I've been thinking about the - what I feel is a - poor showing of the Legion of Super-Heroes in Masters of Time and it hit me. Maybe there are just too many themes in this set.

The Dawn of Time
World War II
The Old West
Return of Bruce Wayne
Time Masters
Time Stealers
Legion of Super-Heroes
Justice League Dark
Longbow Hunters / Marksmen

Do you think WizKids try to include too many themes? If so, which one (or more ?) would you have dropped?

The first six themes you listed are literally all under the umbrella of "Time Travel."

The Legion isn't really in the set, except for the legacy cards. There's two figures and both fall under "Time Travel" as well.

There's less overlap for the Teen Titans in the set than Legion:
Red Arrow (overlaps with Archers and Time Travel)
Beast Boy
Robin (overlaps with Archers)
Blue Beetle (he's met Booster Gold for Time Travel?)
Beast Boy

Archers, JLD, Jurassic League, and Dark Knights of Steel were the major subthemes of the set.

Beast Boy is really just there for sculpt reuse. He, Animal Man, and Poseidon are the real outliers of the set.

If "Trick Arrows" wasn't part of this set, I think eliminating those and the "Marksmen" would have been fine. Similarly, the super-boosters and chase themes are basically there own thing with about as much overlap with the rest of the set as could be hoped for. Eliminating any of these would be striking one or more sales gimmicks.

Batman is going to be in, because "Batman". Frankly this (the sideline) feels like a gimmick that could have be rationalized for any theme, it just happens to be taking up all these slots in a "time travel" set, and excuses including Darkseid, and I suppose the generic Daxamite.

The LSH barely qualifies as being in the set.

From my PoV, the set has two themes: "Justice League Dark" and "DC Time Travel", where the latter has a hint of "period comics". Ignoring the set's gimmicks (Trick Arrows, Super Boosters) the only figures that make sense to drop (from a personal theme PoV) would be to eliminate the "Justice League" and "Teen Titans"... but I think those pieces are some of the better ones in the set!

Personally: I would rather have had 3D figures of LSH than any of the Teen Titans or JL characters and just chalked them up to "the Future of the DCU!" I'd be lying if I said that the LSH has had any relevance to the DCU for a long time, even considering they headlined two books in the New 52! era.

The "Justice League" options seem more a coincidence than an intention.

Batman: Batman across time.
Booster Gold, Superman, Hal Jordan: Time Masters
Deadman, Wonder Woman, Dr Fate, Zatanna, Constantine, Swamp Thing, Madame Xanadu: JL Dark
Green Arrow: Trick Arrows
Flash: DC's top A-list hero associated with time travel

As for Animal Man... they may have decided this was his place given the mystical/Vertigo connections.

-J

(Regrettably, I will never ever be able to see Animal Man as a serious hero after the Weird Al cartoons. ANIMAL MANNNNNN!!! )

-J

Here's the thing: ANY named character from the Justice League of recent vintages could be "coincidentally" in a time travel set, and there are probably better "coincidental" candidates than some of the ones we got. Black Adam for example.

If it was announced the next DC set was going to have Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Arrow, "Hal Jordan", Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle, I'm sure most folks would think "ah, a Justice League set."

This is pretty much how I looked at the set.

To answer the OP's question, I'd have gotten rid of the return of Bruce Wayne theme. I never want more than 1 of any character in any set. I like seeing more names in there.

Do I realize we're going to keep getting massive repeat names in sets. Oh yeah. I don't want does not equate to I don't expect it to happen. Just to be clear.

I meant to add something earlier about...
Originally, I thought that this set was going to have another sub-theme for Justice League Canada/United, which was a pretty good book from the same era as Justice League Dark, and featured Time Travel plus the Legion of Super-Heroes! I get the feeling that Animal Man was the only character to make it into this set... aside from Green Arrow and Etrigan, who I forgot were in the book.

Give up those six set slots of The Return of Bruce Wayne, and a different PAH choice for a seventh, and the JLUnited roster could have been included.

Yeah this set was a big skip for me. To be fair I lean more Marvel than DC. That said I have a great appreciation for many DC characters. For me the problem was not only the dabbling in too many themes but also, things that I just don't care for. Dinosaur versions of Superheroes? Nah, hard pass.

I feel that Superboy and the Daximites are the real Odd Man Out with no other figures in the set outside of legacy cards. Random JLAers always find a way in, and they fit, Beetles tied in well with that great Booster Gold arc...Even Jinny Hex kinda made sense with the cowboys and the 1 YJ fig per set they been doing.

I feel those 2 could've been either Blue Beetle 1 and 2 or even Goldstar. . . heck they couldve even used the superboy sculpt for Superman and instead replaced that lame waiting for a bus superman sculpt.

Daxamites probably should have been made in Notorious, paired with the Legacy Darkseid who they're thematically meant to be with, Great Darkness version.

MoT Darkseid is explicitly from the Reboot Legion "Foundations" storyline, according to his card and the flavor text.

Fun set. No complaints, although more variety would be better.

If an upcoming DC set will be heavily Past-themed, I'd want some generic aliens and Hollow Earth denizens.

If we could just get a set without 20 Friggin' Batmans and 2-3 versions of Superman and Wonder Woman EVERY DC SET, we could clear up a WHOOOOOOLE lot of room for unmade or undermade figures...They are literally 1/4 of the entire set between three characters. Granted, they're the "Flagship characters" but MAAAAN...

A lot of you are forgetting that Animal Man was a big supporting character in the last or next to last arc of JL Dark, the gross one that had Buddy and all of LA covered in fungus.

He fits squarely into the JL Dark theme.

It would certainly help if WK produced more than one DC set per year.

Truth be told, I cringed way back when I first heard that this would be a "brand new theme." If they announced an actual Justice League theme I'd have been ecstatic, because there are way too many characters I want who don't even have Silver Age CURSR comics versions -- Atom, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Firestorm, Red Tornado, Elongated Man, Black Canary, Blue Beetle (Ted), Captain Atom, Guy Gardner, Fire, Ice, Power Girl, you get the idea?

(That said, thank you MoT for making my list a bit shorter by giving us Green Arrow, Zatanna, and Booster Gold.}

-J