[POLL] What was *your* first Legion Story?

[OM]

...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.

Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

OM

[Dave Van Domelen]

Legion of Super-Heroes #304, the Academy focus issue. I loved Wildfire
and was so disappointed that he died at the end of the issue. I didn't
discover that blowing up was just a thing he did until years later. :)

Dave Van Domelen, kinda disappointed that some of the mysteries posed or
at least mentioned in #304 never got resolved, though.

[OM]

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Legion of Super-Heroes #304, the Academy focus issue.

...Whoops! I forgot to add a caveat to that [POLL] - we probably
should add the "v" numbers to "Legion of Super-Heroes" where
applicable. Of course, once you get past v4, things get confusing. Are
we at v7 or v8 now? :-?

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Dave Van Domelen, kinda disappointed that some of the mysteries posed or
at least mentioned in #304 never got resolved, though.

...Which ones, Dave? I don't have the issue in front of me right now,
and the only one that sort of comes to mind was the comment about the
recruit that supposedly couldn't exist in a normal environment still
trying to figure out how to join. If that's the same issue, ISTR that
was later explained as Quislet.

OM

[Michael Alan Chary]

Post by OM

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Legion of Super-Heroes #304, the Academy focus issue.

...Whoops! I forgot to add a caveat to that [POLL] - we probably
should add the "v" numbers to "Legion of Super-Heroes" where
applicable. Of course, once you get past v4, things get confusing. Are
we at v7 or v8 now? :-?

There is only one comic called LSH #304.

Post by OM

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Dave Van Domelen, kinda disappointed that some of the mysteries posed or
at least mentioned in #304 never got resolved, though.

...Which ones, Dave? I don't have the issue in front of me right now,
and the only one that sort of comes to mind was the comment about the
recruit that supposedly couldn't exist in a normal environment still
trying to figure out how to join. If that's the same issue, ISTR that
was later explained as Quislet.
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

[OM]

Post by Michael Alan Chary
There is only one comic called LSH #304.

...Mox nix, as there was more than one run of books entitled, "Legion
of Super-Heroes". To add more confusion, a lot of fans give "The
Legion" relaunch either a V6 or V7 because despite the title change it
was still the primary Legion book.

OM

[Duggy]

Post by Michael Alan Chary

Post by OM

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Legion of Super-Heroes #304, the Academy focus issue.

...Whoops! I forgot to add a caveat to that [POLL] - we probably
should add the "v" numbers to "Legion of Super-Heroes" where
applicable. Of course, once you get past v4, things get confusing. Are
we at v7 or v8 now? :-?

There is only one comic called LSH #304.

Oh, there are lots *called* LSH #304, but only one actually is LSH
#304.

Actually, Legionaire #1-3, 0, LSH#0... I think I got away with it,
too.

===
= DUG.
===

[Dave Van Domelen]

Post by OM

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Dave Van Domelen, kinda disappointed that some of the mysteries posed or
at least mentioned in #304 never got resolved, though.

...Which ones, Dave? I don't have the issue in front of me right now,
and the only one that sort of comes to mind was the comment about the
recruit that supposedly couldn't exist in a normal environment still
trying to figure out how to join. If that's the same issue, ISTR that
was later explained as Quislet.

There's also that circuitry-eating little guy who was never really
identified, or even established as sapient or not, much less whether he was
an Academy student. :)

Dave Van Domelen, seems to recall a Who's Who entry labeling him as
"unnamed" or "unknown" or something like that.

[OM]

Post by Dave Van Domelen

Post by OM

Post by Dave Van Domelen
Dave Van Domelen, kinda disappointed that some of the mysteries posed or
at least mentioned in #304 never got resolved, though.

...Which ones, Dave? I don't have the issue in front of me right now,
and the only one that sort of comes to mind was the comment about the
recruit that supposedly couldn't exist in a normal environment still
trying to figure out how to join. If that's the same issue, ISTR that
was later explained as Quislet.

There's also that circuitry-eating little guy who was never really
identified, or even established as sapient or not, much less whether he was
an Academy student. :)

...AH! The little yellow gremlin-thing! IIRC, Levitz or Giffen said
that was a "throw-away" character and never did pass Academy muster,
which is why you never saw him again. Since Paul's got a Blog over on
Newsarama still, might be fun to ask him about that one and see if he
still remembers!

OM

[Yeechang Lee]

Post by OM
...Which ones, Dave? I don't have the issue in front of me right
now, and the only one that sort of comes to mind was the comment
about the recruit that supposedly couldn't exist in a normal
environment still trying to figure out how to join. If that's the
same issue, ISTR that was later explained as Quislet.

No; Tellus, who needed a methane ocean to live in and couldn't get
around easily until Brainy invented a helmet for him. Quislet brought
his ship with him, didn't appear until tryout day in v3 #17, and was
never a student at the Legion Academy. Despite the Academy's
existence, only Tellus and Magnetic Kid were graduates of the five
that joined in #17, Sensor Girl and Polar Boy being the other two.

[OM]

Post by Yeechang Lee
No; Tellus, who needed a methane ocean to live in and couldn't get
around easily until Brainy invented a helmet for him.

...Ok, I remember that now. I also remember someone pointing out for
all his 12th-Level intelligence, it sure took him long enough to
essentially invent a Bizarro diving helmet.

OM

[OM]

Post by Yeechang Lee
Despite the Academy's
existence, only Tellus and Magnetic Kid were graduates of the five
that joined in #17, Sensor Girl and Polar Boy being the other two.

...And one of the interesting sublties of Johns' "Lighting Saga" was
the implication that the sole reason Polar Boy was consistently
rejected after the first time around was to make sure someone at least
halfway qualified was in charge of the Subs. This makes a lot of sense
in the fact that the Subs helped keep all the Legion rejects who had
*some* potential and weren't total nutjobs(*) and/or potential
villains within the Legion's sphere of influence/guidance. Sorta like
what Marvel's done with the Initiative, but far more under-the-table
and behind-the-scenes.

(*) Partial nutjobs were obviously acceptable, as Chlorophyll Kid
demonstrated :-)
OM

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by OM

Post by Yeechang Lee
Despite the Academy's
existence, only Tellus and Magnetic Kid were graduates of the five
that joined in #17, Sensor Girl and Polar Boy being the other two.

...And one of the interesting sublties of Johns' "Lighting Saga" was
the implication that the sole reason Polar Boy was consistently
rejected after the first time around was to make sure someone at least
halfway qualified was in charge of the Subs. This makes a lot of sense
in the fact that the Subs helped keep all the Legion rejects who had
*some* potential and weren't total nutjobs(*) and/or potential
villains within the Legion's sphere of influence/guidance. Sorta like
what Marvel's done with the Initiative, but far more under-the-table
and behind-the-scenes.
(*) Partial nutjobs were obviously acceptable, as Chlorophyll Kid
demonstrated :-)
OM

Double Header made the Subs. Double Header. Whose claim to Legion fame
was to have started a screaming argument/fight with himself during his
tryout.

I think we can dispense with the "partial".

(And, really, Ral was only completely off his nut in the recent Johns
version; pre-Crisis, his belief in his ability to talk with the Green was
mostly uncontroversial.)
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
|| E-mail: ykw2006 ||"The mystery of government is not how Washington||
|| -at-gmail-dot-com ||works but how to make it stop." -- P.J. O'Rourke||
|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim
Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune."
- Chuck Dixon, COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD, 14 June 2008.
<http://tinyurl.com/5rxsvp/#comment-665962>

[Michael S. Schiffer]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
...
Double Header made the Subs. Double Header. Whose claim to
Legion fame was to have started a screaming argument/fight with
himself during his tryout.

IIRC, Double Header only made it into the Legion of Substitute Heroes
Auxilliary, for "heroes" not quite ready for the Subs.

Mike

[OM]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
(And, really, Ral was only completely off his nut in the recent Johns
version; pre-Crisis, his belief in his ability to talk with the Green was
mostly uncontroversial.)

