Comic Books Rule: Long Live The Legion!
To quote a Diesel Washington blog title from a few months ago: "We the comic book geeks rule!"
That's the best way to describe how we're feeling these days about one of our passions here at Jack Manly--comic books! The news about comics has been pretty amazing lately and we're really enjoying several current series (Blackest Night rocks!). Plus we've really loved finding other comic lovers, both in the adult industry and those elsewhere in blogs, vlogs, etc. Be sure & check out Diesel Washington's blog for one such fan (and yes DW, it would be an awesome gathering at SD Comic Con).
One of our specific longtime favorite group of characters has been Legion of Super-Heroes. They've been around in one form or another for over 50 years and have had varying degrees of popularity. But we and many other fans have remained loyal since we were old enough to read comic books. It's been a long, strange journey with many peaks & valleys but we're excited about the new era of Legion fun.
You probably heard that Disney has acquired Marvel Comics and aside from all the questions about this deal, many wondered how Warner Bros (owners of DC Comics) would react. Well. we found out yesterday when it was announced that WB was launching DC Entertainment, a new division that would oversee the comic book company's operations and media development. Diane Nelson was announced as the president of this new division while Paul Levitz, who had been the president & publisher of DC Comics was now going to be writer, contributing editor & overall consultant to DC Entertainment.
For comics fans and comics pros this was big stuff. Paul Levitz has been involved in the comics industry for well over thirty years and has done just about everything. As a teen he published his own "fanzine" (the equivalent of today's blogs). As a young adult he became a writer at DC Comics, then editor, vice-president, and finally president. Because of him many independent companies & self-published comics managed to survive and at DC he was responsible for efforts to create diverse imprints like Vertigo, and others. It was also instrumental in pushing for more graphic novels, trade paperback collections, etc which has been a boon to retailers, fans, etc.
What made our comic geek heart flutter was the news that Paul Levitz would be the new writer on the Legion of Super-Heroes strip in Adventure Comics. Why the excitement? For one thing Levitz began his writing career at DC on the original Adventure Comics series. Eventually he went on to write the Legion of Super-Heroes off and on for 15 years and Legion fans have often regarded his stint as one of the best periods in the over 50 year history of the characters.
It's a bit of sweet irony that recently DC revived Adventure Comics and made the Legion as one of the features. You see the Legion was introduced in a Superboy story in the original Adventure series back in 1958. Eventually the characters took over the book in 1962 lasting as the main feature until 1969. Since then the Legion of Super-Heroes has had many peaks & valleys. There were times when it was relegated to a back-up feature. There were times when it had at least two titles. The characters have gone through many looks and name changes and for a number of years the continuity was confusing and inconsistent at best.
Within the last couple years writer Geoff Johns was behind the revival of the classic original Legion characters and their return to Adventure. To fully explain what we mean by "classic" would require a lengthy thesis so we'll give you the condensed version. The series has been "rebooted" several times to explain story continuity problems created by DC universe changes. What Johns did was to create an explanation to allow the original characters to return. The mini-series which revived the characters Legion of Three Worlds wrapped up this summer to our total satisfaction. Plus, we don't mind telling you that as longtime Legion fans we were literally misty-eyed. He's been writing the new Legion stories and will relinquish those chores to Levitz.
By the way, we could devote an entire series of blogs to Geoff Johns and his contributions to DC over the past several years. In addition to his revival of the Legion he has deftly brought back our favorite versions of Green Lantern & Flash, restored classic elements to the Superman mythos, and is now writing the game-changing series Blackest Night. The joy of the book is that we have no idea where it's headed but we're excited to be along for the ride. Now that we've seen how Johns brought back our beloved Legion we have faith that this new very dark series is again going to work magic on our love of comics.
One last thing. Check out the pic below, a "photo-manipulation" by the talented artist known as Mindsweeper. He's taken a group shot of models and transformed them into the male members of the Legion. Guess we don't have to mention the Legion hasa big gay following, eh?
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