Everything You Know is Wrong #2: The Impenetrability of the Legion of Super-Heroes

This being the second in a series of posts in which I explain why the conventional widom is wrong.

The Legion of Super-Heroes has been an overwhelming part of my life for the past 16 months, as I read every Legion story (in chronological order) and prepared and edited a book of essays on the various incarnations of the team.

Conventional wisdom, as echoed by Matt Fraction in his Foreword to the book, states that the Legion of Super-Heroes is an impenetrable tangle of characters, continuity, and reboots, making it practically impossible for a new reader to jump on board.

This piece of conventional wisdom is, of course, WRONG.

First of all, Teenagers from the Future will help make everything less impenetrable, so you should all read that as a primer, but even if you are bold enough to dive into the 31st century without dipping your toes into that book, you will not drown! The Legion is accessible for anyone who's willing to even try to read it.

Here's why: Even though it seems like the Legion has a roster of billions, it's only just a few dozen, and rarely do all the characters appear in the same stories anyway. Sure, there's more characters than your average Justice League or Avengers squad, but that's part of the Legion's appeal. Plus, the characters in the Legion are really, really easy to figure out right away. First of all, each character can only really do one thing. Unless you're talking about Superboy, Supergirl, or Mon-El (who all have the same powers as Superman) or Ultra Boy (who has the same powers as Superman but he can only use one at a time), basically each character has one power, and the power is clearly identified by name.

Guess what Matter-Eater Lad can do? Um, eat matter. Sun Boy? Heat. Lightning Lad? Lightning. Do these names seem confusing to you in any way?

Even characters with "subtle" names like Cosmic Boy or Saturn Girl have single, clearly defined powers that you'll learn after about ten seconds of reading a story in which they appear. Others, like Princess Projectra, will take 15 seconds to figure out. What does she project? Illusions. Easy. Move on.


And the continuity isn't any more dense than what you'd expect from any long-running series. First of all, nobody has read every DC comic ever published. I don't think that's humanly possible (and I'm trying to do it, so I know how ridiculous the task can be). Take Batman, for example. All of those stories that Grant Morrison references in the current run are completely forgotten by most fans. And he's only alluding to about 10 stories out of thousands of past Batman tales. You can still pick up an issue of Detective Comics and read it without knowing all those stories. It's no big deal. Same thing with the Legion. And with the reboots, none of the old continuity matters anyway, except when Geoff Johns is around, but even then, he explains everything to you through exposition.

I think the Legion developed its reputation for impenetrability during the late Bronze Age, when Levitz took over the book for his extended run. He told one long story over his 100 issues, although he had a villain pop up in practically every issue. I wrote about his use of story structure in my essay for the Teenagers book, so I'm not going to go into it here, but his type of linked, rotating-subplot structure with an emphasis on characterization basically became the template for decompressed superhero comics today. His stories were not decompressed, though, he just allowed long-running subplots to evolve over months or even years.

But, guess what? That's exactly when I jumped aboard the Legion, and I was able to figure everything out pretty quickly. I wasn't sure what Dream Girl did, exactly, other than look hot, but I soon figured out that her power was described in her name too. It ain't Ulysses, folks.

The Legion is a club of teenage superheroes in the 31st century. That's all you really need to know to get started. So dive in, enjoy the fun, and soon, you too will be naming your kids Rokk and Tasmia.

Everything You Know is Wrong #1: Roy Thomas's Captain Marvel

The first installment in a new series wherein I tell you that EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG. Basically, I'll be explaining why some piece of accepted comic book-related wisdom is, actually, wrong.

Accepted Comic Book Wisdom Says, "Captain Marvel was a mediocre series until Roy Thomas and Gil Kane reimagined it by adding Rick Jones, Nega Bands, and a fancy new concept to match the fancy new costume."

Wrong!

Originally appearing in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (December 1967), the Kree Captain Mar-Vell, in his original Green and White space costume may have been Stan Lee's attempt at making sure nobody else used the "Marvel" name on a superhero title, but it was a pretty strong concept from the start. Lee may not have had his heart in it, but he, and later writers, including Roy Thomas (who worked on the green and white incarnation of the character before revamping him years after) created a strong series that perhaps lacked only in a strong villainous presence. The Captain Marvel concept worked great. Mar-Vell was a Kree who had to infiltrate human society in order to gather information for his superiors. Meanwhile, his superior officer, Yon-Rogg, was macking on his girlfriend. There was a lot of "macking" going on in those late days of the Silver Age. So pretty much every early story was about Captain Marvel trying to reconcile his duty to his people with his admiration for humanity while he was getting stabbed in the back by one of his Kree brothers. Stan Lee inner conflict at its finest, with some pretty sweet Gene Colan and Don Heck art.

The series amped up the conflict with new potential love interest Carol Danvers (note: the first time Danvers meets Iron Man, he beats her up. He was under the control of the Puppet Master, but still, it makes you wonder why Ms. Marvel trusts Tony Stark so implicitly these days. If someone beat me up the first time I met them, I might not always trust that person so much) and then with writers Arnold Drake (of the Doom Patrol!!!) and Gary Friedrich, it became really odd, climaxing in a strange, Tom Sutton-drawn issue involving the cosmic "Zo" and designed as an acid trip. It was apparently inspired by Stan Lee's then-current obsession with what Steranko was doing in his innovative work.

These Captain Marvel stories from the green and white space-suit days were good fun, contrary to conventional wisdom, which tends to ignore their existence in favor of...

Roy Thomas and Gil Kane's revamped Captain Marvel. Premiering in issue #17, this is the Captain Marvel most of comicdom is familiar with. Even those of us who never read a Captain Marvel comic as a kid knew about the guy with white hair and the blue and red costume and the golden bracelets. He's still the Captain Marvel that we understand. Not that guy with the fin on his head and the hip holster. But the thing is, these Roy Thomas/Gil Kane stories are pretty terrible. Sure, the Gil Kane art is as good as you'd expect, and it has a dynamism lacking from the Heck or Sutton issues, but Roy Thomas may have written some of his worst comics on these Captain Marvel issues, and if you read his introduction to the Masterworks volumes, he seems inordinately proud of these atrocities.

Thomas takes everything that worked about the Mar-Vell character--the inner turmoil and Kree guilt, the space context, the blend of space opera and domestic struggle--and tosses it out in favor of some weird amalgamation of Denny O'Neil's Green Lantern/Green Arrow and CC Beck's Golden Age Captain Marvel. All of a sudden, Thomas throws perennial Hulk and Captain America sidekick Rick Jones into the mix, contriving some way to replicate the "Shazam" effect by having Jones and Mar-Vell switch places by clanking their bracelets. It's not so bad in theory--although the addition of Rick Jones comes out of NOWHERE and feels absolutely forced--but the stories he and Kane tell are the worst kind of "socially relevant" stories of the early 1970s. Instead of fighting giant robot Kree alien monsters, newly revamped Captain Marvel fights against a dude who runs corrupt low-income housing. Seriously.

It's just not good. And don't get me started on Rick Jones's rock and roll career.

Roy Thomas and Gil Kane may have given Captain Marvel new life and their legacy may live on today, but their stories in these issues kinda suck. The conventional wisdom is wrong.