Review: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 11

Comic hardcover, 218 pages
Published 2001 (contents: 1974-75)
Acquired March 2013
Read August 2013

Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 11

Writers: Cary Bates, Mike Grell, E. Nelson Bridwell, Jim Shooter
Artists: Mike Grell, Dave Cockrum, Curt Swan/George Klein
Letterers: Ben Oda, Joe Letterese

I was introduced to (and fell in love with) the Legion of Super-Heroes via later collections like The Great Darkness Saga, The Curse, and Legion Lost. This caused me to want to dip further back and see the Legion's earlier adventures... well, hopefully some of the others are better, because this stuff is the Silver Age at its goofiest. Tons of characters, developed in piecemeal and arbitrary fashion, weird out-there plots. I know I love these characters from their later appearance, but they're largely interchangeable exposition-spouters here; it's like reading a Gardner Fox Justice League of America story. I want Saturn Girl to be awesome, damnit! Lots of potential, but Cary Bates and Jim Shooter aren't Paul Levitz, apparently. Mike Grell's art is fantastic, though, even if I feel a little skeevy looking at all these very well-developed teenage girls.