Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lardy's Roundtable: How forgettable or unforgettable was SLSH/LSH between Earthwar and Levitz II/Giffen?

Eryk I agree with of the points you made concerning comics audiences...


But I know one thing...as I was watching Iron Man a few weeks ago, the thought of how small the potential comics audience is was not crossing my mind at that moment...it was the exact opposite in fact.

People still read books(heck we read now more than ever thanks to the Web). They still read magazines, they still watch TV, movies etc...the only thing new since the Silver Age are video games and the web...but those haven't hurt book sales...I mean Harry Potter seems to do pretty well. So why would they hurt comics?

No newstand hurts, targeting older and older audiences hurts...but the audience is still there, if the comics are good.


I got a lot more to say...but for now I'll just say, the best selling Arhcie Comic(which is a digest) does over 100k sales per month in US Sales...which would place it in the top 10 of the direct market...and that 100k figure is roughly 25-40% of what Archie sold in the Silver Age....


The Legion sells roughly about 5% what it sold in the Silver Age, and struggles to stay in the top 60 books.


Archie is kicking it's butt...basically.

BTW, I'm not saying we should go after the Archie audience...but I'm saying I think some appeals trancend generations...a recognizable character will trancend generations.

I've been doing some research...near as I can tell, no version of Superboy and the Legion was ever anything less than a top 10 comic...at any point, in any era...not just a top 10 DC, but a top 10 in all of comics.


Belive it..or not.

I'll be posting some of these numbers at some point this week. Admittedly...I don't have all the numbers yet.


PS: Not to cram Superboy down you guys throats...but he is important. For the record Mon-El is my true favorite Legionaire, the retcon bothered me as much for what it did to Mon-El as for what it did to the Legion. I liked the introverted enigma...not by the by numbers hero Superboy imitation...why use an imitation? And who is going to replace Mon-El?

In order for that chart to be valid, one would have to look at sales for the entire comic book industry and see how they compare. What's important is seeing the trend of comics sales vs. the trend in Legion sales.

We all know comics in 1960 were hugely more profitable, but that's because of a variety of reasons. If you go back 10 years earlier, one rough estimate says one in four children collected comics in 1954 in the United States. I know because I used that fact in a grad school history paper once.

I've got the rankings for some of those eras and I will be posting them at some point this week.

The Adventure Legion was usually right @ a top 8 book in terms of total sales. Always in the top 10.

Easily the best selling team book of the Silver Age.

Sometimes doubling and even tripling the sales of titles like the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men and even the JLA. Right up until the end of their Adventure Run.

Far and away the #1 team book. In fact I think they were the #1 selling team book every year of the Silver Age they were in publication.



And then they actually moved up in overall ranking during the Cockrum era even as overall sales declined(at least among DC sellers they moved up.

Well...where the Legion ranks then, basically through the early part of the Levitz run, and where it ranks now is telling. That's what needs to be adressed. Sure the audience has shrunk...but the Legion's popularity has plummeted way more than any other Silver Age/Bronze age elite sellers.


Basically the Silver Age and Bronze Age Stalwarts are stil the dominant sellers to this day...with the exception of the Legion.

Yes, but he didn't say his story was falling apart. He just says that he tried to avoid a reboot, which was what TPTB seemed to have pushed. And it was hard. He was successful on that.

Obviously not smooth, but some of the best rock albums (such as Big Star's Third) were also done under very tough circumstances. This is no excuse for bad execution, however.

No, the backlash was due to the radical rethinking of the whole LSH concept from the point of view of the team being over 30 years old, almost 40, and how they would act and react under the worst time in the Universe. Most readers prefer classical "action" heroes in spandex.

As far as I read, the idea they would be clones was from the get-go. It wasn't one of the things they had to change.

He said he destroyed the Earth EARLIER than he pretended to vent his anger. The destruction of Earth was also a plot he had in mind from the beginning. As well as the return of Superman.