...I wasn't arguing otherwise. However, I'm suspecting that when
Shooter finally gets the boot off the book, Johns will make this
aspect of Ral Benim the current post-Everything status quo.

OM

[OM]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
Double Header made the Subs. Double Header. Whose claim to Legion fame
was to have started a screaming argument/fight with himself during his
tryout.

...Didn't he just make the Subs' Auxillary? And the again, there was
one thread I recall from a FiDOPEnet that discussed what would happen
if DH married Eyeful Ethyl and the genes were fecund enough to allow
offspring.

OM

[Nathan Sanders]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.

I think the first Legion issue I owned was LSH #279, part of the
Grimbor storyline in which Reflecto is revealed to be Superboy. I
owned a couple of others, but I didn't start regularly collecting
until the start of the post-ZH Legion.

Nathan

[OM]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:50:52 -0400, Nathan Sanders

Post by Nathan Sanders
I think the first Legion issue I owned was LSH #279, part of the
Grimbor storyline in which Reflecto is revealed to be Superboy.

...During Roy Thomas' short run prior to the Levitz-Giffen era. I
remember that one well specifically because it brought back Superboy
to the Legion *and* finally addressed the "Reflecto" statue from the
Adult Legion stories. I've often wondered where Roy would have taken
the book had he stayed on, but then in retrospect I've found it hard
to envision how he could have topped the Great Darkness Saga.

OM

[Nathan Elke]

The first issue I >read< was in S/LSH where Element Lad has the
opportunity to kill Roxxas...also the Subs backup with the very 70's
costumes that, I believe, never showed again (except for the
giant-size LL/SG wedding). I thought it was cool.

The first one I bought was the first issue of LSH (after it was
S/LSH), where Superboy left 'for good'. I thought it was interesting,
and bought the next issue (the circus of death, or something like),
but living on a farm near a small town, didn't have good access to
comics in a store.

I finally started buying the legion regularly immediately after the
Great Darkness Saga, where Cosmic Boy's family are burned. From then
on, i never missed an issue.

However, my 12-year older brother (he'd be 53 now) was a legion fan
from >his< childhood, and I have a vague recollection of holding a
comic with Mon-El starting to step out of a Phantom Zone projector to
help Superboy against a posessed Legion (would've been an early
Adventure Comics issue). My brother told me Mon-El was his favourite
character; when other kids were pretending to be Superman or Batman,
he always pretended to be Mon-El. When they came out with a Mon-El
action figure a few years back, I bought one for my brother. He
thought it was cool. :)

[OM]

Post by Nathan Elke
The first one I bought was the first issue of LSH (after it was
S/LSH), where Superboy left 'for good'. I thought it was interesting,
and bought the next issue (the circus of death, or something like),
but living on a farm near a small town, didn't have good access to
comics in a store.

...The surprise here is that those issues were hack jobs by Gerry
Conway, who's considered by most LSH fans as one of the worst writers
the team ever had. He didn't have a feel for the characters, and many
of the personalities were so off-center that were it not for a
last-minute, 3-issue "save" by Roy Thomas prior to the Levitz-Giffen
run, there were reports that the book was starting to dip towards
cancellation levels.

Of course, the "Dr. Mayavale" issue didn't help matters either...

OM

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by OM

Post by Nathan Elke
The first one I bought was the first issue of LSH (after it was
S/LSH), where Superboy left 'for good'. I thought it was interesting,
and bought the next issue (the circus of death, or something like),
but living on a farm near a small town, didn't have good access to
comics in a store.

...The surprise here is that those issues were hack jobs by Gerry
Conway, who's considered by most LSH fans as one of the worst writers
the team ever had.

Eh... he's not so bad (and I find that alot of his stories stand up
better than those written by Roger (or Mrs. Roger) Stern). I started
with the Space Circus story myself and have been a fan ever since.
And towards the end of Conway's run there were some really enjoyable
stories. I liked his Fatal Five story. I liked Ultra Boy's death and
rebirth. Liked Grimbor chaining the earth.

Post by OM
Of course, the "Dr. Mayavale" issue didn't help matters either...

Which wasn't written by Gerry Conway, though.

murr

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
I liked Ultra Boy's death and
rebirth.

Wow. Every story really =is= someone's favorite. :)
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
|| E-mail: ykw2006 ||"The mystery of government is not how Washington||
|| -at-gmail-dot-com ||works but how to make it stop." -- P.J. O'Rourke||
|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim
Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune."
- Chuck Dixon, COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD, 14 June 2008.
<http://tinyurl.com/5rxsvp/#comment-665962>

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
I liked Ultra Boy's death and
rebirth.

Wow. Every story really =is= someone's favorite. :)

Yep. I came to love the Legion based on Gerry Conway's last year of
stories and Jimmy Janes' art. I can't tell you the number of times
I've come back to that time of the Legion's history and reread those
stories. Rereading those tales bring me way more pleasure than
anything from the Waid/Peyer/McCraw/Stern reboot.

Besides, what's not to love? You've got death and rebirth, sacrifice
and longing and hot space pirates.

murr

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net

Post by YKW (ad hoc)

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
I liked Ultra Boy's death and
rebirth.

Wow. Every story really =is= someone's favorite. :)

Yep. I came to love the Legion based on Gerry Conway's last year of
stories and Jimmy Janes' art. I can't tell you the number of times
I've come back to that time of the Legion's history and reread those
stories. Rereading those tales bring me way more pleasure than
anything from the Waid/Peyer/McCraw/Stern reboot.

That's not exactly setting the bar very high. :)

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
Besides, what's not to love? You've got death and rebirth, sacrifice
and longing and hot space pirates.
murr

They wound up going through three different writers (and Ditko had to
turn in two or three rush pencil jobs -- reportedly at least one of which
was done IN A SINGLE WEEKEND) to fight their way to the finish line,
that's what. And I still recall my pre-teenaged self reading those things
and decrying their not making a lick of sense. ("Didn't they =just= tell
Superboy to STAY HOME???")

But the Ditko Legion was certainly an experience, especially with the
sheen Dave Hunt put over 'em... too bad there were all those Chiaramonte
magic-marker jobs as well.
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
|| E-mail: ykw2006 ||"The mystery of government is not how Washington||
|| -at-gmail-dot-com ||works but how to make it stop." -- P.J. O'Rourke||
|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim
Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune."
- Chuck Dixon, COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD, 14 June 2008.
<http://tinyurl.com/5rxsvp/#comment-665962>

[OM]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
Rereading those tales bring me way more pleasure than
anything from the Waid/Peyer/McCraw/Stern reboot.

That's not exactly setting the bar very high. :)

...The low point that was pretty much agreed upon way back when this
group was formed was the "Dr. Mayavale" story. Created by J.M.
DeMatteis and drawn by Steve Ditko - he reportedly has sworn he did
not create the character! - the LegionWiki entry can be read here:

http://www.legionwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Doctor_Mayavale

...For the most part, it's the usual DeMatteis garbage about
reincarnation and mumbo-jumbo, with Mayavale actually resembling how
JDM actually looked in those days - another stunt he pulled on his
"Dr. Fate" run in the 80's, with "God" looking just like he did,
Jesus-locks and all. It was a one-shot fill-in issue which thank
God/Yahweh/Roddenberry did *NOT* result in his taking over the book on
a regular basis.

...Where Ditko usually gets his share of the blame is on the artwork,
which was done reportedly as a last-minute fill-in for whoever was
supposed to have done the art on that issue. He hadn't done the Legion
before, period, and at that time he was getting rather picky about how
inkers were finishing his pencils. IIRC, he may have done his own
inking on this one, which would explain a lot. By the late 70s - early
80's, his pencils were still good, but like Jack Kirby did on some of
his last works, a good, strong inker was needed to correct certain
physical discontinuities and errors. Unlike Kirby, Ditko needed it by
then far more than ever, and while some of the oddball poses might
have worked over a decade earlier for "Spider-Wimp", they were worse
than a hack job on the Legion, and totally unsuitable.

