I’ve talked before about the history of superhero comics in Italy, but weirdly enough I’ve never done a deep dive on the Legion specifically.
Prompted by a discussion on the Long Live The Legion podcast, let’s talk about it.
The first appearance of the Legion in Italy was under the Mondadori publisher, in the weekly anthology Albi Del Falco (roughly “Books Of The Hawk”).
As I have said before, for incredibly stupid reasons involving attempting to pay less for the copyright, Superman wasn’t called Superman: for several years he was “Nembo Kid”.
Which makes less than zero sense in Italy as well; “Nembo” is a relatively old-fashioned word for “cloud” (technically it’s more like “stormy cloud”). And of course Kid is English and Superman isn’t one!
The first Legion story didn’t take long before landing in Italy: they showed up in #221, that was published in July 1960.
That’s only a couple of years after the first Legion story… but this wasn’t the same story.
Mondadori was a complete mess when it comes to chronology, as they published things out of order.
In fact this issue included World’s Finest #106, Superboy #77 and Adventure Comics #267: the SECOND Legion story but the first to be published in Italy.
All at the cost of 30 lire, which in 1960 would’ve been the equivalent of 5 cents in American dollars… HALF of the cover price Adventure Comics #267.
However consider that the Italian reprint is MOSTLY in black & white, and the books are much smaller than American comics.
A visual comparison from my personal collection:
Issues of Albi Del Falco aren’t that hard to find, but they can be pretty pricey. Especially for good quality, because the cheaper ones barely stay together anymore.
I don’t own a copy of issue #221 and couldn’t find a scan… but I do have scans from #332, published in August 1962, which does reprint the first Legion story.
Well, it’s the first appearance of the “Legion of Ultra-Heroes”, because that’s the literal translation of what they used… Mondadori was extremely reticent to ever use the word “super”.
They also gave the story an Italian title (“Entrace exams”), and as you can see for the color pages they recolored Saturn Girl.
As well as changing the codenames, taking some liberties with the translations.
Superboy is Nembo Kid, exactly like Superman: there is no change there.
Cosmic Boy is Cosmico (just “Cosmic”), Saturn Girl is Saturnia (which doesn’t mean anything) and Lightning Lad is Fulmine (“Lightning”).
I have to say that this recoloring of Saturn Girl’s original costume isn’t half bad.
Way better than removing the S from Superboy… but then again if he’s Nembo Kid, it makes zero sense for having an S.
Not that “Nembo Kid” makes any sense to begin with.
The Legion doesn’t get the cover all that often… this weekly series covered the ENTIRE DC Universe so there are lots of series… but it happens.
The Legion of Super-Villains also makes an appearance, with a translation that sounds very awkward in modern Italian: Banda degli Ultra-Ribaldi.
That’s sort of “Gang of Ultra-Ribalds” and yes, it sounds just as ridiculously old-fashioned in Italian as well. As for the translation of their names:
- Saturn Queen = Ipnosia (a made-up female form of ipnosi, “hypnosis”)
- Lightning Lord = Fulmine (taking away his brother’s original translation)
- Cosmic King = Re Cosmo (“King Cosmos”)
Lightning Lad was renamed Folgore (a different, more old-fashioned translation of “Lightning”), but most Legionnaires went through translations.
- Sun Boy is Solario (“Solarium”)
- Chameleon Boy got off easy: he’s Camaleonte, which is just “Chameleon”
- Bouncing Boy is Pallino. I imagine it was used as a translation of “Cue ball”, but it’s hilarious today considering it literally means “Small ball”.
Which is probably why he’s later translated as Ragazzo Palla (“Ball Boy”. Yes it’s funny in Italian too.) - Shrinking Violet is Minima, which is the female form of “Minimum”. She’s just “Violet” in other issues.
- Invisible Kid is Invisibile, which is just “Invisible”
Hey Italy was way ahead of the curve in getting rid of the Boy-Girl-Lad-Lass codenames!
Supergirl isn’t immune to the changes or the aversion to the word super, because she’s “Nembo Star”.
Brainiac 5 doesn’t get a name change.
