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Character is Knight, formerly Squire. Clue #2 is a dead giveaway.

Oh, and: Each cover features a character who has recently joined, as a new member, a superhero team other than their first (JSA/LoSH; Avengers/Defenders; JSA/Titans).

And, zowie, that cover theme game is tricky: a lot of covers use four or five of the Big Seven to imply the group instead of depicting them all. So, we cheat and go with Adventures in the DC Universe #1, which has the Big Seven front-and-centered and visually highlighted, even though it’s technically not in normal continuity: http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=60134&zoom=4

You just *know* Janet van Dyne would have tried ordering Iron Man around when she was dating his ‘employer’.

Cover theme game: all three characters went on the sport full-face masks in some point of their career. (Starman in Kingdom Come and presently, Dr Strange in some crappy period in the late 90s, Damage presently in JSA).

Hmm. Stephanie’s answer was, probably, the one you wanted–so I’ll just go and try to justify mine as being “right enough, and also interesting”: Not only did they recently join a new team, but each joined a team that is in some way thematically the opposite of their original team: The Legion of Superheroes is the team of the future, where the JSA is the team of the past; the Defenders are an uncoordinated mish-mash “un-team”, while the Avengers are traditionally the well-coordinated best and brightest; and the Teen Titans are the team of youth and newness, where the JSA are the team of old men and legacy.

Eh? Eeeeh?

Okay, if he was Star Boy, why does he have a huge friggin’ beard?

VERY minor noodly point for Stephanie,

Doctor Strange wore a full face-mask on 2 (well… sorta 4 occasions).

1st) during the last few issues of his 1960′s series.

2nd) During the Defenders, when he was possessed by an evil mystic artifact (the Star of Capistan) and became the “RED RAJAH”

3rd) he split himself into 3 entities and one of them was just called “STRANGE” (this is the crappy 1990′s occasion you are probably referring to)

4th) during the end of the most recent DEFENDERS “ongoing” series (which led to the mini-series called “THE ORDER”), where he wore the same superhero face-mask/costume that he wore in the 1960′s series.

Yeah.
Like I said, very MINOR noodly point.

Great Googly Moogly, am I a geek.

~P~
P-TOR

I agree, Stephanie’s is probably more correct, but Derek’s is more awesomer.

but Derek’s is more awesomer

Derek’s is more awesome.

Correct. Because it is clear that it’s Star Boy’s beard that is more awesomer.

Squire. Clue 2.

Cover game is too hard to me. I wasn’t reading much DC at the time…

Anyway, I think Cyclops is the better leader. Certainly he seems to think more strategically than Storm! (Or even Professor X, since we are at that…)

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Okay, if he was Star Boy, why does he have a huge friggin’ beard?

I once asked a similar question years ago to a serious Legion fan and I was told that in the 30th Century where the Legion Of Superheroes was set, extended lifespans meant that you were considered ‘teenagers’ into well into one’s 20s. Hence why you had all these seeming adults walking around with names ending in ‘Boy’, ‘Lad’ and ‘Kid’. And sporting cool beards.

It’s an aspect of original Legion continuity that I suspect has been downplayed in more recent reboots which have had them all as teenagers.

Graeme

Starman #43 has the “Big 7″ on it’s cover. Albeit with Electric Blue Superman. And Aquaman almost squeezed off.

I don’t remember that aspect of LSH stories ever existing outside the story it was published in, actually–it generally seems to have been regarded as an attempt to explain something that didn’t need explaining. I suspect the old Boy, Lass, etc. names stuck around because:

a) They were names everyone was familiar with;

b) Changing the names would have removed the alliterative quality some of them had (Lightning Lad–> Lightning Man doesn’t quite sound right);

c) Up until the time jump in the 1989 series (at which point they pretty much abandoned the codenames altogether), the Legion Constitution still required new members to be under 18 (or the equivalent for their species), so if they’d undergone a mass-renaming, some members would still have had youth-oriented names;

d) There aren’t nearly as many synonyms for “Man” and “Woman” as there are for “Boy” and “Girl” (and while some characters had “Kid” in their name, I don’t see “Karate Adult” ever being a workable codename); and

e) The adult codenames were associated with the future “Adult Legion” stories, which showed the future of the characters and was sort of an albatross around the neck of continuity until Paul Levitz wrote a story intentionally deviating from it.