I think Geoff John's has got the right idea when it comes to bringing back something closer to the Original Legion's continuity.

The Pre-Crisis Legion and their overall concept endured and had many writers who built upon what was written before them.

Shooter built upon what Siegel and Hamilton did.

Levitz built upon what Shooter did.

and now John's is building upon what Levitz did.

As for 5 Years Later while it had used some of the Pre-Crisis history it was Giffen's vision and Giffen's vision alone,once he was gone so was his Legion,and then we get something like Legion on the Run.

One thing I do know is that Giffen is not going to return to the Legion and stay forever,So why should I invest in a Legion that will live and die with him,When I can have a Legion that will endure.

There are some people out there that seem to think there was no Legion before Giffen had written them.
As for me I seem to think there was no Legion after Giffen had written them.

There was no Legion after Giffen had written them? I agree with you. Basically because what we had were wrong directions handled by wrong creatives doing the wrong things.
Moreover, one can always argue if there has been a better Blue Beetle after JLI or a decent Batman after Frank Miller.
This talk of blaming Giffen for the demise of the original LSH never considers he left the book with sales still on pretty high levels and Legion on the Run was a stupid idea actually trying to "recapture the youthful optimism" of early LSH. It simply didn't make any sense and it was stupid (40-year-old heroes trying new nicknames and getting back new spandex, in a story that seemed written for 10-year-old readers? Puh-leez...).

Y'know if all this L3W stuff is really all about bringing back the Levitz-era Legion (or some semblance of it), I'm more than a little apprehensive beyond even my reboot weariness. Even though it would reconnect the Legion to young Kal-El (if not "Superboy")--and I've pinpointed his removal as the first domino in Legion's damnation--there are just too many reservations.

Maybe I can itemize them:

1) As I stated before, I'd like to see Shooter be given more of a chance to continue to work his magic on 3Boot since I like what I've seen so far. Good writing is always a good start to building sales, though far from a guarantee.

2) Can you really go home again? In many, many cases, we've learned the answer is no. Preboot continuity has been dead for around 15 years. Bringing it back now really feels like about 13 years too late.

3) Going back to that continuity means sacrificing a lot of the characterizations that we've gained since. I mean just look what's been done with Lyle and Trips, for example, since Zero Hour! Pre-Crisis Legion? Lyle's dead and Trips is the retired (and less interesting, IMO)Duo Damsel. These characters have been absolute revelations since Zero Hour--are we ready to put them back in the box?

4) As has been mentioned, does reinserting Superman mean we'll get a "Superman & the Legion of Super Heroes" book? I like having Supes as a part of their history, but I'm not ready to go back to him dominating the stories again, something he hasn't done in around thirty years.

5) How long will DC stick to this version? If they do this and it fails, will DC just dump the Legion once and for all?

Those are five off the top of my head. Any to add to the list? Anyone want to start itemizing the counter-arguments?

That's just the point...Shooter is writing a good Legion IMO. It's losing readers.

DC has basically made a 24 year commitment to trying to do a Supermanless Legion and they are finally giving up the ghost..either that or they are using Superman to boost the sales before anotehr divorce.


All the Legions since the Crisis have been rebooted for commercial reasons...that wasn't true of the original.


It depends on if you think that continuity has a somewhat timeless appeal...I tend to think it does.


Furthermore...Geoff Johns goes home again all the time. In fact he goes home and renovates the house making it more valuable than it was before all the time.

See his Hal Jordan revamp, his JSA(which is a better seller now rankwise than it ever was in the GA)...etc.

And he writes for modern audiences...

What Johns does is pretty simple...he easily figures out the popular aspects of books or teams that have been lost, he brings them back, and then he adds to them.

I don't think the Action Legion is selling well entirely because the old Legions are buying it...I think it's selling well with younger fans too.


To me characterization changes from writer to writer anyway...I seldom make that big of a deal about. Shooter started changing Waid's personalities with the first issue of his run.


