Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities What was happening in comics during your 'Golden Age'?

When you first got heavily into comics, what was going on in your favorite titles?


THE AVENGERS-- Cockrum was drawing some kick-ASS Giant-Size Avengers issues-- the issue where Swordsman, Hawkeye and Rama-Tut face off against Iron Man, the Vision and Thor was a favorite. Mantis, Vision and Scarlet Witch were my favorite characters (it was actually Wanda who defeated Thor). Perez began his run; I was first exposed to the SQUADRON SUPREME; Hellcat was intro'd and became a fast favorite.

FANTASTIC FOUR-- Loved the Brute storyline where he replaced Reed Richards for a time (he was an evil alternate-Earth version of Reed). It featured Thundra, Tigra and Impossible Man as pseduo-FFers. Perez was drawing this series too. Standout atoryline for me was the SALEM'S SEVEN introduction.

THE DEFENDERS-- Bozos, Headmen, and gun-toting elves. The Red Gaurdian wasnt a freak yet. Giffen was drawing. Hellcat joined up to my elation. The 'Scorpio/Zodiac' arc in 48-50 was pure excellence. Loads of freaky-ass shit!

TEEN TITANS-- The awful, campy and yet oh-so-wonderful issues 44-53 still stand out as my favorite version of this team!

X-MEN-- It was the Cockrum/Byrne heyday in all its glory.

Other favorite series of mine during this time were THE CHAMPIONS (some kick-ASS Byrne art), THE INHUMANS, SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS, THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN (Giffen took over after Nasser) and FREEDOM FIGHTERS.

During close to this time, Mike Grell was enjoying a longish run on Superboy/Legion, my earliest exposure to the team. Guess all the sexy sideburns and skin-revealing outfits made me a fan for life!

I think we have the same Golden Age- though mine starts a *bit* earlier. Also, I have to add that the then-common practice of reprinting stories from previous decades had a HUGE impact in making me a fan-- particularly of the team books.

AVENGERS-- I became a fan during the extended Mantis/Swordsman/Vision/Scarlet Witch storyline. I vividly remember the team's visit to Viet Nam while uncovering Mantis' history... and the permutations of the 'love quartet'.

LOVED Wanda (even more after reading reprints of her joining 'Caps Kooky Quartet')... but my interest in her faded once she became a 'real' witch. I've also always like Henry Pym... though I find the Yellowjacket ID my least favorite.

FANTASTIC FOUR: I remember the wedding of Quicksilver and Crystal as my eariest fan-boy wet dream. The Avengers, the FF and the Inhumans all in Attilan. I wasn't totally happy, though, as I wanted Crystal (then and now one of absolute favorites-- esp. with Lockjaw) to go back to Johnny Storm. I still do, sort of.

The reprints of the FF's earliest meetings with the Inhumans, Black Panther etc. remain among my favorite comic memories.

TEEN TITANS: Sniff for Lilith and Donna. And Duela Dent. As much as I enjoyed that brief era, the 'reboot' of the Wolfman/Perez Titans was one I enjoyed thoroughly. Though it doesn't retain my affection as much, today.

X-MEN: The debuts of Lorna Dane and Havok were when I really became and X-fan. She's up there with Crystal as a beloved character (even through the current 'insane' phase in UNCANNY).

JLA: Loved Hawkman/Hawkwoman, Black Canary, all the 'big guns'. Nothing compared to the annual JLA/JSA meetings-- usually with a whole group of new characters for a young fan to meet for the first time. Again, the reprint factor had a big impact on me.

CHAMPIONS: I wish Marvel would issue this as a trade paperback or something. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure-- but I just loved Iceman with Darkstar (sniff and sigh-- damn Grant Morrison) and seeing Black Widow alongside Hercules.

DEFENDERS: the storyline of Valkyrie finding her past as crazy Barbara Norris (and many subsequent twists and turns) is one I remember. And, of course, the character with a Christmas ornament as a head (Ruby?). And the weirdness of Cloud.