And, of course, f): Having everyone change their codenames would have required a story in which all the characters made the conscious decision to do so, and for whatever reason (possibly some of the above) nobody felt like it.

Final Night #4 has all of the “Big 7″ on the cover.

http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=32106227382%204

Yeah, I recently read a neat interview with Paul Levitz where he explained how he came up with the “longer lifespans have extended the time you’d be considered a ‘kid,’” and he rightly (and amusingly in his humbleness) identified it as thinking WAY too much about minor stuff.

Cover theme game: all three characters went on the sport full-face masks in some point of their career. (Starman in Kingdom Come and presently, Dr Strange in some crappy period in the late 90s, Damage presently in JSA).

Correct!

You can have a cool point, too, Derek, even though I think, with the proliferation of characters joining up with teams you’d never think they would (Mystique an X-Man, Iron Fist, Ares and Dr. Strange Avengers, Geo-Force and Black Lightning Justice Leaguers), such a cover theme would be a bit too broad. Still, you worked it out, and it was quite interesting – so a cool point for you, too!

Those three covers

each issue # ends in a 6
LoSH – 306
Strange Tales – 156
Young Justice – 6

sorry, I mean Damage – 16 not Young Justice 6

That’s Stephane, not Stephanie.

DC/Marvel: All Access #4 has all of the Big Seven on the cover. Plus three of the original X-Men.

The cover for DC Two Thousand #1 has the 7 JLAers on it

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/reviews/96353915569411.htm

Well, the trouble with the Cyclops vs. Storm question is that it’s not really up for debate. See, one of the defining aspects of Cyclops’ character is the intense amount of pressure he puts himself under, on all fronts. However, him being team leader is the oldest and most rooted one of them.

Cyclops must always be criticizing himself for the slightest failures or mishaps. And by putting him in the team leader position, you create a situation where he is usually responsible for other people’s lives, and therefore justified in agonizing over any imperfection in his strategy. After all, someone could die.

Whereas Storm, while surely capable as a leader, does not have as a foundation in her character design. She can serve her purpose and be a star very easily, without having the leadership position.

Basically, Cyclops’ main character traits are insecurity, perfectionism, and guilt. And you can’t have guilt without responsibility.

Cover game: Here’s another “special event” cover with all of the Big 7: Sins of Youth Secret Files & Origins http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=290621&zoom=4
Aquaman’s hard to spot, but he’s there, near the bottom, below Flash’s arm).

Cyclops vs. Storm sort of depends on one’s definition of “leadership.”

Scott is more of a commander type. He asseses a battle situation, determines a course of attack, and tells the X-Men to do it. They obey him (even Logan, usually), often despite a lack of explanation, because they know he is giving them the best plan for both victory and survival. In fact, I’d make a case that based on his unique experiences, the variety of his troops, and Charles’s extra-psychological tutoring, he is probably the most creative commander-type in the MU next to his own father.

Ororo is a guide type. Her style is more organic, in the sense that her leadership is more rooted in the tactical abilities of her teammates than her own. She allows battle situations to develop on their own, then exploits the inherent weaknesses by redirecting her teammates to those weaknesses and simply allowing them to find their own ways to victory. In a sense, she is teaching the X-Men how to win their own battles. Because of this, she is more beloved as a leader by the team and is looked to for guidance in their civilian lives (and is probably the only person Logan listens to without question). However, because her combat strategies depend on untested tactics, her chances of the X-Men winning or coming out unscathed aren’t always high. She is more creative than Scott, but not as sound.

So if I’ve got the Be-All-To-End-All fights going on, I probably want Scott in charge. But if it’s Generic Bad-Guy Fight #2459, I’d rather Ororo help me figure it out and then take everyone out for malts when we get home.

I actually have the first and last of the issues…I’ll have to reread them to find another possible connection. Heh.

The first is one of my favorite stand alone issues of LoSH ever.

Covers:
Superman #165, which even has Plastic Man if you squint hard enough.

Superman #76 is a bit of a stretch, because it’s just Superman’s cape and J’Onn’s wearing his Bloodwynd disguise.

All four issues of JLA/Avengers.

Sorry about that.

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