And Duo Damsel was boring because Paul Levitz wrote her as boring...she was a fun a character when Shooter wrote her.

Why not just publish one with him and one without?


People don't not like the PC versions of the Legion because Superman wasn't a part of their history...as evidenced by the W&K Legion.


Don't know but even if DC were to give up...the Legion will be back again, it's got too extensive of a publication history to give up on.


Besideds...do you honestly think a version Superman in it is going to sell worse than any PC version?

It won't. It absolutely won't.


Just one...I am going to post some data that proves emphatically Superman is extremely important to the Legion and for that reason I feel that they should publish a Superman and the Legion title...and one that's more or less a Legion solo book...

IF DC was willing to give the worst selling version two montly titles...they ought to be able to try it with what was once the best selling version.


That should solve the I don't like Superman in the Legion problems. Seems fair enough...the fans that don't like Superman don't have to read the one with him in it...


This debate is not new...if you look in the lettercols of like, Adventure #304, there is some guy saying he doesn't like Superman overshadowing the Legion...he's saying the exact same things Legion fans say now...


I think that guy, like he is now, is a typical hardcore Legion Fan, and I think Superman isn't really that important to the hardcore Legion fan, but I don't think the audience of hardcore Legion Fans is substantial enough for DC to commit to it any longer...


I mean DC gave Legion Fans their pure Superman Free Legion...and they are worst selling Legions ever...in total sales, and in sales rank.


And I'll have the numbers to back that up at some point this week.

Like I said earlier in this thread..from what I'm seeing, I don't think any version of Superboy and the Legion was ever anything less than a top 10 comic...all the way up till he was finally removed from the book.


Two books...one with, one without.

I'll even go that the one with, can be past stories...since Superboy wouldn't really match up age wise with the Legion in the Action Legion.

And Superman and the Legion just isn't quite the same as Superboy and the Legion IMO. So I'd rather it be Superboy than Superman....which pretty much means it has to be based in the past.

Yeah, but the problem is that DC can't currently use the name "Superboy" because of the lawsuit being pursued by the estate of Jerry Siegel.

So I guess you'll have to use another posting I.D.!

I want to elaborate on this a bit more...I think the Legion Fan base is actually two fan bases. I think this has always been the case.

There is the hardcore fandom...that organized, that made the Legion more than just a throwaway concept...

These guys are the fans that really impacted DC's view of the book. They were the ones writing all the letters, keeping hte Legion from being forgotten, they were ones that organized and even got into comics over the Legion. They, in large part don't really care about Superman...in fact they don't really even like him. Plenty of Legion fans fit this description...and it's not a new trend in the fandom. It's as old as the Legion itself.

I know some fans that don't consider anything after the Adventure Legion as the real Legion...and even they don't think Superboy is that important. So this anti-Superman slant on the part of some Legion fans...it's almost a tradition.


And then there is a second part of the fandom, the part that are Superman fans. These guys are not the vocal segment, they aren't the letter writers, they aren't the ones that get organized and put out APA's...but there are a lot of them and they are the ones that have made the book an elite seller...like the hardcore fandom...they are both old and new fans.


I think the hardcore Legion fans were the ones that made DC think the Byrne reboot wouldn't be the problem...and I think the other segment ceasing to purchase and losing interest in it, it were the ones that let DC know it was indeed a problem. It's the only thing that makes sense to me when analyzing the sales history of the Legion.

I'm the second type...maybe a little different because I am a fan of the Legion and have bought every incarnation...but I definitely liked the ties to the Superman mythos. I like Superman better with them, and I like the Legion better with them. And I never felt it necessary to become heavily involved with the fandom or write a bunch of letters...until the LS Legion...and that's I don't want DC to keep making the same mistake.


