Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! What's your Legion-reading roadmap?

I checked out with the preview issue of Waid's threeboot.

I have, however, read three issues since then, including Shooter's first issue back. None changed my mind.

Maybe we should start a thread called "What's your Legion roadblock?"

Maybe I did.

Do you have/have you had a Legion-reading roadBLOCK?

Sometime in 1964 I was was given a stack of coverless comics that included Adventure 267, 290 & 318. The first issue I bought at a newsstand or rather the grocery store was Adv 367 in 1968. I bought them off and on up thru part of their Action Comics run when I stopped buying comics altogether. Then in Feb 73 I spotted LSH Vol. 1 #3 at Shinders in downtown Minneapolis & I've been buying them ever since.

Not a Hoax, Not an Imaginary Tale ... the Secret Legion Fanboy Origin of FUTURE

My Legion history includes several yearly encounters well before I actually gave the team a shot.

It's around 1993. I'm a young fanboy and thus I'm reading Wizard Magazine like it was a heroine hit. An advertisement in an issue for the "Legionnaires" title catches my eye. The team was big, the art was pretty, and the characters looked young and fun. Even as a young boy (I was 9, mock accordingly), I thought how awesome that book must be. Allowance and a short attention span got in the way, and not even ten minutes later I had forgotten about the Legionnaires.

In 1994, I'm going with my father to visit a gentleman from church. This fellow happened to be a 'former' comic fanboy. His hallways were lined with white long boxes, packed up and ready for an inevitable sell whenever he got around to it. I recall being mesmerized by the sight. I was too afraid to touch the boxes or open them (as they weren't mine and my mother raised me right), but couldn't look away from a random loose comic sitting on top of one of the boxes. It was a beautiful painted cover, the silhouettes clearly superheroic characters proudly hoisting a 'Superman' flag into the sunset. Again, I was young. I was 10. Yet somehow it just 'clicked' that the cover was beautiful and that book was important. The "church friend" must have noticed how I kept looking, because a few weeks later he brought it to church and more or less told my father I "was supposed to have it." It was a pristine copy of Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #38, the death of Superboy.

Not that I knew that at the time. Legion of Super-Heroes didn't mean anything to me at that point, I didn't make the connection to the Legionnaires, and I'm pretty sure I only read it maybe once ("This double page spread has the same guy twice!" being my only impression of the book, able to notice the similarities between Magnetic Kid and Cosmic Boy) before I ultimately put it away in a long box and forgot about it.

In 1995 (I told you this would get yearly), I'm at a Waldenbooks or some other store in the mall. I'm bored and hanging by the spinner rack. The cover of Impulse #3 catches my eye with the style of art and look of the main character. It was a done-in-one issue. I loved it and was immediately hooked. Cut to six months/issues later, when Impulse has a meeting with his cousin from the 30th century. Exciting! She looked pretty cool and was a lot of fun. She had super speed too and could fly (despite the fact Impulse #9 had a clear shot of her flight ring when she was flying, I had no idea it was because of the ring). I was really grooving to the new direction of Impulse with XS. Then the worst thing happened - XS parted ways and said she had to go home. Nooooooooo. I'm distraught about XS leaving, yet for some reason I'm oblivious that she had another title she was going to. I continue collecting Impulse in ignorance XS was somewhere else.

In 1996, I'm at a comic shop with some time to kill after my usual purchases because of the weather. I scan through the alphabetical racks of books, having just picked through the latest JLA mini-series I'm sure, when I spot Legionnaires #41.

Suddenly, everything clicks. Live Wire is front and center and with the Legionnaires logo I immediately remember him as the prominent character in the ad I liked in Wizard three years before. I notice the hand buried in rubble he's looking at, with brown skin and a white glove. I see the L* logo and it suddenly clicks - that's XS. I flip open the book. Holy crap, it's XS! The issue features the team recovering from an unknown (for me) event with half the team apparently missing! So many members! And they're from different planets? And there's a funeral for someone? I've missed so much!

That should be discouraging for most new readers, but my childhood consisted of Transformers and X-Men. I was used to watching a cast of brightly colored dozens in mid-story and having to dig deep to understand who did what or where they came from. I was hooked, yet somehow put off collecting the LSH title until Impulse guested in it. By the time the Legion of Super-Heroes floodgate opened, my back issue hunting began in earnest. Shiny covers and nice deals made me a fan of the Adventure, TMK, and Baxter Legion days. I dived into each reality, more turned on than off by the challenge of them.

