posted
Well I guess my roadmap has taken an easy path as I have collected all legion titles since I started with Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes #197.
I guess I’ll be a dedicated fan until the day it ends (hopefully not for a long, long time).
posted
This has been an interesting thread. Good topic, TD.
I think my first massive exposure to the Legion was through the Best of DC reprints of the Adventure issues. I was about 7 and digests were the only kind of comics I read since they were often put at the supermarket checkout and my mom was easily persuaded I took it home and "read" the first story, the "Legion Suicide Squad" where the Subs save the day after the Legion is unable to break into a fortress commandeered by two old men. Other stories included the 1st Dev-Em story, the secret of the Concentrator, Proty joining the Legion of Super Pets, and an election contest won by Saturn Girl.
I had a friend who liked superheroes, too. I showed him the comic and we actually played superheroes pretending to be different Legionnaires (Mon-El was usually the first choice). When I turned 8 he moved away. That would be the last time I would ever meet anyone in person who enjoyed the Legion.
Anyway, in time I had "graduated" to "big-size" comics. I usually got Uncle Scrooge and other kid comics but a strange one with an awesome cover caught my eye one day. Crisis #1 was out and the earth was getting blown up real good. I had to have it to see if my home state of Michigan would come through unscathed. Within a few pages I was introduced to Dawnstar who claimed to be a member of the Legion. She was beautiful and intriguing to my little 8 year-old mind. I had to see more of her. The next week I saw an issue of Who's Who and together with Crisis, I would become a comic-geek for life.
The first regular issue of Legion i ever picked up was Tales #324 where Mon-El, Ultra Boy and White Witch were fighting Dark Circle agents in space. I got the next issue after only to find that they were beginning to do reprints!! Well, since the nearest comic store was 35 miles away I had to settle for second rate reprints. I collected them faithfully until cancellation (grrrr, stupid Baxter) and when Best of DC stopped doing Legion reprints I was stuck. No coincidence that I lost interest in comics completely and gave up. Interesting that I grew up on both Adventure and Levitz and I enjoyed each equally.
I saw a copy of LSH v.3 #63 on a turnrack in Waldenbooks and bought it on a whim. Great timing - it was the last issue! I bought v.4 #'s 1 & 2 at the same turnrack and didn't like what I saw so i just stopped. Soon after graduating from high school I attended a community college in the same town as the closest comic shop and, again on a whim, decided to pick up the latest issue of Legion which happened to be the first part of the "Quiet Darkness" story. Well, from then on I was hooked and managed to buy at least one back issue every week starting with v.4 then the rest of v.3, then the v.2 stories written by Levitz. The only time I quit from there was shortly after the recent "Bizarro Legion" story by PMS. I just couldn't justify spending money on stuff I didn't like.
Over the last few years (5 years since I've been out of college, whew) I've been working on the awful, awful Conway/Staton issues and I'm currently working on the pre-Conway issues. I now get a back issue maybe once a month.
The coolest thing was discovering the internet. I had no idea that Legion fandom was so loyal and widespread. Sure, I met people in comic shops that read comics, but none ever read the Legion regularly. What a shock to discover hundreds of people just like me who enjoy one "not-aspopular-as-the-rest" comic that most people had never heard of.
Holy crap, this post is getting long. Hope my "life story" here wasn't too dull. I think I'll cut it short now.
From: Michigan | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
My road to Legion fandom started in the summer of '76. We were on vacation, staying with my Aunt (the cool PotA/Lone Ranger one ) in her cabin outside Sangerville, ME. On one of our trips to the General Store in town, she bought me four of the oversized treasuries: Secret Origins of the Supervillians 2, the Bicentennial treasury, Superman vs. the Flash, and SUPERBOY & THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. Even though I was only 5, I was preternaturally drawn to Princess Projectra on that gorgeous Grell Gatefold cover. And what I found inside was just as good. Superboy was much cooler than Superman, who i was already familiar with (I'd been reading comics since I was 3). I had a crush on Shadow Lash, too. And Mordru was a badass! The doublepage spread from the wedding of BB and Duo Damsel engaged me for hours, it seemed, as did the cutaway diagram of the headquarters. I read that thing to pieces.