...So yeah, there *was* a creative team who was worse than the
now-departed-but-not-yet-retconned Waid Debacle V2. It just wasn't the
Bierbaums as one would first suspect.


Bottom Line: It's
OM

[OM]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
They wound up going through three different writers (and Ditko had to
turn in two or three rush pencil jobs -- reportedly at least one of which
was done IN A SINGLE WEEKEND) to fight their way to the finish line,
that's what. And I still recall my pre-teenaged self reading those things
and decrying their not making a lick of sense. ("Didn't they =just= tell
Superboy to STAY HOME???")

...Can you cite source on the other two writers? From the version I've
read in the past, JMD was the only fill-in - it was a "try out" to see
if he wanted to take over the book or not because Gerry Conway was
reportedly wanting off of the assignment - and Ditko was brought in at
the last minute when Joe Staton was unable to do the issue due to
illness.

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
But the Ditko Legion was certainly an experience, especially with the
sheen Dave Hunt put over 'em... too bad there were all those Chiaramonte
magic-marker jobs as well.

...Again, source cite, because I can't recall either Dave or Frank
doing the inks on that one, and I don't have the issue in front of me
to look it up. I'm afraid that if I crack the seal on the polybag
it'll cause some sort of disaster :-P

OM

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
They wound up going through three different writers (and Ditko had to
turn in two or three rush pencil jobs -- reportedly at least one of
which was done IN A SINGLE WEEKEND) to fight their way to the finish
line, that's what. And I still recall my pre-teenaged self reading
those things and decrying their not making a lick of sense. ("Didn't
they =just= tell Superboy to STAY HOME???")

...Can you cite source on the other two writers? From the version I've
read in the past, JMD was the only fill-in - it was a "try out" to see
if he wanted to take over the book or not because Gerry Conway was
reportedly wanting off of the assignment - and Ditko was brought in at
the last minute when Joe Staton was unable to do the issue due to
illness.

It was my understanding that it was =Janes= having deadline issues;
Staton being already off the book in favor of joining the DCCP/B&B
rotation, the solo GREEN LANTERN assignment and the Plas ADVENTURE and
Huntress WONDER WOMAN featurettes.

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
But the Ditko Legion was certainly an experience, especially with the
sheen Dave Hunt put over 'em... too bad there were all those
Chiaramonte magic-marker jobs as well.

...Again, source cite, because I can't recall either Dave or Frank
doing the inks on that one, and I don't have the issue in front of me
to look it up. I'm afraid that if I crack the seal on the polybag
it'll cause some sort of disaster :-P
OM

My reference point was to the broader Ultra Boy death/rebirth storyline,
which was started by Conway, slogged through a bit by Thomas and finally
resolved by Levitz' Second Coming.

There were several Ditko Legion issues. Without resorting to the GCD, I
can't cite which ones, or which ones had which inkers.

So....

267: Ditko/Hunt
268: Ditko/Wiacek
272: Ditko/Chiaramonte
274: Ditko/Chiaramonte
276: Ditko/Chiaramonte
281: Ditko/Patterson

{Source: yeah, GCD.]
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
|| E-mail: ykw2006 ||"The mystery of government is not how Washington||
|| -at-gmail-dot-com ||works but how to make it stop." -- P.J. O'Rourke||
|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim
Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune."
- Chuck Dixon, COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD, 14 June 2008.
<http://tinyurl.com/5rxsvp/#comment-665962>

[OM]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
It was my understanding that it was =Janes= having deadline issues;

...Yeah, you're correct on this one. I was thinking Joe Staton because
I'd had Joe on the mind after reading some scans of his First Comics
"E-Man" revival - the ones with the "X-Men" parody and Nova getting
the "Phoenix" powers. Mea culprit.

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
There were several Ditko Legion issues. Without resorting to the GCD, I
can't cite which ones, or which ones had which inkers.
So....
267: Ditko/Hunt
268: Ditko/Wiacek
272: Ditko/Chiaramonte
274: Ditko/Chiaramonte
276: Ditko/Chiaramonte
281: Ditko/Patterson
{Source: yeah, GCD.]

...Again, based on what's been told to me in the past, Ditko did his
own inks on 268, which explains its generally half-assed look compared
to the other books he did. It's possible, considering the last-minute
haste of getting that issue together, that Wiacek may have pitched in
on a few pages, and I'd be willing to concede that point.

Doesn't change the fact that Ditko had no business being assigned to
the Legion :-P

OM

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
It was my understanding that it was =Janes= having deadline issues;

...Yeah, you're correct on this one. I was thinking Joe Staton because
I'd had Joe on the mind after reading some scans of his First Comics
"E-Man" revival - the ones with the "X-Men" parody and Nova getting
the "Phoenix" powers. Mea culprit.

Heh... "Kitty Porn"...

Understandable; the first draft of my previous post had E-MAN being one
of the projects Staton had taken forcing him off LSH (to his great
relief; between LSH, ASC/ADVENTURE and SHOWCASE #100, he'd drawn about
every character in the DC stable a bazillion times each in just under
three years). It was only having gone to the GCD for the Ditko info that
led me to check pub dates on the First series and make the appropriate
correction.

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
There were several Ditko Legion issues. Without resorting to the GCD, I
can't cite which ones, or which ones had which inkers.
So....
267: Ditko/Hunt
268: Ditko/Wiacek
272: Ditko/Chiaramonte
274: Ditko/Chiaramonte
276: Ditko/Chiaramonte
281: Ditko/Patterson
{Source: yeah, GCD.]

...Again, based on what's been told to me in the past, Ditko did his
own inks on 268, which explains its generally half-assed look compared
to the other books he did. It's possible, considering the last-minute
haste of getting that issue together, that Wiacek may have pitched in
on a few pages, and I'd be willing to concede that point.
Doesn't change the fact that Ditko had no business being assigned to
the Legion :-P
OM

The Hunt back-up was beautiful. Chiaramonte was... well, he put black
lines over gray lines, is what he did; if it wasn't there in pencil, it
wasn't there in ink -- and if it shouldn't have been there in pencil, it
was =still= there in ink. The only pencils Frank ever looked good over
were Curt Swan's (and if you've ever seen uninked Swan pencils, you'd
immediately see why).

Given the right inker, some non-abysmal stories and more than a lunch
break to turn out a job, I think the Sturdy One woulda done just fine as
the regular guy. Fortunately, Legion fans did pretty well for themselves
in the end, regardless.
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
|| E-mail: ykw2006 ||"The mystery of government is not how Washington||
|| -at-gmail-dot-com ||works but how to make it stop." -- P.J. O'Rourke||
|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim
Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune."
- Chuck Dixon, COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD, 14 June 2008.
<http://tinyurl.com/5rxsvp/#comment-665962>

[j***@gmail.com]

Post by YKW (ad hoc)

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
It was my understanding that it was =Janes= having deadline issues;

...Yeah, you're correct on this one. I was thinking Joe Staton because
I'd had Joe on the mind after reading some scans of his First Comics
"E-Man" revival - the ones with the "X-Men" parody and Nova getting
the "Phoenix" powers. Mea culprit.

Heh... "Kitty Porn"...
Understandable; the first draft of my previous post had E-MAN being one
of the projects Staton had taken forcing him off LSH (to his great
relief; between LSH, ASC/ADVENTURE and SHOWCASE #100, he'd drawn about
every character in the DC stable a bazillion times each in just under
three years). It was only having gone to the GCD for the Ditko info that
led me to check pub dates on the First series and make the appropriate
correction.

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
There were several Ditko Legion issues. Without resorting to the GCD, I
can't cite which ones, or which ones had which inkers.
So....
267: Ditko/Hunt
268: Ditko/Wiacek
272: Ditko/Chiaramonte
274: Ditko/Chiaramonte
276: Ditko/Chiaramonte
281: Ditko/Patterson
{Source: yeah, GCD.]

