Showing posts with label creator: jack abel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creator: jack abel. Show all posts

25 January 2023

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes Tabloid Edition by Paul Levitz, Mike Grell, Vince Colletta, et al.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Millennium Massacre

Collection published: 2021
Contents originally published: 1978
Acquired: March 2022
Read: November 2022

Writer: Paul Levitz
Artists: Mike Grell and Vince Colletta, James Sherman and Jack Abel
Lettered by Gaspar
Colors by Jerry Serpe & Tony Tollin

DC has been taking its "tabloid editions" from the 1970—massive oversized comics—and reprinting them as high-quality hardcovers. I previously read the Suerpman vs. Wonder Woman one; most recently, they've reprinted All-New Collectors' Edition #C-54, which depicts the marriage of Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad. This story was previously collected in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume One, but I wasn't passing up the chance to see some Mike Grell and Vince Colletta art at jumbo size.

Thankfully it looks great because as a story it's not up to much. Superboy travels to the future to see the wedding, only the timeline has changed, so everyone is mean. He still manages to convince the Legion to look into this; the team splits up into three groups to handle different aspects of a crisis. It has its moments—I do always like some Saturn Girl—but even by the standards of comic-book time travel, I don't think it really makes sense, and the Legion in twentieth-century New York doesn't seem to be worth getting Mike Grell to illustrate at enormous size. Give me something cosmic and epic! Still, I'll take Mike Grell drawing Dream Girl any day, and the new afterword by Levitz providing background and context is nice.

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: Before the Darkness, Volume One

27 October 2015

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 13 by Paul Levitz, Jack Abel, et al.

Every six months, I read another volume of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and now it's time to catch up:

Comic hardcover, 251 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 1977)
Acquired November 2013
Read September 2014
Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 13

Writers: James Shooter, Paul Levitz, Gerry Conway
Pencils: Mike Grell, James T. Sherman, Mike Nasser, Joe Staton, Arvell Jones, Ric Estrada
Inks: Bob Wiacek, Jack Abel, Bob Layton

This feels like a transitional set of Legion tales: these come from Paul Levitz's first run, and are definitely mostly weird throwaways in the 1970s style, rather than the complex, character-driven plots he would perfect with Keith Giffen later on. Mike Grell also eases out of the title during this volume, and no one artist really takes over for him, though Jack Abel does ink a lot. As a result, neither the writing nor the art are very consistent. Flipping back through the volume to write this review, nothing really stands out for me, though Saturn Girl and Dream Girl remain my favorite Legionnaires, and Wildfire is a nice addition to the team-- he breaks up the cliquishness of the longtime members.

Next Week: Back to the beginning of the Legion of the Super-Heroes, with a celebration of 1,050 Years of the Future!