Columns and Reviews Ahoy

Though I was away from blogging for a bit during the last week or two (except for my fake Abrams/drilling piece and my Jason Aaron totally-improbable assumption), I was certainly not absent from the comic book internet landscape. I produced no less than seventeen (!) columns and reviews while ignoring my blog-o-responsibilities, and in case you missed any of them, I've included them here for your edutainment. Don't let me hear you say that I ever let you down by not linking to my own work!

Recent "When Words Collide" Columns:
Me vs. Superman vs. Jim Lee
Me vs. a Five-Year-Old vs. Free Comic Book Day
Tucker Stone vs. Me vs. Moebius's Blueberry

Recent Reviews:
Immortal Iron Fist #25
Captain America Theater of War: A Brother in Arms #1
War Machine #5
Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #4
The Muppet Show #2
Destroyer #2
Exiles #2
The Mighty #4
Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #1
Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #1
Super Zombies #3
I Kill Giants
Dark Reign: Hawkeye #2
Secret Warriors #4

Now, back to your regularly-scheduled daily Geniusboy Firemelon updates.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #1 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: R.E.B.E.L.S. #1, about which I write the following sentences: "Dox is stalked by some bounty hunter types, including Tribulus whose presence seems to imply that Bedard subscribes to the same Legion philosophy I do: 'When in doubt, throw in Validus -- he has a brain that shoots lightning -- or at least someone who looks like him.' And there's some silliness with Supergirl burning a dvd with her heat vision. (Brainiac 5 sent Supergirl back into the past with hypnotically-imbedded blueprints that she could burn in PC format? Would they even know about dvds in the 31st century?) But as Legion-logic, it's good enough, and it's a surprising moment that works for the benefit of the story."

Read the entire review HERE.

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3, about which I write the following sentences: "And it's also about introducing the Legion of Super-Heroes to a generation of readers who may never have understood why a group of teenagers from the future with silly names has such a loyal fanbase. It's about making the Legion cool again, but not by adding cybernetic arms (Lightning Lad sported one of those before Cable was even in diapers, anyway) or tough guy language ('sprock' is about as hardcore as it gets) or ultra-violence (death and dismemberment has been part of this seemingly innocent team since the early days, too). Geoff Johns makes the Legion cool again by embracing the Legion concept, and then putting George Perez to work drawing it all in eye-popping detail."

Read the entire review HERE.

What I'm Reading: Black Jack, Crisis, Legion

Taking a break from "Dororo," which I like a lot after one volume, I've been delving into another Osamu Tezuka classic: "Black Jack." I've finished Volume 1 and Volume 2 of this series -- about a mysterious super-surgeon who demands exorbitant fees, but takes jobs no one else can handle -- and I have a few thoughts:

1. It's very good overall, but some of the individual stories don't work at all, and others are quite profound given the short space.

2. That's really the charm of the series -- it's the accumulation of rapid-fire stories of great tragedy and moral dilemmas. Each story is super-simplistic really. The complexity comes from the bigger picture, the stories stacked one on top of another.

3. There should be more (any!) American medical genre comics. It's a big genre on television, but when was the last time you read a comic about a world-class surgeon saving a life? Black Jack is basically a superhero -- he's the Six-Million Dollar Man of surgery, with more than a dash of the Man with No Name -- but it doesn't have to be a Doc Midnite comic (although I would totally read that). How about a Vertigo series?

4. Tezuka's style is very different here than in "Dororo," and since I'm not an expert on his work, I'll leave it at that. But I wonder how much it has to do with the era -- "Black Jack" is from the 1970s, if I'm not mistaken, and "Dororo" is from the 1960s, I think -- and how much it has to do with adapting his style for a different genre. (I guess I didn't leave it at that.)

5. I'm interested in reading more "Black Jack," but I'm not particularly compelled to. I expect it to be more of the same. Anyone know if it get radically more complex or less formulaic?

Moving on...

I also reread "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and "Infinite Crisis" for my big buildup to "Final Crisis" #7. I don't have much to say about the former two, and I've already said a lot about the latter (with more to come maybe by Monday), so moving on again...

I didn't read anything else substantial this week, besides the usual stack of floppies (too much "Doctor Who" to watch!), but I just have to point out HOW TERRIBLE THE FINAL ISSUE OF "LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES" WAS.

Just to recap: Jim Shooter took over as writer of the Legion with issue #37, and as much as I complained about his writing, at least he was setting up a complex plotline that was building to something big. He may have overdone the future slang, and his characterizations may have been a bit odd, but his plotting was decent and the last few issues -- leading into #50 -- had been the best in his run. But then it was announced that the series was canceled. And then Shooter mentioned that his plan to wrap everything up by issue #54 had to be condensed to wrap up in issue #50. And, then, issue #50 actually comes out, and it's not written by Shooter.

It's written by someone under the ha-ha-it's-so-funny pseudonym of "Justin Thyme." I could go into an analysis of why it's obvious based on character dialogue that it's not Shooter writing under that pseudonym, but the issue isn't worth any more time than I've already given it. As published, "Legion of Super-Heroes" #50 is a disgraceful conclusion to the Threeboot, and a work of hackery far more egregious than even "Countdown." Greg McElhatton gave the issue a half star review on CBR, and I think he was being generous. The comic is really a giant "screw you" to everyone who's been reading this incarnation of the Legion.

What an inglorious way to go out.

What are YOU reading?

Teenagers from the Future in NOVEMBER Diamond Previews

Let your local comic shop know ASAP: you want your very own copy (or twelve) of Teenagers from the Future. Official order codey stuff: The 6"x9" softcover book runs 344 pages and carries a $26.95 cover price. The order code is NOV084474.

For more info on the contents (as if you don't already know), click HERE.

R. J. Brande Was Actually the Martian Manhunter!

You may have missed this, but KC Carlson, former Legion of Super-Heroes editor during the Reboot era, stopped by and made the following comment after my recent annotations for Legion of Three Worlds #2:

BTW, did I ever tell you that, in the Legion reboot, our R.J. Brande was actually the Martian Manhunter? We waited too long to reveal it and then Dan Raspler (JLA editor) wouldn't let us do it because it might screw up J'onn.

At this late date, I'm not sure if it was a good idea or not, but we did plant some clues. (And don't forget, he was at Garth and Imra's wedding LONG before we ever got close to the book.)

That would have put an interesting spin on events, no? I would have loved to see J'onn J'onzz alongside the teenagers from the future.

Thanks, KC!

When Words Collide: Lyga's Legion

Barry Lyga likes the Legion. I like the Legion. What happens when we e-mail each other about it? We get the newest installment of "When Words Collide," a column full of wit and wisdom and reflections on the Legion's past, present, and future.

How do we feel about "The Great Darkness Saga"?

What's better, the Five Year Gap or "Legion Lost"?

How much matter can Matter-Eater Lad eat?

These are questions we may or may not answer in this week's WWC: "Lyga's Legion."

Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #2 Annotations

I annotated issue #1 way back when, and so here I am again, writing whatever pops into my head and telling you what I know about the best of the Final Crisis spin-off books.

Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #2: The Annotations

Cover: Once again, I bought the character-centric cover instead of the one with the ugly red bars on the side. This one's all about the Saturn Girl, as the Levitz-by-way-of-Johns SG thinks real hard and her two parallel selves pop out of her brain. Dave McCaig does a great job digitally painting these covers over the George Perez pencils, don't you think? (Correct answer: yes, you do think.)

Page 1: Ah, a "white-event." The Legion's had a few of those, and this one stuck for a while as the Reboot Legion got whited out once the Threeboot came into existence. This here's Shikari, the Dawnstar-esque character introduced in Legion Lost. (Hence the "lost again" reference by the off-panel Dream Girl.) Like Dawnstar, Shikari has super-tracking skillz.

