TreasuryCast #31 – Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes

TREASURYCAST #31 - SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES

Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary episode! Rob welcomes Nuclear Sub Russell Burbage to discuss LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION #C49 starring SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES!

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13 responses to “TreasuryCast #31 – Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes

  1. Yay Legion! Yay Russell!

    You would think if DC was thinking of putting in a Silver Age story, the Sun Eater story would be much more Legion-y than this one and had a heavy dose of Superboy to boot. While I love Mordru, this isn’t the best story to showcase him.

    That said, so much is tossed into the soup as you say. Insect Queen and Honorary Legionnaires. The White Witch (who hadn’t yet made her big Legion splash yet), Mordru, and finally the other Legionnaires at the end. You can see some crumbs of the big buffet of Legion stuff here.

    I love the Ultra Boy story Russell mentions because it includes one of my favorite little used Legion foes, Ben Pares, the unstoppable thief! That is right in the sweet spot of the run that introduced me to the Legion. That is Superboy 213. I consider 211 my first issue!

    Anyways, love the Legion so love hearing Rob have to talk about it!

  2. Never had either of the Legion treasuries, as they never showed up in any of the magazine racks near me back in the 1970s, but I can say that I always wanted them based simply on those beautiful covers. Although, based on the rundown in your excellent discussion, it seems I didn’t miss much with this one.
    By the way, closing off the show with that version of “That’s Entertainment” sang by Mordru in Legends of the Superheroes was a real deep-dive into pop culture ephemera. Well played.

  3. Rob talking about the Legion? It’s like hell froze over! Looking forward to listening to this, Rob… and * ahem* I’d be more than happy to come on to talk about the OTHER Legion treasury

  4. Thanks for a great episode, it’s always great to hear Russell. Boy, those treasuries sure had shrunk by then… just two reprints and a few feature pages. What a cover, though, you can’t beat a fly-past by the Legion.

    The funny thing about that Mordru story is that it was his second encounter with the Legion in canon, but readers had never seen the first until then – I bet a few would have thought they’d missed the issue featuring his debut on reading that flashback.

    I suppose the difference in Swan’s layouts was that they were by young Mr Shooter, who provided them with his scripts. Twenty years later, Swan’s work again looked more dynamic from a compositional viewpoint as DC had Gil Kane give him some pointers; on the one hand, that’s terribly condescending towards a veteran of Swan’s experience and status, but it might have staved off fan demands to replace him with a more modern artists, and at least Kane was a peer rather than some tyro upstart.

    I agree this story wasn’t the most obvious fit if they were out for new readers, but how many people who weren’t familiar with the Legion would shell out that amount of money? I reckon the treasury was a gift to the fans. Myself, I cannot get enough of Smallville-set stories, I don’t consider them any sillier than any superhero story – a hero has to live somewhere, and a hero has to have colourful enemies and friends. I wish DC would just restore Superman’s career as a young public hero.

  5. First Rob warms up to the Legion, then he admits he likes a Curt Swan art piece. Hope has returned in 2019.

    Fun episode guys. Always a pleasure to hear one of the nicest guys in the known multiverse, Russell Burbage, on the network. Of course Alex Ross recreated this awesome Grell cover for the “Tabloids and Treasuries” issue of Back Issue magazine, and I was proud to have an article in that issue!

    Long Live The Legion…and the Treasury!

    Chris

  6. Egads – Rob doing a Legion podcast and closing out with Mordru’s big musical number? It’s either April Fools or the the world must be coming to an end. :0

    Fun episode, as always.

  7. Everyone seems to have fallen for Shagg’s fake news that Rob hates the Legion. He just never read it as a kid, folks. It’s like saying I hate the Grimjack or something. How would I know? I never read it. (So when I say the Outsiders are terrible, you KNOW I DID read them.)

    On the brief discussion about maimed comics, I have those too. Very early on, I cut out some heads from a few covers so I could fool around with pasting them on top of other characters’ heads. I don’t feel great about it today, but I’m not about to throw those comics away.

