As if I needed more reason to love John Hodgman, turns out he’s a fan of Paul Levitz’ Legion of Super-Heroes run from the ’80s, as evidenced in a Pop Candy interview by Newsarama contributor Zack Smith:

I guess I like the one from the ’80s where Star Boy just spends the whole comic hoping that his girlfriend, Dream Girl, doesn’t get elected club leader for a second term . It was a little while before I realized: oh. This is what this comic is going to be about. Just a dude in a star t-shirt broin’ out plasma spacesuit guy and feeling sorry for himself. I loved it.

He also has some smart words to say about the importance of continuity:

Comics have a problem, and that is continuity–the obsession with placing the characters in an existing world, where every event is marked in canon. You’re supposed to believe that these weepy star boys of now are the same gung ho super teens fighting space monsters in the sixties, and they’ve only aged perhaps five years.

It eventually strains credulity, and can shackle a writer who wants to try a something new. Very few narrative forms have to deal with this principle, and a fan base that gets mad when it’s violated, except for maybe soap operas (which is what comics are). So there are these periodic memory wipes and start-overs. But to me, it never felt right with the Legion. There are just too many of these kids, none of them is iconic, the whole pleasure is the continuity– the evolution of comic styles and sensibility encoded in their being.

Now I want to see Hodgman writing a Legion annual or something. Wouldn’t that be great? Hey, DC…!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2012 at 9:30 am and is filed under Creators, DC Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.