How do you solve a problem like Superboy? Diving into LSH #37-45, Annual 3

If you now have that song in your head, you're welcome.

First, a history lesson to explain how we got here.

In the early 1980's, Marvel was dominating the comic industry. How dominant? I have heard that they accounted for 70-80% of the market share. Between the X-titles, Secret Wars, Fantastic Four, and the beginning of the Epic line, they were selling titles like crazy. When you look back at what are considered classic runs on Marvel comics, the early 80's are a peak.

On the other hand, DC was struggling. Yes, their sales were up compared to the 70's, when they imploded their line and almost gave everything to Marvel to publish, but their flagship titles weren't selling.

Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, the title designed to get Marvel fans reading DC, they aggressively signed talent to take over their books. The biggest signing was John Byrne. I know that history has not viewed Byrne favorably, but he was the biggest name in comics in the 80's. Whatever he worked on sold massive numbers of comics.

When he came over, DC asked him, and other creators, to pitch a reboot of Superman. Not surprising, his pitch won. The Superman books were cancelled and Byrne rewrote 50 years of Superman history in the classic Man of Steel mini-series. Lex Luthor became a maniacal billionaire. Lois Lane became a driven, tough-as-nails reporter who didn't stand down for anyone. And Byrne removed tons of ideas that he felt took away from the character.

Like Superboy.

In the new continuity, Superboy never existed. Superman started wearing the costume in his early 20's. There was never any teen of steel, no flights into the future, no membership on any teenage-focused super team.

Which meant the Legion of Super-Heroes were royally f**ked.

Somehow, they had to come up with a story that married the two concepts together without completely breaking Legion history.

Just wanted to add a Mike Grell cover.

I'm going to write about that story in just a bit, but first I'm going to explain why I think getting rid of Superboy was actually a good decision.

What follows are just my opinions, not based on any facts or data, but based on what I thought when I was reading these comics in the mid-80's and what I think now. I'm sure that not everyone will agree, especially since this is a Legion subreddit and we all know how important Superboy was/is to the book.

• By the mid-1980's, Superboy wasn't really a critical part of the book. Paul Levitz had been slowly writing him out of the series to focus on the many characters that only appeared in this title.
• Before he left the team, Superboy had been integral to the series for one reason - the editors at the time believed that his appearances led to higher sales. But I honestly don't think that had been true for years, probably not since the 60's. The Legion wasn't selling because Superboy was in it. They were selling either because the artwork was so incredible (Dave Cockrum, Mike Grell, Keith Giffen) or because of the amazing stories.
• Superboy, fundamentally, didn't work as a character. We know he's going to survive and never change because we know he'll become Superman. He existed as a way for kids to get into Superman, but no one was reading either at the time.
• Superboy was a symbol of everything that was wrong with DC and what they were trying to get rid of with Crisis on Infinite Earths. Here was a property from the 40's, that was still stuck in the 60's, that couldn't relate to any reader in the 80's, and was a character, like Supergirl, who everyone liked but no one read.
• Revisionist history tells you that Byrne was horribly wrong with these decisions, but fans loved it. They were ecstatic that he was streamlining the character and making him fresh and modern. Sales on the Superman books skyrocketed and readers who would've never bought a Superman book before were now shelling out money for these titles. They weren't beating X-Men, but they were solidly in the top 10 or 20 each month. Fans obviously didn't care whether he had been Superboy or not.
• At the end of the day, Paul Levitz, who was essentially the editor in chief for DC, could have killed this change right from the beginning and saved himself a ton of stress. Yet he chose to go along with this because he knew it was best for the character and the company at the time.
• Finally, there's a reason why they never brought this version of Superboy back. In all this time, with all the Superman reboots, no writer ever said "we need to bring back the Clark Kent Superboy."

All this leads to the Pocket Universe Saga:

LSH #38

This four-part story ran through LSH #37, Superman #8, Action Comics #591, and concluded in LSH #38. To summarize, the LSH realizes that there are huge problems with the time stream after Cosmic Boy and Night Girl come back from his self-titled mini-series. They decide to go forward and challenge the Time Trapper.

Instead, they're sent back, to Superboy's era, where they realize that things are really, really wrong. Superboy puts four of them into stasis and the others escape to modern age, where they meet up with the new Superman. They're quite surprised that Superman doesn't know who they are and they, after the requisite fight, talk things out and the Legion decides to head back to save their team. Instead, Superboy shows up, uses the stasis ray on everyone, leaves Superman behind, and takes the Legionnaires back in the time bubble. The stasis ray doesn't work on Superman, he grabs Superboy, and they all end up back in Superboy's era.

