JulianPerez
Council of Wisdom
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« on: October 09, 2006, 05:26:33 AM » |
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For my money, it's a crying shame that a Superman fan as big as Roy Thomas never got a lengthy Superman "run." He did an issue here and there, notably the often seen "Fortress of Fear," but unlike his fellow Marvel alums like Len Wein and Marv Wolfman, never got a lengthy, sustained run.
Which is a shame, because of how fantastic his brief story in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES in 1981.
Roy Thomas's unique skills as a writer, and his unique perspective, was really brought to bear on this particular Legion story. Several interesting additions he made:
One chapter involves the Legionnaires blasted through to the 20th Century.
Roy Thomas characterized Lightning Lad (then, the leader of the Legion of Super-Heroes) very well: unlike other Legion leaders, he had Lightning Lad be a very people-centered leader as opposed to a strategy-centered leader. For instance, he had Lightning Lad assemble the strike team to go to the 20th Century to learn the fate of Ultra Boy. He left out Phantom Girl, who naturally wanted to know the fate of the man he loves. "I don't care if you are Legion leader, you're not leaving me behind!" To which Lightning Lad responds "Actually Phantom Girl, I never figured we would. But it hand to be YOUR decision, not MINE." Also, Lightning Lad refused to allow the Legionnaires to open fire on 20th Century troops, because "that's not the way to win friends."
Roy Thomas's characterization of Blok as being a sensitive, emotionally perceptive young man (as Wildfire says, "You may be a teenage rock being - but you don't have a HEART made of stone!") to be honest, I prefer this Thomas take to his Levitz-era characterization, where Blok knows nothing about humans, humanity, or human behavior and has to stop and ask what words mean. I can't imagine somebody like Thomas's Blok breaking things because he doesn't know his own strength, which the Levitz Blok did all the time - Roy Thomas played him as far too smart for that.
I guess if you want, it may be possible to reconcile the two characterizations: Blok is always trying to know more about humanity (as he is in Levitz) but he is unaware of, how much he knows at an intuitive level, far more than even humans themselves know (as was his Thomas characterization).
It was also interesting to see how Thomas so very well defined how the people of the 30th Century look at the people of the 20th Century. Sure, their attitudes come from the ever-haughty Dawnstar, but in the book, there's a sense she's saying what everyone else is thinking with a line like "the people of this age are savages playing with deadly toys."
Thomas as always, demonstrated his incredible and wide knowledge: for instance, a big plot point is that after 1963 or so, most atomic testing was done underground. Thomas's knowledge of comics history also is shown by the fact he has an appearance by Reflecto. Reflecto's only previous appearance (!) was as a statue of a Dead Legionnaire in the Adult Legion Story (which was also how Shadow Lass first showed up, and Chemical King).
Likewise, Thomas's palpable love of history, period-tales, and of nostalgia is on display in these issues, in little details like the fact the television in the Kent home is in black and white.
What is most interesting about these issues is how "Marvel-style" the book feels; a very strange thing for LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. The story is driven by the the feelings and motivations of the characters, instead of having them be reactive out of a sense of duty to things going on around them. The story is driven by Grimbor the Chainsman's desire for revenge at the death of his wife and Phantom Girl's desire to learn about the fate of her beloved Ultra Boy. We even get a very touching moment between Colossal Boy and his mother, the President of Earth. Further, even though there's a one page cameo by Batman, because in a Martin Pasko story in BRAVE AND THE BOLD he was teaming up with the Legion. It was a little one panel appearance, but little things like this go a long way to give interconnectivity and to make the world feel more real.
Roy Thomas also returned Superboy to the Legion.
Ever since that godawful Conway story in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #259 (1980) where Superboy returned to his own time (and his own magazine). It wasn't so much that it was done, but HOW it was done; at the end, where everybody's crying and wishing Superboy goodbye...Good Heavens, what a load of sentimental hooey!
The problem is that Superboy is a much more significant character to the Legion than I think, Conway and others believe: Superboy is our "point of view" character; not just a cypher who asks "what's that," he's the point of identification with the audience, what John the Savage is to Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, or what Fry is to FUTURAMA.
Superboy is also significant to Legion history and identity. Legion started off as a Superboy spin-off, after all; the book is very much in the Superman Family along with Supergirl and World of Krypton. Further, Superboy is also something of the "star" of the book: he gets top billing and attention in a way not comparable to anybody since, well, BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS, or perhaps the current popularity of Wolverine in the X-Men.
He's all these things rolled into ONE. So Superboy's contribution to the Legion can't be underestimated. And why Roy Thomas's decision to bring him back into the book was a wise one.
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