...Again, based on what's been told to me in the past, Ditko did his
own inks on 268, which explains its generally half-assed look compared
to the other books he did. It's possible, considering the last-minute
haste of getting that issue together, that Wiacek may have pitched in
on a few pages, and I'd be willing to concede that point.
Doesn't change the fact that Ditko had no business being assigned to
the Legion :-P
OM

The Hunt back-up was beautiful. Chiaramonte was... well, he put black
lines over gray lines, is what he did; if it wasn't there in pencil, it
wasn't there in ink -- and if it shouldn't have been there in pencil, it
was =still= there in ink. The only pencils Frank ever looked good over
were Curt Swan's (and if you've ever seen uninked Swan pencils, you'd
immediately see why).

Chiaramonte actually was the only inker I ever liked on Grell besides Grell. But every page of
Grell's finished pencils I've seen looks like his self inked work.

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
Given the right inker, some non-abysmal stories and more than a lunch
break to turn out a job, I think the Sturdy One woulda done just fine as
the regular guy. Fortunately, Legion fans did pretty well for themselves
in the end, regardless.

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by OM
...Can you cite source on the other two writers? From the version I've
read in the past, JMD was the only fill-in - it was a "try out" to see
if he wanted to take over the book or not because Gerry Conway was
reportedly wanting off of the assignment - and Ditko was brought in at
the last minute when Joe Staton was unable to do the issue due to
illness.

Joe Staton had been off the book for close to a year by that point.
We had the two part Space Circus (part 2 art by Ric Estrada and John
Calnan), then we had the "planet That Captured the Legion" (art by
James Sherman... this was my second Legion comic, by the way...
gorgeous art. It's no wonder I stuck around). Then the two part
Dagon the avenger story with art by Jimmy Janes (yay!) and Dave Hunt,
followed by the issue that wrote Tyroc out. Again by Jimmy Janes and
Dave Hunt. Then we had the Chuck and Lu two parter with space genies
(art by Jimmy Janes and Frank Chiarmonte... and I quite liked the
inking on these stories). Issue #267 (the second part of the space
genie story) is the first time that we see Steve Ditko doing pencils
on the Legion when he illustrates the 8 page back-up with inks by Dave
Hunt.
THEN we have the Dr. Mayavale story with Ditko on pencils and Bob
Wiacek on inks.

murr

Post by OM

Post by YKW (ad hoc)
But the Ditko Legion was certainly an experience, especially with the
sheen Dave Hunt put over 'em... too bad there were all those Chiaramonte
magic-marker jobs as well.

...Again, source cite, because I can't recall either Dave or Frank
doing the inks on that one, and I don't have the issue in front of me
to look it up. I'm afraid that if I crack the seal on the polybag
it'll cause some sort of disaster :-P

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
THEN we have the Dr. Mayavale story with Ditko on pencils and Bob
Wiacek on inks.

...The actual word has always been AFAIR that Ditko did his own inks
on this one, which is why it stank so bad. Again, not having that
issue in front of me, was Bob listed as the inker on the credits?

OM

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by OM

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
THEN we have the Dr. Mayavale story with Ditko on pencils and Bob
Wiacek on inks.

...The actual word has always been AFAIR that Ditko did his own inks
on this one, which is why it stank so bad. Again, not having that
issue in front of me, was Bob listed as the inker on the credits?

Yep. Right there on the second page.
So if Ditko did some of his own inking, he wasn't credited with doing
so.

murr

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
Yep. Right there on the second page.
So if Ditko did some of his own inking, he wasn't credited with doing
so.

...I'll stand corrected on this one, then.

OM

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
Besides, what's not to love? You've got death and rebirth, sacrifice
and longing and hot space pirates.

...There *was* that bit about the hot space pirate babe. I think it's
actually one of those primary fantasies about being taken prisoner by
a pirate captain and beind made into a somewhat voluntary and unabused
sex slave.

Then again, it could have been worse. Cap'n Frake could have been
Cap'n Ned of the Raging Queen...:-)

OM

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
Rereading those tales bring me way more pleasure than
anything from the Waid/Peyer/McCraw/Stern reboot.

...Otherwise known as Waid Debacle V1.

OM

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
And towards the end of Conway's run there were some really enjoyable
stories. I liked his Fatal Five story. I liked Ultra Boy's death and
rebirth. Liked Grimbor chaining the earth.

...The problem was that Conway didn't like writing the Legion.
According to his own account of that particular run, he was actually
scared more of the fans than he was of having to remember the
characters of over 30+ members and supporting cast. To his credit, by
the last 7 or 8 issues he actually started getting the feel for the
book, but by then a replacement team was being sought and he still
wanted a book with less of a cast.

...The "Grimbor" issue, tho, got rather ridiculed at the comics shops
then - there weren't any BBS' or Usenet then for us to collectively
rag on creative teams on a global basis! - although quite a few have
argued that the resulting encasing of Earth by a "polymer shield" was
just about as retarded as those "energy chains" squeezing the Earth's
atmosphere to fatal pressures. And the death of Ultra Boy? Well, you
might have liked it, but the first thing Roy Thomas did during his
short-lived arc was set things up so he could come back :-)

I still wonder where Roy would have taken the Legion, but admittedly
not at the expense of the GDS...:-/

OM

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by OM
I still wonder where Roy would have taken the Legion, but admittedly
not at the expense of the GDS...:-/

According to a LEGION OUTPOST (the 'zine, not the lettercol) interview at
the time, Roy had acquired a complete set of Legion appearances and was
going through them with his retconning antennae at full attention. It's
one thing to know the history, quite another to look at it with the
everything-you-know-is-wrong mentality.

Fortunately for everyone, he got ASSq cleared for publication within a
few weeks of being given the LSH gig and left to do his thing in largely
uncharted territory. Earth-Two fans got exactly what they wanted, and
Legion fans were spared that sort of outrage for another decade or so.
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
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|| -at-gmail-dot-com ||works but how to make it stop." -- P.J. O'Rourke||
|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim
Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune."
- Chuck Dixon, COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD, 14 June 2008.
<http://tinyurl.com/5rxsvp/#comment-665962>

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by OM
...The problem was that Conway didn't like writing the Legion.
According to his own account of that particular run, he was actually
scared more of the fans than he was of having to remember the
characters of over 30+ members and supporting cast. To his credit, by
the last 7 or 8 issues he actually started getting the feel for the
book,

Which was when I started reading the book regularly. I didn't have to
suffer through Conway and Staton, but got to join in on the end of his
run when he was starting to click.

Post by OM
And the death of Ultra Boy? Well, you
might have liked it, but the first thing Roy Thomas did during his
short-lived arc was set things up so he could come back :-)

Dude! Roy didn't set that up! Conway made it very clear in the story
that he was telling that Jo didn't really die. Everybody but the
Legion knew that he was coming back. All Roy did was tell the tale
that was going to be told eventually anyway.

murr

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net

Post by OM
Of course, the "Dr. Mayavale" issue didn't help matters either...

Which wasn't written by Gerry Conway, though.

...Nope. Fill-in by JM DeMatteis, one of the biggest hacks the
industry still somehow manages to employ despite the fact that he
keeps recycling the same old tired, lame plot idea(s) five times more
than Jim Starlin, who gets less work and is more talented even when
he's hacking :-P

OM

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by OM

Post by Nathan Elke
The first one I bought was the first issue of LSH (after it was
S/LSH), where Superboy left 'for good'. I thought it was interesting,
and bought the next issue (the circus of death, or something like),
but living on a farm near a small town, didn't have good access to
comics in a store.

...The surprise here is that those issues were hack jobs by Gerry
Conway, who's considered by most LSH fans as one of the worst writers
the team ever had. He didn't have a feel for the characters, and many
of the personalities were so off-center that were it not for a
last-minute, 3-issue "save" by Roy Thomas prior to the Levitz-Giffen
run, there were reports that the book was starting to dip towards
cancellation levels.

I suppose a new reader won't register that characters are being
written off-character from their previous identities.

