The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1921: Legion of Superheroes #64, January 1995

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 I don't have much to say about this comic. I've got a project that I'm going to start tomorrow, and it makes just talking blithely about superheroes feel a little unimportant.

But we'll get there tomorrow.

I may have to see about getting some more of this run some time. Putting Mark Waid and Tom Peyer together as writers on these titles is a stroke of genius. Both are absolute masters of superhero storytelling, and it shines through in the dialogue and interactions that happen across the two books. Again, it annoys me a bit that you need to read one to get the other - I can see where it would allow the writers some leeway in telling their stories, but it is, as I've said about the Superman books of the same era, completely unfair to fans and consumers who may only have limited amounts of investment, emotional and financial.

Okay, enough of the Legion for now. More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1920: Legionnaires #20, December 1994

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 Sadly, the Legion titles in this era appear to be doing the same thing the Superman titles did, and they continue their stories between series, the rest of this one being told in Legion of Superheroes. It pisses me off when companies do this. This, to me, is simply a way to force your readers to spend more of their money on your product, even though it's got to be plain to those in charge that many comics fans can't possibly afford such things. I was annoyed by it when Marvel decided that some of their comics would be published twice a month. The 90s Superman titles were the most egregious, stretching their stories over 3 (4?) monthly titles. For me, had I been collecting at the time and interested in Superman, this would have meant that I couldn't afford any other comics. Four continuing titles a month on one character (I'm looking at you, Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine) is just too much.

That said, the Legionnaires are successful in keeping Mano from blowing up the Moon, so let's call it a win.

One thing I am finding kind of intriguing about this LoSH future is that it's really not that different, socially, from our own time. Money still seems to be the driving force in the universe, governments appear to not be able to be trusted. I would have hoped we'd iron these particular problems out once we became an interstellar culture, but perhaps we're just not that smart. The number of people I've seen in the last few days just completely ignoring physical distancing or any other safety measures is frightening.

*sigh*

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1919: Legionnaires #19, November 1994

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It seems this story takes place in a soft reboot of the Legion, and focuses on Xs, a version of whom recently featured in The Flash television series. What I'm finding interesting is that the Nora Allen version of the character is actually my introduction to Xs, so this new old version is a bit off-putting. But that's just the way it is with superhero stories.

That aside, we join the story in the wake of a death, that of Kid Quantum, who I read a little bit yesterday. There was a lot of backstory stuff going on with the government that I didn't quite get, but Tom Peyer did what Tom Peyer does really well and there was some amazing dialogue in this issue. He's one of those writers who doesn't get the attention he ought to (though with The Wrong Earth, I would hope that changes), but he has a really deep and subtle understanding of the superhero. Hourman is just bloody brilliant.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1918: Legionnaires #12, March 1994

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I decided while I was looking for publishers from throughout the alphabet that I hadn't read any DC comics for far too long, and that I hadn't read any of my Legion of Superheroes stuff that's in the collection. So as a brief break from the indies, we'll have a look at some LOSH titles.

The most significant thing about this comic is that it came out around the same time I met my wife of the last 25 years. I hadn't realized that until just now, and it really gives a nice weight of time to the comic. A lot of the time I can't really reconcile, or I don't really reconcile, the distance in time a comic is separated from me when I read it. If I read a comic from the 50s, I have no context for the age of the piece, really. Even with comics from the 80s, the earlier parts of that decade are blurred with youth. But I definitely know where I was in early 1994, and what was happening in my life (and oh my gods, I was so tired of being in university at the time). So that's interesting.

It's also Chris Sprouse, who will forever have a place in my heart as the greatest Supreme artist of all time. Aside from his work on the second greatest Superman story ever, I'm always surprised to see Mr. Sprouse's work show up in early Image titles - his is not a stereotypically Image look. I think that's what I really appreciate about his art, though - he manages to convey both the human and the superhuman in his characters. They're definitely stylized characters, presenting the usual over-inflated physicality of the superhero, but at the same time their builds aren't outside of the realm of possibility for the realm within which they exist.

If that makes any sense.

More Legion to follow for the next few days.

Further Reading and Related Posts

A few other things I've written about Chris Sprouse's work.

