Jim Shooter penned his first issue of DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes when he was only 13. Selling the stories to DC through the mail, Shooter created many of the Legion’s most popular characters and his run on the title (in Adventure Comics) is fondly remembered.
Now, a little over 30 years later, Shooter is once again writing Legion of Super-Heroes for DC. Shooter was a star in the comics universe for many years, well into the 90’s. He revolutionized Marvel comics in the 70’s and became known as Marvel’s most hated EIC (editor-in-chief). He had great success in the 90’s with Valiant Comics and his writing for Valiant was better than ever before. After a falling out with Valiant executives and a failed comics company called Defiant, Shooter has been absent from comics for about a decade.
His return to Legion isn’t a guaranteed success. As Chris Claremont’s return to the X-Men in 2000 showed, just because things were great before, doesn’t mean they will be again. Claremont left the Uncanny X-Men title after a 16 year stint. Fans of the series (myself included) pined for his return after the series floundered. In late 2000, when he finally returned after almost 10 years, to put things nicely, it wasn’t very good.
So, congratulations to DC and to Jim Shooter and let’s hope the Legion can continue the great success that Mark Waid’s reboot created.
