You have to feel a little sorry for the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Since 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, when Superboy was retconned out of existence and the backstory of the Legion invalidated, the team—once one of DC’s hottest sellers—has undergone cycles of abuse and neglect from creators, editors and fans. It had a short, happy life on the Cartoon Network and has had as many false-starts and reboots (and as much chaotic and impossible-to-understand continuity) as anyone this side of Hawkman.
It’s only fair, then, that Crisis on Infinite Earths artist George Pérez should be the one to help bring those reboots under one roof, and hopefully save the franchise from disaster, along with superstar writer Geoff Johns, in last year’s Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, out this week in hardcover from DC Comics.
Given that each of the reboots have their fans, and Geoff Johns joins with most Legion fans as loving the originals instead, the way he’s dealt with these characters—to reintroduce a modernized, tweaked version of the originals as the “central” Legion while acknowledging the new ones as canonical as well; this is a great approach that the return of the Multiverse has allowed for. Yes, your favorite comic happened. Yes, so did mine. They ALL happened. Maybe you won’t be able to read “your” Legion forever, because frankly we need one that more people will enjoy…but at least the door isn’t completely closed to them coming back at some point, or getting a one-shot or something.
I’ll admit that I was never a huge Legion of Super-Heroes fan until fairly recently, but to those who think titles like this one (and Hawkman, Aquaman and Manhunter for that matter) can’t succeed financially or critically, I say “Go away and don’t come back until you’ve done some serious thinking.” The reality of it is, there are no “bad” properties at DC or Marvel. Anything you’ve ever seen come out of a mainstream superhero universe can be made good, profitable, enjoyable, or all three given the right creative mix.
Johns and Pérez certainly fit the bill as “the right creative mix.” Even with the insufferable Superboy-Prime as the principal bad guy, and its tenuous connection to the central Final Crisis story, this comic was fantastic. Seeing Pérez finally get to draw the Legion for a long period of time was well-worth the…well, the long period of time…that we had to wait between issues, and Geoff Johns showed again why he’s one of those guys who can be trusted to come in, mix things up and make them better (at least as far as most readers are concerned).
The resulting miniseries was so good, that the predictable twists and turns it took (let’s face it—three of the last four issues ended with “surprises” and only one of them actually surprised anyone) were paced out so well that they left readers gaping at the execution. The final handful of pages featuring Superboy-Prime may feel a little out of place with the rest of the story…but that’s the unfortunately part of what happens when you’re writing for a continuity-heavy universe where you always have to be “setting up the sequel,” as it were. You can’t just have him powerless and relegated to Earth-Prime with disappointed parents. There has to be a little PS to remind readers that, yes, he’ll be in Blackest Night.
Following up this series with Adventure Comics was great (although I still really like Manapul’s interpretation of the Legion, and felt like he was a little wasted on Conner Kent alone), but I hope that there’s a plan in place to make sure that the Johns-less Legion doesn’t fall prey to reader apathy and creative stagnation. The fact that the team is losing Johns and the format of the book is changing at the same time, certainly doesn’t seem too healthy…and DiDio’s reluctance to name the fill-in team (plus his insistence that the book will basically be absorbed into the all-consuming Borg that is the current “Superman on New Krypton” story) is a little frightening as well. The “event” we were promised for the fiftieth anniversary of the Legion ended up coming a little late, and now that we’ve finally seen it I feel like it would be a real shame to watch it all fall apart as the cycle of neglect and abuse picks up steam again.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Well, don’t forget that DC has already announced that major Legion-lore contributor Paul Levitz is returning to the characters. I agree that it could easily succumb as has happened so many times before with the group, but I will remain optimistic about him taking over the book.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
This mini-series is the reason I’m NOT reading the current Adventure series. I will be picking it up once Levitz takes over, though.
Lo3W was just filled with so much melodrama, bad science, ovewrought continuity, and horrible character moments that I couldn’t handle spending $3.99 a month on 8 pages of my favorite DC characters by a writer who only seems concerned with his own version of the team (and I say that as pre-Crisis Legion fan).
October 27th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Yeah. I think I lost a paragraph. I’m looking forward to Levitz’s run, as I honestly think he can undo what’s been done to shift the 31st Century from a playground of wonder to the ghetto of the DC Universe…but I don’t know how much faith I have that it won’t get canceled before he arrives.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:02 am
I don’t think Legion of 3 Worlds was either fantastic or even a Legion story. It certainly didn’t explain a bit about the real Legion that existed until Zero Hour, or why Johns chose his characters from his own muse (it doesn’t match with any specific moment in time, apparently – and, no, it’s not just before Crisis).
Continuity continues to be a problem to my eyes, so nothing was particularly solved. I’d rather see Legion becoming a “Tales of The Legion” kind of book than another misfire to be erased in the future. And I am still waiting for a Deluxe reissue of TMK’s Legion, the last real original Legion book that existed.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Once again: Johns did not bring back the original Legion; he created a copy of them with a different history. Johns’ darlings will never be the originals. And that’s a good thing.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
You know, I’m starting to understand why this book has never returned to the success of its heyday, even as books like TEEN TITANS and BRAVE AND THE BOLD have. The very people who are needed to keep the title alive, are the ones willing to cannibalize it because it ain’t perfect. I hope none of you are the Democrats who bitched at me for voting for Nader.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
I actually supported both Waid and Shooter through the shenanigans DC put in their way to hamper their runs in exchange for a Johns-penned Legion that never happened. We had to have Justin Thyme to get a book Johns wrote for all the wrong reasons (for Flash, S-Prime and GL) and when he was about to get on it for real, he drops it in less than 3 issues.
So I don’t think I am the one to blame at never returning to the success Legion had: that’s DC’s fault.
October 29th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Again I maintain that for the true Legions explanation that is a fun story End of an Era during Zero Hour is the story for you. One of many stories that need to be collected from the Legion universe.
I disliked Lo3W mainly because my Legion (Legionnaires) were the ones who were used as cannon fodder and that whole ‘we got to redeem Supes-Prime’ premise. Right there is the type of thinking that makes me hate Superman at times. Sure he’s killed hundreds / thousands of times over but we can redeem him…UGH!
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Decent art, but this story wasn’t good or I’ll say, enough of a game changer to justify how this screwed up the monthly.
And Levitz IMHO has lost it…his JSA run proved that.
Wake me up when DC and Geoff Johns apologize to Jim Shooter, and put him and Francis Manapul back on the Legion ongoing.