Page 2: Sorcerer's World is actually Amethyst's "Gemworld," by the way, but in the future! And White Witch? She's a sorceress, and the sister of the Dream Girl from this reality. Not the Dream Girl from the Threeboot, who's dead, or the Dream Girl (or Dreamer, whatever) who's hanging out with Shikari.

Meanwhile, Superboy-Prime gives the evil Saturn Queen her very own "S-ring," and that looks like bad guy Lightning Lord's hand sporting the new jewelry as well. Geoff Johns likes his villains to sport matching accoutrements -- for more examples, see the Sinestro Corps War.

The purple cloaky guy is the Time Trapper. You can tell because he calls himself "The Time Trapper," and he traps time.

The great thing about his character, is he can be used to explain away any continuity problems ever. Even ones in Marvel comics. That's how powerful he is.

Page 3: "Mordru" is, of course, the super-evil-sorcerer who has imprisoned White Witch. And look who shows up to bust her out, the hot-headed Wildfire, the League-of-Super-Assassins-member-turned-White-Witch-bff Blok, and the super-tracker with the 70s Native American motif, Dawnstar. I think every Legion fan loves Dawnstar, don't they? She is awesome, and Wildfire agrees.

Page 4: Apparently Dawnstar's super-tracking ability lets her see metaphorical paths into the future, which is nice, because, really, if they have Google Maps, she ain't all that useful anymore, otherwise.

Page 5: The last Green Lantern (maybe), Rond Vidar! Son of Universo, the man with the monocle. Rond Vidar was a super-scientist and best friend of Brainiac 5, and then he died, but actually, no, he lived! Because he was secretly a Green Lantern! Why he would not ever use the ring before that, I have no idea. I guess he likes surprises. Well, surprise, he dies for real later in this issue!

That's Mordru with the beard and the purple goblin blasts.

Page 6: Glorith, Dragonmage, and Evillo are supporting characters from Legion history, all of whom have magic connections. Glorith was a former wife of Mordru, and she was also a pal of the Time Trapper, and sort of became a Time Trapper-esque character of her own (in one continuity). Dragonmage actually appeared after the Giffen Five-Year-Gap stories, which Johns seems to be ignoring otherwise, so his mention here shows how screwed up the 31st century timeline really is. And Evillo was evil. Oh.

Pages 7-8: Yeah, Mordru was White Witch's teacher and husband(?) at one point.

Mordru talks like Darth Vader a bit here, and later, Universo kind of does a Lord of the Sith kind of thing. I like to imagine that all of them sound like James Earl Jones throughout the comic. In fact, just imagine everyone in the future talks that way. Except Superboy-Prime. He sounds like Matthew McConnaughey.

Some people criticize Geoff Johns for his bloodthirsty streak, but it's pretty obvious that Mordru's the real crazy one, not Geoff Johns! Seriously, "make love bathed in your blood"? Dude, you're like a thousand years old.

Pages 9-10: The new Legion of Super-Villains, with matching rings! From left to right, top to bottom: Neutrax, Beauty Blaze, Zymyr, Ol-Vir, Emerald Empress, Grimbor, Validus, Tharok, Golden Boy, Tusker, Storm Boy, Sun Emperor, Esper Lass, Dr. Regulus, Universo, Lightning Lord, Superboy-Prime, Saturn Queen, Earth-Man, Hunter II, Persuader, Mist Master, Mano, Spider-Girl, Cosmic King, Micro Lad, Terrus, Lazon, Silver Slasher, Tyr, Black Mace, Echo, Radiation Roy, Chameleon Chief, Titania, Magno Lad.

This is basically the LSV from the early Baxter issues of Legion, plus the Johns Justice League from recent Action Comics issues, a few members of the League of Super-Assassins, the Fatal Five, and a couple of guys who usually work solo (like Universo and Dr. Regulus). In other words, its the most awesome team of bad guys ever.

They all sound like James Earl Jones.

Page 11: Flashback, to Infinite Crisis, written by Geoff Johns. Flashback to "Sinestro Corps War," written by Geoff Johns. Foreshadowing: Sodam Yat -- remember when you beat up a random guy that one time, S-Prime? Not really important right now, but by the end of the issue: important! Sodam Yat, btw, was a Daxamite (like Mon-El) with a power ring, and took the mantle of Ion post-Kyle Raynor.

Page 12: Legion HQ, in panel two, from left to right, top to bottom: bad stuff on monitors, Superman, Lightning Lad, Night Girl, Brainiac 5, Invisible Kid II, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Shrinking Violet, Polar Boy, Ultra Boy, Phantom Girl, Lightning Lass, arrogant S-Prime holo, Chameleon Girl, Tmber Wolf.

The Legion has a code against killing. They also have a code against anyone over 18 joining the team, or at least they did. Changing codes is a slippery slope. Now look at them, all a bunch of long-haired hippie fascists.

Page 13: "gathered some magic," is a reference to Magic: The Gathering, the card game I used to play with all the free time I used to have not annotating comic books. Back when I was cool and hip.

Panel five features the first time in comic book history that "clubhouse" and "bastards" appeared in the same panel. Unless you count the obscure Silverwolf comic from 1987, "Clubhouse Bastards," illustrated by Tim Vigil, which I don't, because it doesn't exist.

Page 14: Superboy-Prime hates whiners! Take that, fanboys!

Page 15: You'd think, by the 31st century, they'd come up with a more elegant computer interface than just a keyboard with extra buttons. Must be the Time Trapper messing up the development of technology by making future tech slightly more annoying than it has to be.

Garth (Lighthing Lad) and Imra (Saturn Girl) are married. One of the old-timey Legion rules was that married couples couldn't remain members. They changed that one too. Seriously, besides the "no murder" rule, what's left? Might as well get rid of that one, too. I'm with the Lad with the Lightning.

Pages 16-17: See, "Lethal Force Enabled." That's what I'm talking about. The Green Lanterns got rid of their "no murder" policy a millenia ago, in a story written, not coincidentally, by Geoff Johns.

The Legion used Stargates way before MacGyver did.

Saturn Queen is all up in her Nurse Ratched mode here, but those black word balloons let you know that you're supposed to say the speech in a deep voice, like, you guessed it, J. E. J.

Pages 18-19: Universo, as Rond Vidar's dad, was Green Lantern once, maybe, or I could be totally misremembering that. But what I'm not misremembering is that the "snap" panel is an allusion to the Levitz/Lightle scene when Princess Projectra snapped the neck of Nemesis Kid after he killed her husband (Karate Kid). She did the deed off-panel, too.

Superboy-Prime is basically from our Earth, so he knows about Parker Brothers board games and their mascot. Although Rich Uncle Pennybags doesn't have a beard. Or mind control powers. As far as I know.

Page 20: "Human supremacist trash," is a reference to Earth-Man's xenophobic Justice League who convinced everyone on Earth that aliens were evil and that Superman was actually a human. Racists are bad guys, even in the future.

"Long Live OUR Legion," is a twist on the famous "Long Live the Legion," the rallying cry of the Legion of Super-Heroes and pretty much anyone who's ever sent me an e-mail about the Legion ever.

Page 21: Ah, the lightning rod from what seemed, at the time, to be a completely pointless Justice League/Justice Society crossover a few years back. You remember "The Lightning Saga," right? A speedster is stuck inside that rod! I wonder who it could be? If we take Brainiac's dialogue in the last panel, "..how SMART I really AM" and take out the letters h,o,w, s, I, r, e, y, a, m, and add a B and an "e" and an "n," I think you'll have a great clue! Geoff Johns is also smart, with his 31st century cryptography!

Page 22: Oa, former home of the Guardians, now kind of a downer. Note, this is Sodam Yat and his collection of jewelry. "Mogo" is the planet-sized Green Lantern, created by Alan Moore, and he was Yat's best bud. Before the dark times. Before the rebellion...

