Comics! A Tale of Two Heroes!

This week concludes the initial spread of DC Comics' "New 52" relaunch, and I guess the idea was to finish things off with a bang: the new first issue of "Superman," written and drawn by comics-demigod George Perez. But the issue itself only underscores everything that's wrong with the "New 52" - not only is it a disappointment, it's the single worst  issue of the month. The besetting worry about this whole reboot was fairly straightforward: fans were concerned that the whole thing hadn't really been thought out carefully (this concern wasn't exactly allayed by DC writers telling everybody that the whole reboot came about by chance, while they were at a story conference riffing ideas about a possible love-triangle involving Superman ... "So who should he fall in love with? I don't know (*pauses to chug Red Bull*)... what if we just scrapped everything?"). These are some of the most iconic comics characters in the world, after all - and Superman and Batman are two of the very rare comics characters that have become cultural icons even outside the comics world. Revamping such icons should be the careful work of long preparation, not a quick gimmick done to goose sales for a month. DC editors have been assuring worried fans for months now that they're perfectly aware of the importance of what they're doing, and that they and all the creators involved are completely dedicated to making this relaunch one for the ages. So regarding the first issue of the new "Superman" title, the relaunch of the flagship character not only of the company but of the industry, I have one question:

Why does it stink?

I could handle it being simply different from what I myself would have wanted (in fact, since DC has decided to change Superman's costume, I was resigned to it being different from what I myself would have wanted), but this isn't that. This is a bad comic book, in every detail. Not only are fans handed the mother of all insults the minute they open the thing (George Perez does the scripting and the ... breakdowns? His work is finished and inked by somebody else? So Perez had a more pressing commitment than Superman #1?), but nothing improves from there on out. There's a ridiculous "newsprint is dying" plot, there's an amorphous fireball-villain, there's Justin Bieber (calling himself Jimmy Olsen), and there's the new Superman in his new supervillain costume - he looks exactly like some alternate-universe evil-Superman John Byrne would design in about fifteen minutes after too many jagermeisters. This new Superman spends most of the issue pouting, and when he does try to pull off a fairly simple helicopter rescue, he fails - Superman fails, in the middle of his very first issue.

The whole issue fails. It's cluttered, murky (the whole thing is set at night, for Rao's sake), talky, and completely undramatic. Its Superman is a bragging, ineffectual prick, and it's Clark Kent is even worse - a sanctimonious, unlikeable loser who mopes because he isn't sleeping with Lois Lane (that's another huge twist in continuity - no more married Kents; instead, we're back to the days of Lois saying, "Hey, where was Clark the whole time?" - because those days never got repetitive or, you know, insulting). DC's most conspicuous character is its most conspicuous "new 52" failure - so I have to do without Superman in my diet until this whole idiot mess gets re-revamped a few years down the line.

The failure of "Superman" #1 is only further underscored by the stunning success of "Aquaman" #1, also released this week. The issue is written by fan favorite Geoff Johns and drawn sumptuously by Ivan Reis, and the whole thing is exactly what a relaunch first issue should be (nevermind that it's received way more attention than it deserves - Johns is unhealthily fascinated with this Golden Age gold-and-green version of Aquaman; he masterminded an entire company-wide mini-series solely in order to resurrect the character from the dead and make him iconic again, and now there's this series, the end result of a decade of obsession)(I'm not complaining, mind you - Aquaman's a neat character who's always deserved and almost never received first-class treatment - but I could wish all this energy were being expended on making Wonder Woman the character she should be): it's fast-paced, it introduces us to the main character (something "Superman" #1 is both arrogant enough and stupid enough to think it doesn't need to do), and it sets the first plot in motion. It's all addictively good.

There are changes here too, of course - but they're for the better: this version of Aquaman is physically more powerful than any previous version we've seen, and that's good - and something I've been advocating for years (including many times right here on Stevereads). This Aquaman is super-strong, super-resilient (Reis re-uses a panel sequence from that resurrection mini-series, showing our hero get shot in the head by machine-gun fire and suffer no more than a cut and some irritation), super-fast ... and Johns writes him with a curious mixture of innocence and vulnerability that certainly sets him apart from all the other strutting, posturing "New 52" heroes. This series will be a pleasure to follow, unlike virtually all of the other "New 52" attempts I've seen this month. The two "Legion" titles were merely acceptable; "Justice League" was a pandering mess; "Wonder Woman" suffered yet another complete overhaul; "Superboy" has been ret-conned out of all personality; "Teen Titans" became "X-Men," fully half the first issues felt like completely unsustainable fill-in stuff, and worst of all, my favorite DC character, Superman, has been transformed into a Mattel-costumed Doctor Manhattan rip-off nobody in their right mind would ever cheer as he flew past. Out of the whole misbegotten mess, only a few bright spots: the Batman-family of books fared remarkably well, Green Lantern & co came out without a scratch ... and we have a new Aquaman to follow with interest.

In the meantime, I think I'll post about good ol' Marvel Comics for a while now ...

 

Comics! Adventure Comics #1!

Well naturally, I read DC Comics' new relaunch of Adventure Comics - how could I not? After all, Adventure Comics and I go back a long way, and the two DC creations here - Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes - well, I go back a long way with them too.

Once again, Superboy is the star of Adventure Comics - only it isn't young super-powered Clark Kent, sole survivor of the planet Krypton ... it's a vat-grown clone created in a lab using DNA from both Superman and Lex Luthor, a clone now called Conner Kent, since he's been quasi-adopted by saintly Ma Kent in Smallville, Clark Kent's rural hometown. This character already has a long and eventful history in DC Comics (had Stevereads existed back when he had his first series, with fantastic artwork by Tom Grummett, I'd have praised it then), including dying in some mega-crisis or other.

He's back now, and this first issue has the languid pacing and extensive backgrounding that's actually a canny way to kick off a series obviously meant to re-introduce the character to readers. In this issue, he respects Ma Kent, plays with Krypto the super-dog, has a long heart-to-heart with Superman, and secretly agonizes over the fact that one of his two daddies is the most evil man in the world. Geoff Johns does a good job drawing readers into what feels like a longer, more careful story than the usual first issue these days, and the coloring job Brian Buccellato does over Francis Manapul's oddly stiff artwork is nothing less than breathtaking.


And it was tough for me to notice those things, because the issue's back-up feature, "Long Live the Legion" (also by Johns, with artwork by Clayton Henry), is why I paid attention in the first place. Here were all the marbles in one inertron basket: the dust had settled from the Legion of Three Worlds, a couple of weeks had passed, and all I wanted was the answer to one question: is the Legion, the real Legion, back at last?

It is indeed. Right there on page 23, I get literally everything I've wanted from Legion creators for what? About six or seven years now? I'll quote:

It all began when Jor-el and Lara sent their only son to Earth to escape the destruction of the planet Krypton. Kal-el became the first documented alien immigrant to Earth [picture here of Clark Kent flying, where his Superboy costume]. A thousand years later, Kal-el's legend paved the way for extraterrestrials from across the universe to venture to Earth. That included three teenagers who saved the life of the 31st century's greatest entrepreneur, R. J. Brande, from a mysterious assassin. Inspired by their unity, Brande funded the Legion of Super-Heroes - an organization made up of representatives from across the universe. Eventually, the three founding Legionaires even traveled back in time and recruited their inspiration, Kal-el, a.ka. Superboy. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So there it is, and thank you, DC Comics. Just leave it like that and tell stories, and I'll stay happy.

Well, almost. This issue contained an embarrassing little mistake in the two-page spread of the adult Legion. The spread was meant to be impressive (although Henry hasn't yet fully crafted his own sense of what the Legionaires look like ... I trust that'll come with time), but no geekoid Legion fan is going to notice that, since right there on the left hand side, the identifying boxes for Shadow Lass and Night Night Girl have been transposed (these things are moved around the finished art by computer? Are such things possible?). The blue-skinned young lady in the black bikini is actually Shadow Lass, Tasmia Mallor, the planetary champion of Talok VIII, who can generate vast fields of impenetrable darkness. The beehive-haired young woman in the black leotards is actually Night Girl of Kathoon, whose father - in the time-honored tradition of comics - experimented on her to give her super-powers. Just to head off the geeks who'll no doubt be talking of little else for the next week.


I liked this relaunch of Adventure Comics, despite my slightly wistful tone here. The format itself - a comic split between a main story and a Legion back-up story - has never worked, not once in the entire long history of its use at DC or Marvel; one of the two features always, always ends up being the readers' clamored-for favorite and taking over the title. I'm betting the winner here will be Superboy, and that the Legion will have to do more wandering in the desert of book-less creations before getting a nice new #1 of its own.

I'm just hoping when that nice new #1 comes, it won't contain a retooled origin story! Let's just make that sweet, perfect template on page 23 THE origin of the Legion, shall we?

Comics! Long Live the Legion!

Well, the celebrated and much-anticipated "Legion of Three Worlds" storyline is now concluded, and if DC's own gossip is to be believed, the Legion timeline is now fixed and canonical again. "No more Legion reboots" was the editorial refrain - star writer Geoff Johns was entrusted with creating the 'real,' final version of the venerable Legion of Super-Heroes and nailing that version to the mast once and for all.

A brief big picture recap:

In the 31st century, three alien teenagers - who'll later be known throughout the galaxy as Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy - use their combined superpowers to save the life of mega-zillionaire R. J. Brande, who in gratitude (and perhaps out of nostalgia) finances the creation of a super-team just like the legendary ones from the 20th century (The Justice League, the Teen Titans, etc). This team - the Legion of Super-Heroes - soon boasts teenage members from many planets throughout the United Federation of Planets, plus one spectacular guest-star: using time-travel technology, the Legion recruits Superboy, Clark Kent before he grew up to be Superman. For thirty blissful years, DC Comics published the adventures of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the team developed a rather intensely devoted fan base. The team's enormous roster changed from time to time (members died, members were added, etc), but the basic concept of the team itself - future teenage superheroes living, loving, and fighting evil in the far future - stayed the same. And I loved it, as I loved no other comic book in the world (not even Superman).



Then DC Comics ran the Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series that changed the very nature of all its continuity. In the new clean-slate comics world that resulted, Clark Kent had only adopted a superhero identity as an adult - he'd never been Superboy, so he obviously couldn't have shared adventures with the Legion. Which threw the Legion into creative limbo. First one set of writers and editors rescued it from that limbo, re-creating the Legion from the ground up, then later a different set of writers and editors used a reality-altering plot gimmick to re-create the Legion again, differently ... and so on. By the time all these successive reboots were done, nobody - and I mean nobody - could tell what the 'real' Legion was, what had and hadn't 'happened' in its past.


In the decades since Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC writers have been slowly, systematically dismantling the changes it implemented, and one of the last to go was that no-Superboy change (the reason it was so slow to change was entirely corporate: the whole while, Paramount was making money off its successful TV series "Smallville," which featured a young Clark Kent who most certainly never puts on a costume and calls himself Superboy). And as that no-Superboy stance started to crumble, writers and editors naturally started thinking of ways to re-integrate some kind of Superboy into the Legion again. A couple of recent storylines came right out and said Superman did indeed have a career as Superboy (the exact parameters of it are still very vague), during which he shared many adventures with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

A brief small picture recap:

In this current plot, the Legion who shared those adventures with young Superboy has grown up, just as Superman has. They're seedy, unkempt adults now, with lots of burned-out cynicism where their hope and optimism used to be, and the United Federation of Planets has grown distinctly disenchanted with them. Into this charged relationship comes an insane, alternate-reality Superboy who's dumb as a post and homicidally inclined. He assembles pretty much every 31st century super-villain the Legion has ever faced and attacks the team with the rather uncomplicated goal of killing them all. Superman comes to help from the 20th century, and the Legion also manages to summon two of those other-incarnation versions of the Legion to help out in the epic battle that follows.

While that epic battle is raging, Superman, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy are off in another dimension, fighting the long-time Legion adversary the Time Trapper, who has opened up portals to a gazillion other dimensions and times - thus creating the narrative potential for Johns to use "Legion of 3 Worlds" to reboot Legion history one last time. I could almost picture it happening - big climactic fight, gigantic time-space explosion, Time Trapper defeated and destroyed, and from the wreckage, a new Legion, teenagers full of hope and happiness, who thank Superman for all his help and send him off to the 20th century so they can go back to having adventures with his teenage self from a bit earlier in the 20th century.



Well, the battle does rage, although it shouldn't at all. The single biggest flaw of this imperfect mini-series is the way Superboy-Prime (the crazy alternate Superboy) is presented as virtually unstoppable. He manages to kill several Legionaires without really trying all that hard, and they don't manage to do more than slow him down, which is absurd. For the course of three entire issues, Superboy Prime is engaged in one long fist-fight with, by my count, seven individuals who are as strong or stronger than he is - such fist-fights, when conducted by nutso teenagers with no combat experience, end in said nutso teenagers getting pounded into tapioca in about ten minutes. In addition, this Superboy Prime is fighting several opponents who can a) blind him, b) freeze him, c) render him completely immobile, d) turn his blood into daffodils, or lead, or kryptonite, and e) make him think he's won and so convince him to just stand there while he gets his lights put out. None of that happens. One of his opponents is an adult Daxamite (i.e. already more than his physical match) wearing ten Green Lantern rings. That's as close to God as you get in a secular world, and yet Superboy Prime is still going strong at the climax of this issue.