I can certainly understand the view by the hardcore Legion fan that I am a Superman fan and not a Legion fan since I seem to care so much about those ties...but the fact remains, the hardcore Legion fans don't buy the title in sufficient numbers to keep the book from being revamped...and even when they do, a good deal of them are just as unhappy with the PC Legions for reasons entirely unrelated to Superboy.

IOW...
There must be peace between our two tribes...we need each other to stop the continual rebooting. And shame on you guys anyway. Superboy was an original Legionaire...it's the truth.

The hardcore fans...they make the book special, but my segment, they make it special to DC. We need each other...and the solution is simple, 2 books.


IF DC puts out a Superman and the Legion book it will sell better and more consistently than any version since they removed Superboy...

I am 100% convinced of this.

I am convinced it will sell in the 60-80k monthly range, possily more...and I am convinced that a second title anchored to it will put up the 25-30K numbers that have bought the PC Legions.

I am also basing my opinion on a great deal of historical data as well as my own instincts. Not to mention the fact that...obviously, Superman is a pretty important comic book character.


I'm so convinced of this that I think it's actually more important than saving the continuity. I think you could put Superman in the W&K Legion and it would sell better than an "original" version of the L without....And honestly...every thing you can do with a Supermanless Legion has been done, tried...and cancelled or rebooted. Those books didn't fail because the writers were bad...the writers were very good.

LOL! Actually, based on the latest ruling DC is soon going to be having just as many problems using the Superman name as they are the Superboy name. This entire debate may soon be rendered moot for all time...

I agree on what Superboy said about Johns: While I'm not familiar with most of his JSA stuff (yet! I'm going to hunt this stuff down issue by issue ), I really thought that his Sinestro Corps War was simply splendid - a shining beacon of light in an industry plagued by Countdown and Planet Hulk...

So if Johns is as respectfull to the Legion characters as George Perez pointed out in a recent interview, we might actually be hopeful for what's to come...

This is a useful discussion, to be sure. And I HAVE really enjoyed most of Johns writing in the last 6 years (having started with his first JSA trade in 2002). I enjoyed his Action Legion. The characters were written almost pitch perfect. But the costumes were hideous 80s pastiche and the science fictional elements were somewhat lacking. It felt TOO nostalgic, TOO old-fashioned. Not enough contemporary edge to it. I've truly appreciated the effort that Waid, Kitson, Bedard, Calero, Shooter and Manapul have put into giving the 3Boot a more contemporary futuristic feel, if that makes any sense. Johns's Action stories read a bit more like 1060s pre-Shooter stories in terms of their science fictional elements. So, I want a Legion with a connection to Superman, with the camaraderie that Johns can clearly write, but with the more contemporary feel of the 3Boot. And the Legionnaires HAVE to be kids/young adults. They CAN'T be Superman's age, unless the current DCU Supes is 21 years old. Nor do I particularly want to read a young Legion with an older Superman. That has bad boy band creepy connotations to it. Oh, and those Franks costumes HAVE to go.

Exactly. Here's the problem: the best versions of each character aren't all from the same universe. Not that I want to see an amalgamated Legion - that won't satisfy anyone. But in most comic series, concepts get refined and revised over time. And the early versions aren't always the best.

I miss the Gim that used to be in the SP academy, and had friends in the SP. I miss the Jo that got framed for the murder of An Ryd.

And yet I also like Shikari way better than Dawnstar, and like any version of Lyle better than Jacques.

Then there's the characters that leave me completely on the fence. Dream Girl, for instance. I love the vampy Marilyn-esque character who dated Thom. I love the absent-minded combat precog we saw in Threeboot issue 3. Even the idea of mixing them together somehow by having Dreamy learn how to dream while awake, a la 'Dreamer' could be an interesting storyline.

Given the nature of her powers, Dreamy might be the most likely to actually be merged across timelines / probabilities...

I think you make a valid point on the costumes...

I remember when Cockrum put out his costumes they blew the socks off all the old style comics costumes from the Silver Age.


