Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Great Legion moment ruined by coloring error, AGAIN! (Do we want errors reprinted?)

Hi everyone, and Happy Holidays/New Year!

So, I recently acquired LSH archives #13, the reason being*, among other things, that it contained the first Infinite Man story, one of my favorites. HOWEVER, when it arrived, I realized it contained an EVEN MORE important story ... the death of Chemical King !!!

Now I bought the death issue (S&LSH #228) right off the newstand in the grocery store as a kid... in fact, I had read the entire thing by the time my mom came to get me. It was the first time I had read a comic where a super-hero died, and I thought it was pretty dramatic. EXCEPT...

...that I had had to read the last 2 pages multiple times to be sure I understood what happened, because suddenly, on the last page, right as he was dying, <poof!> Chemical King went from Caucasian to African in skin tone... maybe not exactly African, but the same skin tone as the villain Deregon, anyway. This was for the entire dramatic last page/death scene.

Now, no matter where you stand on the highly controversial issue of heroes being re-imagined as a different race (e.g. cartoon+3-boot version of Star Boy, which FYI didn't bother me), I am sure we can all agree that we don't want them to spontaneously change race in the middle of a story, especially not right at the climax!

In order to enjoy the story more at the time, I tried to rationalize that it was just his skin darkening due to the radiation....but there were no splotches (I mean, surely they can draw burns better than THAT), and as I said, it just happened to be the EXACT same color as Deregon's skin. Also, in the 'recap' panels in the next issue, he was back to being Caucasian, even as he collapsed and died.

SO ANYWAY, for this reason, I was excited at the prospect of re-reading this classic in Archives #13, but without the distraction of the coloring error. HOWEVER, as those of you who own this archive already know - they re-printed the coloring error!! "Auugh!" he said, doing his best Charlie Brown...

Which brings me to the question - do we really not want errors like this re-printed? I am fairly sure (though admittedly no expert) that with modern technology, this would have been an easy fix. Since I am buying archives to be able to read the LSH stories off my shelf rather than dig them out of boxes and be worried about them getting damaged, I would love to see errors like this fixed. HOWEVER, I can see that folks who never read them in the first place might want the "vintage" experience... but it is still a re-print however you slice it, all glossy and very different in look and feel than the original comics anyway.

Opinions?

Another example of this is in LSH Omnibus Vol 1 I recently purchased (which covers Archives 1-3 , and by the way, *the other reason I bought #13 was that I though it might be left out if each Omnibus covered 3 archives, since they have a new reprint book series starting with the first issue after archive #13.) This Omnibus features, among other things, a reprint of the first appearance(s) of Invisible Kid, Chameleon Boy, and Colossal Boy (I think it was ACTION #267), in which the story is a bit ruined in a single panel where Saturn girl explains to Supergirl that they are the *children* of the original Legion that Superboy met. Now, this is a continuity error, and I can see not fixing that as it opens up a whole can of worms (e.g., as also apparent in this archive, vascillating as to whether Mon-el loses powers under a red sun), and also this error is a bit famous. However, still in the 1960s, they did later reprint this story in a Giant-Size Action(or maybe Adventure or Supermen), in which they altered that panel to remove reference to them being the children of the original LSH. SO, they could have run that, for story purposes.

Personally, I think that in this latter case, it wasn't an error per se at the time (i.e. it was what they intended to publish), so I guess it needn't be fixed, though I would still PREFER they did so, or maybe provided the alternate re=printed page somehow in an appendix

But the coloring error in death of Chemical King was a flat-out printing error, and I'd very much like to have things like that removed from my reprints. There is still one more chance if it is also going to make it into an Omnibus (which, given that Omnibus #2 was JUST announced and goes just PAST Archive #6, it might.)


Am I alone on this or no? Opine away!

I'd have cried foul had they changed Saturn Girl's comment about them being the children of Superboy's Legion. I don't want to have to read something, and then have to do research to find out what someone decided was to be edited for my "benefit."

So, I guess I'm of the same mind regarding the colouring mistake for Chemical King too. Although, I would also make the point that I'm more firmly in that camp because your good post provided multiple editing examples for me to think on.

Another example would be the recolouring of someone as Brainy in the original Legion story. I would have preferred it if they had just left it alone too.

1. I'm in the camp that hates it when old comics get recolored in modern collections. I've seen it in some collections of Neal Adams' and Barry Windsor Smith's old works and think it looks terrible.

2. However, I have no problem with it when they use new collections to correct old coloring mistakes. It always bugged me enormously that Speedy and the Golden Age Green Arrow were mixed up in a couple issues of Crisis so to see that get corrected in the collection pleased me no end.

3. For that reason, I would have no problem with them correcting this Chemical King coloring error in the relevant Omnibus (should the line get that far).

4. However, was this indeed a coloring error? It's been ages since I've read the issue but I seem to remember rationalizing that his darker skin could have been from the effects of the radiation poisoning? (Although, the fact that I use the word "rationalizing" makes me think that even back then I saw something was wrong with the page.)

Yeah, I'm all for correcting things that were obviously mistakes, but I'd rather avoid other sorts of editing of old stories. Part of the fun of reading archival material is to see how continuity develops, so I'd hate to see stuff like editing out the comment about being the Legionnaires's children, or the various references to the Legion being from the 21st century.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in so far, and for providing additional examples of content "mistakes" that weren't technical errors, just errors in judgment. Another obvious one is the intermittent use of flight belts. (In fact, Omnibus vol 1 goes through the last issue before the flight ring, so could be thought of as "the fight-belt era".) I think the creators at the time realized this themselves and so they just show-horned in the rings.

