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Adventure Comics #4

by KC Carlson

This originally was going to be a much different column. then all hell broke lose in the comics world in the last week or two.

First off, The Walt Disney company purchased marvel Comics. Which I guess is a pretty big deal, but I don’t see much of a substantial change coming in the way comic books are done at the company – at least initially. Disney would have to be crazy to change what is efficiently the most significant and many lucrative comic company in America – at least in terms of direct Market sales. No, I think that this is one of those “let’s toss a lot of money around because we might get a film or two out of it down the road” Hollywood-type deals. I certainly fall into the “Disney purchased marvel before somebody else did” camp of thinking on this. and Disney will get some characters that they can market to young boys and young men to counter all the Princesses and Fairies that Disney is best known for.

Then, in reaction, Warner Bros. home entertainment announced the reorganization of DC Comics, making it part of the newly christened DC Entertainment. There’s roughly about 4,865,296 other people talking about this on the Internet – probably all best this second. but although I have a lot of thoughts about this one, I ultimately think at this point, it’s all just “loose talk” and idle speculation and there will be much much more to talk about in the future, when things work out down. I believe that this particular relocation is also mostly about film money. I also think that it will have much bigger implications on DC Comics than the Disney relocation on marvel will have, but probably not much change in the short turn. The reasons I think this all fall to one man, Paul Levitz, who is stepping down from his roles as president and publisher of DC Comics (but will remain with the company as a specialist for a time).

I can’t say with any certainty whether Paul’s departure will be a good or bad thing for DC (again, too soon to tell), but I can say that DC Comics will be a much different place without him. Hopefully, the new caretakers of the place will know enough to keep his number useful in recognition of his long-standing place not just in DC’s history, but in his typically unheralded (and occasionally behind-the-scenes) efforts for creators’ rights and his place in the origins and care and feeding of the direct Market distribution system. This is possibly a controversial statement these days, but the direct Market would and could have been a lot worse off without him.

I also think – after the initial shock wears off – that Paul will be a much happier person after all the dust settles. especially because the flurry of announcements this week also indicate that Paul will now be able to make his long-awaited (and anticipated!) transition back to another early love, writing comic books, and his first new writing project will be The legion of Super-Heroes. and while the other DC news is potentially scary, the Levitz/Legion revival is the best news I’ve heard in a long time!

This will be Paul’s third go-round as legion scribe (not counting a stray short story here and there, including one nervously edited by me!). His last stint on the legion was especially noteworthy for propelling the legion to the top of the DC sales charts, cementing the Legion’s status as one of its best franchises, and creating one of the all-time (not just Legion) DC classics in The terrific Darkness Saga with his long-time fan-favorite artistic collaborator, Keith Giffen.

(If DC were smart, they’d rapidly find a place for Paul to tell JSA stories again, especially because the new writers there seemingly don’t quite “get” what makes the JSA work. (Hint: It’s all about family and tradition.) Heck, DC ought to invent a special “Earth-2” book just for Paul, so he could write “his” JSA, including his much-loved versions of Power girl and the Huntress, who just both still happen to exist there.

Paul, welcome home!

But Wait…

I’ve been remiss in not talking much about the legion here, both about what’s been going on in the current books lately or about my role as former legion editor. Let’s try to rectify some of that.

Legion of three Worlds

I stopped reading legion of three Worlds after the second issue. Not because I wasn’t enjoying it (I was!), but because I had learned of the upcoming delay in the production of the book – mostly because artist George Pérez wanted to take his time and do a terrific job! I typically hate when artists pull that stunt, but here I was alright with it because 1) Pérez was drawing about 30 pages per issue. 2) Pérez was drawing three different versions of the Legion, plus about 50 villains, various green Lanterns, Guardians, and other characters – easily about 100 characters per issue (and much more in issue 5!). Characters were spilling out of the panel borders! 3) The story was just complicated enough that I knew I’d forget what was going on from issue to issue – mostly because I’d probably read about a hundred or much more comics in between each issue of the series, not to mention the dozens of TV series I follow. plus the 7-12 different prose books I’ve got going at any given time. Plus, films – many of which are serialized as well these days. That’s a lot of stories to follow! My poor exhausted brain can’t always keep them straight.

So I waited until they were all published before I read them, all in one sitting. Unfortunately, I learned about some of the “surprises” that happened in the series because they had repercussions in some of the other much more current comics I read – one thing I hate about the “they all gotta be connected” way of storytelling these days. (Something I probably share with a lot of fellow Westfield subscribers, who only get their comics once or twice a month.) Is it strange to not read all the comics the same week they were published?

Anyway, legion of three Worlds was one of the best legion stories in years, maybe decades. It was super-compressed, so that big things were happening every few pages – or there was a big, huge Pérez double-page spread to drool over! There wasn’t much room for characterization (always a problem in LSH stories) but writer Geoff Johns excelled in expressing character in what the character had to say – and it never hurts to have a pro like Pérez on board to show character in the artwork. Also, not much room for characters  to shine (My god, there were three versions each of many of the popular characters!), but Johns did a good job in spreading around the “star moments” to the suitable characters. If I had the space here I could easily rattle off dozens of “perfect” moments in the series.

