Long Live the Legion… again!
Posted by dailypop on October 20, 2008
The team that booted Superboy out of the starring role of his own comic, the Legion of Super-Heroes has enjoyed one of the most long-lasted successes. A club of super-powered teenagers fighting alien menaces on various planets stood out as one of the most imaginative and fun-loving comic books of its age.
However, the Crisis of 1985 the rewrote comic book history was none too kind to the team of future teens. The result was a long string of restarts and revamps that never really took hold of readers. It didn’t help that the rest of the DC Universe had altered so much that the title’s time-line was often confused and in a state of flux trying to fit in to both the new plots and new attitudes toward super heroes.
Outside of the latest Crisis that has struck the DC Universe, the Legionnaires are headed for yet another revamp at the hands of Geoff Johns and George Perez.
Following the events of Infinite Crisis and the recent JLA/JSA Lightning Saga (both of which bore results that have still yet to fully blossom in the DCU), the latest story ‘Legion of Three Worlds’ will cast the die to once again decide the fate of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Drawing together Superboy Prime, the mysterious lightning rod from the future and even Green Lantern Sodam Yat (last seen in the great Sinestro Corps War), Legion of Three Worlds promises to be a mega event. I just hope it doesn’t get lost in reader radar of the many Final Crisis mini-series.
Rumor is that the finale will create a new time-line returning the title to the events of the Magic Wars storyline. It’s difficult to imagine any readers who would stick it out through so many restarts and revisions that made everything that came before it invalid… but the Legion is that popular.
Or so DC Comics hopes!
It is ironic that at the same time as this story in comics, Johns is heralding the appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes on the TV program Smallville. I’m still disappointed that the Legion cartoon failed to make an impact with TV viewers, but believe that the concept of the Legion is strong enough to persevere through all of these troubles.