Post by OM
Of course, the "Dr. Mayavale" issue didn't help matters either...

I found an article online that made it sound... interesting.

It's not a card often played to have the villain laugh at his
prisoners for a full hour. Fairly well establishes him as actually
insane, I think. If you didn't get that from the costume.

[Tim & Suzie VanBerkum]

Legion of Super Heroes 264-265 featuring the origin of Tyroc. From summer
1980.

Tim

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

[grinningdemon]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)
OM

I avoided the Legion for the longest time because there were so many
characters and such a long history that was largely cut off from the
rest of the DCU...this made it easy to ignore...but I finally got
drawn in for the Abnett/Lanning Legion series and am now a great fan
of all versions of the Legion...though the Abnett/Lanning run is still
my favorite by far.

[OM]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:47:37 -0500, grinningdemon

Post by grinningdemon
I avoided the Legion for the longest time because there were so many
characters and such a long history that was largely cut off from the
rest of the DCU...this made it easy to ignore...but I finally got
drawn in for the Abnett/Lanning Legion series and am now a great fan
of all versions of the Legion...though the Abnett/Lanning run is still
my favorite by far

...It would have been a run almost equal to the original Levitz-Giffen
run, had the art assignment been given to someone who could at least
draw with a Koh-I-Noor and not a dead toothbrush. Ol' Scratchy may
have gotten good over the past few years, but he didn't need to get
his start by making the Legion look like they'd been drug through a
cow pasture full of scrubs and cactii!

OM

[grinningdemon]

Post by OM
On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:47:37 -0500, grinningdemon

Post by grinningdemon
I avoided the Legion for the longest time because there were so many
characters and such a long history that was largely cut off from the
rest of the DCU...this made it easy to ignore...but I finally got
drawn in for the Abnett/Lanning Legion series and am now a great fan
of all versions of the Legion...though the Abnett/Lanning run is still
my favorite by far

...It would have been a run almost equal to the original Levitz-Giffen
run, had the art assignment been given to someone who could at least
draw with a Koh-I-Noor and not a dead toothbrush. Ol' Scratchy may
have gotten good over the past few years, but he didn't need to get
his start by making the Legion look like they'd been drug through a
cow pasture full of scrubs and cactii!
OM

If you're talking about Copiel, I actually preferred his art back
then...I don't like his stuff much anymore...but that's just me.

[OM]

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:31:25 -0500, grinningdemon

Post by grinningdemon
If you're talking about Copiel, I actually preferred his art back
then...I don't like his stuff much anymore...but that's just me.

...Yep. Oliver "Ol' Scratchy" Coipel. As I said, the only main issue
anyone really had with the DnA run for the first couple of years was
Coipel's using the Legion to learn how to draw. However, to give
credit where credit's due, he's actually doing a rather excellent job
on "Thor" for JMS.

That is, except for two problems:

1) Volstagg's proportions aren't accurate as befits the Norse God of
Girth, which is probably due to his drawing the Great One about the
same height as the other Asgardians. Now, if only JMS can actually get
Volstagg into one of the Avenger teams...:-) :-) :-)

2) Thor's face is...well, it's just too damn *square*! That last pose
of him in the latest issue is a prime example. Scratchy needs to use
something else as a shape model than a sugar cube, apparently - after
all, he was using a lemon for Chamelion Boy's face when he first
started! As it is now, it's hard to believe that a head that square
could fit in that winged chamber pot he wears! Hell, I've even read
comments elsewhere that complained Thor looked as if he'd been dropped
on his head as a newborn!

...Other than that, his work is finally actually worth looking at as
opposed to focusing past it on the word bubbles :-)

OM

[Michael Alan Chary]

Post by OM
On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:31:25 -0500, grinningdemon

Post by grinningdemon
If you're talking about Copiel, I actually preferred his art back
then...I don't like his stuff much anymore...but that's just me.

...Yep. Oliver "Ol' Scratchy" Coipel. As I said, the only main issue
anyone really had with the DnA run for the first couple of years was
Coipel's using the Legion to learn how to draw. However, to give
credit where credit's due, he's actually doing a rather excellent job
on "Thor" for JMS.

Yeah, he is. We had a thread back around 6 or 7 years ago dissecting his
shortcomings as an artist.

[John]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!" Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

JD

[j***@gmail.com]

Post by John

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!" Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

Superboy 197 September 1973 written by Bates and drawn by Cockrum. It starts with one of my
favorite bits of business. Clark and Lana are sitting under an apple tree. Lana decides she wants
to kiss Clark to see if he is any good. The Legion call at that moment and Clark cuts an apple off
the tree with his heat vision. The apple hits Lana's head and knocks her unconcious. We don't see
Lana again for months.

The story introduces Tyr.
John Duncan Yoyo
------------------------------o)
Save the Cheerleader-
Collect the whole set.

[James Nicoll]

The earliest one that I can remember is Adventure Comics 326, the
revolt of the girl legionaires.

[OM]

Post by James Nicoll
The earliest one that I can remember is Adventure Comics 326, the
revolt of the girl legionaires.

...That was actually the first version. Jim Shooter "reimaged" that
one a few years later, and actually made a better story out of it. He
did that with a couple of other John Forte-era stories, but the only
other one that comes immediately to mind is the one where some of the
Legionnaires are reduced to super-babies.

...I always wondered how those came about, whether Shooter knowingly
ripped the originals off on his own accord, or whether Unca Mort
Weisinger assigned him to do so, much in the same way he assigned him
to go watch "The Dirty Dozen" and write a LSH tale based on it.

OM

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by John

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!"  Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

Superboy 197 September 1973 written by Bates and drawn by Cockrum.  It starts with one of my
favorite bits of business.  Clark and Lana are sitting under an apple tree.  Lana decides she wants
to kiss Clark to see if he is any good.  The Legion call at that moment and Clark cuts an apple off
the tree with his heat vision.  The apple hits Lana's head and knocks her unconcious.  We don't see
Lana again for months.

How thin /were/ teen love-interests' skulls in those days?? An
apple??? Was this like Roald Dahl's Giant Peach... or a high gravity
planet?? Also - head trauma to knock girlfriend unconscious - not
funny. Risk of serious brain damage. (Probably not from an apple,
though.)

If Clark /did/ want to smack her like a supervillain, he could just
reach around her neck and flick a thumb to bounce her brain around
inside its box. But that's because he's Superboy. The rest of us
have to try to persuade our date to drink a special mixer...

[Michael Alan Chary]

Post by j***@gmail.com

Post by John

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!"  Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

Superboy 197 September 1973 written by Bates and drawn by Cockrum.

 It starts with one of my

Post by j***@gmail.com
favorite bits of business.  Clark and Lana are sitting under an apple

tree.  Lana decides she wants

Post by j***@gmail.com
to kiss Clark to see if he is any good.  The Legion call at that

moment and Clark cuts an apple off

Post by j***@gmail.com
the tree with his heat vision.  The apple hits Lana's head and knocks

her unconcious.  We don't see

Post by j***@gmail.com
Lana again for months.

How thin /were/ teen love-interests' skulls in those days?? An
apple??? Was this like Roald Dahl's Giant Peach... or a high gravity
planet?? Also - head trauma to knock girlfriend unconscious - not
funny. Risk of serious brain damage. (Probably not from an apple,
though.)

ALso, if my time traveling buddy's from 1,000 years in the future want me
to join them on their adventure, they can wait a little bit until I'm
done making out with the hot red head. I'm just saying.

If Clark /did/ want to smack her like a supervillain, he could just
reach around her neck and flick a thumb to bounce her brain around
inside its box. But that's because he's Superboy. The rest of us
have to try to persuade our date to drink a special mixer...

Or kiss her like she's neve rbeen kissed before. That will make her fait
in a comic from 1973.

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Michael Alan Chary

Post by j***@gmail.com

Post by John

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!" �Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

Superboy 197 September 1973 written by Bates and drawn by Cockrum.