Page 23: Happy Harbor, former home of the Justice League of America, the Doom Patrol, and pretty much anyone who wanted to hang out. All you need is Aquaman's garage door opener to get in, apparently. Trophies on display include Despero's chess board, Abnegazar, Rath, and Gast class photos with accompanying wheel, jar, and bell. Prometheus's digital download helmet, and Dr. Destiny's Materioptikon. Also, some Amos Fortune playing cards, a giant Starro Heroclix, and, of course, that crystal ball that's not really a crystal ball. You may remember that from the first JLA/JSA team-up.

"Sub's satellite," refers to the Legion of Substitute Heroes, who have taken over the old JLA satellite after the dorkface racists got defeated, thanks to the Subs, in Johns's Action Comics issues earlier this year.

Page 24: The Time Institute! In the background we see Booster Gold's sis, Goldstar, Skeets, Rip Hunter, Time Master, and some other dude who I'm probably expected to remember. Time bubbles are good. For time travel.

"He's a Daxamite" is more Sodam Yat foreshadowing, for all you playing the at-home version.

Page 25: "red sky" is a reference to Crisis on Infinite Earths, or maybe Infinite Crisis, or Final Crisis, but definitely NOT Identity Crisis. "The Tornado Twins" are Barry Allen's kids who live in the future, and end up becoming Bart Allen's dad and aunt. Whatever adventure White Witch is talking about is the previous team-up between all three Legions that we still haven't seen. Stupid Time Trapper!

A "Legion Lost" joke. And a reminder from Johns that the Threeboot Legion is still being published. Buy your copy today!

Pages 26-27: Hoo-boy, at least the Threeboot Legion is on the left page, and the Reboot team on the right. Here goes, from left to right, top to bottom: Element Lad, Star Boy, Micro Lad (aka Colossal Boy), Saturn Girl, Shadow Lass, Ultra Boy, Chameleon, Triad, M'Onel, Ferro, Triplicate Girl's legs, Invisible Kid, Light Lass, Atom Girl (aka Shrinking Violet), Karate Kid, Brainiac 5.1, Andromeda, Star Boy, Phantom Lass, Ultra Boy, Triplicate Girl, Lightning Lad, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, Sensor, Timber Wolf, Violet, XS, Dreamer, Princess Projectra, Karate Kid, Chameleon, Timber Wolf, Kid Quantum II, Saturn Girl, Apparition, Triplicate Girl, Brainiac 5, Shadow Lass, Triad, Gates, Invisible Kid, Shikari, Element Lad, Gear, Wildfire, Kinetix.

Page 28: Threeboot Brainiac 5 is from the "Eat it, Grandpa" incarnation from the team. You thought "Long Live the Legion" was a catchy phrase? "Eat it, Grandpa" is the type of thing Matthew Elmslie writes essays about!

Page 29: Sun boy is very sad, as he drinks his SODA POP. Ever since he spent years hooked up to an evil machine that made him turn the sun red, in a story written by Geoff Johns, he just hasn't been the same womanizing douchebag he used to be.

Page 30: Superboy-Prime does have a history of scorching planets with giant space graffiti. His threats are not empty. I've read Countdown, so I know everything there is to know about pain and suffering.

Page 31: The power battery on Oa all black and spooky is a great image. Note to Geoff Johns: you might want to think about basing a huge event on that image next summer. Call it "Shadowy-est Evening," and you'll sell a million books. Mon-El and Shadow Lass make a nice couple, don't they? What a romantic getaway -- going to Oa with a corpse and all.

Page 32: Sodam Yat, I am not a fan of your haircut. But a man with the powers of Mon-El and a Green Lantern ring who hangs out on a planet with a bunch of dead guys is probably not really in the mood to listen to anything I have to say. When you read his final speech, remember that it rhymes with "This is CNN."

And that, my friends, is the greatest Legion story so far this week. Maybe ever.

Shooter's Legion Scripts

Now that the Threeboot Legion has been officially canceled, I finally realize how much the series meant to me.

Not much, it turns out. I don't feel all that upset about not being able to see issue #51, especially with a post-Legion of 3 Worlds incarnation coming sooner rather than later, I suspect.

I may change my mind when I read Jim Shooter's final handful of issues, but this version of the Legion has been all unfulfilled promise as far as I'm concerned. It was always an entertaining read, but it never developed into anything that leaped to the top of my pile, and, honestly, I thought the most recent issue was a step backwards and offered little hope that the book, under Shooter, would ever be anything more than standard superhuman soap opera.

But I did get a chance to thumb through a few of Shooter's Legion of Super-Heroes scripts at the Baltimore Comic-Con, and I found them to be fascinating. Not because of the quality of the writing, necessarily, but because of their density, and their length. I've seen a few scripts by some of today's top writers -- Morrison, Fraction, Aaron -- and all of them have relatively short panel descriptions and just maybe a few quick links to online reference material. Shooter's scripts are not quite Alan Moore thick, but they're close. Each one must have been about 50 or 60 pages, including extensive panel descriptions and lengthy supplemental material with images and descriptions of the look Shooter was going for.

I wonder if Shooter packed so much into these scripts because he really wanted to show Mike Marts, and DC, how much he cared. How much effort he'd put into the job if given the chance. Or I wonder if that's just how Shooter always writes scripts, and he's just using the same technique he did when he wrote Starbrand or Secret Wars.

I just found the difference interesting, between the length of his scripts and the current trend toward sleek, relatively terse writing for comics.

Does that make Shooter a maverick, or a throwback?

Teenagers from the Future Now Available!

Initially released in a small preview print run for the NYCC, Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes is now availableworldwide!

Edited by me, and featuring a foreword my Matt Fraction and an afterword by Barry Lyga, the collection of essays covers the following topics:

"The Perfect Storm: The Death and Resurrection of Lightning Lad," by Richard Bensam

"Liberating the Future: Women in the Early Legion," by John G. Hemry

"The Silver Age Legion: Adventure into the Classics," by Christopher Barbee

"The (Often Arbitrary) Rules of the Legion," by Chris Sims

"Shooter's Marvelesque," by Jeff Barbanell

"The Legion's Super-Science," by James Kakalios

"Bridging the Past and the Present with the Future: The Early Legion and the JLA," by Scipio Garling

"Decades Ahead of Us to Get it Right: Architecture and Utopia," by Sara K. Ellis

"Those Legionnaires Should Just Grow Up!" by Greg Gildersleeve

"Thomas, Altman, Levitz and the 30th Century," by Timothy Callahan

"The Amethyst Connection," by Lanny Rose

"Revisionism, Radical Experimentation, and Dystopia in Giffen's Legion," by Julian Darius

"Pulling Back the Curtain: Gender Identity and Homosexuality in the Legion," by Alan Williams

"Diversity and Evolution in the Reboot Legion," by Matthew Elmslie

"Fashion from the Future, or 'I Swear, Computo Forced Me to Wear This!" by Martin A. Perez

"Generational Theory and the Waid Threeboot," by Matthew Elmslie

"A Universe in Adolescence," by Paul Lytle

"The Racial Politics of the Legion of Super-Heroes," by Jae Bryson

Buy your copy NOW at Amazon.com -- check it out HERE.

Or, if you want to order it through your local comic shop, it should be listed in next month's Diamond Previews. More details to follow.

(But, seriously, you can just order it online right now, so why wait???)

Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #1 Annotations

Like my "Batman R.I.P." annotations, my approach here is to talk about what I notice about stuff and what I know. I don't know everything, but I know an awful lot about the Legion.

Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #1: The Annotations

Cover: I bought the Lightning Lad cover because I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy who wants to see Legion characters on the cover of a Legion comic. Supermanboy-Prime doesn't cut it. The Lightning Lad cover shows the Johns version of the post-Levitz era Lightning Lad, and inside his ball o' lightning, we see the Reboot Lighting Lad with the robot arm and the Threeboot Lightning Lad with the David Cassidy haircut.

