Dettaglio dalla cover di "Legion: Secret Origin" #1
Dopo l’annuncio ufficiale del progetto sul blog The Source, Paul Levitz sì è lasciato intervistare, come promesso, sul tema di Legion: Secret Origin, la miniserie che lo scriba del “volume seven” ha in agenda per ottobre in compagnia del penciler Chris Batista.
Ecco gli highlights delle dichiarazioni di Levitz, che trovate per esteso sul sito Newsarama:
The first thing to point out about this comic is that it’s not just a re-telling of the origin of the Legion. That’s been done before, so we’re going in a new direction with this. I think the Brande story takes up, maybe, a page? […]
When DC first talked to me about this project, it really seemed to me that the goal should be to make this more “secret” and less “origin.” […] We don’t know very much about the 31st Century at the moment the Legion comes into being. We never really had a chance to explore that. And there is rich territory there.
There’s also a bunch of structural questions we’ve never really put much energy into. Why did some of these characters come to earth to become part of the Legion? If they come from a whole planet of people with those powers, are they exceptional among them? […]Then you get to the whole flip side of that and ask, why did the Legion become so important to the United Planets? We’ve established that there is, presumably, a giant Star Wars/Star Trek fleet floating around out there, and you have the Science Police, so why does it matter so much to have a bunch of young people running around in funny suits? […]
You’ll see some new characters that you didn’t know were involved in the origin of the Legion. That will be very meaningful. And you’ll see some other characters, at least one other major character, who did not have any revealed connections to the beginning of the Legion before. […]
I don’t think [Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad] say a word in the first issue. […] The first character you see in the first issue of the Legionnaires is a very young Brainiac 5 being loaned out by the elders of Colu to the starfleet to solve a technological mystery that requires, basically, the smartest person in the universe.
Il focus della storia pare essere insomma la genesi del “mondo” della Legione, dalla formazione dei Pianeti Uniti alla stesura della complessa rete di rapporti che, uno dopo l’altro, ha visto i futuri legionari incontrare l’uno il cammino dell’altro nel cammino verso la formazione del team.
È assai probabile, quindi, che “Secret Origin” non arrivi nemmeno a toccare l’aspetto dell’ingresso di Superboy nell’equipe futuribile, lasciando potenzialmente aperta la questione ancora a lungo. Magari in vista di un’ulteriore miniserie retrospettiva, da pubblicare nel 2012.
Nel frattempo, rimane aperta la pagina Facebook dove difendere “preventivamente” il rapporto tra la Legione e il Ragazzo d’Acciaio: per dare il vostro contributo all’importante causa, che alcuni quotidiani nazionali stanno già paragonando all’opera di associazioni come “Emergency” e “Medici senza fontiere”, cliccate qui!