�It starts with one of my

Post by j***@gmail.com
favorite bits of business. �Clark and Lana are sitting under an apple

tree. �Lana decides she wants

Post by j***@gmail.com
to kiss Clark to see if he is any good. �The Legion call at that

moment and Clark cuts an apple off

Post by j***@gmail.com
the tree with his heat vision. �The apple hits Lana's head and knocks

her unconcious. �We don't see

Post by j***@gmail.com
Lana again for months.

How thin /were/ teen love-interests' skulls in those days?? An
apple??? Was this like Roald Dahl's Giant Peach... or a high gravity
planet?? Also - head trauma to knock girlfriend unconscious - not
funny. Risk of serious brain damage. (Probably not from an apple,
though.)

ALso, if my time traveling buddy's from 1,000 years in the future want me
to join them on their adventure, they can wait a little bit until I'm
done making out with the hot red head. I'm just saying.

Yeah, I mean - time machine? Hello? Lend me that thing and I'll play
it like _Groundhog Day_, including the happy ending, if you know what
I mean. The thirtieth century will still be there when I've done that
- presumably.

Hey, ironic if (is this right?) the Legion first came to DC's
attention by travelling back in time to meet Superboy, but the newest
Legion can't travel in time at all - or couldn't before they managed
to work the trick on Supergirl and drop her into "World War III".

Post by Michael Alan Chary

If Clark /did/ want to smack her like a supervillain, he could just
reach around her neck and flick a thumb to bounce her brain around
inside its box. But that's because he's Superboy. The rest of us
have to try to persuade our date to drink a special mixer...

Or kiss her like she's neve rbeen kissed before. That will make her fait
in a comic from 1973.

Like Germaine Greer never lived.

In 2008, it may require considerable imagination and some
diplomatically phrased questions.

In the Alfie and James Bond movies, you sneak out before she wakes up,
but from more than a kiss.

Oh, I forgot to say which Legion story sucked me in. Would you
believe LEGION LOST? Which many existing readers probably hated,
given what happened. But for a short while before, I'd been reading
intriguing reviews on the Internet. Then here was this mostly self-
contained story to get me on board.

[OM]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:52:23 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Carnegie
In the Alfie and James Bond movies, you sneak out before she wakes up,
but from more than a kiss.

...Unless she flips a switch and the bed retracts into the wall with
you in it, making you an upside-down target for SPECTRE agents!

OM

[OM]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:52:23 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Carnegie
Oh, I forgot to say which Legion story sucked me in. Would you
believe LEGION LOST? Which many existing readers probably hated,
given what happened.

...Although DnA did some pretty deplorable things with that series -
turning Jan into "Charlie-X with Alzheimers", killing Monstress,
fooling us into thinking they'd killed Garth - the only real common
issue most die-hard LSH fans had was with Oliver "Ol' Scratchy"
Coipel's using the book as "on-the-job training". The Legion needs an
artist who can draw clean lines and heads that don't look like the
artist used a selection of exotic fruits and vegetables as shape
models. Cham's head was probably the best example of how bad the guy
was with heads!(*)

...But in retrospect, the story was up to the Legion standards for the
most part. In fact, it was the second time a Legion team was sent into
an unknown universe and had to use their skills and wits to get back,
And in both cases they did the besr thye cabnnn


(*) he's having some problems like this with "Thor". Although the
other Asgardians have heads in proportion to what we've seen in the
past, Thor's head looks as if Scratchy's using some sort of cube -
maybe a used eraser with the corners rubbed off? - for Thor's head.
One look and it's obvious that unless his the top of his head was
cloned from Zippy, there's no way that winged hat could stay on for
very long.

But what the frack? If he could just get Vostagg's girth right, I
could live with Thor being a blockhead...;-)

OM

[j***@gmail.com]

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Michael Alan Chary

Post by j***@gmail.com

Post by John

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!" ?Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

Superboy 197 September 1973 written by Bates and drawn by Cockrum.

?It starts with one of my

Post by j***@gmail.com
favorite bits of business. ?Clark and Lana are sitting under an apple

tree. ?Lana decides she wants

Post by j***@gmail.com
to kiss Clark to see if he is any good. ?The Legion call at that

moment and Clark cuts an apple off

Post by j***@gmail.com
the tree with his heat vision. ?The apple hits Lana's head and knocks

her unconcious. ?We don't see

Post by j***@gmail.com
Lana again for months.

How thin /were/ teen love-interests' skulls in those days?? An
apple??? Was this like Roald Dahl's Giant Peach... or a high gravity
planet?? Also - head trauma to knock girlfriend unconscious - not
funny. Risk of serious brain damage. (Probably not from an apple,
though.)

Well being Superboy he could use his super breath to pull the apple down a bit harder after he cut
the stem with his xray vision.

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Michael Alan Chary
ALso, if my time traveling buddy's from 1,000 years in the future want me
to join them on their adventure, they can wait a little bit until I'm
done making out with the hot red head. I'm just saying.

Cockrum drew her as quite a hottie as well. That issue sure had an effect on this former twelve
year old.

Post by Robert Carnegie
Yeah, I mean - time machine? Hello? Lend me that thing and I'll play
it like _Groundhog Day_, including the happy ending, if you know what
I mean. The thirtieth century will still be there when I've done that
- presumably.

Superboy could only travel exactly 1000 years. I don't know if they explained it or he just stuck
with it to avoid paradoxes.

Post by Robert Carnegie
Hey, ironic if (is this right?) the Legion first came to DC's
attention by travelling back in time to meet Superboy, but the newest
Legion can't travel in time at all - or couldn't before they managed
to work the trick on Supergirl and drop her into "World War III".

Post by Michael Alan Chary

If Clark /did/ want to smack her like a supervillain, he could just
reach around her neck and flick a thumb to bounce her brain around
inside its box. But that's because he's Superboy. The rest of us
have to try to persuade our date to drink a special mixer...

Or kiss her like she's neve rbeen kissed before. That will make her fait
in a comic from 1973.

Like Germaine Greer never lived.
In 2008, it may require considerable imagination and some
diplomatically phrased questions.
In the Alfie and James Bond movies, you sneak out before she wakes up,
but from more than a kiss.
Oh, I forgot to say which Legion story sucked me in. Would you
believe LEGION LOST? Which many existing readers probably hated,
given what happened. But for a short while before, I'd been reading
intriguing reviews on the Internet. Then here was this mostly self-
contained story to get me on board.

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by j***@gmail.com

Post by Michael Alan Chary

Post by j***@gmail.com

Post by John

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

I think it was Issue # 213, December 1975, "The Jaws of Fear" and
"Trapped to Live -- Free to Die!" ?Both stories written by Jim Shooter
and drawn by Mike Grell.

Superboy 197 September 1973 written by Bates and drawn by Cockrum.

?It starts with one of my

Post by j***@gmail.com
favorite bits of business. ?Clark and Lana are sitting under an apple

tree. ?Lana decides she wants

Post by j***@gmail.com
to kiss Clark to see if he is any good. ?The Legion call at that

moment and Clark cuts an apple off

Post by j***@gmail.com
the tree with his heat vision. ?The apple hits Lana's head and knocks

her unconcious. ?We don't see

Post by j***@gmail.com
Lana again for months.

How thin /were/ teen love-interests' skulls in those days??  An
apple???  Was this like Roald Dahl's Giant Peach...  or a high gravity
planet??  Also - head trauma to knock girlfriend unconscious - not
funny.  Risk of serious brain damage.  (Probably not from an apple,
though.)

Well being Superboy he could use his super breath to pull the apple down a bit harder after he cut
the stem with his xray vision.

Or liplock and then suck the air from her lungs. Also unhealthy,
however.

Post by j***@gmail.com

Post by Michael Alan Chary
ALso, if my time traveling buddy's from 1,000 years in the future want me
to join them on their adventure, they can wait a little bit until I'm
done making out with the hot red head.  I'm just saying.