The Time Trapper reveals how this was all created. He saw the Legion, having just created a time machine, wanted to go back and meet Superboy. A Superboy that didn't exist. So the Time Trapper created a pocket universe into which he pulled his own version of Krypton, which he changed enough so it would match the pre-Crisis DC Universe. He ensured there would be a Superboy. So instead of going back into time, the Legionnaires went back into this pocket universe.

Does that mean that, in a future version of this pocket universe, which would still exist at the same time the Legion existed, would there be a pocket universe version of the Legion? Would there be a pocket universe version of everything?

Superman and Superboy face off, Krypto makes his final appearance with super powers, and they end up talking and realizing that Superboy doesn't really want to fight anyone - he's being forced to by the Time Trapper. He frees the Legion, Superman goes back to his own time, and Superboy and the Legion must fight together to save this pocket universe.

At the end, to save everything he holds dear, Superboy sacrifices his life to save the universe. Which, of course, we can never travel to again because the Time Trapper has hidden it and none of the Legion's time travel devices work any more.

Does anyone out there have a better idea for how you could remove Superboy from DC continuity while keeping Legion history in tact? Keith Giffen and Tom and Mary Bierbaum would end up having Mon-El punch their way out of this mess in a few years, but I don't know if there's anything else they could've done right now. Levitz obviously didn't want to break Legion history on a book that's doing very well sales-wise. So, we get the pocket universe. It's not a perfect solution, but it does give Superboy the heroic ending he needed to have.

It is a shame that they didn't know they were headed this way when the Crisis crossovers were occurring. I think they could've cleaned up a lot of this a year earlier. Benefit of hindsight, of course.

After yet another reread of this book, I really liked what they did here. I does further cement the Time Trapper as one of the Legion's biggest threats and positioned them well, story-wise, for the big showdown in issue #50. It's also a great farewell - Superboy died as the hero we always knew him to be.

Random thoughts about these four issues (yes, I reread the Superman books too):

• Greg LaRocque said in a podcast that he was really unhappy with how he was inked for most of his run on the Legion. The disparity between the clean lines John Byrne had with Karl Kesel, himself, and Keith Williams inking compared to the blotchy thick lines of Mike DeCarlo really stand out. It's a shame we'll never see LaRocque's uninked pages. (Sorry, Mike DeCarlo, this isn't my first criticism of your work)
• Superman #8 is essentially just a recap of what's gone before. Pages are devoted to explain how Superboy joined the Legion. More pages are copied completely from what LaRocque did in issue 37. Or LaRocque copied Byrne. Either way, it's like re-reading the comic with a different artist. I keep forgetting how often books before the 90's would do this. It's like they didn't believe anyone would read another book.
• It is odd how Byrne's Superboy actually looks like a teenager, while he looks like an adult in every other comic. I know it's done just to make sure we don't confuse him with Superman, but it actually makes for an odd reading experience. The rest of the Legion, and Pete Ross, all look like adults.
• In the final, full-page drawing of Superboy's funeral in LSH #38, Paul Levitz threw in one line, coming from Duo Damsel, that set up what would come in the future: "I loved him, you know." While she's being held by her husband of many, many years, Bouncing Boy. Yes, we will come back to this next week.

LSH #42

I think I can safely say that the worst thing that Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths created was the multi-issue crossover where events from the mini-series occur in the monthly books. Once a year, the regular story lines of the different titles are tossed aside so they can get dragged into whatever big event is occurring.

Sometimes, the creative teams are talented enough to make it work. Other times, the concept of the crossover lends itself well to this concept. But more often than not, it results in stories like this one.

Once again, we ask ourselves how a title that takes place 1,000 years in the future can have any connection to the events of the 20th Century. Unlike Legends, which saw Cosmic Boy travel back in time, this story pulls the idea of a hidden Manhunter agent into the future.

Since most people don't remember this mini-series (nor should they), the Manhunters created a whole bunch of sleeper agents that would betray their friends and try to prevent a new group of heroes from being created by the Guardians, the aliens who created the Green Lantern Corps.

Who's the sleeper agent in the Legion? Laurel Kent, Legion Academy member and descendant of Superman.

Okay, I get the idea that, especially with the new Superman, Laurel Kent probably needed to disappear, die, or be completely re-written. And I also get that Paul Levitz was probably trying his best to both help Millennium's appeal and maybe increase the Legion's sales as well, so he got the book connected to the event. But this just ends up being a complete mishmash of strange ideas and bad delivery.

