User:He Who Wanders

The Legion of Super-Heroes: A Personal Space Odyssey

(Or "Who is He Who Wanders and Why is He Wandering?")

“If I leave you by the comics rack, you’ll mind, won’t you?”

Mom had a way of bribing my brother and me to get us to behave. One December evening, she brought the two of us, aged nine and seven, with her and her mother to Thomas Market, a local grocery store. While she and Grandma shopped, we boys amused ourselves at the comics and magazine rack. I don’t remember if I bought anything that night, but one thing I left behind was a curious comic book with a yellow cover that showed Superboy grabbing onto the legs of some guy in a red and blue costume and slamming him into a futuristic lamppost. “Help!” the hapless young man shouted at the reader. “Superboy’s gone mad!”

I had certainly flipped though the comic: I knew it was about heroes named Cosmic Boy and Triplicate Girl, and some guy called Command Kid, who sported a Moe haircut – all of whom were from different planets. This idea must have stuck with me, as one of the few subjects I loved to study in school was the planets. Of course, the characters in this comic book came from imaginary worlds such as Braal, Cargg, and Preztor, but the idea was still irresistible: Life existed beyond the confines of our small, Midwestern city – or it could. Still, for whatever reason, I ended up not buying the comic book that night.

”Mom! I had a dream!”

Still, I couldn’t get that comic book out of my mind, or the intriguing possibilities it presented: Who were Cosmic Boy and Triplicate Girl? Who was that guy on the cover who looked so much like Superboy? Why did Command Kid act like a jerk? And why had I never heard of this “Legend of Super-Heroes” before (I had no idea what a “legion” was), even though I had faithfully watched Superboy’s cartoon. So far as I knew, the only friends he had were his super-dog, Krypto, and a snooping neighbor girl, Lana Lang. The notion that he was part of some team with other teenagers was deeply appealing. It was similar to being in a classroom or a club, where the possibilities of making friends are endless. I hadn’t even read the comic, and yet my overactive imagination was already drawing parallels between what I had seen and my real life – or what my life could be like, perhaps.

The next day, I begged Mom to take me back to Thomas Market and buy that comic book. I didn’t realize (and, apparently, neither did she) that I could pick it up at any other grocery store or 7-11. Thomas Market was way over on the other side of town; nevertheless, to shut me up, perhaps (or, more charitably, because she recognized that I truly cared about something that involved reading), she drove me there, and I hastily snatched up the issue before someone else bought it. An onlooker would have thought that I had found a rare and valuable treasure. Such an onlooker would have been right.

“The Lad Who Wrecked the Legion”

The treasure in question was Legion of Super-Heroes v1 #1, cover-dated February 1973. It was a reprint of an earlier story, “The Lad Who Wrecked the Legion,” from Adventure Comics #328, January 1965, but I didn’t know that at the time. I did know that this story stood out from other comics on the stand and the few I had read before. The artwork was simpler and cleaner. The characters generally seemed to get along with one another. But, most importantly, there was a complete story in 14 pages! (The rest of the issue was filled out by text pages and a Tommy Tomorrow reprint.) I had already been disappointed by an issue of Fantastic Four and an issue of Green Lantern/Green Arrow (the infamous “Speedy is a junkie” issue), both of which featured continued stories, characters who bickered, and more “mature” themes. It would be some time before I would come to love ongoing serials, realistic character development, and adult subject matter in comics. But the Legion was just right for me: It told a simple story about a new kid who joins the team, acts like a jerk, and upstages the other members, who then start to feel inadequate. What nine-year-old can’t relate to that? The other Legionnaires even go so far as to try to become like Command Kid – but this turns out to be a terrible mistake (as giving in to peer pressure usually is). Only the timely intervention of two previously absent but alert Legionnaires – Saturn Girl and Element Lad – saves the day. And even Command Kid isn’t truly evil: he’s as much a victim of his source of power as anyone.

In spite of its simple story-telling style, the complex themes of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Jim Mooney’s story drew me in and sustained me as a reader, as did the endless possibilities associated with the Legion of Super-Heroes. The origins and powers of these 27 characters could easily be summarized in a sentence or two (as writer Cary Bates superbly demonstrated in the issue’s main text feature, “The Legion of Super-Heroes Membership List”), making it easy for me to learn who they were yet want to know more. The membership list included several Legionnaires who didn’t appear in that story; I had to use my imagination to guess what Ferro Lad or Princess Projectra or Timber Wolf looked like. Even though my guesses were wrong, any excuse to use the imagination is good.

