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Post by Farrar on Dec 8, 2019 15:21:34 GMT -5
^^^ And look, there's some John Forte cover art--the Lone Wolf inset on #327   Forte drew a great, stoic Brin, didn't he? I have a lot of those old LSH Adventure Comics, love 'em. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 8, 2019 18:27:03 GMT -5
The following is probably mainly just a cure for insomnia, but I just went through one of the comic wikis to check my memory. I had Adventure #252, 298-300, 303, 306, 311-314, 316, 319-325, 327, 328, 330-349, 351-354, 357, 359-370, 372-380. I couldn't remember if #252 had a Green Arrow or an Aquaman back-up story... it had both! And the Green Arrow is by Jack Kirby. I guess in 1958 he wasn't tied down to Marvel yet, and besides DC I know he did the first few The Fly comics for Archie. Neal Adams is listed for the covers on #365-369, 371-373, 375-379. I had a pretty decent run of Adventure considering this was pre-eBay '80s where you had to really want a specific issue you hadn't run across locally to be willing to buy via the mail. I had that run minus #300 for the longest time, and it was the last one I added, and then I ended up selling stuff. I also had a sampling of Supergirl issues including the first, #381 and the giant #390. The worst condition issue I had was #311, complete but the cover was super-creased up, while some others were closing in on mint... most of it has been in the stock of a closed second-hand shop for a long time. I got so many comics through that which were like they had just been printed, Marvel, DC, Archie and Charlton... it was the weirdest experience holding something that seemed that old to me. The wildest experience was one 1943 Fawcett I had like that! It teaches you that near mint should be considered extremely rare from 1964 and earlier (well maybe 1962 and earlier for the DCs and Archies which had the widest distribution).
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Post by Farrar on Dec 11, 2019 21:46:55 GMT -5
^^^ The Legion was my absolute favorite DC feature back in the day. My cousins had a big stash of DCs, so thanks to them I was able to read a lot of the John Forte-illustrated issues. But my first, off-the-racks Legion comic I ever owned was Adventure #357 ("The Ghost of Ferro Lad"). And despite the spotty distribution in my neighborhood I then managed to get subsequent issues as they went on sale except for #361. Later on I somehow convinced my comic book-hating parents to get me a subscription to Adventure, the only time I ever subscribed to a comic. I was ecstatic! Of course, a few issues into the subscription the lead feature changed to -- Supergirl  ! I didn't mind her in the back-up slot in Action, but a whole comic full of her? No way! And IMO the Legion stories just went downhill when they were crammed into a few pages in the back of Action. Anyway, back in the day I had every new Adventure issue from #357-380 except for the aforementioned #361. I also bought some back issues from a collectibles store on my block. The oldest issue I had was #317 and then every issue from #332-#355 except for #348 and #349. My back issue collection included Adventures I'd, er, "borrowed" from my cousins (they had so many DCs, I reasoned they wouldn't notice a few of their comics missing here and there  ) That was then. Now, getting back into old Silver Age comics a few years ago, one of the first things I did was buy old Legion Adventures. I bought every issue from #300 - #380 --nothing fancy, just mostly good-and-better readable copies, from a few different online vendors. When I did this my credit card companies, bless 'em, contacted me to let me know about all the "suspicious activity!" |
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Post by dbutler69 on Jan 1, 2020 9:57:47 GMT -5
I was just reading the letter column for #50 of the Baxter series, and Levitz mentioned that they had planned on doing an Annual which would have told the untold story of the Legion's first battle with Mordru. However, first Greg LaRocque decided to leave the series, then Curt Swan, whom they wanted for this issue, was unavailable, so the issue got put on hold. As far as I know, it never did happen What a shame!!  I'd have loved to have seen that. I thought that Levitz did a very good job telling untold stories from the Legion's past, and either LaRocque or Swan would have done a great job on it. |
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Post by rberman on Jan 4, 2020 22:57:47 GMT -5
Are there great Legionnaire stories? What I mean is this: I was thinking about having a series of threads for voting on the best stories of particular characters. The best Superman story, the best Iron Man story, etc. With some teams, it seams meaningful to talk about the best stories for individual members, as with X-Men for instance. But as I thought about LSH, it seems that the most memorable stories were team stories. Is there a definitive Colossal Boy story? A don't-miss Phantom Girl tale? Etc. Just from memory, I'm not even sure I could name a dozen spotlight stories. The one I did think of was the Chameleon solo story from the Threeboot, which I reviewed here several months ago.  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 5, 2020 0:27:31 GMT -5