I remember wincing, at 13, when I realized my Baxter Legion collection may never be complete - I was missing the death of Superboy two-parter and at the time those back issues were a pretty penny. Then it hit me, and after several years in the back of a longbox I unearthed the gift "I was supposed to have" from years earlier - LSH #38, still in great condition despite myself.

While my back issue hunting has died thanks to the marvels of the Legion Archives and the Internet, my love for the Legion hasn't dimmed since I picked up that issue of Legionnaires #41. I had periods where I stopped reading for a bit, but even during those spells I would still doodle my future pals and read back issues.

Now you know (and knowing is half the battle)...

I'm amazed you remember all that, Future. I'm only three years younger than you are, but most of the details have slipped from my memory.

What I do remember was starting with the SW6 Legion. I was confused - I picked up Legionnaires 1, but this team seemed to have been around for a long time. And why did Chameleon boss the others around? What the heck happened to Earth? Why did the text pages for Legionnaires 3 mention a Valor who didn't appear in the books??

Even with all these questions, I enjoyed Legionnaires 1-8 for what they were. Then I picked up some Postboot issues (Legionnaires 62 was my first, I think) and got hooked.

I scoured back issue bins for more. I picked up the last 3 parts of End of an Era (Legionnaires 18, Valor 23 and LSH 61) and understood that the universe had rebooted, which was why LSH 62 and Legionnaires 19 onwards seemed so... different.

I read the Great Darkness Saga at my aunt's place (she loves comics and allowed me to indulge my Legion love) and realized how many Legionnaires there really were. From the Postboot, I branched into the Preboot, and have followed the Legion ever since.

And special thanks to Lightning Lad, Bevis, Vee and Cobalt Kid for helping me fill in some of the gaps in my back issue collection. You have made me one very happy Legion fan!

FIrst Legion I ever read was a mid sixties Adventure, wherein Superman visited the adult Legion of Superheroes. I figured out that the Legion was exactly as old as I was, and I was hooked. I collected the rest of the Adventure run, then the Action run, then Superboy, then Legion, and stayed faithful pretty much until five years later, which I thought was much too self referential, and sadly flipped the utopian future into a bitter dystopia. Skipped the reboot and the threeboot, but got psyched again during the Lightning saga. So it's a fifty year love affair with guys in pink costumes and girls who can flip over mountains

There were always comics in my house when I was growing up. My mom had picked up quite a collection of Classics Illustrated books in the 50s, and on my twelfth birthday I was given a copy of a special issue called To The Stars, which was my first clue that they were still being published (I didn't realize that To The Stars was actually four years old at the time). I used my birthday money to look for more Classics comics at the local Woolworth's, but there were none to be found. Not wanting to leave empty-handed I bought a 4-pack of DC books for 47 cents. Among the four books was Adventure # 331, showing Superboy standing in a graveyard with several leering super-villains telling him he's next.

Now of course I knew who Superman was (who didn't?), but this was my first introduction to Superboy. I was even more confused by the story, which seemed to be taking place in some future world, making me think that maybe this Superboy character was a descendant of Clark Kent. The following week I found another 4-pack with #332 (The Super Moby Dick of Space). At that point all my birthday money was gone, and I didn't pick up another issue until I saw #335 in a vending machine at a Thruway rest stop. I pleaded and whined until my grandfather (a real pushover, I must say) gave me the 15 cents they were charging for it.

My legion buying remained spotty for the next couple years. I was somewhat lucky in that the few issues I did pick up were among the best in the entire Adventure run, including the introductions of Mordru, Universo, the Khunds, Shadow Lass, Jeckie, Karate Kid, Ferro Lad and Nemesis Kid (who I was sorry to see turn out to be the bad guy cause I liked his costume and powers).

I didn't read many of the last issues of the Adventure run. I had by then become a huge fan of Neal Adams, as well as the people that Dick Giordano had brought to DC from Charlton, and found Win Mortimer's Legion art to be too childish for my tastes. I did manage to pick up the final Legion issue, mostly because I was going though a phase when I bought almost everything that had a black background (like X-Men #42, my first Marvel).

I pretty much missed the Action run (although I did get the one where Superboy quit to get the membership down to 25), and only began to notice the Legion again when Dave Cockrum began redesigning uniforms. I began getting the Superboy/Legion title regularly through the Cockrum and Grell runs, but dropped the book for a while after Grell left, eventually picking up the missing issues in the half-price bin.

I was back on board for the Levitz (1)/Conway/Thomas issues, although the title was nowhere near the top of my pull list at the time (but I could afford some borderline titles and the Legion was a sentimental favorite). With the arrival of first Broderick and then Giffen, though, the book shot to the top of my list.

From that point on, I didn't miss an issue of either the Legion/Tales or the Baxter run until around 1986, when my personal economy collapsed and I stopped buying comics altogether.