Cockrum drew her as quite a hottie as well.  That issue sure had an effect on this former twelve
year old.

Um. You mean "Don't sit under the apple tree with Legion John, unless
you wear a crash helmet"? :-)

Post by j***@gmail.com

Yeah, I mean - time machine?  Hello?  Lend me that thing and I'll play
it like _Groundhog Day_, including the happy ending, if you know what
I mean.  The thirtieth century will still be there when I've done that
- presumably.

Superboy could only travel exactly 1000 years. I don't know if they explained it or he just stuck
with it to avoid paradoxes.

A time travel story that avoids paradoxes? Huh? Also: for Superboy?
Living on a separate timeline from Superman somehow? Breaking the
first wall to tell the audience not to worry about that (but, on the
other hand, to worry that if the Fatal Five got him, he might /not/
grow up to be Superman)?

If he travelled forward 999 years from his present then he could warn
the Legion about all their next year's adventures.

On the other hand, Superboy seems to be immortal, so he could /wait/
999 years from 2970 and then travel /back/ in time 1000 years from
3969 to 2969, and spill the beans.

Heck, he can just fly faster than light and go back in time by himself!

[Michael S. Schiffer]

Post by Robert Carnegie
...
If he travelled forward 999 years from his present then he could
warn the Legion about all their next year's adventures.
On the other hand, Superboy seems to be immortal, so he could
/wait/ 999 years from 2970 and then travel /back/ in time 1000
years from 3969 to 2969, and spill the beans.
Heck, he can just fly faster than light and go back in time by
himself!

By the rules of time travel usually followed in Superman and
Superboy stories, he can't exist in solid form at a time that he's
already present. (If he tries to go to a time in which he already
exists, he'll become an invisible phantom, able to observe but not
intervene.) So the fact that Superboy was able to go to the 30th
century suggests that he wasn't around then as an aged Superman.
Though there are dodges to avoid his having died-- knowing when
he'd be showing up, the elderly Kal-El could have just time-
travelled from the early 30th century to the late 31st to give
himself some space, for example.

(His lifespan was different in different imaginary stories of the
future, though, so he also might just have died of old age, or in
some final confrontation with an enemy, by that point-- they were
pretty deliberately vague about his final fate.)

It also was (usually) impossible to change events once they were
already known (e.g., Superboy's attempt to save Abraham Lincoln),
so warning the Legionnaires about their future wouldn't have helped
them. (And if it would, then the universe would arrange
increasingly unlikely obstacles to prevent it-- if it can put Lex
Luthor and a chunk of red K in 1865, all bets are off.)

Given that the Legion went out of its way to prevent him from
learning about his own future (or, in the case of Supergirl, take
that knowledge back when he went home) it would make sense for
things to work that way in the other direction as well. (Alan
Moore alluded to that in "Whatever Happened to the Man of
Tomorrow"-- the young Brainiac 5 observes that while the Legion
knows Superman's future, Superman also knows the teenaged Legion's,
and is likewise keeping future tragedies from them. As he speaks,
we see Supergirl and the first Invisible Kid talking together in
the panel.) But if he threw caution to the winds, Earth-1's
resistance to temporal changes (at least in Superman stories--
other heroes operated by other rules) would make the effort moot
anyway.

Mike

[OM]

On 25 Jun 2008 13:19:42 GMT, "Michael S. Schiffer"

Post by Michael S. Schiffer
By the rules of time travel usually followed in Superman and
Superboy stories, he can't exist in solid form at a time that he's
already present. (If he tries to go to a time in which he already
exists, he'll become an invisible phantom, able to observe but not
intervene.)

...Commonly known as "Weisinger's Law".

OM

[Yeechang Lee]

Post by j***@gmail.com
Superboy could only travel exactly 1000 years. I don't know if they
explained it or he just stuck with it to avoid paradoxes.

Superboy never traveled exactly 1000 years and there was never any
physical limit whatsoever in his ability to travel to whatever time he
wished; the Legion was always set 1000 years in our future, not
Superboy's, so it'd be more like some unknown number of years between
1015 to 1025 or so. Superboy does speak several times of having to
return to the past in time for one thing or another, implying the
necessity of always jumping a fixed period of time back and forth (and
several stories, including the _Superboy_ story that prompted this
subthread, state a similar need to jump to the future in for a fixed
appointment). This doesn't make sense, though, because too many Legion
missions involving Superboy took days, weeks, or even months (not to
mention the at least one year that he served as deputy leader) and
there's no way Superboy could be away from Smallville and its seven
disasters a day for that long.

As I observed here a few years ago, what makes even less sense than
the above is that Superboy's *entire Legion career*, from induction in
_Adventure_ #247 to his last pre-reboot appearance in v3 #23--was
spent as as a high school-aged resident of Smallville. In other words,
during four years he saw his closest friends (I'd argue closer than
Pete or Lana) age a decade, from teenagers about his age (Element Lad
slightly younger, others like Colossal Boy (certainly)--and Brainiac 5
(likely) older) to adults well into their 20s with marriages and
children. And no one ever commented on the disparity (except,
arguably, the horrible SLSH story about the secret life-extension
drugs.)

Supergirl's case is less odd.[1] Although she also spoke of needing to
jump to the past in time to meet a fixed appointment, she aged at the
same pace as the Legionnaires did. She joined the Legion at 15, quit
in her 20s after college graduation, and thereafter made occasional
appearances as a working adult and after returning to school in
Chicago.[1] She died as a friend of the similarly mid-20s Batgirl and
as the one recurring love interest of the mid or late-20s Brainiac 5.

[1] If one excludes the parodox of Supergirl simultaneously working
with an older Superman in her "present" and a Superboy about her age
(at first) in her "future," but at least this was addressed via story
several times back to the _Adventure_ days.

[2] I realize that 1982's _Supergirl_ v2 was editorially meant to
reset Kara's age to 19, but there's nothing I can recall from the run
that prohibits an interpretation of her time at Lake Shore University
as a graduate student.

[OM]

(except, arguably, the horrible SLSH story about the secret life-extension
drugs.)

...Ok, there's a bit of confusion about that issue. It wasn't that the
Legionnaires were taking these life-extension drugs intended for them
alone, it was that *everybody* in the 30th Century lived significantly
longer due to certain medical technologies, and that if Superboy
learned of them he might change history by giving the drugs to the
Kents.

Which means that Weisinger's Law must have been forgotten by the 30th
Century...:-P

OM

[Yeechang Lee]

Too many Legion missions involving Superboy took days, weeks, or
even months (not to mention the at least one year that he served as
deputy leader) and there's no way Superboy could be away from
Smallville and its seven disasters a day for that long [for him to
not to be able to time jump back to Smallville to exactly when he
wanted to, the moment after leaving].

An example of this is found in _Adventure_ #369, the first issue of
the Mordru two-parter. After the Legionnaires go into hiding in
Smallville without using their powers, the local paper's banner
headline blares that Superboy has been missing for a week. Surely this
would not have been newsworthy had Superboy routinely mysteriously
disappeared for days or weeks at a time many time before, as he must
previously have had he always traveled forward or backward a fixed
amount of time.

The conclusion that Superboy could always choose to return to the past
the moment after he left offers a solution (of sorts) to the paradox I
disucussed, of the Legionnaires aging about a decade between
_Adventure_ #247 and v3 #38 during Superboy's four years in high
school. Obviously, Superboy *also* aged more than four years
physically during his Legion career, via routinely spending days,
weeks, likely months at a time in the future without being away for
more than a moment from Smallville during each trip. He matured early
and, unsurprisingly, aged well, so his family and Smallville friends
didn't notice. However, after a while the discrepancy between his
physical age and calendar age widened enough that (the pre-Crisis)
Superboy decided to retire from the Legion before the gap became
unbreachable.

So, there you have it, folks: The real reason why Superman didn't
remain an active Legionnaire!

