Greetings, Legion Worlders!

I have been invited by your supreme overlord (one of them, anyway) to shill my latest wares on your website! Behold!



I've been told that there are a lot of Titans fans here, so I hope that this interests them. If you're heading to San Diego, stop by the TwoMorrows booth for a sneak peek at some interior pages! Coming this fall to a comic shop near you!

Welcome to LegionWorld for Glen, who -- for the few of you who don't know! -- also did the interviews and editing for those two stellar Legion volumes from TwoMorrows, The Legion Companion and The Best of "The Legion Outpost."

That's a hellacious-lookin' Phil Jimenez cover. The publisher commissions these new covers, such as the Dave Cockrum one for The Legion Companion.

The listing at TwoMorrows' store (a much improved site, by the way) for your new book is here . I'm glad that they'll have some interior pages at SDCC this year. They didn't have much information at hand about your then-to-be-published Outpost volume at last year's show.

We do have a lot of Titans fans here, and interest was tweaked last year with the Titans / Legion crossover that accompanied the latest Legion-universe reboot. So, also, was LegionWorld.net tweaked for a month, with Titans themes, names, and decorations. In fact, you'll probably still find a few Titans-related avatars in the selection window, if you want to tweak your own user profile.

god I love that cover!

Awesome cover! Can't wait to get it.

As long as the minor Titans (like Golden Eagle, Duela Dent, Magenta and Flamebird) are given their due, I'm there...

Dont forget Karen Beecher (Bumblebee), Mal, Lilith, Gnaark, Bat-Girl.....

BTW Phil Jiminez and George Perez could almost be kissing cousins...except George doesnt kiss *j/k*

Glad to see you made it over Glen! And I still love that cover, even though I can't view it from work. The TwoMorrows site got labeled "provocative attire" by the 'net-Nanny' my work has adopted.

I just love living in UT.

Hahaha.

Titans!!

My first super-hero team... back in the days of Kid Flash!! (What? I love Wally. Sue me.)

Anyway, yay!

There's an entire section in the book about the '70s Titans where Paul Levitz and Bob Rozakis reveal details about its production. Duela is definitely given her due, although I wouldn't hold my breath looking for info on Magneta.

That's probably because they hadn't seen it yet! TwoMorrows is a publishing house - I deliver a finished product and they publish it. In fact, this book isn't finished yet either. If you want to see the sample pages, make sure that you ask for them 'cause they might get lost on the table. Either that or show up at one of the Titans panels where there should be a copy floating around somewhere.

SOLD!!!!

(as many here know, the 70s TTs are far and away my favorites!)

Welcome Glen!

Will do.

If this ends up being anywhere near the quality of your Legion volumes, it'll be a must-buy for me.

Best of luck with the new book.

Glen, why didnt u do any interior Legion stories, coz your covers are superb, dude!

Methinks that is the artwork of either Phil Jiminez or George Perez.

No Duela graemlin? BAH!!!!!!!!

Blasphemous, ain't it? No Karen either! Or Aqualad!! Le sigh.

And no Terra icon...or is that gonna be saved for a special hero-villain-pretending-to-be-normal-hero-villain?

Yer right, Lash - i think my brain is in underdrive, coz i got confused with the Legion covers that Glen did a yrear or two back on either the hardback novels or the Legion archives.

Now I'm confused! I don't even know what the hardback novels are, and I'm not an artist, either. You've got me confused with someone else, legionadventureman.

Sorry, Glen,

Didnt mean anything by my remarks, mebbe i did get u mixed up with some dude with a similar name who does draw covers.

It was an honest mistake

Welcome, and good luck with the book.

I'm a big Titans fan from way back. I love all... well... most of the Titans Eras. 60s/70s groups were cool (that's where I started reading them), and of course the 80s Titans are my favs (even early Perez is better than almost anyone else in my book). Wasn't a huge fan of the Arsenal Titans, and the Grayson/Faerber Fiasco was painful. I'm liking the latest series, but I think of it more as Young Justice than Titans.

For me, the Titans have to have Dick Grayson and Donna Troy. The rest of the group can be rotated around for variety, but it just ain't a Titans book for me without the group's heart and soul.

No Legion connections. Must have a Legion or at least a LMBP connection to make the list.

Tempest does and will get one eventually.

Six Deegrees of Duela Dent? I'm game!


DUELA DENT

during her Titans membership was attacked and nearly killed by

TWO-FACE

aka Harvey Dent, but she and

ROBIN

aka Dick Grayson, managed to defeat him without having to involve

BATMAN

who has a nefarious nemesis named

RAS AL GHUL

who has also caused many tribulations in the far-flung future for

THE LEGION.

