2018.019 Justice League United Vol 2: The Infinitus Saga

I was excited for this book when it first came out because Jeff Lemire was writing a JLA book.  Unfortunately, it didn't click with me like I wanted it to.  It was way too New 52-ey.  That's the biggest problem.  I didn't like what he did to one of my all time favorite characters, Adam Strange.  The team he picked was fine, but not these incarnations of the characters.  But...

I loved this story.  The Legion had been given a back seat at DC by this point and Jeff was free to play with them.  For the most part, we got the Legion as they were before their book was cancelled, but he tweaked the characters a bit, included some of the Legionnaires from the various "Legion of 3 Worlds" book.  But it's okay.  It was still the Legion of Super-Heroes and I'm good with that.

It's a cliched story.  It's a twist on the "going back in time to kill Hitler before he turns into Hitler and destroys everything" story.  But he gives it fresh life and makes it a lot of fun to read.  I enjoyed it much more in this hardcover than I did when I read it monthly when it was first published.  I picked this book up at my local Ollie's Discount Outlet.  Part of their massive DC liquidation sale.  I keep popping in and grabbing some books, so look for write ups of those when I get time to read them.

Justice League United Vol 2: The Infinitus Saga

Written by: Jeff Lemire

Illustrated by: Neil Edwards, Jay Leisten, Keith Champagne, Jed Dougherty

DC Comics

2018.017 Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes

I'm an idiot.  I already own this, yet I bought it again.  I saw it at my local Ollie's Bargain Outlet in their big display of DC books.  I forgot I bought it twice already (once in floppies, once in trade paperback) so I bought it again, this time in hardcover.  It was only four bucks, so it was well worth it.

I love this book.  I love seeing the real Legion of Super-Heroes back in action.  I love seeing Gary Frank draw them.  I only like the Geoff Johns world of Superman, though.  He was trying to re-write the modern day Superman to mirror the Christopher Reeves movies better.  Or at least give it that feeling.  Which meant re-writing DC history again.  But as Geoff often does, he did it well.  

Brainiac 5 sends for Superman in the past to come help the 31st Century.  It's become a very anti-alien landscape on future Earth and it kind of scares me because I see a lot of parallels with what's going on in this country right now under Trump.  Such a great read, though, and it puts the Legion in place to regain their own title again.  I could read this a hundred more times.

Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes

Written by: Geoff Johns

Illustrated by: Gary Frank, Jon Sibal

DC Comics

166 Legion Of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol 1

Reading this book was a labor of love.  I have such a fondness in my heart for these early stories of the Legion.  Sure, they're hokey and cheesy, but they're just a pure, innocent joy.

This massive book collects what I believe were the stories in the first three Legion Archives books.  I have those books and now I have this, too, and it was so much fun re-reading them for the first time in years.

I did look at this with a different, maybe more critical eye.  The issue to issue continuity is just plain weird to me.  What I'm talking about is this.  In one issue, we have a new member join.  Let's say it's Lightning Lass.  Then she doesn't appear again for a few issues.  Same with Element Lad.  You'd think that upon introduction, you'd get to see more of the new characters, but that's not how it worked back then.  I don't know if a bunch of stories were commissioned and then published in a random order or what.

There really isn't a ton I can say about these stories that hasn't been said before.  But these are highly enjoyable stories.

Legion Of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol 1

Writer: Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Bernstein

Artist: George Papp, Jim Mooney, Curt Swan, John Forte, Sheldon Moldoff, George Klein

DC Comics

135 The Legion By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning Vol 1

I have to say I'm rather surprised that DC has published this book.  At this time, I mean.  They just started collecting the Legionnaires and Legion Of Super-Heroes books earlier this year.  This book shouldn't be out already.  I thought it would all get collected chronologically.  But I'm wrong.  And I'm happy.  I particularly loved this run on the book.

