50th Anniversary Countdown: T minus 8 months
It's only 8 months until the April 2008 issue of Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes (or whatever the title might be called by then). That marks the 50th anniversary of the Legion.
The Legion was the very first super-powered super-team of the Silver Age, debuting in April 1958. It predates the Justice League of America (1960), the Avengers (1961), the Fantastic Four (1961), and the X-Men (1963) (not including the non-super Challengers of the Unknown or various war teams like the Blackhawks).
I think that within the last couple years, there's been a concerted effort to pump up "brand awareness" of the Legion, with varying degrees of success, as far back as 2005 when DC put one of their highest profile writers (Mark Waid) onto the book. Yes, it came with a reboot, but one that was supposed to allow easier access to the book, easier than the post-Zero Hour reboot. They added Supergirl (then one of the top-selling characters) to the book. They've got a huge appearance in a crossover with two of DC's top books by two of their top writers - one that has at least the comicsblogosphere buzzing. They've got a Legionnaire as a main character in their highest profile year-long miniseries that's Counting Down to something, and another as a regular member of one of their top team books. We've got promises of more coming soon, with appearances by the Legion(s) of at least two different continuities. Something big is coming.
And there's only 8 months until the official anniversary.
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7 comments:
I know this isn't likely to happen, but...
--Grant Morrison says that Dan DiDio has him working on a big crossover event thingie for 2008. (Which I'm guessing is New Gods-related.)
--The Legion is clearly getting a push this year, leading into next year.
Will Grant Morrison write something (even tangentially) to do with the Legion?
I can only hope!
This has been a good year so far for us Legion fans. Can't wait to see what else they have in store for us (for starters, next month's Brave & The Bold has George Perez drawing the Legion... if only it was pre-Zero Hour LSH).
Oh, I forgot, Tim's Legion book is coming out next spring as well. Maybe that's what this is all leading up to?
Magnus - Perez did draw the pre-Crisis Legion, sort of... he did the covers to LSH v2 #268 and 277-281, which you can see here. He also did some pinups with some new costumes, but that only appeared in one of the Digests (I know there's a scan of all those shots somewhere, I just can't find it right now).
You can see them here.
What is "Tim's Legion?"
Tim Callahan (who commented at the top) is the "editor of a forthcoming scholarly book on The Legion of Super-Heroes".
Michael: Thanks, I knew that, I just want to see him drawing some actual stories with the classic Legion.
And I'm so proud to be part of the aforementioned book. And to be called "scholarly" :P even if it's by extension.
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