What do you think?
Rate this book
Revisionism, Radical Experimentation, and Dystopia in Keith Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes by Julian Darius
No other run divides Legion of Super-Hero fans like Keith Giffen's. To detractors, it dismantled everything good about the series.
In this short book, Dr. Julian Darius argues that Giffen's run offered an ambitious and unprecedented response to the growing maturity of super-hero comics — one that, far from trashing Legion history, actually respected it.
(The contents of this book previously appeared in Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes.)
From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http://Sequart.org
In this short book, Dr. Julian Darius argues that Giffen's run offered an ambitious and unprecedented response to the growing maturity of super-hero comics — one that, far from trashing Legion history, actually respected it.
(The contents of this book previously appeared in Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes.)
From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http://Sequart.org
- GenresComics
Paperback
First published November 19, 2012
3 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
Julian Darius
125 books115 followersA creative writer and comics scholar, Dr. Julian Darius holds degrees in English (Ph.D., M.A.) and French (M.A.).
Darius founded Martian Lit, for which he writes several acclaimed comics titles, including Martian Comics, Necropolitan, Kimot Ren, Forever Man, and The Synthetics. He's also published a novel, some short stories, and a screenplay.
In 1996, while still an undergraduate, Darius founded what would become Sequart Organization, an organization devoted to promoting comic books and pop culture as a legitimate art form. He wrote copiously for Sequart’s website, has authored books on comics, and has produced documentary films for the organization.
He co-hosts the Stories out of Time and Space podcast with Scott Weatherly. It covers science-fiction movies and TV shows.
He currently lives in Illinois.
Darius founded Martian Lit, for which he writes several acclaimed comics titles, including Martian Comics, Necropolitan, Kimot Ren, Forever Man, and The Synthetics. He's also published a novel, some short stories, and a screenplay.
In 1996, while still an undergraduate, Darius founded what would become Sequart Organization, an organization devoted to promoting comic books and pop culture as a legitimate art form. He wrote copiously for Sequart’s website, has authored books on comics, and has produced documentary films for the organization.
He co-hosts the Stories out of Time and Space podcast with Scott Weatherly. It covers science-fiction movies and TV shows.
He currently lives in Illinois.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 10, 2018
Julian Darius once again proves he doesn't know much about comics, but he does know a lot about academic doublespeak.
In the 1980's, DC felt the way to compete with Marvel Comics was to make their products more like Marvel's products. To this end, they decided to do away with everything they thought was silly: Multiple earths, secret identities, and fun. They crafted a mini-series event, Crisis on Infinite Earths to do this, but they didn't completely think through the ramifications of this on their properties. At the same time, DC decided to market their comics less to 12 year olds, and more to college students.
Legion Of SuperHeroes was one of the properties most affected. Suddenly without an origin, as well as without purpose. Keith Giffen, then an up and coming comic book star was given the reins. His controversial time on the title brought then trendy political topics to comics.
Darius doesn't seem to know much about Giffen. While he describes his art and writing style, Giffen was not conceived in a vacuum. His earlier books, Ambush Bug, and especially The March Hare, lead in quite naturally to his work with the Legion. Somehow, Darius completely missed this. There's other things fairly obvious to comic fans, seem to miss his attention completely.
He tries to hide his ignorance behind a veil of academic talk, but it doesn't work with anyone who actually knows a little something about the subject.
In the 1980's, DC felt the way to compete with Marvel Comics was to make their products more like Marvel's products. To this end, they decided to do away with everything they thought was silly: Multiple earths, secret identities, and fun. They crafted a mini-series event, Crisis on Infinite Earths to do this, but they didn't completely think through the ramifications of this on their properties. At the same time, DC decided to market their comics less to 12 year olds, and more to college students.
Legion Of SuperHeroes was one of the properties most affected. Suddenly without an origin, as well as without purpose. Keith Giffen, then an up and coming comic book star was given the reins. His controversial time on the title brought then trendy political topics to comics.
Darius doesn't seem to know much about Giffen. While he describes his art and writing style, Giffen was not conceived in a vacuum. His earlier books, Ambush Bug, and especially The March Hare, lead in quite naturally to his work with the Legion. Somehow, Darius completely missed this. There's other things fairly obvious to comic fans, seem to miss his attention completely.
