July 2, 2008
Wizard World Chicago '08 (with bonus Legion bleg)
I spent the day Sunday in the Petri dish that is the Donald E. Stephens convention center in Rosemont, Illinois -- and have spent every day since with a sore throat, thank you very much, my germy fellow fans. Next year, I'm going in costume as Dr. Decibel just so I have an excuse to wear a surgical mask all day. Notwithstanding my cold, though, it was a pretty fun con.
The highlight of the con was, of course, the Silver Age Trivia panel, moderated by Mr. Silver Age himself, Craig Shutt. On one side of the podium was the team of fan experts -- Mike Chary, Doug Tonks, Todd Allen, and Matt Holmes. Normally, the other team consists of Mark Waid, but Mark was not at the con this year. This was downright tragic, for reasons I will discuss later in this post, but there was a bright side -- the fan expert team was forced to face off against a group of fans chosen from the audience. I was the first member selected -- I made the team by identifying the first Justice Leaguer to have a solo adventure against Dr. Light (proving Mr. Silver Age's admonition that "they're all easy if you know them," I was absolutely shocked that mine was the only hand that went up). John Stieb, Jim Caldwell, and a fourth gentlemen (whose name I've forgotten) rounded out the initial challenger team; later, we added a fifth fan (whose name I never caught). Despite our eventual 5-4 advantage (not to mention the 5 second head-start the fan experts eventually gave us), we lost. But we kept it respectable, and that's got to count for something.
Besides, the fan expert team took entirely too long to answer the easiest question ever, so I take that as a moral victory. In a just world, they would have lost all of their points for requiring a good 30 seconds to come up with the answer to the question "Why is 327 a significant issue number for a Silver Age comic?" Again, though, they're all easy if you know the answers.
The other big event of the con, from my perspective, came on Saturday afternoon. I didn't attend the con, but I did meet up with a bunch of friends for dinner, including Jeff Moy and Cory Carani. About an hour before I left my house for dinner, inspiration struck. A few weeks ago, I bought this collection:
Why not, I thought to myself, have it signed by every single Legion creator? Sure, it's too late to get signatures from greats like Jerry Siegel, Dave Cockrum, Otto Binder, and Curt Swan (to name just a few). But there are still plenty of great Legion creators who I could have sign my book. Not Mark Waid, of course, at least not this year -- as mentioned, he failed to attend this year, and that is the tragedy I alluded to earlier. But this weekend, I still got signatures from a roster of luminaries including the aforementioned Jeff and Cory, pencillers Olivier Coipiel and Francis Manapul, and Legion editor extraordinaire K.C. Carlson. The last signature was particularly rewarding, since K.C. and I then spent a good hour chatting about topics as diverse as what's wrong with comics today to working with the Bierbaums to the famous "Guess Who's Back! Wrong!" cover to Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #40 (yes, it was an intentional joke at the expense of Wildfire fans, and K.C. apologizes). Dennis Calero was at the con, too, but he was never at his table when I wandered by. Next year, Calero -- this I swear!
So that's five signatures down and ... well, I'm not sure how many to go, and that's where the bleg comes in. I'm looking for a list of each and every writer, artist, editor, letterer, and colorist who has ever worked on the Legion so that, one by one, I can track them down and have them inscribe their names in my 50th anniversary collection. Can anyone point me to such a list? I was hoping there might be one on Mike Grabois's excellent Legion Omnicom website, but if there is, I couldn't find it. Anyone? Anyone?
So those were the high points of the con for me. You might also want to check out Doug's write-up or Todd's write-up. Todd does the stripper booth more justice than I ever could, so be sure to check it out if you haven't already. The write-up, that is, not the stripper booth -- you missed your chance for that one if you weren't at the con.
(By the way, the Atom was the first Leaguer to fight Dr. Light solo and 327 is the issue number of the debut of the New Look Batman).
Posted by Jason Fliegel at July 2, 2008 9:07 PM
I asked KC Carlson about the Wildfire cover. He did not apologize, to my knowledge.
