The Legion of Super-Heroes used to be one of Superman’s greatest allies, the team that helped him accept who he is and showed how his actions mattered, even centuries into the future. However, the Legion has changed. Darkseid’s creation of the Absolute Universe fundamentally changed everything, including the future, turning the Legion into a team of villains dedicated to serving and spreading the message of Darkseid. The evil Legion just introduced themselves to Superman, and as strong as he is, even he can’t handle his former friends on his own. Thankfully, help arrived in the form of Time Trapper, who reunited Superman with the one person he says can help them defeat Darkseid’s Legion. Unfortunately, it’s one of the most evil and dangerous villains Superman has ever faced: Superboy-Prime.
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Who Is Superboy-Prime?
In one reality, instead of launching baby Kal-El away in a spaceship, Jor-El used a teleporter to send him to a safe dimension. He arrived on Earth-Prime, a world that is similar to our own, where superheroes are nothing more than comic book characters, and was adopted and named Clark Kent. He lived a normal life for the first fifteen years, until Haley’s Comet passed by overhead and awakened his powers, letting him become his world’s Superboy. At the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superboy-Prime was transported to the Paradise Dimension alongside others like Kal-L and Alexander Luthor, however, Luthor and Prime decided that they would rather remake their own worlds, and took on the role of villains to alter the DC Universe to push their agenda.
Superboy-Prime became a callous, cynical, evil inversion of his namesake. He knew that he was trapped in a comic book, and hated every second of it, choosing to strike out and attempt to destroy everything to remake his original world. He is leagues stronger than Superman, being strong enough to literally change reality as shown with his infamous Retcon Punch. He is easily one of the most dangerous foes anyone has ever faced, often taking the combined forces of the Justice League, the Green Lantern Corps, and the entire Flash Family to temporarily trap him. In the battle against Perpetua in Dark Knights: Death Metal, Superboy-Prime met Krypto, who loved him in spite of everything. Prime realized there’s nothing he can do to change the nature of fiction, and stood with the forces of good to save the multiverse. In the end, he was transported to a restored Earth-Prime, and welcomed back by his family and loved ones with open arms. Now Superboy-Prime is back, and he might actually be a good guy for real going forward.
Darkseid’s Legion
Superman, concerned about the Legion after finding one of their worst enemies, Validus, running scared, tried to contact his friends from the far future. They answered, but not the League he remembered. Saturn Girl appeared and announced her allegiance to Darkseid, saying that she wanted to see her master’s greatest enemy for herself. She tore through his mind, using her psychic powers to trap him in a vision of her teammates killing the Justice League, and then his mother. Superman refused to break, so she turned on the pressure, until the Time Trapper, Doomsday from the end of time, arrived to throw her off and pull Clark into the timestream. Before Saturn Girl could pursue, Darkseid’s voice rang out, saying that she disobeyed his orders by engaging Superman. He ordered her to gather his Legion and protect the one person essential for his plan, pulling her into the Earth.
The Man of Steel demanded that they go back to protect his mom, but Time Trapper said that their only chance to save everything was to strike now. His allies were at the Watchtower, and Time Trapper himself would distract Darkseid’s Legion while Superman went on ahead to the 31st Century to save the future. Of course, he couldn’t do that alone, so Time Trapper brought Superman to a pocket universe he created long ago to store someone important from Superman’s past. The Man of Tomorrow saw that it was a past version of Smallville, and then gawked at this supposed ally, Superboy-Prime. Prime looked straight at the reader and gave us a wink, saying that he smelled an event coming.
Superboy-Prime is officially back in the main timeline, and it’ll take him and Superman working together to save the future from Darkseid’s influence. Hopefully the two of them will be enough, and hopefully Prime will actually stay a hero for the future and every other time period they visit. This is definitely a dangerous alliance, but one I am definitely excited to see play out.
Superman #28 is on sale now!
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Image Courtesy of TOHO
