Tuesday, July 05, 2005

"You Had To Have Been There" Good Comics

A funny thing that I have noticed is that time, and the radiant, heavenly city, tends to put things into different perspective.

For instance, what was praised heavily in 1988 might not be so well-thought of in 2005.

Heck, what was praised heavily in 2004 might not be so well-thought of in 2005.

So what I thought I would do is to look at some past acclaimed comics and/or issues that are currently not so acclaimed, and examine perhaps WHY they are no longer so acclaimed.

The first book I will detail is Legionnaires #7 (and the title in general).

In late 1992/early 1993, Legionnaires was quite the critical darling.

Perhaps in response to the "adult Legion" or perhaps just in response to darkened comics PERIOD, a lot of burden was placed upon Legionnaires to be this shining knight of fun and goodness that was to save us from dreary comics.

An issue that was highlighted in particular was Legionnaires #7, which was drawn by Adam Hughes, and depicted the Legionnaires on vacation on a waterworld.

Reading the issue now, it is still a nice issue, so why the drop in esteem for the title?

This one is the easiest one to explain (hmmm...I wonder why I put it first), as the reason Legionnaires is probably not all that well remembered is because the book was "erased" by Zero Hour about a year later, and the title became just a second title for the "new" Legion of Superheroes post-Zero Hour.

Which is too bad, as Tom and Mary Bierbaum did a heckuva job on this title, while artist Chris Sprouse has currently (due to his association with Alan Moore) found a position as one of the more acclaimed artists of today.

So check out Legionnaires, folks!

It was acclaimed at the time, and after re-reading it, it was acclaimed with good reason!

2 Comments:

Blogger Johnny Bacardi said...

I think a lot of that had to do with the succession of really bad artists that took over from Hughes until the reboot, pluys it's only been since Tom Strong that people paid attention to Sprouse, and 1992 is ancient history to today's average comics reader.

I loved that run of Legionnaires, it's still my favorite version of the LSH.

7/05/2005 9:29 AM  
Blogger Johnny Bacardi said...

pluys=plus

7/05/2005 9:29 AM  

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