And the scant posts I've written about the Legion, which will multiply this week!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1115: The Brave and the Bold (2007) #34, July 2010

We're rapidly approaching the end of my "season 2" of the Doom Patrol, though if I can find the issue that follows this one when I'm out at the comic store tomorrow, we might extend the season by a day.

Mr. Straczynski gives us a very faithful take on the DP in this 21st century comic - the quips are there, the gripes, the near coming to blows, but also the camaraderie these three characters share. I'm not 100% sure this is in the right place chronologically (which is funny given it's a time travel story), as there's no mention of either Mento or Beast Boy. This might actually place the Doom Patrol era section a bit before issue #100. Regardless, it's the original four in the team, adventuring with the original three Legionnaires to save the Earth of the future from a primeval black hole.

I'm curious about this series. I have a few other issues and it actually seems to be pretty cool. JMS is a fantastic comics writer. His Midnight Nation is fantastic, and his work on Amazing Spider-Man was very cool. I may have found another series (almost got all of The Warlord) that I need to track down.

*sigh*

But also "YAY!"

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 371: Secret Origins #46, December 1989

I don't know why I was convinced that the Morrison story in this issue was the Legion one, not the JLA one.

Yesterday I said we'd be looking at an indie comic short, but the issue of A1 that I was planning on reading was quite long, and I ran out of time, so we're looking at this one instead.

Technically, this is one of the earliest Grant Morrison Justice League stories, though his issue of Animal Man that featured the JLE might have come slightly earlier. I honestly have no idea whether or not the elements laid down in this story are ever picked up again - the basic premise is that the mountain that housed the original Justice League's headquarters is sentient, and contains a record of its entire history that is activated by sound. Morrison's iteration of the Doom Patrol briefly takes up residence here, but there is certainly no sentient mountaineering in that series, even though it would have fit the Doom Patrol's aesthetic very well.

The other stories of headquarters in this issue are quite good. We are given a look into Cyborg's memories of his father, who built Titans Tower. I'm not overly familiar with the Wolfman-era New Teen Titans, and whether or not Cyborg ever articulates the feelings he has when entering the tower the way he does in this story. It's a nice touch, and inflects Cyborg's character quite nicely. The Legion story in this issue is excellent, telling the tragic tale of Fortress Lad, who turns into a fortress to protect those around him - sadly, after transforming to protect the Legion, he has his memory erased, and simply becomes the Legion headquarters. Again, I'm not sure that this ever comes up again, but it certainly adds an interesting element to all of those old Legion stories and that big yellow building.

That's all for today. I'm very tired, and feel like everything I'm writing is awkward. We'll finish of Morrison Week tomorrow with A1 #3. Onward!

The 40 Years fo Comics Project - Day 263: Adventure Comics #492, October 1982

Not quite a random selection. Last night I was continuing to make my way through DC One Million, and I came across the Legionnaires tie-in, and realized that I haven't spent much time at all in my 30 years of comics fandom on the Legion of Super-Heroes. So I pulled out one of the old Adventure digests and got some Legion action. Oh, and Black Canary, Shazam, Aquaman, Spectre, Superboy, Sandman, and Supergirl.

It turns out that the project of this digest-sized version of Adventure was to reprint all of the Legion stories in the order they appeared, so this issue has their third and fourth appearances, one featuring Supergirl and one featuring Superboy. They were so-so superhero stories, very much indicative of the gentle, somewhat neutered story-telling of the early sixties. The Legion are still back-up characters in these tales, but later issues feature them on their own. I must admit that part of the draw of the One Million issue was the fact that Tom Peyer wrote it. He's one of those comics writers that I find mysterious. I've read other comics writers singing his praises, but I know next to nothing about the man himself. Though his run on Hourman was absolutely wonderful.

I may perhaps read a bit more Adventure tomorrow. They're 100 pages each, so it's a bit of a time commitment, but you get a lot of stories for such a little package. The ones in this collection featured such luminaries as Alex Toth, Jim Aparo, Jim Mooney, Gardner Fox, amongst others, which is also kind of a nice draw. I will say, however, that the Spectre story in this issue was completely flat. Did not enjoy it at all. But that's the nice thing about an anthology. There's always something else to read. See you tomorrow.