Mon-El just stays Mon-El, and Ultra Boy gets the extremely literal translation Ultra Ragazzo.
Bizarrely, the Time Trapper gets the translation Trappolatore, which… IS the actual translation of “Trapper”, but it’s so obscure that I had absolutely no clue it was an actual Italian word until now.
He was later translated as Cacciatore del Tempo (“Time Hunter”), and despite having read very few stories that use that translation that’s still the first name that comes to my mind when I think of the character.
Other translations for Legionnaires for which I don’t have scans:
- Colossal Boy = Colosso (“Colossus”, yes that’s also the translation for the X-Man)
- Star Boy = Stellario (“Stellarium”)
- Matter-Eater Lad = Materiofago (“Materiophage”. Yes, really.)
- Triplicate Girl / Duo Damsel = Triplicata/Duplicata (“Triplicated”/”Duplicated”)
- Lightning Lass = Elettrica (“Electrical”)
- Light Lass = Levisa (???? No, seriously, I have no clue, it doesn’t mean anything)
- Phantom Girl = Fantasima (which is not a word, but Fantasma is “Phantom”)
- Command Kid = Ipnotico (“Hypnotic”)
It seems that Dream Girl kept her original name (I couldn’t fact check this), but she had a bit of censorship on the cover!
Tracking the stories published in this book isn’t easy, but the last translated story appears to be Adventure Comics #355.
Only 5 issue of the Shooter run were translated (#346 to #348 and #354-355).
TO THIS DAY, the Sun-Eater storyline has never been translated into Italian!!!
(although that might change soon, see later)
Unfortunately I could not verify whether they translated the names of the Shooter characters. I’m particularly curious whether they translated Ferro Lad, considering that Ferro already means “Iron” in Italian.
The series also had a “supplemental” series, Superalbo Nembo Kid.
Because apparently they were against ever using “super” in the story, but calling the supplemental “Super-book” was fine.
The Legion does show up in a couple of these; I guess they’re a bit more rare, I’ve never seen one in person.
It’s later renamed “Batman Nembo Kid”, and at this point it costs 120 lire.
Which sounds like a big jump from the original 30, it was published in 1966 so it was the equivalent of 20 cents. Not bad for a 68 page book, although once again not all are in color.
With Mondadori ceasing publication of DC comics, the rights where inherited by Williams Inteuropa in the early 70s.
These are extremely rare to find; I have never seen a single Willaims book in person.
At this point Superman and Superboy were finally using their original names, and the Legion is finally translated as Legione dei Super-Eroi (a literal translation).
I could not find a verifiable source whether the individual names were translated or not.
Willaims didn’t publish DC for long. Its position was taken by publisher Cenisio, which in 1979 gave the Legion its very own series lasting 7 issues.
Keeping track of the names, Dawnstar is Aurora (“Dawn”).
As I don’t own any of these (yet), I can’t verify if the other Legionnaire names were translated.
By this point the price is 500 lire, which in 1979 was the equivalent of about 30 cents.
Still only partially in color, translating about two book.
For three times the price, there was the supplemental publishing the giant-size tabloid.
I had the chance to buy this about fifteen years ago in a comics shop, but at the time it would’ve cost me the equivalent of 100 dollars so I didn’t take it.
You can find it a lot cheaper in the used market nowadays… not that you’d need it, as we’ll see soon.
Translations of DC Comics were in the wilderness for quite some time before publisher Play Press took over.
They did publish the Great Darkness Saga in the anthology book Play Saga from #18 to #22, in 1992.
As I have detailed before, this was when I first discovered the Legion (issue #19 specifically).
Play Press was infamous for never translating any name or title, so the book does feature a Legion of Super-Heroes logo and the characters retain their English names.
Unusually for Play Press, which basically NEVER did this beyond this anthology, several issues included pages describing the Legionnaires… from their powers to the most important parts of their history.
They truly went above and beyond with those pages: there was even one dedicated to the planets of the Legionnaires, giving a quick look at the Legion’s worldbuilding.
The fact that I remained a dedicated Legion fan after reading the GDS, despite only getting my hands on just a couple more stories for a whole decade, owes a lot to those pages.
