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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2015 11:00:24 GMT -5
We should have had an LSH Appreciation Thread a long time ago! Several of the Legion fans were pushing back against all the anti-LSH hate speech on the "There. I said it." thread and that forum started to look like a Legion lovefest. Which is fine with me. But it was getting a little annoying to the people who hate fun so I thought we should have our own forum for the Legion of Super-Heroes. I admit, when I was 11, I took my super-hero comics very seriously and I was one of those fun-haters myself. I thought the LSH was irredeemably stupid. But when I was a little older (17? 18?), I started hanging out with a kid who - like me - was still collecting comic books and - in addition to Iron Man, The Avengers and Captain America, which I collected - he also collected a few DC comics, notably Green Lantern and The Legion of Super-Heroes. So when we were hanging out, I would read his comics even if they weren't comics I liked that much. And Green Lantern and the Legion of Super-Heroes both grew on me pretty quickly. I had quit reading a few Marvels that I had been collecting for four or five years and so it was easy to add The Legion of Super-Heroes to the list. The first issue I bought off the spinner rack at the drugstore was this one:  And when it changed to "Tales of the Legion," I stuck with it up to this issue:  And then I lost interest. I was in college and my comics buying dwindled down to a few essential comics like Batman, Detective, Green Lantern, Hulk, Spider-Man, Avengers and a few others. (Including Justice League Detroit. But you should have seen how many comics I was reading in 1982 to 1984!) And then I collected it again when Legionnaires #1 came out in the 1990s and eventually shared issue-to-issue continuity with The Legion of Super-Heroes. And I also read The Legion of Super-Heroes for over a year when The New 52 started. Not to mention back issues here and there, and reprints. My favorite Legion stories are the first few years of the series in Adventure Comics, from around #300 to about #350. (I haven't read all of them but I read a lot of them in the Archives volumes.) The Legion rocks! |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 11:14:12 GMT -5
I will be here soon!
WEEEEEEEEEEE
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Post by Pharozonk on Nov 20, 2015 11:19:49 GMT -5
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Post by Pharozonk on Nov 20, 2015 11:24:58 GMT -5
My love affair with the Legion began a few years ago when I was really getting back into comics after a lull before I started high school. I have always been an avid science fiction fan growing up, devouring stuff like Star Wars and The Twilight Zone as a kid, but wanted something in the way of comics that could feed my interest. I stumbled upon the Legion while researching something from a Flash issue I was reading in relation to XS and Impulse. Out of curiosity, I picked up LoSH #297, which forever changed my view of comics as I discussed in last years CCF Christmas List. Here was a book heavily mired in continuity, history, and rich world-building. Cosmic Boy? Saturn Girl? Sun Boy? Braal? What were all these fantastic worlds and characters? I was instantly hooked on the fantastic mixing of space opera and soap opera angst that the Legion gave me with every issue I could get my hands on. I've been a fan ever since. Long Live the Legion! |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 11:30:32 GMT -5
I loved that era of the Legion from about mid-70s (the new Grell costumes) through to mid-80s when the premier format series kicked-off.
While I accept that all the Lad/Lass/Boy/Girl/Kid/Baby/Foetus suffixes were pretty lame, and that the 60s stories were generally pretty stupid (along with pretty much all the rest of 60s DC, IMHO), and that a lot of the back-stories feature that trademark DC love of asinine word play ("Jo Nah") or fake future names ("hmm. it's the future, so the character's real name should be... Grob BzGtlyS. That sounds futuristic!"), there's just something about the Legion as a concept - "superpowered team! in the future!" - that is just cool.
Of course, it all went to hell, along with everything else, during the weekly continuity reboots, and never really recovered, but I still have a fondness for that era.
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Post by Pharozonk on Nov 20, 2015 11:30:41 GMT -5
For those of you who watch The Big Bang Theory, there was apparently a Legion reference in last week's episode. Sheldon was wearing a shirt with the Green Lantern oath written in Interlac!
