A Tale of Two Titles - Mobile Edition

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A Tale of Two Titles
By Philip Schweier
July 29, 2010 - 04:03

Actually, this going to be about more than two titles, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Back in 1982, two of DC Comics’ best-selling titles were the New Teen Titans, written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by George Perez, and the Legion of Super-Heroes, written by Paul Levitz and penciled by Keith Giffen. Both artists also served as co-plotters.

The direct market was just starting to really take hold, so DC Comics decided it would test the waters by creating a second title for each book, which would be sold only through comic book stores. The original title would be re-christened “Tales of...” and continue to sell on magazine racks in drug stores and Quik-e-Marts across the land. After 12 issues DC would begin reprinting stories from the second book.

In essence, the creative teams would be producing 24 issues of material for 12 months. In fairness, sometimes they were merely plotting the stories and leaving the heavy lifting to others. Wolfman and Perez chose to merely look to the future. Original stories for Tales of the New Teen Titans stopped as of #59; #60 featured reprints of their debut from DC Comics Presents #26 and an appearance in the New Teen Titans digest comic; #61 began reprinting a Trigon story arc that was originally presented in New Teen Titans #1, vol. 2.

Meanwhile, Levitz and Giffen had a different plan. The size of the cast of Legion allowed them to create stories that would run in the two titles concurrently, rather than consecutively. This required continuity-conscious readers to buy both titles in order to keep up with the goings on the various members and factions of the team.

I have made the effort to gather and read the Levitz/Giffen record-breaking run, which includes (Tales of) the Legion of Super-Heroes #284-325, Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2, #1-63, three mini-series, nine annuals (some containing reprinted material) and two one-shots. I am amazed, and admittedly confused, with how entrenched the Legion is with it’s own continuity, and sometimes the necessity of reading the stories in order of publication, rather than as stand-alone graphic novels.

Levitz left after Legion #63, turning the book over to Giffen and Mary Biernbaum, but in time the book began to fade from the forefront of the DC Universe. Superman was rebooted, doing away with his early career as Superboy and making his connection to the Legion impossible to explain. Efforts to realign the Legion within the DC Universe were met with increasing skepticism, and presumably the editorial powers-that-were at the time chose to concentrate their efforts on the easier, higher-profile A- and B-list characters

Former Legion scribe Jim Shooter

In 2004, the Legion was revived, first as an ongoing series that ran for 50 issues, a handful of which were written by Jim Shooter. Shooter’s association with the future teen team began during their appearances in Adventure Comics in the 1960s.

Then, makeover master Geoff Johns made managing the massive Legion cast look surprisingly easy, featuring them in a co-starring run of Action Comics #858-863. This led to Legion of Three Worlds, a five-issue limited series featuring the art of George Perez, and now to another ongoing series written by Levitz once again.

So recently, Levitz has returned to write the Legion once more, and has argued that the weakness of writing the Legion is the size of its cast and the scope of its continuity is also its greatest strength. That’s an easy thing to say when one is the architect of much of that continuity. Lesser writers might be intimidated by it, but for some reason, may not be so intimidated writing the Avengers or the Justice League, which also can get bogged down in almost 50 years of history.

In my opinion, it takes a commitment on the part of the writer to buy into the Legion, and see the “challenge” of writing so many characters as more of an opportunity to tell great stories with an incredibly diverse cast of characters.

Another strength of the property is that it takes place outside of the DC Universe arena, and is set in the future where the ever-present bugaboo of continuity is much more fluid. The parallels between the Legion and Star Trek are many, as readers are taken to different worlds and boldly go where no one has gone before. Star Trek, since the expansion of the franchise with the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, has also found its own canon being twisted to suit the needs of the stories, often to the dismay of the more serious fans. However, last year’s Star Trek film established the idea that time travel, often a staple of Legion stories, allows the creative team to re-set the future and permits changes of any kind.

As readers, picking up the Legion might seem too much of an effort to familiarize oneself with all the characters and concepts. But as a new era is launched under extremely experienced hands, I have confidence that it won’t be long before anyone unfamiliar with the Legion is as passionate a fan as us veterans.

Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com