Comic Book Resources

No wonder he quit the book

No wonder I quit the book.

I always wondered if someone somewhere would be mad enough to scan this monster.

I bought this when it came out way back in ‘83. It hung on my wall (in a protective modified mylar sleeve) for about 5 years or so. I used to know every character on it, but now I doubt I could name even half.

I remember it being mentioned quite a few times that this was the cause of the Giffen burnout.

Giffen has said that after drawing this poster, he was so burned out on the Legion, he just could not draw it any longer. Now that I’ve finally seen what the poster looks like, well, I completely understand. There are enough characters on it to make even George Perez jealous!

I wonder how large the original artwork is for this? And who owns it? If Giffen did sell the art, I hope he got stupid money for it.

No wonder I never TRIED the book.

No wonder I love everything about that book!

It’s an interesting mix of major characters, characters who are only there because they were in the book recently (the dark clones from the Great Darkness Saga, for example) and minor characters who only appeared a couple of times over the book’s history (Kid Psycho jumps out at me as an example here). I suspect you could draw a poster of the supporting cast of any book that had been running for 25 years using the same criteria and have it come out just as crowded.

I would be curious to know where the 1984 Legion series would have gone if Giffen had stuck around. I would have missed the Lightle & LaRocque stuff, but I just have to wonder.

Brian– you might want to check your settings… the “Snark Blocker” doesn’t seem to be working.

And don’t forget Larry Mahlstedt– he had to ink that monster!

Where’s Darkseid?

It’s a great poster and I could probably name about 2/3 of them.

That’s my wallpaper now… Thanks!

How do you think Giffen (& Perez, & et. al.) work through something like that? Does he start with a list of characters, then sketch in stick figures for each character and build from there? Or does he start drawing relatively full figures from left to right? The more I think about it, the more curious I get.

I did not own that poster but remember seeing it. A friend was a Legion uber-fan and pointed out to me obscure characters who only made one appearance in 1967 on it. It’s quite amazing.

I did however own George Perez’s New Teen Titans poster which, while less exhaustive, contained all the major elements of the New Teen Titans series. It was gorgeously designed (I lost mine, which was autographed by Wolfman and Perez but got another one off eBay a couple of years ago– I really should put it up).

The other big poster from that era was the Frank Miller Ronin poster, which to my regret I never owned.

Wow, that is ridiculously impressive. I’ve just started reading old Legion comics, so I don’t recognize even half of these characters, but I am surprised by some of the ones I do recognize (like Marla, Ultra Boy’s chaperon from his first appearance, or obscure rejects like the kid who had the power to attract dirt).

How do you think Giffen (& Perez, & et. al.) work through something like that? Does he start with a list of characters, then sketch in stick figures for each character and build from there? Or does he start drawing relatively full figures from left to right? The more I think about it, the more curious I get

Well, I know Giffen has stated that a problem he had was that he kept feeling the need to add MORE characters to the poster, so I bet it is the former.

I’m with T. on this one. It’s a beautiful piece of work, but ye gods.

I haven’t seen this in AGES.
This makes me all happy and non-snark filled…
I just want to hug puppies and bake cookies…

…where’s that issue of Countdown?

It looks like this is scanned from the smaller version offered in the Great Darkness Saga collection.

Man, I love this era of the book.

Oh, and Darkseid is to the left of Colossal Boy’s hand, between Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl.

Marvel had a similar poster that came out in the early 1980’s, smaller but also plenty of characters and free. It was from third party outfit that got a crooked rep later on … who was it now? George someone?

Anyway I remember sending away for one when I was in college and never getting anything. Then one day I had to go to the mailroom of my dorm during my second year there and some jackass in there stole my poster and had it hanging on the wall (!)

Rob Schamberger said:
“No wonder I love everything about that book!”

Bing! Bing! Bing! We have a winner! I now feel like I need to go back and read through my Archive editions and back issues, I can only name about 1/4 to 1/3 of those characters off the top of my head…

How lame.
He didn’t even draw a background.

I really wish Giffen would break out this drawing style every once in a while. I love the guy for all his experimentation but this was the style he was using when I first started reading the Legion and I really like it.

FunkyGreenJerusalem: Are you serious?!?
With that many characters, how
could anyone possibly draw a
background?

Pretty sure he was joking.

Wow. I actually had that hanging in my bedroom when I was a young lad.

Memories.

Is there a key for the characters? I was looking to see if Nightwind was there…she was in the Academy, a creation of a late online acquaintance of mine. That is one lovely work of art from Giffen.

Never mind…there are helpful keys from the link. And Nightwind is in there. Giffen drew her second look, so that’s why I couldn’t find her.

No wonder I still read the Legion after all these years!

I still have that poster somewhere, and the one that was included in the original Great Darkness Saga TPB

Long Live the Legion!!

The poster is a bit trimmed, especially on the top and bottom where you can see people’s heads cut off. In the extreme lower left corner, for example, is Camera Eye, a kid who had the ability to project as an image anything he saw (he was rejected because his power wouldn’t be accepted as evidence in a court of law), projecting an image reading “Giffen and Mahlstedt”. You can only read the “Giffen” part. I’ve got a bigger image scanned directly from the original poster over at the Legion Omnicom.

There are 275 characters on this poster. There’s a key in the “Great Darkness Saga” trade paperback, which is linked at the very top of this page. When I first bought the poster, I was able to name about 200. It took a whole summer of reading my entire Legion collection to get the rest of them.

Suddenly just spotted “the Super Moby Dick of Space” in the poster. What a quintessential 1950s DC concept that was. It just encapsulates the whole goofy era so perfectly. I read the story in vol 4 of the Legion archives, which I bought a few years back (hey, I’m not that old). That was a fun collection.

ct pet insurance…

Goode,sod,enlightened quicklime Oakland …