Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Rest in Peace, Dev-Em

One of our beloved teammates, David Sopko AKA Dev-Em, sadly passed away this evening after a very rapid illness. From his wife's Facebook page:


"Some of you may know and some may not but David went home to be with The Lord tonight. ... I was able to hold onto him and whisper into his ear how much I love him. I was able to pray over him. I cherish those last moments with him. He had fought hard. He was a wonderful husband, father, son and friend and I am grateful to God for every single second we had together. He was my best friend and the love of my life. He was a gift from God. I can't understand why God needed him back but I am leaning on my faith. Please keep our family in pray especially our kids as we try to navigate life without our wonderful teddy bear. I will post arrangements as soon as they are made. I love you David James. Thank you for the best 19 years of my life."


If you would like to help his family with affilated costs, a GoFundMe site has been set up at the following link:

https://www.gofundme.com/qz9mbvf8

God just, Dev was the first friend I really made on here.

Here is the GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/qz9mbvf8

I will always save a place at the big meeting table for you, friend...

How lucky we are to have known and interacted with this wonderful man! Goodbye, Dev.

I'll really miss him. He's been a major part of this community since its 2nd or 3rd week. I'm heartbroken.

Rest easy on Shanghalla now, big guy.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dev, albeit briefly. He had flown into Boston for a job in the area. I met him at the airport and although it was cold and snowing a little bit, I showed him around Boston a bit. And like every tourist, he wanted to see the Cheers bar. I groaned inwardly, but took him to see it.

I never had the chance to get to know Dev like many of you, but from what you guys have said about him, he seems like he was an awesome guy and member of this community. My thoughts go out to his friends and family during this difficult time.

R.I.P Dev-Em

Damn.

I really didn't interact with Dev as much as I would have liked over the years. He was incredibly creative and an amazing writer. I wish I had taken the opportunity to know him better.

Requiescat in pace.

Just donated. Horrible loss.

It seemed in the past few years Dev and I got pretty tight, a bit out of the blue, of course he has been around Since the earliest days of the LMB but we got text-tight, we'd live-text TWD and make fun or be amazed where appropriate, lol. I am the proud holder of his runs of Freedom fighters aND sECRET sOCIETY OF SUPER VILLAINS and these comics are SUPER MINT and beautiful. and were childhood favorites of mine, Dev was kind and thoughtful to make sure I got them, they are treasured even moreso now, buddy. Along with few other things Dev sent me. sweet, thoughtful and treaured. Dev will be missed by us terribly i can't even imagine how Jenn, Hannah and Jon are hurting.

You will be missed, friend.

I was fortunate enough to hang out with Dev a couple of times over the past couple years, once on his home turf with fellow posters Suddenly Seymour and Blockade Boy, and a second time a few months back when he was out in Pennsylvania for work. He was an amazingly funny and intelligent guy that I'm honestly going to miss so much.

Going through some photos this morning I found a couple that made me smile. The first is from the Michigan trip where we converged at Seymour's house to find that he had baked a batch of superheroes logo cookies... including ones with our LMB logos! Here's Dev with his (a half Durlan/half 5YL Daxamite one):



The other is from the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con when, walking the floor, I spied Dev's lifelong fan crush, Erin Gray. You might not remember this, but - for years, on the board he was "Dev Em" without the hyphen. Well... after I sent him this, from then on it was "Dev - Em" because "that's how she wrote it."



I am really going to miss you, my friend. Thank you for everything you gave us.

My thoughts are with his family at such a difficult time.

I'm heartsick. He was a great guy. Rest in Peace Dev. We will miss you very much.

I remember working on the Dark Oval Novella set in the LMB verse, and I introduced Kinetix while Dev introduced Thanagarian Angdar Fel.

At first I had Kinetix flirt with my Invisible Brainiac character to make my LMB-verse and real-life boyfriend Blaze jealous in the story. When I decided I had done enough of that I had IB foist Kinetix off on Angdar.

Dev took the ball and ran with it, and our characters have been tight in the LMB verse ever since.

We had quite a bit planned in the future... I will treasure that collaboration forever.

RIP Dave.

Candle sends her sympathies and love.

I called her last night the moment I learned what happened.

Thanks to Exnihil's travels for the chance to meet Suddenly Seymore and Dev-Em, a memory I treasure. Dev was a gracious giant all about his kids. I found much to admire in two short meetings.

God Bless and condolences to his family.

So when I heard he was sick with a rare disease, I looked forward to him getting better so I could tease him about his case of the Yorggian fever. I hate that I'm not going to get to.

I hate the fact that I'm not going to get to hear his opinions on the new Star Wars movie, because I know how enthusiastic he was about seeing it.

I'm going to miss seeing his posts here and on Facebook, and his regular changing of his photos there to whatever piece of pop culture he was thinking about that week.

This all seems to have happened so fast and so unexpectedly. To say I am in shock about it is to put it mildly.

I can't imagine what his wife and kids must be going through.

I am saddened at this great loss. He was a good friend to everyone who knew him here on Legion World.

All this and so much more. There's that prison story that he and I kept putting off and will now never be able to write together and never again being able to figure out what to do next with our Lon and Kalla power couple. And there's the fact that I will never be able to meet him in person.

In the end I loved the guy, and I and this message board will be all the poorer without him. But all that is not a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a percent to what his wife and kids face in the coming days, months and years. They have to face life without their husband and father, and that's where my empathy and grief ultimately reside.

Rest in peace, my friend, and I hope your family can find some way to move on without you.

My thoughts go to his posts about what the kids picked up at Free Comics Day and pictures posted of them in Halloween costumes. He was a good father who was so proud of his beautiful children. Hugs to all here at LW as we process this terrible loss.

Back when I had more time to play on Legion World I often found myself tag posting with Dev. His smart wit and joy kept me smiling. Through Facebook I learned that his LW persona was just a taste of the great person he was. I'd already been missing him here in the months he's been away.

I'm thankful to have known him, and my prayers are with his dear family.

Man, that is so not what I wanted to read when I woke up this morning.

I had been hoping so hard that he'd recover so we could do all the meet-ups that went unmet and a couple road trips we'd been talking about making.

Ex, thanks for sharing that photo. I was going through my pictures and couldn't find any from that day. I don't know what happened to them. Maybe I didn't take any of my own. But that was an awesome day.

We met up a couple times outside that, and he even did a bit part in the "Star Trek" fan series that I was in, but I feel especially bad now for not taking better advantage of our proximity. Most recently, we were trying to coordinate a weekend we'd both be available for Blockade Boy to come up.

My heart goes out to his family. I ran into all four of them at a con a while back, and the whole group is a treasure.