Roy Thomas's 1981 Legion tales: too good, too brief

[dto]

I recall watching the Apollo 11 moon landing at our neighbor's home, since at the time they were the only ones on our block with a "color tee-vee".  My family finally got their first color set a couple years later, and perhaps it was a good thing my uncle worked for TRW (a major NASA contractor back then) -- he often had to adjust the screen and check all those vacuum tubes. 

I doubt my parents will migrate to HDTV or digital radio unless they are absolutely forced to, since they tend to be very "late adaptors" -- they still haven't bought a CD or DVD player...

[TELLE]

Some artists strike me as being easy to duplicate and others hard to duplicate. Neal Adams is one...I can't think of a really good Adams imitator offhand.  do something like that, right?

Bill Sienkiewicz started off as a very competent Adams clone and many others have drawn major inspiration from him, including Dave Sim.  Doesn't Adams have a whole Studio now?

[DoctorZero]

Thomas did a really good job in his few Legion issues.  Does anyone know why he didn't stay on longer?

[Kurt Busiek]

Thomas did a really good job in his few Legion issues.  Does anyone know why he didn't stay on longer?

My copy of THE LEGION COMPANION isn't to hand, but my memory is that he just didn't want to do the book -- he wanted to do books of his own creation, like ARAK, CAPTAIN CARROT and ALL-STAR SQUADRON.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Thomas did a really good job in his few Legion issues.  Does anyone know why he didn't stay on longer?

My copy of THE LEGION COMPANION isn't to hand, but my memory is that he just didn't want to do the book -- he wanted to do books of his own creation, like ARAK, CAPTAIN CARROT and ALL-STAR SQUADRON.

kdb

Found the book.  What Roy says is:

"Mostly, it was just a job.  I'm just not a Legion fan.  I respected the fact that it was very popular, and I liked groups, [but] it just wasn't my thing.  It wasn't a book I was eager to do because I never really followed it, but an assignment was an assignment, and I enjoyed the half-dozen issues I did."

And:

"I never felt I was going to stay with it that terribly long...it was sort of a month-to-month assignment."

On the subject of bringing back Superboy, he says:

"It was something I was in favor of, but it wasn't just my idea.  It was whatever they were wanting to do at the time.  Maybe it was already a plan that was in place when I came back, I don't know.  I was in favor of that, but I don't think it was my idea."

I'd guess that writing Superboy out wasn't Gerry Conway's idea, either, just an editorial decision made when they gave him his own solo book back.

kdb