Page 1: Enter the Time Trapper, the Legion's most powerful villain. He has been revealed to be a member of the Sun-Eater-unleashing Controllers and an aged Cosmic Boy who has come back to "fix" time. Presumably this version shows here is the "original" Time Trapper, though what that means isn't exactly clear when you're dealing with time travel and alternate realities. But on page one he refers to how he tried to "rip out their soul" which refers to TT's creation of a pocket universe which the Legion had erroneously travelled back to. It was basically the continuity patch to explain how Superboy still inspired the Legion if Superboy no longer existed in the "post-Crisis" DCU. The pocket universe was later removed from continuity as well, but apparently Time Trapper still remembers it happening. And since he used a Superboy in his past plans, he uses a Superboy here: Superboy-Prime (a.k.a. Supermanboy-Prime, since DC isn't sure what to call him from page to page).

Pages 2-3: The "Earthman" stuff refers to Geoff Johns's recent arc in Action Comics #858-863. In that arc, the multicultural Legion had been branded as traitors by a xenophobic Earth and its Justice League, led by a character called Earthman (kind of a Superman type, but racist). Those are Martha and Jonathan Kent analogues (Mara and Jun) from Smallville's future. Notice how the alien-fearing future-Kents see a spaceship crash landing and try to blast it, unlike their liberal 20th century precusors. Also, Legion stories always take place 1,000 years in the future. So, 3008. (The only exception being the "Five Years Later" stories of Giffen and the Bierbaums, which would be 1,005 years in the future.)

Pages 4-5: Supermanboy-Prime, formerly of Earth Prime, the only superhero on his planet. He was one of the central heroes of Crisis on Infinite Earths and then removed into a pocket continuity bubble until Infinite Crisis, where he started punching extra-dimensional walls and causing/curing continuity problems galore. Since then, he's been locked up in space and joined the Sinestro Corps. He's had a rough couple of years. He's also a fanboy analogue, complaining about continuity changes and superheroes not being like they used to be when he was a kid.

The Interlac on the Superman Museum reads "Superman Museum." I'm not going to translate all the Interlac in the comic, unless it's funny and/or important to the story. I'm sure someone else will translate every single word, though. Good for them. We need that kind of gung-ho attitude.

Pages 6-7: Just the big images and characters : Pictured on the top of page 6: (1) Young Clark Kent with Ma and Pa, (2) Clark Kent getting married to Lois Lane, (3) Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, (4) Lex Luthor. Top of page 7: (1) Power Girl, (2) Steel, (3) Lori Lemaris, (4) Original Justice League of America. Middle of page 6: (1) Superman of the Golden Age/Earth 2/or from Superman for All Seasons by Tim Sale, depending on what you're looking for, (2) Superman 1,000,000 , (3) Kingdom Come Superman, (4) Tangent Universe Superman (a.k.a. Earth 9 Superman). Middle of page 7: (1) Krypto, the Superdog, (2) Superwoman (Kristin Wells) of the 29th century, (3) Supergirl--current version, (4) Superboy, Conner Kent. Bottom of page 6: Jonathan Kent, Martha Kent, Pete Ross, Lana Lang (all looking like the ones from the Byrne revamp). Page 7, bottom: Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White. Also of note: the golden statue is the image from the cover of Action Comics #1 and the manger scene above the steps is from Superman: The Movie.

The Superman Museum of the future apparently draws from multiple realities and timelines.

Page 8: Jimmy Olsen's whole shtick in the Silver Age Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen comics was that he'd turn into a different weirdo monster or hero each issue. Hence, the 1,000 Olsens. As Elastic Lad, he was even a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Page 9: Top left: Nightwing and Flamebird, the superheroes of Kandor (actually Superman and Jimmy Olsen in disguise!) Interlac joke: the "Portrait Gallery" at the bottom of the page features artist credits. The one in the foreground is labelled "Perez," (although it's the famous Neal Adams image of Superman breaking the chains). Behind that, we see artist credits for (Joe) Shuster, (Wayne) Boring, (Curt) Swan, (Jose Luis) Garcia-Lopez, something I can't make out, and what looks like (Rob) Liefeld (?!?--But check out that exaggerated hand and pointy feet!) [UPDATED: It's "Hirschfeld"!]

Page 10: Do you want me to name all the Legionnaires? I could, but that seems silly. [Okay, people want to know, I guess. Starting from the back and going from right to left: Colossal Boy, Polar Boy, Night Girl, Timber Wolf, Shadow Lass, Wildfire, Ultra Boy, Lightning Lass, Blok, Invisible Kid II, Lightning Lad, Chameleon Girl, Sun Boy, Phantom Girl, Dawnstar, Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl, Superman, Shrinking Violet, Sun Boy.] The group in panel 3 is the group seen in Johns's Action Comics arc--a kind of post-Levitz team that ignores anything after "Magic Wars" and inserts years of undisclosed continuity in its place--although Johns hinted at a lot of the bad stuff in his recent arc. Note that Colossal Boy's wife is now part of the team, as Chameleon Girl. The final panel shows the team from my favorite era--the Levitz Baxter time period, but Tyroc and Sensor Girl were never on the team at the same time. Still, who doesn't love Tyroc? [Well, I guess I'll name all of these Legionnaires too. From left to right, front to back: Bouncing Boy, Dream Girl, Matter-Eater Lad, Tellus, Duo Damsel, Karate Kid, Tyroc, Sensor Girl, Chameleon Boy, Duo Damsel, Mon-El, White Witch, Star Boy, Element Lad.]

It's important to note that throughout this issue, and Johns's other use of the Legion elsewhere, he doesn't seem particularly concerned about using a team from a specific time period, so the team compositions are a bit out of whack and members who had left or died are sometimes shown with characters who hadn't yet joined. But since the Time Trapper, Supermanboy-Prime's continuity punching, reboots, Crises, and multiple Earths are all in play, it doesn't really matter, does it? Everything is in flux, especially in the future.

Page 11: Most of the villains are identified here. Not named in the bottom right panel: Cyborg-Superman (also of the Sinestro Corps), Metallo, Toyman.

Page 12: A biased retelling of Supermanboy-Prime's life thus far, but it's not too far from the truth. Sodam Yat is the new Ion, in case you were wondering. Neutron, mentioned in the bottom panel, is a particulary lame Superman villain, and saying he made a "bigger impact" is a bomb joke but also a slap in the face to S-Prime.

Page 13: Bottom left: Composite-Superman. Almost-bottom-right: Geoff Johns's version of the Teen Titans from his relaunch a few years back.

Page 14: S-Prime did kill Conner Kent, a.k.a. Superboy. Although the Siegel lawsuit probably didn't help.

Page 15: The United Planets is a bunch of planets, united (but very geocentric, to be honest).

Page 16: In the Johns/Perez version of the 31st century, the United Planets meets just like the Federation in Star Wars: Episode II. Remember when Jar Jar became a Senator? Ha! That was hilarious and touching. Here, everyone hates the Legion because the Justice League of future xenophobes messed them up recently (as seen in Johns's Action Comics arc). The three Legionnaires at the bottom are, of course, the founders of the team, and you can tell they aren't the spry young teenagers who formed the team in 2958. They look pretty good for being in their mid-sixties, though.

Page 17: Blah, blah, blah summary of the aftermath of the Action Comics storyline. Brainiac 5 helped the Legion, so he's out at Colu. Everyone else is grumpy. Nobody takes the Legion seriously. Johns makes a meta-commentary on why they still have "boy" and "girl" names even though they are grown men and women. Seriously, why doesn't the Legion get any respect?!? Johns is asking that question in the comic and inviting the outside world to respond.

Page 18: Mon-El always ends up in the Phantom Zone. It's the only place he's safe from the lead poisoning that will kill him ever so quickly. Shadow Lass and Mon-El were a couple for years, at least in the original continuity (whatever that means).

Page 19: You can tell things have gotten bleak in the future, because the straight-laced Brainiac 5 stopped grooming.

