Over in my newsletter, I ran the never-before-seen Legion of Super-Heroes graphic novel proposal that I originally wrote back in 2020 for DC then-head honcho Bobbie Chase. It never went anywhere, but I thought y’all might enjoy it…

This is my never-published Legion of Super-Heroes graphic novel proposal from 2020…

Back during the pandemic lockdown, I was invited by DC’s Bobbie Chase to submit some graphic novel pitches for DC’s then-nascent YA line. Me being me, of course I decided to dial up the difficulty by pitching the Legion of Super-Heroes, the most continuity-laden, reboot-burdened, complicated property in DC’s line-up.

Because apparently I play the video game of life on Hard.

Anyway, Bobbie and I talked about it a little bit and she had some reservations and then she was no longer at DC, so the whole thing became moot. But I thought the geeks among you might like to see it!

Superman:
The Legion of Super-Heroes

You’re thinking: Yikes. Not the Legion!

There’s, like, a hundred members. And they each have siblings and parents. Plus villains. And sundry supporting cast. It’s impossible to keep track! And to add insult to injury, it’s set a thousand years in the future!

Don’t worry. We’re going to use about half a dozen of them, while still giving a sense of the scope of the team.

Also, we’re going to avoid the problem so many folks run into with the Legion, which is — for some inexplicable reason — always bringing an “away team” into the present. Look, a big part of the glory of the Legion is its far-flung setting. I’m going to lean into that, with not one, not two, but three versions of the future.

Stick with me. It’ll all make sense and it won’t be confusing in the least. I swear on my replica flight ring.

(And look — this is a character-driven piece, but it’s the nature of the beast that there’s gonna be some sci-fi weirdness. The sci-fi weirdness doesn’t conflict with the character elements; it enhances them.)

We start with Superboy.

**********

Clark Kent has a problem.

At sixteen, he’s the most powerful kid on the planet. Hell, in the solar system. You think it’s rough being in high school when you don’t fit into a convenient clique? Try not fitting into the species.

It should be simple: He has powers and he uses them to help people. That’s just the way it’s supposed to go, right? The strong help the weak, the mighty defend the small, and everyone is uplifted.

But Superboy yearns for something more. He could spend 24 hours a day being “on call,” and still never save every life, root out every evil, extinguish every conflict. He needs something to keep him on an even keel. He’s physically indestructible, but the stresses of a dual identity, teendom, and, y’know, saving the world on the regular are getting to him.

Is this his destiny? Is he fated to be alone, to be isolated from the very people he saves? Even in his secret identity, is he always going to be the outcast?

Superboy needs to figure out how to grow up into Superman without laying waste to the planet in a fit of teen pique. He wants a place where he can be himself. He wants friends that he doesn’t have to lie to all the time.

Enter: The Legion of Super-Heroes! Founding members Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy! Teens heroes from the far-flung future, the year 3020!

It begins when Clark takes a shortcut home through town, lost in his thoughts. As he rounds a corner, a beautiful girl lingers there, leaning against the wall of the Smallville Savings and Loan. She greets him with, “Hello, Superboy.”

She’s gone almost before he can stammer out a surprised “Say what?”

And then the same thing happens two more times, this time with a red-headed boy and a black-haired kid. Three strangers to town who know the truth he’s tried so hard to hide.

But of course they know — they’re from the future, where Superboy’s secret identity is a matter of historical record. They’ve traveled back in time to recruit Superboy to join their “super-hero club” and give him — at last — what he’s so longed for: Friends who “get” him. A clique of his own, one not comprised of kids who might as well be made of papier mache, for all their fragility.

The bring him to the future, where there is some hazing, of course, some shenanigans and ridiculous teen rituals to endure, but when it’s all said and done, Superboy is a member of the Legion.

The 31st century is…amazing. It’s basically a fifties sci-fi flick come to life, with gleaming, rounded buildings, floating cars, no pollution. There are giant fins on everything. It’s a candy-colored universe of cool aliens and amazing tech, all guarded over by a group of super-powered teenagers from around the galaxy.

It’s basically the greatest thing ever. Superboy starts spending every moment of his free time there. Home from school, homework done at superspeed, and then it’s off to the future to hang with his new pals. Finally, he belongs. And heck, that cute Triplicate Girl even seems to have a crush on him.

We get a sense of the sheer size of the team through updates on their Mission Monitor Board, which lets us keep the “on-panel” team manageably small, while still showing that this is a big group.

Clark starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he should move to the 31st century. For him, going back and forth through time to visit his adoptive parents is no more difficult than someone who moved to the West Coast heading back East for the holidays. Why not stay in the perfect future, the place where he feels most at home, most at ease, most himself?

It’s the easiest thing to do. It requires no sacrifice on his part. And he’s still doing good work with the Legion, so it’s not like he’s shirking his duty. He’s just…time-shifted it.

Of course, it’s too good to be true.

A voice begins calling to him. At first, he ignores it, but eventually he can’t help himself — he follows the voice to a hidden subbasement in Legion headquarters, where he discovers a door.