Are there great Legionnaire stories? What I mean is this: I was thinking about having a series of threads for voting on the best stories of particular characters. The best Superman story, the best Iron Man story, etc. With some teams, it seams meaningful to talk about the best stories for individual members, as with X-Men for instance. But as I thought about LSH, it seems that the most memorable stories were team stories. Is there a definitive Colossal Boy story? A don't-miss Phantom Girl tale? Etc. Just from memory, I'm not even sure I could name a dozen spotlight stories. The one I did think of was the Chameleon solo story from the Threeboot, which I reviewed here several months ago. Short answer, yes, and even in the Silver Age days, with which I'm most familiar. Off the top of my head, you have the saga of "Lone Wolf," the original name used by Timber Wolf, in Adventure 327. I'm compressing this, but he's like the character in the songs "He's a Rebel" and "Leader of the Pack" (no pun intended). You remember the lyrics to those, right? "He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good He's a rebel 'cause he never ever does what he should But just because he doesn't do what everybody else does That's no reason why I can't give him all my love" "My folks were always putting him down They said he came from the wrong side of town They told me he was bad But I knew he was sad That's why I fell for... The leader of the pack" Well, Lone Wolf was so bad he was good, and the LSHer who fell for him hard was Light Lass (nee Lightning Lass). Adventure 327 was just the first chapter in that tear-stained story. More like this later...  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 5, 2020 0:31:49 GMT -5
Just recalled another, rberman . Colossal Boy, who over the course of Adventures 371-2 was found guilty of betraying the Legion and expelled. (He was - SHOCKER! - doing it to protect his kidnapped parents, who'd been turned into glass statues.) The two issues focused not just on him, but on his parents as well.   |
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Post by dbutler69 on Jan 5, 2020 9:46:42 GMT -5
I just finished reading a story arc (basically running from LSH #43 through Annual #4) in the Baxter series where Chameleon Boy goes under deep cover to infiltrate Starfinger's gang. However, while it starts out as a Chameleon Boy solo mission, eventually Colossal Boy show up in it, then the rest of the Espionage Squad shows up at the end to pull Cham & Gim's fat out of the fire, so I don't know if you'd call it a solo story.
There's also Action Comics #378, where Timber Wolf gets addicted to some "fruit" though Light Lass plays a prominent role.
So, in both of these stories, it's a matter of what do you consider a "solo" story? Obviously this is a team book, and one with a huge cast, so there won't be a lot of solo spotlights, though Levitz did to quite a few spotlight issues in his second Legion run, mainly in the Baxter series but I think also in the other Legion of Super-Heroes before it changed to "Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes" and without looking them up, I thought most of them were very good (I recall Star Boy getting a spotlight issue, we got White Witch's origin).
While I love the principal of the idea, for the most part, I think most Legionnaires will have zero, one, or two "solo" stories, making it tough to compile a list.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 5, 2020 14:48:10 GMT -5
I just finished reading a story arc (basically running from LSH #43 through Annual #4) in the Baxter series where Chameleon Boy goes under deep cover to infiltrate Starfinger's gang. However, while it starts out as a Chameleon Boy solo mission, eventually Colossal Boy show up in it, then the rest of the Espionage Squad shows up at the end to pull Cham & Gim's fat out of the fire, so I don't know if you'd call it a solo story. There's also Action Comics #378, where Timber Wolf gets addicted to some "fruit" though Light Lass plays a prominent role. So, in both of these stories, it's a matter of what do you consider a "solo" story? Obviously this is a team book, and one with a huge cast, so there won't be a lot of solo spotlights, though Levitz did to quite a few spotlight issues in his second Legion run, mainly in the Baxter series but I think also in the other Legion of Super-Heroes before it changed to "Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes" and without looking them up, I thought most of them were very good (I recall Star Boy getting a spotlight issue, we got White Witch's origin). While I love the principal of the idea, for the most part, I think most Legionnaires will have zero, one, or two "solo" stories, making it tough to compile a list. And when the Legion was dumped into Action as a back-up after losing Adventure to Supergirl, the casts in those stories were often reduced to no more than three or four members. Then the focus would be on one or two of them, as in the Timber Wolf/ Light lass story. There was another romance story like that when Matter-Eater lad and Shrinking Violet have a moment. Back in the Silver Age, Star Boy and Dream Girl were the focus of his trial and expulsion in Adventure 342, with subplots continuing for a few issues until they were reinstated.. |
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Post by rberman on Jan 5, 2020 14:55:15 GMT -5
While I love the principle of the idea, for the most part, I think most Legionnaires will have zero, one, or two "solo" stories, making it tough to compile a list. That is what I was thinking as well. I can think of some done-in-one issues or backup stories which spotlighted a particular Legionnaire, but I can't say that they stand out. Part of the problem is that most incarnations of the Legionnaires retain their early Silver Age blandness, without distinct personalities. Attempts to fix this have never "stuck" for long, as with Threeboot Element Lad being a head-in-the-clouds philosopher. A few exceptions come to mind (serene Dawnstar, gentle Blok, loose cannons Wildfire and Timber Wolf, testy genius Braniac 5), but the exceptions prove the rule. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jan 5, 2020 17:44:54 GMT -5
Mon-El later had his own spin-off series under the name Valor, but I haven't read it nor know if any Legionnaires appear.