Page 20: When Brainiac 5 says that he "alone" created the anti-lead serum, he's paraphrasing Dr. Frankenstein from the 1931 James Whale classic film. Goes along with his mad scientist haircut and everything.

Page 21: Sun Boy, the Johnny Storm of the Legion--in powers and lady-killing skills--was used in the Johns Action Comics arc to turn Earth's sun into a red sun, thus negating Superman's powers. He's literally burnt out from that. Polar Boy, the first Legion of Substitute Heroes member to get promoted to the big show, lost an arm in that arc as well. Fire and Ice, cynical and optimistic: contrasts.

Page 22: More from the United Planets of Grumpy Xenophobia. Karate Kid II (Myg) has grown facial hair AND an attitude since we last saw him. He started out bad, and even the Legion Academy couldn't whip him into shape, apparently.

Page 23: R. J. Brande, super-gazillionaire and benefactor of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Before Brainiac 5 invented the flight rings, the Legionnaires used to fly around with flight belts. Flight belts! How 2950s! Brande is actually the father of the Legion's Chameleon Boy, and a Durlan shapeshifter himself, although that is not known to the world at large. Such was revealed in Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes, one of the first comic book mini-series ever (published in 1981).

Page 24: Takron-Galtos, the prison planet. I love to see it pop up in Legion stories, but every time it does, some prisoners escape and cause trouble. This is the third Takron-Galtos in this continuity, I think, but maybe they should come up with some other rehabilitation program. I'm telling you. A prison planet SOUNDS like a good idea, but it rarely ends well.

Page 25: Do you want me to name all of the Legion of Super-Villains too? Really? [Okay, fine. From left to right, back to front: Zymyr, Mist Master, Silver Slasher, Magno Lad, Ol-Vir, Hunter II, Lazon, Neutrax, Spider Girl, Esper Lass, Sun Emperor, Tyr, Micro Lad, Ron-Karr, Titania, Radiation Roy, Tarik the Mute, Chameleon Chief, Cosmic King, Lightning Lord, Saturn Queen, Nemesis Kid, Terrus.] Anyway, this collection is from the first arc in the Levitz Baxter run, as recently reprinted in the An Eye for an Eye trade paperback. It's really good, except Giffen quit halfway through and Steve Lightle had to finish it up. Both are fantastic artists, but with COMPLETELY different styles. LSV, though. Bad news all around.

Page 26: Man, this is a long comic. With so many panels! We're getting our money's worth here, aren't we?

The Legion of Super-Villains was founded by Lightning Lord, Cosmic King, and Saturn Queen. They're adults with the same powers as the original Legion founders. Because adults are evil and always try to mess up our clubhouse with their smoking and cussing. [UPDATED: The adult Legion of Super-Villains was from the future, and originally founded by Tarik the Mute. Also, Cosmic King looks like Cosmic Boy, but he actually has powers similar to Element Lad.]

Page 27: Brande's speech implies that the Legion taught Superboy how to become Superman. That's not really what happened, but it's a pretty cool interpretation of the events. Maybe it happened between panels. Let's all say that it happened. Feel better now? I do. I like it.

Page 28: Leland McCauley was not only Brande's rival, but in the post-"Zero Hour" reboot he was actually revealed to be Ra's al Ghul, still alive in the 30th century! Wheeee. He's not Ra's al Ghul in this version, though. He's just a bitter rich dude.

Page 29: "Long Live the Legion" is the rallying cry of the team. Brande almost gets it out, mentally before he gets all Durlan on everyone. By the way: TOLD YOU he was a Durlan! Totally called it. It gives McCauley a chance for more xenophobia and provides a touching moment. Geoff Johns can write comics!

Page 30: McCauley was apparently in cahoots with the Time Trapper. Folks, that's never a good idea. It's about as dumb as putting every single powerful criminal together on one giant space station.

Page 31: My guess is that Chameleon Boy, Dream Girl, and Element Lad are up to something. Probably something involving the Legion Espionage Squad. Because Johns is definitely not going to leave the Espionage Squad out of the action. Look for them to pop up with some vital information/secret weapon/awesomeness around issue #4.

Page 32: Thats the silhouette of the Legion clubhouse on the right side of the skyline. The old upside down spaceship. Of course, Secret Origins revealed that the original clubhouse was Fortress Lad, who had transformed into a clubhouse and then everyone, including him, totally forgot about it because of the after-effects of an angry Mnemonic Kid. (I am not making this, or anything else, up.)

Page 33: Superman arrives in 3009. A year after Supermanboy-Prime, thus leaving time for S-Prime to...

Page 34: Free all the prisoners from Takron-Galtos! I knew that prison planet was a bad idea. It's like rescuing evil fish from a space barrel. Although the 3008/3009 thing doesn't exactly make sense, since Cosmic Boy said the Smallville stuff and the freeing of the prisoners just happened in the past few hours. Hmmm... a time inconsistency. Who's the villain behind this whole thing again? [EDITED: Apparently, he stopped just before 3009. So, yeah, 3008 it is.]

"L.O.S.V"? L.S.V. sounds better, doesn't it? Maybe it's just to make it clear to all the new readers. But that's what I'm here for. L.O.S.V. is the Legion of Super Villains, silly.

Page 35: The post-"Zero Hour" Reboot Legion. A.k.a. the "Archie Legion" because everyone looked straight outta Riverdale. (I don't agree with that label, by the way.) This image on the top shows that Johns is not cherry-picking teams from a certain time, he's cherry-picking entire rosters that never existed. Some of these characters, like Kid Quantum died well before others, like Gates, joined. Do you want me to name all of these characters too? Seriously, if anyone wants such a thing, e-mail me, because I'm not really planning on wasting your time with a long list otherwise. [Okay, people want to know. From left to right, front to back: Apparition, Chuck Taine, Inferno, Kid Quantum, Thunder, Leviathan, Magno, Wildfire, Shikari, Monstress, Invisible Kid, Gear, Timber Wolf, Star Boy, Element Lad, Triad, Kid Quantum II, Ferro, M'Onel, Umbra, Spark, Chameleon, Dreamer, Andromeda, Live Wire, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Ultra Boy, Karate Kid, Shrinking Violet, Brainiac 5.1, Sensor, Gates, XS.]

"I've met them both. We all did a long time ago." I'm not sure what the second part means. Who's the "all." If it's just him and the other 20th/21st century heroes, then, yes, they met around the time of Final Night and recently in The Brave and the Bold. If he's putting Mon-El into the mix, I don't know what he's talking about.

Page 36: I literally have used my whole laptop battery on these annotations, as feeble as they are. I have six minutes to wrap it up.

This Legion is the Waid/Kitson Threeboot era, with the Shooter/Manapul costumes (mostly). Once again, it's not a roster that ever existed in the series, since Dream Boy (second from top left) and Dream Girl (third from top right) were never on the team at the same time. Yet it doesn't have any members from the "future" of the team. I guess that would make it too complicated. [From left to right, back to front: Mon-El, Dream Boy, Timber Wolf, Colossal Boy, Dream Girl, Supergirl, Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass, Triplicate Girl, Princess Projectra, Triplical Girl, Ultra Boy, Triplicate Girl, Sun Boy, Element Lad, Light Lass, Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Star Boy, Karate Kid, Invisible Kid, Atom Girl, Chameleon.]

Do you think this series will end with the redemption of Supermanboy-Prime? Will he sacrifice himself to save the Legion and bring harmony to the United Planets?

Long Live the Legion(s)!

(P.S. I'm not the one reviewing this issue for CBR, but if I did, I would have given it four and a half stars.)

[Michael Grabois has annotations at The Legion Omnicom as well.]

When Words Collide: Don't Fear the Legion

Just in time for Geoff Johns and George Perez's Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #1, I've written a "Don't Fear the Legion" reading list for the newest installment of CBR's "When Words Collide." It's not just a glorified promo for my upcoming Teenagers from the Future book (although if you want to go out and buy that book when it premieres later this month, you totally should); it's a guide to ten essential Legion stories that you'll probably want to read now that Johns and Perez have primed you for some 30th/31st century superhero action.

