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I'm amazed you remember all that, Future. I'm only three years younger than you are, but most of the details have slipped from my memory.
What I do remember was starting with the SW6 Legion. I was confused - I picked up Legionnaires 1, but this team seemed to have been around for a long time. And why did Chameleon boss the others around? What the heck happened to Earth? Why did the text pages for Legionnaires 3 mention a Valor who didn't appear in the books??
Even with all these questions, I enjoyed Legionnaires 1-8 for what they were. Then I picked up some Postboot issues (Legionnaires 62 was my first, I think) and got hooked.
I scoured back issue bins for more. I picked up the last 3 parts of End of an Era (Legionnaires 18, Valor 23 and LSH 61) and understood that the universe had rebooted, which was why LSH 62 and Legionnaires 19 onwards seemed so... different.
I read the Great Darkness Saga at my aunt's place (she loves comics and allowed me to indulge my Legion love) and realized how many Legionnaires there really were. From the Postboot, I branched into the Preboot, and have followed the Legion ever since.
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And special thanks to Lightning Lad, Bevis, Vee and Cobalt Kid for helping me fill in some of the gaps in my back issue collection. You have made me one very happy Legion fan!
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FIrst Legion I ever read was a mid sixties Adventure, wherein Superman visited the adult Legion of Superheroes. I figured out that the Legion was exactly as old as I was, and I was hooked. I collected the rest of the Adventure run, then the Action run, then Superboy, then Legion, and stayed faithful pretty much until five years later, which I thought was much too self referential, and sadly flipped the utopian future into a bitter dystopia. Skipped the reboot and the threeboot, but got psyched again during the Lightning saga. So it's a fifty year love affair with guys in pink costumes and girls who can flip over mountains
Registered: Mar 2012
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posted
There were always comics in my house when I was growing up. My mom had picked up quite a collection of Classics Illustrated books in the 50s, and on my twelfth birthday I was given a copy of a special issue called To The Stars, which was my first clue that they were still being published (I didn't realize that To The Stars was actually four years old at the time). I used my birthday money to look for more Classics comics at the local Woolworth's, but there were none to be found. Not wanting to leave empty-handed I bought a 4-pack of DC books for 47 cents. Among the four books was Adventure # 331, showing Superboy standing in a graveyard with several leering super-villains telling him he's next.
Now of course I knew who Superman was (who didn't?), but this was my first introduction to Superboy. I was even more confused by the story, which seemed to be taking place in some future world, making me think that maybe this Superboy character was a descendant of Clark Kent. The following week I found another 4-pack with #332 (The Super Moby Dick of Space). At that point all my birthday money was gone, and I didn't pick up another issue until I saw #335 in a vending machine at a Thruway rest stop. I pleaded and whined until my grandfather (a real pushover, I must say) gave me the 15 cents they were charging for it.
My legion buying remained spotty for the next couple years. I was somewhat lucky in that the few issues I did pick up were among the best in the entire Adventure run, including the introductions of Mordru, Universo, the Khunds, Shadow Lass, Jeckie, Karate Kid, Ferro Lad and Nemesis Kid (who I was sorry to see turn out to be the bad guy cause I liked his costume and powers).
I didn't read many of the last issues of the Adventure run. I had by then become a huge fan of Neal Adams, as well as the people that Dick Giordano had brought to DC from Charlton, and found Win Mortimer's Legion art to be too childish for my tastes. I did manage to pick up the final Legion issue, mostly because I was going though a phase when I bought almost everything that had a black background (like X-Men #42, my first Marvel).
I pretty much missed the Action run (although I did get the one where Superboy quit to get the membership down to 25), and only began to notice the Legion again when Dave Cockrum began redesigning uniforms. I began getting the Superboy/Legion title regularly through the Cockrum and Grell runs, but dropped the book for a while after Grell left, eventually picking up the missing issues in the half-price bin.
I was back on board for the Levitz (1)/Conway/Thomas issues, although the title was nowhere near the top of my pull list at the time (but I could afford some borderline titles and the Legion was a sentimental favorite). With the arrival of first Broderick and then Giffen, though, the book shot to the top of my list.
From that point on, I didn't miss an issue of either the Legion/Tales or the Baxter run until around 1986, when my personal economy collapsed and I stopped buying comics altogether.
I would not buy another Legion book until 1994, when I saw an issue of Legionnaires in a grocery store. Although I immediately recognized Brainiac 5 on the cover, I had no idea who the blonde in the starry costume was. Still, I was intrigued enough to buy it, although at the time I thought the whole Legion had been relaunched or something.
Eventually I found a store in a town about 20 miles away that sold back issues and started slowly piecing together the entire "five years later" thing...just in time to have zero hour wipe it all away. I got a subscription to both Legion books through most of the reboot run (although DC would not let me renew toward the end, probably because they knew the books were being cancelled).
