Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Spaceopoly Legion of Super-Heroes Creators Hall of Fame - WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

Hey everyone,

Nominations are currently open for my own self-run Legion of Super-Heroes Creators Hall of Fame!

Not the fictional founders, but the real-life men and women who have put together the Legion comics that we know and love. Once I've settled on the list of nominations, all interested people will then be able to vote, with the FIVE highest being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2020.

Anybody who ever worked on an official story is eligible--writers, artists, letterers, editors, animators, voice-artists, etc.

To be on the ballot, two people have to nominate the particular creator. If you want to participate, just throw out as many names as you want to. Now, I already opened this up on Facebook and my own blog and a lot of the obvious people have been nominated, but there may be some favorite of yours who has been overlooked (so far, for example, I think I'm the only person who has named letterer John Constanza on my list!)

Once the nominations are complete, I'll post the ballot here as well as Facebook, so anybody who wants to can easily participate, and we can choose our first five Hall of Famers.

(Incidentally, it was pointed out to me that a real life Hall of Fame often requires people to be in the field at for at least 25 years or so. I'm not going to do that. So if you want to pick someone whose first Legion work was in the last year, that's fine).

Thanks, all! Please participate if you'd like, or ignore if you don't.

XBen

I doubt any of these have gone unmentioned, but I can't ignore the obvious ones, so I'll just put these out there:

Mort Weisinger
Otto Binder
Edmund Hamilton
Curt Swan
Jim Shooter
Cary Bates
Dave Cockrum
Mike Grell
Paul Levitz
Keith Giffen
Steve Lightle
Greg LaRocque
Tom & Mary Bierbaum (they're kind of a single unit)
Mark Waid
Tom Peyer
Tom McCraw
Jeff Moy

Mort Weisinger
Otto Binder
Al Plastino
Ed Hamilton
Jerry Siegel
John Forte
Jim Shooter
Dave Cockrum
Paul Levitz
Keith Giffen

Mort Weisinger
Otto Binder
Al Plastino
Ed Hamilton
Jerry Siegel
John Forte
Curt Swan
George Klein
Jim Shooter
Dave Cockrum
Mike Grell
Paul Levitz
Laurie Sutton
Karen Berger
Steve Lightle
Greg LaRocque
Barbara Randall Kesel (Edited and co-wrote Whos Who in the Legion)
Carl Gafford
Dan Raspler
Alan Grant
Barry Kitson
Lovern Kindzierski
Tom McCraw
Mark Waid
Roger Stern
Jeff Moy
Alan Davis (Postboot covers)
Dan Abnett
Andy Lanning
Olivier Coipel
Chris Batista

My favorite artists;

Yildray Cinar
Alan Davis (Superboy's Legion also!)
Steve Lightle
Greg LaRocque
Barry Kitson (for his wonderful enthusiasm as much as his art)
Mike Grell
Dave Cockrum

I'll add Stuart Immonen to the artists list.

I was trying to limit my own list, but I'll definitely second Carl Gafford, whose seven years on the title was impressive and easy to overlook.

Seconded.

Great. Thanks, EDE.

Thanks for all the nominations, guys!

Last chance to add any more before I post the poll...

Ed Hamilton
Jerry Siegel
Jim Shooter
Paul Levitz
Tom & Mary Bierbaum
Keith Giffen
Dave Cockrum
Terry Shoemaker
Steve Lightle
Curt Swan
Carl Gafford
Dan Abnett
Andy Lanning
Olivier Coipel

Xben, I nearly forgot Roger Stern. If it's too late for him to be included, I won't be upset. It's entirely my fault for not thinking of him sooner, even though I love the Postboot Mordru Trilogy. I did edit him into my list, though.

Well, it wasn't too late to add Roger Stern, Ann, but you were the one to nominate him and I was requiring two votes to include someone.

Anyway, the nominations are now closed, and the poll, where we can decide who will be inducted, is up.

I've just put it on my blog so if you want to vote you'll have to click on the link in my signature, I hope that's okay. I'll post the results here when we are done.

Thanks for everyone who participated!

I voted:

Cockrum, Gafford, LaRocque, Lightle, Moy.

Thanks for making this happen, Xben. It's good fun.

If it worked, I went for Hamilton, Siegel, Levitz, Giffen and ... um.. either Cockrum or Swan... I did it quickly on the phone...

None of these new-fangled creators for me:

Weisinger, Binder, Plastino, Hamilton, Forte

Yeah, that young turk Giffen and his Betamax! Grrrrrr...

