Super-teen franchise
gets power boost

By the dawn of the 31st century, our planet is at peace, with no warring continental neighbors, and it is utopia.

But those darn kids are still a restless bunch -- albeit with super-powers.

COURTESY OF DC COMICS

That bunch comprises the Legion of Super-Heroes, an intergalactic group of special youths headquartered in a future Metropolis on Earth. The Legion has been a constant in the long history of DC Comics and is currently enjoying a successful relaunch.

The Legion was born when the company decided to introduce teen counterparts to its main superhero characters, in hopes of developing a new comic book readership.

Comic book columnist-historian Andrew A. Smith of Scripps Howard News Service said that the Legion's legend began about 46 years ago in "Adventure Comics" No. 247, starring Superboy. The Teen of Steel meets three super-powered teenagers from 2958 -- Lightning Boy (later "Lad," with super-lightning), Saturn Girl (super-telepathy) and Cosmic Boy (super-magnetism) -- who had traveled back in time to invite him to join their ever-growing club.

Smith wrote that "reader reaction to these three super-powered youths -- with the obvious implication that there was an unseen legion of them awaiting 1,000 years in the future -- had letters flooding the DC Comics offices. There was something about the concept that was really appealing. Not only did it present the possibility of tons of super-characters, but it also suggested a high-tech, utopian future completely unburdened by Cold War worries."

As the teenage trio began returning in various Super-titles, the roster expanded exponentially, adding such colorful characters as Colossal Boy, Sun Boy, Triplicate Girl, Phantom Lass, Brainiac 5 (a heroic descendant of one of Superman's main arch enemies, Brainiac), Shrinking Violet, Matter-Eater Lad (yes, Matter-Eater Lad) and Invisible Kid (more on him later).

By "Adventure" No. 300, the Legion got its own strip, "one with an unwieldy name," Smith writes, "but a huge, fanatical following. The Legion kept getting bigger, smarter, better-drawn, better-written, more outlandish. It graduated to its own eponymous title, and ran for years -- eventually carrying more than 40 names on its roll call."

THE LEGION has survived even when DC revamped its multiple, unwieldy story continuities in 1986 with "Crisis on Infinite Earths." Despite changes, the Legion always kept a core following, and starting last month, the whole concept began anew.

The creative team behind the reinvention is Mark Waid and Barry Kitson, who initially showed their combined strength with the adult cult title "Empire," about a villainous conqueror of planets who was also trying his best to keep his family in line.

Waid and Kitson's strengths as writer and illustrator, respectively, have been to keep their characters' observations and behavior grounded in realism. And with the Legion, they've re-imagined the group of super-powered teens in conflict with a United Planets political body trying to keep the peace -- as big a parental symbol as possible.

In the first issue, the Legion chooses to get involved with a rebellion on the planet Lallor, despite the United Planets' protestations, due to its trying to negotiate an alliance that could prevent intergalactic war. The reason the Legion makes it their business? It was the Lallorian adults who were squashing the youth-generated rebellion. (I assume that why this all started in the first place will be addressed in future issues.)

In the meantime it's the ol' reliable "us vs. them" battle between the generations. The Legion is antsy for some action, having made, as one character puts it, "a little oasis of heroic-age culture in an otherwise unspeakably dull century." Our entry into the group is the aforementioned Invisible Kid, the wide-eyed newbie who meets his super-powered counterparts, all (descriptive adjective here) Kid, Boy, Girl, Lad or Lass.

But what Waid and Kitson have added is a large supporting network of teens from across the galaxies who have camped out and surrounded the Legion's Metropolis headquarters, who keep the Legion apprised of any problems while protecting the group from the adversarial science police.

It's all made for what should be a strong run for the 31st-century Legion -- circa 21st century -- in the months to come.