Brian Bendis Teases Legion Of Super-Heroes Project

As fans have speculated for some time, fan-favorite comics writer Brian Michael Bendis seems to be [...]

By Russ Burlingame - January 5, 2019 02:45 am EST

As fans have speculated for some time, fan-favorite comics writer Brian Michael Bendis seems to be teasing that he will write a story based on the Legion of Super-Heroes.

In an Instagram post, Bendis teased a number of projects he had coming up in 2019, and two of the images seemed to be from Legion of Super-Heroes comics.

There were other teases, too, but given how long people have been waiting for the Legion to come back, it is the one that got the most attention.

You can see the post below.

View this post on Instagram

2019- a tease in ten parts! Our annual tradition continues. If you’re just joining us, every year I throw out a 10 part abstract tease of things that are coming in one shape, form or another. These are teases. They are meant to delight and frustrate. There will be no follow-up questions answered here. It’s a tease, ya see :) for fun! let’s discuss at the end of the year. Thank you for an aaaaaaaaamazing 2018! @dccomics #wondercomics #jinxworld #dcnation #brianmichaelbendisisatease

A post shared by Brian Michael Bendis (@brianmbendis) on Jan 2, 2019 at 7:20am PST

The Legion of Super-Heroes is a team of teenage superheroes from a thousand years in the future, when galactic governments have come together from worlds throughout the cosmos. Headquartered on Earth, the teens are inspired by the heroic legacy of Superman.

DC launched two Legion-related titles in 2011's The New 52 publishing initiative, but both were cancelled fairly quickly, and characters from the team have rarely been seen since. A character since confirmed to be Saturn Girl, one of the Legion's founding members, appeared in last year's DC Universe: Rebirth and has since been spotted in Tom King's Batman more than once. A version of Phantom Girl, a longtime Legionnaire, will appear in the forthcoming The Terrifics from Jeff Lemire and Ivan Reis.

Since Rebirth, though, appearances in-continutiy have been even more sporadic than they had been in the three years that led up to it. Meanwhile, a Legion ring and Legion-affiliated names have appeared on The CW's Supergirl while the team itself has teamed up with Batman '66 and Bugs Bunny in a pair of short-run stories.

(Of course, Tom King has said that he considers the Batman/Elmer Fudd one-shot to be canonical, so who's to say the Legion's meeting with Bugs Bunny wasn't Rebirth canon?)

In the closing moments of the conversation, Lee also mentions Olivier Coipel, who has been working exclusively at Marvel consistently for years but has some DC work upcoming. From the context of the interview, though, it is as likely that Lee was trying to avoid two questions being linked where no link exists, as it is that he was trying to throw fans off the scent.

Legion of Super-Heroes was once one of DC's most popular and best-selling titles, although it has struggled more or less since Crisis on Infinite Earths, which rebooted the DC multiverse for the first time and so rocked the foundation upon which the Legion -- which, again, takes place in the future -- was built. Numerous big-name creators have worked on the Legion since, including Mark Waid, Jim Starlin, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Stuart Immonen and Fabian Nicieza -- but none have been able to recapture the critical or commercial success of the '70s and '80s Legion for long.

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