When I got back home, my access to comics was limited to the spinner rack at the local general store; they never seemed to have alot of DC's besides JLA and the big guns. one of the few pre-80's S&LSH I got new was the first appearance of Pulsar Stargrave. I loved that to death, too. In my childlike acknowledgement of PS's bad-assitude, I went through the issue with a red marker and drew wounds on various Legionnaires!
I started getting the title as regularly as I could with the "League of Super-Assassins" story, through the title change with Superboy's departure, on up through the Reflecto/Jo/Kal storyline, then the Broderick-drawn issues. I was in on the beginning of the GDS, but *gasp* lost interest because I didn't care for the art, and couldn't see what the to-do was over Giff.
I lost track of the Legion up until Byrne used them in Superman 8 after Crisis and his relaunch of the big "S". I found the Baxter #39 and bought it for a few issues, mainly for the letters pages to find out what had happened in the Legion chapters to that story. I quit buying when I found out they'd actually killed off Superboy.
Fastforward to after the reboot. I was reading the S-books following the death and return of Superman, and was following the new Superboy. His 3-part crossover into LSH and LEGIONNAIRES rekindled my interest in the kids from the future. I started buying those two titles regularly, and bought what back-issues I could. It soon became apparent I'd missed a LOT. In a short time, I'd completed my reboot collection, as well as a good portion of the 5YL relaunch.
From there, it snowballed. I immersed myself in the wonderful world of eBay, working mainly on collecting the Adventure era (mainly on the cheap, excluding key issues)-- and in one wonderful auction, I completed my "Superboy starring the" through the original Tales issues. 170 issues for $100! WOOHOO!! I also bought the entire ACTION run and the Superboy "gap issues" from fellow fan and MB'er Jim Jackson. Needless to say, my collecting of the current issues has continued through the present.
So that leaves me with a complete run of Adventure from #320, with only a handful missing after 300; the Action run, the first LSH reprint series, several of the digests, most of the appearances in Superboy from 89-up, and a complete run through v.2,3,4, Legionnaires, and reboot to present. The majority of that in the last five years, the older stuff in the last two. WHEW! And I couldn't have enjoyed it more-- with the exception of not having found all of you sooner...
From: Up a Gumtree | Registered: Jul 2003
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Well, now I know who beat me out in that auction! Glad it went to someone worthwhile!
-------------------- "Hey Jim! Get Mon out of the Zone!! And...when do we get Condo back?"
From: Paragon City on patrol | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Poverty Lad: (Sheesh-- didn't mean to write a frigging BOOK... )
Not to worry POV. It was a good read. I kinda did the same thing you did to get my collection as near completion as it is. I'm missing maybe 20 issues at the most from the beginning until now, not counting AR appearances. And lil'rhino, the sweetheart, sent me some of the Action appearances I was missing for nothing. Made my year!
And although it isn't in the best of shape I have to say the prize of my collection is my copy of Adventure #247 that I picked up off eBay for around $50.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Varalent: Well, now I know who beat me out in that auction! Glad it went to someone worthwhile!
I wish I could apologize...!
Actually, though, Vee, it probably wasn't me you got into a bidding war with... The auction I won, I used the "Buy It Now" feature on. I did a half-second of "Well, I already HAVE half of these... before I caved in and bought it... best $100 I ever spent. I completed Superboy 197 through Tales 325, and ended up replacing most of my original issues with the new ones, which were in somewhat better shape! Aaaah, the memories...
From: Up a Gumtree | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Lightning Lad: And although it isn't in the best of shape I have to say the prize of my collection is my copy of Adventure #247 that I picked up off eBay for around $50.
247 for $50?!?! And I was happy getting 2-SIXTY-7 in Fi+ for 3 times that! WOW!!
-------------------- "Anytime a good book like this is cancelled, I hope another Teen Titan is murdered." --Cobalt
"Anytime an awesome book like S6 is cancelled, I hope EVERY Titan is murdered." --Me
From: Up a Gumtree | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
It'll probably surprise people to know I got into the Legion pretty late in the game.
