Acceptable in the 80s

Seriously. They do not make 'em like this any more.

Welcome back to the third instalment of my homage to the Legion of Super-Heroes. It was one of my favourite titles as a schoolkid and I stuck with it through the dark days of my late adolescence to see it flourish spectacularly as I became a young adult. This theme of this blog is really all about looking to the past while waiting for something to get better- pretty much how Cancerians deal with everything, I suppose!
In the middle years of comics' Bronze Age- the late 70s- the Legion of Super-Heroes were becoming more integrated in the DC Universe, as we can see from the Dick Dillin jam above. They also appeared in this collection of new stories:

One of my favourite Legionnaires even had his own spin-off series (even if it tapped into the martial arts fad about four years too late and was pretty terrible anyway):

Toward the end of the decade Marvel and DC comics were becoming very similar in tone and execution, even as creators moved back and forth from one company to another. The giant era for the JLA and the LSH ended in '78 but they were both being scripted by the same fellow: Gerry Conway, the young man who had ended the Silver Age with the death of Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man. "Merry Gerry" had flitted back and forth between companies, revamping the New Gods and Captain Comet  and co-creating Power Girl, the Secret Society of Super-Villains, the Punisher and Ms. Marvel; then later Vixen, Firestorm and Steel. It looked like he was about to fulfill another prophecy of doom with this SLSH issue:

I admire Conway's melodramatic writing and his lengthy stint on JLA; I enjoyed his well-deserved inclusion of Zatanna and the Detroit League was a remarkably brave, if not entirely successful, response to the stultifying Satellite League and to the audience of the day. However, I found him dull and uninspired on the Legion. For a moment, there was a return to the cosmic scope of Levitz's first run with this anniversary tale by a pseudonymous Jim Starlin:

 One of us is a homicidal universe-threatening megalomaniac. Wheee!

But with the slide of both Brainiac 5 and M-E Lad into insanity, the Legion entered a long period of rather plodding super-heroics. Don't mistake me- these were very competent comics - they just lacked the wacky quality or the sense of wonder that underpinned the melodrama of Shooter, Bates and Levitz. Two other Marvel influences were felt in the strip at the end of the 70s: the fan-favourite ascent of Claremont and Byrne's X-Men and the anti-bureaucratic plotlines from Byrne and Michelinie's Avengers. You can even see the Legion's attempting to mimic the merry mutants' logo:

He will return, you know.

The likes of Phantom Girl, Light Lass, Star Boy, Projectra and crucially Dream Girl would be rarely seen during Conway's tenure. The group pictured above pretty much represented the entire membership. Superboy left the team for retro-styled adventures in Smallville. I still bought every issue, mind you, because occasionally a new team of Marvel-esque villains might turn up( below) or the Legion of Substitute Heroes might return from obscurity (in the very next issue):

The Silver Slasher (above) is a very typical Conway villainess, an amalgam of two of his stereotypes- the beautiful but deadly frigid female and the feral femme with raking claws (c.f. Killer Frost and the Cheetah)
 I was about to attend Hamilton Grammar to prepare for my Highers at this point. Mary Tamm had replaced Louise Jameson in Dr. Who. I had also started to buy Silver Age comics by mail order. The red-haired kid, Robert McInally, who'd given me The Trial of Star Boy also had this parting gift when he left the village in '78:

I know every panel by heart...

The discovery of a heroic descendant of  Lex Luthor and new villains Echo and Beauty Blaze were followed during 1979-80 with finally seeing White Witch and Quantum Queen in Adventure 351 and 375 (bought from a lad in Ireland via Exchange and Mart) and then, this:

I'm hearing Army Dreamers by Kate Bush. Fact

The Villainaires! Spider Girl ! Radiation Roy!!  There would be other musty, yellowing back issues to come - and one more in particular- but these two loom large at the end of my school days.
After Marvel work on Micronauts, Captain Universe and Machine Man, Spider-Man legend Steve Ditko turned in some more work for DC- a shiny, interstellar new Starman, who fused Star Wars imperial intrigue with Starlin's cosmic Capt. Marvel.- and a brace of Legion issues. Conway's parting gift to the Legion, meanwhile, was its first reformed super-villain member (basically, the gimmick behind half of the mighty Avengers!)

 These guys have been at the Legion Academy for nearly 30 years. Tough curriculum.

 This issue also featured a preview of a revamped Dial H for Hero, a brilliantly kid-friendly concept that DC should bring back immedi- oh, wait. Kids don't read comics. What would be the point? However, non-reprint, jumping-on-point "free" comic inserts are a great marketing ploy, even for bearded, tattooed fanmen.
The investiture of former Legion scripter Jim Shooter as  Marvel's Editor-in-Chief could be seen as the end of the Bronze Age; it certainly saw many of Marvel's mainstays- Roy Thomas, Gene Colan and George Perez jump ship for DC. Not only did this sound the death-knell (at least in terms of quality) for award-winning  titles like Tomb of Dracula and Conan but it resulted in the launch of several new concepts at a resurgent DC. This was the era of Direct Sales; the Graphic Novel; and the debut of creator-owned comics like Kirby's Captain Victory and Adams' Ms. Mystic. X-Men was going stratospheric and the New Teen Titans was creating a buzz. I was about to leave school. And Roy Thomas was writing the Legion!

Despite all that hype, the orange and yellow-clad enigma turned out to be a disappointing masquerader. The lacklustre art of Jimmy Janes was still prominent (although, Philistine that I was, I preferred it to Ditko. Derr). I'd anticipated so much from Thomas, given his work on Avengers and X-Men with Neal Adams. He lasted all of another three or four issues (as he would with Colan on Wonder Woman); then Paul Levitz was back! So was Molecule Master, long-standing Legion foe the Time Trapper; and this guy:

What did I tell you?

Perez's vision of the Legion was bright, shiny and youthful. It seemed light-years away from the angst and melodrama of Conway's tenure. Another sci-fi visionary from Marvel's Micronauts was poised to give the 30th Century a bold new look while revitalising characters from the distant past- like this fiery Iron Man wannabe I'd heard of but, again, never seen:

But if Pat Broderick's designs were daring, his successor's work would make the Legion DC's second-most popular comic after New Teen Titans. The Levitz-Giffen team would become, for me, the gold standard against which all others would be judged.
Next: Universally Challenged.
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