“Don’t get too comfortable with the way things are.”

Within a year of discovering LSH # 1, I had become a full-fledged comics fanatic. I was reading Avengers, Defenders, JLA, Flash, Captain America, and just about anything else I could get my hands on (and cajole Mom into letting me buy). But the Legion was always at the top of my list – even after their reprint series was cancelled following the fourth issue and they found a new home in Superboy (hereafter cover-titled Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes), beginning with # 197, September 1973. New writer Bates and artist Dave Cockrum would “update” the Legion, giving them more dramatic costumes and sexy appearances, and crafting stories that emphasized super-heroic action over science fiction wonder. These changes took some getting used to, but in many ways they improved upon what had gone before. Within issues, Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel (formerly Triplicate Girl) had married and left the Legion, a dynamic new Legionnaire named Wildfire had joined, and one of my early favorites, Invisible Kid, was killed by the monstrous Validus.

Well, my dad was fond of saying, “Don’t get too comfortable,” when a situation that had grown too easy or predictable. As far as the Legion was concerned, he was right. These changes challenged me as a reader: Should I give up just because things weren’t going the way I wanted them to go? Or should I be patient and stick around to see what happens next? I chose the latter and never regretted it afterwards.

“All things must end (sort of).”

The Legion remained the cornerstone of my comics collecting for the next 17 years. Other titles came and went, my interest in various Marvel and DC heroes waxed and waned over the years, and new comics from so-called “independent” publishers lured me away from a strictly super-hero diet, but throughout it all, the Legion remained constant. Even though there were periods when of lackluster stories and art, those titanic teens (or, soon, post-teens) from the future always bounced back. During the 1980s, when Paul Levitz was writer for seven straight years, and dynamic and imaginative artists such as Keith Giffen, Greg LaRocque, and Steve Lightle graced their pages, the Legion reached its apex, I thought. It couldn’t get better than this.

And then the Legion I knew was thrown away.

The changes wrought on the Legion by Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Superman revamp are well known. As DC sought to clean its house of the “deadweight” that had accumulated over the years and to make their comics more accessible to fans who were lured away by the Marvel Universe, the Legion got caught in the middle: the unwanted stepchild left to fend for itself. Without a solid footing in the post-Crisis universe, the Legion was given a history-ectomy, a drastic operation that gutted its origin, foundation, and most of its memorable stories. The Legion that remained looked like a patient with several vital organs removed: It appeared to be standing unaided, but something wasn’t quite right. On top of that, Giffen came back and changed virtually everything else, making the Legion’s world “darker” and leaving the team in shambles, a situation made worse by frustratingly difficult-to-follow storylines and artwork.

As a reader, I was being challenged again. Should I stay or go?

This time, I chose to go. After LSH v4 #6, April 1990, I did the unthinkable: I dropped the Legion from my buying list. As someone else said, nothing lasts forever. Perhaps it was finally time to move on.

A Revisit and a Reboot

I dropped back in for about a year – during 1993-94. Giffen had gone, but his collaborators, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, were still writing the Legion. The Bierbaums had much to offer and, in re-reading these issues, I’ve since discovered their particular strengths, including some of the most realistic dialogue the Legion has ever had. But at the time, I felt totally alienated from this Legion and the younger, “updated” version that was running around. I would have liked them a whole lot better with their original history, complete with Superboy and Supergirl, intact. Alas, it wasn’t to be. I accepted the inevitable and moved on again.

Four years passed before I read the Legion again. In the interim, they had been “rebooted” – completely relaunched over from scratch, with a new origin (actually the old origin, but updated with new sensibilities), new code names, new members, and new storylines. I read about all this in the fan press and shook my head. The Legion I knew was truly dead and buried. A second operation had finally killed the patient. But it didn’t matter. I had moved on.

Or had I?

By 1998, enough time had passed that I was curious again. I picked up a few issues of the postboot LSH v. 4 and Legionnaires, and was able to appreciate them for what they were. In some ways, they had restored the childhood wonder that I had first experienced 25 years earlier through the Adventure reprints. Yet in other ways, this Legion was fresh and exciting. One scene always comes to mind that represents the appeal this Legion had to me: New Legionnaire Kinetix, a cute redhead, teases Leviathan (nee Colossal Boy) over his Spartan-like headgear. When next we see Leviathan, he is without the headgear. I was touched by the idea that Gim Allon, the hard-edged giant, just wanted to impress a girl. And yet this was also the Legion that fought the White Triangle, and had seen one of its members (Apparition, nee Phantom Girl) brutally murdered (not that she stayed dead, of course). There was humor amid the horror.

