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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 22, 2015 17:13:44 GMT -5
Even though I have been reading SO MUCH BATMAN lately (if there is such a thing as TOO MUCH Batman, I'm pretty close), I take a break every three or four days and read a few issues of the early 1980s Legion of Super-Heroes. I haven't been saying too much about it because I'm busy with holiday stuff and also focusing more on Batman.  This afternoon I read LSH #302 and #303 with longtime Legion villains Lightning Lord and the Emerald Empress. I think this is where I really really started to get into the LSH. I had been reading it for a while so I was more familiar with the huge supporting cast and really enjoying every character and every subplot. The return of Supergirl probably helped a lot. When I think of the Levitz/Giffen LSH, these issues right after #300 are the stories I remember as my favorites. The second LSH Annual takes place between LSH #303 and #304. This is the wedding of Jeckie and Karate Kid, and it's weird that I don't remember what happens to wreck the festivities. It's a comic book tradition for something to happen at a super-hero wedding, but I'm looking at this cover and it doesn't ring a bell. The issues of the regular LSH that came out at the same time are among my favorite issues but I'm completely drawng a blank on LSH Annual #2. I read the first two or three pages and I'm marveling at the Dave Gibbons art.  I had completely forgotten this! Nice job! One of the highlights of the regular series was the Giffen/Mahlstedt art but the Gibbons art is a pleasant change of pace. Dave Gibbons three years before Watchmen! |
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Post by Pharozonk on Dec 22, 2015 17:48:35 GMT -5
If you love Gibbons art there, you should check out his work on Green Lantern from the same time. It's very close to his style on watchmen and it looks gorgeous!  |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 22, 2015 18:06:50 GMT -5
If you love Gibbons art there, you should check out his work on Green Lantern from the same time. It's very close to his style on watchmen and it looks gorgeous! I have all those Green Lantern issues with Dave Gibbons art! They are great! |
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Post by hondobrode on Dec 22, 2015 18:17:14 GMT -5
Even though I have been reading SO MUCH BATMAN lately (if there is such a thing as TOO MUCH Batman, I'm pretty close), I take a break every three or four days and read a few issues of the early 1980s Legion of Super-Heroes. I haven't been saying too much about it because I'm busy with holiday stuff and also focusing more on Batman. This afternoon I read LSH #302 and #303 with longtime Legion villains Lightning Lord and the Emerald Empress. I think this is where I really really started to get into the LSH. I had been reading it for a while so I was more familiar with the huge supporting cast and really enjoying every character and every subplot. The return of Supergirl probably helped a lot. When I think of the Levitz/Giffen LSH, these issues right after #300 are the stories I remember as my favorites. The second LSH Annual takes place between LSH #303 and #304. This is the wedding of Jeckie and Karate Kid, and it's weird that I don't remember what happens to wreck the festivities. It's a comic book tradition for something to happen at a super-hero wedding, but I'm looking at this cover and it doesn't ring a bell. The issues of the regular LSH that came out at the same time are among my favorite issues but I'm completely drawng a blank on LSH Annual #2. I read the first two or three pages and I'm marveling at the Dave Gibbons art. I had completely forgotten this! Nice job! One of the highlights of the regular series was the Giffen/Mahlstedt art but the Gibbons art is a pleasant change of pace. Dave Gibbons three years before Watchmen! I'm not sure I was aware he did the Legion. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 22, 2015 20:39:50 GMT -5
