Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Greg Larocque ROCKED!

Grell was one of several guest artists in that issue, each drawing a different flashback. LaRocque drew all the present-day sequences.

And I loved the garish colors.

But, as you say, to each their own.

IMO if LaRocque had drawn Conspiracy in its entirety, it might have actually risen above its flaws.

My opinions:

His women were beautiful and dynamic. He liked big hair.

Sometimes his proportions on the human body seemed kinda wonky.

Often his faces were quite generic.

His scenery often seemed... sterile.

Yes, he was a victim of transitional coloring and DeCarlo's unfairly distinctive inking.

He will always be compared to Giffen and Lightle, whose work is far more entertaining.

I hate to call someone's art 'workmanlike,' but his was. It did the job, cleanly and clearly, which I appreciate. There were occasional pictures that leapt out at me (the picture of shady with her cloak billowing around at the link on page one, for instance), but much of his work was good, but not great.

Which, unfortunately, puts him miles above some other Legion artists, who somehow managed to give every Legionnaire, male or female, the same perfectly square head, and enormous botox-lips...

I can't be too critical of facial similarities, since even Steve Lightle, who is probably my favorite Legion artist, tended to use similar faces. (All of the men, in particular, had really delicate eyebrows, as if they'd spend hours plucking them just so...)

I remember waaay back when in an interview with Greg, before his first issue of Legion ever came out, he listed Mike Grell as among his most beloved influences in the comic artist industry and he said he would strive to bring back that clean, defined look to the Legion once again.
The similarities in their work is obvious and you can cleary see the influences of Grell's work, especially in Greg's versions of the female Legionnaires.

I think Greg did a great job during his time with the Legion and left way too early IMO.

Years later, I still stand by that statement.

Years later, I still respectfully beg to differ.

Don't tempt me to make a contrary post in one of the Giffen threads.

Today, I re-read Greg LaRocque's first three Legion issues:

Baxter 15 (Legion vs Dr. Regulus)

Baxter 17 (The "death" of R.J. Brande)

Baxter 18 (The final Legion CoIE tie-in; Legion vs. Infinite Man)

Gods, if the feeling I get when I look at that art was a liquid, I would drink a case of it.

(Baxter 16 was drawn by Steve Lightle)

My favorite Larocque pencils were in the Baxter series' issues 19-20, the Tyrazz story. He was asked to do a lot in that story and he excelled. I think those were the last issues Larry Mahlstedt inked, and as others have mentioned, I preferred his inks to DeCarlo's. I always felt DeCarlo had a tendency to mask the penciller's style with his own.

I agree about DeCarlo to a certain extent, but I also feel he's gotten a bad rap that he doesn't completely deserve.

That said, Mahlstedt's inking did do a better job of preserving the John Buscema influence in LaRocque's pencils. Big John was my favorite comic book artist of all time, and since he did very little work for DC in his lifetime, I always smiled whenever a DC artist showed a visible Buscema influence.

Yeah, Greg LaRocque's work was breathtaking in the Legion. I loved his work on the Sensor Girl reveal.

One thing when I reread his work - LaRocque has some great fight scenes. He manages action clearly, and gives each combatant a moment to shine

^^Agreed on both counts, Andy.

One thing that I find so pleasurable about reading LaRocque's Legion work in chronological order is how amazingly fast he improved, and how he kept topping himself even after Levitz's writing went downhill post-Universo. There are a few signs of burnout in LaRocque's final two or three issues, but overall it's an awesome accomplishment.

Regarding the fight scenes, I don't think any other Legion artist who worked on the Legion with Levitz was able to mesh the choreographies of script and art as seamlessly as LaRocque. I especially loved LaRocque's cinematic technique of varying extreme close-ups (usually of eyes) with long shots.

I was a little reluctant to post to this one. When I first saw it, my thought was that La Roque wasn't one of my favourite Legion artists. That's not to say he was a poor artist, or anything like that. Just not one of my favourites.

I agree with Sketch Lad's observations on the anatomy and faces. Less so on the backgrounds. While, yes there as that sterile quality to them, at least they were there adding something. That's more than can be said for a lot of artists, who drop them, but not to add any better focus to the characters.

I do remember a sense of disappointment when I saw the Legion entry in Who's Who and it was La Rocque's art. Again, that not really fair on him, as it was more disappointment that it wasn't by Giffen or Lightle. The same issue had Giffen's joke Subs, so getting what you want in the art department isn't always a good thing

But a quick flick through the Baxter Issues (the colours are just the best) tells me something different.

In terms of the Legion, those early issues weren't up there with my favourites of Levitz's tenure, and La Rocque's art actually helps them nicely.

From the introductory McCauley issue, through the Crisis issues (that you can see Levitz wasn't enamoured with)to the sequel of the Controller/Sun Eater/Tyraz story that wasn't one of my favs first time round.

La Rocque keeps the action going, everyone is recognisable and there is some flair in there too. As the stories improve and La Rocque gets his feet under the table, things continue to pick up (he saves the less than great issue where one of Universo's puppets is running around in a power suit). I really enjoyed the Suspicion/ Empress/ Mentalla arc and that's La Rocque's work.

By that point Giffen's art had developed into something that wasn't as good a fit for the book. While Lightle's art was still "better" on a personal front, there's a definite stylistic quality to La Rocque's work that's different to what had gone before. It takes me a little while to get used to it, but I'd argue that it helps move the pacing along more than the others.

While there are plenty of standout Baxter issues, story wise, there's no doubt La Rocque provides an artistic safety net to the issues that aren't of that quality.

I was surprised at how many issues he drew in that run. His continued key presence at what was a popular time for the Legion, tells it's own story about what he brought to the book.

Great post, Thoth! Fair, balanced, and suffused with the feeling of rediscovering something that was better than memory served!

Perhaps this will inspire you to seek out the issue of The Universo Project that you had previously said you are missing?

I was just at Mile High Comics during their Memorial Day sale - and they were selling Universo Project for $12 per issue. I was astounded.
Maybe DC should put that in TPB?

Tsk. $12. It's the last part of the story I don't have. Imra's back in the team. But how? I've been pickling up the odd issue for the rereads thread, or I'd probably already have got this one.

Actually, I could have bought it on the money I used for Karate Kid issues.

From what I remember of the first three parts, there wasn't much for La Rocque to get his teeth into, so some of the issues with the art are a bit more prominent. Everyone is wearing sack cloth in a prison with hardly any features. So, it's just faces and anatomy to look at. No doubt, it picked up after they escaped and I know it's a favourite of many.