Originally Posted by
Nomads1
The Legion gives a leap foward from the ultra-campy camp when Jim Shooter takes over the writing, and REALLY starts to build the Legion mythos. The stories with Curt Swan on art show a miuch more modern silver age sensibility. But it gives ANOTHER leap foward when Dave Cockrum takes over the art, revamping most of the costumes and the technological look of the whole series. After that,it's impossible not to be imersed in the Legion lore and not to fall in love with it. Cockrum's tenure, though fantastic, is relatively short, but Mike Grell keeps the torch going, and even after he, and Jim Shooter, leave, with Paul Levitz and Gerry Conway taking over the writing, the book doesn't loose momentum, even with lesser artists taking over. Jim Sherman (awsome) and Joe Stanton (and even a couple of uncredited Jim Starlin issues) carry the book until it drops the "Superboy and..." and becomes simply the Legion of Super-Heroes. The initial period of the sole LSH book, with Gerry Conway on writing and Jimmy Janes on art, is IMHO, weak, but the book manages to regain it's footing towards the end of their joint run, and soon is fireing on all cilinders with the return of Paul Levitz on writing and Pat Broderick on art. Soon Giffen is upgraded from back-up artist to full artist, and the rest, as they say, is history. Long story short, I'd definitely hop on when Cockrum arrives, but there is a lot of good stuff before he does also.
Peace