You can also listen to this as a podcast here:

http://www.dccomics.com/media/podcasts/DCComics_2008-04-19_Legion_New_York_Comic_Con_2008.mp3 

NYCC ‘08: THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES PANEL

---

by Chris Mautner
Lest anyone doubt the popularity of DC’s flagship team book The Legion of Super-Heroes, let him or her discuss the matter with the devoted throng that attended the 50th anniversary panel at the New York Comic-Con this Saturday afternoon.
Though far from packed, a sizable crowd nevertheless showed up to hear artist Keith Giffen, writer (and DC comics publisher) Paul Levitz and current Legion editor Mike Marts talk about their experiences working on the book.
Asked by moderator and historian Peter Sanderson what was the defining element that made the Legion such a revolutionary book, Levitz cited the title’s willingness to let the characters age, change their relationships and even, in the seminal case of Lightning Lad, die. Giffen pointed out that of all superhero teams, the Legion was the first to recognize the price of heroism.
“Up until then comics had come out of classic comic strip tradition of freeze frame. Everyone is going to be same age forever,” Levitz said. “The Legion, four issues into own series said ‘Screw this stuff, we’re going to kill people and change relationships.’”
Marts cited the book’s clubhouse atmosphere, which gave younger readers a strong opportunity for identification. “A lot of kids knew you couldn’t be Superman or Batman but hanging out in clubhouse with friends is something you did all the time,” he said. “You could relate to them almost immediately.
Giffen, meanwhile, stressed the book offering a counterpoint to the dystopian, post-apocalyptic future type of stories that have become so popular these days. The Legion, he said, gave you a “future you wanted to live in. … That’s when it made its mark.”
Asked about past contributors to the lengthy series, Levitz discussed how writers like Jerry Siegel and Ed Hamilton brought, respectively a levity and an epic sense of scale to the work early on, while Jim Shooter (who was supposed to attend but had to cancel his appearance at the convention) brought a humanity to characters who had previously been somewhat cardboard – something that, to this day still amazes Levitz, given that Shooter was showing that sense of humanity while he was 13 years old. All three cited the work of the late artist Dave Cockrum as seminal. The contributions of Curt Swan and Jim Sherman were also highly praised.
Asked about the specific challenges of working on the Legion, the immense number of characters (“30 damned characters” as Giffen put it) and their histories, costumes, and other miscellany were cited as a strong hurdle.
“I thought I was somewhat familiar with the Legion when I came on board, but I was in for a little bit of a surprise,” Marts said. “Knowing what color Batman’s costume is pretty simple,” versus the multitude of legion kids. “It’s tricky to keep the look consistent.”
Levitz stressed the need to be willing, especially for artists, to delve into the challenge that is the group’s immense history while being willing to build new worlds. “For Legion you either get the crazy artist who’s willing to put everything in it or it really shows,” he said.
The Legion’s past reboots were discussed, with Giffen saying that his “5 Years Later” shift in the Legion (which has a love/hate relationship with fans) came about due to his not knowing what else to do when he landed the writing chores on the title after Levitz.
Asked about Legion’s future, Marts said Shooter has an intricate plot laid out and that readers would see more romance and perhaps even a wedding in the book’s future. He also said a legion-related project would be coming out at the end of the year, adding that Shooter is “on for the long haul.”
“There’s nobody lining up to draw or write the Legion,” Giffen added, talking about all the worlds and space aliens an artist would have to invent for such a comic. “There’s no point of reference you have to make it up as you go along.”
The high point of the panel had to be when, in response to a fan question, Giffen voiced his ire for the character Karate Kid.
“I hate that character,” he said good-naturedly. “I agreed to come on Countdown only if I could kill him. If I come on Legion again, he’s dead.”
Why does he hate him so much? “Two words put together. Super-Karate.”
“Everyone in this field has characters they hate,” Giffen said. “I just have the bad taste to say it out loud.”

NYCC ‘08: THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES PANEL - NEWSARAMA

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

AWESOME!!!!