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Post by Pharozonk on Nov 20, 2015 11:32:13 GMT -5
Who can forget the time Professor X traveled to the 30th century to hit on girls?   |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Nov 20, 2015 11:59:14 GMT -5
My memory is being unusually uncooperative on this, but I'm pretty sure this is the first Legion comic I picked up after "officially" starting to collect comics:
I did have one issue earlier that was lost to the sands of time, but I've since replaced:
Along with another sadly lost bit of Legion lore that became one of my holy grails. I was finally able to replace it at a reasonable price a few months ago. It regularly goes for at least $50, often over $100, but I managed to get it in pretty good shape for under $10:
So it's safe to say I've been a fan for a long time. I finally gave up during the "shove it grandpa" reboot, but I hope we'll get a better (closer to the original) incarnation soon. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2015 12:01:22 GMT -5
The girl Legionnaires celebrate after the successful completion of the first phase of their plot against the boy Legionnaires:  From Adventure Comics #326. Art by the great John Forte, my favorite LSH artist. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 13:04:41 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 13:06:29 GMT -5
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 20, 2015 13:34:22 GMT -5
My first Legion of Super-Heroes issues were Earthwar, and I was instantly hooked! I love the large cast, the colorful outfits, the optimistic future, and the mixture of superhero and sci-fi. What's not to love!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 13:50:33 GMT -5
My first LSH issue was an Earthwar issue too! I really got interested in the Legion with The Great Darkness Saga and wanted to know as much as I could about each Legion member. I would purchase the Adventure digests to learn about their pasts. When a comic shop opened, I bought as many old Action, Adventure, Superboy, and SB and LSH comics I could get my hands on! I followed the LSH religiously from around 1982 until the Magic Wars in the baxter series. Lost interest with the 5 years later story. I did pick up the Legionaires series in the 90s. I was very happy when the LSH I remembered appeared in the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank Action story several years ago. I read the last incarnation of LSH just before the new 52. I would love to see a new series. Favorite LSH members are Cosmic Boy, Mon-El, Ultra Boy, Shadow Lass, Dream Girl, Sunboy, Starboy, White Witch, Dawnstar, Timber Wolf, Element Lad, Superboy, Supergirl, the Legion subs, Colossal Boy, Karate Kid, Wildfire, and Invisible Kid (Jacques).
The thing I loved about the LSH was that they never lost hope no matter what they faced. The big cast with all the different powers and personalities, and the fun costumes made for a very exciting team.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2015 14:10:13 GMT -5
My memory is being unusually uncooperative on this, but I'm pretty sure this is the first Legion comic I picked up after "officially" starting to collect comics:
I did have one issue earlier that was lost to the sands of time, but I've since replaced:
Along with another sadly lost bit of Legion lore that became one of my holy grails. I was finally able to replace it at a reasonable price a few months ago. It regularly goes for at least $50, often over $100, but I managed to get it in pretty good shape for under $10:
So it's safe to say I've been a fan for a long time. I finally gave up during the "shove it grandpa" reboot, but I hope we'll get a better (closer to the original) incarnation soon. I've got an issue of "Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes" that's a 100-Page Super-Spectacular, #201 or #202, I think. And then I've got a few issues in the 220s and 230s (including the tragic death of Chemical King!). I like them! They're pretty cool. I read a few issues in the 260s and 270s because that's what one of my friends had around the house that made me start collecting the Legion at #285. But it's been so long! The only thing I remember from that era is a very weird two-parter with Steve Ditko art. I often wonder if I imagined it. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2015 14:18:02 GMT -5
The thing I loved about the LSH was that they never lost hope no matter what they faced. The big cast with all the different powers and personalities, and the fun costumes made for a very exciting team. What gets me, something I've noticed just recently, is that the big cast has been a Legion trope for a long time! In the issue where I got that image where the girl Legionnaires are dancing, there are already 20 members, give or take! I don't know if the Legion of Substitute Heroes or the Heroes of Lallor had been introduced yet, but they would be soon, and that makes the LSH cast that much more overwhelming. And that's Adventure #326! They'd had their own series for just a little over two years and it was already overflowing. (I wish I knew a little more about how fast the cast grew. I used to have the LSH Archives #1, #4 and #5, but I've only read a few scattered reprints of the stories from #2 and #3, so I'm not exactly sure how quickly it got out of hand.) |
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