I wish Val could become an Avenger or something... to sub for Thor, maybe?

LEGION: Invisible Kid died in the first issue I read-- then I read the Lu/Chuck wedding and one of the giant-sized issues. It wasn't so easy to read books in order then; you never knew what you might find when you went to a new 7-11 or drug store.

Fun memories...

TN

Todd- the DC 100-Page Spectaculars made me a fan of LEGION and (to a lesser extent) JLA! I -loved- the reprints.

And at Marvel, whole series were dedicated to reprintings of AVENGERS and FANTASTIC FOUR. Loved those too. Think they were called "Marvel Triple Action" or "Marvel Super Action".

I can't quite remember which one it was, but I recall reading one of the JLA giant-sizers that had a JSA story in it sometime close to when I read one of the Legion's giants.

For awhile, I was *convinced* that the ADVENTURE era team was either from Earth Two or from an earlier time-period-- similar to the Justice Society.

Maybe that experience of earlier having to reconcile what I thought were two separate entities into one 'history' has made it a little easier to accept the various 'boots'. Often, I see 'but they're a different character, reboot'...

To me it's never that simple.

In any event, I think discovering comics in the era of those plentiful reprints and different looks for the same characters, etc. has created a different wrinkle or two in readers' comic-lobes.

TN

When they killed Darkstar, they didn't even acknowledge her history with Bobby did they? I thought that was a huge oversight not to show Bobby's grief *at all*.

To answer the question in this thread:
Gee, let me think about it whilst I rub my chin and stare whistfully at the ceiling as I reminisce.... my "Golden Age" was when I was in the fifth and sixth grades. I had bought comics all my life, but this was when I really appreciated it and started following specific titles...

The X-Men: Paul Smith was doing the title at the time but I was heavily buying all the Byrne issues as well. Wolverine was my fav, as he was with most preteen boys at the time.

Secret Wars: The Big Daddy of intercompany crossovers at the time. I was totally enthralled.

Frank Miller was doing seriously cool ninja shit in Daredevil and damn, that Punisher guy was cool...

Rom was fighting Dire Wraiths in Clairton, West Virginia.

"The Vigilante" showed him and his girlfriend getting it on!!

Seinkewicz blew me away with Moon Knight -- Batman who? Go play with your teenage boy wonder...

How exactly did Donna die anyway? And who was Duela Dent? Any conenction to Harvey? (from the name Duela, it sounds like it)

Much less have Black Widow, or Herc at the funeral. Or her own *brother*. And I really felt cheated when Prof X said something like 'let us share a telepathic moment reliving Darkstar's life' and the reader got to see none of it. Grrr.
Probably because the writer knew nothing about it.

About Bobby- maybe reflecting ('offscreen') about Laynia triggered some ever further-back memories... hence his otherwise out-of-nowhere declaration of love for Lorna in UNCANNY.

About Darkstar-- I don't think it'll ever happen, but I could conceive of some future storyline in which Laynia reappeared in a body comprised of 'Darkforce' energy.

TN

Toddkins-- check your Neal Adms-era X-MEN reprints-- Bobby had quite the crush on Lorna. That all dried up when Havok was intro'd, though.

Reading the above in re: Darkstar reinforces my decision to avoid the main X-books. I'm quite happy with X-Statix and Exiles.

re: DUELA DENT-- she made appearances posing as the daughter of several of Batman's villains in BATMAN FAMILY. She joined the Teen Titans as THE JOKER'S DAUGHTER before becoming THE HARLEQUIN a couple of issues later. She claimed to be Two-Face's daughter.

Marv Wolfman -hated- her and used CRISIS to retcon her out of Titans history. Geoerge Perez, however, is more like me and has a soft spot for ALL who have called themselves 'Titan'. He drew her into a scene in Donna's wedding where Dick deduces that she is too old to have been Harvey Dent's daughter. I appreciated George's nod to fans of that run of TEEN TITANS, which I'm sure he strong-armed Marv into allowing.