His friends rush to him, but before they can stop him, he opens the door and is sucked into…

…the real 31st century!

His guide — the source of the voice — is Dawnstar, a winged descendant of Native Americans with a strange “tracking ability” that has allowed her to cross dimensions in pursuit of Superboy. She leads him into what is actually the year 3020, and it ain’t pretty.

It rains. Constantly.

The city is smog-choked. Overcrowded. Rusted, broken tech litters the streets. The people live in terror and in hiding. The burnt-out husks of vehicles line the boulevards. It’s a war zone after the war’s ended and no one has bothered to clean up.

“This is the future you are going to make, Superboy,” she tells him.

“Me?” he explodes. “What did I do?”

It’s not what he did, she explains. It’s what he didn’t do.

Seduced by the pop art version of the future he’s been living in, Superboy had made the decision to stay in the 31st century for good. Ergo, no Superman in the 21st century. No Superman means no heroic inspiration resounding down through the centuries to lift up humanity and create the shining future we all dream of.

The “fifties” version of the future he was living in? Not real. At all.

He’s been stuck inside the Virt. Short for “virtual reality,” but it’s so much more than that. With 31st century advanced technology, the Virt is pretty much its own universe, concocted and designed and maintained specifically to give young Clark his anodyne dream come true. Seduction on a universal scale.

(This is where it gets sci-fi-y. In the wise words of Sledge Hammer: Trust me; I know what I’m doing.)

In the year 3020, Dawnstar explains, the powerful wizard Mordru the Merciless realized that he could never conquer the world due to the resistance of the Legion of Super-Heroes. And so he created a false version of the world, using his magic to empower the Virt even further than its own technology could allow, creating a bespoke universe designed to seduce the young Superboy into his clutches and change history such that the Legion never existed. Virtspace is something like 99% as real as the real world at this point. Everything Superboy experienced is real, but it was all at the direction of Mordru, for the nefarious purpose of killing Superboy’s good intentions.

Dawnstar goes on: Now there are three versions of the future: There’s the Virt. There’s the world in which Mordru rules all, the world Superboy has followed Dawnstar into. And there’s the real 31st century, a shining example of optimism and human progress that is more complicated and more nuanced than the simplistic version in the Virt. That’s the version Dawnstar is from, a timeline that is rapidly decaying and will soon vanish from existence altogether.

Unless Superboy acts.

She takes him to a spot in Metropolis, where a sewage treatment plant rears up into the sky.

“This is where the Superman Museum was supposed to be. Where it was, in my timeline,” she tells him. “We used to come here all the time, to be inspired by your example, to rededicate ourselves to live up to it. But without that example…”

She says no more, only gestures around them at the wreck and ruin of the year 3020. Mordru’s playground.

As much as Clark wants to go back into the Virt and have that idealized version of his life, he understands now that he has to sacrifice his wants and needs. His powers make him physically indestructible, but he can still be hurt in his heart, in his soul. And it’s like ripping off an arm, but he sees now that he must return to the present, that he must allow himself to pretend to be the human being he is not. His own comfort and desires and wishes are meaningless compared to the suffering of untold billions down through the centuries.

He’s not some kid who gets to grow up and settle down in the ‘burbs.

He’s going to be Superman.

The world demands more from him.

The world deserves more from him.

Battling his way through Mordru’s hordes, he locates the time travel equipment he needs and plows back through the millennium that separates his era from the Legion’s. Mordru’s reality begins to crumble, to be replaced with the future as it was always meant to be, a future that we would recognize as being made by real people, not fantasies.

Soon, Clark is back home in Smallville.

Where, once more, he must get through life every day pretending to be someone and something he is not.

But this time…this time it’s a little easier.

Eventually, he confides the truth to his parents, telling them about his temptations and his decision.

Morose and beating himself up, he says, “If I had it all to do over again, Pa, I’d do it differently. I really would.”

“I know,” his father tells him. “And that’s the lesson you take from this.”

“You are extraordinary,” says his mother, “so your sacrifices are extraordinary, too. But if you want an ordinary life, no one should stop you from having that.”

But, no. He can’t. Once, perhaps, the idea of giving up, of not using his powers, of just living life like anyone else might have been attractive to him, and the idea of those who would suffer as a result was just an abstraction. But now he’s seen it. He’s lived it.

He is Superboy. And someday, he will be Superman. And damn it, he will be the very best version of both.

Meanwhile (if that word means anything when we’re talking about time travel…), in the future that was always meant to be, the Legion visits the Superman Museum and thrills to the exhibits that reveal the amazing feats and incredible sacrifices of the Man of Steel and how they formed the world they now live in.

And Lightning Lad looks over at Saturn Girl and says, “So, do you think it’s time…?”

**********

Back in the present, Clark Kent rounds a corner in town, taking a shortcut home from school. A beautiful girl lingers there, leaning against the wall of the Smallville Savings and Loan.

“Hello, Superboy,” she says.

And Clark grins.

Yes. This time, he’ll do it differently.

Long live the Legion!

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