Geoff Johns is currently writing Action Comics, and he came up with a great story for an arc that became this graphic novel. What if, in the 31st century, the legend of Superman became the thing that suddenly divided the United Planets and nearly resulted in an intergalactic war?
Not only that, but Johns finds a way to put the future Earth under a red sun, taking Superman’s powers away and reducing him just to the flight ring’s ability to fly. Would he still be Superman?
I was blown away by the concepts, but having watched Johns handle so many characters with aplomb in the past, I knew I was in good hands. The story starts with a simple conceit: that the worlds are polarizing, and Earth has become xenophobic to the degree that they rewrote Superman’s history. According to the new popular legend, Clark Kent was just an Earth man given mighty powers by the planet to become her protector.
Superman, who had once been the influence that first brought the Legion together, was now the reason the United Planets treaties were on the verge of total failure. Now there’s a story.
But Johns doesn’t stop with merely an excellent story. While he’s busy turning the Superman mythos on their head, he reaches back into the past and brings forward everything that was great about the Legion. All the interplay, the character backgrounds, the loyalty, everything that made the Legion like no other comic book around, is here again in these pages - including the Legion of Substitute Heroes. This just wouldn’t have been the perfect story without them.
Not only that, but Johns again takes a stand to remind us what Superman is all about and what makes that character so unique. I loved this book. Loved the story and loved the homage to so much of the wonder I grew up with all those years ago.
Gary Frank’s art took a little getting used to at first, but he won me over within a few pages. It just looked different than anything I was used to in the Legion, too realistic, then he pulled me into that futuristic world in a way that I hadn’t been before.
If you haven’t read comics in a long time, Geoff Johns and Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes are the strongest reasons I know to come back to believing teens can fly.
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