It’s fair to say that without those, I would never have made a Legion retrospective.
Interestingly, this was the same anthology that published Crisis on Infinite Earths, on Play Saga #1-8. I wouldn’t read this until much later… but long before I read anything else with the Legion, so Crisis was where I had my first glimpse at the Volume 3 team.
So of course I had absolutely no clue Sensor Girl was the same Princess Projectra I had seen in the GDS.
Also interesting: despite its allergy to translating names, Play Press kept several older translations for the Legionnares… at least in the notes, because most of them are unnamed in the story.
We have the returning Aurora for Dawnstar and Fantasima for Phantom Girl, but according to the notes:
- Element Lad = Elemento (“Element”)
- Dream Girl = Sognatrice (“Dreamer”), making me wonder if this was the original Mondadori translation
- Lightning Lass = Onda (“Wave”), which… doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Thank goodness I didn’t pick the anthology book American Heroes, because in 1993 it published the last 4 issues of Volume 3 and the first 8 issues of Volume 4.
I did get a couple of these in the early 2000s and I still couldn’t understand anything.
In fact, my only other exposure to the Legion was “Who’s Who In The DC Universe”, which Play Press did translate and publish in 1992.
And to say that I was confused would be an understatement. All the Legionnaires that I met during the Great Darkness Saga were basically unrecognizable!
They also used their civilian names and I swear it felt like 99% of the entries were like “This character had a bunch of interesting adventures, then lost his/her powers and went through massive trauma”.
No wonder I never even attempted a complete read of the 5YL era until its retrospective.
But in 1995, I fell in love with the Legion all over again because Play Press translated both Zero Hour and a couple of issue zeros, including LSH #0 and Legionnaires #0 on DC Collection #9.
Where for some reason they gave the cover to Hawkman’s botched revival.
But once again I would have to wait YEARS to properly read the Legion!
That’s because for whatever reason, Play Press did NOT translate the Reboot era.
So my exposure to the Reboot was reduced to cameos of the Legionnaires on the Superman books and in the Final Night crossover.
I would eventually discover older Legion stories around 2002 through completely legal means, managing to finally get my hands on then-currently published Legion books during the Abnett & Lanning era.
But that’s a story for another time: Play Press eventually lost the publishing rights, picked up by Planeta who published the Legion-Titans crossover Universe Ablaze in paperback format.
They also translated Legion Of Three Worlds as paperback, and more importantly they had a dedicated Classici DC anthology.
They reprinted everything from LSH #284 all the way until the complete Volume 3, in 17 books.
They’re slightly smaller than the original books; here they are from my personal collection.
The publishing rights were then acquired by Panini Comics (the same one translating Marvel comics for Italy), and they’ve been quite good for the Legion.
In 2021 and 2022 they translated the first two Legion Omnibus in high quality paperback: these are comics reprinted in Italy for only the second time since the early 60s, with a lot being translated for the first time. They’re pricey but VERY high quality.
Here’s hoping they will eventually also translate the Omnibus covering the Shooter stories that have never been translated in Italy.
They even translated the tabloid, in paperback format as big as the original! This is a pain to keep in my collection give the size, but man was it satisfying to finally own it.
And no, it didn’t cost 100 dollars this time!
They also published two paperbacks translating LSH 260-283 for the very first time in Italy…
…as well as the Great Darkness Saga.
Between this, the Planeta books and the Play Press original… I now own three separate Italian translations of the GDS and not a single English version.
If you’re curious: the Panini version is the most high quality, the Planeta one is the cheapest, and the Play Press one is the most complete because it’s the only one to include BOTH versions of LSH #291.
Sadly, the VAST majority of the Reboot remains untranslated.
Panini only translated Legion Lost and the preceding Abnett & Lanning issues, but nothing else.
More recently the Threeboot, the Retroboot and the Bendisboot have also been translated.
No word yet on the 2026 version, but I’ll bet you anything they will translate it.
Yeah, being a Legion superfan in Italy wasn’t easy for many years.
I know I have a pretty international range of readers, so please let me know in the comments: was it any easier to read the Legion in your country?
And are there funny or awkward translation of the codenames?