I win a Duela graemlin! Yay, me!!

Plus she's going to marry Brainiac Five!

If Gary gets me a Duela graemlin I promise to feed it and walk it every day!

And if he does get me one, I want it to have that lipstick thingie that shoots lips!

Karen's should have have that honey-stuff that shot out from her butt.

*snorts*

Bumblebee's butt would have been shooting out more than honey after a pig-out of chilli and beans

In this week's Previews (out on Wednesday)...

I know the book is focused mostly on the New Teen Titans, with some Silver Age stuff, but out of curiousity, which (if any) of the post New Teen Titans series are covered in the book? And if any are, how much?

I'm not quite sure, but i'll hazard a guess that most of the early Perez/Tanghal stuff will be covered - but i am not clear on how far it will go

I'm gonna be straight up with fans on this one: the book ends with the end of the Wolfman era in 1996. But the good news is there's a method to this madness - plans are to do a sequel next year that covers everything which takes place afterwards, including the cartoon and everything associated with that. It'll be a smaller (and cheaper) book, and if I sat down to start it today, I've already got 3/4 of the materials in hand. But if this book flops, those plans will be scuttled. So buy this book! Please!

Actually, that sounds better to me, than if you had tried to cram it all into one book. I'd like to read about the later stuff also, but I wouldn't want space taken away from the Wolman/Perez era. I'll definitely be buying this one, so hopefully you'll get a chance to do the sequel.

Speaking of follow-ups, had you ever considered doing a sequel to the Legion Companion? Something else else that covered the reboot and now threeboot eras? I don't know what the demand would be like, but I would have liked to read about the experiences of those creators as well (particularly Abnett, Lanning, Copiel, Batista, Waid and Kitson)... Just wondering...

Thanks!

Will the book have a listing of story descriptions, name of artist, inker, year/month of publication, cast of characters like the indexes published by ICG in the mid-to-late 80s?

Brian

I am already in line...I am for sure going to pick this up.
Titans Together!!

I am gonna buy that book to stand along with Legion Companion, All Star Companion, Justice League, and Legion Outpost!!!

hey Stargazer no fair!! you posted at 7:48 pm and got your post before me!?!? I posted it at 7:47 pm! I am gonna spank your butt and take your shirt off so I can see what yours looks like! By the way...when will you have the picture of yours ready?

Nope, it's all new material. Interview after interview after interview with some articles sprinkled in.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for such a volume. The Best of the Legion Outpost revealed the size of the Legion-only audience out there, and it ain't pretty.

But, how'd the Legion Companion do? Didn't it warrant a repeat? They are two different animals.

Yeah, I bought 'Best of the Legion Outpost', but I think the general perception of that may have been that it was less for fans of the Legion, and more for fans of 'Legion Fans'. I loved it, though...

Not really; they're both Legion books. Both TBOTLO and the Legion Companion were aimed at Legion fans, and the fact that one did a lot better than the other has to do with the civilians who were raked in for the first book moreso than the content of the second one. Anyone who bought the first book and passed on the second one for content purposes isn't really a Legion fan; for them, the Legion was just a book that they once read the way that some Legion fans read, say, the Avengers. They don't have every issue, they don't know all the trivia, they just know that they liked it once and out of those nostalgic pangs they picked it up.

We need to be realistic here: Companion books are done for successful series. The reboot wasn't commercially successful. People bought the Legion Companion to read about Dave Cockrum, Jim Shooter, Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, Mike Grell... the list goes on and on. The only big name attached to the reboot was Mark Waid, and that's not enough to anchor a book. The Legion is an esoteric subject as it is - choosing the point when it was least successful and investing a lot of time and money into it just isn't a good idea. Civilians just aren't going to pick up a book like that, and civilians make or break a book.

It was interesting, but I have to say I didn't enjoy it as much as the Companion. There's a "You Hadda Be There" quality about what the Outpost book covers that makes it less likely that I'll give it repeat readings.

The Outpost book was an interesting challenge. Outside of the Karate Kid section and the editorial content (Foreword, Afterword, etc.) it consisted entirely of pre-existing material, and the goal was to put it all together and make it look good. In some ways I'm prouder of it than I am of the Companion, but it did tell a different kind of story. It still deserved to do better than it did, though.

Well, I enjoyed them both and am proud to own two copies of each. It's a shame that it didn't sell well enough to warrant sequels.