For the first time in many years, I ran out and bought every back issue I could find. Before I knew it, I was an active Legion fan again.

And, at the turn of the millennium, what did active comics fans do? Why, they joined online fan communities, of course.

Just where are you wandering to?

Why “He Who Wanders”? This identity came about because I needed a Legion-like user name. In early 2001, I joined the DC Comics Message Boards, the original home of the LMBP (Legion of Message Board Posters). The name I chose was an after-thought, really, but a homage to one of my favorite Legionnaires. Remember the guy on the cover of LSH v1 # 1? The guy in red and blue whom Superboy is thrashing about? Well, that was Mon-El, who, despite being tossed about in Command Kid’s illusory prank, was soon revealed to be one of the mightiest Legionnaires. Command Kid made sure that Mon, along with Superboy and Ultra Boy, were nowhere to be found before working his demonic spell on the rest of the Legion. In my second Legion story, “The War Between Krypton and Earth,” from Adventure # 333/LSH v1 # 2, it is Mon-El who saves the day. By the time Bates and Cockrum arrived, Mon was the leader of the Legion, and, as such, figures prominently in Superboy # 197, 198, 202, and 203. Even in # 200, a minor appearance, Mon and his girlfriend, Shadow Lass, stay on duty at Legion HQ to allow the others to attend the wedding. In short, Mon-El was the ideal “big brother” of the Legion. These memories were fresh in my mind when I chose the name “He Who Wanders,” which, according to the reboot, is what his slightly altered name, “M’Onel,” means. (And, for the record, I’ll take the idiosyncratic “Mon-El”, however it's spelled, over the generic puffery of “Valor” any day.)

Who knew I’d be stuck with it six years later?

The Unthinkable Happens Again

In 2004, DC decided that the Legion wasn’t selling well and rebooted the characters yet again. To be fair, the company had tried many efforts to revive the flagging title before resorting to this drastic step. In 2000, the two ongoing Legion titles were cancelled to make way for a 12-issue limited series, Legion Lost, under the innovative team of writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and wunderkind artist Olivier Coipel. This limited series and its six-issue follow-up, Legion Worlds, restored some interest in the Legion, but the series floundered again after it moved into another ongoing series (simply called The Legion). After 38 issues, DC determined that another reboot was called for.

And so, the Legionnaires were teenagers again.

If you’ve been picking up on the not-so-subtle clues I’ve been leaving throughout this narrative, you’ve probably figured out that I’m not a teenager and haven’t been one for quite some time. It’s not unheard of for older fans to enjoy comic book stories about teenaged heroes (and, as I said, I did come to love the reboot). But, all the same, there’s a sense of having been there and done that one too many times. One of the enduring appeals the Legion has always held for me is that their overall story line actually goes somewhere: these young heroes grow up, get married, move on, etc. Even the reboot was heading in this direction (via Ultra Boy and Apparition, who married and had a child) shortly before it was discarded. This, in fact, was the early lesson that Bates and Cockrum perhaps unknowingly imparted on me: the Legion of Super-Heroes is not a static entity; just like real teenagers, they must grow up.

So, keeping the Legionnaires as eternal teenagers and rebooting their history when things get a little complicated just doesn’t appeal to me any more. It’s taking the easy way out. (I’m aware that many fans prefer to see the Legionnaires remain teenagers forever. They can write their own bios.) At some point, comics about these future heroes need to stop rewriting their past and tell new stories.

I can’t honestly say whether or not the “threeboot” Legion has done this – because I haven’t read much of it. To fans who came on board with the “threeboot” or like it as much as or better than previous versions, more power to you. But this isn’t “my” Legion or a Legion I even recognize.

So, for the third time in my 35-year odyssey as a Legion fan, I’m currently on hiatus from following their adventures. When (or if) I’ll start reading the Legion again remains undetermined – the jury is still out on the “Lightning Saga” reboot (or unboot). But, in the meantime, I get to share summaries and views of the Legion’s past stories on these pages. Even though I’d rather see the Legion move forward instead of backward, we ought to respect and celebrate its history. There truly is something special about the Legion of Super-Heroes – but if you’re reading this, you already know that.He Who Wanders 20:23, 9 August 2007 (PDT)