I would not buy another Legion book until 1994, when I saw an issue of Legionnaires in a grocery store. Although I immediately recognized Brainiac 5 on the cover, I had no idea who the blonde in the starry costume was. Still, I was intrigued enough to buy it, although at the time I thought the whole Legion had been relaunched or something.

Eventually I found a store in a town about 20 miles away that sold back issues and started slowly piecing together the entire "five years later" thing...just in time to have zero hour wipe it all away. I got a subscription to both Legion books through most of the reboot run (although DC would not let me renew toward the end, probably because they knew the books were being cancelled).

With no subscription and no comic shops within driving distance, I again stopped buying comics for several years, only starting up again when my sister married a comics fan around the time of L3W. Since then I have managed to finally complete my Levitz Baxter set and get copies of The Legion (DnA run), Legion World and the threeboot. I had to wait until last year's TPB of Legion Lost to read those stories, as no CBS within a hundred miles of here has copies of the original issues.

So now, with the exception of a couple parts of the Rift storyline, I have managed to acquire a complete run of Legion stories (although many of the early ones only through the digests DC published in the early 80s).

My very first legion comic was Legionnaires #40 back when I was 16. And, I'll be straight with you...I noticed it because Violet's boobs are falling out of her top on the cover.

I’ll also admit that I nearly gave up after my first issue. So many characters! I hadn’t been into comics very long at that point, and my main experiences had been with the X-Men, so this sort of massive team threw me for a loop. How was I supposed to keep everyone straight?! I’m not 100% sure what made me pick up the following month’s title other than sheer curiosity and the absolutely fabulous costumes.

I think mostly I just love the cheese. I love how GOOD these characters (for the most part) are. I love them protecting the future and being idealistic. I love goofy futuristic plots that are nonsensical and ridiculous.

What was odd about the series was that while I eventually figured out that "my" legion was a reboot, the original team (and their complex history) was so daunting that I pretended they didn’t exist. I never bought any of those issues, nor had any interest in doing so. Imagine my confusion upon coming back to legion comics this year after an almost seven year break and finding the retro legion in full swing!

What made me stop reading legion comics for almost a decade? Threeboot. The most awful moment in my young comic book collecting life. I can remember sitting in my bedroom as a twenty-four year old bawling my eyes out because the characters that I’d grown to love were JUST GONE. They were simply no more and complete strangers would be taking their place. No reason, no rhyme. It was like the ultimate betrayal, and I didn’t read another legion comic until THIS YEAR.

(I was suitably horrified to discover that not only are they gone, but they’re now “wandering the multi-verse”…excuse me while I go get my tissues again…)

Now I’m back, trying to rebuild my collection after seven years. Reading the retro-boot is…different. They’re legion, but not the legion I remember, and that’s kind of okay. Kind of. It’s a whole new world for me and it’s actually prompted me to look into the original run since I didn’t understand a lot of the references or old plots. That’s something I never would have done ten years ago, so I’m glad I got back into the series.

So, here I am, reading the New 52, my reborn love for the legion making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside despite the fact that the 52 isn’t exactly inspired storytelling. I still miss “my” legion though, and I have still stubbornly refused to read Threeboot, but all in all, I’m glad to be back.

Superman and the Legion of Super Heroes was great.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_and_the_Legion_of_Super-Heroes

and one of the last times I saw *my* Legion.

I've found back issues pretty easy (because I am collecting the variant covers)


Legion of Three Worlds was allright ... other than that ... my Legion is fairly a thing of the past.

I can't keep my boots straight.

I'm assuming they made that into a TPB, so I might just have to wander in the general direction of the comic store and see if they have it! Any other suggestions?

I have the same trouble with my high heels.

.. Conjure Lass ... How did you feel about the Legion of the Damned storyline?

I absolutely LOVED it. To me, that was one of the better storylines that the rebooted legion ever had. It was genuinely creepy and I liked how you could sort of see the kids becoming adults. I liked it a LOT. I felt like Dan and Andy really *got* the legion. Did you like it?

I loved LotD too, and generally lived most things DnA came up with. That was the era that drew me back to Legion after a long hiatus.

But I agree with some of the criticism about how the whole incident seemed to have no repercussions in later stories - Earth was all rebuilt by the time of Legion Worlds, there was no public resentment at Legionnaires having been servants of the Blight, and other than a couple of instances in L-Lost, few of the characters seemed to have any traumas over it all.

