Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank

Writer: Geoff Johns; Pencils: Gary Frank; Inks: Jon Sibal

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

"Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Set one thousand years in the future, The Legion of Super-Heroes features the adventures of a group of super-powered teenage s from across the galaxy. It is a title that, though very popular, has been mired in the most tangled, convoluted continuity for the past 25 years.

After the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, published in 1985, the character of Superman had his history revised to varying degrees. One of the most significant changes was that Clark Kent had never been the teenage Superboy. He adopted a superhero identity for the very first time as an adult when he became Superman.

This one alteration has a gigantic impact on the Legion. The group's key motivation for organizing in the first place was the historic legacy of Superboy. Not only that, but Superboy regularly traveled into the future to have adventures with the Legion.

So you can see what a major problem this caused for Legion history when DC suddenly declared there had never been a Superboy. Various writers attempted to work around the now gaping holes in continuity, substituting Mon-El for Superboy, introducing the alternate reality "pocket universe" Superboy, and at least a couple of other fixes that I cannot even remember at this point. Things got so confusing that eventually the entirety of Legion continuity was restarted from scratch not once but twice. Clearly something needed to be done to streamline things. (I have to say, though, I did enjoy Jim Shooter's recent stint writing the rebooted Legion, which was unfortunately cut short by DC. I really wish they'd let him finish his story arc.)

Writer Geoff Johns decided to go back to basics, and simply undo the post-Crisis retcon. And DC editorial allowed him to do that. Now, once again, young Clark Kent had been Superboy. And all those Legion stories from the 1960s up until Crisis happened pretty much as originally published.

Having dealt with the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Johns set out to reintroduce the now-adult Superman to his former costumed comrades from the far future. This took place in the pages of Action Comics #s 858 to 863, the story collected in the Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes trade paperback.

Superman is transported from the present day to the year 3008 by Legion member Brainiac 5. There, Clark is shocked to find the formerly utopian future Earth twisted into a fractured, xenophobic police state.

The perpetrator of this change is Earth-Man, a metahuman with the ability to absorb the superpowers of others. Earth-Man had applied for Legion membership years before, only to be turned down. The mentally unstable Earth-Man, traumatized by this perceived personal slight and consumed by his jealousy of Superman, assembled a group of psychotic Legion rejects who also came from Earth. Together, they used falsified evidence to "prove" Superman was actually human, and that the planet Krypton never existed, a lie perpetrated by the Legion. They accused the Legion of being an alien-exclusive cabal that secretly spearheaded an extraterrestrial infiltration of Earth.

Earth-Man and his so-called "Justice League" were not able to fool everyone on the planet. But enough people fell for the hoax. As a result, the Legion was outlawed. Those aliens living on Earth were rounded up and imprisoned in holding camps, stripped of all legal rights.

To ensure that Superman would not show up and ruin the deception, Earth-Man found a way to turn the Sun from yellow to red. That way, even if Clark Kent did travel to the future, he'd be stripped of his powers.

Nevertheless, Brainiac 5 uses his 12th level super intelligence to calculate the probable outcome of events. He determines that, with or without his powers, Superman is the key to the Legion defeating Earth-Man and exposing his lies.

Geoff Johns really gets to the heart of what makes Superman a hero. Sure, it's easy to fight supervillains when you have the powers of a god. But, transported to 3008, stripped of his strength and invulnerability by the rays of a red Sun, reduced to basically a normal human being, Superman refuses to give up. He is determined to aid his old friends and free Earth from the corrupt Justice League's tyrannical grip. And he is willing to risk his life to do so. He really is the man of steel, not because of his powers, but due to his rock-solid determination, loyalty, and dedication to freedom.

Johns also delves into an aspect of the Clark Kent/Legion relationship I had never before considered. It is well established that Superboy was the inspiration for the Legion. But Johns shows that Clark needed the Legion, as well. Growing up in rural Kansas, an alien with amazing powers he had to keep hidden, Clark felt totally alone. When the Legion came into his life, he found his peers, fellow teenagers who he could be open and honest with, who could truly be his friends. The Legion rescued young Clark from his terrible isolation.

The storytelling in Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes is very new-reader friendly. From chapter two on, nearly all of the characters are identified by captions. We are given their codenames, real names, home planet, and superpowers. With such a large cast, this is immensely helpful.

There are a few storytelling problems lurking about. It is eventually revealed how Earth-Man turned the Sun red. But somehow, inexplicably, he also managed to do the same thing to a large number of other stars in the United Planets system. We are never told how.

I also found it somewhat implausible that Earth-Man and his cronies were able to massively sway public opinion with their lies. Even a cursory glance of the facts shows that the Legion was not an aliens-only club. Colossal Boy, Karate Kid, Wildfire, Sun Boy, Bouncing Boy, Ferro Lad, and both Invisible Kids all came from Earth. Dawnstar, though not born on Earth, was a genetically enhanced Native American from the colony planet Starhaven. That's nine human Legion members right there. And, at the other end of things, there were plenty of alien applicants to the Legion who were rejected for one reason or another. So it's obvious that the Legion was non-discriminatory.

Of course, bigots have always managed to conveniently ignore those facts that did not fit with their intolerant views. So, yes, I could certainly imagine some xenophobes overlooking all of that. But it's a bit of a stretch that so many people on Earth fell for Earth-Man's propaganda.

More of an issue is the character of Earth-Man himself. He is depicted as white, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed. He wears a fascist-looking uniform with a red armband. Hell, even his name, Kirt Niedrigh, sounds Germanic. All he's missing is a giant swastika to complete the picture. Wow, I didn't realize there would still be Nazis hanging around a millennium from now. I guess they really do believe all that nonsense about "the Thousand Year Reich."

Seriously though, Earth-Man has all the subtlety of a bowling ball dropped from the top of the Empire State Building onto the reader's head.

Okay, Earth-Man's look aside, I did like Gary Frank & Jon Sibal's artwork a lot. They imbue the story with high-energy action and drama. Frank also draws very striking facial expressions. His characters really project emotion. Oh, and of course Frank draws very beautiful women. His renditions of Dawnstar and Shadow-Lass drop-dead gorgeous. And I liked that he added a bit of his own re-interpretation to Phantom Girl's costume while still retaining a lot of the sexy look that Dave Cockrum designed for her back in the early 1970s.

Gary Frank also has Brainiac 5 utilizing robot drones modeled on the redesign of the original, villainous Brainiac by Ed Hannigan back in 1983. Fans of the old Super Powers action figures and comic books will probably remember it well. I found that design very dramatic and sinister. I've always hoped one day the post-Crisis Brainiac would re-adopt that look. But in the meantime, Frank's art was a fun nod to the past.

There are two pages of Frank's costume sketches at the back of the trade paperback. I wish more had been included. It's interesting and revealing to see the creative process at work.

Other bonuses in the collected edition are the original Action Comics covers. These include the rarer variant covers. Three of these were drawn by past Legion of Super-Heroes artists Steve Lightle, Mike Grell, and Keith Giffen. Giffen also contributes a rather tongue-in-cheek introduction to the trade paperback that demonstrates his continued fondness for the Legion characters.

All in all, despite the very one-dimensional nature of the story's villain, Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes is an enjoyable, well-drawn adventure mixing superheroes and space opera. Hopefully it will help to lead to a revitalization of the Legion's own ongoing title, something that has been much needed for some time now. Classic Legion of Super-Heroes writer Paul Levitz is scheduled to return to the series in May 2010. Let's hope he can continue to recapture some of the old Legion magic that Geoff Johns was able to tap into here.