quote:Originally posted by armsfalloffboy: Not to mention I'm looking forward to introducing my five year old to the Legion. Of course, everything's Justice League to him now, but maybe Unlimited will head to the future soon. Hey, if they can base a whole ep around freakin' Hawk and Dove, the Legion GOT to be on the list somehow.
Maybe you can hunt down the ep(s) where Superman meets the Legion. That could give your kid a slight intro before showing off the comics.
-------------------- Dan
From: Newburgh, NY | Registered: May 2004
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posted
About '93 or so I was staying with a friend in Manchester. While not of the best taste, he had shown me Marvel's New Warriors and I was interested in that. Then he instroduced me to the Legion. I'd only read X-Men and Batman so I wasn't too knowledgeable about anything else.
He was a huge fan of the Chris Sprouse Legionnaires series and it was entertaining. #1 to when Matter-Eater Lad was turned into a girl I read from 50p bins that we had scoured there.
A few years later, aspiring writer that I was I wanted to find science fiction comics. There were not many for proper space-fiction. I suddenly remember Legionnaires and picked up a couple of issues from the comic shop I was working at. There were not many on the shelf and I hadn't noticed it there before. Then I saw the "L" symbol and number like on Superman so I had to pick up Legion of Super-Heroes. It was very odd. Shrinking Violet had turned giant because of Colossal Boy's death & the Emeral Eye, half the Legion were in the present and I only knew a few of them.
Hunting down an #1 to begin with I decided against the Levitz #1 for reasons even I'm not sure with, but went for the Giffen #1. Loved it, bought as many as I could find and started spending wages on the Archive editions. I think I'm about 30 or so issues away from the lot now and have been getting the back issue guy to hunt down the guest appearances and such.
With Legion Lost I discovered my shop was getting preview copies and 'acquired them' as my manager didn't notice such things going missing. I made friends with some Legion-loving customers and even traded some of our back issues for the big Giffen poster that came in the old Great Darkness book and a couple of RPG books.
I'm not working there now so I'm mourning not getting a preview copy, but with this series I plan on indoctrinating my RPG group into LSH as they loved mad superheroism from the Incredibles and may go for this.
quote:Originally posted by Ambient-Noise Boy: my shop was getting preview copies and 'acquired them'
I am SO jealous! My preview copy of Universe Ablaze is one my most treasured items. I would LOVE to have a stack of those to read through.
From: Smallville Sector : Greater Metropolis | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I got into comics in the early 90s, after high school. The first Legion-related book of any kind that I read was L.E.G.I.O.N. Annual # 2, which astonished me. I started hunting down back issues, and some current issues, even though the monthly L-20 went through something of a creative valley right around that time. But I wasn't into LSH at all because this was during 5 Years Later, which I found very off-putting.
What I really got into was the back issues of LSH, even though there was so much to choose from and so much history to catch up on that it ended up becoming one of the more checkered parts of my collection: I have a handful of Bates/Cockrum issues, a handful of Bates/Grell issues, and quite a few from Levitz's second run, depending on the artists (one of my favorites is Vol. 3 # 45, with just about every Legion artist in history each drawing a few pages.) And, of course, all this time, I was also putting together a complete run of the first 51 issues of L-20.
Having unearthed my collection earlier this year after being away from comics for more than seven years, I've decided to make it a goal to eventually have all of Vol. 3.
And the WaK reboot, which I started reading with # 7, continues to grow on me. I'm looking forward to the TPB of the ones I missed.
quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: Remind me to respond some time.
HEY ERYK!! WHY DON'T YOU RESPOND SOME TIME?
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
Here you go:
So I guess I was about 8 years old when I first discovered the Legion. I remember I had a friend who was also into comics and I can remember him telling me about the Legion of Super-Heroes (and I remember him mentioning Shadow Lass as one of the members).
The first issue I bought featuring the Legion was World's Finest #284, which features the Legion helping Superman and Batman take on the Composite Superman II/Amalgamax. Anyway, I remember liking the sense of the Legion being this huge organization and that there were a lot more of them than were featured in this issue. I also found the conclusion to this issue, where the Legionnaires defeat a vastly more powerful foe through deception, quite appealing. And there was this sense of history as well, with Superman having been a member of the team playing an important role, as well as the history of this Composite Superman character being central to the plot.
It was awhile before I really seriously got into the Legion, however. I don't really remember why. I seem to remember not really seriously buying them until I started going to a comic shop, so maybe it had to do with not being able to find them on the spinner racks where I bought comics previously. But once I got into them, a little after the start of the Baxter series, they became my absolute favorites. This whole sense of history and complex mythology, and building upon that, had such an incredible appeal to me.