And it was an even better contrast when they were on the same page with the iconic cosume of Superman.

I remember the first time I saw the Cockrum Legion...I was like, who are all those freaks with Superboy? I didn't even recognize them as the Adventure Legion I had first read in some old comics lying around my grandmother's house.


I'd like to see some artist just come out with the most aboslutely freakist costumes he could come up with...I mean, this is a thousand years in the future after all.

Not a fan of Frank's redesigns as they aren't particularly imaginative or inventive. I like a lot of what Kitson did, even though they are very Swanian in nature IMO, and Francis has dome some extremely nice redesigns.


But when those Cockrum costumes came out, they were really unlike anything else on the market that came before...they definitely looked futuristic at the time.

And then he went over to Marvel and really went crazy with creating some freaky costumes and characters...and that's when the X-Men surpassed the Legion on the comics radar.


But it's kind of ironic that the freakyness of the Bronze Age, the look I should say, began in a Superboy title edited by Murray Boltinoff of all people....from all accounts I have read he was the oldest of the old school editors.


I suppose I should mention Kim Metzger in this as well...I still love his Saturn Girl Pink Bikini. It fit in well with those Cockrum redesigns.

Hmm...maybe we should get the guy who redesigned the costumes for the TV show...he did a pretty good job of creating some new ones.

Maybe we should just do a fandom contest - didn't they implement some of the fans designs in the sooner 70s?

(no, I DON'T have a design for Phantom Girl ready )

I'm not to crazy about Gary Frank's costumes either.

Dave Cockrum was in a league of his own at creating costume's.

And just for a little anecdotal evidence of what we could lose if we go back to pre-Crisis Legion more or less exactly as it existed at the time, I'll refer to the surprising Final Three of Future's Legion of Three Worlds Survivor game:

3rd Place: XS

2nd Place: Gates

1st Place: Postboot/Zero Hour Invisible Kid

This was a very popular thread, heavily participated in by Legion Worlders and encompassed all Legionnaires from all three major "worlds", including each version of the same character as separate vote-getters. And our finalists were all from the Zero Hour reboot Legion. And, of those, that version of Lyle was most popular.

Well, we'd theoretically lose him forever if the LS version becomes the definitive one and follows the pre-Crisis timeline. Obviously, this is because Lyle is dead in that timeline. One of the benefits of the reboot undeniably was getting him back and getting a version of the character fans could embrace, as his win in the contest helps illustrate.

Could XS and Gates be incorporated as later additions to the pre-Crisis Legion. Perhaps. But it would sure give that 'amalgam' vibe to it that we seem to disapprove of, as would "un-killing" Lyle or having that Triad persona grafted on to Duo Damsel.

That's part of what I meant about not being able to go back home and what could hurt as much or more as heal about such a solution.

I wouldn't miss them a bit. As I don't now. To each, its own. However, LSH was never about a single core team. Which means that, even in the case a version of the Pre-Crisis Legion becomes the survivor, there is really not a reason not for adding these characters down the road. So, before an Amalgam LSH turns up, I'd rather see a consistent one being added with "newer" characters.
And for the record, the first reboot was so bad to my accounts that I wouldn't bring back a single character. The first reboot is my personal Karate Kid (after Giffen).

This has been an interesting (and surprisingly civil) discussion. I know that DC employees check out the DC boards for feedback, and I hope that some of them make their way over here from time to time, too.

Regarding the whole Superboy and the Legion debate, it was the mentality of DC in the 60s and 70s that people were really buying the Legion to read about Superboy, and that the Legion were mostly tag-ons. Obviously, if you're a fan of the Legion, you reject that theory, but it isn't all hogwash. Superboy is a draw for some people, and if including Superman in a potential deboot makes it more appealing to today's readers, then I'm all for it. I think the original Legion has been away long enough now that, for some people, it's the same as a new property, and if Superman is the hook that gets them to pick such a title up, then great.