Though a lot of people look down on the Postboot 'Archie' Legion for being so shiny and happy, I agree with Conjure Lass that that was exactly a large part of the charm. Somehow, even when things were at their darkest in Loegion of the Damned and Legion Lost and even Legion Worlds, they never got TOO dark. The Legionnaires kept the faith.

*sob* I miss them too

Whu...sorry about the double post, but my computer seems to be frazzled. XD

What I was *going* to say was that the reason I can't get into Threeboot (as i've finally sat down and read the first nine issues) is how "dark and edgy" it is. The legion, to me, isn't a "dark and edgy" comic, and making it into some kind of social experiment? Naaaah, not my style.

I miss them so much. *CRIES*

it brought me back to regular Legion readership after a very long hiatus.


I stopped reading the legion way back when the Baxter era started ... I just couldn't get to a comic store as a kid ... and then ... took a big break from comics ... in the 90s ... and tried to get some back issue of the 5YG in the late 90s ... started collecting comics a little bit before the Legion of the Damned storyline ... I think Chris Claremont started writing the X-Men again or something ... I remember seeing a cool promotional poster on the wall of the CBS a few months before.


It was awesome! In fact, one of my favorite Legion stories of all time.

I started the Legion with this issue:

My first Legion comic was Earthwar (starting with Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes #242) and I was instantly hooked. I loved the large cast, the colorful costumes, and the superhero/sci-fi combination. I was a regular reader of the Legion from that day up until the end of the Baxter series in 1989, when I stopped collecting comics altogether. During that time, I also picked up older Legion comics, either buying back issues, or reprints, such as in the digest size Adventure Comics that was out for a while in the early 80's. I've more recently picked up some back issues of the 5 Years Later Legion, and a couple of TPB's of the Archie Legion. I started collecting comics a little bit in 2008, and bought the first 2 TPB’s of the Waid “Threeboot” Legion. After the Threeboot ended, I also collected the Legion of Superheroes and Adventure Comics in 2008 for about 8 months, before I stopped collecting comics again due mainly to financial reasons. I’ve more recently bought the last TPB of the Legion just before the New 52, as well as the first TPB of the New 53, and the Legion Origins series from the New 52 as well as the first 6 issues of Legion Lost from the New 52 (the latter two series were available cheap as a set at the LCS).
I think each incarnation of the Legion has something positive to offer, but my favorite Legion is definitely the Bronze Age Legion, especially the Paul Levitz stuff, but I love the Carey Bates and Jim Shooter stuff as well.

In Catholic school 3rd grade Sister Jeanine Marie's class mid/ late 70's a girl had 2 Legion comics. One was the Legion Chain Gang (reprint I think) the other was the issue where the mind controlled Legion attempt to kill Ultraboy and a visiting Lana Lang by firing squad (she later becomes Insect Queen to help). My best friend and I proceeded to name all the stuff animals in the classroom after legion members (Dream Squirrel). After telling my mom all about the legion the first comic purchased by her for me was Superboy and The Legion #250 The Omega Brainy done went crazy storyline. After that I was hooked. They sold Superboy and The Legion at Krogers and the local drugstore back then and I got my hands on everything Legion I could find. I was interested in seeing the members rarely featured like Starboy, Dream Girl and Tyroc. So many heroes so many powers to figure out and something about the guys..most of them were not giving off the ultra masculine boring vibe that most of the Marvel heroes were giving..which all my friends were into. If you were a 12 year old boy in the 70's it was ALL about Marvel. I remember other times Legion stuff creeping into my life...a box of comics my dad got at a garage sale for like 10 bucks had The Earthwar saga I remember getting 5 DC pocket books in my Christmas stocking...one was a Legion book with a story featuring Saturn Girl (in her first adventure in her new costume) and Princess Projectra whom the Legion tried to trick into believing she was on a different earth where the genders were reversed (Prince Projectra) but it was all just a test to make sure Jeckie wasn't losing it (sigh) THAT was in a Christmas stocking and I laid on the floor in my Spiderman Underoos and read the whole thing ignoring my other gifts. Been a fan ever since. Loved 5 year later, liked the Archie Legion was bored to death with the Waid/Kitson Dream Boy stuff was excited about Johns Superman and The Legion and 3 worlds and was left wanting by both of Levitz last attempts.

Wonderful story, Blackout Boy. Thanks for sharing.

A common theme in some of our Legion roadmap stories seems to be that it's the lesser featured characters we like the most. Perhaps it's because they intrigue us. Perhaps some of us identify with them to an extent--they don't get to hog the attention like certain classmates and siblings, do. Perhaps they inspire our imagination to fill in the blanks and our curiosity to know more.

I think it's a testimony to the richness of the Legion that even minor and one-shot characters make us want to know more about them.