I’ve mentioned in past blogs that I’ve been reading comics for about twenty-four years. I began as a big Marvel Zombie and my knowledge of the DC universe was only from old episodes of the “Super Friends”. It’s really only in the past few years that I’ve been reading more DC Comics.

This issue of “Adventure Comics” #0 (at the bargain price of $1) is a preliminary issue for the relaunch of this classic series. In this issue, we have two different stories: one is a reprint of the classic story that introduced the Legion of Super Heroes in the pages of the first Adventure series #247 and the second is an original story that is a part of the “Origins and Omens” series that DC has going through all of their books right now.  The story stars Lex Luthor and Brainiac.

The original “Adventure Comics” which ran from 1935-1983 was a series which focused on second tier DC characters. The book focused on a variety of different heroes over the years such as Superboy, Supergirl, The Spectre, Aquaman, and the Legion of Superheroes. According to DC publisher Dan Dido, the new series begins in June and will be the home of the Legion of Superheroes.

I enjoyed the reprint of “Adventure Comics” #247. If you’re not familiar with the story, the three main Legionaries Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Boy go back in time and visit Superboy in Smallville and end up recruiting him into the Legion. The artwork and the dialogue is very old fashioned, but the story is still lots of fun. It’s kind of like watching an old movie from the 1930s - the acting is melodramatic, but the overall story is still good.

I’m not a big Legion fan. However, I am enjoying the “Legion of Three Worlds” mini-series by Geoff Johns and George Perez. If this same team relaunches “Adventure Comics” staring the Legion, I’m there.

The second story as I said focuses on Luthor and Brainiac, but it also focuses on one of the Guardians of the Universe looking over the Black book. I’m assuming this all has to deal with the upcoming storyline “The Blackest Night” which will also be written by Johns. We know that some of the Black Lanterns that will be showing up in this storyline are going to be DC characters coming back to life. From action figure solicitations to be released later in the year, we know that the Earth 2 Superman and Martian Manhunter will become Black Lanterns. This story reveals another possible Black Lantern candidate that put a big smile on my face. Will this character stay around after Blackest Night? Will they all be around?

I would recommend picking this up. It’s a dollar! Also, if you haven’t read the first appearance of the Legion check it out just for that.