Regarding Superboy as a sales force, it should also be pointed out that the Legion kicked him out of his own book twice, so if he was such a hot seller on his own, that wouldn't have happened. In 1980, when Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes was divided into two titles (remember The New Adventures of Superboy title? The one with Kurt Schaffenberger art?), Superboy's solo book was cancelled in 1984 due to poor sales, and that requires a bit of an explanation of its own. Here goes...

Back in those days, DC would keep certain titles around at a loss if they felt that a certain character needed to maintain a presence for licensing purposes (Wonder Woman is the best example of this), and I think Superboy fell into that category. The great fact about that era is that Marvel would cancel any title that sold less than 100,000 copies, and DC only had three that sold above it: Titans, Legion, and Batman and the Outsiders. By all accounts, DC was heavily subsidized by Warners back then, a company which acknowledged DC's existence like you'd recognize a pair of old socks in your drawer - you know you have them, you just don't think about them until you stumble over them.

The reason for Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985 was that DC, as a comic book publisher, was soundly getting its ass kicked by Marvel. The hope with Crisis was that, coming out of it, Marvel fans would cross the floor to DC because DC just wasn't cutting it with DC fans alone. Marv Wolfman's original idea was that every DC title would start over with # 1, as if DC was an entirely new company, and let's face it: back then, DC had nowhere to go but up.

So what does all of this have to do with Superboy? Well, Crisis was planned in 1984 for release in 1985, and '84 was when Superboy was cancelled. The original plan was to relaunch both Superboy and Supergirl (another sales dog) as DC Double Comics, and work was even begun on it, but when the Supergirl movie bombed, that was the last nail in the coffin of that character. DC Double Comics was cancelled before it was published, and we all know what happened to Supergirl.

So what's my point? This: Superboy, as a solo character, was not necessarily successful. It's not like putting Wolverine in the Avengers. That being said, having him (or Superman) in the Legion certainly doesn't take sales away from the book, and it can only add them. There's a reason why Batman and the Outsiders sold better than Batman back in the day: you get two groups of fans buying the book instead of just one. Superboy without the Legion didn't do as well as with, and vice versa. So if you put 'em together, you hedge your bets. At this point, anything that holds the line on sales is considered a step forward since sales are slipping every month, and if sales then go up, now that's considered progress.

All the arguments regarding losing Lyle Norg or somebody else in a deboot may be countered with regaining Jacques Foccart, Tellus, Quislet, etc.. Everybody's got favorite characters, and keeping a comic around for one (or more) of them isn't a particularly compelling argument since we're talking about fictional people.

Let's say that the current status quo is maintained, and that down the line someone decides to kill Lyle. If that's the deal breaker, I think it's a particularly flimsy one. Then you don't have the Legion with Lyle, and you don't have the original Legion, either. It's like buying a baseball team based upon a certain player. What if he gets injured? What if he leaves as a free agent? Where are you then?

Comic books get cancelled all the time, and fans of characters have to learn to move on. I get that the Legion is different since it will always be published in one form or another as long as DC is around, so the expectations are different, but even then, Legionnaires have died or have been written out of the series before. People can't put all of their hopes (or even some of them) on specific characters within a team title. It doesn't make any sense.

First of all Glen, that was an excellent and insightful post and some of the points in the latter part of the post were extremely insightful to myself.


That said...I am going to challenge some of your points here.

It is absolutely an ironclad fact that Superboy was the major draw in the Silver Age...his solo title was the second best selling title of the Silver Age.

And furthermore, Weisinger experimented with it by publishing Legion Adventure issues without Superboy on the cover, by removing Superboy from the Legion, he did it in Adventure, he did in Action...and it didn't last long. He knew beyond all doubt that Superboy(and Supergirl) on the cover meant better sales and he was pretty forthcoming with that information when asked.

In fact there was a such a disaparity that's what lead to the Legion being put in Action, where it made no sales increase at all.

