Corrina Lawson

A journalist and writer, the author of genre fiction including everything from steampunk to romance.

The Legion of Super-Heroes: Always Lost

Why haven't any reboots of DC's Legion of Superheroes Worked?

Corrina
Jun 24, 2026

I’m an old comics geek. An old superhero comic geek. Sometimes I remember the stories from the 70s and 80s better than I remember what I need at the grocery store. (Crap, forgot the dishwasher detergent again!)

One of my absolute favorite comics from that era, one that I will always love, is The Legion of Super-Heroes. Unfortunately, and here I sound like ‘old lady shakes fist at cloud!’ but the LSH hasn’t been the same since that Golden Era.

My first Legion of SuperHeroes story, from Superboy & the Legion of Superheroes #210, a quiet ending for what seemed to be a worldwide threat..

The Legion was a superhero group in the far-flung future of the DC Universe. They first appeared asking Superboy to join their club, since he’d been an inspiration to them. (Yes, this was the young Superman, Clark Kent, not the Superboys who have appeared in the years after this. Superhero comics are complicated.)

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I couldn’t tell if the LSH had an origin. They showed up to me in full form, fighting off planetary threats like the Sun-Eater, the Fatal Five, or Mordru. The stories had a rotating cast, and not everyone appeared all the time, though Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad were ever-present, as the founding Legionnaires. Others included Karate Kid (he got his own comic in the 70s), Timber Wolf, Light Lass, Phantom Girl, Bouncing Boy, Shadow Lass, Mon-El, Chameleon, Duo Damsel, among many others. Some Legionnaires even died: Invisible Kid and Chemical King. (Lightning Lad died too, but that was retconned out.)

I inhaled all those stories! So many characters, so many different powers, so many different worlds. The art! ( Mike Grell, Dave Cockrum, among others.) It was also a soap opera, too, as many of the Legionnaires paired up with each other. Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl’s wedding received an oversized trade as a showcase. And, yes, I finally read the origin story: three young people joining together spontaneously to save the galaxy’s richest man, who used his money to fund the LSH. (Aside: when do the present-day billionaires do something this cool?)

I sucked up those romances with a spoon! Poor Night Girl, doomed to become part of the Legion of Substitute Heroes because her powers worked at night, and romantically linked with full-time member Cosmic Boy. Karate Kid and Princess Projectra! Timber Wolf and Light Lass!

Then came the Crisis in Infinite Earths. This folded all the possible worlds of DC Comics into one. It also rewrote Superman’s origin. He was never Superboy. That meant the Legion never came to recruit him. That messed up Legion continuity and history to a huge degree.

So the LSH were rebooted. The Five Years Later Legion, with the grown Legionnaires in a future dystopia, was a noble effort but ended abruptly.

They were rebooted again. And again. And again. I’ve lost count. Another reboot is coming as I type this and inspired this article. It looks good. But it’s not the same.

Each reboot, the concept seemed to shift further and further away from the LSH I loved, while other heroes retained essentially the same core setting and cast list: Superman/Metropolis/Daily Planet; Batman/BatFamily/Gotham City. The eras are different, but the world is recognizable.

Not so the LSH. They’re in a mostly peaceful world! No, they’re in a world where Mordru has taken over the galaxy! No, they’re young again in a world where they’re rebelling against authority. Now it looks like they’re part of a rebellion in this new concept.

There’s nothing wrong with these, but while the label is the same, they’re all different stories about basically different people in different circumstances.

I know, superhero comics are complicated. I mean, Superboy has been 3/4 people over the years, depending on how you count. But with the LSH, I can’t find their core anymore. Each reboot made them more unrecognizable to me.

So, yeah, this is me yelling at the passage of time and how things change. But it’s also me mourning a lost opportunity. Superheroes are beloved and can endure changes if they keep their core, especially teams. The X-Men are still recognizable from the Claremont/Byrne reboot. The LSH could have been as big as the X-Men if they’d done the same. Instead, they’re mostly obscure stories known only to comic nerds.

I wish DC would ditch the reimaginings and simply update what needs updating and then tell stories with the group already in existence across the galaxy. Let new readers dive into an existing world, one they discover a little bit at a time.

Or create a new superteam for the new generation of readers and let the LSH rest in peace.

Final Note: Most of these links go to the great archival site, Legion of Super-Heroes: The Complete Guides. I got lost in there for a bit researching this article.