Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Catalog of Shooter firsts

Cary Bates:


Legionnaires:

Tyroc
Wildfire


Villians:

Tyr


Associates:

Infectious Lass
Porcupine Pete


Bates didn't actually create a lot of Legion characters..but the ones he did create were just about all memorable. Even his subs....no doubt about that. Bates and Levitz were similar in that they were better with the creations of other writers....I think Bates is an extremely under-rated and very inventive writer BTW.

I thought Tyr and Wildfire were more Dave Cockrum (or all Dave Cockrum).

Not sure myself...probably. Just like some of the things I attributed to Levitz were probably co-created by Giffen.


Also...no telling how many of these creations were actually the ideas of Weisenger.

And as well, some of them were probably the ideas of fans.

Hey Jorge...

I was interested in your thoughts:


Created by Jerry Siegel
Ultra Boy
Legion of Super Pets


Created by Otto Binder
Legion of Superheroes
Krypto
Beppo
Insect Queen


I was going to post some micro hero images...but would you believe Lana and the Pets get shortshrift from those micro hero guys.

That's great stuff, Superboy!
Very true, and I wouldn't call all the Levitz characters you listed unique or original. Three of them have the numeral II after their names (IK, KK and Starfinger), one (Validus Ranzz) was a retcon and "decreation" of a famous Shooter villain/monster, Sensor Girl wasn't a completely new and original character (Kara or Jeckie in disguise), and Tellus and Quislet were (please correct me if I'm wrong) originally dreamed up by artist Steve Lightle. I suspect Dr. Gym'll was more Giffen than Levitz. Add the Archmage to his villain list, though it hardly seems worth the effort.

I agree about Cary Bates. His collaboration with Dave Cockrum was one of the most memorable periods of Legion publication history--and it was Bates who put the first cocky words into Wildfire's mouth. The Devil-Fish deserves to be on his list, too.

We must give additional credit to Siegel and Hamilton for most of the bizarre monsters and weird alien creatures that wandered around the early Silver Age landscape.

Edmond Hamilton created The Legion of Super-Monsters, the Super-Moby Dick of Space, Camelephants, space-rocs, the Morvennian Fear-Beast and the Maw creature that killed Beast Boy, among others.

Siegel dreamed up the Brain-Globes of Rambat, Megalaro, the Negative Creature, the first Lightning Beasts, the Flame Beast that revived Sun Boy's powers, the Ultra-Energy Beast that gave Ultra Boy his powers (iirc, not sure), and many others.

I think it's pretty clear that most of the Bates creations were more Cockrum than Bates. Relative to the amount of time he was on the book, Cockrum is pretty much up there with Siegel and Shooter in raw number of creative ideas.

And Weisinger definitely deserves a huge amount of credit, but trying to disentangle his influence from the writers is probably impossible.

It's also worth noting that a number of characters, such as Polar Boy and the Heroes of Lallor, were actually fan submissions.

Very true. I think in most cases, Dave came up with the costume/powers and name, and Cary's contribution would have been just the basic personality that emerged.

Regarding Tyroc, Murray Boltinoff apparently had a hand in his creation also. And of course Grell came up with the Elvissy costume design.

It must be said, though, that Bates was responsible for plotting as well as dialoguing the stories which made those characters memorable.

To wit, the introduction of Wildfire:

He first appears in Superboy # 195, and apparently dies trying to prove his worthiness to join the Legion. Right away, Drake is shown to be someone we care about and whose death deeply affects us.

He next appears as a disembodied energy form that infiltrates Legion HQ in Sup # 200. This creates a nice little mystery that paves the way for his return.

In # 201, his identity is revealed, but his attempt to reclaim his containment suit is barred by obstacles. Worse, he's the only one who knows that the Legion is in danger, yet he's powerless to act. But he perseveres, and his victory over Molecule Master is one of the defining moments of both Wildfire's career and Bates' tenure as writer.

So, although Cockrum designed Wildfire, Bates' contribution should not be understated. He wrote the stories in such a way that made the character a fan favorite. In my view, that makes him as much a co-creator as the artist.

Well Cockrum pretty much singlehandely ushered in the Bronze Age with his costume designing talent...the Legion and the New X-Men were the two books that unshered that age in IMO. It goes without saying...Cockrum while perhaps not the greatest artist of his generation...is without a doubt the best character and costume designer of his generation.


Generally speaking...any time a character is memorable, chances are whoever designed the look of the character should probably get the most credit for the character being memorable...it's probably the most important aspect in a visual medium...still, writers tend to be dependent on artists for success, and not get enough credit for what they do(not always, but a lot of the time)...so I always want to make sure to give them credit in the creating dept...generally speaking the character starts with them, and the quality of their conception probably plays a role in the artists visual representation, and most of the time they probably do offer suggestions on the basic look...if the artist knows he's got a run of the mill character his design will probably reflect that.


I can tell you this...the guys who created the original costumes of Ultraboy and Sunboy were great costume designers as well. Probably the same guy...UltraBoy's costume is one of the iconic costumes in comics history...it's just a really unique and cool looking costume that's stood the test of time, more or less unchanged.

Agree...Bates was one heck of an inventive plotter...his talent was swallowed up by the huge cannon and tight editorial control of the Superman character....


But to paraphrase Dennoy O'Neil...you have to be a really smart guy to come up with a different way to use Super-Speed every month for 15 years.


Bates really shines when looking at his work not done on Superman, which unfortunately wasn't very much...

But the Legion...his Captain Atom relaunch(which was more successful than Len Wein's relaunch of the Blue Beetle and Denny O'Neil's relaunch of the Question in terms of # of issues), he really shined on those series. I loved his Captain Atom revamp. I would have loved to have seen his idea for relaunching Superman that was never picked up by DC as well.


I personally would like to see Cary back in comics...inventive plotters and guys clever with coming up with new ways of using powers are few and far between in todays industry.


Most of the guys nowdays will desperately cling to something even close to original plot and try to get six months worth of issues out of out it...Bates(and Maggin) had the impossible task of coming up with new stuff for the most published character in comics history and did an amazing job of doing just that. But like I said...the huge shadow of Superman kind of blotted out the light of originality of what they did.


He was better than given credit for with his dialogue, he just never got to show it much working under guys like Boltinoff and Schwartz on the Superman Family of titles.

I suspect Dr. Gym'll was more Giffen than Levitz.

Only problem with that is Dr.Gym'll first appearance was drawn by Pat Broderick in the issue where Brin got his human face back.

The opposite is also true. Image Comics floundered until it started hiring writers to work on the characters its founding artists created.

The importance of writers should not be understated, either. Although comics is a visual medium, it is also a story-telling medium.

On this we agree 100 percent.

Ah, I love Superboy #201. That was my first exposure to the new-improved, Cockrumized Legion, and I was knocked for a loop. A great story, too. Unlike Shooter, I think Bates actually was helped by Boltinoff's editorial restrictions to a degree. Bates did not like writing epic stories with dozens of Legionnaires, so the mandate to do only short stories worked in his favor, and played to his strength, which was short stories that spotlighted one or two characters.