Kinda Book Report: Legion of the Super-Heroes Vol.1

Many times, LPJ and I would talk about these guys. To me, the Legion of the Super-Heroes is just a gathering of the randomess, dumbest super-heroes. Whatever idea of the week ended up in there. Too many characters to have any kind of personality. A legion of them, litterally.

Half the stories deal with people they reject because of their dumb powers, and why they either turn into villains wanting revenge or joining the Legion of Substitute Heroes. As if there weren't enough characters already! Now surprisingly because of their really dumb flaws, the substitute heroes have some personality and are more interesting than the perfect super-heroes.

This book presents the origin of the Legion. These characters did not have their own titles but were taken from the pages of Superboy or Supergirl comics. The "modern-day" character would fly so fast that he or she would travel through time to the future... a similar trick to the Superman movie.

Now these are DC stories from 1960-1964 where wrote simple stories without any thought: the villains were evil because... well because. There were little-to-nothing in the way of foreshadowing the villains. Very bad-guy of the week with bland cardboard characters. The alien monster all look the same: some type of dragon/ crocodile/ dinosaur mix and look more silly than dangerous.

The Legion has a constitution that is used to bullshit reject or expel people from their ranks, to at least limit the number of members. I mean they are just the worse, most elitist jerks in superhero-dom ever.

One thing I did enjoy is that there is a meta-plot involving a barrier in time, which they frequently allude to in the latest issues. I do like this thread but the resolution did not happen as part of this omnibus.

To review this... Well the art is good - at least on-par with other comics of that era, which is a style I enjoy. However, the stories were mostly weak and without much wonder or interest, happening to characters without interest or personality.

So a rating? 2/5. I don't think I would read another omnibus set during that era. I WOULD be willing to read some later omnibus in the series, perhaps from the 70s when DC abandoned these types of stories.

In the end, I can tell LPJ that my original assessment of this series was right.