DC has dropped a big tease about how it’s going to bring the Legion of Super-Heroes back (and it doesn’t include Darkseid)

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DC comic book writer Mark Waid got a lot of attention when he announced at Wondercon 2025 that the publisher was close to reviving the fan-favorite 31st century superteam the Legion of Super-Heroes — but does this week’s Summer of Superman Special offer the biggest clue yet where that’s going to happen?

Spoilers for Summer of Superman Special #1 follow. Keep reading at your own risk!

It’s important to note that I’m not talking about Darkseid’s Legion, who appear in the epilogue to the issue — they don’t appear to be the real Legion in any meaningful way, especially as they apparently belong to the alternate world that Booster Gold visited in DC All In Special #1 that’s also home to Absolute Batman, Absolute Superman, et al. Anyway, we already know where they are going to appear next, as it says so at the end of the issue: they’ll be in Superman #28 this July, facing off against the Man of Steel. But the regular Legion…? The key to their next appearance may come far earlier in the issue.

Summer of Superman Special #1 is split into multiple chapters, each written by one of the writers of the three core DCU Superman books. Chapter one is written by Mark Waid, and features the teenage Superboy in Smallville, in the past. And in that chapter, he explicitly mentions fighting alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes… which makes sense, seeing as Superboy has always traditionally been a member of the Legion, ever since the group’s first appearance in a Superboy story in Adventure Comics #247, back in 1958.

Thing is, Mark Waid’s upcoming Action Comics run is explicitly intended to tell Superboy stories; in fact, at C2E2 2025’s DC: Celebrate Superman panel, editor Paul Kaminski described it as the “definitive” Superboy run, telling Superman’s origins in Smallville.

Similarly, the end of Summer of Superman Special #1 states about Waid’s upcoming Action run (with artist Skylar Patridge), “The secrets of the past – are the key to Superman’s future!” Huh. Huh. “Future,” you say? Because, you know, the Legion is part of that future… and surely you can’t tell a “definitive” Superboy story without his fellow teenage superheroes…

DC, we think we’ve figured you out. But we’ll have to wait until Waid and Patridge’s Action Comics run begins in Action Comics #1087 on June 11 to find out for sure.