He tries to hide his ignorance behind a veil of academic talk, but it doesn't work with anyone who actually knows a little something about the subject.
August 30, 2018
I know, I know. This market is so niche that it is self-indulgent in ways that the Marie Antoinette fanatics can only aspire to be. But it is a niche in which I placed myself around 1964, when I bought my first Legion of Superheroes comic (at the time they were featured in Adventure, from which they migrated to a series of more-or-less eponymous titles in the 1980s). At the moment they have been on hiatus for a few years until someone at DC decides to try them on for size again.
This book (really, this academic essay) will mean very little to people who did not start lives as fanboys. It is one of life's mysteries that I cannot remember the names of people I see on a daily basis, but can still recite 95% of the real names of Legionairres: Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen Ranzz), Cosmic Boy (Rokk Krinn), Lightning Lad (Garth Ranzz), for example. Believe me, I can go on for about thirty characters, and none of them are named Mary or John. I also carry the original and later cosmologies for the series around in my brain. What I am trying to say, people, is that I have been following the Legion of Superheroes for over 50 years. And yes, I do need to get a life, so shut it about that.
But if this is you, this treatment of the storylines of Keith Giffen, who reinvented the Legion in the late 80s and 90s will delight. Julian Darius is an academic, and he has treated the saga as worth of academic interest. Why did Keith Giffen write the Legion as part of a newly dystopian vision of the future? Like Roddenberry's Star Trek, the world of the Legion a thousand years from now was presented in rosy terms for most of its history. Deep Space Nine portrayed a grimmer Federation, but Roddenberry had died by then. Giffen made his characters brutal, selfish, old --- the originals were teenagers, but Giffen's Legionairres were apparently in a fairly grizzled middle-age. The United Planets, originally filled with gleaming, unspoiled bright surfaces, looked downright dingy. And he topped off the run by literally using an environmental disaster to blow up the Earth itself, killing billions. Cities escaped by means of domes and rockets (I was surprised that Darius never mentioned Cities in Flight by James Blish, which had earlier offered a similar fate). When the book continued after Giffen's run with the characters, the new creative staff had to perform one of those torturous things that comic books do to preserve continuity. And don't get me started on the clones.
If any of this was at all interesting to you, I salute you, my fellow nerd. You will enjoy Darius' take on the Legion.
This book (really, this academic essay) will mean very little to people who did not start lives as fanboys. It is one of life's mysteries that I cannot remember the names of people I see on a daily basis, but can still recite 95% of the real names of Legionairres: Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen Ranzz), Cosmic Boy (Rokk Krinn), Lightning Lad (Garth Ranzz), for example. Believe me, I can go on for about thirty characters, and none of them are named Mary or John. I also carry the original and later cosmologies for the series around in my brain. What I am trying to say, people, is that I have been following the Legion of Superheroes for over 50 years. And yes, I do need to get a life, so shut it about that.
But if this is you, this treatment of the storylines of Keith Giffen, who reinvented the Legion in the late 80s and 90s will delight. Julian Darius is an academic, and he has treated the saga as worth of academic interest. Why did Keith Giffen write the Legion as part of a newly dystopian vision of the future? Like Roddenberry's Star Trek, the world of the Legion a thousand years from now was presented in rosy terms for most of its history. Deep Space Nine portrayed a grimmer Federation, but Roddenberry had died by then. Giffen made his characters brutal, selfish, old --- the originals were teenagers, but Giffen's Legionairres were apparently in a fairly grizzled middle-age. The United Planets, originally filled with gleaming, unspoiled bright surfaces, looked downright dingy. And he topped off the run by literally using an environmental disaster to blow up the Earth itself, killing billions. Cities escaped by means of domes and rockets (I was surprised that Darius never mentioned Cities in Flight by James Blish, which had earlier offered a similar fate). When the book continued after Giffen's run with the characters, the new creative staff had to perform one of those torturous things that comic books do to preserve continuity. And don't get me started on the clones.
If any of this was at all interesting to you, I salute you, my fellow nerd. You will enjoy Darius' take on the Legion.
January 15, 2021
Looking back at the Legion of my early 20s...this iteration is now in long boxes down in my garage and not nearly as often revisited as the Legion of my boyhood.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews