Election Season

I got into Legion of Super-Heroes during the One Year Later period, when it became Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. What can I say? I'm a Supergirl mark, have been ever since I first saw the Helen Slater movie in the deep dark of the late-night Fox 40 weekend movie slot. Which made this week awesome because she was in no less than THREE books!

But that's a topic for another day.

After Kara went back to the modern DC Universe and the title became simply Legion of Super-Heroes again, I continued with it until the bitter end.

And, as with so many other waning properties whose luster had been dulled over the yahren, thus came Geoff Johns.

Now, I've been critical of Geoff Johns' run on Action Comics particularly as contrasted to the concurrently masterful Kurt Busiek run on Superman as, and I quote myself; "jerking off all over the Christopher Reeve Superman movies". That said, it got better over time, particularly after Richard Donner left the co-writer job and Johns had it solo.

Which brings me to the story that reintroduced the concept of Superman being a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes as Superboy to the DC Universe, 'Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes'. As always, Johns took characters and ideas and plot points that had been largely forgotten and covered in dust bunnies, shined them up and re presented them as if they were brand new. And as always, we ate it up because it was that damn good.

We then had another mini-series wholly dedicated to reconciling the many different versions of the LoSH and consolidating them into mostly one team. We were then presented with a new ongoing, which became two ongoings due to Johns leaving Adventure Comics, both of which are written by former Publisher and former/current Legion writer Paul Levitz.

Which brings me, at last, to the point of this post.

It's election season!

Yes, much like the 1-900-DIE-TODD campaign, the Legion of Super-Heroes also had a reader feedback campaign in the 1980s to determine the new leader of the Legion. Back then it was done through the Post, but today it's on the Internet!

Normally I wouldn't tell you who I vote for or campaign for who I think you should vote for, mainly because I believe that it should be a personal decision based entirely on what's best for you and what you feel is best for your people, and simply asking who you vote for is an invalid question.


But that's for actual elections! This is a fake election, much like the 2000 US Presidential election, and as far as I can see there's only one choice for the most compelling stories.

Earth-Man

Think about it. In the six issues of the series so far, he's done a pretty convincing about-face with regard to his outright hatred of aliens. Now, maybe this has more to do with a true desire to protect the Earth and realizing that being a member of the Legion will allow him to do this better than leading a xenophobic uprising like he did before. And as of the latest issue he really doesn't have to worry about being locked up again for outright leaving the Legion. Yet he's not only chosen to stay, he's gotten "friendly" with Shadow Lass. Hell, if you look at the cropped cover image I put up here you can see that she's blatantly staring at his ass.

I know it would strain credulity. I know that it might make the willing suspension of disbelief snap. I know that regardless of any change in attitude, he's still pretty disliked by his teammates, with good reason.

I don't care. It would make for the best stories. And fortunately in this election, that's all that's on the line.

Vote for good stories.

Vote for Earth-Man.

Cast Your Vote!