The Strange Case Of Superboy

I watched the current Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon for the first time today. I'd probably have been all over this TV series like a fat guy on a Twinkie, but for the fact that it's being done in the crappy manga style that so many cartoons are produced in nowadays. That was enough to turn me off what passes for Batman and Teen Titans animated series right now, and it was enough to keep from trying out Legion before now.

But I figured it was time to sample an episode or two so I could see how bad it was. It was part 1 of a 2-part story, and it was one of the classic Legion stories from the 60s - the LSH up against a Sun-Eater - and as such, I'll try to catch at least the conclusion before rendering my verdict. But what was more interesting to me was that it featured Superman as a regular member. This is very strange, since it was Superboy who was always involved with the Legion in the comics, along with - sometimes - his cousin Supergirl. And in fact, the character in the show looks way more like Superboy, than Superman. For those who don't know, Superboy was originally just Superman in his younger years. At various times since then, he's been a completely separate person, but it's clearly the classic interpretation that's being used in the cartoon. He's Superboy in everything but name on that show.

So why aren't they calling him Superboy? Well, the character's in a weird place right now, legally speaking. The estate of Jerry Siegel - co-creator of Superman - won a court case a couple years ago claiming that the ownership of the Superboy character should revert back to them. You can read more about it here and here. The upshot is that DC is busy expunging as many references to Superboy as they can, which obviously extends to other media properties like the Legion cartoon. When they made the villain of last year's Infinite Crisis mini-series a variant Superboy from another universe, that was pretty extreme (what next? Aunt May's a serial killer?) but somewhat understandable in this context. The more they can distance themselves from the classic interpretation, the less likely it is that they'll have to hand over royalties to the Siegel estate. But it definitely makes for some strange tales.