Between this news and the fact that DC Direct refuses to produce anymore Legion action figures (and probably any other merchandise), it makes being a Legion-fan a real downer.

DC, what have you done to this wonderful property?!?!

I loved them both but I'm one of those geeks who geek on reference material. Not just the LSH stuff but most reference material on subjects I like. So the Titans book is definitely on my list.

I loved the BOL Oupost collection myself (as well as the Companion), but surely it wasn't expected to sell as well as the Companion? This was reprint material from an amateur fanzine from 25-30 years ago*.


*NOT a criticism of the Legion Outpost, I think it was awesome stuff.

Gary, if the 'toon is a hit, I'm pretty sure you can expect more Legion collectibles in some form or other.

re: the Titans companion, I'll likely get it for the Silver Age & 70s content, when funds allow.

Not as well, but the drop-off was substantial. And to be honest, TLO had been out for a year by that point, so even if only a certain percentage of its customers bought the follow-up book, there was a greater number to cull a percentage from, so similar initial orders wouldn't have been unreasonable. And TBOTLO did cover the period when the Legion was DC's best-selling title, so there were plenty of 30-ish comic book fans who liked the Legion from back then who had the wherewithal to buy it and didn't. Part of the problem is the way that stores order, namely a lot didn't even bother to stock TBOTLO at all and those that did only carried a store copy and thanked their lucky stars when someone bought it instead of ordering another copy to replace the first one on their shelves.

Let's face it: the book did have a lot of artwork by Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell in it, and an unpublished Giffen interview conducted while he was working on the Great Darkness Saga, so there was stuff there to get people's attention. Unfortunately, the "fan" stigma was attached to it and it stuck. Ironically, the "fan" (read: "inferior") label was attached to it by modern-day fans who also attached great importance to their own words while disregarding those of their Legion forebears, but in the end, stores just didn't carry it. That's why it's so important to reserve a copy of the Titans Companion instead of just counting on a store to stock it. With the glut of extraneous Marvel and DC material on the market today the average comic book store's non-Big Two budget keeps getting chipped away and they're less likely to take a chance on a twenty-five dollar book then they are on the equivalent value in Big Two products. It ain't fair and it ain't right, but that's the way it is.

but, Glen, if the Legion fans have been aware of Dave Cockrum's unpublished 2-page Timber Wolf story - oh my....Dave could have the potential of becoming a writer for the Legion if his Timber Wolf story saw the light. I could not believe when I saw that beautiful two page spotlight on Timber Wolf, I was in shock. Once the fans find out about this, they will want to buy this book, especially for both Timber Wolf fans and anal retentative,

What unpublished Timber Wolf story is this, Superboy?

The one in the Legion Companion.

What I would really like is that special Legion issue of the Amazing World of DC - special Cockrum cover of several Legionnaires battling some gigantic humanoid space dragon...

I am actually the Time Trapper and slowed your computer.... oh behave...blush

That Superboy is really quite shy, isnt he, Dave?

*ahem* anyway, back to the subject, when will the Titans Companion be released? in Nov or in Dec?

Sorry, dude, that was before i had a chance to talk with you - you arent that bad

LOL! okay...allright..then anyone knows when the Titans Companion coming out?

Same date as always: Nov. 23.

Good news/bad news update: the good news is the book just got approved this week by DC. The bad news is that means that the shipping date has been pushed back to December 14. It's regretable, but that's all that we can do. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at the book's other cover, the back one! Enjoy!

Cool! Thanks for the update Glen. I'm looking forward to this one a lot.

I think the artwork depicting the original five is super-groovy! Is this a Nick Cardy rarity? His designs still rock after all these years!

Doesn't have to be a rarity - I saw Cardy sketch at a con a few months back and he doesn't seem to have lost anything.

I think i mentioned this already, but my ultimate Cardy fave was the transformed monster that Sharon Tracy witnessed in "Blindspot" (TT 28 circa 1970(?) That issue had a cover with Aqualad punching out Robin as the other Titans look on...

The picture is a Cardy commission from a few years back, and the jpg doesn't do it justice. Wonder Girl looks like a photograph in the real file.

A lot of artists from Cardy's generation still have it. Al Plastino, Jim Mooney, Russ Heath, Cardy himself... they all draw as well as they ever did. I chalk it up to a generational thing. Those guys had to draw to make a living, and saw themselves as draftsmen who had to do a job well in order to get paid. They had no illusions of ego or entitlement, and gave it their best every time out. A lot of artists from subsequent generations who seem to only get worse with age could learn a thing or three from their forebears.

