Legion of Super Heroes Debuts On "Kids WB!"

Well, so far, the new Legion of Super Heroes cartoon, which debuted Saturday as part of what is, interestingly enough, still known as the Kids WB! line-up despite the fact that the WB! network no longer exists, looks pretty good.

I had heard that the show would feature "Superboy" teaming up with his 31st century counterparts, but what we have is a very young Superman at a time in his life before Clark Kent moved to Metropolis and took that nom de guerre. The Wikipedia article about the show mentions speculation that legal hassles concerning the ownership of "Superboy" caused the change, but I think it might have had more to do with the fact that DC wrote out the "young Clark Kent" version of Superboy two decades ago and didn't want to bring him back in any form (though that doesn't explain the late 80's live action Superboy series--however at the time there was no Superboy of any kind in the comics...but I'm getting off topic, so.....).

One question I have: Why is young Clark shown wearing glasses? We all know that Clark only wears the glasses to disguise the fact that he's Superman, so if he hadn't become Superman yet when we first meet him, WHY is he wearing glasses? It's a small quibble, and didn't affect my enjoyment of the show, however. In fact, I only thought of it after the show was over.

In look and style, the series is more like the earlier Superman and Justice League series than the Teen Titans (also about teen heroes), which is good because I found some of TT's "manga-isms" (a word that I think I just made up) annoying.

When doing any show based on a super hero team that's been around a while (50 years) and had literally dozens of members, every one of whom will be some die hard fanboy's favorite, in that time, the producers have quite a challenge coming up a line-up for the show.

Braniac 5 was a no-brainer. I wouldn't attempt to do a Legion show without him. (Though what's up with him being some kind of robot or something? Is this to make him more like the Brainiac of the Superman series?) The same goes for Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl (and I hope we'll see the third founding member, Cosmic Boy, who was mentioned but not shown in the pilot). Triplicate Girl and Shadow Lass are also good choices and I especially liked the inclusion of Bouncing Boy. (How can you not like a guy calling himself Bouncing Boy?) Timber Wolf is slated to join the team in the next episode, and we should get to see the other mentioned but not seen Legionnaires, Colossal Lad and Shrinking Violet.

I would guess that Chameleon Boy (or simply Chameleon, as I believe he is known in the comics these days) was excluded due to the similarity of his powers to those of Teen Titans' Beast Boy, but the one Legionnaire whose presence I miss is Wildfire, as he's always been my favorite member of the team. Maybe we'll get to see him as a guest star in a future episode.

There are also hints in the Wikipedia article that we'll get to see the Legion of Substitute Heroes and maybe even Matter Eater Lad this season. (Matter Eater Lad was, at one point, leading the Subs, so they may be in the same episode.)

Anyway, looking forward to seeing more of The Legion of Super Heroes!!

Bring On Matter Eater Lad!!