Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool has breaking news that Warner Brothers is in “serious development” on a Legion of Super-Heroes film.
That’s really a great scoop there, Rich. I really enjoyed it. Almost as much as I did when Latino Review broke the story back in September (which we covered here, and I was sooooooo tempted to just copy and paste that article again to see if anyone noticed).
The main difference between the articles is that between them, Warners announced its slate of superhero films up to 2020 and a Legion of Super-Heroes film was nowhere to be found on it. Perhaps Bleeding Cool–or their sources–want us to know that the film hasn’t been abandoned as of yet and is still in the works.
The Legion of Super-Heroes first appeared in a Superboy story in 1958’s Adventure Comics #247, appearing as a trio of teenage superheroes from the future who traveled back in time to greet the legendary teen hero that inspired them to get together and form a team, Superboy.
Over the next 58 years, the concept grew to spawn seven separate Legion of Super-Heroes titles, countless tie-in and spinoff series, well over 63 members (I stopped counting once the reboots set in) and a notoriously devoted fanbase. The concept reached the height of its popularity in the early 1980s when writer Paul Levitz and artist Keith Giffen took over the title. Unfortunately, the concept never recovered to from the hit the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries delivered to them. That miniseries led to a full on reboot of the DC Universe in general and Superman in particular. One of the changes was that Superman was never Superboy, therefore, the Legion had no inspiration to form in the first place.
This continuity change led to numerous soft and hard reboots, so many that even hardcore fans had a hard time keeping the continuity straight. As of right now, it has been over a year since there has been a Legion book on the shelves.
Both articles state that Warners is developing LOSH as a response to the success of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. As such, it will have a lighter tone than the rest of the DC Comics films.
The Legion has had their own animated series which ran for two seasons on the CW, and the characters have also made an appearance on Smallville.
Paul Levitz hasn’t hinted at anything in the works. It would be cool, if they do a decent job on it. I grew up with these guys.
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