For those of you remember the mystery of "Who shot Laurel Kent?", we've already seen that a Kryptonite bullet injured her. Which is something that wouldn't happen to an invulnerable android. The Legion already did the check of historical records and she was, in fact, who she was claiming to be. So this reveal doesn't make any sense. Forget about the whole "why would the Manhunters have this sleeper agent still waiting to be activated 1,000 years after their plan had obviously failed?" conundrum, which makes it even more confusing.

The Legion should just never have anything to do with any of these crossovers.

LSH #45

It's a big Legion anniversary - their 30th - and to celebrate, we're going to focus on a character who no longer appears in the book and will have very little to do in the future. Yes, it's another book focused on Lightning Lad. This story's concept concerns how and why he's the luckiest Legionnaire of all time. So, the Luck Lords (yes, that's really what they're called) give Lightning Lord a bunch of lucky breaks to help him finally face Garth and kill him.

Levitz really likes these issues where he creates one story and pulls tons of flashbacks to allow guest artists to give readers flashbacks to past Legion eras. Some of them, like Volume 2 #300, work. This one, not so much.

A 30th Anniversary story should be, in my opinion, one that focuses on the entire team. It's a great opportunity to give long-time fans a look to the past and newer fans a sense of what's coming in the future. I know that they're trying to forget Superboy with the new continuity, but this would have been the best issue to have the Legionnaires talk about him and remember the friend they lost. Why not give Superboy a final send-off?

Instead, it's a retrospective on Lightning Lad. I have to be honest here - there are a only a few moments where he's even been interesting, let alone compelling. Most of his greatest moments came in the 60's and he's been kinda stuck in the background for far too long by the time this issue saw print. Even the flashbacks show this - the most recent flashback, drawn by Mike Grell, was from a comic in the 1970's.

If any one of the original three Legionnaires should have gotten the focus of this issue, I would have given it to Saturn Girl. After all, Lightning Lad got the Legionnaires 3 mini-series to shine. Cosmic Boy got his own mini-series. Saturn Girl was in the background of the first one and she's the only one who's actually a Legionnaire in this story.

Artistically, I found one thing very, very fascinating. Both Kurt Schaffenberger's and Curt Swan's pages almost seemed overwhelmed by the heavy inking of Mike DeCarlo. It really took away from their very distinctive styles. But Dave Cockrum's, Mike Grell's, and Keith Giffen's pages all looked like their own work. Does anyone know if they inked their own stuff or was it just that their styles are so different that no inker could really change it? (I'd bet money Grell inked his own stuff...)

In defense of Mike DeCarlo - he was inking a ton of books at this time, has assistants helping him (which is why we see the credit Art Assist by Arne Starr), and was probably told to ink in the old Marvel style. When he had time, his work was amazing.

More thoughts about the other issues:

• Loved the Colossal Boy flashback issue in #39, but you know I'm a sucker for those. Making him even more connected to the Science Police, and to GiGi Cusimano, was a great way to subtly change a back story and make it drive future stories forward.
• Annual #3 was a nice, fun story that didn't really do much but keep the Legion of Substitute Heroes alive. Did they ever have a moment where Projectra reacted to the new Karate Kid? My mind is blanking right now if they did.
• Also, considering Cosmic Boy's membership in the Subs - if you wanted to keep writing about the original three Legionnaires, you really shouldn't have had them quit. I know it was to move the story along and get fresh faces on the team, but you have to accept when you made a mistake, story wise, and backtrack. At the least, Cosmic Boy should've gone back to the team. Lightning Lad quitting, only wanting to be a dad, makes sense. Cosmic Boy staying away doesn't.
• More Starfinger issues as Levitz is desperately trying to make him an important villain for the Legion. I'm not sure if I get more frustrated with this with each issue, or if I just remember that I'm happy to see Chameleon Boy and Colossal Boy getting used effectively to overcome the lameness of the villain.
• One big change that I haven't talked about, which keeps pushing the Wildfire/Dawnstar doomed romance story, is that Quislet showed Wildfire how to control his energy and create a "body" so he could actually touch her. It's an interesting twist, and it kept the soap opera going, but I don't know if it helped either of the characters. I think the best next step of that story was to have Dawnstar develop feelings for someone else and see how Wildfire handled it. Badly, of course.
• I did really enjoy the visit to Teall - more weird aliens in different dimensions is always good.
• Speaking of soap operas, the continued Atmos/Dream Girl story ramps up as his pursuit gets more intense and he tries for Legion membership. I really enjoyed the fact that everyone except her knew that he was bad news. When even Wildfire thinks someone is unstable and out-of-control, you know that's a problem.