Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities All-COCKRUM because I DEMANDED IT!

The first artist whose work I recognized on sight. I'm going to recognize and celebrate that. Feel free to join with your own fond memories please!

This final splash from X-MEN # 99 certainly wowed little Lash!

After wracking my brain a bit, I have determined that AVENGERS # 126 from 1974 is my earliest recalled exposure to COCKRUM art!

He is listed as inker over Bob Brown, but his influence seems to overtake Brown's style completely.

Cockrum is the definitive Wildfire artist!

As my avatar picture should show, Cockrum had a huge impact on my formative days as a Legion fan.

I've never been a huge Wildfire fan, but damn! that panel just rocks. Wildfire demonstrates easy confidence and panache with a ray blast from his foot, cleaving Molecule Master in half!

That's badass art!

As a character designer, Cockrum was unrivaled among his generation.

GIANT SIZE AVENGERS # 2, late 1974. I can remember holding this comic in my hands when I was a little LITTLE kid. A spectacular story, high brow indeed, yet nothing that a kid couldn't understand: Prime among them, never underestimate ANYONE. Kang couldn't even be bothered to dispatch The Swordsman, and it was then the Swordsman who mounted the force that eventually freed his allies, and foiled Kang's plan to take the Celestial Madonna (Mantis) as his own. This was probably also my first encounter with heroes in tubes and my first comic book death. Englehart's amazing story of redemption, heroics, love, and forgiveness would have been disserviced by anyone BUT Dave Cockrum.

I was too young and didn't have any idea yet who Dave Cockrum was yet, but when I was a little kid, this cover used to have me totally mesmerized. It was a few years later that I discovered his legendary work on the Legion, the all-new, all-different X-Men, and various other things.

His history on Spidey is all too brief, but he did some awesome covers of PP:TSS back in the day!

I have that on a shirt!

[img:center]https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd....4585978_0ef24d759b70b687442b8ec1074ea91a[/img]

I share Lash's love for Giant-Size Avengers #2.

He was okay.


lol


I got all those books nearly two decades after the fact but it sure had to be an exciting time to be a Legion fan.

The first Legion stories I read were in a digest with art by Curt Swan and David Cockrum (his was "The Fatal Five Who Twisted Time.") Those Legion stories he inked himself have what is probably my favorite Legion art of all time and I've grown to love his early X-Men art more than the following John Byrne run which was not the case when I first got into the X-Men (ca. Paul Smith's run.)

Plus, he was the first ever comics pro I interacted with online; he was a really good guy and never got bored with being pestered by Legion fans on an X-Men board. I think a bunch of us here were part of a petition on the old DC board that helped push DC to give him his last Legion art gig if I'm remembering right. It's one of my favorite memories about Legion fandom.

Thanks for sharing that, matlock. Very heartwarming.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the Futurians yet.

Hmm that pose and costume are eerily similar to this

I thought it would be nice to bump this thread, since we're currently discussing Cockrum's Legion run in the Legion forum.

OMGOSH that WHERE NO X-MAN HAS GONE BEFORE splash. Artists today and in the future should all take lessons.

I'll gladly mention THE FUTURIANS! The graphic novel was insane, and when the monthly came out... Well EXCITED doesn't fully cover how I felt!




Cockrum says he was going for a 50s monster movie vibe, and he succeeded with a horrifying and satisfying tale. He established FUTURIANS earth and even other super-heroes unrelated to the team SO WELL. He was ahead of his time in this, going the IMAGE route before IMAGE (and being 50 times the artist AND writer of any of the original IMAGE gang, most of whom should never be allowed to write again)

Sadly, the indie he took his property to folded after only 3 issues, leaving the story ONE ISSUE SHY of finishing and burning me for YEARS on indies (this would happen AGAIN with both SUPREME and YOUNGBLOOD by Alan Moore on a Liefeld comic indie years later).

AARDWOLF saved the day a decade-plus later when FUTURIANS # 0 appeared, and finished the story at long last!! (dreamy sigh)





No lie, I would have paid $20 for it brand new off the shelf. Maybe $100. It was an answer to a comic book prayer.

I'm proud that THE FUTURIANS is my first (and so far, only) KICKSTARTER backing. Clifford Meth (AARDWOLF publisher/owner) and Paty Cockrum have put together Dave's final FUTURIANS story and about a zillion artists have contributed. It's a few months late but I'm keeping up with it and am very excited to know it is close to shipping.

I almost NEED it. (fanatical smile)

Thanks for all the Futurians love, Lash.

Please let me know when the final story comes out, I'd like to read it, too.

Cockrum was indeed 50 times the artist and writer that the Image founders were, and I absolutely agree, most of them should never be allowed to write again. LOL

For Facebookers:

DAVE COCKRUM ART APPRECIATION:


https://www.facebook.com/groups/davecockrumartappreciationgroup/


THE FUTURIANS fanpage:


https://www.facebook.com/DaveCockrumFuturians?fref=ts


(both run by Dave's friend AARDWOLF publisher Clifford Meth)


For everyone:


http://thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com/2015/05/meet-paty-cockrum-get-futurians-return.html

^re: FUTURIANS RETURN

Thanks, Lash.

BUMP

Any thoughts on Dave's little-remembered 4-issue Nightcrawler solo mini-series from 1985, with Kitty & Illyana in guest-star roles? I only read it recently, after I found all the issues in the discount bin of a comic shop. I think it's pure fluff, but fun fluff nonetheless, and I think it's better-drawn than most of Dave's art from his second UXM run with Claremont (144-164.) Also, by late 1985, UXM had gotten really...well...GLUM, and pretty lame, all for a variety of reasons, and Bill Sienkiwicz had just then left New Mutants, so I imagine Dave's NC mini must have seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time.

I've not read it Fickles. I was probably enjoying a bit of the mutant angst with the issues of that period. A swashbuckling character, who has fun in improbable space fantasy settings, instead of improbable urban settings? What were they thinking? I wasn't a huge fan of Kurt's Eroll Flynn routines in Excalibur either. How dare he have fun when there's mutant angst to be gone through.

I'd like to think I'd be more appreciative of it these days.