DC UNIVERSE #0 - THE REAL COVER

---

You’ve seen a teaser or two, but today, DC Comics has provided Newsarama with the real deal – the true cover to May’s DC Universe #0
Back in February DC’s Dan DiDio described the one-shot, saying:
“Originally, we were going to do Countdown to Final Crisis #0 - that’s what Countdown has been counting down to: 51 to 0 – 52 issues in total, a year’s worth of work. Ultimately though, what happened was that when we were looking at how #0 was being created, we realized that in collecting Countdown to Final Crisis, it would be hard to collect the #0 issue, because it would leave us on a cliffhanger at the end of the book. We felt that probably wasn’t the best way to end a book, so we decided to end all the Countdown stories with #1, and therefore make the #0 issue separate. That’s when it became Final Crisis #0.
“Then, Grant was involved in the writing of Final Crisis #0 of course, and Grant wanted Geoff to co-write it with him. But as we were building the book, we realized that the story wasn’t contained to the stories that were flowing into Final Crisis, involving New Gods and Monitors, but really touched upon so many major events going on throughout the DCU including: more hints to the Black Lanterns story, what’s coming up in the Batman storylines, Superman’s upcoming stories and Wonder Woman as well. Because it started to expand outside of Final Crisis, we repositioned the book one more time, and now it’s called DC Universe #0
“And since this is becoming more of a springboard to all of the DC Universe in 2008, we wanted to make this much more accessible to all of our fans and separate it out from Final Crisis and Countdown so it can really stand alone on its own feet. As such, it’s going to sell for 50 cents – 24 pages by Grant and Geoff, with art by a wide variety of folks including Ivan Reis, Carlos Pacheco, Tony Daniel, George Perez and Aaron Lopresti.”
Click on the thumbnail below for a larger version, or here for a ridiculously large version.

DC UNIVERSE #0 - THE REAL COVER - NEWSARAMA

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

GEORGE PEREZ ON LEGION OF 3 WORLDS, II

---

by Vaneta Rogers
After our interview with George Perez about this August’s five-issue mini-series Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, we talked with the artist about the teaser image he drew for the series that appeared in this week’s Action Comics #863.
We wanted to know the names of the characters we couldn’t quite identify in the image, and Perez loved verifying who’s who, even pulling out his reference comics to double-check the spelling of Ol-Vir’s name as we talked.
As a result, we decided to share an accurate list of characters with Newsarama readers. So for fans who have been guessing whose boots those are flying off the page or who that is in Shadow Lass’ trail of darkness, we’ve included everyone’s names in the image to the right.
And as we talked to Perez to confirm the names, we asked him about the image’s design and how long it took him to pull it together. So as an extra bit of commentary on the image, here’s what the artist had to say:

 

Read the rest of this entry »

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

The MASTER speaks!

GEORGE PEREZ ON LEGION OF 3 WORLDS, I

---

by Vaneta Rogers
George Perez is no stranger to Crises.
Now DC has tapped him to help out with another Crisis by drawing the Legion of Super-Heroes — not just one of the teams, but three versions of them from three different universes — in this summer’s five-issue mini-series Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds.
Working with writer Geoff Johns, Perez will be drawing five oversized issues that readers can expect to be filled with characters in what Johns promises is an epic tale. Fans got a preview of the story and Perez’s take on the Legion — as well as a few surprise characters from the 21st century — in this week’s Action Comics #863, where Johns once again incorporated a comic book “trailer” to get readers excited about the upcoming project.
Johns and Perez last worked together on Infinite Crisis in 2005, when Perez did several pages to help out regular mini-series artist Phil Jimenez. And of course, as a veteran penciller in the comic book industry for over 30 years, Perez is also well-known for his role as penciller on Crisis of Infinite Earths.
So now that he’s involved in the Final Crisis, Newsarama talked to Perez about the Legion story he’s drawing, as well as his upcoming pages in DC Universe #0.

 

Read the rest of this entry »

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites