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By Jason Bourgeois
Welcome back to Grey Matters. This month I attempt my original plan
of discussing the latest revision and revitalisation of DC's
long-running Legion of Super-Heroes.
The Legion dates back to 1958, when they were created by Mort
Weisinger and Otto Binder needed an idea for Adventure Comics #247, and
decided to create a futuristic team of teens who drew their
inspiration from Superboy and banded together to fight for truth and
justice in their native far-flung future. Surprising many people, the
three teens who starred in the story, and
many of their shadow-shrouded companions were quite a big hit, and the
Legion began to make other appearances, slowly building up a
background mythos to them, and were eventually given a starring role
in Adventure Comics, starting with issue #300.
After a run there of some 80 issues, they moved on to a stint in
Action Comics, and a few other appearances, before being given what
was essentially their first real title, even if it was actually
Superboy's. They began appearing regularly with issue 197 of
Superboy's solo title, and it was titled Superboy & the Legion of
Super-Heroes until issue 258, when Superboy was sent off, and his name
dropped from the title, making the Legion's first solo title start
with issue 259.Even this title was renamed at issue 313 into Tales of the LSH which
stopped telling new stories after a year, and they were given a second
self-titled book, starting with their first (Outside of a brief four
issues of reprints several years earlier), number one, and running for
five years before it came to an end.
That gave way to another first issue, this time in a slightly more
dystopian future, set five years after the previous series, the
now-infamous Five Year Gap. This series tried to sort out and explain
various discontinuities that had occurred over it's 30+ year history at
this point, due to being set in the future of the DCU, but
intrinsically linked to the present, where changes in characters always
seemed to affect the Legion in various ways. Most notably by having
Superboy and Supergirl no longer exist in their histories.
The confusing and often conflicting ever-changing history of the
Legion eventually became perceived to be too much, and the series was
rebooted from scratch a little more than a year after another second
ongoing title, while maintaining the numbering of the series' up to
that point. This featured a return to young, teenaged characters
after the previous version's had all grown up, some having kids,
moving on, etc., and followed their adventures in a mostly-bright
future.
Eventually, this latest iteration was also cancelled and restarted,
with a few limited series in between the two runs, and lasted for 38
more issues in the simpler-titled "The Legion" comic until this
continuity too was brought to a close in the Titans/Legion special
that had the majority of the LSH lost in a space-time warp, and paving
the way for what started in late December of this past year.
Mark Waid and Barry Kitson started off their own Legion of
Super-Heroes, with a new purpose, changed characters, and a new number
one. This time out, the teens are rebelling against a near-Utopian
society, run by oppressive adults, a metaphor for the normal teenager
rebelling against the adult world as they grow up.
Kitson's art is astounding. Well-detailed, unique designs across the
board, beautiful futuristic architecture, and fairly distinguishable
characters, even if a few faces do tend to blend into one another, but
that could change as he works on the title longer. Barry is inking
most of his own work, and is drawing more pages than a normal monthly
comic, so he is definitely going all out for this series, which is
amazing with the sheer number of characters, and background detail
he's put in so far, just in these two issues.
Mark Waid's writing, however, while very good, leaves me wanting in
both good and bad ways. I finish an issue and want more, eagerly
awaiting the next issue, but something feels missing. So far, this
Legion are mostly ciphers, and it feels to me as if we're expected to
know them and care about them based on the previous incarnations we've
read about. These characters have yet to really come into their own,
and while a lot of the dialogue is snappy, and individual voices have
begun to appear, I really want to know more about who these characters
are. I don't feel entirely comfortable just assuming that things are
the same as they were, due to obvious differences.
This problem is minor, and leaves me just having the slightest
dissonance while reading the series, and knowing Waid's usual level of
quality, he will fill in the blanks slowly over time, and I'm fine
with that. Like I said, good and bad ways. Waid is also going
against the common trend of decompression, dropping in a huge action
sequence in the first issue.
Overall, even for new readers, the book is friendly, if a bit slow to
introduce you to the admittedly large cast of characters, but it is
getting there. Mark fills the pages with smart, witty dialogue that
is slowly rounding these characters out in subtle ways. With the
gorgeous art, I highly recommend this title. With the added pages, it
is definitely worth the look, for a fun Legion is the title was the book that would not die.
A vocal, loyal fanbase has kept the title alive over the years, bringing it back from
the brink many a time, making it one of the numerous mainstays of the
DC Universe, yet it always remained somewhat unknown to a large group,
outside of a period in the mid 70's when they had X-Men-like
popularity. Hopefully, there can be a resurgence of that popularity level to
some degree now. A title that has been around this long, and is now a big unknown is
such a shame, especially with a long run of good quality stories, with
many a true classic amongst them.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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