Superheroes are characters that make us dream of the future. It’s been baked right into Superman’s title since darn near his introduction, since he’s known the world over as the Man of Tomorrow. Heroes don’t just save the day. They improve the world and inspire people to reach their full potential. Not everyone can lift a bus, but everyone can do their part to be kind and use their skills and talents to leave the world a better place than they found it. Of course, the status quo demands that superheroes and their world be trapped in a constant today. Always fighting, but never winning.
That’s not to say that we never catch a glimpse of what that future looks like. Time travel is a staple of the genre, and DC’s own infinite potential futures, known as Hypertime, each present an interesting look into what the universe could develop into. Of course, there are plenty of superhero teams based in those futures. Today, we’re going to take a look at five of DC’s best superhero teams set in the distant future. All pitch their case for why their timeline is the one ours should veer towards, and all of them are very, very fun in one way or another. Without further ado, let’s travel to our time descendants’ teams.
The Legion of Super-Heroes is the 31st Century group dedicated to protecting the universe, and this is not that group. The Substitute Legion was founded by wanna-be heroes who couldn’t make the cut for the actual Legion, but wanted to do what they could to save the day. The Legion of Super-Heroes already has a reputation for accepting people with terrible powers, so imagine just how useless you have to be to get rejected by them. The Substitute Legion constantly reinvents what it means to have nothing-burger powers, but despite that, they still manage to help out every now and then. They’re easily the funniest future-based team, and ones that you groan whenever you see them.
The Time Masters are Rip Hunter’s team that travels throughout the timestream, intent on defeating any threats to it and averting disastrous futures. Instead of basing themselves in any one period, they would travel to wherever they were needed most, though they later settled in a base that will come up later on this list. The Time Masters are DC’s quintessential old-school time-traveling team. They go to different periods, and either spread some warnings and avert an apocalypse or stop other time travelers. It’s a tried and true formula, and in recent years, they’ve become the de facto people to call when the timeline is in danger.
The Linear Men are Rip Hunter and Matthew Ryder’s second take on a time-traveling team. This time, instead of exemplifying the formula, they switched it up a bit. They were a group of scientists who monitored the entire timestream, from the birth to the end of the universe, both to protect it and learn more about how it works. They are pretty similar in role and function to the Time Masters, but I gave them a bump because they introduced the concept of the Vanishing Point as their home base. It’s a metaphysical realm that exists in the last nanosecond of the universe, right before the end of everything. That’s such an awesome idea for a base, and the coolness factor alone gives them third.
One million months after the start of the superhero age, in the 853rd Century, the Justice Legion protects the entire universe. They are a group of heroes inspired by the long-expired Justice League and Legion of Super-Heroes, and have a minimum of twenty-six branches all across the stars. The headmost and greatest of all is Justice Legion Alpha, based on the original Justice League, with several legacy versions of those heroes. They defend the entire solar system, which is said to be a utopia that nobody today can even imagine. This is one of the most inventive future teams around, combining old concepts and wild new takes to create a team that promises things will get better, so long as we keep doing the right thing.
There can only be one best future-based team, and that title obviously goes to the legendary Legion. They are DC’s original future team, and represent everything incredible about tomorrow’s potential. They are directly inspired by Superman and Supergirl, and fight to show everyone that even people from entirely different worlds can coexist and live as one. More so than any other team, the Legion represents the ideal future, where tomorrow is better and will continue to improve. They’re also a massive team with a colorful roster of interesting and wacky characters. They’re the perfect mix of idealistic and zany, and are easily the greatest team that is yet to come.
Which future-based hero or team is your favorite? Leave a comment below and join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!