I had a lot to be concerned about, especially after my typically loving partner had cynically put it into my head early in the series that “you know, a lot of the characters are just gonna be cannon fodder. They’re probably going to kill off ‘your’ legion to make room for a new one.” Thankfully, a chance meeting with Geoff Johns at last year’s Wizard Chicago con gave Geoff the opportunity to say “I hope you’ll be pleased with what happens with ‘your’ legion – especially with XS and Gates, who I loved writing!” Thankfully, I was very pleased at how the whole thing turned out, especially because many of the characters did survive, although it was typically a brutal and bloody fight.

In fact, I delighted in the first two issues so much, I pre-ordered the hardcover collection before the series was even completed. It’s scheduled to ship in late October, so there’s still a chance to purchase it before it’s available.

The Return of a classic Title

Adventure Comics #3

I was very pleased to hear the announcement that the legion was to be revived post-Final Crisis, especially because it was announced that it was to be placed in the also revived adventure Comics, the title comic of the Legion’s first series home. That was a good bit of nostalgia, as well as the resurrection of a terrific DC trademark. I was also pleased to hear that Geoff Johns would be writing it, especially because I thought he did such a terrific job on not only legion of three Worlds, but also the Superman and the legion of Super-Heroes story in action Comics as well as The Lightning Saga, which co-starred the legion in that year’s JLA/JSA crossover.

To say that I was shocked when adventure Comics #1 (actually #504) showed up and I discovered that the legion was just the back-up feature behind the Superboy lead would be downplaying my actual reaction, especially because I had never warmed up to this particular version of the Superboy character (excepting the early Karl Kesel-scripted stories) and I kinda wished he was still dead. In fact, my early title for this review was “Holy Murray Boltinoff!”, a suggestion of the hat to the DC editor who originally disposed the legion out of it’s already sad – but at least regular – berth as the back-up in action Comics into the quasi-limbo of occasional Superboy back-up. (Something which took the legion several years to claw its way back out of, inadvertently creating organized legion fandom in the process.)

And then I read the issue. and had to choke back my initial knee-jerk reaction after reading the extremely poignant Superboy story written by Johns and beautifully illustrated by Francis Manapul. They had me at page 2, with that amazing Kansas sunset and Superboy confessing to Ma Kent “I can’t believe I ever hated Smallville.”

Also very interesting are Superboy’s diary entries about “What does Superman do?” and “What does Lex Luthor do?” considering that it was revealed that the character shares genetic material with both those individuals, shortly before Superboy’s “death” in unlimited Crisis.

Issue 2/505 was even better, with Superboy’s first “real” conversation with wonder girl because his deathand return. and both Ma Kent and Krypto playing a big part. Perfect. adventure Comics is now my favorite superhero comic book.

Superman: secret origin #2

Yeah, I’m still a little bent about the legion just being the back-up, although I hear from “knowledgeable insiders” that this is much more of a placeholder as DC’s PTB work out the details of just what the Legion’s place in the new DCU will exactly be. and it looks like with the recent announcements, Paul Levitz may now be much more of a part of those discussions. sounds good to me, although I will be a little sad if Geoff Johns isn’t a part of the LSH’s future. (Although it looks like they’ll be a part of the Johns-written Superman: secret Origin. So at least that’s something.)

I’m very much enjoying the slow way that the current legion is being (re-)introduced, with many of the team operating fairly typically in the 31st Century, but still with a few members mysteriously operating in the present-day DCU, and others MIA. It hasn’t completely escaped me that the new status quo for the current legion could very possibly be where the continuity of Levitz’ last legion run ended (with somewhat of a gap of time between the two) with all the other alternate Legions being placed in other DC alternate universes. Such as the “Threeboot” legion being “assigned” to earth Prime and the “reboot” Legionnaires wandering the Multiverse as the “new” Wanderers, as per legion of three Worlds #5.

Interesting times are ahead for the legion of Super-Heroes. I’ll be one of the first in line to view what happens.

So. What?

So what is it about the Legion? I get asked this a lot by folks in the “real world” (that unusual neither-world where people don’t know anything about comics beyond Batman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, or Superman) and even a lot of younger comics fans who just don’t get the Legion’s appeal. In some ways, at its essence, the legion of Super-Heroes was originally to comics what the X-Men have now become. In its simplest terms, both groups are a substantial collection of heroic characters, mostly young and idealistic, with very particular super-powers or fantastic abilities who band together to help other people. Some essential details vary: The X-Men are (usually) set in the present day, are typically multiethnic (with the occasional alien tossed in), and have a lot of stories which deal with them being persecuted by a world that mostly fears them. The legion is (usually) set 1,000 years in the future, consists of mostly all aliens (generally one from each planet), and has a lot of stories about their organization itself (the legion is all about guidelines and rosters) or about the political system in which they work. Unfortunately, despite being all “aliens”, the legion mostly looks like a bunch of white American kids (especially in their early years) playing at galactic paramilitary war games, which is probably why the X-Men passed them in popularity a few decades ago. despite living in the future, The legion has always had a difficult time keeping up with the times.

The real essential to both series’ popularity is what I call the identifability factor. Both series have a substantial cast of characters that are somewhat underdeveloped personality-wise because each character has so much competition for “screen time”. numerous of the characters were essentially blank slates.  (At least initially. With both franchises now decades old, many of the essential characters are well-defined, although there are still numerous minor or incidental characters mostly defined by their powers.) because numerous of the characters were tabula rasa, young readers could project themselves into these characters, based on the smallest of reasons. (“Wow, element Lad seems really shy – just like me!” or “Phantom girl is really cute! I wish I could be Ultra young boy so I could be her boyfriend!” Or any of dozens of other scenarios not made explicit by th