I read the first two or three pages and I'm marveling at the Dave Gibbons art. I had completely forgotten this! Nice job! One of the highlights of the regular series was the Giffen/Mahlstedt art but the Gibbons art is a pleasant change of pace. Dave Gibbons three years before Watchmen! I'm not sure I was aware he did the Legion. I can easily believe that you read it and have totally forgotten about it. I remembered the story after I had read a few more pages. The Legionnaires are all going to Orando for the wedding of Jeckie and Karate Kid. One group of Legionnaires (coming from a mission on Daxam (which was then shaped like Darkseid's head)) are accidently grabbed by a time-travel backdraft (or something) and they get sent back to ancient Greece. It's Dream Girl (Nura Nal), Star Boy (Thom Kallor), The White Witch (Mysa Nal), Ultra Boy (Jo Nah) and Cosmic Boy (Rokk Krinn) who find themselves trapped in the past. They come across the Greek gods! But they aren't really Greek gods, they are shape-shifting aliens with advanced technology that they are using to trick the stupid Earth people into believing they are their gods. Bananashenanigans ensue. Eventually they defeat the aliens (who turn out to be ... Durlans!) and eventually return to the 30th century in time for the wedding. The art is really good! But the story is very very meh. Dave Gibbons was not well known so I wouldn't be surprised to find that a lot of people have read this (30 year ago!) and completely forgotten it. |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 22, 2015 22:05:01 GMT -5
Gibbons was doing just as great work on Dan Dare in 2000AD a year or two before this. Well worth a look.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 28, 2015 1:52:31 GMT -5
 I got The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume Three, and I read this story. Jimmy has a date with Lucy Lane and she is being a total witch, as usual. Then he gets called to the 30th century to become Elastic Lad to help several of the female Legionnaires on various missions. He tells Lucy she should watch his exploits on the Time Monitor he has laying around in his apartment. So, in succession, Triplicate Girl, Light Lass and Saturn Girl all make a fuss over Jimmy and fall in love with him. They even fight over him and call each other "hussy"! He goes back to the 20th century and the girls talk about how they pretended to fall in love with Jimmy because they wanted to make Lucy jealous. Of course, Lucy, being a horribly self-centered and incurious creature, fell asleep and didn't much care about what was going on in the future, so she didn't see anything on the Time Monitor. So the girls realize their scheme didn't work but then they admit that Jimmy is cute and maybe they really will fall in love with him next time he visits. The introductory caption contains this sentence: OBSERVE TRIPLICATE GIRL ROMANCE JIMMY LIKE A TERRIFIC THREESOME! Possibly not safe for work. |
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Post by Pharozonk on Dec 28, 2015 2:16:11 GMT -5
"I love every yard of him!" I'm guessing that those elastic abilities apply to ALL parts of his body.  |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 28, 2015 11:00:42 GMT -5
I'm reading Adventure #319 with "The Legion's Suicide Squad." WOW! The people of Throon are a bunch of badasses. "The Legion's Suicide Squad" includes this somewhat famous panel where Brainiac tries to tell Saturn Girl she can't go because it's too dangerous for a girl:  You tell him, Saturn Girl! I just started the second part which opens with a preview of the Legion of Substitute Heroes all flying bravely to their doom. Geez Louise! The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume Three, looks to be wall-to-wall Silver Age super-hero LSD. I mean, come on! Everybody on the planet of Throon lives in the same building! Bananashenanigans! I also love the members for the first team that tries to infiltrate Throon - Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl, Bouncing Boy, Chameleon Boy, Lightning Lad, Invisible Kid and Superboy. These are all favorite members of mine from this time period! They left out Shrinking Violet, but otherwise these are my favorites! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2015 11:30:22 GMT -5
I got The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume Three, and I read this story. Jimmy has a date with Lucy Lane and she is being a total witch, as usual. Then he gets called to the 30th century to become Elastic Lad to help several of the female Legionnaires on various missions. He tells Lucy she should watch his exploits on the Time Monitor he has laying around in his apartment. So, in succession, Triplicate Girl, Light Lass and Saturn Girl all make a fuss over Jimmy and fall in love with him. They even fight over him and call each other "hussy"! He goes back to the 20th century and the girls talk about how they pretended to fall in love with Jimmy because they wanted to make Lucy jealous. Of course, Lucy, being a horribly self-centered and incurious creature, fell asleep and didn't much care about what was going on in the future, so she didn't see anything on the Time Monitor. So the girls realize their scheme didn't work but then they admit that Jimmy is cute and maybe they really will fall in love with him next time he visits. The introductory caption contains this sentence: OBSERVE TRIPLICATE GIRL ROMANCE JIMMY LIKE A TERRIFIC THREESOME! Possibly not safe for work. OHHHH. I am so glad this story is in the third volume! I'm going to need to read it. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 28, 2015 12:16:12 GMT -5
