Legion of Superheroes
Recently, I happened to catch an episode of the Legion of Superheroes on the Kids WB. It’s done in the anime-ized version of the Batman Animated Series, much like the Teen Titans (although, thankfully, they did take a step back from that.) I found the episode okay. It followed on of the stories of one of the most popular heroes Timber Wolf.
Seeing it triggered my want to go back and take a look at the original comics again. I had read a few in middle school and high school, but a friend from college – Chad Roseland – got me hooked into them. I have a pretty complete collection of them from the early 90s through to the early 00s. It’s been a fun read of going back through them.
It’s been quite a trip. As a superhero group set in the future, they have gone through many incarnations. I
have got a couple that took place before ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths,’ so I saw the Superboy connection. With the Crisis, Superboy disappeared, and they set up Mon-El/Valor (my personal favorite Legionaire) up as the ‘savior and seeder’ of the future. It was a fairly ‘ideal’ future.They did go and do a really dark version of the future, where the major characters were allowed to grow up and you got to see ‘what happened’ after the civilization collapsed. Earthgov was controlled by an alien race (the Dominators), the ‘heart of the Legion’ Cosmic Boy had lost his powers, the Legion was outlawed. It was pretty gritty.
Some readers apparently wanted the return of the sweet kids, so they created a ‘clone’ Legion, and for a while they had both the gritty dark future Legion and the sweet teen Legion going at the same time.
DC’s Zero Hour jump started the Legion, getting rid of all of its past. They started from the beginning again. I enjoyed the read – kind of the early ‘Ultimate’ type of series. It was a good balance of the sweet teen and the gritty.
They cancelled the series in the early 00’s, and restarted it again, I made the hard choice not to get it. I didn’t really like the direction it had been going, and, well, let’s face it, comic collecting can get very expensive. I haven’t read a new Legion in years, but I still have a warm spot in my heart for them.
posted by The Lord of Castle Zierath @ 1:31 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
LZ, you have almost a full run of LSH! I want to borrow big time! I am a team fan as you know and I used to have some of the newer run of LSH and liked them a lot. I know what you mean about collecting. I just started again and am only getting a few books. It would be so easy to get hooked on so many more. I remember just over a decade ago I was probably getting 20+ books a month. It helped that I was friends with the store owner and got a discount, but it was still nuts.
I've seen that cartoon too and enjoy it. I think my favorite of all of them is the orginal Batman the animated series. I would like to get that and the possibly the Superman ones on DVD. The Teen Titans cartoon, (sigh). The TT are my all time favorite group with 3 of my all time favorite characters (Robin who becomes Nightwing, Kid Flash who becomes Flash and Raven), I have watched many of the CN cartoon and like it, but I wish they wouldn't have made it anime style.
The next time I head down towards you, I'll bring my binders of LSH. It's not a near complete run. I have a near complete 1990s run, with a smattering from the 80s. It's still an impressive collection.
Who's your favorite of the LSH? As I said, I really like Mon-El/M'onel/Valor. I didn't like the Valor in his own comic; he just never felt like the true Lar Gand character to me.
My favorite villain: Mordru. He was the first villain I saw them fight in a giant sized LSH when I was maybe eight. Superboy, Mon-El, Duplicate Girl, and Shadow Lass. I liked/hated him each time I saw him.
As far as the cartoons go, I agree; the original Batman is the best. We got the first season box set on DVD fairly recently. I enjoyed what I saw of the JLA and Superman. The storylines for the Teen Titans were good, but I'll second your stylistic statement.
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