Anybody else love his Legion. I feel in love with his Phantom Girl...literally.

Some issues were better than others...also depending on the inker. The backgrounds weren't as groovy as Giffen's...but man his characters just jumped out at me.

I'm a fan of his Power Man & Iron Fist as well...which is really different than his Legion stuff. He drew PM & IF right or am I confusing my childhood memories again? I remember a more sleek style which I am suprised didn't make it into the Legion. Then again PG wasn't sleek and I loved it. I remember the Controller kidnapping them (2nd time) to fight Tyrazz as a highlight!

Any other guys grew up loving Greg's work?

Ya think I would spell his name right even. GREG LAROCQUE!

Psst!...

I'm definitely a fan of his. Check out his Legionnaires !

Ah! The memories! I have all those issues. As a kid it was pretty exciting having the little flash cards in the back.

Thanks NC!

Sorry to disagree but I think he was one of the worst Legion artist's since I started reading in 1978. His style was not imaginative enough for the future. All his legion looked a like. Hated his turned up "pig" noses and the inker at the time was poor at best. The biggest problem I had with him was he followed Steve Lightle who did an outstanding job!

Greg Larocque draw the most beautiful girls in the Legion history.
Shadow Lass, Phantom Girl, Dream Girl, Sensor Girl, Saturn Girl and don't forget the wonderful Sarya.
Only the men has all the same face.

I do seem to recall there were mainly 2 inkers over LaRocque. The first was quite good, but then Mike DeCarlo took over for most of his run, and it was always just average. (Still, much better than a LOT of DeCarlo's inks on BATMAN over Jim Aparo, which somehow seemed to get "muddier" as he went. Too much work or just really bad stats?)

What surprised the heck out of me was when Keith Giffen came back. Giffen-DeCarlo was a MUCH better team than LaRocque-DeCarlo. DeCarlo just "worked" better over Giffen, but particularly on #50. Almost immmediately after his return, Keith started DISTORTING his faces, making everybody look like they had square heads and fat lips. (Too much LSD? Or was that just Marshall Rogers...?) Then Al Gordon took over (a MUCH more talented inker than ALL his Legion work combined would ever, ever suggest) and the slide to art hell really commenced. (But that's just MY opinion... heehee)

Greg got to draw possibly the most important Legion story ever, The Death of Superboy. I never loved his work but I liked it a helluva lot better than I did Joe Staton's.

I've recently seen some of Laroque's pencils and he's really good. I wish (oh I wish) there'd been a better skilled inker (or at least an inker more to my artistic tastes) for that story arc. I've always felt Supes should have gone out with a lot of fanfare and a big sendoff.

Different tastes, I suppose... I always thought Lightle's early work on LEGION was pretty run-of-the-mill. You could've swapped him out with early Jurgens or Shoemaker and I would've been hard-pressed to tell them apart. It wasn't until his coverwork that I really noticed his style... and then, he didn't seem capable of meeting a monthly schedule.

LaRocque wasn't my favorite artist on the LEGION, by any means... but since '78? I'd easily put him above Jim Janes, and Lightle's early work. As prof mentioned, DeCarlo really didn't do the work any favors. And Yeller- however much I agree with you about the classic Superboy's send-off, LaRocque definitely pulled out the stops for that final 2 page funeral scene. That might be my favorite of all his LSH pencils, and even DeCarlo couldn't muddy its significance and power.

I liked Greg's work, although I agree that there wasn't a great deal of diversity in his figures (I kind of have that problem myself ). However, he is still in my Top 10 favorite Legion artists. Part of it may be because I associate his art with one of my favorite times of Legion history (Levitz in his heyday).

Tru'dat,Poverty Lad. I don't mean to complain about the Superboy story arc. I was pleased to see him back with the group and Levitz/Laroque kept us in the dark about the end until we got there the hard way -one page at a time-
That IS (btw) my favorite story from his run as the LSH artist and that's counting the Quislet/Wildfire friendship stuff.

LaRocque is one of my own favorites. He was notably more diverse in body types and visible features for women than for men ... but, yes, those women! All of them held the balance that nobody quite managed as well, before or since, of being athletic in build without being musclebound. Especially notable on his Dream Girl, but also on his elegant Dawnstar -- Greg's own favorite to draw, and he did the best and most realistic wings for her.

His other distinction for me was that he could convey unique and informative facial expressions on Legionnaires who were some distance away, in the middle- to background. With so many in fight scenes, this is often needed in Legion plots, but was rarely achieved. (Some, such as the later Giffen, got lazy and omitted facial features entirely from middlegrounds, except, barely, for eyes.) That facial adeptness does also add majesty to scenes such as Superboy's funeral, already mentioned.

LaRocque doesn't suffer by comparison with any Legion artist in other respects, especially Lightle -- less warmth of line, less fluid, but more clarity and slightly better anatomy. (Sorry, Steve, but the eye spacing still gets to me ...)

IMO, he drew he DEFINITIVE
Dawnstar!