In the recent run of TITANS, Duela has returned. In JLA/TITANS she is listed as a "Titans Ally", which for me effectively returns her to an active role in those pre-Crisis TITANS issues.

Geoff Johns used her as a nutcase villain in a TITANS annual. Nutcase is fine, but villain is NOT fine. I'm hoping he rectifies this in the new TEEN TITANS series.

He seems to have a healthy respect for comics past, so I remain cautiously opimistic.

Lash-e-lot, *of course* I remember Bobby's feelings for Lorna (which at least continued through the X-men's encounter with Eric the Red, if I remember correctly). She's one of my age-old favorites (along with Crystal and Valkyrie).

That's what I was alluding to when I wrote 'triggering further back memories', as in before Iceman's relationship with Darkstar.

In a recent installment of UNCANNY, Bobby whispers that he loves Lorna after she's rendered the guests at her halted-wedding uncounscious. The issue before he'd been kissing someone else. In a not-too-long-ago miniseries, he was chasing around another old girlfriend, who lied to him about having his baby (she didn't, by the way). So, his mentioning his love for Lorna was a little out of the blue.

Lorna then embarks on a psychotic hissy fit, after pulling all the metal in the area to her and refashioning it as the helmet and torso of Magneto's uniform, leaving the long skirt and train of her wedding dress as is/was.

Sounds awful, I know. But the writer had 'played fair'-- her slide into nuttiness had been gradually shown. (It was initiated by her spending time on the destroyed Genosha-- somehow her powers were magnetically attracting and recording the dying thoughts of the millions murdered there-- including Magneto).

I think Lorna's going to be a pivotal character for a while. My theory is that she's being used by Magneto-- he 'rushed' the wedding of Lorna/Havok... and has upped her sex drive (she apparently slept with a Gambit lookalike- also a mutant- after her bachelorette party) in order to get Lorna pregnant. In nine months a bouncing baby boy would be born. With guess who's soul/memories/powers? Magneto's done the rapid aging thing before. I don't believe the Marvel universe will go for too long without a Magneto.

Ultimately, I think she'll return to sanity and heroism-- possibly to Bobby, too.

Well, that was the absolute nadir of the relaunch, IMO. That and really substandard art during an Imperial Guard appearance, ruining an otherwise good story.

Otherwise, it's been mostly enjoyable-- though currently it's focused on Wolverine and a new character that absolutely bores me.

Anyway, now you're a bit caught up on the X-verse. I'm fairly sure from comments you've made before that you won't be picking these books up.

TN

**ugggh!** Oh, Todd, that Polaris storyline kinda makes my stomach turn a bit...!

Kinda like the fact that Lilith couldn't recognize a ROBOT 'brain' when she encountered it in a recent hogwash-filled miniseries that will remain nameless.

I know I had said I was going to bed, but this is too much and I have to say something.

WHY does every comics writer in the universe other than Peter David feel the need to mercilessly FUCK with Lorna Dane?!?!??


I'm suddenly very glad I'm not picking up X-Men right now, considering how Lorna is totally one of my favorite X-Mutants of all time. (No offense, Todd.)

It's the danger of being a recurring "fringe" character -- there's enough of a recognition factor and general affection for the character so it's "dramatic" to fuck with her, but not so much that you'll turn off the main bulk of readers. Kindof a dangerous place to be (just ask any former student of Emma Frost) -- at least they didn't just kill her off with the legacy virus.

I'd rather they killed her off with the legacy Virus than have her lose th plot AGAIN, like how old hatis that? From her very fist appearances she's always been treated poorly (though come to think of it thinking that Maggie is your dad must have been a bit disturbing), even Peter David irritated me with the "do you think I look fat in this?" comments. I much prefer her to Havok but she's never been givben his breaks. Apart from him getting drunk with Wolvie in the outback he's been a pain since he first appeared....

rant over, my soapbox is being packed away....

