Jim Lee, ICONS, & the Legion
Via MTV Splashpage, here's part of an interview with Jim Lee on his long-awaited book Icons: The DC Comics and Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee
MTV: When you went through the book, remembering some of these characters and your work with them, were there any that made you think, "Hey, I want to work with that character again."Via Publisher's Weekly:
LEE: Sure, there’s a whole section where I did Legion of Superheroes. I loved the fact that when Dave Cockrum worked on those books — and actually on X-Men as well — he just sat down and created costumes, and wouldn’t even necessarily know who those characters were. He just kind of created these looks. I’ve always been inspired by that kind of notion, so I just kind of sat down and just started sketching costumes and seeing what worked and what didn’t work, and it was all very rough draft stuff. None of that stuff was thought out — it was just kind of spur-of-the-moment, you know? Going with the moment?
And I liked how a lot of them turned out, so it just got me excited by the idea of actually working on these costumes. The Legion has gone through all these eras where they all had major fashion changes in the styles of costumes that they’ve had, and that’s always been part of their lore, I guess. So the idea of working on that and redefining them for the 30th Century was something that was very appealing to me.
PWCW: You've also got brand new art, both on the dust jacket, and in an all-new Legion of Super-Heroes story, written by Paul Levitz. What can we expect from the story and does it fit into current Legion canon?
JL: It can if you want it to. We expressly made a story where it’s more fantastical in nature. It’s the Miracle Machine and so it kind of takes the thoughts of whatever’s near it and makes it reality in their mind. That story came about with me and Paul just kind of talking about our favorite Legion stories and our favorite Legionnaires and we crafted that short story together and then he wrote it out after that. It’s really the chance to get to work with Paul, really the quintessential Legion writer. I was having a lot of fun drawing the characters but once Paul put the dialogue in, because we didn’t work full script on this issue, the characters really came to life.
Roxxas, a surly but intelligent young man, was accepted into the naval academy on Amadus only to desert after killing his commanding officer and raiding the compu-vault for credits. As a fugitive, he spent many years fighting and running before he joined a group of techno-pirates. Roxxas pushed the men toward more and more illegal acts until he had become by authority and combat, the leader of a band of space-pirates. Roxxas led them on raids to many worlds. When he heard rumors of a valley of transmuters on Trom, he sent spies to visit the world and report back to him. They told tales of wonder, children turning their toys to gold, young men clearing new ground by evaporating boulders, all in a largely pacifistic civlilation. Roxxas immediately ordered the kidnapping of several Tromians to hold hostrage for their cooperation of the rest of the world. When Roxxas' men tried to take hostages, some were accidentally killed in self defense by the peaceful Tromians, at which point the pirates began slaughtering the Tromians in cold blood. One young boy, Jan Arrah, escaped in a small ship and was subsequently picked up by investigating Science Police. Roxxas, furious that his men had lost control and maddened by the failure of his plan, led his men in search of the one remaining transmuter, who had fled to Earth and joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. When they met again, Jan was willing to sacrifice himself to stop Roxxas, but he was saved by Invisible Kid. [Adventure 307] 
Roxxas was the primary villain in the initial story arc of the v4 Legion. Sprung from prison by the Earth Government (secretly run by the Dominators) and given advanced weaponry, he was assigned with preventing the reformation of the Legion of Super-Heroes, preferably by killing them. They ignored his irrational behavior, which included hearing voices in his head of his former victims. He set out by murdering ex-Legionnaire Blok. He expected this would cause the remaining Legion members to gather on Shanghalla for the funeral, where he could take them out with one bomb. They instead gathered on Winath, so he attacked them there, critically wounding Chameleon Boy, and injuring several others before being forced to flee. He was eventually tracked down by a team lead by Element Lad and returned to prison. He then provided key evidence that Earthgov was run by the Dominators, which started the next story arc of freeing Earth from their control. In many ways his actions brought about the very thing he was hired to prevent, as the Legion reformed. [via 
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