So check out "Don't Fear the Legion," and stop back here tomorrow for my annotations on Legion of Three Worlds. Who doesn't love annotations?!? (And, man, that issue is going to require a LOT of notes.)

Special thanks to CAMERON MORGAN for designing the new logo for my column, as seen above!

Shooter's Legion vs. Johns's Legion: A Few Thoughts

After reading my reviews for the newest issues of Action Comics and Legion of Super-Heroes over at CBR, Legion book contributor and Estoreal blogger Richard Bensam made the following comment:

I just wonder what you got from that Action Comics storyline that I didn't. For me, Shooter has me reading and enjoying a Legion book for the first time in nearly twenty years; meanwhile, what Johns was doing just felt hollow. It was "let's hit this plot point...and here's a moment that's meant to be evocative...and here on the diagram we insert a scene that touches on the stated thematic goal...and here, one more moment where we stop and commemorate the meaningfulness of it all." I get the impression your response was the reverse of this, and it vexes me.

I wouldn't say my response is the "reverse" of Bensam's, but I did give Action Comics a favorable review and Legion a relatively negative review (with the qualifier that I think the Shooter-penned series has great potential). So let me explain a bit more about how I feel about Johns's recent version of the Legion and Shooter's interpretation.

First of all, my CBR review wasn't evaluating Action Comics as a Legion book, but as a Superman book. So in many ways, Bensam's criticism of Johns's by-the-numbers Legion moments misses the point a bit. The Legion moments were clearly designed to illuminate Superman, to provide a dramatic context in which aspects of Superman's character can be emphasized, not to add depth to fifty years of Legion characterization. As a Legion story, Johns's tale was nothing extraordinary, but it did a more than admirable job of re-engaging the Legion with the Superman mythos. The Legion has been cast aside for too long, in my mind, and even the Abnett and Lanning attempts to connect the characters with Superboy felt like a second-rate patch job. So there's that.

Also, I have absolutely no problem with conventional storytelling as long as its done well, and Johns is one of the best at well-structured superhero narratives. You may be able to see all the beats in advance, but damn it if he doesn't hit them emphatically. There's a reason we, as a species, keep telling the same basic stories again and again. We like to see slight variations, but we like the what we like. Over and over. If you listen to a song you like, even a new version of it, you don't judge it based on what's going to surprise you, but on how well the artist performs the required moments. That's what John does, and he does it well.

I'm still not sure what to think about Shooter's Legion, though. He didn't want to reboot the series, even though he claims DiDio offered him the chance to do so, yet he isn't keeping the tone or characterizations of the Waid Threeboot, so he has basically just adopted the costumes (which he will also change in the near future, as seen on the first cover of his run--a strange image, to be sure, since we're several issues in and those costumes still haven't appeared), and the main cast of characters. But since the characters don't act like they have in the recent past, it's basically a relaunch anyway. Which is fine, I guess, since he did instill some much-needed energy into the series. Even though I liked Waid and Bedard's Legion when I reread the entire series last year, it was a bit too self-serious for me. It felt like it was trying to say something important and show the weight of the universe on the shoulders of these young men and women in the Legion, but it didn't have much life to it. Shooter has brought in some life, which is why I believe the series has potential under him.

But I do actively dislike plenty of his dialogue, much of which relies on "futuristic" slang that sounds like a 65-year-old trying to be hip. And his attempts to add conflict within the Legion is reminiscent of every team comic book since Claremont's X-Men. Or, perhaps I should say every team comic since Shooter's original Legion, which was inspired by Marvel's troubled heroes. Either way, there's certainly nothing new here, and Shooter isn't as good at hitting the marks as Johns is, but I think he might surprise me before his run on the series is over. I'm optimistic about the new direction, but I don't think the comic is all that great yet. Perhaps Shooter still needs a few more issues to position the team where he wants it. I don't know.

Of course, with the Johns/Perez "Legion of Three Worlds" this summer, perhaps Shooter won't get a chance to take the Legion where he wants them to go. I'd be shocked if a reboot or deboot (or whatever) didn't come out of this Final Crisis/"Legion of Three World" stuff. And although I'd happily keep buying Jim Shooter Legion comics, I feel that editorial forces beyond all of our control may have something different in mind for the future of the Legion.

I am really glad that someone had the foresight to pull together a useful analytical guide to the various incarnations of the Legion of Super-Heroes just in time for this huge summer event, though. That guy must know what he's doing, at least.

What does everyone else think about all of this stuff?

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.

Sneak Peek: Teenagers from the Future--The Cover

Are you attending the 2008 New York Comic-Con? Then make sure you stop by the Sequart booth and pick up your copy of Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes. This is a special sneak peek of the final cover design. We're all extremely happy with how the entire book turned out, and we love the faux-beat-up cover because, hell, it just looks cool. Nothing screams "future" like coffee stains and torn edges.

More details about the book will follow, but for now, start thinking about how you'll afford that trip to New York. You know you want to own this before its available in stores (which won't be until late May at the earliest).

A Little More Levitz

I finally finished my corrections the Teenagers from the Future book at 5:30 this morning. If all goes according to plan, we'll have some nice thick copies of the book--a collection of essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes--at the New York Comic-Con. The thing's going to be over 400 pages, by the looks of it. Since I'm completely wiped out, I thought I'd toss out another very brief excerpt of my Paul Levitz interview. This part regards the infamous Legion of Super-Heroes tabloid edition that drives collectors crazy (how the hell do you store something that size?), and my line of questioning didn't really go anywhere, but I did gently tease Paul about Legion reboots:



Tim Callahan: My final question is about the tabloid story [c-55]. The 64 pages with no ads--that was probably your first time working on that scale of a canvas. How did you approach that story differently than your 22 pagers?

Paul Levitz: Well, there were a couple of goals, I guess. One was that I got to work with [Mike] Grell, and Mike had been the scheduled artist when I took over the book and had been, at the time, very much a fan favorite, so it was, “how do I provide the right opportunity for Mike to do his stuff?” Second was, if this was going to be the biggest, most expensive Legion comic ever made, “what do we do that’s important enough?” And it certainly seemed that marrying Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl would qualify on that basis. All of that very influenced, I think, by the 60’s Marvel Annuals. They had some--Stan in particular had just--beautiful moments in a couple of the event issues that he did there. And trying to carry that logic forward, and then adding to it by the thinking that it’s a physically giant comic book, it should have some really big, rich pictures.

TC: And then you you decided to bring the Time Trapper in because he’s someone who’s such a huge villain and...

PL: I guess. (laughs)

TC: Someone who’s a giant threat to match the giant scale of the comic.

PL: I guess. Sure. I’m not sure I remember the story at all. It’s been quite a few years since I last reread it.

TC: Well, arguably, it could be considered the first Legion reboot, since the Time Trapper reset everything and the future was totally changed when Superboy showed up, and then changed it back to the way it was.

PL: Yeah, well, I don’t know. I don’t think we were rebooting in those days.

TC: You booted back. You debooted.

Waist Deep in Legion Edits

I'd love to do a longer post today, since I'm getting a bunch of hits lately (welcome, new readers!), but I'm up to my waist in the Legion book I'm editing, trying to get a version with images ready to send on to the next stage and (cross your fingers) publication in time for the New York Comic-Con.

So, since I don't have time to write anything substantial today, I'll give you something cool, at least. Here's bit of the Paul Levitz interview I conducted last year as research for my essay on Levitz's Legion run, presented here for the first time. (Thanks, Paul!)

Enjoy!

Tim Callahan: When you were doing your first Legion run, were you considering things like long and short-term pacing, or were you mostly working one issue at a time with sort of a vague perspective about the future?

