Paul Levitz returned to the Legion after a few years absence to lead it to one of its greatest heights. Before he got to that point, however, there was still little gem. His chronologically first Legion of Super-Heroes story after his return is a much-forgotten treasure called The Best of DC Digest #24, from May 1982.
These 100 pages feature a brand-new story set around a classic 2-part reprint, plus another two separate reprints.
But what we want to showcase today is the feature of this book, the "PLUS: 16 Pages of NEW COSTUMES!" that were head-lined on the cover.
Sandwiched in-between the framing sequence and the main reprints regarding Colossal Boy's mother being turned into glass and the other two separate reprints were, yes, sixteen pages of beautiful art by none other than George Perez.
Without further ado, here are the pages from this digest in their entirety....
And as you can also see, this digest has to have appeared before Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 (1982), as this Roll Call does not feature the new Invisible Kid (who made his debut in that issue).
As far as I know we never saw this particular Princess Projectra look, but we did get something a bit similar to this eventually.
And while I can understand the logic of giving Colossal Boy his own page, I wish that DC had squeezed in either Superboy, Supergirl. or RJ Brande instead of giving Mon-El his own page.
Stay tuned,
as tomorrow we'll look at the actual story----!
I bought this (and most of the other digests) off the spinner rack at my local small-town pharmacy back in the day. I still have them!
ReplyDeleteI loved (and still love) all of the costumes except for those worn by Blok (unwieldy chains), Shadow Lass (why have all that lovely blue skin if you're going to cover it up?), and Timber Wolf (one of his worst ever).
I don't dislike Shadow Lass' new look, but to this day I have no idea what color Timber Wolf is supposed to be wearing. Orange-brown? Reddish black? Not a winner...
DeleteI don't truly dislike it either, it's just not how I typically imagine Shadow Lass. I appreciated how in later stories it reflected her maturity and status as a veteran member.
DeleteThose were great days buying these comics back in the 1960s - 1980's weren't they !
DeleteI still remember walking from my Grandparents house uptown to the long since closed News depot and by my comics .
I still have everyone of them and when I look at them to this day have warm feelings for the time and place the represent !
I recently looked closer at these as well. It's curious how Cosmic Boy, Projectra and Shadow Lass seemed to be an attempt toward modesty (they'd been nearly naked for years), although others like Saturn Girl and Dawnstar are left with plenty of skin showing. And Timber Wolf sports that deep V-neck ... just like Nightwing would soon after this.
ReplyDelete