Were some of these artists victims from the cutback in staff circa 1968?

Not sure about Heath, but Plastino and Mooney definitely suffered from the change in artistic direction at DC around that time. None of them were on staff - they were all freelancers - and Cardy went on to be DC's main cover artist in the Seventies, so he did just fine with Carmine Infantino in charge.

When did Julius Schwartz take over from Infantino as editor - or were they sharing the editorial mantle?

You're confused - Julie Schwartz was never editor in chief of DC Comics. DC didn't have an editor in chief until Carmine got the newly-created position in the late Sixties, and when he was fired he was replaced with Jenette Kahn. Julie was always just an editor, never an executive editor. He answered to Carmine while he was there.

Preview pages!

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a391/titanscompanion/titanscompanion01.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a391/titanscompanion/titanscompanion02.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a391/titanscompanion/titanscompanion03.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a391/titanscompanion/titanscompanion04.jpg

Looking good!

Looks great Glen!

Sweet... I've read other companions for the Titans and this has very nice flow and layouting... clean, yet not lacking in its elegance. Too bad our retailers over here hardly order companion publications...

In stores one week from today! Start lining up now!

Got it! Looks good. I'll have to take my time and read it, but it's definitely worth buying.

I really enjoyed the roll call pages.

I picked up mine yesterday. Haven't had time to do more than take a cursory look, but the layouts look really good.

Thanks, guys! And a Merry Christmas to all!

I've owned Titans Companion Volume 2 since the summer 2016, when a beloved relation and I lucked onto a copy at a local shop, which she bought me as an Unbirthday gift.

I've had Volume 1 on my online Want List for what's felt like an eternity.

I was wondering if maybe someone could please let me borrow their copy via snail mail?

I don't mind reimbursing the postage. It'd probably be a small fraction of what I imagine are astronomical prices going for used copies.

There's a couple for $35 (good condition. There's a dog eared one for a similar price) on Amazon.com for what it's worth. Not cheap, but a lot cheaper than some of the other prices quoted for these Twomorrows companions. Checks e-bay too. >whistles<

I just checked. I do own a copy, although P&P may be prohibitive from the Faraway Lands. Perhaps someone from your own part of the world (Land O' Shin Kickings on my map ) will chime in as well?

I didn't want your request to be without a response in a seemingly harsh, uncaring galaxy. Because, harsh and uncaring galaxies are reserved for our v4 rereads.

Thoth, I looked up those used copies you mentioned, and the good condition one turned out to be from a store I've had good experiences with. It's now scheduled to arrive at chez Annfie sometime later this month.

Thanks for the heads-up.

FTR, the only current comic I'm going to be buying is the upcoming Legion relaunch, and the Titans Companion is probably going to be my last online comics purchase for a while that has nothing to do with John Buscema's Pre-1960 work. Gotta focus. Gotta prioritize.

And just to keep this post Titans-relevant, the Titans are one of the DC teams I most wish the loyal-to-Marvel JB had drawn at least once.

I'm glad you've got a copy! Also it was getting hard for me to post while clutching "My precious"

I hope you'll post your thoughts on it.

Thank you...uh...Gollum Lad?



Oh, definitely!

Time for an avatar change? I wonder if Bryan Talbot did one of Gollum.



I was trying to remember what was in it, without peeking. A few things have come back and I hope you're in for a treat. Just in time for Hallowe'en

I guess some of Raven's teleportation power rubbed off on my used copy, because it already arrived!

Thoughts to come over the next day or two...

Okay, after my first read last night -- which, like many first reads of this kind of book, was out of sequence and all over the place -- I have to say what made the biggest initial impression on me was the interview with Jonathan Peterson, the controversial editor during the Titans Hunt/First Deathstroke Solo Book/Team Titans/Total Chaos era.

Even though the interview took place several years after he'd left DC and the comics industry, Peterson's dynamic, proactive, enthusiastic, let's-put-on-a-show attitude still shined as bright as it must have during the early 90s!

To me, it represents the perfect attitude for an editor of superhero comics, and while the end results of Peterson and his creative teams' bold "Marvel-ization" of the Titans could charitably be called *mixed,* at least I have the impression that they gave it their very best shot. And they *tried* to do something that broke away from the stale mould which had calcified around the Titans by the beginning of the 90s.

Kinda weird that, over the last couple years, DC has collected Total Chaos and some of Deathstroke solo, but they still haven't collected Titans Hunt.

