Extra Comics

So I didn't buy Jim Woodring's Weathercraft – I flicked through it in the shop but, lovely though it looked, I couldn't bring myself to part with fifteen quid for a 100-page graphic novel that'll take about half an hour to read because it is, like most of Woodring's comics, 'silent'. It also looked really similar to another Woodring comic I already own where Manhog becomes civilized and ends up in a bathrobe; whereas in Weathercraft it looks like he attains enlightenment... and ends up in a bathrobe.

So I passed, for the moment. Instead, as well as the four comics I said I'd buy, I bought a couple of extra DC comics. Namely:














That's Jim Lee's variant cover for Legion of Super-Heroes #1. Yes, despite my protestations, it seems I am still a sucker for a variant cover. And weirdly, I don't even particularly like this cover. And also weirdly, I don't particularly like the Legion either. I've enjoyed the odd comic with them in, but the supposed glory years of the Legion – some of which were written by newly-ex-DC publisher Paul Levitz, the writer on this new series – passed me by completely. I remember my friend Wayne from school being really into the Legion, but I think I was more into Captain America or Batman at the time. The Legion seemed like this weird soap opera-y thing with lots of heroes with daft names like Bouncing Boy and Dream Girl and Lightning Lad and Alan Ladd. So I don't really know why I picked up this new #1. Clearly there's something wrong with me.

I also got this:














Which is the first issue of a ten-issue maxiseries called DC Universe Legacies #1. I've got a stronger reason for picking this one up (well, it couldn't be much weaker, could it?), which is, one of the things I've always liked about DC is the sprawling interconnectedness of the DC Universe. It was Crisis on Infinite Earths that got me hooked on that, where hundreds of superheroes, many of whom I'd never even heard of, were crammed together in one massive story with the fate of the universe in the balance. Even though I didn't know who the Crime Syndicate of America were, it was still pretty shocking to see them get swallowed up by a wall of nothingness and blink out of existence in the first issue of Crisis.

Over the years I read more and more DC comics, and became immersed in the complexity of the DCU, to the extent that I had a pretty firm working knowledge of continuity and the various changes to it wrought by Crisis and subsequent events like Zero Hour. So the idea of a maxiseries like Legacies, which looks like it'll chart the history of the DCU as the continuity currently stands, does appeal to me.

Mind you, if it's crap, I won't be getting the second issue.