Customer Reviews

Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

For all Legion of Super-Heroes Fans this is a must read, not only becaus it's a great story but it also allow Superman to re-establish his connection to the Legion. After Crisis on Infinite Earths way back in the mid 1980's the DC Universe was reorganized and the character of Superboy was lost in the process; this left the Legion on its own and there werre certainly good stories to be had but the only srories involving Superboy with the Legion were relegated to the Elseworls line which existed outside the continuity of the DC Universe. Even when reading an excelllent Legion story (and there are a lot out there) I always missed Superboy.
In Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, which takes place after Infinite Crises, the second reorganization of the DC Universe, Superman is contacted by the Legion for the first time since the 80's. He is brought to the 31st century only to find that Earth's sun is now red and the United Planets are on the verge of war; all because 20th century history has been re-written to say that Superman was actually an Earthman and not an alien. This sets off a wave of xenphobia on Earth and serves as a great reason to bring Superman back to the future.
Having Superman back in the 31st century is great but since the sun is now red he has no powers and must rely on a flight ring just to fly and keep up with the Legionaires; however, when he does get his powers back at the end of the story it is a climax worth waiting for.
Not only are most of my favorite Legionaires present in this story but Johns has also included some members of the Substitute Legion fighting alongside the Legion and the Man of Steel.
Reading this story all the elements of the old Legion are there but with a bit of a twist that only Geoff Johns could have pulled off. This is a must fan of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

`Superman and the Legion of Super Heroes' begins with a very powerful opening and I was instantly reminded why I should never underestimate Geoff Johns skills as a writer. For most of the book Johns manages to keep up the same high level of writing but stumbles in the conclusion. More on that later. As for the visuals, Gary Frank is an excellent but sometimes inconsistent artist. My biggest complaint is that he often draws characters with these insane bulging eyes. There is one image of Saturn Girl where she has this look that resembles the hilariously unflattering picture of Sarah Palin that often gets used where she looks like a doltish lunatic. Frank has an unfortunate tendency to draw characters with pupils surrounded by whites and contorted mouths. I'm not sure why Gary Frank thinks that these look good since by and large he's a talented artist.

The collected comics here are the lead-in to `The Legion of Three Worlds'. I was a fan of Three Worlds but I couldn't give it anything higher than four stars and I find myself in the same situation here. Human-Man, a former legion reject, along with a collection of other rejects manage to convince people in the 30th century that the Legion of Superheroes has created a huge lie about Superman, that he was an alien from Krypton, in order to foster acceptance of alien lifeforms. Human-Man presents supposed proof that Superman was actually a human who hated and fought to protect human's from alien invaders. This prompts an explosion of xenophobia that sweeps across the Earth as aliens are rounded up and put into internment camps.

What bothered my the most (besides the ending) was how unconvinced I was that Earthlings would suddenly start rounding up aliens particularly since the LoSH comics always featured close interaction between aliens and human's. There also wasn't any kind of 9/11 situation to create this hatred and wouldn't Superman's history be pretty well documented. If a group today suddenly started pushing the idea that Lincoln hated blacks I find it hard to believe that the idea would suddenly take off and Superman's life would surely be far more documented than Lincolns. Another thing that bothered me was the character of Human-Man. There was an explanation as to how such a powerful character could be rejected but, My God, his powers are off the chart. He is capable of absorbing/duplicating the powers of any super being in his vicinity for 12 hours and ends up pulling an Amazo by combining the powers of most of the members of the Legion. Is there any limit to his power? What if Mordru or Darkseid were around? Finally, there were a lot of plot points that were not cleared up by the end of the story. I'll have to reread the Legion of Three Worlds to see if that story resolved them and I just forgot. I'm a big Geoff Johns fan but sometimes he pushes so hard to get his wonderful ideas into his stories that he sacrifices a coherent plot and believe me, the plot holes listed above are not the only ones.

