roster! By far, the worst continuity.
I look forward to the next iteration, coming soon.