Lashie, I think we must have both got hooked around about the same time, though I had read comics for a good while before I think around about 1980 or so when wasI starting to get some money from my paper round (side note - why do we make kids suffer by doing this in all weathers? Sure, it'd be nice in california but I was brought up in the NE of Scotland and when it doesn't rain it's because theres snow...) so I could afford to buy more comics per month so, of course, I had to buy them ALL! Ah well.... that was definitely my "golden age"...

I wonder if it's a coincidence that Lorna's biggest fans tend to be *former* X-men readers?

I sincerely feel that *this* time there's something better ahead for my favorite greenhead. Chuck Austin has listed Lorna as one of his favorite characters (I know, I know... "I'd hate to see what he does to a character he doesn't like"); the nutso Lorna is a storyline he inherited. He could've ignored it, but that happens a bit too much in the X-verse.

I left out in my summation that, though stereotypically nutty, Lorna *has* been getting some humdinger dialogue.

I'm willing to be patient because I do think ultimately, there's a plan.

But believe me, if I just read the bare bones of Lorna's current story without having read the lead-up, I'd be majorly pissed, too.

Almost exactly the way I feel about Element Lad and the Legion. (And now Donna and the Outsiders and Sand the JSA...)

While on the subject of Lorna, did anyone else see the bust of her recently solicited by Dynamic Forces (I think I got the name right...)?

TN

Speaking of Havok and Lorna, the first time I saw them was in an issue of "The Hulk" when the Hulk thought Lorna was Jarella -- a green-haired chick that he had a thing with. Havok managed to hold off Mr Green Jeans long enough for him to calm down (though I think Alex passed out from the effort). I was hella impressed with Havok after that.

[Mystery Lad]
{[...] While on the subject of Lorna, did anyone else see the bust of her recently solicited by Dynamic Forces?}

I don't know her from Eve, but it doesn't matter, because the only one that interests me these days (I don't know if it's from DF) is "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" {g}

This topic seems to have wandered off the golden age and into the happenings of Lorna Dane. I hope it's not too late to wax wistfully ...

My golden age was 1973-74, with some beginnings in 1972. I had always loved super-heroes, though my earliest exposure was through a cartoon series featuring the JLA, The Teen Titans, Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern and the rest. Getting my 'rents to buy comics for me was rare, but I did stumble upon a GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW (featuring Speedy as a junkie) and FANTASTIC FOUR (Hulk versus Thing, to the apparent death of the latter), both of which were a mite too sophisticated for a six- or seven-year-old. So, I became a comics fan in earnest at age nine, thanks to the Legion and a few other titles, including:

TEEN TITANS -- first one I read featured the team taking a raft to the Yucatan, where Kid Flash gets bitten by a croc and Wonder Girl gets betrayed by a giant, skeletal salamandar. I loved the Titans, but this issue (I would later learn) was the second to last before it was cancelled. I didn't encounter them again until after the golden age.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA -- my first two issues featured not only the JSA, but also the newly revived Freedom Fighters. Three different teams in one book! I was in hero heaven.

BATMAN -- he was fighting a villain called The Spook, who was breaking criminals out of jail via some eerie fog. The Spook turned out to be not a real ghost but a clever con artist. The story line ran in two issues of DETECTIVE and one of BATMAN, as I recall.

THE AVENGERS and THE DEFENDERS -- My post-FF introduction to Marvel happened to be a cross-over between these two titles. As with the JLA/JSA/FFers above, I loved books with plenty of heroes.

CAPTAIN AMERICA -- In middle America, it was very radical to have Cap partnered regularly with a black man, The Falcon. But that wasn't half as radical as the end of the Secret Empire storyline, in which the President of the United States commits suicide. Disillusioned, Cap gives up being Cap. The storyline eerily captured the mood of the country after Watergate.

Curiously enough, I avoided reading SPIDEY and the FF completely during this period. I guess I didn't care for heroes who were already "too" popular. (I didn't read SUPERMAN or much BATMAN for the same reason.)

