The Legion of Superheroes was a great concept in it’s time. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, back in the light-hearted days of comic yore, the powers that be decided that SuperMAN was a hero when he was a boy called..ahem..Superboy. To add to the fun, they gave him a SuperDOG called Krypto, and tons of other fun stuff. But the most funnest stuff had to be the Legion of Superheroes, heretofore referred to as LOS since I’m a lazy typist. The LOS, as originally conceived, were a super powered teenage club from the far future, a bright, optimistic and again FUN future. Full of escapism and wish fulfillment. In this future, three of the LOSer’s went back in time to meet the legendary Superboy and offer him membership. And this stayed the case until the wrongheaded decision (and series) called Crisis of Infinite Earths, where they basically tried to wipe the slate clean to make things easier for new readers to understand, though they only catered to aging fanboys and the resulting half-assed way they did it only ended up being even MORE CONFUSING AND MISHMASHED (yes a real word). Well one of the casualties was Superboy as they claimed he no longer, ever existed (wrap your brain around that). So without a Superboy to inspire the LOS, they launched and relaunched many new versions of the LOS, all without Superboy, and all FAILED.
Let me repeat what I just said. The LOS NEVER worked since this Crisis and ret-conning Superboy out of it. And of course they also put creators on the book who were more interested in showing how clever they are than making the books fun again. The future was no longer a utopia and there was a lot of preaching going on (a current comic book, and TV/Movie failing in my humble….well not so humble opinion.
So how do we fix this concept, pretty similar. Bring back the fun and however you do it, maybe one of the multiverse Earths or whatever, bring back the REAL Superboy. Heck the story of his return could be a HUGE event. Then pick APPROPRIATE artists and writers, especially the artist. He or she (see how un-sexist I am chiquitas) needs to have a clean optimistic style, no experimental crap that delights fanboy critics. Of all books this one should be ALL AGES. Not babyish but fun for everyone. Make it the superhero club everyone wishes they could join and you may once again, have a successful LOS comic book.
