Comics! Superboy and … who?

On the one hand, I’ve trained myself over the last two years to hold virtually the entire run of DC Comics at arm’s length, since the comics company I’ve loved for so long is still in the throes of “The New 52,” a top-to-bottom revision of their superhero continuity, a revision almost entirely for the worse in terms of color, personality, and idealism.

But on the other hand, like any sensible person I’m attracted to bright shiny things, and DC Comics this week all bear matching pretty holographic covers for their new “Future’s End” storyline (in which we take a peek at all of our familiar characters in stories set five years in their future). So I picked one almost at random – I veered away from Batman or Action Comics, from Birds of Prey or Aquaman or the Phantom Stranger and instead plopped for Superboy. I’m not sure I could tell you why – granted, Superboy was perhaps my favorite old-time DC character, but in “The New 52,” he’s a mean-spirited laboratory experiment gone awry. I think perhaps it was just the striking simplicity of the cover’s holograph.

I ended up liking the issue, primarily for the very vivid artwork by Ben Caldwell, but I was just about to make the sour summing-up that the issue’s most enjoyable thing was the cover – until I got to the two-page house ad at the back.

And then the angels sang – for I was once more looking upon my beloved Legion of Super-Heroes.

DC’s “New 52″ version of the Legion was cancelled a while ago, and this is the first time they’ve made an appearance since then. Back when the Legion was cancelled, the team had been split in two – but this team serenely, gloriously flying past in that house ad is united again. Back when the Legion was cancelled, the team was fractured, dispirited, and haggard – but this team is full and confident … and traditional: there’s Mon-el front and center, there’s Shadow Lass beside him, there are classic characters like Sun Boy and Dream Girl and Ultra Boy, and there are great more recent characters like Tellus and Dawnstar and an ice-armed Polar Boy. It was like a gift.

Apparently, the team will be appearing in a comic called Justice League United in October for an entire story-arc. It’s not exactly a re-launch of their own title, which it bloody well should be, but it’s more than I have now, so I’ll take it. Talk about a bright shiny thing.