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Superman Clone (Kel) from the 41st Century in the Legion of Super Heroes Season 2

A few preview images have popped up over at Comic Book Resources for the Season 2 premiere of Legion of Super Heroes. The Legion looks older, which is a move that surprises me. I would have thought the younger kids/teen Legion would market better. I do know, the older Legion presented here looks more interesting to me. The premise for Season2 has a few interesting tidbits, like a clone of Superman from the 41st Century–Legion is set in the 31st. He recruits the Legion to help him battle Imperiex, who actually follows the Superman clone to the 31st century and gathers all of the Legion’s villains into an army. Lots of heroes and lots of villains – cool.

Eddie Brock from the new Spectacular Spider-Man animated seriesNext up, be sure to check out the ENI interview with Spectacular Spider-Man animated series director Victor Cook. He offers up a few bits of interesting information, but the highlight of the article are the character drawings featuring the main cast. They’ve done a great job in updating the characters while retaining the uniqueness of that character.

For instance, look at Eddie Brock. Counting the original, the Ultimate Spider-Man version, and the Spider-Man 3 version, that’s 3 different version of the character the series could have adapted. Instead, the version on the left looks like a perfect melding of those versions. He’s big and bulky like the original, but young like the Ultimate version. I always liked the huge Venom as opposed to the mirror image of Spider-Man that the film portrayed. He’s more menacing and threatening. Can’t wait for this show to premiere later in the year. It’s previewed so well, the original season has been extended from 13 to 26 episodes. Be sure to check out the rest of the images at ENI.

Finally, I just now discovered this Season 5 interview with the Teen Titans animated series head writers. It’s full of information on the fifth and final season and answered a lot of questions. The fifth season was always planned as the last, but 20 episodes were originally ordered instead of the typical 13. If you’re a fan of the Cartoon Network Teen Titans show, it’s definitely worth a read.

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Francis Manapul’s cover to Legion of Super-Heroes #38

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.