LSH v4 #37 Annotations: The 37th Inning Stretch

Annotations for Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #37

• On sale 10/20/92
• It's OK, I'm a Senator: https://itsokimasenator.livejournal.com/18599.html
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 627 (October 19, 2020)
• Timeline: May 22-23, 2995

Notes:

• Cover: 
• The blue circle and black stripes on the white background is suggestive of a 1930s-era Norman Rockwell painting
• The title at the top refers to the then-popular movie "A League of Their Own" about female baseball players, but in IOKIAS Tom Bierbaum says that this was written before that and it was an editor's choice to add that caption.
• Page 1: Neuezer’x (“New Zerox” on Naltor), Lalasa, Holdren
• Regarding most of the player names in this issue, in IOKIAS Tom says “There were lots of "in-joke" references in this issue because we had so many baseball players we had to name, but for once, we weren't making references specifically to friends of ours from the Legion apas but to friends of ours who were baseball fans from the 1980s baseball apa "National Pastime" (though most of those members also happened to be Legion fans, which is where National Pastime drew much of its membership).  It was neat to give those Legion/baseball fans a role in DC's 30th century that was so ideally suited to their dual interests, and we heard from a couple of those fans that they really enjoyed being included in the issue.” I made those names bold here.
• Page 6 panel 1: Game 7 of the Galaxy Series, Greenberg Park, recall that the Dreamers won the pennant back on May 1 in Annual #3. This issue's baseball story was inspired by the Metropolis Metros/Naltor Dreamers game in ADV 366, according to IOKIAS.

• Page 7: Wechsler, Ani Acker
• Page 11 panel 2: Flynn
• Page 12 panel 1: Ambassador Jeryl (last seen in SLSH 249)
• Page 14 panel 4: That’s Mac the Knife from the late 1980s McDonalds commercials in the audience
• Page 14 panel 5: Looks like Kid 'n' Play on the balcony, two late 80s/early 90s rappers
• Page 16 panel 1: Uoolph
• Page 16 panel 4: that’s Ivy (last seen in issue 20) and Garridan (last seen in Annual 3) on Quarantine
• Page 16 panel 7: Wilton Wyke
• Page 19 panel 4: Offutt
• Page 23: SW6 Valor takes an old time bubble back to 2978, when the Legionnaires were cloned. I haven’t read ahead, but from some fan-published chronologies it appears like it's going to be a while before we see him again. And don’t forget that we have three Valors right now in the DCU:
1. The 20th century version, which grew out of Invasion and Eclipso and his own series, who was later put into the [Bgztl/Buffer/Stasis/Phantom/something] Zone by Glorith
2. The adult version of #1, who spent 1000 years in the [something] Zone and then 20 years in the 30th century with the Legion
3. The younger version of #2, who spent 1000 years in the [something] Zone and then 3 years in the 30th century with the Legion before being put in suspended animation by the Dominators and then being revived as part of the SW6 batch.
   

Legion sales data for issue 8

Comichron has done their number crunching dealy thing with Diamond and Lunar/UCS data and produced relative sales charts for August 2020, which includes Legion #8. Recall from last month that while we still don't have actual sales numbers yet, we do have rankings relative to all the other books from all distributors combined.

Issue 8 was part 1 of the all-star artist lineup. How did that impact sales? Let's see...

For August, LSH v8 #8 was the overall #46 book for the month and the #22 book for DC, selling 84 copies (both covers combined) for every 100 of Avengers #35 (recall that Avengers or JLA is their index book). Normally around #17-18, there were three new #1s on the list (3 Jokers and two Death Metal), plus Wonder Woman snuck ahead with the movie covers. This issue was the first of the series in which the variant cover was on regular cover paper and not cardstock.

Batman 3 Jokers was reported by Jim Lee to have sold over 300,000 copies, making it the #1 book overall for the month. It sold 656 copies for every 100 copies of Avengers #35. A little math shows that if 656 copies of B3J per 100 copies of Avengers is equivalent to 300,000 sales, then 84 copies of LSH is equivalent to around 38,000 copies sold - which would make it the highest selling issue since #1. Maybe the all-star artist thing really did bump up sales a lot! 

Other books that sold higher than LSH in August: 10 different Bat-books (Batman, Joker, Harley, Batgirl, Nightwing), 3 Death Metal, 2 each of Justice League, Flash, and Superman, and 1 each of Batman/Superman and Strange Adventures (the usual suspects).

(Incidentally, DC had the top 5 books for the month, which only happens occasionally; most recently, March 2019 which had Detective #1000 and Doomsday Clock, and back in 2011 with the intro of the New 52 line.)

So here's what our table looks like now, with the limited insight into sales:

LSH v8 sales and rank

Issue	Total sales (all covers)	overall #	DC #	#1 book
1	75,611	10	3	138,434
2	35,653	50	17	117,926
3	34,732	44	15	167,377
4	30,675	51	18	190,568
5	29,058	59	18	142,089
6	TBD	23	17	TBD
7	TBD	41	18	TBD
8	Est. 38,000	46	22	Est. 300,000

More data as it becomes available....