But it doesn't matter. The important thing is, there is a climax, and the bad guy is defeated (in fact, he becomes what I can safely refer to as the most reviled figure of evil in the world of comics, in a turn of events that's actually flat-out hilarious - no matter what I was expecting to feel about the long-delayed ending of this series, I certainly wasn't expecting to laugh out loud), and for about half a page, I eagerly wondered if any of my expectations would come true - I wondered exactly what kind of new Legion Johns would create.


Needless to tell any of you who've already gobbled up this issue, I was disappointed - and not in the way I was worried about. Johns didn't create a new, definitive Legion I didn't like - he spent the issue's last ten pages telling readers we already have a definitive Legion: the skeevy, downtrodden adult version, low on manpower, embittered by losses, and at odds with the United Federation of Planets. The other two alternate versions of the Legion (either of which I prefer) are sent packing back to alternate dimensions, and the remaining incarnation - the disgruntled adults - settles down to what I presume will be a series of stories starting in the upcoming revival of Adventure Comics.

One of the issue's epilogues tells us that years ago, Clark Kent as Superboy went to Smallville High School and joined a team of super-heroes - and we're shown a skinny Superboy flying through the sky with members of that original, youthful Legion of Super-Heroes. And when I saw that panel, my first reaction, thinking about this upcoming Adventure Comics, was "Yes! Show us those adventures!"

Then I realized we've already had those adventures, for all those years and all those wonderful issues in the old Adventure Comics, and in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and in The Legion of Super-Heroes. What DC has managed to do, at last, is bring its continuity back around to a point where at least we can say those adventures 'really' happened. Hundreds of Legion back-issues are now DC continuity again, instead of being the weirdly dislocated oddities they've been since Crisis on Infinite Earths. I should call that a win and count my blessings.

But it wouldn't be Stevereads if I did that, now would it?

Because dammit, I wanted more. I wanted more of those adventures. I wanted the Legion to stay uncontaminated by the gritty realism that infuses the rest of superhero comics. I wanted them to stay heroes, appreciated by the people they protect and serve. I wanted Superboy on the team, somehow.

Whatever I get in the upcoming run of Adventure Comics, it's unlikely to be that. Apparently, the "no more Legion reboots" roulette wheel has stopped on an adult Legion of grizzled souls in a world that hates and fears them. The definitive Legion is here, and probably most fans are happy about that. And hell, if that happiness translates to keeping the Legion in some kind of regular publication, then to that limited extent I'm happy about it too.

But I've got my fingers crossed for a reboot ....

Comics! The dawn of Blackest Night!

Well, DC Comics' mega-event of the summer is launched at last: "Blackest Night" has begun. The series revolves around the superhero Green Lantern and the Green Lantern Corps (think intergalactic policemen, armed with energy-wielding rings) to which he belongs, and it features a brand new super-menace: Black Lanterns.

Some basic recapping, for those of you perhaps not up to speed:

The supremely powerful Guardians of Oa (little blue-skinned guys in robes, able to harness vast amounts of energy) created a vast energy battery and a large collection of green rings to tap into that battery's power. The wearers of these rings are chosen for their basic courage and strength of will - they come from all worlds, and the greatest of them all, cocky test pilot Hal Jordan, comes from Earth (three other Lanterns also come from Earth - it's a little unbalanced, cosmically speaking, but at least two of those other three - reliable, jackass Guy Gardner and stalwart, stoic John Stewart - are worth keeping just the same).

Naturally, being a police force, the Green Lantern Corps has had its share of on-the-job fatalities - there are plenty of dead Green Lanterns. And thanks to a lamentably lazy plot-device that's been copied and re-copied by so many DC writers in the last fifteen years that it's impossible to feel anything but bored by it, those dead Green Lanterns have lots of company: every time a big-name cokehead DC writer is imported to an ongoing title in order to boost its sales, he nowadays invariably decides that actually creating a plot or two would be, like, boring - so he threatens the DC brass that if he'll break his contract and walk to the competition if he isn't allowed to friggin kill somebody. No story worth talking about if you don't friggin kill somebody.

