Wednesday, May 17, 2006

TPBs in our future (and some that aren't)

Coming this fall, reprint volume 3 of the current Legion series: "Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes". It will contain Legion of Super-Heroes (vol. 5) 14-15 and Supergirl and the Legion 16-19. Nice to see them keeping the issues in print.

Volume 2 of the series - "Death of a Dream" - reprinting issues 7-13 is supposed to come out later this month.

And don't forget that volume 4 of Crisis on Multiple Earths came out a couple weeks ago, reprinting the Legion (with the JLA and JSA) from JLA 147-148.

Not coming in our future, however, will be any Legion Showcase volumes like the ones for Jonah Hex, Superman, Green Lantern, and the others, at least nothing published after 1976. Earth-B and Comics Should Be Good discuss a post by former DC reprint editor Bob Greenberger in which he explains that DC's payment system, in effect from 1976-1997, call for a set reprint fee versus a percentage of the cover price. That means that reprint fees could eat up profits in publishing a TPB, especially the lower-priced Showcase volumes (though not the much higher-priced Archives), unless the involved parties renegotiate the agreement.

So pretty much anything starting with Superboy 216 (intro of Tyroc) probably won't get printed in a Showcase volume. That doesn't mean, however, that we won't see the Adventure Comics era in that format, though it's already been Archived. Nothing definite yet, but they're at the top of a lot of people's wish lists.

1 comment:

  1. I have loved the LEGION since 1964! I even drew my own LEGION comics for a time. BIG LEGION fan here!

    Hugs,
    Jerry

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