A Brief, Selective Timeline of 3 1/2 Or So Legions of Super-Heroes

April 1958: Adventure Comics #258. Otto Binder and Al Plastino create the Legion of Super-Heroes, a club of teenage superheroes a thousand years in the future, who bring Superboy to their time and tell him that he was their inspiration. The group catches on, appearing a handful of times over the next few years.

September 1962: Adventure Comics #300. Superboy’s team-ups with the Legion become a regular feature in Adventure, where they will remain through May 1969′s #380. This first story is written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and drawn by John Forte with Al Plastino.

(More on Techland: The Secret Comics History of “The Losers”)

July 1969: Action Comics #378. The Legion becomes a backup feature in Action with this issue’s Jim Shooter/Win Mortimer story (following a reprint in the previous issue), and remains there for a bit more than a year. (Shooter, at this point, has been writing Legion stories since 1966–he sold his first script for the series at the age of 14.) Following its Action run, the Legion becomes an intermittent backup feature in Superboy for a couple of years, beginning with March 1971′s #172.

February 1973: Legion of Super-Heroes #1. The first series to be named after the Legion actually reprints stories from the mid-’60s. It lasts four issues.

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Related Topics: cast of thousands, fun with numbers, Geoff Johns, Keith Giffen, Legion of Super-Heroes, one-and-a-half-boot, Paul Levitz, reboot, threeboot, Gaming & Culture
  • lazarusl

    Thanks for the love! The Legion is the most under-appreciated property in comics. If new readers could get past the continuity, and if DC would make a long-term commitment to the series… Ah, who am I kidding, as much as I love it, it’s not for everyone. I think our best hope is that the comics industry shrinks enough that the loyal Legion readership is enough to push them up the sales rankings into safe territory. I’m sure the arrival of Levitz will bring back some lapsed fans who gave up on DC’s shenanigans.

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