My first encounter with the Legion was 1983. I was a Marvel guy, and I had a friend who was into DC. He didn't regularly read the Legion, but he liked to buy big anniversary issues, and he had # 300. I also recall encountering the Secrets of the Legion miniseries and I read every entry in the original Who's Who...I love encyclopedia-comics. So I had a basic familiarity with the cast of the Legion.
Fast forward to 1990. Marvel began to suck about three years earlier, and I had spent a year and a half pretty much comic book-free in Israel. I came back and what caught my eye but the loose-leaf Who's Who. I loved the format, I loved the art. And the Legion entries were fascinating...the Legionnaires had seemingly moved on from super-hero life, Phantom Girl was amnesiac in the twentieth century, Mon-El was now called Valor...
To satisafy my curiosity, I picked up Legion (Beirbaum/Giffen series) # 13, titled "State of the Universe" on the cover. This only slaked my curiosity further, until I bought up the whole series. Then, to provide background for myself on some of the unfamiliar faces, I bought back-issues of Who's Who in the Legion and the ICG Legion Indexes. Eventually I noticed that a) everything that had changed was interconnected, confusing but understandable if one had the right resource, and b) the Beirbaums had thrown in a lot of off-handed easter eggs that I still wasn't getting. So I began work on version 1 of the Legion.HLP file, and I became obsessive about obtaining reference material.
The result is the Legion trivia whiz you are familiar with today.
-------------------- Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@nyc.rr.com Legion-Reference-File Lad
From: New York, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
That's amazing Chaim. I've been around a lot longer, since 1975, but don't have half the knowledge you do for their past.
How is the recovery of your files going for the update? Any luck?
I'm still thinking of trying to create something similar but for use on Palm handhelds. That'll make my Tungsten a true Omnicom.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
My first issues were Legionnaires 1-7, in the SW6 era. I picked the whole bunch up for what would be only about a dollar (horrible exchange rate factored in ) Then I would get a few other back issues from time to time, but never with any regularity. Then I chanced on Legionnaires 47-50 and LSH 91, and I totally fell in love with the Legion! I filled up my collection with other back issues, and I also read my aunt's collection of Legion issues ranging from the Adventure era to the second Levitz run and the TMK era, and much of the early reboot too. Unfortunately, all those characters were just too much for a young new Legion fan, so I started to explore the Internet looking for info, and I definitely got more than I bargained for. Now I know a lot more about the Legion than anyone living here probably does, thanks in a large part to these message boards and CM Keller's Help file And with the advent of Legion Lost, which I totally loved, I became totally and completely hooked, and now I'm a regular at the shop where I get the latest issue of the Legion every month. The Legion is definitely a large part of what makes life worth living!
Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
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![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
) in her cabin outside Sangerville, ME. On one of our trips to the General Store in town, she bought me four of the oversized treasuries: Secret Origins of the Supervillians 2, the Bicentennial treasury, Superman vs. the Flash, and SUPERBOY & THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. Even though I was only 5, I was preternaturally drawn to Princess Projectra on that gorgeous Grell Gatefold cover. ![[Evil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
And what I found inside was just as good. Superboy was much cooler than Superman, who i was already familiar with (I'd been reading comics since I was 3). I had a crush on Shadow Lash, too. ![[Love]](graemlins/love.gif)
And Mordru was a badass! The doublepage spread from the wedding of BB and Duo Damsel engaged me for hours, it seemed, as did the cutaway diagram of the headquarters. I read that thing to pieces.![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
lost interest because I didn't care for the art, and couldn't see what the to-do was over Giff. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Aaahhh!]](graemlins/scream.gif)
WOOHOO!! I also bought the entire ACTION run and the Superboy "gap issues" from fellow fan and MB'er Jim Jackson. Needless to say, my collecting of the current issues has continued through the present.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
)
![[Invisible Kid]](graemlins/InvisibleKid.gif)
![[Laugh Out Loud]](graemlins/lol.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
And I was happy getting 2-SIXTY-7 in Fi+ for 3 times that! WOW!! ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