According to the afterword in the book, both series were losing readers and Abnett & Lanning were brought in to spark new interest with a new direction.  Now, if you've read any of my mini-reviews, you know one thing I hate is when a new team is brought in to give a book a "bold new direction" and they start things off by discarding what's come before them.  Well, Dan and Andy did just the opposite.  They had a big idea, but they lead into it.  Quickly, but without throwing anything away.  Their first story introduces the Blight, their second story sets characters in place for the Blight storyline and then BAM, we're smack in the middle of the story.  And it's a good one.  And from there they start making the changes they want to make in the book.  All the changes are plot dictated and very organic.  And that, my friends, is how you change the direction of a book.

I remember being kind of upset when this book first came out.  Olivier Coipel's art was so ugly to me.  But as the story progressed, I realized he was the perfect artist to draw the whole Blight storyline.  It works incredibly well.  It holds up to this day.

I love the Legion.  I love this book.  I'm so glad DC is showing the Legion some love right now.

The Legion By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning Vol 1

Writer: Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning

Artist: Olivier Coipel, Adam Dekraker, Jeffrey Moy, Angel Unzueta, Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Andy Lanning, W.C. Carani, Jaime Mendoza, Dexter Vines

DC Comics

109 Superboy And The Legion Of Super-Heroes Vol. 1

I've been waiting for this volume for a long, long time.  I have the full run of the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives.  I loved that series so much.  I just love the Legion so much.  This book picks right up where the Archive series ended.  I was particularly upset when the Archives stopped because of what was going to be printed in the next volume.  That volume is this volume!  And what I was waiting for was the tabloid that had the wedding of Lightning Lad & Saturn Girl.  About a year ago, I finally tracked it down, so it's in my collection now, but now I have it on really nice paper!  

This is the era when I first started reading the Legion.  My first issue was #238, which was a classic Legion reprint.  The cover is reprinted here, but not the story.  The rest of the book is wonderful and awful all at the same time.  I'm reliving a lot of this for the first time since the 70s.  And it's not as awesome as I remember it being.  Some of it is a little hard to read.  But it's still awesome to me.  This is when Paul Levitz jumped on the book to start his 700 year run on it.  If anything, this just makes me want volume 2 all the more.  We are finally into "my" Legion.  It just gets better from here.  Slowly. 

Superboy And The Legion Of Super-Heroes Vol. 1

Writer: Jack C. Harris, Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Paul Kupperberg, Jim Starlin

Artist: Juan Ortiz, Bob Smith, Mike Grel, Ric Estrada, Jack Abel, Vince Colletta, George Tuska, Joe Rubinstein, James Sherman, Bob McLeod, Mike Nasser, Rick Bryant, Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, Howard Chaykin, Bob Wiacek

DC Comics

058 Legionnaires Book One

When this run of Legion of Super-Heroes first started, I wasn't really having it.  Sure, I read every issue, but I just wasn't happy with it.  The Legion of Super-Heroes had two series going.  The main book featured the Legion and the second book, Legionnaires, featured younger clones of the original team.  Then DC decided "fuck it, let's start over."  And both books were rebooted and we started over at day one again.  We got new adventures, new motivations, new characters.  I wasn't happy because my team, a team I'd been reading since I was ten or eleven years old, was suddenly gone.  They were replaced with these imposters.

But over time, this title really grew on me.  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't done half-assed like another reboot I've complained about a lot on this blog.  And the characters slowly became old friends again.  There were new characters whom I adored (XS!!!  Monstress!!!!).  There were reboots I didn't particularly care for (Projectra.... um, no.)

What's weird re-reading these stories, especially in this format, is seeing how quickly the basis of the Legion was thrown together.  This volume reprints six or seven issues of each series and it's crazy how quickly they added and subtracted members in less than the first year of the series.  Sure, it kind of makes sense they way they did it, but it was still pretty quick how many characters were introduced after the team was formed.

It's weird to me that Mark Waid was behind the reboot of the team into this AND the reboot of this team into the next iteration.  This one worked.  The one after this so did not.  I'm anxious to see the next volume of this book.

Legionnaires Book One

Writer: Tom McCraw, Tom Peyer, Mark Waid

Artist: Stuart Immonen, Lee Moder, Jeffrey Moy, Brian Apthorp, Scott Benefiel, Yancey Labat, Chris Renaud, Ron Boyd, W.C. Carani, Philip Moy, Tom Simmons

DC Comics