Paul Levitz: I don’t remember enormously clearly...I certainly had a perspective of where I was going and some of the stories I wanted to do, and I usually had some idea a couple of issues out of where I was going on a subplot, but it was nowhere near as richly textured as the stuff I was doing when I came back. The JSA stuff I was doing at the same period as The Legion was probably much more carefully structured in terms of issue-to-issue character development.

TC: Just going back to the concept of threat level for a second, did you find it a problem dealing with threat level in The Legion? Because you’re dealing with so many intergalactic and global threats, it’s hard to provide much variety?

PL: No, because you’ve got a bunch of characters who, taken individually or even taken in a small group, don’t have the same kind of power. It’s one thing if you’re going to send Superboy, Ultra Boy, and Mon-El after something. It’s another thing if you’re going to send Dawnstar and Shrinking Violet. The other thing that I think it relevant in threat level is the threat level doesn’t so much come from the power of the villain as what is being threatened. And The Legion gave you excellent opportunities to do situations where individuals, personal lives, or families were what were being threatened.

TC: That makes sense. Now when you were plotting out your stories, did you try to give each Legionnaire a relatively equal amount of “screen time”? Did you say, “Cosmic Boy hasn’t appeared, so I’d better do somthing with him”? How did that work?

PL: I tried to--not so much to have everybody get equal time, but for everybody to have reasonable time. There were certainly occasions where I would go and say, “I haven’t done anything with this guy in a while, what can I do to screw up his life?”

TC: Right (laughs). And then you’d just create some sort of conflict.

PL: Uh-huh.

TC: When you approached a situation like that, would you start putting in hints, so it would sort of be the “c” or “d” storyline and have it slowly emerge?

PL: Sure. Once you make the decision, “I’m going to make Tim’s life miserable,” then you work back from that and say, “what am I going to do with Tim? Which of the plagues is he going to get? Ah, frogs! Okay. So we’re gonna start with an egg, then we’re gonna go tadpole, then we’re gonna have a frog, then we’re gonna have a whole [expletive deleted] lot of frogs.”

(laughs)

PL: It wouldn’t always mature as a plotline the way it started, because as you play with it you change it around, but you do your best to evolve it that way.

Legion of Super-Heroes #37 Review

This is a pretty big deal for Legion readers.

Jim Shooter has returned to The Legion of Super-Heroes with issue #37, and it signals a new (old?) direction for a series which has had as many reboots and revisions as its had members. The cover boldly indicates where Shooter is planning to take this comic, especially if you compare it to any random cover on the Waid/Kitson run which concluded a few months ago. The costume redesigns have been discussed across the internet since the first Francis Manapul images appeared, but I hadn't seen that new logo until I walked into the comic shop today. The new logo abandons the upright, formal typeface of earlier Threeboot issues in favor of a colorful and dynamic font which recalls the original, post-Superboy comic and the Giffen/Bierbaum run from two decades ago. Todd Klein blogged about Legion logos this summer, and if you take a look at the top cover and bottom cover from that Klein blog page, you'll see what I mean about this new logo being a combination of two classic looks. Obviously, someone at DC wants to signal that this new Shooter run will return the Legion to the good old days.

But is issue #37 any good? Yes, with a few exceptions.

What works? One of the reasons Paul Levitz was such a great Legion writer was that he could juggle a large cast and a variety of locations in each issue. He could convincingly shift from one group or Legionnaires to another, from one planet to the next, in a span of a few pages, and keep everything moving forward toward a climax. Jim Shooter recaptures that kind of Legion rhythm almost immediately in this issue, by jumping from a partially-botched Karate Kid operation at the Disk Region to an unstable Lightning Lad plotline at Headquarters to a group of Legion emissaries sent to Triton (Neptune's moon) on a mission of warning. The three plot threads weave together nicely, and Shooter fades the Disk Region mission out as the Triton mission ascends in importance. Meanwhile. Lightning Lad is overwhelmed by the practical requirements of Legion leadership back the the HQ.

Even though Shooter throws in some strange structural quirks that aren't seen much anymore, like scene transitions that occur in the midst of a page instead of at the end of one, he does a nice job keeping the plot clear and moving forward with appropriate swiftness.

Shooter also handles the characterizations quite well, even if they don't exactly match what Waid and Bedard had established. Karate Kid, in particular, shows more anger (and overall emotion) in this issue than the previous 36 issues combined, and Phantom Girl is established as a sexy flirt all of a sudden, but these changes work well to define these characters for a potential new audience, and they don't necessarily contradict anything that came before. Waid and Bedard hadn't done a whole heck of a lot with some of these characters, so Shooter has plenty of blank slates to work with.

Francis Manapul, as penciler, is also a great asset to the book. He brings a style that's reminiscent of mid-career Travis Charest, but with a stronger sense of fluidity. His characters are more animated than Charest's ever were, but he has a similar sense of light and shadow.

What doesn't work? Manipul's pencils are not ideally served by the inker, Livesay. Livesay may be a fine inker, but here, his penwork fails to give substance and weight to Manipul's lines. Some of the ink lines seemed either not to have reproduced well, or are too lightly feathered (or both), but Manipul would benefit more from an inker who could add lineweight, not make everything seem even less substantial.

Shooter also makes a few missteps, mostly with the dialogue. The characters speech seems a bit clunky, although that might be Shooter's attempt to sci-fi it up. Sci-fi stuff has clunky dialogue, doesn't it? Well, so does this. He's also got some cringe-worthy bits like the Triton native's favorite greeting: "Yo-d'lay!" (which is repeated so many times that you can only suspect Shooter either thought it was really funny, or that he's thinking, "no, they SERIOUSLY say that"). Also, here's Shooter's take on future snowboarding slang: "And the body on those perky yumdrops...! Makes my metab rate spike!" "Perky Yumdrops?" I think it's the word "perky" in that sentence that's the creepy part. But those characters are supposed to be creepy badguys, so it's not such a bad thing.

Overall? The cover bodes well. The characters may not actually don the costumes on the cover just yet. I assume that will come in a few issues, but this issue sets this book up as a more dynamic, active incarnation of the Legion. It's not a reboot by any means, but it's a new beginning and now that I've read the first issue, I'm looking forward to this comic more than ever.

Edited to Add: This is my 200th post on this blog! I didn't realize that until I went to compose the next one. Anyway, thanks for reading, and check back daily!

Quick Comic Reviews: Week of 11/28/07

I haven't done a quick review post in quite a while, and I've been reading a ton of stuff each week (to balance out my lack of moviegoing, apparently), so I'm overdue. Here goes, in no particular order...

Ultimate Spider-Man #116: I'm getting used to Immonen's new Shadowcat costume, and, honestly, Immonen is about 10 steps up from Bagley in the artistic-quality department. Bendis does his thing, and it's good. This comic is the best Spider-Man title out there, and I know that's not saying much right now, but it's pretty much everything Spider-Man should be.

Batman and the Outsiders #2: I can count on zero hands how many Chuck Dixon comics I've actually enjoyed (although, he was involved in the Batgirl: Year One series, wasn't he? That was good stuff), and I'm not all that impressed with this title, either. Conceptually, I like Batman leading this kind of dirty-jobs type of team, but this issue felt like a way for Dixon to clear the deck and abandon the Five of a Kind team that was handed to him. That's not necessarily his fault, but it doesn't make for good reading.

All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #8: I still don't know what the point of all of this is, but I have to admit that I put this issue on the very top of the pile when I came home from the comics shop. I can't wait to see what Miller and Lee try to pull off each month or three. I like Miller's take on the Joker, even if it just sort of appears out of nowhere eight issues into this series. And I like the Green Lantern appearance, even as a fan of the character--he is kind of a goof. How does any of this add up to an actual story? 8 issues in, it doesn't. But it's certainly not dull.