I remember we used to go to this fair in the summer where there were all these antiques and crafts and various sort of things sold. For me the exciting part of this was the booth where they had all the old comics from the sixties. I'd usually buy the old JLA/JSA teamups [the JSA were so much cooler than their Earth-1 counterparts!], but the real treasure was finding the old issues of Adventure featuring the early Legion of Super-Heroes. I only bought a handful (half the Computo story; The Trial of Starboy; the first half of the Super-Stalag-- it was *years* before I found out who the traitor was!), but I absolutely loved them.
Anyway, I collected probably about the first two years of the Baxter Series, as well as assorted back issues when I could afford them, before I "outgrew" comics. I would occassionally buy some more issues of the Legion in the years to come (I know I picked up a few issues of the Conspiracy Story and the Trial of Brainiac Five, and then a few issues of the TMK/Legionnaires era), but never really seriously getting back into comics. For some reason it was always the Legion that drew me back during my flirtations with it, however.
So when I went to college in 1994, I found out that the Legion was being completely relaunched, and started buying this new reboot Legion. I thought that for the most part this was a really cool new take on the team, and it was quite exciting. A few things annoyed me, like the lack of Matter-Eater Lad, but, overall, I was quite enthusiastic. I also bought a lot of back issues in this period, particularly from the Levitz era and TMK. I wasn't really inspired to start reading any other comics, but I was about as devoted a fan of the Legion as one could find in those days.
Well, that enthusiasm didn't last. I pretty much stopped picking up Legion of Super-Heroes after the team 20 arc started, and didn't make it to Legionnaires #50. I just realized I wasn't enjoying this incarnation of the team any more, and I was incredibly annoyed by the death of Gim, who was one of my favorite characters, followed by the introduction of Sneckie. It just seemed like the title had taken a severe wrong turn. So I quit reading.
So a few years pass by, and by this time I'm in graduate school and I seriously discover the internet, and one day happen upon the DCMBs. This was about the time DnA took over the title, and I remember reading a lot of mixed reviews of their early work. I guess I must have lurked kind of off and on for a few months, then it seemed like a lot of people were really excited about this Legion Lost series, so I eventually decided to pick up a few issues of it. I remember being moderately impressed by it. If it weren't the Legion, it might not really have had any appeal, but I was willing to give it a try, given that it was my favorite team.
I think it was really more the getting involved with the internet community that inspired me to start seriously reading the book again than anything about DnA's work in particular. I remember the impression at the time was that they were fixing the mistakes of their predecessors, and it was kind of exciting to see how they would go about doing it. Anyway, I've pretty much been reading ever since, except for a few issues around the end of the DnA series that I could never muster the interest to buy.
Plus, I've picked up all of the Legion Archives and filled in some of the holes in my back-issue collection, so I finally managed to read the second half of that Super-Stalag story!
[ March 14, 2006, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: Eryk Davis Ester ]
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Thriftshop Debutante: Hey, sentient! What's your story?
I didn't think anybody would be interested in it... but hey, if you really want to know how it was to become a Legion fan in Germany - where there never was a Legion book, just the accidental appearance in the Superboy and Superman comics - I'll tell you next week when I have a little bit more time
From: Bamberg, Germany | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
My story starts when I was three years old, when I used to visit our neighbors in my trailer park. Not only did they give my brother and I sour ball candy, but the retired couple would take time to read comic books and the Sunday funnies to us. The gentleman, Mr. Thompson, was a big Batman and Batgirl fan, with some Superman thrown in as well. My parents swear I was reading by three years old because of this. God bless the Thompsons.
When we moved to our first house, I found a comic book store next to the local laundry mat. Comics were the best way to pass the time while trapped waiting for clothes to wash/dry. The lady who ran the store was a sweet old lady, who always made me answer a math question before I could view the comic racks! We also made a deal - I would let her try to convert me to be a Jehovahs Witness and she would special order those Giant Superboy issues for me which were hard to find. I got hooked here at seven years old on the Legion when I read the backup story "Murder the Leader" in a Nick Cardy covered Superboy issue. While I never became a Jehovahs Witness, we became good friends, and she would trust this twelve year old to make her bank deposits for her, as she eventually had a hard time walking and her sight began to fail. God bless you Mrs. Oliver.
As I entered High School the Grell era was ending and I decided to outgrow comics. I quit cold turkey until my senior year of college, when in a magazine store I stumbled across "A Cold and Lonely Corner of Hell" on a comics rack. I snagged the copy and have been rehooked ever since, continuing monthly purchases while filling in back issues. I stopped collecting for a while during TMK to protest the carnage at that time, and during this last run before Supergirl appeared to protest the poor writing. But, I expect I will eventually collect all those missing issues to try to complete the collection.
PS - I somewhat have my son hooked on the Legion and 52, as he prepares to finish High School. My daughters think I'm hopeless.