[OM]

Post by Yeechang Lee
[2] I realize that 1982's _Supergirl_ v2 was editorially meant to
reset Kara's age to 19, but there's nothing I can recall from the run
that prohibits an interpretation of her time at Lake Shore University
as a graduate student.

...It was addressed using the tried-and-true methods used on Wonder
Woman regarding the horrendous Mike Sekowsky run - before there was
the term retcon, plots, stories and histories that sucked were simply
forgotten.

OM

[Dave]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.

Adventure 312, where they bring Lightning Lad back to life.

I got it while at my family's cottage. I was 10, and I'd been a
glutton for comics for about six months. But that was the first I'd
ever heard of the Legion. I liked that first issue, but had a hard
time finding later issues for a while at my local comics places. I
often got issues late (used).

When I got 316 (the Renegade Legionnaire), I was seriously hooked. I
thought the story was great, and I really liked Ultra Boy's
one-at-a-time power limitation (I still do). I also liked his costume,
and he generally had some curliness in his hair. As a curly-haired
guy, I thought that was cool.

I read comics seriously for about 5 years, then stopped (except for
legion stories I could find). Actually, when the Legion left Adventure
for the back few pages of Action, I was so mad I actually gave up on
them for a while. When I learned they had reappeared years later, and
in a serious way, I started trying to dig them up.

I never lost interest in the Legion. My daughter and my nephews are
Legion fans, and have kept the old issues I'd saved for decades, and
they keep reading them, even though a lot of the stories are really
quite lame. But the good stories make it worthwhile.

Dave

[YKW (ad hoc)]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)
OM

Earthwar arc. Via Whitman bagged floppies, of all things. Few days after
getting through those, I saw a slightly older issue at a friend's house
-- the Murder of An Ryd / Ultra Boy spotlight that hooked me for good.

[Nick Eden]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)
OM

The first I bought was V4 45. The Lightning Lad Luck Lords triple
sized, though I'd read a few on the shelves before. Utterly
incomprehensible.

[OM]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:05:59 +0100, Nick Eden

Post by Nick Eden
The first I bought was V4 45. The Lightning Lad Luck Lords triple
sized, though I'd read a few on the shelves before. Utterly
incomprehensible.

...That was the one where we're told that it hasn't been Garth inside
Garth's body all this time, but Proty I, right? That was one of the
Bierbaum issues, which explains a lot about why it was
incomprehensible *unless* you'd been reading the Legion for three
decades and/or one of the Bierbaum's little APA fan cliques.

OM

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by OM
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:05:59 +0100, Nick Eden

Post by Nick Eden
The first I bought was V4 45. The Lightning Lad Luck Lords triple
sized, though I'd read a few on the shelves before. Utterly
incomprehensible.

...That was the one where we're told that it hasn't been Garth inside
Garth's body all this time, but Proty I, right?

Nope. That was a V4 Legion annual. The first or second one.

The poster above was talking about the anniversary issue from V3
(Levitz written, art by many loved Legion artists). The story dealt
with why the character Lightning Lad had such terrible luck throughout
his life.
V4 45 was right at the beginning of the six issue Mordru story which
saw Legion zombies (and other dead characters) rising up form their
graves to torment the Legion.

murr

[OM]

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
The poster above was talking about the anniversary issue from V3
(Levitz written, art by many loved Legion artists). The story dealt
with why the character Lightning Lad had such terrible luck throughout
his life.

...Ah. Now I remember. The ones where the Luck Lords turned out to be
big eyeballs for heads, and was supposed to be a lead-in to some major
story arc of some sort.

OM

[m***@kw.igs.net]

Post by OM

Post by m***@kw.igs.net
The poster above was talking about the anniversary issue from V3
(Levitz written, art by many loved Legion artists). The story dealt
with why the character Lightning Lad had such terrible luck throughout
his life.

...Ah. Now I remember. The ones where the Luck Lords turned out to be
big eyeballs for heads, and was supposed to be a lead-in to some major
story arc of some sort.

Really? I've never read that. I would be surprised to find out that
this issue was supposed to be anything more than an anniversary
issue. When this issue came out, it was right on the heels of a
couple of major storylines (Universo Project, the Superboy/Pocket
Universe stuff, a Starfinger story, the Millenium crossover) and lead
right into the Conspiracy arc and eventually the definitive Emerald
Empress story and the Magic Wars. That doesn't leave a lot of room
for another major story arc. Granted, there were a couple of
meandering issues in the early 50s, but then the book was right back
on track, and in all that time, there wasn't a hint that the Luck
Lords were going to be anything other than the one issue wonders that
they were.

murr

[Nick Eden]

Post by OM
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:05:59 +0100, Nick Eden

Post by Nick Eden
The first I bought was V4 45. The Lightning Lad Luck Lords triple
sized, though I'd read a few on the shelves before. Utterly
incomprehensible.

...That was the one where we're told that it hasn't been Garth inside
Garth's body all this time, but Proty I, right? That was one of the
Bierbaum issues, which explains a lot about why it was
incomprehensible *unless* you'd been reading the Legion for three
decades and/or one of the Bierbaum's little APA fan cliques.
OM

No, not then, (so maybe not V4, I loose count), it was towards the end
of the Levitz run, just before the Conspiracy storyline. Which I
stayed on for and enjoyed enough to... well still be hanging out here
more than 20 years later.

[Duggy]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)

Legionaires #1 - 3, followed by LSH & L* #0.

Legionaires didn't make much sense to me as a new reader... so the
reboot was great for me.

===
= DUG.
===

[Yeechang Lee]

What was your first issue featuring their adventures, especially
which one got you hooked on the LSH.

A friend's copy of LSH #300, the tribute to every Legion era up to
1983. Utterly incomprehensible to the uninitiated, of course, but
strangely fascinating.

The first real exposure came in the summer of 1988, when I discovered
v3 #32-35 (The Universo Project) in the back-issues bins of the local
shop. 20 years and counting of loyalty have followed.

[Kiwi]

Post by OM
...I guess this might be a good a time as any to see who's on what
page where their Legion fandom is concerned. If you feel like it, tell
us what your first real exposure to the Legion was. What was your
first issue featuring their adventures, especially which one got you
hooked on the LSH. It might give us - as well as yourself - some
insight as to why the team's been so damn popular with the fans over
the past five decades when they were intended from the start just to
be a "throw-away" plot device.
Yeah, this is thread fodder, but what the frack? It'll at least help
*me* get to know you kids a little bit better...:-)
OM

The first three Legion stories I remember reading, in about 1977 at
age 8 or 9, were 'Sun Boy's Lost Power' & 'The Super Moby-Dick of
Space' from the Adventure run and Grell-era 'The Legionnaires Who
Haunted Superboy', originally printed in Superboy 206.

DC comics were printed under licence in Australia for the Aussie/NZ
market from the 1950s to 1980s. They were generally B&W, 48-100 pages
in length and contained a variety of current and reprinted material.
Here's links to the two Aussie issues which had those stories:
http://www.ausreprints.com/content/main/?issue=856
http://www.ausreprints.com/content/main/?issue=2195

About the same time Kirby's Fourth World stuff was also being
published so I was getting a good dose of superhero-style sci-fi. What
really hooked me though was I was pretty much immediately hooked on
the Legion and after 30 years it is the only comic/series/group I have
never stopped collecting. Actually, its about the only DC I get now.
What little I buy is mainly stuff like the Krazy Kat and other
reprints, some local small-press anthologies (just to support them,
not because of their quality) and whatever randomly attracts my
attention.

At much the same time I discovered the Legion, I discovered The Trigan
Empire in 'Look and Learn' magazine (the school library had a stack of
them about a foot high - I remember me and a mate sorting them all
over a couple of luchtimes so we could read the strip in order). I
guess I've had the SF bug almost as far back as I've been able to
read.

"My" legion is more or less the 1975-1989 one. I think the Waid/Kitson
reboot is fascinating, but don't think a lot of Shooter's return,
though I still have the several months issues to read. I haven't seen
the version that popped up in Action (?) recently.

Kiwi