Black Panther #32: Remember when Hudlin abandoned his own revamp of continuity and reconnected to the Marvel Universe through a global road trip of wife-seekery? Then the married couple traveled around diplomatically during Civil War? Then Black Panther and Storm joined the Fantastic Four and hopped around the universe with them? Doesn't the Black Panther ever stay in one place for more than a month? Apparently not, as he jumps to some Skrull-mockery of an Al Capone world from some previous FF story that I probably read years ago. The best thing about this book is Francis Portella's art. Next issue: Gladiatorial Combat! We've seen it before, frankly.

Casanova #11: There are good monthly comics, like Ultimate Spider-Man, and then there are comics like Casanova. Fraction and Moon's work will stand, decades from now, as an example of how to do great comics. Why? Each issue moves forward, swiftly. Each issue is full of insanity, allusions, and humor (like All-Star Batman and Robin) but with a coherent plot structure both within each issue and within the overall story arc (unlike All-Star Batman and Robin). Casanova is even better than you think it is.

Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood #2: I'm usually more interested in the contents of a book than the way it's marketed, but doesn't the name The Question have any kind of cache? It does in my house. Yet, no mention of the character anywhere in the title or caption. And the cover art is so stylized, a reader could be forgiven for interpreting the blank face on the cover as a visual metaphor. Seems a bit unnecessarily abstruse for a straightforward superhero detective story. The contents do little to rise above what might be expected.

Lord Havok and the Extremists #2: This, on the other hand, is better than you might expect. I expected absolutely nothing from this series, and it's decent. It's fun to see the Marvel analogues twisted into a mockery of a post-Civil War malaise, and this particular issue delves into the fractured psyche of the Doc Ock analogue, Gorgon, in a story that unfortunately ends with bathos. The ending is ridiculous, both in pacing and content (as Gorgon learns the "truth" about his life in a series of expository panels), but I was enjoying the comic quite a bit until those final pages. I do like the final image of the comic, with Lord Hovok (aka Dr. Doom) giving the symbolic metal finger to Monarch.

Teen Titans #53: McKeever has quickly righted this particular ship. I love the direction of this arc, and if the trend toward maximalism has become a bit played out (Justice League UNLIMITED, Injustice SOCIETY, and here: Titan ARMY), at least it's amazingly, freakin' awesome. I'll take awesome over dullness any day, and that's what McKeever brings. Eddy Barrows art looks sharper here than it did on Countdown to Adventure, and any comic which has Blue Beetle facing down an overwhelming horde of evil Starro-infected Titans is worth the cover charge.

Superman/Batman #43: Mike McKone has become one of the best superhero artists of the decade, and this issue showcases his work nicely. Unfortunately, the story is nothing special, although it's a step above the previous arc, which felt like a quickly burned off inventory story (DC clearly doesn't want Fourth World stuff sitting around once the Death of the New Gods ends--hence we get overloaded with stories about the New Gods like we saw in this series and Superman Confidential). A pretty comic, though.

Green Lantern Corps #18: This whole Sinestro Corps thing has gone on too long, honestly. And I don't like how DC justifies it by saying things (I'm paraphrasing), like "we didn't expect it to be such a hit, so we allowed the creators more time to tell the story," instead of honestly saying, "we're milking it." The expansion of the story has killed its momentum, and since we know how it ends, basically, because of Kyle Rayner and Superman-Prime's appearances in Countdown it all seems kind of silly at this point. Yet, and issue where an Ion-powered Daxamite throws down with a Kryptonian can't be all bad. Too bad the story has been deflated by external DC events.

Superman Annual #13: I really could not care less about this "Camelot Falls" arc. What a waste of talent.

Batman #671: This was my least-favorite Morrison issue of Batman thus far. It seems like exactly what it is, a Bat-family crossover arc that hits all of its marks, but has none of the inspiration of Morrison's usual work. It's a solid issue, but nothing more.

Madman Atomic Comics #5: Mike Allred is one of my top five favorite comic book artists ever. Okay, maybe not top five, but he's definitely in the top seven. And, as I blogged about last summer, his metaphysical, quasi-religious exploration continues in the Madman universe. This issue features the Atomics, zombie-beatniks-turned-fashionable-superheroes, and it looks amazing. The pacing has picked up now that Frank Einstein has returned from his metafictional space jaunt, and I have nothing bad to say about this comic. It is what it is, and what it is is very, very good. (That was not the best sentence I've ever constructed, I know.)

Blue Beetle #21: This has been an excellent monthly series for DC. Like Ultimate Spider-Man, it mixes humor with adolescent drama and a young man trying to figure out how to be a hero. Both comics have interesting supporting casts, tight dialogue, and dynamic artwork. Unlike Ultimate Spider-Man, however, this series doesn't rely on decades of past stories for its foundation. Blue Beetle exists in relation to its past incarnations, but it doesn't retread old ground--it moves the Beetle legacy forward, and it does so with style. This issue, a fill-in, maintains the quality of the series admirably, as Jaime Reyes confronts issues of justice and vengeance in the form of the Spectre. It's the type of comic I can read aloud to my son (and I do), and enjoy fully as an adult as well. Blue Beetle won't break any artistic ground, but it is an excellent superhero comic.

Daredevil #102: Brubaker is hitting his stride on this title now, and with the appearances of the Enforcers, the Wrecker, and Razor Fist, I really couldn't be happier with this issue. Daredevil has become one of Marvel's most tortured heroes, and as much as I like to see him struggle in his own web of lies and hubris, I like to see him kicking supervillains in the face. Brubaker balances both nicely.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #36: Tony Bedard was clearly brought in to set the table for Jim Shooter. Bring back the superheroics: Check. Get rid of Supergirl: Check. Keep it dramatic but less political: Check. Introduce Wildfire: Check (although Shooter apparently dislikes the character--so was that something Bedard did just to screw with him?). Anyway, I think this Legion Threeboot has been a reasonably interesting take on the team--Waid and Kitson's run read much better as a single story, and Bedard and Calero have illuminated new corners in the Threeboot universe. I would have been perfectly happy to see where Bedard and Calero would have taken this series over the next years, but after seeing Manipul's designs and covers for Shooter's upcoming run, I'm actually excited to see what will happen next. Shooter's Legion might be a failure--last time he came back to write the series, he was the epitome of blandness--but maybe he's hungry, maybe he's going to shock us all. I'm looking forward to issue #37, I don't know about you.

Whatever Happened to that Legion Project?

Way back in March, I mentioned a scholarly book on The Legion of Super-Heroes that I was trying to put together. In that earlier post, I put out a call for submissions, and I don't think I've mentioned the project on this blog since. Did people fail to send submissions? Did I give up on it? Did the project die?

Nope!

It's very much alive. In fact, the almost-completed first draft (still waiting for one or two more essays) is nearly 400 manuscript pages of Legion coolness. The finished book won't be available until 2008 (just in time for the 50th Anniversary, as planned), but just to tease you, here's a list of a few of the chapters that you'll be able to read in what is tentatively called Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes:

• James Kakalios on "The Legion's Super-Science"

• Richard Bensam's "The Perfect Storm: The Death and Ressurection of Lightning Lad"

• Jeff Barbanell on "Shooter's Marvelesque"

• Scipio Garling on "How the Legion Transitioned Us from the JSA to the JLA"

• Sara Ellis on "Architecture and Utopia"

• Chris Sims on "The (Often Arbitrary) Rules of the Legion"

• Alan Williams on "Gender Identity and Homosexuality in the TMK Legion"

And dozens more!

The book is going to be fun, funny, informative, scholarly, and exciting. It will cover the major eras of Legion history, looking at the way the book reflected the culture of the time and predicted social changes of the future. It will explore historical trends, artistic trends, and storytelling trends in relation to the Legion's various creative teams. It will make you weep with joy.

I'm quite proud of how this book looks so far, and it's not even finished yet. When you plan out your budget for next Spring, set aside a few extra bucks for Teenagers from the Future. Trust me, you'll like it a lot.