Nothing Funny about These Books

As I have mentioned many times on this blog, I am a big fan of comic books.  I have been since I was four, when I started to read.  Yes, that is a tad early, but I loved them so much, I wanted to read them whenever I wanted to on my own.  That has continued for many decades, even after two floods took out over half of my collection each time.  Most weeks, I get around four books.  Sometimes more, and sometimes less.  Recently, a small controversy erupted over some titles, and I decided to talk about them and my opinions on it.  Earlier this month, the most recent issues of Superman and Supergirl were pulled from shelves, before they could be sold.  They were already shipped out to retailers, but the issues were not to be sold.  Apparently, the fuss was over the cover trade dress.  The covers suggested that the titles were included in a company-wide promotion, but these particular issues were, in fact, not part of it.  The issues were rescheduled for release today and next month, respectively.  The basic explanation could be that the interconnected stories ran long, and the crossover material was cut out at the last moment.  This is entirely possible, as the two titles were going to be featuring the long-awaited return of the Legion of Superheroes.  However, there is some controversy with that as well.  The writer of both the Superman and Legion titles is Brian Micheal Bendis.  Early promotional artwork for the Legion series has shown very radical departures from most previous versions.  Along with a few new characters and costume designs, Bendis has also changed the racial identities of many characters.  One change, though, happened between the early solicitations and the actual title.  The character of Lightening Lad was originally shown as white, as the character has usually been portrayed, but later artwork has shown him as darker skinned.  People who had picked up copies of the Superman issue that was supposed to have been destroyed have compared it to advance looks of the replacement issue and have noticed that the Lightening Lad character has a slightly darker skin tone, as well as more pronounced African features in replacement.  Somehow, along the production line, the decision was made to change the character, but the change didn't happen as quickly or as thoroughly across all the line.  In fact, much has been said about changing this skin tones of so many of these characters, but no other reason to add some diversity to the group, even when that would mean changing so many things across the whole comic history.  What's more, the current line-up for the series does not show any of the newer characters that were of minority status.  Many of these were fairly popular, and no one can see why they weren't included instead of changing so may traditional characters for no other reason because they could.  As of now, before seeing anything more than the preview artwork, I will keep an open mind.  I have been a fan of the Legion for many years.  This will make the sixth or seventh (possibly eighth depending on how you would define it) retcon of the Legion.  Each one has had things fans have liked, as well as elements that were disliked.  So far, this time's changes are becoming a little more controversial, if only because of the interaction social media allows for fans.  However, I feel that this could lead to more problems in the long run, rather than anything positive that could have came through.  Bendis has a reputation for such radical departures from previous iterations of ideas.  Sometimes, they work. This time, I am afraid of what is going to happen.  While I have enjoyed his current work for DC (I haven't read Marvel, ever really), this time he might have gone too far.  Only "time" will tell.