And since the DC brass has consistently caved in, we've had a rash of super-homicides over the years. Superman died and came back. Green Arrow died and came back. Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan died and came back. Three Flashes died and came back. Kid Flash died and came back. Superboy died and came back. Wonder Woman's mother died and came back. A lame-ass Robin died and came back. It's absurd, and it reached its peak (I can only hope) this last year, when the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, and friggin Batman died. Three super-heroes, each with roughly seventy years of character history, all killed in order to boost some paltry temporary sales.


The worst part of this gimmick by far is that if you think about it for even a second, it makes every single hero in the DC universe look like the world's biggest idiot. Why would these people even care anymore if one of their colleagues and teammates appears to get blown up, shredded, stabbed, or incinerated? Why would they bother to set up memorials like the ones pictured in the first issue of DC's Blackest Night? Why would they go through even the pretense of mourning, when they all know the hero in the coffin will be back real soon? These frequent death-arcs have produced some great comics and some great moments (I'm thinking particularly here of the moment where the World War Two teammates of Wonder Woman's mother toast her memory, but there are lots of others), but those moments stand in ludicrous isolation from the actual characters, since none of the survivors ever becomes the least bit cynical over this constant cycle of predictable rebirths. They just keep yelling "Turquoise Avenger! Noooooooooooo!" and then, a few months later, gasping, "Turquoise Avenger! Can it be you?"

So Blackest Night comes at what could be an opportune time, if writer Geoff Johns is thinking what he bloody well ought to be thinking: that at the end of this mini-series, a whole bunch of characters who should never have been killed off will be brought back to life. My worry is that he isn't thinking anything of the kind, and that a perfect opportunity to return the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, and Batman to life will be squandered. My worry is that Johns doesn't see anything wrong with that stupid torrent of character deaths choking DC comics.

And the first issue of Blackest Night certainly does nothing to allay such worries. In fact, it deepens them, in the only way it could: you guessed it, more characters die! Not only do the all-powerful Guardians of Oa appear to bite the dust in this issue, but also two DC superheroes of extremely rich and long histories - and in all these cases, the deaths we're talking about aren't the typical lost-in-a-vague-explosion kind they dish out over at Marvel. No, these characters have their chests ripped open and their still-beating hearts ripped out. Tough to finesse that; it's usually fatal.

It turns out the Black Lanterns have a perverted Guardian of their own, and they have a twisted Hal Jordan leader-figure, and they have admittedly cool-looking black rings that seek out and create what can only be described as Zombie Lanterns - the rings animate the dead bodies of all the heroes (and villains) who've croaked in the last few years. In a dramatic page in issue #1, Hal Jordan and the Flash are confronted by the Zombie Lantern Martian Manhunter, and Hawkman gets the pulp pounded out of him by the re-animated corpse of the Elongated Man (Ivan Reis' artwork throughout is utterly superb - this sequence with Hawkman is positively drenched in blood, and yet it's as clear an action-sequence as DC has fielded all month). And there are many, many more such partial resurrections coming in future issues.

I don't want to be a nay-sayer. The first issue of Blackest Night is every bit as thrillingly paced, intelligently written, and amazingly drawn as all its advance billing claimed - this will certainly be the standout DC Comics story-arc of the year and a must-own hardcover graphic novel when it's collected.

I'm just hoping it's also a conclusion of sorts. It would be great if, in addition to restoring such time-honored characters as Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter (and Batman, geez) to life and health, Blackest Night also established an ironclad moratorium on the trick of killing major characters. DC has recently indulged in it way, way too often - to the great detriment of its continuity and characters. So let's have all the bloody death and mayhem Johns can dream up, for the rest of this series - and then no more, eh? Then the heroes go back to defeating the bad guys, instead of being easily duped by and then friggin killed by the bad guys. I realize we live in a harsh world in which good doesn't always triumph over evil (recent presidential elections notwithstanding), but surely good should always triumph over evil in comic books? Superhero comic books?

Comics! Legion of Three Worlds!

