Lots of DCU books fetishise the Silver Age of comics, but in doing so they encounter a serious problem.

Of the writers currently on a monthly book, only Grant Morrison demonstrates the required level of invention to actually deliver a characterful, po-mo equivalent of ‘The Three Super Musketeers’ or ‘Batman – The Superman of Planet-X!’.

Most others pay lip service to the Silver Age’s heroes while presenting stories that lack the innocence, clarity and variety of that period and which, what is more, include other elements that are entirely incompatible with their stated aims instead.

(I won’t go into the reasons for my disaffection with the current DCU here for fear of repeating myself for the umpteenth time. This place has archive, should you be interested.)

Paul Levitz’s first issue of ‘Adventure Comics’ is another book which invokes the Silver Age – after all what could be more Silver Age than Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes? -  but it has a charm, directness and clarity that most DCU books simply don’t.

The art isn’t great (it looks clean, but the composition and storytelling are rather messy) and the story is simple, but it’s a good start for Levitz on what is, combined with the other Legion book, his return to writing a monthly comic for the first time in forever.

(He had a brief, and hugely enjoyable, run on ‘JSA’ during the infinitely-draining ‘Infinite Crisis’ event. Something which is itself longer ago than I care to think.)

‘Adventure Comics’ #12 is a well structured single issue story, with a strongly characterised Superboy/Clark Kent. The “Buffy in a Norman Rockwell setting” appeal of Superboy/’Smallville’ is briefly, and successfully, invoked at the beginning and then we’re off to shiny pop future of Legion for some hokey ‘Flash Gordon’ fun mixed in with contemporary, understandable teen angst.

It works even if you’re generally unfamiliar with the ‘Legion’. I know this, because I am. While I’m a pretty hardcore DCU boy (I mean, I own a full run of ‘All Star Squadron’) they were distinctly uncanonical when I did my apprenticeship in continuity and, the odd crossover and their oft-reprinted original appearance aside, I’ve honestly never read a whole issue of anything with them in. They’ve never been anything more than a list of engagingly wacky names to me but here the core group are easily relatable and identifiable, with their powers and personalities set out well.

I’ve been stung badly by the DCU in recent years but this book looks like it can go places and restore the ignored invention and idealism that are the best aspects of the too often invoked Silver Age to DC Comics – and it’s about time.