What's your favorite Legion story?
I was listening to the Legion of Substitute Podcasters podcast #58 this week at work, and someone wrote to them with a question I thought I'd post here.
The title of this post asks what your favorite Legion story is. But I'm not asking which story in which issue - tell me a quick story about what has been your greatest Legion-related find in a comic shop, convention, flea market, attic, or whatever, and why?
Here's mine:
At the 1995 San Diego con, a dealer had bought a large collection to sell and pulled out the top books to display. They didn't really get a chance to look at everything closely, the guy said. Jim Drew and I passed by the booth and I noticed a copy of Adventure Comics #247 in a display case, the first time I had ever seen a copy. It was way more than I wanted to spend for the convention ($150), but I rationalized it as a Congressional "off-the-budget" purchase. I was still wavering, and Jim told me that if I didn't buy it, he would. So I had to buy it. :) Of course, I didn't look at it closely enough until I got home, only to find out that (a) it had been restored (rice paper strengthening the cover, new staples, minor color touchups) and (b) the centerfold was missing. I wound up contacting him and getting a rebate the next year (which I wound up spending on Adventure 267 and Action 267 from him anyway).
(If anyone here was reading Usenet or the LSH-L mailing list in 1995, this is the infamous "milkshake copy".)
So for 11 years I had my copy of Adventure Comics 247, missing a centerfold. Someone sent me scans of what I was missing (a Little Pete gag page, a two-page ad, and the first page of the Green Arrow story), but I was always on the lookout for a spare centerfold from the issue. Of course, those never show up, so I eventually started looking for crappy beat-up copies with the centerfold intact, thinking I'd cannibalize the issue. And whaddaya know, a couple of years ago I finally found the right candidate. For the grand sum of $35, I bought a copy that was missing the cover and the first wraparound (which is the first two pages of the Legion story, and two ads) and had a detached centerfold. Score!
That was also the year I got a complete set of the Legionnaire Slurpee cups too, but that's another story.
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6 comments:
I'll go with my classic one. The first Legion comic I read was Adventure #359, The Outlaw Legion. It ends on about as big a cliffhanger as one could ask for; the entire UP has turned against the Legion for unknown reasons, half the Legion's in jail on Takron-Galtos, and the rest are on the run from the law and hiding in the Metropolis sewer system.
And I wasn't taken to a newsstand by my parents before #360 went offsale. I knew from #361 that things had worked out, but not how. It was over a decade before I saw/read a copy of #360.
I started reading comics arpimd age 10 in 1962 when the Legion started in Adventure. I stopped about the time Legion went to Action in 1968. I was in high school and shifting my attention to rock music and girls.
In 1974, I was in college and I found a copy of Superboy 202 in a drug store spinner rack. It was a giant sized, multi story issue, and it hooked me all oer again. A friend saw me with the comic and told me about a sued comic book store in a strip mall across town.
I found the store and I was instantly transported back to my adolescence. Talk about time travel. I picked up about $20 worth of old Adventures and read them all in my VW bug in the parking lot. This began a weekly ritual that I still follow -- get paid, buy comics, be a kid for a while.
Mac
About a decade ago I ran across James Sherman's original art for Dawnstar's entry in Who's Who in the DCU. It had been sitting untouched for weeks, I was told, at $80 on a comic-art Website. I couldn't believe my luck!
The art looks far better in B&W than in the garish newsprint colors of 1985. It includes Sherman's renderings of Dawny's parents, differing notably (father was wingless, mother was bald) from those done by Giffen or for Who's Who in the LSH.
Also, Dawny's mother has a more risqué outfit than was allowed to appear in print, showing more skin. Quite prudish adjustments on DC's part, I'd say, given how much skin Dawny always showed for herself.
I gave Glen Cadigan a scan of this art to illustrate his Legion Companion interview book.
I found a copy of Adventure 267 in a 10 for $1 box at a New York convention many years ago (when they still had 10 for $1 boxes). It wasn't in great shape, but it was complete and was only 10 cents! I held my breath when I paid the guy running the table, expecting him to say it was some kind of mistake, but alas he did not and I walked away with a big smile on my face.
The first Legion story I ever read was Adventure #370, the second half of the original Shooter/Swan Mordru story. Which I still think is one of the best LSH stories ever- heck, it's one of my favorite comic stories ever, period.
But I wasn't born until 1971 and didn't get the book until I found it cheap at a swap meet somewhere around 1986-87. I've always liked that I can honestly say it was the first LSH story I ever saw or owned even though I wasn't around when it first came out.
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