Oh yes, I remember Peterson's positive drive coming through, as much as in contrast to the opinions of others interviewed about the period. To be fair, had Peterson had a bit more input and upward steering from the writing department, it would have undoubtedly improved things. But that wasn't there at the time.

Having stopped picking up the Titans when the newsstand version ended, I didn't pick up Baxter until Perez was involved in #50. I dropped it a few issues after he left. It was Titans Hunt that brought me onboard again. If only sporadically through #86. I wasn't back until very late in the run. So, it did work as intended to get readers attention.

You wouldn't, by any chance, be talking about Marv "I'm Not Bitter, I'm Really Not, Dammit" Wolfman?



My first "real time" Titans purchase was NT Baxter Annual 7 -- the Armageddon tie-in introducing the Team Titans.

I actually do think the Team Titans initial set-up had a lot of potential, with various youth teams around the globe in the not-too-distant future. Sometimes I even wonder if Mark Waid and Barry Kitson might have consciously or unconsciously plagiarized that piece for the Legion Threeboot.

There's so much promising stuff from Peterson's original vision that either didn't happen or got messed up -- to name just one, the Nightwing mini-series which would have ended with him and Starfire marrying without any demonic disruptions.

Crumbs! Mind Reader Lass has plucked the very thought form my mind!

I just remember how he hated *everything* about *everything* about that time. Even as he was involved with it every step of the way. It's easy to say he could have done more to steer it, but I know that there other issues going on at the time. His connection to the book, must have made walking away tough too. There's also the financial reward through the royalty programme by remaining on a book he'd been instrumental in building.

It really needed the Peterson enthusiasm and approach to expanding the Titansverse (Team Titans and Nightwing and Terminator are all good natural progressions) *with* the craft of dynamics and plot construction that Wolfman could (and since I saw his name on a recent-ish cover may still be now able to) deliver. My memory cell tells me it stalled in the latter department with things like the Cyborg plot going on forever. I can't say it was a line up that really had a point to it either. I can't recall if the companion broke that down. Pantha, Red Star, Phantasm, Wildebaby etc. I think Phantasms was Wolfman's pitch to show that Danny Chase *could* be cool?



I would have read their first Titans appearances and they were certainly interesting. I recall the Lord Chaos thing being a bit of a mess in the end, but that initial premise was a good one. COmplete with mysterious future leader with a close link to the current day team.

Yeah, but in his more honest moments he admits he should have left the book years before he actually did. I mean, as bad as the never-ending Cyborg plot from the early 90s was, the never-ending Brother Blood plot from Baxter NTT around 1986-1987 was even worse.

And, I must confess, I don't think the stories got any better when Perez made his temporary return. I remember you've said you still like the Post-Crisis Who Is Wonder Girl arc, and I did used to have a sentimental spot for the A Lonely Place of Dying Bats/Titans crossover, but...full confession, very little of anything Titans that Marv ever wrote does anything positive for me anymore. There are still the odd moments of sweetness, like A Day In the Lives, the camping trip mini-series, the Pre-Crisis Who Is Wonder Girl (FTR, that's the last NTT story that was edited by Len Wein -- arguably the unsung hero of NTT's success, but too modest to make such claims for himself.)

Of course I'll never admit that the last time I picked up Who is Wonder Girl I spotted bags of padding. No! Instead I shall hold firm to my opinion and never be seen to waver from it ...ever...that way Annfie shall never kno... oh pants...

LOL

Moving on to the next interview that made a real impression on me: The late, great Eduardo Barreto. His clean, placid style always suggested to me like it was the work of a gentle soul, a sweet and humble guy who was self-effacing almost to a fault. Happily, that's exactly how he came across in this interview. I shed a tear when he admitted that he never expected to last a full three years on NTT, that every time he turned in a new issue, he expected to be fired. Oh, Mr. Barreto, you needn't have fretted at all. You were a superlative talent, your work all the more impressive for *not* calling attention to itself. Gods bless your soul, good sir.

And now: Bob Rozakis, writer of the mid-70s Titans, hero to our late friend MLLash, and from everything I've heard and read, an all-around nice guy. He's not even bitter that Marvel capitalized on his Titans West concept by launching the West Coast Avengers. That says a lot.

I've only read one or two of his Titans stories, and it appeared to me that they suffered from bad art and editorial indifference. Rozakis is too much of a gentleman to say as much, of course.

But it's a shame, because that Titans lineup was way ahead of its time -- multi-racial AND gender-equal!