Home Rumour: Warner Bros working on LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES movie

Rumour: Warner Bros working on LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES movie

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LegionOfSuperHeroesphil-jimenez

Don’t let it ever be said that Hollywood lets a good idea go to waste. Now that Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is the top earning movie in the US for 2014, the opposition over at Warner Bros\DC Comics are apparently also on the hunt for their very own big superheroes-in-space movie. And may have found it in a bunch of kids with silly names and a penchant for hand jewelry.

Prolific rumour mongers Latino Review are reporting that they’ve heard that WB have been sending out DC comic book Legion of Super-Heroes to screenwriters and their reps on the down-low, to see if any of them would bite. This is usually one of the very the first steps in the movie development process, and is really just there to determine if any talent out there has a pitch or idea for an adaptation that fits with WB’s gameplans. Whether they end up getting that perfect pitch or not, only time will tell, but if LR’s sources are accurate, that means that WB are definitely interested in bring the Legion to the screen.

So exactly who are the Legion of Super-Heroes? Honestly, with a history that begins way back in 1958, a gigantic revolving roster of heroes, and the fact that their timeline has seemingly seen more reboots than Naas Botha, the Legion of Super-Heroes is just far too complex for me to explain their whole story here. So here’s the Readers’ Digest version: The Legion of Super-Heroes is a team set in the 30th and 31st Century, comprised of superpowered individuals (mostly teens) from various planets throughout the galaxy. They have a huge variety of powers, personalities and costumes, but all wear a signature Legion flight ring. They get up to all sorts of adventures through space, but most importantly also through time, as they were first introduced as time travelling superhero teens who travelled back to the late 1950’s to go team up with Superboy (as the teenaged Superman was calling himself then), who would actually become the inspiration for the Legion in the future.

Legion_Superboy_dc1976_jan

Like I said previously, the Legion has a huge, ever changing roster, with all the reboots also adding/removing more, but the characters that have seemingly remained a constant are the three that first time-travelled to meet Superboy: Cosmic Boy aka Rokk Krinn, the team leader who has the power to manipulate magnetic fields; Saturn Girl aka Imra Ardeen, a powerful telepath from Saturn’s moon Titan; and Lightning Boy aka Garth Ranzz, a hot-head with the ability to generate and manipulate electricity.

And if those names make you cringe, then wait until you meet ones like Bouncing Boy (he bounces), Triplicate Girl (can split into three bodies), Invisible Kid (turns invisible), Matter-Eater Lad (can consume anything), Chlorophyll Kid (makes plants grow) and my personal silly favourite, Karate Kid (no, not Daniel-San, but a teen who had mastered every form of martials arts ever developed by the 31st century, including “Super Karate”). Clearly, 31st century society is apparently not very imaginative when it comes to codenames (I have decided to call myself Article-Writer Lad from now on).

This childish silliness is admittedly one of the reasons why I never really took to Legion of Super-Heroes, but there are tons of long-term fans who are quite devoted to this silly bunch, making the comic a mainstay in the DC stable for about 50 years now already. How all of this will translate to the screen though is another matter.

GreatDarknessSaga

 

What’s most interesting about the Legion though, at least as far as movie potential goes, is that they have had several run-ins with Darkseid, DC’s own big bad (and also the character that Marvel ripped off when they created Thanos way back in the day). Most importantly, they would face off against him in the incredible “Great Darkness Saga”, a story arc that arguably propelled Darkseid from being just one Jack Kirby’s cool creations to being the ultimate evil in the DC Universe. Darkseid is almost certainly going to feature heavily into WB\DC’s future movie plans, and much like how Guardians of the Galaxy helped to properly introduce Thanos and his gameplan, Legion can do the same for Darkseid.

That’s if Latino Review’s source on this is legit though, and this is not just another wild goose chase. With the Legion having already appeared in their very own successful animated series as well as popping up in several other animated shows, its clear that WB definitely thinks the concept has promise. Whether that means it will work as a feature film though, is a whole other story. If this gets made before we ever see a Wonder Woman solo movie though….

 

Last Updated: September 10, 2014

10 Comments

  1. Is it just me or does that frame closely resemble the ‘Finger of God’ painting? *Flies away*

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      September 10, 2014 at 11:44

      It does now that you mention it.

      Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      September 10, 2014 at 13:20

      It’s 100% supposed to. Darkseid is one of Jack Kirby’s New Gods, so Keith Giffen was playing on that when he came up with the panel.

      Reply

  2. Alien Emperor Trevor

    September 10, 2014 at 11:45

    DC Comics has never had the most inventive names for characters.

    Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      September 10, 2014 at 13:24

      Neither has Marvel, to be honest. I mean, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, etc. But still, Legion is the cheesiest for me.

      Reply

    • Dark Overlord Jaybles

      September 10, 2014 at 13:31

      Yeah although I am not sure I could do better, what else would your hero name be that would let people know the awesome stuff you could do. Like if I had the power over, lets say, water, it’s either, Water-man, Hydro or ‘The super amazing Water enabled walking torrent of liquids’ XD

      Reply

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        September 10, 2014 at 13:50

        Me neither, I’d have to fight the constant urge to call him Drips or Puddles or something, because that’s what I do.

        Reply

        • Kervyn Cloete

          September 10, 2014 at 14:21

          Most of these silly comic book names are the result of guys working too hard. Comics used to be much simpler in the 40’s and 50’s. No massive story arcs or complex plots. This meant that one writer, could tackle a whole lot more “stories” at once, with guys like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby often writing 10 to 20 books a month.
          And with that, came confusion on the writer’s parts as to exactly which character was which. The simplest way was to keep the name’s simple and descriptive (this also helped to hook readers, by telling them with just a name, exactly what type of comic they can expect). and the tradition stuck, I guess.

          As a cool side note: this is also the reason why there’s so much alliteration in character’s real names in comics, e.g. Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, etc.

          Stan Lee famously used this as a method of just remembering all the characters he was writing, but he stuffed up once when he accidentally referred to Bruce Banner as Bob Banner in a Hulk story. It wasn’t picked up until after the story went to print, which led to some confusion among readers. They eventually fixed it though, by saying that Banner’s full name is actually Robert Bruce Banner, hence why some people call him Bob.

          Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        September 10, 2014 at 14:13

        True story: I used to dabble quite a bit in drawing my own superhero comics when I was a youngster (I actually wasn’t half bad, by teenage standards). I used to create heroes every other day and the whole naming thing was one of the first issues I faced. So all I used to do was literally take the encyclopedia, open it at a random place, and then just skim a page or three to see if anything pops out at me.

        If I saw something I liked, I would read up a bit more to check out more deviations of the word, and then when I got something that really zinged, I would work up a character based on that concept.

        As an example, since you mentioned it, I had a few water-based heroes called Torrent, Breaker, Nymph, etc.

        Reply

  3. Alien Emperor Trevor

    September 10, 2014 at 13:51

    You know what team I’d like to see? These guys, with Sgt Rock.

    Reply

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