Binder, Shooter, Swan, Levitz, Giffen

As much of a breath of fresh air, Cockrum was, I still call a mission team a Swan of Legionnaires.

I stuffed the ballot box... er, I voted. It was hard, there were like 11 people I wanted to vote for!

Tough choices, but there's always next year for the others.

One I chose was Dan Abnett because he brought a fresh sci-fi feel to the book, but I don't really know how much of that run was Abnett and how much was Lanning.

Hey all, the voting is complete and the inductees for 2020 into the Legion of Super-Heroes Creators Hall of Fame are decided. The link in my signature has been updated and will take you to the announcement page.

But if you don't want to go all the way there for the write-ups and all the details, I'll let you know who the actual winners were right here. I'll put them under here as a Spoiler. To be clear, all this is is a list of names. On the webpage are my tributes and a bit of other information.

Thanks to everyone who nominated and voted!

I'm happy that one of my choices not only made it in, but got the most votes!


Thanks again, Xben.

I've long wondered if having the middle name effing, raised eyebrows at the Christening.

Thanks for running this Xben!

LOL

Even then, his family knew how awesome he'd grow up to be.

Fairly predictable (as I suppose should be expected with fan-votes), but satisfactory list.

I underestimated Shooter's impact.

Great job Xben!

I read your article and thought your write-ups on each of the winners was excellent, really capturing their contributions and why they deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.

My pleasure! But sorry, I listed the winners alphabetically, not by votes, so your guy actually came third.


Thanks so much. It was fun to do. It'll be interesting to carry it on in the future, and add to the list.

Xben, thanks for clarifying. It doesn't take the wind out of my sails, because he still got more votes than either of the two other artists who made the Top Five.

I noticed that, but since Fickles seemed so excited about it, I decided not to mention it!

Thanks for all of you hard work on this Xben!

Very sweet of you, EDE. Thanks for allowing me a little while of walking on air.

I think it's an excellent Top Five, personally. I didn't really visualize what mine would be, but I tremendously admire all five. So I think it would be extremely close.

The two writers, to me, had the biggest influence on the Legion and had seismic impacts. The one just seemed to mature the storytelling from the simpler state it debuted in and expanded the mythology by leaps and bounds. The other brought the storytelling maturity to the next level and juggled the large cast with with aplomb while amping up the sci-fi and epic feel to its potential.

You could argue the two artists, maybe. Both are better known for their work on different properties, for example. But the Silver Age artist brought the best artistry and humanity to the stories and characters that had been seen to that point. I think there was a synergy between him and his artist that made their collaboration so important for the Legion that might otherwise not have turned out so well an been remembered so fondly. The Bronze Age artist had a pretty short run, but the foundation he laid informed all that followed on the book without argument.

The writer/plotter/artist is controversial, for sure. Some feel he ruined the Legion or should have stayed with one particular art style. I, for one, can't imagine a Legion that never had his influence and, frankly, wouldn't want to. In any case you simply can't discuss the Legion's history without discussing his work, and that puts him in the HoF, no matter your views on him in my opinion.

In fact, I think that last statement justifies these five because each has a crucial part to play in Legion history, I feel. Are some of the others relevant without these five's shoulders (and a handful of others') to stand on? It's at the very least debatable.

I agree wholeheartedly about the expansion of the mythology, but as far as maturing the storytelling, I'd say Ed Hamilton had already reached that level just before his departure from the Legion (The Legionnaire Who Killed, The Super-Stalag of Space) and raised the bar for his younger successor. To the young writer's credit, he did rise to the challenge within a very short time, but I still think it's because his immediate predecessor had already paved the way.


I used to be a great admirer of his, but, with several exceptions, most of his work on the Legion feels dated in a way that his work on The Very First Super-Team Ever Created does not.


His work was often lovely to behold, and although it was more consistent and had fewer rough edges than John Forte, I find I prefer Forte these days. Perhaps that has as much to do with this artist's canonization by fandom, compared to Forte's relative neglect. But no denying this artist's technical skill, nor his superiority to the likes of Win Mortimer and George Tuska. If anything, I tend to ignore anything that came between him and the other artist who got into the HoF. Speaking of whom...


He SAVED the Legion from oblivion! If not for him, we wouldn't even be talking about the Legion today. It would be yet another obscure IP left to the ambiguous mercies of the hipster writers.


That last sentence sums it up perfectly, so, fair enough.


Agreed.

Nice work Xben!