It wasn't a formal presentation of an apology, by any means, but I also heard KC say the word sorry.
Other than the New Look (which I had to look up), is there any other significance to the number 327?
Greg, I'm surprised you had to look up the first "New Look" issue number -- the entire challenger team thought it was the easiest question asked all day. But I guess this is yet another reminder of the fact that "they're all easy -- if you know the answer," and I'm sure the fan expert team was snickering at some of the questions that stumped us challengers. Maybe I have a better memory for numbers than I realized.
In any event, when you're dealing with Silver Age trivia, there are only a few comics that even had an issue 327. The highest-numbered Marvel Comic is Journey Into Mystery/Thor, and that didn't hit issue 327 until the 80s (Simonson took over the title with issue 337). So you know it has to be DC. Even there, when it comes to Silver Age 327s, there's a very limited universe to draw from -- Action, Adventure, and Detective, and I think that's pretty much it.
I suppose one could have answered "First appearance of Timber Wolf."
Well, I don't like New Look Batman, so 'tec 327 has never been on the tip of my mind. I did recognize (without looking) that 327 meant early '65 Action and a couple other continuous-monthly titles, but the only other thing that came to mind was whether Four-Color 327 was important (it turns out not to be, and April '51 is awfully early for Silver Age), and whether there were any other more-than-monthly titles I was forgetting.
I suppose one could have answered "First appearance of Timber Wolf."
Not only that, but Adventure 327 was the last non-Legion Superboy cover on that book until Superboy took the title over again 13 years later. This is not the obvious, blatant, everybody-knows-the-answer piece of trivia that you claim! Sitting serenely on the other side of that podium, you have no idea of the titanic struggle that was taking place on our team.
I don't like New Look BatmanBurn the heretic!
I've had this fact burned into my brain since the release of DC's Who's Who back in the mid-80s. Their Batman entry was split into Golden- and Silver-Age Batmans. Silver-Age Batman's first appearance was credited as Detective 327 - I knew the New Look was considered the start of Batman's Silver Age, but until I saw that number I didn't actually know with which issue it began. (In Batman Comics, the first New Look issue is #164.)
Detective Comics 327 also features Elongated Man's first appearance in the book. His debut story, Ten Miles To Nowhere, is notable for one of the greatest lines of dialogue: "An ear! In the fireplace!!"
For what it's worth, I don't really like New Look Batman either. No, I don't.
Doug's point about Adventure 327 is well-taken. Craig was going for a certain answer, but he did allow that he would give you credit for your answer, if you could make the case.
It took me a while to puzzle out "The highest-numbered Marvel Comic is Journey Into Mystery/Thor, and that didn't hit issue 327 until the 80s"--since, of course, multiple Marvel comics are now in their 500s. Of course you meant "The highest-numbered Marvel Comic [during the Silver Age was] Journey Into Mystery/Thor. . . ".
Thor was the first Marvel title to reach #500, in July 1996, and it was canceled two months later (ending up with one less issue than Adventure Comics).
Good luck with the Legion signatures project--very worthwhile!
You know, I had completed forgotten (blocked out?) the fact that most of Marvel's Silver Age titles have restarted with issue #1, sometimes multiple times.
If I'm not mistaken, Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man are still numbered as if they were continuing the sequence from the books Stan Lee wrote in the early 60s, although in both cases, they restarted with #1s but later "jumped" in the numbering to where they would have been had they kept their old numbering.
But there's no book that continues the numbering from the old Journey Into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, or Tales to Astonish (let alone Strange Tales, but that fell by the wayside decades ago), or any of the titles that started with when Marvel went from split books to full-length books.
I'm not quite sure why, but that makes me a little sad.
Jason has been giving me crap because during the consultation I suggested that maybe it was a Marvel book, but it was just one suggestion in the heat of the moment. Additionally, I am pretty sure if we added up all my correct answers, I would have beaten the challengers by myself.
I'm just saying.
