JulianPerez
Council of Wisdom
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« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2007, 10:19:12 PM » |
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When I first read the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be about all the great times that Superman as an adult aided the Legion, e.g. the Adult Legion tale, the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Villains, and that issue of DC COMICS PRESENTS where a time-lost Legion teams up with Superman...the one occasion where Curt Swan did the 1980s Legion.
As for the importance of Superboy/Superman to the Legion...I agree with you that Superboy plays an indispensable role, but what that role IS, has varied over the years.
In the beginning, the Legion of Super-Heroes was a Superboy spin-off, no different from Supergirl or Bizarro World. These were the Ed Hamilton and Kurt Schaffenberger years when the Legion would battle time-travelling Superman enemies like Lex Luthor. This period lasted far longer than it should have, because EVEN when the Legion got their own enemies and their own identity, with the Weisenger control over the title, it meant that pretty much only Weisenger guys could pop up in guest-shots...which essentially meant Superboy, Supergirl, Krypto, and the rest.
But even in the Ed Hamilton and certainly the Jim Shooter years, the Legion acquired a life of its own, like a kid moving out of his parent's bedroom. There are still important ties, but he's got independence. By this I mean, the Legion built up its own mythology: the Fatal Five, the Adult Legion, Computo, the Dominators, etc. With this, the role of Superboy became a different one. One that is just as vital, however:
Superboy became two things: 1) the marquee name of the book, and more importantly, 2) the point of audience identification, like John the Savage for BRAVE NEW WORLD, or Fry from FUTURAMA. This goes beyond just being a cypher and asking "hey, what's that?" So Saturn Girl or whomever can give exposition...he's the person the audience sees themselves in.
Can the Legion survive without its "star," Superboy? Previously, I said no, it couldn't. Heck, I even busted Gerry Conway and his editors' chops for removing Superboy from the book back in 1980. But I've started to change my mind on the subject, because the Legion has, at this point in its existence, so much love and so much of an audience, and so much of an identity APART from the Super-Mythos, that Superboy isn't as necessary as he once was.
I owe Conway and the rest an apology for this.
Superboy is very important to Legion history, but his role is a set of training wheels that can now come off.
Think of it like this...in the beginning, Lorne Michaels wanted Albert Brooks to be the "regular" host of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, because he didn't think anybody would want to watch a show with unknown comedians. But the reason SNL never "got" a regular host e'er after, was because the so-called unknowns, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and the rest BECAME people that the audience would want to watch by themselves.
The Legion, post-ADVENTURE, is very much like this. Heck, even Superboy's traditional role as cypher/audience identification isn't as necessary as it once was, because we the reader, read the book because we care very much about the inner lives of Phantom Girl, Ultra Boy, etc.
Does that mean the Legion and Superboy aren't important to each other? No. Superboy guest-starring is quite a thrill. But at this point, Superboy doesn't HAVE to be there for the Legion to be readable and to "work."
On the subject of Karate Kid trying to tackle Superboy...yeah, that was a rockin' moment that characterized Val Armorr pretty well as a sometimes hothead that occasionally bites off more than he can chew, but what is it with Martial Artists trying to take on Super-Powerhouses, anyway? The most shocking moment of the Englehart AVENGERS is when Mantis took down Thor, a deity of a major religion, with pretty much one nerve punch to a vital cluster (which e'er after established Mantis as someone not to be messed with, if you can take on the most powerful Avenger with ONE PUNCH on your very first day).
(Though that moment was pretty famous, it overshadow a later moment in that issue, where Mantis brought down Captain America with the most sexually suggestive scissors move ever.)
Incidentally, Karate Kid and Projectra, Jimmy Shooter's "homegrown" Legionnaires are my personal favorites, because they were the first Legionnaires to have real definite personalities (with the POSSIBLE exception of Saturn Girl's ball-busting feminism). Later on, KK would be used not unlike Hawkeye is in AVENGERS: except instead of Hawkeye firing that one-in-a-million arrow shot that saves everybody, Karate Kid has the "Luke Skywalker vs. Death Star" moment, where it's the karate chop that saves everybody, as he did when he broke a giant energy chain surrounding the earth (!) created by Grimbor the Chainsman with one chop (it's no coincidence Roy Thomas wrote both stories).
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