Without a doubt Superboy improved sales, and I see scant evidence anywhere in the history of the Legion that they(including SuperGirl) didn't...


I see evidence 100% of the time that removing Superboy hurt sales, and of course it would.


But just for the record...

Superboy's solo title outsold the Legion every single year of the sixties, by a substantial margin.


Furthermore, I don't think it's a case of Superboy being kicked out either time...I think it's a case of DC not having faith in the Legion to carry it's own title in a relaunch. They wanted a smooth transition and figured it would be easier to relaunch a Superboy solo feature than it would a Legion feature.


Trust me...more people know who Superboy is than the Legion.


They always moved Superboy into another title...when they moved him out of the Legion.

The day the Bronze Age SLOSH Legion Comics became Superboy and the Legion, DC moved Superboy into the Superman Family Book...then he went back to Adventure, and then he got his own book. That is not the progression of a failing character.


Along the way...Superboy Special in 1980 was the first comic in history by DC or Marvel, to be distributed entirely through the direct market.


That is also not the earmark of a character DC doesn't have faith in.

No there is everything to indicate Superboy was a popualr character and a draw, that's why he was in print in 1 to 2 titiles per month, for the better part of 40 years. Something else else equalled only by Superman, Batman, and Spiderman.


Now as for what happened to Superboy in the 80's...that wasn't just Superboy, that was the entire Superman Franchise.

Why? There was a period when they went back to a Silver Age Style of story telling. They had Swan and Schaffenberger revert to a more Silver Age Style...and it was a disaster that lead directly into he Superman revamp.

Why was it a disaster? Because the stories were trying to mimic almost indentically a Silver Age style...

The difference being the Silver Age Style wasn't 20 years out of date in the Silver Age as it was in the 80's.


In particular those Superboy stories...those were saccharine and vanilla even by 1950's standards. And they weren't even getting the SuperCool Neal Adams and Nick Cardy Covers like they were in the Silver Age.



At the same time...you do get the oddity of seeing Frank Miller and Andy Kubert as unhearladed secondary artists on a title being pencilled by Kurt Schaffenberger.


They didn't just remove Superboy from the Legion, they also removed Superman from the Justice League later on...

And it bottomed out and that was the first time in history Superman sales dipped below 50k per month.

Didn't turn out too well for the (Detroit)Justice League either.

Horrible miscalculation on DC's part...but the bright side is that right before all that, Alan Moore wrote a couple of Supewrman stories, and those stories were the best Superman stories of the decade IMO.


False...Superboy was the character they knew they could put into his own book and sell. In fact they did so.

They tried a Legion Reprint Series in the Early Seventies..and it lasted 4 issues...now either that was the first mini-series in history, or that was a failed attempt to launch a solo Legion title from #1 on..


Like I said earlier...that book was completely done in a Silver Age style..20 years after the Silver Age was over...on top of that, a signifigant portion of his mythos, the Legion, had been stripped away from him.

Superboy was in his own TV show and had his own solo comic within months of the Byrne retcon...he's been on TV for a 8 years now.


He was extremely successful, in fact I'd say in the hsitory of DC, he's only been surpassed by Superman and Batman.

And his team book the Legion, was the top selling team book in the DC Universe as long as he was in it...including outselling the Justice League.


It's never been the top selling team book without him. Not once. And it's never been anything but the top seller with him in it as a full member...not once.


I agree with all that...but I do disagree with your point that Superboy wasn't a draw, and I can prove it as well...he was a tremendous draw. He was a better draw than Batman at the time he was last a full member.


And you're right, Superboy didn't do well without the Legion...but the Legion hasn't exactly torn up the comics univese when he was removed...and his removal their continuity caused a drop in sales and sales rank from which the Legion has never recovered.

Superboy lasted 54 issues in his worst performance...how long has the Legion gone without a major reboot without him? And what's it's worst title performance?