George Perez

The fun never stops around here, even if I do for a bit...

As Scott (and others) mentioned last week, George Perez went on record (again) saying he'd like to do a Legion project someday. Both Newsarama and ComicBookResources talked to him at the recent Pittsburgh ComicCon.

First, Newsarama:

GP: Right. Mark has asked me who I want to draw [in the upcoming Brave and Bold series]. And of course after doing the Crisis books and JLA/Avengers, I'm running out of characters I haven't drawn! So it's always going to be a welcome challenge no matter who it is.

NRAMA: Did you give him any names of characters you'd like to draw?

GP: [snip] I was tempted to mention how I'd like to do the Legion of Superheroes in there, but maybe I'll just wait until after I'm done with Brave and the Bold, because the idea of me actually working on a real Legion of Superheroes story -- it's something everyone says needs to happen.

NRAMA: And you agree? Is Legion of Superheroes a book you'd like to do?

GP: The Legion was favorite comic when I was a kid, and ironically, I've never drawn an issue of Legion of Superheroes. I'd say that's a wrong that has to be righted.

From CBR:

However, all this is dependent on what work Perez finds himself contracted to over the course of the next year. But what could pull him away?

“I’ve never been on 'The Legion of Super-Heroes,'” said Perez.

That’s right. Perez may find himself working on “Legion of Super-Heroes,” another Mark Waid title, following his year’s turn at “Brave and the Bold.” Perez said that, of all the books he’s done, he’s never had a shot at working on The Legion, and he’s hoping to rectify that error from his resume.

Longtime readers will recall that Perez did a series of covers to several v2-era Legion issues (277-281 in 1981, for nearly all of the Reflecto/Grimbor/Ultra Boy/Superboy arc). Of course, he also drew the various Legionnaires during the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, History of the DC Universe, and various Who's Who in the DC Universe pages. Tony Lorenz notes that Perez took a shot at redesigning several of the Legionnaires' costumes in the Best of DC Digest #24.

This isn't "new" news, though, however much fun it is to speculate. Perez had an interview with Jen Contino at Comicon.com last summer in which he said much the same thing (and even used the same tag line):

However, a number of other projects have been mentioned by DC, including Green Lantern, Superman/Batman or one of the new All-Star line of books. Also, despite drawing several covers for Legion of Super-Heroes years ago and including them in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Perez -- whose signature has been group titles -- has never pencilled a LSH story, “a wrong that needs to be righted,” he said. He has already put the bug in writer Mark Waid’s ear but said it wouldn’t appear in the monthly book, which has Barry Kitson as its regular artist. “I wouldn’t be drawing a regular monthly regardless because after JLA/Avengers in particular I’ve kind of set the bar higher for what the fans should expect of my work and I can’t do that type of quality work on a monthly basis. So miniseries and special projects are what’s going to be my future.”