@needs , I think you're right about the Legion's immediate popularity. It grew over time with Legionnaires popping up in Smallville at first, sometimes in Adventure, sometimes in Superboy, even in Action, and then more full-fledged exploits in back-up stories until the Legion became the headliners in Adventure. (That may explain the constant presence of Superboy as the star in those first hundred pages. That's probably only a dozen stories or so, which just about takes them to they graduated to the cover of Adventure 300.

Obviously, however, Weisinger and DC felt that the strip needed Superboy as the draw, hence the logo with the Legion "co-starring" with him and his prominence on the covers. And that must have been the case when they made it back to co-billing with Superboy in 1980.

Once inside the book, though, Superboy was not a deus ex machina or the alpha hero; he was just one of the team, though respected by his teammates as the legendary archetype of teenage heroes. One of the great appeals of that Silver Age run was that Superboy just seemed like one more kid on the team. One indication? He was never voted LSH leader by the fans, IIRC.

Farrar would know that better than I, though.

This is what caused my confusion. I was under the impression that they moved away from being so Superboy-centric sooner. And I don't mind that I was mistaken; I am enjoying the stories and would gladly buy the omnis even knowing what I now know. I just don't feel like I'm reading LOSH stories and was wondering when that shift would come (if ever).

The fact that they also released a line of collections called Superboy & the Legion of Super-Heroes at the same time they were releasing the Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes omnis added to my confusion, as it lead me to believe the Superboy appearances were not the norm.

I always liked the Legion but it always felt kind of artificial cause you knew this was Superman as a teenager.

I'll never forget the cover of 259 with Superman flying off. It was that point where the title really took off IMO and I went from liking it to loving it, and it kicked into high gear with The Great Darkness Saga and this mystery villain I didn't know. I had only barely seen Darkseid in a couple of the later issues of New Gods where he looked different under Don Newton.

So I am making a second attempt (aftet two decades) to get into the Legion. I'm reading the Jim Shooter run first, and then I've got The Great Darkness Saga. Just reading the first issue of Shooter's run again, I find the whole thing a lot more appealing, fun, and imaginative than I did the first time around, but I still don't get the appeal of The Karate Kid. The visual look certainly isn't helping. I can understand how impressive it would be to stand toe-to-toe with all the supers just on your own skill and training, but the Legion is all about imaginative fancy, and neither the Karate Kid's powers nor depressingly muted colors seem to capture that.

Right now, I'm kind of loving the campiness and big imagination of the whole thing. I'd imagine that goes away by the time of the Giffen Era. I expect to love both runs for entirely different reasons.

I just finished reading the first Silver Age omnibus (the pre-Shooter stuff) and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Just good silly fun. Looking forward to revisiting the contents of volume 2 after I take a brief sojourn into some Conan stuff.

I've posted my love for the Legion in a few other places, but thought I'd finally add to this thread! Grew up on 70's Legion (still my favorite), lived the Levitz/Giffen years, read the Silver Age run in the Adventure Comics digests in the early 80's before later getting the Archives.

Besides the well-known creative teams and story arcs/events from those classic eras, there was a period from '84 to '85 I always found interesting. At that time, things were changing quickly. The Levitz/Giffen era had been exciting, but Giffen suddenly made the well-known art style change, there was the launch of the direct market series with Karate Kid going down, and we didn't know it yet, but this was the last hurrah before Crisis on Infinite Earths really made a continuity mess of things.

As many Legion fans from that era may recall, the regular Legion title was published with new content for one more year along side the new direct market series (it would become a reprint series after that before finally getting cancelled). But for that one glorious year, we had TWO Legion titles to enjoy each month!

Now, the direct market series was the flagship. The Legion of Super-Villains story arc, death of Karate Kid, return of Ayla Ranzz now Lightning Lass again...this was where all events of consequence were happening. The other series had more standalone tales spotlighting certain team members. Yet as I look back on it all, I think there was some great stuff there:

Legion of Super-Heroes #314

Begins a 3-part origin story for the White Witch (very awesome character), plus the reveal that a long-time Science Police character may be a double agent for the Dark Circle. I love the cover on this one!



Legion of Super-Heroes #317

One of my favorite Wildfire stories ever. Wildfire and the second Invisible Kid are trapped in another dimension, and dreams can become reality. As you can see from the cover, Wildfire has his human body back again in this! It also ties into the original Invisible Kid, Lyle Norg...very creative story! (had to edit my original post, kept calling Wildfire "Wildstar", can you tell I was watching Star Blazers last night?) 



Legion of Super-Heroes #318

Another great looking cover! Shadow Lass and Mon-El are on her homeworld Talok VIII, the Persuader of the Fatal Five is causing havoc.



Legion of Super-Heroes #321

First of an epic 3-parter featuring Dawnstar and Brainiac 5 lost in space! Another fun little story arc.



The year rounds out wrapping up the loose ends on the Dark Circle storyline, and then the title becomes a reprint of the direct market series. Looking back, again I think these were very much the last hurrah of the pre-Crisis Legion with a relatively lighter tone than some of what was going on in the other series at that time.