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Post by rberman on Jan 8, 2020 13:33:38 GMT -5
Even in comic books, dumb precedents get ignored all the time. Remember when this happened ( Action Comics #267, Jerry Siegel)?  That was super-dumb to think that if the Legionnaires met Superboy, then it would have to be a different generation of Legionnaires who met Supergirl. A different generation who had exactly the same powers, code names, and appearances as their parents. Dumb. So it was just forgotten. (Until Grant Morrison resurrects it for a gag in the near future. You heard it here first.) Funny you should mention that ... because DC's rebooted the Legion a bunch of times but never caught the balance between pleasing both old fans and new fans ... I've thought for some time this is how they ought to handle the series. Go back to the original continuity but gives us the next generation. Some of them would be almost indistinguishable from their parents, some with two Legionnaire parents might have powers combined in interesting ways, and some would be completely original. Bringing this discussion over to the LSH thread... those stories take place in the future, so I'm OK with the original characters or next gen characters, as long as they are characters with clear personalities. Even in the 40s and 50s, Warner Brothers knew that Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck should have different personalities, not just different appearances. |
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Post by hondobrode on Jan 10, 2020 20:10:12 GMT -5
Mon-El later had his own spin-off series under the name Valor, but I haven't read it nor know if any Legionnaires appear.
Did anyone besides me read that series ?
It was actually pretty damned entertaining.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 10, 2020 21:44:43 GMT -5
Mon-El later had his own spin-off series under the name Valor, but I haven't read it nor know if any Legionnaires appear. As did Karate Kid for 15 issues in the mid-70s as DC tried to cash in on the martial arts craze. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 11, 2020 4:31:05 GMT -5
Mon-El later had his own spin-off series under the name Valor, but I haven't read it nor know if any Legionnaires appear. As did Karate Kid for 15 issues in the mid-70s as DC tried to cash in on the martial arts craze. Yep, and I had all 15 issues, as well as the whole run of Richard Dragon, DC's other mid-1970s contribution to the martial arts craze (I purchased the entire runs of both from Lone Star's catalogue in 1981 or so, when the back issues were super-cheap - I don't think I paid more than $5 for both runs, more than 30 issues in all.) I hardly remember anything about either series, just that they were mostly mundane with pretty bland art, although I vaguely recall that Richard Dragon had a few good issues here and there. But to answer Beccabear's question, yes, the Legionnaires, including Superboy, did appear in a few of the later issues of Karate Kid, as did Robin if I recall correctly - the set-up for the series was that Karate Kid traveled back in time in pursuit of some villain, and then ended up hanging out for a while, because he thought the 1970s were groovy or something.
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! I didn't mind her in the back-up slot in Action, but a whole comic full of her? No way! And IMO the Legion stories just went downhill when they were crammed into a few pages in the back of Action. Anyway, back in the day I had every new Adventure issue from #357-380 except for the aforementioned #361.
)
I'd have loved to have seen that. I thought that Levitz did a very good job telling untold stories from the Legion's past, and either LaRocque or Swan would have done a great job on it.