The first SPIDEYs I did eventually buy featured Mysterio as the villain. The story overlapped with the Gwen Stacy clone and Jackal arc, which hooked me for good.

MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION featured old Avengers stories, which confused me, at first, since that team bore no resemblence to the other AVENGERS (save Captain America and a far less powerful Scarlet Witch). They fought The Swordsman, then Kang, then Attuma. Cap quit, Hawkeye wanted to be leader, the usual stuff.

X-MEN, too, was a reprint title at the time. My first issue featured a one-off villain called Mekano. A subsequent issue was more notable for a scene of the civilian-clad X-Men bailing out of an airplane and using their powers to get down to the ground safely. The wind whips off Cyclops' glasses, so he has to cover his eyes in freefall, and narrowly misses colliding with a rocky peak. That image has always stayed with me.

I'm still curious -- how did Donna Troy die? I missed it when it came out.

Donna died the same way Lilith did-- killed by a SUPERMAN robot. Lame, lame, lame.

Just a page or 3 later, "a" Donna is shown waking up on some strange warring planet... a complication she certainly doesn't need.

Just too lame for words.

my 'Golden Age' was probably the mid 80's !!!

the LEVITZ/GIFFEN 'Legion' years !!!

the WOLFMAN/PEREZ 'Titans' years !!!

also the big 'JLA' roster and the satalite and the 'JSA' crossovers !!!

and also 'CRISIS on INFINITE EARTHS' and then the 'BAXTER' editions of the 'LEGION' and the 'TITANS' !!!

but as my comic interest goes and my LOVE of the 'LEGION' it's probably no greater than it is right now !!!

because of my ablilty to interact with all you guys !!!

Matthew.

I agree, Matthew. This is, indeed, the second golden age, for many of us.

I'd say my own personal golden era of comics was about the early-to-mid 80's too. The height of Marvel under the Shooter regime, with the Claremont/Smith X-Men, the early New Mutants, Simonson on Thor, Byrne on FF and Alpha Flight, Spider-Man, even Cloak and Dagger's various miniseries. On the DC side it was mostly the Wolfman/Perez Titans, the Warlord, the All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc., and (of course) the Legion. It was also great because there were tons of back issues for me to delve into, the Cockrum and Byrne X-Men runs and the Legion's vast body of comics mostly.

I should also mention that sense it was the era of the Marvel Handbook series and slightly later the DC Who's Who series and looking back was possibly an easier time to learn the ins and outs of the MU and DCU. There were other things too, like the spinner rack at the local drug store (I biked to it every week during the summer), digests, annuals that actually told a coherent story and eventually my first comics shop, the Book Yard. I went to conventions with my friends, and worked a whole summer cutting grass at a trailer park where my friend Todd's mom was the manager. We saved enough money to get a room for the weekend at the Omni Hotel for the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, and my father was our chaperone for the weekend (he didn't stay the whole time of course, but he was interested enough in Star Trek and Monty Python and Dr. Who not to feel too lost).

Your dad sounds tres cool! No one in my family was ever into comics-- I don't quite remember HOW I got into 'em.

But I DO know that on weekends I would go spend the night with my Grandparents and my Grandmother would take me to the corner store where she would purchase me a stack every week!

A few years later (still a pre-teen), I discovered my first comic shop through a grade-school friend.

It just so happened that this comic shop was right around the corner from where my Grandmother's sister (my great aunt) lived.

The great aunt didn't drive, and she stayed with my Grandparents every weekend, so when we would go to pick her up, I got to get my weekly stash from the actual Comic Shop from then on! This went on until I got my first car at age 16 and then I started paying a visit to the shop on my own every week.

And lo, a comic freak was born in earnest!

Some fun memories!

I remember walking 1/2 mile to the 7-11 in my neighborhood in Bartlett, TN to go to the spinner rack and pick up Justice League (One punch! One punch!) The updates to the Who's Who were still going on too. I REALLY wish they would update those or put out a new batch! I think they were great and added to the richness and accessibility of the DCU.