Even before the first issue of Legion of Three Worlds came out, five years ago, I knew it was essentially unbloggable for a non-fan audience. It's a six-part mini-series written by fanboy favorite Geoff Johns and drawn by living legend George Perez, and it brings together many different incarnations of extremely long-time fan favorite superteam, the Legion of Super-Heroes; it travels across space and time, it's got a demented villain (an alternate version of Superboy, here as elsewhere portrayed as having about ten times the power such an alternate version would have, with no explanation given), it's got tons and tons of inside details decipherable only to those few basement-dwelling virginal nerdwoks who've been slavishly following every detail of Legion lore for the last twenty years, and it's all building toward some kind of mystic-cosmic-speed forcic mega-climax of a type DC Comics really should avoid for the next couple of decades.

In other words, despite Johns' admittedly considerable talents as a comics writer, and despite boasting some of Perez's most energetic artwork in weeks, Legion of Three Worlds is comprehensible to about three people on Earth - and Johns and Perez aren't two of them. I don't know who those three people are, but I'm in no hurry to meet them.

This demented Superboy - called Superboy Prime - is an all-purpose psycho who runs rampant in the 31st century, the time period of the Legion of Super-Heroes. He assembles almost all of the Legion's worst super-foes, and they proceed to wreak general havoc. Superman travels from the 21st century to help, and he brings along two entire Legions from two separate alternate realities. There follows an awful lot of hyper-detailed fight panels like this one:


A visual delight to fans, yes, but not much of it makes any sense. And there's a good reason for that: DC Comics has allowed the continuity of the Legion to degenerate into a state nothing short of madness. In other titles, a total ground-up overhaul is a momentous occasion, something writers and editors ponder long and hard, something that's executed with at least some degree of foresight and dedication, something that takes root and developes to at least some of its potential.

Not so the Legion. Since writer/artist Keith Giffen rebooted the title thirty years ago - in an inspired 30-issue run that ranks as one of the greatest in the Legion's long history (and which is still, to DC's shame, uncollected into any format) - the Legion has been unmade and remade half a dozen times, and each time virtually all of its forty-odd characters underwent major changes in costume, powers, origin, etc. There was a clone Legion; there was an adult Legion; there was a dystopian Legion; there was a youth-movement Legion ... and none of these versions was allowed either to live to its full potential or to be quietly swept under the rug. Instead, each of them was violently and dramatically un-created in some ever-vaguer cosmic calamity. Zero Hour. Four different Crises. Various Invasions. I think Legion even got retooled during the last Mutant Massacre.


To say the least, this isn't how a company should treat one of its oldest, best intellectual properties, much less one with the, er, devoted fan-following of the Legion. This back-to-the-drawing-board crap should have been halted a long time ago, and DC - preferrably after listening to lots and lots of the aforementioned fans - should have picked one version of the Legion and stuck with it. They should still do that.


And according to my young friend Elmo, they might yet. Apparently, Johns has condescended to give the Legion yet another revamp - and given his popularity with fans, it's bound to be hyped all over the comics world. Which means it might have a chance of actually sticking around for a year or two. In which case, I have my own humble suggestion as to what that revamp should be. See how this concept grabs you:

It's Earth of the 31st century. Mankind has tamed fantastic technology and spread to worlds throughout the galaxy, but there is still evil everywhere, and it's been a thousand years since the last Age of Heroes (the time of the legendary Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.). On a routine business trip, billionaire industrialist (and history buff) R. J. Brande is the victim of an attempted kidnapping. He's saved by three teenagers - Garth Ranzz of Winath (who possesses the ability to throw around electrical discharges), Rokk Krinn of Braal (who possesses the magnetic ability to control metal), and Irma Ardeen of Titan (who's a powerful telepath) - who just happen to be in the vicinity. Their actions give him a great idea: why not band them together as the nucleus of a super-team, to jump-start a whole new Age of Heroes? And so the Legion of Super-Heroes is born, quickly expanding as more and more super-powered young people flock to its banner. Cut to their various adventures in the 31st century. Perhaps mix in a time-travelling Superman or Superboy. Perhaps kill off a member every four or five years, in some big storyline. Turn no member into a giant friggin snake. Let the whole thing run for ... oh, let's say forty years.



I'd buy it. Hell, I already have, for about forty years.

I'm hoping I'll get the chance again, and it's really quite annoying that whether or not I have the opportunity will entirely rely on one overworked (and undercommitted) hot-ticket writer and what he decides to do or not do. It should rely on DC Comics knowing enough not to fix something that isn't broken.


And in the meantime, there's the world-class confusion-bomb that is the finale of Legion of Three Worlds to look forward to/dread. I'll keep you posted when it comes out, in about two years.