Happy Birthday, Jim Shooter!

Today is the birthday of extraordinary Legion writer Jim Shooter, born on this date in 1951. He is 65 years young!



If you are any type of long-term Legion fan, you have heard The Legend of Jim Shooter. At age 13 he was already a strong DC fan when he picked up a Marvel Comic (Fantastic Four #4, appropriately) and realized that Marvel was better than DC. He decided he could do something about it, and sent a story to Legion editor Mort Weisinger. Eventually Mort wrote back, saying, in effect, "keep it up." The rest, as they say, is....The Future. Jim Shooter became the main Legion writer from the tender age of 14, and stayed with the series for the rest of its Adventure Comics run. (For a short essay on this experience from his perspective, please check out his blog post Growing Up With the Legion.)

After souring on the comic book business in the early 70s and going to college, Shooter was coaxed back by Legion fans. He took over on the Legion again, this time in the pages of Superboy. From there he moved to Marvel Comics, where he wrote nearly every character they had before he eventually became Editor-In-Chief.

Later still, he came *back* to the Legion for a Threeboot of his own in 2008.

You can find Jim Shooter at his blog JimShooter.com

Happy Birthday, Jim Shooter! 

The amount of truly significant contributions Shooter made to the Legion is too long to try to list here. We will show some of the more important examples to give you an idea.

created Dr. Regulus

created Princess Projectra

created Chemical King, Ferro Lad, and Karate Kid

created The Khunds

created Universo

created the Fatal Five

created the concept of "the Adult Legion" 

created Shadow Lass

created the Dark Circle

updated the Legion Club-House

created the Controllers

created Mordru the Merciless

created Pulsar Stargrave