Back Issue # 68 (magazine review).
Although I’ve nearly completed my whistle-stop tour of ‘Legion Of Super-Heroes’ material outstanding since DC Comics have removed them from their titles. I thought it was about time I had a look at TwoMorrows’ magazine Back Issue # 68 that gave all its attention to the 30th century from the 1970s-80s, although there is some reference to the 60s, which is their other magazine, ‘Alter-Ego’s remit. Although as its editor, Roy Thomas, is less of a fan, I haven’t seen anything appear in the ads for it yet. If you’re an LSH fan, then chances are you’ve already got a copy of this magazine although I suspect it might have slipped by some of you since 2013.
This issue has an extensive history of the LSH’s production across various titles and interviews with the various creators and assorted art, including showing the original art. It’s also a demonstration of how a team that started off as a throwaway idea in a ‘Superboy’ story in ‘Adventure Comics’ later became its second best-selling team book, beaten only by the ‘Teen Titans’, until extinction now. When you consider how the LSH survived the various continuity reinventions, it seems that either the comic reading population moved away or aged and died. Reading the various creator comments, who came up through the ranks to the opportunity of contributing to its continuity, I couldn’t help but wonder that this is no longer likely to happening will the LSH ever get resurrected again. Then again, there is always the geek response and people rediscover the old material and want to do a revival. The series had to have something to go for for some fifty years. Without Superboy, uniquely, the LSH is a super-hero title that never needed to worry about continuity in the regular DC reality which is why it managed to hold on for so long.
Granted the Legion has a lot going against it as well. A massive team of over 20 people from various planets, not to mention other teams and a host of villains. It’s a lot for a new reader to absorb. Looking at the recent reprints, even adding boxes to explain to new readers who the characters were and what they can do wasn’t done back in the 60s. I got interested in them in ‘Adventure Comics’ simply because I wanted to find out who and what they were. That’s largely how you learn to like the book. It must have worked back then.
Anyway, this issue of ‘Back Issue’ fills you in with both creator background and some of the Legion’s highlights. It explores the use of the Time Trapper, especially in removing the use of Superboy from the revised time-line back in the 1980s. The LSH title still has the distinction of being able to kill off various Legionnaires, although with the two reboots, it continues the comicbook logic of death is not forever. This magazine would surely put the shine on its success for so long and probably why Warner Bros are still considering a film about the team, although I suspect the team numbers would have to be reduced or some of them only getting a cameo.
I enjoyed this look back on the Legion Of Super-Heroes and if you’ve missed it until now, remember TwoMorrows don’t do reprints, so if you don’t want a digital copy, chase after a copy from them now.
GF Willmetts
April 2015
(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2013. 82 page illustrated magazine. Price: $ 8.95 (US). ISSN: 1932-6904)
check out website: www.twomorrows.com
