Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! The Very First Legion

I recently ordered...well, a LOT of Legion comics from eBay. The complete Legionnaires series, and the complete volume 4 of Legion of Super-Heroes (both of which came with annuals, Secret Files, and issue 0), the Inferno mini, the Legends of the Legion mini, Legion Lost, Legion Worlds, and The Legion. It's finally all gotten here (I'm still waiting for the Science Police mini to arrive, but meh) and I'm starting to read it all.

Along with the LoSHv4 came, from the "Silver Age Classics", a reprint of Adventure Comics 247--the first appearance of the Legion.

It. Was. Hilarious.

Superboy is taken into the future, because he is the greatest hero of all time and the very inspiration for the Legion. But instead of honoring him and giving him incredible praise and worship, what do they do? Demand that he prove to them he's a hero, and in the process screw with him by arranging so that he'll fail each and every test they give him.

Wow. How far we've come.

You should read their second story, where they travel back to the past to honor Superboy, discover that he's destined to commit horrible crimes, cruelly turn the entire town of Smallville (including his parents and dog) against him, and then imprison him for the crimes he hasn't yet committed!

Wow. The Legion is a group of cruel, heartless bastards.

And what about all the kids with powers that were actually more useful than ones owned by certain Legionnaires being publicly humiliated at all those tryouts.

In fact I think Imra and Brainy were the Simon Cowell of UP Idol. To top it all off they provided rejects with obsolete de-certified Legion flight belts shown to be potentially dangerous to the user.

In a way rejects were figuratively told to Farg Over and Die.

One of the great Legion traditions - heartless rejection of wannabes. I've wondered if, in the age of Comics Code, this was meant to teach young kiddies to deal with failure. Not everyone can win. Get rejected and start your own group. Or become a supervillain....

C&D, you have a serious lot of reading ahead of you. Have fun with it all!

These early stories absolutely crack me up. Wait till you see them use the planetary chance machine! *BONK* I'm mission leader!

Well, here's a dissenting voice.

In the original #247, they never doubted his abilities, but they had questions about his character, and devised an extremely harsh means of testing it.

In the just-aired cartoon version, they doubted both his character and his powers, and if not for Saturn Girl, would have lost to the Fatal Five and probably lost "Superman" for all time. Which is actually worse?

As opposed to the current mentality, "anyone who thinks they are a Legionnaire is a Legionnaire...". What the hell kind of fairyland are we selling our children? You're all winners... you're all part of the team...you there, your job is to make sure this evil bench doesn't try to stand up!

Bah like kids who read comics believe that "socialist egalitarian, we're all winners" dribble Craig .

Comic Fandom is pretty much a subset of every kid that was chosen last when picking teams for the softball game.

It's evident in hindsight it was actually Superboy Prime they witnessed on their monitors committing all those horrible crimes. Those silly kids could have prevented Infinite Crisis 47 years ago if only they'd imprisoned the right Superboy!

And think about it! Imprisoning Superboy Prime would have caused E-1 Superman to die on Earth-Prime during that annoying COIE crossover...and without him, might the Anti-Moniter have won?

...

Hmm.

I want to start reading the original stories, so I'm torn. Do I search for very early runs on ebay...or do I get the archives?

Buy the Archives.

Especially if you can get them at a discounted price, they're going to be much cheaper than the original issues.

Yeah keep your eyes peeled for discounted archives. They turn up occasionally on E-bay.

I. Am a freaking. eBay addict.

Went on to check to see if there were cheap archives available. Got archives 2 and 3 for an average of 18 bucks each (not great, but decent, I suppose...) although that doesn't include shipping. I lost the other auctions, so I went onto Amazon and bought archives 1 and 4 for a combined total of 50 bucks and change (now, this includes shipping).

This is more money than I planned to spend, but oh well. I'm definitely intrigued by the Legion, and I've already got all of the "postboot" Legion comics (well...except for cameos/guest appearances) and all but two issues of the "threeboot" Legion (and I plan to buy the first TPB, fixing that problem). Might as well start getting the original Legion (of which I only have the first appearance and the 5 Year Later issues--where I have NO clue what's going on...)

5yg was SO cool! (I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to that though)

Curse Jeanette Khan!

-heh-
Wait 'til you guys see the Moby Dick of Space! Marvel Lad! ..or was that Legionnaire Lemon? Venturian Walking Money! Banyo Fruit!

Some of those early stories are a real treat...others are a laugh a page. Great stuff!

I started the first issue of the 5YG, and I was definitely intrigued. Problem is, I've got no clue what's going on, who the characters are (I mean...I know who they ARE, but I don't know their personalities or histories in this version), etc. So I'm confused while reading it.

That's a common problem, from what I understand.

But it was worse for me, since I ended up going through the series in a more-or-less random order. I was trying to catch up on back issues since the Legionnaires series was where I started collecting the new comics. Didn't have much luck with the process.

Now get Archives 5 & 6 & read 1-6 in order. While the 1st 4 are great, new characters "come & GO" in some amazing stories in Archives 5 & 6. That will really give you an awesome foundation to build off of on the rest of the series.

I might even venture into the 5 Year Gap at that point. While not ideal, at least you will know who most of the people are that they are talking about!

The downside of the Archives is no letter columns, BUT that can be fixed here: The Legion Outpost Letter Columns
thanks to Jo & Terri-Anne Sanning

Read, enjoy, stop back as you go and let us all know what you think.

Boy I miss reading those for the 1st time, all over 20 years ago!

LLLater!

Archives 5 & 6 are definitely my favorites of the run.

I always thought the best Archive Vol 1 story in terms of goofiness was the Legion of Supervillans. Especially the way Jerry Siegel wraps that one up. Rings of Saturn???!?!?! "Yeahbuhwah?"

I recieved the first Archive in the mail on...was it Friday? I think so. I read it, and once I got into the goofy, campy groove of the old comics style, I absolutely loved it. I even started experiencing suspense, something I didn't know was possible with those old comics after I've experienced today's comics.

My favorite story...I thought it would be the Mon-El stories, but it wasn't. I really enjoyed the ones involving Supergirl, but I forget what one I enjoyed the most. It's on the tip of my brain, but I just can't identify it!

Oh! Yeah. It was the one with the "traitor on the team". That one, tied with when Saturn Girl was team leader.

I just got volume 4 in the mail today, but I'm still waiting for volumes 2 and 3 to come before I start reading it.

For money reasons, I didn't order any other ones yet, just the first four. I'll get 5 and 6 later.

Yay! I love it when new people discover this stuff!