  8. I got this one recently. Within the last 20 years. For my collection, that’s recent. Sometime around the turn of the century, after having not collected comics for about 10 years, I decided to seek out only comics with the (real) JSA and the Legion. I got this tabloid at a shop, for probably less than $10. At that point, I thought it was a cute Jim Shooter story with some nice character bits, especially Pete Ross. It also changed my mind about Jack Abel. I had never liked Abel’s inking. What he did to Buckler’s covers was disappointing. What he did to Dick Ayers’ Freedom Fighters was exasperating. What he did to Sherman’s Legion was criminal. Then I saw that splash, and thought that he must have been better when he was younger. Until I heard Russell say that it was all Curt Swan. Good. I love Curt Swan. I don’t want any reason to stick up for Jack Abel. Especially because the last panel of this story is ruined by his work on the eyes of the three girls. Yuck.
    A few years later, this became a favorite comic of my young daughter. She took a real interest in my Treasury Editions, and subsequently is still a Legion-lover today. We read this one often. It’s a good story for a kid. It’s a good story for having been written by a kid.
    If Nicholas Prom, professional podcaster, is unable to talk to Rob about the other Legion treasury, like, for instance he gets the Pain Plague, or is swallowed by a space whale, I can step up for him. After I send Anj to a Klordny Fest. I bought that one off the stands brand-new! It may be the first Treasury edition I ever bought!

  9. First off, Rob didn’t put the Legends of Super Hero song by Mordru in this podcast. Legends of the Super Heroes was just a bad dream. It never really happened, so Rob couldn’t have put a song from it in the podcast, even if he wanted.

    I don’t have much of a Legion collection. The reason I have this treasury is because I’m one of those 70s babies that just can’t resist a treasury. Well, almost can’t resist. I have resisted Welcome Back Kotter so far, and if I ever get that one I’m going to have my sanity checked.

    Seriously, though, I don’t dislike the Legion. I think the large amount of members and lore may have scared me off. My early Legion comics were the Tempo paperback, which I got in a set for Christmas, and the odd Legion issue that Whitman placed in the Superman-branded three packs. I don’t believe I ever just picked a Legion issue off the spinner rack. Also, the futuristic setting prevented the Legion from appearing in other books, so that prevented me from learning about them as well.

    While Curt Swan doesn’t rank among my favorite artists, I still enjoy his work. I love the page that he inked himself. I had not really thought about Abel’s inking, but I’ve gotten some late Silver/early Bronze Actions recently where the artwork doesn’t even look like it is by Swan, and that is the case here. I think Abel may have inked some of those Action issues. I have enjoyed the Legion back-ups in those issues, and I’m looking into getting more Legion stuff. Like most other fans, I think Swan’s stuff looked best when inked by Murphy Anderson.

    Grell’s cover is spectacular and it is a shame that every member featured was not inside. Looking at the beautiful cover really makes the reader curious about who some of these people are. I do know most of their names, but not a lot of their history. The cover makes me want to learn about them.

    As for this treasury, I would rather DC have picked a story that spotlighted more Legion members and their particular brand of space-opera, but the treasury is still fun. Does anyone else find it odd that DC chose a story that didn’t feature even one of the founding Legion members? Come on, a Legion treasury without Lightning Lad or Saturn Girl? I think the Legion was the first super team to have a large number of female members, so I would have liked a story that spotlighted them more, as well.

    I always wish DC would raised the price on treasuries instead of slashing the page count, but that isn’t unique to this treasury.

    One last closing comment: Legends of the Super Heroes was just a bad dream. Legends of the Super Heroes never really happened.

      1. Darn it, Chris, I’m trying to blot that thing out of my mind. Even when it first aired, I realized it was horrible. I would get Zatanna to wipe my mind and make me forget it….except I’m trying to pretend like Identity Crisis didn’t happen either.

  10. Excellent episode, guys. Even as a child of the ’70’s, the format I did enjoy was Blue Ribbon DC Digests (Best of DC #35 being my favourite….. shout out to DigestCast) but I never owned a Treasury. I’m not sure if I never found them or just never noticed them, but it is certainly something that I wished I hadn’t missed. I finally picked up my first Treasury in the last couple of years and it happened to be this particular Legion Treasury! And the only reason I was searching for any Treasury comics was specifically because of this podcast. The enjoyment for this format is what made me what to explore this format so thank you for converting me to the Treasury format! It makes me want to find more. Keep up the great work!

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