| abstract
| - The original version of Superman's origin had him becoming a superhero when full grown. However, in 1945 DC introduced Superboy as an addition to Superman's backstory, retconning in prequels and earlier meetings with DC characters. At the start of the Silver Age, one story, in Adventure Comics #247 (April, 1958), introduced the "Legion of Super Heroes", a trio of super-powered teenagers from the future who committed many acts of Super Dickery while initiating Superboy into their club -- with the best of intentions, really. The trio became popular enough to be seen again, as Superboy began traveling in time to team up with them, and the other new members they'd recruited. The Legion gradually became more prominent in Adventure Comics (which at the time was a second Superboy book) and took over as the main feature with issue #300 (September, 1962), reducing Superboy to supporting character status on what used to be his comic book. They are remembered for their wide-eyed idealism, not to mention corny touches -- their clubhouse was designed to look like a crashed rocket. How they all fit inside was never explained. However, their series was surprisingly sophisticated for the Silver Age; with one of the earliest comic book characters Killed Off for Real in Ferro Lad (and, for that matter, one of the earliest comic book resurrections with Lightning Lad), a trial for a Legionnaire killing in self-defense, and dealing with Fantastic Racism even before Star Trek did. To become a member, you had to demonstrate at least one superpower not dependent on devices. Thus, telepathy, Saturn Girl; electricity powers, Lightning Lad; magnetic powers, Cosmic Boy, and so on. Applicants with ridiculous powers (and some members of the Legion proper had pretty ridiculous powers) were consigned to the Legion of Substitute Heroes, who included Chlorophyll Kid (ability to make plants grow really fast), Stone Boy (ability to turn into an inanimate statue), Color Kid (ability to... change the color of things), and Double Header (whose name speaks for itself). At the end of the Silver Age, the Legion's slot was swapped with Supergirl, leaving Supergirl as star of Adventure Comics and the Legion as a backup in Action Comics. After the retirement of editor Mort Weisinger, the Legion was reduced to an occasional backup in Superboy. Dave Cockrum, who would go on to design many members of the Bronze Age incarnation of the X-Men, became the Legion's regular artist, and started redefining their look. With this, their popularity started to inch upwards again, and eventually, Superboy became Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. This incarnation used plenty of the Soap Opera-style storytelling that was popular in the days of X-Men and Teen Titans, but kept on a level of solid yet unexciting sales, even after they booted Superboy out of his own book. This changed in the early '80s, with the Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen Legion. Classic stories like "The Great Darkness Saga" appeared during this run, but it was interrupted halfway through by the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since the entire premise of the Legion was centered around Superboy, and Superboy no longer existed in the Post-Crisis universe, the history and continuity of the series didn't work any more. DC's initial patch was to say that, during the Crisis, one of the Legion's foes, the Time Trapper, had created a pocket dimension containing an Earth where there was a Superboy. However, this issue kept coming up over time, with more and more patches needed just to keep things together. Eventually, Keith Giffen took over the book, along with fans-turned-writers Tom and Mary Bierbaum, and the series really jumped into the Dark Age with the "Five Years Later" Time Skip. Earth is ruled by alien invaders. One character was retconned into an Applied Phlebotinum transsexual, and another into a shapeshifter who only thought he was the character. The Legion are actually clones -- unless the other, younger Legion (Batch SW6) that were discovered in People Jars are the clones, as one might think at first. The moon was destroyed, followed by the Earth itself. Eventually, a combination of continuity issues and low sales brought DC to the point where they said "screw it" and decided to reboot the series altogether. In 1995, as part of the Zero Hour Crisis Crossover, Mark Waid and Tom McCraw wrote the first issue of an all-new all-different Legion. Some of the sillier characters were pruned, and others were introduced to fill the gaps. This incarnation of the Legion was a youth corps run by The Federation, which was just forming as the series began, to symbolize its member worlds and species working together. (Although they were frequently dismissed as either a publicity stunt or a "teenage death squad".) This version sidestepped the Superboy issue by