Of Marvel's Silver Age titles only [Uncanny] X-Men dodged the "restart with #1" curse. You're correct that of the others only FF and ASM recovered their full numbering. Daredevil had the "real" issue number on the cover for a while (in addition to the restarted counting), but that stopped again when I wasn't looking.
And it is sad. The loss of the high numbers is a reminder of a very dark period in comics, when Marvel was actively ashamed of the fact that its comics had long and (often) proud histories behind them.
(That period was dark for other reasons. Thor #502 in 1996 was the last Marvel comic I bought before the period when I went several months without buying a Marvel title. I don't think I'd had such a month in the preceding 20 years. Even when I "wasn't buying comics", I was buying X-Men.)
Additionally, I am pretty sure if we added up all my correct answers, I would have beaten the challengers by myself.
You're only saying that because it's completely and totally true.
I wasn't privy to the discussions of the fan expert team, but Chary totally rocked the buzzer. For those unfamiliar with the format, each batch of questions begins with a question where anyone can buzz in but the player who does so must answer the question himself. This is then followed by a series of three questions where the team may confer amongst itself. Mike didn't get all the buzz-ins for the fan expert team, but he got most of them. He's a Silver Age trivia genius.
Actually, in 1996 Thor was retitled Journey Into Mystery with issue #503; Bill Messner-Loebs was supposed to be continuing his Thor subplots with the Lost Gods (Red Norvell Thor, Sif, etc) in the wake of the Ragnarok Ellis started in his run.
When issue #503 debuted, mysteriously Loebs had been replaced by... sigh... Tom Defalco. This series ran to issue #513 with one #-1 issue. Then the series was converted to an anthology book, with a Ben Raab-written Shang-Chi story. Then a Scott Lobdell/Randy Green Black Widow arc which was mighty swell. Then a Marv Wolfman/Karl Kerschl Hannibal King arc that ended the series. A planned Brandon Peterson drawn Dr. Strange story for the title was never completed, and the Moon Knight arc planned for the book was eventually published as a four issue miniseries, marking what would be Doug Moench's farewell to the character.
It wasn't merely the buzzers, because around twenty minutes in, I suggsted giving the challengers a five second head start on the toss ups. *AND* I even helped them out by providing a count down. (Or at least Jim said it helped him out, I was just doing it so no one thought I was jumping the gun.)
Jason,
For what it's worth*, I found this using The Google for "Legion Creators". It isn't specific about what they did, or when they did it, but it seems fairly inclusive. They also have a list of Legion editors and their terms of service.
*and I thought it was worth typing that out.
Thanks, Jim -- this seems like it would be perfect. If only the page would load for me. Who wants to chip in to buy Legion wiki a new server? And how did I not know that there was a Legion wiki?
After I posted the link, I did realize it was missing some names. Or at least one. Darwyn Cooke (who had an 8 page back-up in Legion Worlds) isn't listed - though, since I was able to load it (again!), they do concede that it is "by no means complete."
But it's certainly a good place to start.
Dan @ 14: I had known about the renaming of Thor into Journey into Mystery, though I hadn't known that Messner-Loebs was originally slated to write it. I also hadn't realized that there were any post-Thor issues. Thanks for the info.
This link goes to a 1996 post I made on rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh
Yes, I should have tiny url'ed it, but I don't know how.
Anyway, with help from a great many others, that was the Creator Tenure List as it stood at that time. I fried my PC not long after, and never bothered to recreate and update the list. I am, by all accounts, a bad, bad Legion fan.
Still, the list is complete through April, 1996. That should give you a start. Now all you have to do is index the last 12 years worth of Legion stories.
Have fun!
Yes, I should have tiny url'ed it, but I don't know how.
http://www.tinyurl.com (Honest!)
That was, and is, a great list.
Kevin: It's not uncommon for people to block out memories of Tom DeFalco written Thor Comics. Or Tom DeFalco comics in general.
In fact, if anyone has a way to make me completely forget I read The Buzz, Darkdevil, or any issue of the Fantastic Four between Simonson and Lee/Choi, I'd love to hear it.