Anyway, you have all convinced me that these errors are part of the "charm" of the old tales, and should be left in.

I am ALSO glad to hear general agreement that this "charm" does not extend to a technical coloring error in the late 70s/early 80s. Per Blacula's comment #4, I see he did the same rationalizing I did, but the point is that if you have to stop and rationalize, the 4th wall is temporarily broken and you get momentarily taken out of the story. Which is why this error bugs me so much to this day, given the timing of it.

I had the same experience when reading that issue off the stands of the death of Chemical King. I came to the same conclusion that the radiation must have caused his skin to darken (and I suppose the CCA probably kept DC from showing a more realistic radiation-riddled body. But I had a bigger beef than this panel. I was a fan of the rarely seen Chemical King and was upset that (1) Grell wasn't the artist and (2) Sherman got Chemical King's look and hair all wrong (I wanted him looking how Grell drew him on the cover. It's also a shame in a way that the Internet didn't exist back then as I never heard or read of anyone talking about this panel, so I figured it was just me. Now here after all that time, there are at least three of us who had the same experience.

Here's another big coloring issue to think about if/when DC gets around to reprinting the Legion issues in the 260's-270's. I can't remember the colorist for those issues off the top of my head, but this the majority of the girl's started having the parts of their costumes showing skin colored in. For example on Shadow Lass, her torso was colored a dark blue. Jeckie's mid-section was colored red, etc. I've always wondered if the colorist went rogue and wanted the girls to look more conversative, the editor was behind it, or what. I've also wondered why they didn't just change their costumes instead.

Yes, it is quite nice to no longer be alone in this experience. I agree about the hair also (it seems many artists feel the way to add their personal touch is to change the characters' hair styles), but that sort of thing was not so un-usual and so it didn't bother me as much.

It would be interesting to hear from the colorist on this, I am pretty convinced the skin coloring on the last page was an error... and per the other coloring errors you point out, I guess those are pretty frequent also, but in my opinion, they tend to be quite obvious and egregious errors when they are made. Quite a list you compiled there, and I remember most of them now that you bring them up. there was a lot of experimenting with costumes during that period also.

I just had a thought about Chemical King's hair in this issue. This was the first issue by Sherman, and I bet he had trouble researching the look of Chem due to his infrequent appearances. So I bet he found some Swan art of Chem (maybe the Adult Legion cover) and went with Swan's hairstyle instead of the Cockrum/Grell hairstyle. As much as I liked Swan's Legion art, I never cared for the hair he gave Chem as it seemed like Eddie Munster hair to me.

So I just did some googling and found out that SLSH #228 (death of Chemical King) was published in March 1977 and the colorist is listed as Liz Berube. And I was like who??? So I found out a bit more about her. She had done two issues of Karate Kid and then this was her first issue of SLSH. Her last issue was SLSH was #233, so she was a short-timer. But with this being her first issue, it sure sounds like the panel in question was a freshman goof.

Now back to the coloring/costume issues in LSH 260's-270's. The colorist from SLSH #242 through #287 (if my google source is correct) was Gene D'Angelo and the editor for most of that run was Jack C Harris. So Gene was a veteran by the time LSH #260 rolled around in November 1979, so I would be surprised if he suddenly went rogue and started coloring costumes the way he wanted. And there was no change of editors at this time to explain it. DC was coming off of the DC Implosion so maybe Jeanette Kahn requested the coloring change for whatever reason. Or perhaps more likely hands changed at the Comics Code Aurhority and someone more conversative stepped in and threw a fuss over the sexy costumes and the coloring changes were done to placate the CCA. Or maybe someone at the printer (still in Sparta IL in 1979?) threw a fit and the coloring changes were made so they would print the issues?

^ Nice detective work CB!

Something else else I've always wondered about was Ayla's blonde hair. Was that ever explained or discussed anywhere or was that a mistake too? I really hated it so, if it was a mistake, I wouldn't mind seeing that corrected in an Omnibus (as unlikely as that would be).

Not sure of the best way to post this link, but there's a Legion World thread all about Ayla's hair here http://legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=54501

Also if I remember correctly Garth's hair in the late 70's was eventually colored as a very light red as opposed to his full on ginger hair from the Adventure days, but I don't think his hair was ever colored full-on blonde like Alya's hair. I remember how jarring it was when
Levitz/Giffen/Gafford restored the twin's to full ginger status.

^ Thanks CB. I guess the explanation that she just dyed it is simple and easy enough. I just wish they’d mentioned it somewhere so we’d know it wasn’t an error.

Oh it was very likely an error. I stumbled across online today. Look at the cover for SLSH #218 (Tyroc vs Absorbancy Boy)
and look to the right on the cover and there is Light Lass, with her hair colored red. Now look to the left for a mess. By many accounts Grell drew Dream Girl, but the colorist turned it into Nura trying to cosplay Imra. The hair is blonde and Nura's outfit is colored red. I don't know if they corrected the coloring
on that cover in the archives or not. Also in the infamous story where Grell gives Cosmic Boy a new outfit and Rokk slaps Ayla, Ayla's hair is back to being colored red for this story. It seems as though there were a lot of coloring errors on the Legion title back in the mid-1970's.