 The Legion of Super-Heroes Post-Reboot Chronology - by Greg Gildersleeve
This chronology © 2002 Greg Gildersleeve Once upon a time, DC Comics created the Legion of Super-Heroes. As time went on, the Legion grew and grew ... and so did its back story and continuity. Eventually, DC decided that the Legion had become so complex that many readers (and even DC’s own president) couldn’t understand it. So, in 1994, the company “rebooted” the Legion – wiping away all that had gone before and starting it over from scratch – in order to simplify the Legion and their universe. They wish. One aspect of the Legion which has made it a fan favorite for more than four decades is the size of its cast – twenty-plus heroes, each with powers, codenames, back stories and subplots galore! Add to that, the United Planets, supporting characters and villains, not to mention crossovers, and you have a complex, interwoven and expansive fictional history that evolves quite naturally, no matter how many times it gets rebooted. When such a complex fictional history exists, such as for Star Trek and other “pop culture” franchises, fans often try to organize it into some form of chronology. Such a chronology helps us to do several things: 1) understand the overall design of the fictional history (or at least pretend that a design exists), 2) figure out the relative passage of time within the fictional history, and 3) keep events and characters straight for future reference. Most of all, a chronology is a fun way of getting involved with the series, for both readers and researchers. This chronology attempts to do all of the above for the “postboot” Legion of Super-Heroes. It covers the Legion’s ongoing and limited series since 1994, including: This is, of course, my interpretation of the events depicted in these titles and the order in which they occurred. My interpretation relies on contextual clues within the stories themselves, a few outside sources, and, admittedly, some guesswork. Someone else reading the same stories and sources may come up with a completely different interpretation of Legion history. That’s fine. This work is not intended to be the definitive text on the subject. It is intended to get people interested in Legion chronology and stimulate discussion. Spoiler Warning: This chronology treats the events of Legion “history” as if they actually occurred and thus makes no effort to hide spoilers. If you don’t want to learn how one Legionnaire survived her “death” at the hands of the White Triangle, or who a certain president of the UP truly was, retreat while you can! Skip to: III. THE 21st THROUGH 29th CENTURIES IV. THE 30th CENTURY: THE PRE-LEGION ERA |