-------------------- "My dance card was getting fuller than a contestant's at a Jandan shurg-off." - Exnihil, The Lost Klordny
From: Frederick, MD | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
To explain how I became a Legion fan in Germany I have to explain how comics were distributed over here in the 70s and 80s. It was a chaotic mess of different formats from weekly Superman issues to monthly specials and quarterly paperback edition in small, medium and large format. When I got my first Superman book I was five years old – I did hardly understand a word (it was a complicated issue with the JLA and Amazo) but I was hooked, and my grandmother, God bless her soul, started to buy me a lot of Superhero stuff. Green Lantern was my favorite, but then, probably 1980, a new Superboy book was published. Issue #1 was a badly cut translation of ##250/251, the Omega story. I was immediately hooked on the Legion. I loved all the different characters, the colourful action, Wildfire sacrificing (or so I thought) and the great art (those were the Starlin issues). Unfortunately, the Superboy book did also feature the regular Superboy adventures, which I thought were incredibly boring and so I did not stay on the book and was depending on all the special paperback issues which sometimes featured the Legion (Pulsar Stargrave, Earthwar, the Damn Tabloid, Secrets of the Legion, Annual #1 or #300). Green Lantern I could get every month – but it was a holiday when the Legion was featured somewhere. It was special. But then, the German DC publisher canceled all Superhero books – no more stories about “Blitzjunge” (Lightning Lad), “Winzwanda” (Shrinking Violet) or “Sternschwinge” (Dawnstar). I often reread the few Legion stories I had. #300 was the last book published in Germany, though they had never translated Great Darkness and most of the other Levitz/Giffen issues before. The characters remained in my heart while I was growing up and found new heroes.
Then, in 1992, by sheer coincidence I found a comic shop catalogue where you could order back issues – and there I read “Legion of Superheroes”, three different books, and I blindly ordered some issues - ##298 & 299 and v4 ## 13 & 14 . And I was so excited when the books arrived – I found out that there were not only dozens of old stories I did not know yet, but there were ten years of history which had happened since. I started to spend a whole lot of money on getting back issues. The US books were not expensive, but incredibly hard to get (except for v4 which was quite new back then), but it was fun to hunt them down. Finally, at my first comic convention 1994, one of the comic book dealers had a large amount of v2 and v3 Legion comics in his trunk – I bought about 50 issues at once. And so my collection grew, but unfortunately, then came the Reboot – and I lost the joy of reading the current Legion books. I stayed in hope of the books getting better, but except for some isolated storylines it never did, and I left somewhen after the dull year with half of the Legion in the 20th century. I returned when Abnett and Lanning, which I knew from their previous books like Ressurection Man, came on board and stayed since then, even when I still think the Waid run is a directionless mess. Well, the last few issues were quite okay – so I keep on reading, hoping that finally, George Perez will get on board of his favorite childhood heroes book and deliver us from evil…
From: Bamberg, Germany | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I can't remember the first Legion story I read. It's lost way back in the mists of time. I know that fairly early on I came across a little black-and-white reprint book of some Legion stories, and I think the one with Saturn Lad and Prince Projectur was in there. I think I also read a badly battered copy of the one where Bouncing Boy first got together with Duo Damsel. Something like that.
Then, in about 1980 or thereabouts, I started buying comics for myself. I think the first one I got was the one where Blok joined the team, with the Starburst Bandits and all that malarkey. But I didn't really get into it for real until I picked up the second-last issue of the Ultra Boy/Superboy/Reflecto storyline. That, and the first Annual, with Computo and Jacques Foccart and Shvaughn Erin. From then, I collected LSH on and off until thirty-some issues into 5YL. (Gaps in my collection persist from that time. It was only relatively recently that I filled in all five issues of the Great Darkness Saga, for instance.)
Then DC did something to tick me off and I stopped collecting comics altogether for about ten years.
In my absence, the Earth was destroyed, the Legion went on the run, the future was rebooted in the wake of Zero Hour, the Blight arrived and trashed the joint, the two Legion series were cancelled and replaced with Legion Lost, then Legion World, then The Legion, and after about ten issues of that, a pilot light somewhere in my soul flickered to life again.
Nothing would do but that I start reading Legion comics again. I hunted down a couple of local comic shops and began the long, slow (still incomplete) process of catching up on all the back issues I missed.
When I first found out that the original Legion had been rebooted, I was crushed. But I became attached to the DnA Legion anyway. Then, later, when The Legion was cancelled and the Waid-Kitson Threeboot started, I was crushed again. But I'm attached to the threeboot Legion anyway.
I don't mind being introduced to new Legion versions. I just don't want to have to lose the old ones for it to happen.
posted
The first Legion story I read was the First Trade of WaK's Legion and have been continuing it in trade form since and also been reading the issues too.
-------------------- "There is always a solution to every Obstacle."-Karate Kid
From: Earth-Henderson,NV | Registered: Jan 2006
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