With no subscription and no comic shops within driving distance, I again stopped buying comics for several years, only starting up again when my sister married a comics fan around the time of L3W. Since then I have managed to finally complete my Levitz Baxter set and get copies of The Legion (DnA run), Legion World and the threeboot. I had to wait until last year's TPB of Legion Lost to read those stories, as no CBS within a hundred miles of here has copies of the original issues.
So now, with the exception of a couple parts of the Rift storyline, I have managed to acquire a complete run of Legion stories (although many of the early ones only through the digests DC published in the early 80s).
-------------------- First comic books ever bought: A DC four-for-47-cents grab bag that included Adventure #331. Been addicted ever since.
From: Stuck in the Psychedelic Era | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
My very first legion comic was Legionnaires #40 back when I was 16. And, I'll be straight with you...I noticed it because Violet's boobs are falling out of her top on the cover.
I’ll also admit that I nearly gave up after my first issue. So many characters! I hadn’t been into comics very long at that point, and my main experiences had been with the X-Men, so this sort of massive team threw me for a loop. How was I supposed to keep everyone straight?! I’m not 100% sure what made me pick up the following month’s title other than sheer curiosity and the absolutely fabulous costumes.
I think mostly I just love the cheese. I love how GOOD these characters (for the most part) are. I love them protecting the future and being idealistic. I love goofy futuristic plots that are nonsensical and ridiculous.
What was odd about the series was that while I eventually figured out that "my" legion was a reboot, the original team (and their complex history) was so daunting that I pretended they didn’t exist. I never bought any of those issues, nor had any interest in doing so. Imagine my confusion upon coming back to legion comics this year after an almost seven year break and finding the retro legion in full swing!
What made me stop reading legion comics for almost a decade? Threeboot. The most awful moment in my young comic book collecting life. I can remember sitting in my bedroom as a twenty-four year old bawling my eyes out because the characters that I’d grown to love were JUST GONE. They were simply no more and complete strangers would be taking their place. No reason, no rhyme. It was like the ultimate betrayal, and I didn’t read another legion comic until THIS YEAR.
(I was suitably horrified to discover that not only are they gone, but they’re now “wandering the multi-verse”…excuse me while I go get my tissues again…)
Now I’m back, trying to rebuild my collection after seven years. Reading the retro-boot is…different. They’re legion, but not the legion I remember, and that’s kind of okay. Kind of. It’s a whole new world for me and it’s actually prompted me to look into the original run since I didn’t understand a lot of the references or old plots. That’s something I never would have done ten years ago, so I’m glad I got back into the series.
So, here I am, reading the New 52, my reborn love for the legion making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside despite the fact that the 52 isn’t exactly inspired storytelling. I still miss “my” legion though, and I have still stubbornly refused to read Threeboot, but all in all, I’m glad to be back.
From: St. Louis, Missouri | Registered: Sep 2012
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I've found back issues pretty easy (because I am collecting the variant covers)
Legion of Three Worlds was allright ... other than that ... my Legion is fairly a thing of the past.
From: Ninja Land | Registered: Nov 2004
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I'm assuming they made that into a TPB, so I might just have to wander in the general direction of the comic store and see if they have it! Any other suggestions?
From: St. Louis, Missouri | Registered: Sep 2012
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quote:Originally posted by Power Boy: .. Conjure Lass ... How did you feel about the Legion of the Damned storyline?
I absolutely LOVED it. To me, that was one of the better storylines that the rebooted legion ever had. It was genuinely creepy and I liked how you could sort of see the kids becoming adults. I liked it a LOT. I felt like Dan and Andy really *got* the legion. Did you like it?
From: St. Louis, Missouri | Registered: Sep 2012
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posted
I loved LotD too, and generally lived most things DnA came up with. That was the era that drew me back to Legion after a long hiatus.
But I agree with some of the criticism about how the whole incident seemed to have no repercussions in later stories - Earth was all rebuilt by the time of Legion Worlds, there was no public resentment at Legionnaires having been servants of the Blight, and other than a couple of instances in L-Lost, few of the characters seemed to have any traumas over it all.
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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Though a lot of people look down on the Postboot 'Archie' Legion for being so shiny and happy, I agree with Conjure Lass that that was exactly a large part of the charm. Somehow, even when things were at their darkest in Loegion of the Damned and Legion Lost and even Legion Worlds, they never got TOO dark. The Legionnaires kept the faith.
quote:Originally posted by Invisible Brainiac: Though a lot of people look down on the Postboot 'Archie' Legion for being so shiny and happy, I agree with Conjure Lass that that was exactly a large part of the charm. Somehow, even when things were at their darkest in Loegion of the Damned and Legion Lost and even Legion Worlds, they never got TOO dark. The Legionnaires kept the faith.
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Whu...sorry about the double post, but my computer seems to be frazzled. XD
What I was *going* to say was that the reason I can't get into Threeboot (as i've finally sat down and read the first nine issues) is how "dark and edgy" it is. The legion, to me, isn't a "dark and edgy" comic, and making it into some kind of social experiment? Naaaah, not my style.
I miss them so much. *CRIES*
From: St. Louis, Missouri | Registered: Sep 2012
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