My biggest issue and the one that forces me to deduct a star was the ending which was a very disappointing way to conclude an excellent story. It had the feel of Johns over pandering to the reader and the weakness of the ending was magnified by the strength of the rest of the story. There is a lot to like in this collection but it isn't one for the ages. Still, it exceeded my expectations and showed again why Johns is one of the best big idea writers in the business.

i'm not the biggest superman fan, but in geoff johns i trust. he's doing an incredible job on this book. here we have another solid superman story. i almost feel bad writing a positive review that lowers the overall score, especially on a book i really enjoyed, but it's a four star book. which is pretty darn good. i've never really cared much for gary frank's art, but he's really elevated his game here. this is the best work of his career, and it's spectacular. it's crisp and dynamic, his facial expressions are great, he draws great kids, turned in some nice legionnaire redesigns (which are "futuristically" tacky in all the right ways), and he even threw zoidberg in there in the last chapter. and superman looks a whole lot like christopher reeve, which is a good thing by me. i bought this on a whim, more or less, but i'll have a hard time passing up on future installments of the series if these guys can keep this up.

the only concrete criticism i have at the moment --aside from the price tag and flimsy paper quality, but those are (somehow) dc hardcover standards-- is how *every* character is re-introduced with a profile caption in *every* chapter. these captions were probably helpful in the single monthly issues, as readers had a whole month in-between chapters to forget what happened previously. but here they just get in the way. i'd hate to think the readership's ADD could be so bad as to forget who the story's main characters are in the time it takes to turn a page. completely unnecessary when someone's got the whole story right there in their hands.

This hardcover collects issues originally published in Action Comics #858-863. Writer Geoff Johns teams up with artist Gary Frank to bring the best superman story arc in years.
Geoff Johns packs so much into these 6 issues, any normal comic would probably take 10 issues to tell. Johns gives you your money's worth.
Artist Gary Frank gives you a very detailed superman comic, combined with Jon Sibal's smooth inks. I have no problem with superman looking like Christopher Reeve in this book.
If you are not currently reading Action Comics, this your chance to catch up on your Superman, and to pick up the monthly.
As well as Action Comics, you should try reading the monthly Superman, written by James Robinson.

WOW is all I can say about this imaginative tale of the teen-like Legion 'growing up', the prejudice, the struggle, etc. Borrowing it's plot from comic history and taking the reader to an Earth they've never seen (or imagined) Johns and Frank tell a warm story of 'What Happens Next'/'What Happened After' with the future Legion. Not sure if it was mentioned, but all covers (including variants) are displayed without cover text here, and most of the a beautiful. The story was great, I read it from cover to cover in 1 shot because I couldn't put it down. Thanks guys...

From the late 50s to today the Legion of Super-Heroes was one of the DC most popular superhero teams. The concept is simple, teenagers a thousand years from now are inspired by Superman to form their own superhero team and then travel back in time to meet their idol.

Like many comics it has changed with the times, going from a Buck Rogers type future in the 50s to a Star Trek meets disco look in the 70s, to a grittier, dirtier look in the 90s. It has also moved backwards at times, in 1994 and again in 2004 writers tossed out everything that had gone before and 'rebooted' the team. Starting over with the characters restored to their innocent teenaged selves.

With this book Geoff Johns and Gary Frank relaunch the team yet again, combining elements from their 80s incarnation with a dystopian future to create yet another version. But this version is fairly unappealing. The book is crowded with new versions of old characters who have little chance to develop or do much than say a line or two. The villains are one-dimensional, the conflict trite (racism vs. tolerance) and everything is wrapped up neatly in the last few pages.

As a long-time Legion reader all this did was remind me of much better Legion stories over the years. I'm really not sure who the target for this book was. Long-time fans don't really want or need yet another version of the Legion running around, and newer fans will be confused since this Legion has nothing to do with the team appearing in the Legion's own book.

I was not a child of the 80's so I did not know the true Legion until now. This is a great story and a very good starting point for anyone who wants to become fans of the Legion. Because of this I began following Superman's adventures in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds (which is an awesome story, that I hope will finish soon) and now I'm preparing for the Return of Adventure Comics! The story outline has been said in other reviews so I won't go into it here, but I will say that it's a great one. Geoff Johns is amazing, that's all there is to it.