Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes (Superman Limited Gns (DC Comics R)) [Hardcover]

When I was a kid growing up, the Legion of Super-Heroes was one of my favorite comics ideas. They debuted in issues of SUPERBOY as a group of super teens from the 30th century. At first there was only Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl. But dozens of others joined over the years.

I wasn't the only comics fan taken with the idea of a club of teen superheroes. The demand for more adventures with the Legion flooded the offices of DC Comics. Pretty soon, when Superboy was published in Adventure Comics, the Legion of Super-Heroes ran as a back-up feature that eventually pushed the Boy of Steel out of his own comic.

The Legion flight rings were totally cool and gave everyone the power of flight. That way each Legionnaire could have his or her own unique power in addition to the ability to fly. Some of the powers were inevitable: Invisible Kid (yeah, you know this one), Ultra Boy (kind of like Superboy only limited to using one power at a time), Chameleon Boy (shape-shifter), Colossal Boy (yep, he grows), Shrinking Violet (yep, she shrinks), and others. Karate Kid came about because Kato was on the Green Hornet and martial arts claimed a lot of attention.

Of course, there was always Matter-Eater Lad, who had the super ability to eat anything. Now there's a power to write home about!

Anyway, comics fans were consumed with interest in this teen organization. However, as comics turned bleaker, so too did the Legion. We got some really dark stories there for a while. Where the Legion flourished while a colorful, space-crossing, force for good, they tended to languish as teens of retribution and confusion.

The Legion just wasn't meant for all that negativity. In my opinion. The Legion is supposed to be about being heroic, larger than life (not just Colossal Boy), and fighting the good fight. Being dark really limited their strengths. Kind of like when the Metal Men went on the run and disguised themselves as humans. Or when the X-Men split up.

The Legion came back under Mark Waid in a new incarnation, but just didn't click as well as I'd hoped it would. I liked the issues, but the old vitality just wasn't the same. The comics just weren't as fun. Even though they weren't dark, they were a tad too serious, too incestuous in scope.

Geoff Johns is currently writing Action Comics, and he came up with a great story for an arc that became this graphic novel. What if, in the 31st century, the legend of Superman became the thing that suddenly divided the United Planets and nearly resulted in an intergalactic war?

Not only that, but Johns finds a way to put the future earth under a red sun, taking Superman's powers away and reducing him just to the flight ring's ability to fly. Would he still be Superman?

I was blown away by the concepts, but having watched Johns handle so many characters with aplomb in the past, I knew I was in good hands. The story starts with a simple conceit: that the worlds are polarizing, and Earth has become xenophobic to the degree that they rewrote Superman's history. According to the new popular legend, Clark Kent was just an earth man given mighty powers by the planet to become her protector.

Superman, who had once been the influence that first brought the Legion together, was now the reason the United Planets treaties were on the verge of total failure. Now there's a story.

But Johns doesn't stop with merely an excellent story. While he's busy turning the Superman mythos on their head, he reaches back into the past and brings forward everything that was great about the Legion. All the interplay, the character backgrounds, the loyalty, everything that made the Legion like no other comic book around, is here again in these pages. Including the Legion of Substitute Heroes. This just wouldn't have been the perfect story without them.

Not only that, but Johns again takes a stand to remind us what Superman is all about and what makes that character so unique. I loved the book. Loved the story and loved the homage to so much of the wonder I grew up with all those years ago.

Gary Frank's art took a little getting used to at first, but he won me over within a few pages. It just looked different than anything I was used to in the Legion, too realistic, then he pulled me into that futuristic world in a way that I hadn't been there before.

If you haven't read comics in a long time, Geoff Johns and SUPERMAN AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES are the strongest reasons I know to come back to believing teens can fly.

What can I say? The original Legion of SuperHeroes is back and what a comeback it was.

Back in 1986, I was excited for the revamp on Superman and at the same time dismayed they got rid of the Superboy character. It really messed Legion history up to the point where it probably never recovered.

I did buy some Legion books in the past 20 years, but it was never the same.

In one storyline, Johns brings back all the thrills and excitement of the original Legion.

It also happens to be one of the better Superman stories I've read in quite awhile.

I don't buy the monthly comics anymore...they're just not worth it. When I do buy a hardcover, it must meet up to the highest of standards and this book does that.

This is hands down one of the best Legion of Superhero stories since the heyday of the true Legion way back in the 80s when Paul Levitz was hitting his stride and the title had been launched anew in a "Baxter" edition format, a somewhat strange experiment DC was doing with some best selling titles (the New Teen Titans was another).

The basic premise is that in the future, the world has become a place hostile to aliens, and Superman's legacy is perverted when a rogue group of super-villains manages to convince everyone that Superman was a human being and never an alien. Well plotted and deftly scripted, the story bucks modern trends of decompressing for the sake of it - imagine that, something significant happens in each issue. (Yeah, I know, woah!)

Although technically appearing in a Superman title, the story is so good as a Legion work that it alone justifies relaunching the Legion under Geoff Johns. The version of the Legion involved here appears to be the original, or "true" Legion, or in other words, the classic Legion before Keith Giffen's ruinous 'Five Year's Later" debacle and any of the doubtful reboots. For that alone, the series stands out, as it appears to take that Legion, the most enduring version created, (probably because it was the original and therefore not a coincidence), and treats them with love. While Johns never really manages to explain how these villains are able to convince the entire Earth of this untruth or how they effectively take over the whole planet, that really isn't so much the point. It's an effective, really fun tale of good old fashioned superheroics, and Johns builds on the mythology of both Superman and the Legion, putting Superman right back into Legion lore where he belongs. And you don't even need to know much about that lore to enjoy the story.

If I have any minor irritations with the story, it's that we don't get any explanation for how this Legion manages to still be around while there's a totally different version being published monthly by DC at the time, and the origins of the crystal which sets off the whole villainous plot is never explained. Whether it gets dealt with somewhere else or not, I can't say. Johns also seems to completely ignore the fact that, technically, this Superman has met this Legion before, and you can pick up that story in a trade called 'Superman: Time and Time Again' (a great read as well.) But no one seems to remember it.

Finally, what makes this story sing is the exquisite pencilling work of Gary Frank, an artist born to draw Superman if ever I've seen one. He enjoys himiself here, and what we get are six issues of the best Superman work by any artist this decade, and probably since the last one too.