The Legends period was such an important time for J'Onn J'Onzz. I was not very interested in DC Comics Pre-Crisis, and that only started to change when Marvel's top artist took over Superman. I had some exposure to George Perez, and in fact New Teen Titans was one of the few DC titles I occasionally sampled, but John Byrne was a staple. Not only had I loved his X-Men work, but I was always up to toss through one of his (very DCish) Fantastic Four issues, and I bought reprints of his Spider-Man work in Marvel Tales (though I barely gave Alpha Flight a Titans-level sniff.) Where I only bought a single issue of Who's Who, I got a late start on the first volume of Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, I continued to buy it routinely in the second, "Deluxe Edition." Byrne art was on most covers and a great many entries. He wasn't just Marvel to me-- he was "comics," and with Legends he was at DC Comics. I did buy an issue of Perez's Crisis on Infinite Earths, and I would soon enough sample his Wonder Woman, but I got there through the door Byrne was holding open.
I didn't actually buy a single issue of Legends new, as I had ten consecutive issues of Secret Wars, but I did catch a bunch of tie-ins in first run or through recent-ish three packs. As with Secret Wars, I could feel the events in Legends reverberate through other titles. It felt fresh, and important, even without the context that the public being turned against their super-heroes by a demagogue was echoing the anti-comics crusade of the 1950s. But I could feel that tension, from creators who lived through it, reflecting on it through their work. I finally got to read some of the core mini-series through a friend's copies in 1988, by which point I'd graduated from only knowing the Alien Atlas through the Super Powers Collection into proper monthly comics. But seeing that Post-Crisis DC coming together here, with the Manhunter from Mars near the fore, it felt like a coronation. Suddenly, DC Comics mattered to me, and more shockingly, J'Onn J'Onzz finally meant something to DC Comics.
That having been said, I don't remember Captain Atom being involved with Legends at all. DC largely recreated that character after purchasing him from Charlton Comics, and getting in somewhat on the ground floor with a character I had only the slightest prior awareness of was, at the time, even more intriguing to me than some Jolly Green Giant in a cape. I bought a number of issues of Captain Atom's solo titles in the period before I reached Legends. Seeing the Charlton Action Heroes fully and effectively integrated into the New(er) DC was exciting, and I've long associated J'Onn J'Onzz with their "welcome wagon." It reminds me of how I waxed rhapsodic over that same possibility being afforded the Wildstorm integration early into the New 52. I loved seeing the Sleuth from Outer Space making a new welcome wagon out of Stormwatch. So less than a year in, he quit that team and mindwiped everyone to never remember that he'd ever been a member. A bitter disappointment, but an excellent metaphor for the New 52 and that abortive Wildstorm integration. What integration? What Wildstorm? Who are you people?!?
2 comments:
I first got into John Byrne when I got old issues of the Champions , the art was great. I always thought DC had a missed opportunity by not making a team made up of all the properties that they have, something like this The 7 Soldiers Hardware (Milestone), Black Orchid (Vertigo) , Fairchild (Wildstorm) , Ibis the Invincible (Fawcett) , Doll Man (Quality) , Nightshade (Charlton) , Metamorpho (DC).
I touch on this in today's (accidentally premature) post, but I really like distinction in comics. I'm not into sports, and from an outsider's view, every football team is every football team. A bunch of men, with a few variations in background and physical dimensions, all dressed the same and working toward the same goals with the same motivations, regardless of whichever specific teams they play on. A football player isn't a basketball player, but there's certainly a basketball player "template" that varies little. One of the things that pushed me out of corporate comics was when every major super-hero team was a X-Men, Avengers, or Justice League. I think super-teams should be more like bands, where even in instances that you have shared members, the musical chemistry is going to differ markedly between the acts. The Traveling Wilburys is not the Beatles is not Wings, y'know? Give me even a Champions or a Primal Force over another JL Genuine Draft or whatever.
So that having been said, Heroes was the least interesting Milestone group through being their pale attempt at an Avengers League supergroup. Give me a Shadow Cabinet or Blood Syndicate, instead. I think something like Icon joining the JLA or Static in the Teen Titans is mutually beneficial to the brands. But what I'd really be interested in is a new team with a bunch of subversives like Hardware were attacking the status quo, making them as like to be adversarial toward a JLA than teaming-up with them.
I've got a bunch of my own would-be DC teams like that. I love mingling the energies of different continuums/lines, but sometimes I also like reconnecting entities that never quite shared space, but should have. Like the Freedom Fighters, the all-Quality team that never was. I still want to see mostly/all Fawcett and Charlton teams, too. Thinking of this type of stuff is such fun!
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