"I love every yard of him!" I'm guessing that those elastic abilities apply to ALL parts of his body. I always figured that was the only reason Sue Storm ever stayed with Reed Richards. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 28, 2015 14:59:09 GMT -5
"I love every yard of him!" I'm guessing that those elastic abilities apply to ALL parts of his body. I always figured that was the only reason Sue Storm ever stayed with Reed Richards. Let's restrict comments like these to the Dibnys. Those two are a couple of FREAKS. The other super-hero married couples won't have anything to do with them. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 28, 2015 16:40:57 GMT -5
I think I could just sit here all day and read all the LSH stories in The Legion Archives, Volume Three! I keep thinking: "OK. That's enough. Time to put it down and do something else." And then I see the next cover and I have to read it! I just read "The Code of the Legion":  and it's one more amazing LSH story! It's hysterical the way they get rid of Bouncing Boy's powers in one panel, in a flashback where he's practicing his super-bouncing powers and he hits the lever on a shrink ray and it takes away his powers! And then at the end he's excited because he's not fat anymore so he can get a girlfriend. And so he introduces his new girlfriend and she's ... rather plump ... and Superboy says: OH NO ... I ... ER ... MEAN SHE'S WONDERFUL, BOUNCING BOY! The LSH members have a secret about a terrible weapon and they've vowed never to let anyone know that such a weapon even exists. But the Science Police hears about it, and they take the LSH members to a remote planetoid where each is going to be tested to make sure they are tough enough to keep the secret. So there lots of little three- and four-panel segments where many of the Legionnaires figure out how to pass the tests. I especially love Shrinking Violet being attacked by monsters that she knows are illusions but she's about to crack anyway. So she shrinks! And when she reveals the secret of the weapon, she's too small to be heard! So she passes. I also love the Saturn Girl panels. The John Forte art is a little awkward at times but I love the way he draws Saturn Girl! She's so determined! She reminds me of Grace Kelly! And I also love that weird blue monster in the Saturn Girl flashback, where she's trying to think of old Legion missions so she doesn't give away the secret with her super thought-casting powers! Matter-Eater Lad is eating all the pink leaves so the monster will leave (it only eats pink leaves so it will leave if there are no more pink leaves left) and one of the inhabitants is saying: THE CREATURE WILL GO ELSEWHERE TO FIND SUCH TREES, AND WE WILL NO LONGER HAVE IT LURKING HERE AND FRIGHTENING US! Lightning Lad is the one who cracks, so they place him in the solitary-confinement capsule depicted on the cover. I love that button marked "BOOKS"! I wonder what books they would read in the 30th century? Do they still read Shakespeare and Poe and Tolstoy? Maybe a little William S. Burroughs? Perhaps a biography of Dorothy Parker or maybe some Marshall MacLuhan? Well, enough of that foolishness! I have to walk the dogs and then we're going to take my nephew to play pool. Wait! What's this?  Look at the cover of the next issue of Adventure! |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 29, 2015 14:46:17 GMT -5
I read Adventure Comics #322. The Legion of Super-Pets are a bunch of JERKS! For no reason.
Just like their human counterparts in the Legion. (And a bit snobbish too. Aren't there any super-powered pets from the 30-century good enough for your club?)
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 29, 2015 14:51:59 GMT -5
Adventure Comics #323 contains one of the greatest word balloons in the history of comics! Presented without further context or comment: AND NOW, THE DINOSAUR-THROWING CONTEST! SEE HOW THE
DINO-FIGHTERS STREAK IN AND STUN THE CHARGING BEASTS WITH
THEIR PARALYSIS GLOVES ... TAKING CARE TO AVOID THE
CREATURES' DEADLY EVOLUTIONARY BUZZ-SAW BLADES! |
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