Just Make Sure Matter-Eater Lad Shows Up, and I'm Sold

Mark Waid is one of the best writers in comic books these days, and I've been a fan of his for close to twenty years now--back from the days when he was writing about comics for Amazing Heroes. This week, the first issue of Legion of Super-Heroes, his reboot of one of DC's niftiest franchises, hits the stands. It's the first time in years I've been motivated to buy an actual issue of a mainstream comic rather than wait for the inevitable trade paperback, and it doesn't disappoint. For some background on the series, you can check out Waid's interviews with Comic Book Resources and Pulse readers. In another interview with Comic Shop Newsarama, which I honestly tried to find online, Waid elaborates:

"The characters will drive everything. Political intrigue, astounding villains with chilling schemes, wild and bizarre threats to the universe--the more imaginative and futuristic the better, snapshots of societal change--all that's great, and... readers will get as much of that as they demand. But every story, every single story--whether it's the A plot, the B subplot, or the C sub-subplot, must always be about one or more Legionnaires and how what's hapening for the next thirty or sixty or ninety pages is affecting them."

Oh, and let's not forget Barry Kitson, Waid's frequent collaborator, whose visual revamping of the 31st century's greatest superhero team deserves some recognition as well.