After spending Yesterday trying to find out which comicbook with THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES appears in the credits of High School USA which I included in the Back To The Future / Michael J. Fox part of the pop culture trivia / cult siren adoration section in my second post about artist Steve Mannion I decided to make something useful out of what'd otherwise been a wasted day and write another post on Dan Jurgens since I didn't get to do one for his 66th birthday on the 27th of June.
Now you might ask how the heck does one go from the Legion of Super - Heroes to Dan Jurgen's run on the Superman titles but that's quite easy.
You see, aside from it's very loyal fanbase the Legion of Super - Heroes has always had problems connecting to the general audience. While it has always been one of the better written series at DC Comics that was more innovating than most of their titles - instead of done in one stories that had no effect on the characters the Legion stories had an ongoing continuity so the Legion members evolved and matured and it had real stakes because quite a number of Legion members died over the years - the huge roster made comicbook afficionados reluctant to dive their toe in the pool. Which is why the Legion didn't always have their own title.
When it did it was almost every time amongst DC Comics bestsellers - when DC Comics went to the more expensive Baxter paper for the direct market THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES was one of only six titles that got the Baxter treatment - but DC Comics higher ups did not always have faith in the Legion and so they were included in other series. Where they always became more popular than the feature character and took over the lead story or kicked everyone else off the book. Anyway, after their debut in ACTION COMICS 247 in 1938 the Legion appeared in ACTION COMICS, ADVENTURE COMICS, SUPERBOY and also SUPERMAN until 1949.
After that they appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS 300 to 380 then ACTION COMICS 378 - 392 before appearing in SUPERBOY 172 - 195 which was re - christened SUPERBOY AND / STARRING THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES with issue 197 and the Legion stayed on the book until issue 258 as they got their own title LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES that - in the old Marvel Comics manner - started with issue 259 and went on until issue No 313.
After that there was a SECRETS OF THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES three part mini series, TALES OF THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES 314 to 325, the LEGION OF SUBSTITUTE HEROES SPECIAL, the LEGIONNAIRES 3 four part mini series, WHO'S WHO IN THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES issues 1 to 7 and after that we are already into the FIVE YEARS LATER territory.
Which needn't concern us for now. Anyway, the comicbook in question that appears in High School USA is ADVENTURE COMICS 372 and as I said it took me all day to find it - no wonder if you have to go through such an extensive library of titles. The thing is while I was going through the issues I was also going through the pieces of original art in my Legion of Super - Heroes folder just to see if I came upon coloured pages that I needed. As I have mentioned the Legion appeared in SUPERBOY but that didn't mean that all original pages I had from that title included them.
Although that was difficult to know without seeing the entire issue in question. Let it just be said that there were some SUPERBOY pages that did not include the Legion anywhere in the story so I needed to put them in the SUPERMAN folder where all the non Legion Superboy pages were.
So after separating those Superboy pages I went through the SUPERMAN folder to see if there were any original pages where the coloured pages are missing or if there is some artist where I always wanted to make a post but couldn't because I didn't have enough material for a full post.
Well, as it turns out I have always wanted to write another post about Dan Jurgens since the last kind of tribute post I did on him was way back in 2019 and I also had started a new folder with original pages from his run on JUSTICE LEAGUE when I did JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA MONTH .
Anyway, I put all the pages from the different Superman titles - as well as some original artwork from his run on CAPTAIN AMERICA and his issues of MARVEL VS DC - in that folder and spent most of Today adding to that.
In fact I have so many original pages that this will be at least two parts.
Because I thought now that everybody is doing posts about SUPERMAN because of the movie ( which I still have not seen and it is impossible not to get spoilered ) I should either do one too or stop using the name TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN for this blog. Anyway, I know that he is best known for THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN and there will be definitely material from those issues in a Dan Jurgens post ( although it may take some time before I can get to that one ) but since all of this started with the Legion of Super - Heroes it is only fitting that the main part of this post is from the TIME AND TIME AGAIN saga that has Superman jumping through time and encountering various incarnations of the Legion. For those who want to read all about Superman's romp through time and space, I think the very reasonably priced trade paperback is out of print though you may find it in well assorted comic book shops and it is also included in the first SUPERMAN - THE TRIANGLE ERA omnibus. And I think that is more than enough of an introduction so let's get to the good stuff.
doomsnight
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