Geek post

Mark Waid makes the Legion of Superheroes sound interesting, via Newsarama:

By the 31st century, the modern-day concepts of child-fingerprinting and RFID tags has morphed into the Public Service, a technology that allows parents to genecode their kids so that they can be located at all times, eavesdropped on with ease, and even “programmed” to find junk food and other “bad things” physically nauseating. I wish this were a more implausible concept, frankly, but that’s undeniably the direction our civilization is headed.

The Legionnaires find this abhorrent. They wear Flight Rings that not only allow them to defy gravity but also cloak them from the Public Service. They fight for the freedom of underagers galaxywide--and they do so using long-forgotten methods of conduct. Barry and I think of them as the Society for Creative Anachronism of the 31st century: they know that Earth used to be overrun with “super-heroes”--dynamic figures in skin-tight, ostentatious costumes--and that becomes their fashion statement when they hang out.

“They’re ‘hanging out’?” scream the adults. “With no PURPOSE? How positively...UNCOUTH!”

Frowned upon? Oh, yeah. The adults, in their drab and bilious clothing, with their remote nature and complex rules for social interaction, think what they’re doing is tacky and gauche and inappropriate. So much the better. Makes it more attractive. The Legion of Super-Heroes is out to right wrongs, make noise, and leave their mark. The Legion is more than a club, more than a police force. It’s a movement, and that’s what we hang our series on. Their philosophy is on the splash page of every issue.