Written by Mark Waid
Art by Barry Kitson
Published by DC Comics
Legion of Super-Heroes has, since it's first story arc, cemented itself as one of those rare mainstream spandex comics that's gotten progressively better while, at the same time, gotten progressively unreadable to the general reader. Safely put, if you don't keep up with Legion, it's going to be a confusing read. The cast of characters outsizes any television show, the plots are rhythmic, sprawling beasts, and, most of all, the amount of superpowers on display is so frenetic and vast that even the regular "bio" pages each issue contains serve merely as helpful tips. (Each issue opens with a title page that's meant to give the reader a heads up on what it is, exactly, that Phantom Lad can do, so you don't get confused when, near the last page of the book, he does it. It's similar to how one spends the first 200 pages of a Russian novel checking the first page where it tells the reader each of the four names any character might have.) It's arguable, by someone without a firm grip on reality, that these "bio" pages are also meant to serve the general reader who might be trying out Legion for the first time.
That argument is ridiculous. Nobody picks up Legion for the first time without wondering why the hell one comic book has a cast of characters that numbers in the three digits, and is clearly on it's way to break the 1000 mark. Legion has, and will always remain, a comic for the nerdiest spandex reader out there. Even the history of these characters reads like a clusterfuck of dork heaven, stretching back through characters that have been written out of continuity, futuristic "realist" story arcs that lasted for years before they were revamped and replaced with clone based stories. No matter where one starts with the Legion, all roads lead to confusion. When sales forced the previous version of Legion off the racks, Mark Waid and Barry Kitson waited the prerequisite mourning period, got the blessing of DC, and got the whole ball rolling one more time. That was 27 issues ago.
Since Waid and Kitson have taken over the Legion comic, they've consistently pulled off a non-stop entertainment festival: no, Legion ain't Tolstoy, hell, it ain't even Morrison, but it sure is a hell of a fun ride. Designed to test the limits of any readers tolerance of soap-opera teenage angst and over-the-top super hero behavior, the Legion of Super Heroes has eked out enough sales to keep it going--no small feat when the characters have names like Cosmic Boy, Shadow Lass and, yes, The Karate Kid. (Back off, Ralph Macchio fans. The name predates Daniel-son.)
This months issue is, of course, just as insane as any other one--in all honesty, it may even be too much. Once again, the Legion has become the last line of defense against the Dominators (an alien race who are breaking their peace accord with the United Planets, utilizing a techno-virus that subverts control over technology to the Dominators,) and they (the Legion) are also having to contend with the splitting up of their big guns (Supergirl is on one side of the planet, while Timber Wolf is hurt, or something, but Giant Boy is there) and they (Legion again) are also stuck teaming up with--who is that guy again? Lightning Lad's brother? Either way, the guys a real dick, and he's got a bunch of ex-Legion people and random superheroes on some team that he, for some god-awful reason, calls "The Wanderers," and they've got their own plans...
See? Who reads this stuff?
Oh.
Well, you should too.
Shut up.
The issue closes with an excellent tribute to Dave Cockrum, a tribute that acknowledges what a massive debt the Legion comic owes to the man. According to this tribute, Cockrum was one of the few artists (it's actually implied that he was the only artist) who enjoyed drawing the characters. As one could imagine, drawing such a massive cast of characters, all of whom, for no good reason, have differing costumes, wasn't something that any artist saw as anything more than a chore. Cockrum however loved the challenge, and took to it with such commitment and creativity that, again, according to the tribute, the Legion received it's own title and Cockrum's work "effected costume design for the next twenty years." Considering that the Legion has, in some incarnation, been in print ever since, it's no exaggeration to give the man a lion's share of the credit. DC Comics has a long way to go, and they'll probably never really try, when it comes to acknowledging the very real men and women that have toiled for the last sixty years putting out these comics. The last few pages of yesterday's issue were a great start--here's hoping they have the integrity to continue.
-Tucker Stone, 2007
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