I looked it up... OH, of course-- Larry Mahlstedt. DAMN he was good. His inks made Giffen look probably the BEST he ever has, before or since. And he did a fine job over LaRocque, too. At the time, losing him hurt the art more than losing Giffen or Lightle!

On the other hand, Larry STILL owes me a sketch I PAID for in advance and never received... (never again!!)

Hmm...if the Legion's artists of the first rank are people like Swan, Giffen, Cockrum, Lightle (?), the guy who did Green Arrow whose name is completely escaping me, (any others?), then I have to say that LaRocque may be the best of the second tier (later Giffen, Kitson [it's still early!], Coipel, Immomen, Moy [Archie, I know, but I thought his stuff was good and he was around for a long time], others?). Most of the best stories of the Baxter years were during his run.

Mike Grell is currently doing a brand-new 6-issue mini for IDW Publishing of JON SABLE FREELANCE. Yee-hah!

I have to agree Mahlstedt was awesome over Greg's work. Ofcourse I'm a HUGE Mahlstedt fan. Giffen, Larocque, and Bagley (New Warriors) all benefitted from this guy. (Karl Kesel is my other favorite inker).

Anyways the Larocque/Mahlstedt are for sure my fave. I have to go back and look but i don't remember the guys looking too much the same. Atleast Cham and Blok didn't. And the women were beautiful. It was during my favorite Legion era so I may be biased.

(Did he draw Power Man & Iron Fist? And who inked him? Thanks.)

My index is not quite finished yet... but I show Greg LaRocque did PM/IF #103, inked by Andy Mushynsky-- whose style was similar to Joe Sinnott. I'm guessing Greg did more issues... one of these days I'll have to dig those out.

Greg was also the 3rd artist to draw O M A C: One Man Army Corps!!! He had the bad luck (I suppose) to follow Jim Starlin, whose run was cut short by the infamous "DC Implosion". Together with writers Mishkin & Cohn and inker Vince Colletta, he did 6 8-page episodes in the back of WARLORD #42-47. After the ultra-ULTRA-violent turn Starlin put the series through, LaRocque & co. tried to drag things back to a more Jack Kirby view of things... to mixed success. I believe that was the first time I saw Greg's work (1981); he turned up on PM/IF in '84.

Greg I think did # 73, #103, #108 thru #113.

I remember #113 the best he drew one of my fave Marvel villains Bres. A character he also drew in Avengers. He draws the definitive Bres (who actually would make a good legion villain)

I always thought that Greg Larocque held the legion back during the second half of Levitz's run. He drew the girls alright but all of his guys had these weird sloping noses. He also lacked the unique, interesting depiction of the 30th Century that all of the great legion artists have had (IMO Swan, Cockrum, Grell, Giffen and Coipel)which I have always felt is the main criteria for who should or shouldn't draw the legion.

I took a closer look at that (unfinished) index...

POWER MAN / IRON FIST
#73 / Sep'81 -- Wraith, Color Or Creed // Duffy / LaRocque / Villamonte

#91 / Mar'83 -- Paths And Angles // Steven Grant / GREG LaROCQUE

#103 / Mar'84 -- Doombringer // Goodwin / LaRocque / Mushynsky


The 1st was a fill-in during the terrific Duffy-Gammill period. The 2nd was a fill-in near the end of Denys Cowan's run (I was always SEVERELY disappointed in his art, compared to Kerry Gammill's). The 3rd followed a whole set of issues by Kurt Busiek & Ernie Chan. And that's as far as my index goes! Talk over overdue for updating...

i liked Larocque's run on Legion but i always thought that Mike Decarlo's inks imo made Greg's work look sort of Kirby-ish to me.

"Mike Decarlo's inks imo made Greg's work look sort of Kirby-ish"

That's odd-- I never noticed that. However, when Keith Giffen came back (LSH #50), he had definitely shifted BACK into his earlier "Kirby" mode (like back when he drew THE DEFENDERS). Teamed with DeCarlo, it was the best that style of Keith's had ever looked, and I was reminded very much of Kirby-Sinnott-- or maybe Kirby-Stone. (If only Keith hadn't decided to distort his faces more and more with each issue...)

I did a pin-up of the Giffen-DeCarlo era for KLORDNY some time back, which I recently posted at my website.

http://www.webspawner.com/users/zodiaccomics/klordny.html

Greg LaRocque, IMO the greatest, grandest, most glorious, gigantic artistic talent to work on LSH.

Even when Levitz's writing went into a nosedive post-Universo, LaRocque kept getting better and better. To give one example, the Luck Lords story may not be much of a story, but LaRocque creates some breathtaking panoramas.

Hmp. Coulda sworn Grell returned for that issue.

I'm lukewarm on him. Don't dislike him, but he never stood out to me. Some of his eyes/faces seemed a bit off as well.

But to each their own.

It didn't help him any that colorists hadn't caught up to how to color on baxter paper, either - colors were still quite garish in those days.

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.