Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Earlier today, I read the superbly drawn Superboy's Legion by Davis/Farmer. I was impressed by the team dynamic and camaraderie between members. However, I was at a loss by the sheer scope of the story. Plus, my ignorance of Legion history added to a little letdown. Where is a good place to start reading the Legion of Superheroes?

Undoubtedly Legion Archives #1 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1563890208/theamalgamatronA/).

:s:

I wish that DC would do a Showcase Legion, it would be very easy to do and cost them next to nothing to make and bring in lots of cash.

I'll check out the first archive.  :D


Next question, what are the quintessential Legion storylines?

The Magic War where Mordru was the big villian.

The Legion try-outs with Arm Fall Off Boy, just for the laugh factor.

The introduction the the Substitue Legion of Super-Heroes

The first round with the Fatal Five, Mordru - anything frankly from the original run in Adventure (except for the stories illoed by Pete Costanza)

Starfinger has some suspense...

I liked the original Time Trapper, lots of power but instead he turned the Legion into babies instead off the intended primaeval slime, Glorith had a cool evil expression...

Shooter's first story, Legion try-outs and "one of us is a traitor"...

And of course The Death of Lightning Lad.

No doubt...another good one...

Man, they packed a lot of good Legion stories in those days... 8)

I'm told another quintessential Legion story is "The Great Darkness Saga" from the early 80's... not read it yet, but still...

It's the only Legion saga that was published here in Italy,many years after it was originally published,but it is still great!  
Sci-fi and superhero action,what more can anyone ask? :s:  :s:  :s:

BTW, I lot of people mention the lack of overarching continuity in the DC universe in the Silver Age...the 1960s Legion had a lot of recurring elements in Adventure comics during that time...

Well, look where "overarching continuity" has gotten the Legion now...

I don't disagree at all...I liked the semi serialization of the Legion in the 60s at the time, but I'm no continuity freak, over long periods of time and many writers, it can turn into a huge problem...you can even see it in far fewer "episodes" of the Star Trek franchise over35 years...

Okay, could someone explain to me the different volumes and numbering?

There must be some site out there that tells exactly what stories are in each Archive volume...from the Amazon site, the first three volumes seem to cover the origin, early appearances of lone characters, the early tryouts and Substitute Heroes, the Mon-el and Lightning Lad sagas, Dream Girl and the beginning of the Time Trapper story...

The answer to the first question, about the volume numbers: that's relatively easy. The volume number refers to which version of the series that had the name "Legion of Super-Heroes" and has nothing to do with reboots, creative team, etc.

Volume 1 (v1) = an early 1970's reprint series
Volume 2 (v2) = early to mid 80's. The original Superboy title from the 40's became "Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes" with issue 231, and then it changed again to "Legion of Super-Heroes" with 259.
Volume 3 (v3) = mid to late 80's. When the previous Legion title became "Tales of the Legion" with issue 313, the name was reused. This series was written almost entirely by Paul Levitz.
Volume 4 (v4) = When Levitz left, the series was cancelled and resumed with a new number 1 issue. Same title, now volume 4. This started with Giffen and the Bierbaums Five Years Later and ended with Zero Hour... except it didn't. After the reboot, the title continued the same numbering up through issue 125.
Volume 5 (v5) = the current series, the fifth book to have the title "Legion of Super-Heroes".

See? Relatively easy.

The other question, about the reprints, I've got a Legion reprint page at http://lsh.0catch.com/lsh/lshrepr.htm that lists all of the Legion stories that have been reprinted. The Archives are chronologically reprinting everything, so it's easy to see (in the right-hand column) what went into which Archive book.

So which one was the Baxter LSH series that started with #1?  And wasn't Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes a reprint of the Baxter series, running a year later, and also starting with #1?  I know that's how it was with the Teen Titans.

I also seem to remember that the Tom & Mary Bierbaum LSH clone-kids had a spin-off title - Legionnaires, which, after Zero-Hour, become the only LSH title, the characters being re-booted to not have been clones.

:s:

Volume 2 of "Legion of Super-Heroes" ended with issue 313, after which it changed titles to "Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes" from 314-352 at the same time we saw a new volume 3 of "Legion of Super-Heroes" restart with a new #1. "Tales" had a year of new issues that ran concurrently with the Baxter series (unlike the two Titans books, where the Baxter series took place after the Tales book), then it started reprinting with issue 326. That lasted a couple of years.

The Giffen/Bierbaum version, volume 4, did have a spinoff title called "Legionnaires" that featured the younger "SW6 batch" while the regular title featured the older group. After Zero Hour, we still had both books that did not change numbering, and they were similar to the Superman books in that there was a different creative team on each but stories continued from one to the other as if the book came out bi-weekly.

The only time that there was not a "Legion of Super-Heroes" title (not counting the odd months here and there) was at the end of v4 #125 when they had a series of miniseries ("Legion Worlds", "Legion Lost") followed by a new series "The Legion". When that one ended, we got a new "Legion of Super-Heroes" series (volume 5) with a new #1.

Actually, several stories have been published here since the 1960s!