being inspired by the 20th century's age of heroes in general (although the Post-Crisis Superboy did become a member). The new version attempted to distill all of the Legion's history to date, while adding its own twists -- some of which didn't work that well (Sneckie) Still, this version lasted until 2004 with a few writer changes and ReTools; then, they were wiped out (or at least detached from the main line of DCU history) during the build up to the Infinite Crisis Crisis Crossover, and replaced with a third version -- the "threeboot" Legion. This version, also introduced by Mark Waid, brought back many of the more idealistic elements, including the Something Person names, while going for a more complex universe. In this incarnation, the Legion are firebrands and muckrakers in a future where those under 18 are almost entirely controlled by their parents and a paternalistic government; although only a chosen few are given flight rings (which are ridiculously expensive), anyone who follows their ideals is considered a Legionnaire. It also added twists to many of the characters; for instance, in this version, Colossal Boy is a member of a race of giants whose super-power is to shrink to six feet tall. (He prefers to be called Micro Lad.) Their inspiration this time is legends of superheroics as preserved in old comic books. Supergirl joined up about a year and a half into the series, having apparently made the trip during the "One Year Gap" in her own title (all DC books jumped forward a year after Infinite Crisis), and been given Laser-Guided Amnesia before she was sent back. On the other hand, the Strawman Political aspects ("Eat it, Grandpa!") wore thin for some readers. This version lasted until 2009, when, despite fan favorite Jim Shooter taking over writing duties, it was unceremoniously cancelled with a rushed final issue written by "Justin Thyme". Recent stories post-Infinite Crisis have reintroduced The Multiverse and restored the original Legion, including Superman's past with them. This version first (re)appeared in the "Lightning Saga" Bat Family Crossover between Justice League of America and Justice Society of America and is the one currently appearing in DC Comics. As part of Final Crisis, Geoff Johns wrote a miniseries called "The Legion of Three Worlds" which dealt with all three versions (original, Zero Hour, and threeboot) of the Legion. From 2006 to 2008, an Animated Adaptation came along, taking the most iconic versions of all involved (but taking even more inspiration from the DCAU, despite, judging by Brainiac 5's being an android, not being in continuity with it.) See Here for that series. There is a character sheet. The comic book series starring the Legion (not counting oneshot issues like the Legion's origin) are:
* The Legion started as guest stars in Superman-related comics. Their first appearance was in Adventure Comics in 1958. They became stars of that comic with issue 300.
* Adventure Comics (1962-1969)
* Action Comics as backups only (1969-1970).
* An irregular series of backups in Superboy (1971-1973), along with a four issue reprint series in 1973 titled Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 1)
* Superboy with issue 197 became the Legion's comic and was renamed to Superboy and/starring the Legion of Super-Heroes (1973-1980).
* Renamed again to Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 2, 1980-1984).
* Renamed to Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes (1984-1985).
* Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 3) (1984-1989). Overlapped Tales for a year, and then Tales switched to one year delayed reprints of this book. The "five years later" version:
* Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 4) (1989-1994)
* Legionnaires (1993-1994) starred clones (sort of) of the Legion. The reboot version:
* Legion of Super-Heroes (numbering continues) (1994-2000)
* Legionnaires (numbering continues, but the series is now just a second Legion comic with the same characters, no clones) (1994-2000)
* Legion Lost (2000-2001)
* Legion Worlds (2001)
* The Legion (2001-2004) The threeboot version:
* Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 5) (2004-2009). #16-36 titled Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes The modern version, based on the original, appeared as guest stars in Superman-related comics since 2007. This overlaps the Threeboot, causing lots of confusion. Important stories include:
* Lightning Saga (2007) (In JLA and JSA)
* Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes (2008) (in Action Comics)
* Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds (2008-2009)
* Adventure Comics (2009-2011)
* Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 6) (2010-2011)
* Legion Lost (volume 2) (2011-)
* Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 7) (2011-)
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)