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Dave Cockrum

Introduction
NB Dave Cockrum now has his own web-site (www.DaveCockrum.com).
The mind-deadingly prolific Dave Cockrum came to the Legion during one of its leanest periods. Over the course of a mere 12 issues, virtually single-handedly, he revitalised the ailing Legion with improved settings, equipment and costumes.

Accomplishment
It was the 1970’s, the Legion had left the Action and Adventure series and was now relegated to a series of occasional back-ups in Superboy, the Legion’s popularity was waning. The art and stories were little better than pedestrian, with settings, costumes and equipment dating from a previous decade and showing their age. With the arrival of Cockrum, the Legion was finally dragged kicking and screaming into the 30^th Century.

The then youthful new-comer gave the Legion a face-lift. Enthusiastically, he provided most of the Legion with new costumes many of which continued to be used for many years afterwards. (which only he could interpret well – witness Tinya’s bell bottoms), and the Legion cruisers and HQ were redesigned to give a newer more futuristic feel.

Ever inventive, he was responsible for the introduction Wildfire, the first of a "new wave" of heroes (and my personal favourite - sorry guys) distinguished by having lame or overly complex powers (MatterEater Lad or Chemical King), nor lame code names (MatterEater Lad).

Unfortunately, the stories were still total pants for the most part, illogical, inconsistent, dull and pointless. On one occasion, Superboy was rendered so weak by Green Kryptonite that he doesn’t have the strength to talk, but happily inhales and then expels the Green-K with super-breath, which is inexplicably immune to Kryptonite exposure (a precedent that allowed the TV Superman to pick a lock with nothing more than a tie and super-breath when similarly exposed). Still, with art like this who cared. Not the readers, with revived popularity, the Legion once again took over the comic eventually replacing the Teen of Steel permanently and completely.

Style
Perhaps strangely, his best work is from the start and end of his run. Initially he benefited greatly from working with Murphy Anderson. The art displays a maturity missing from his first solo work on the Legion, however he quickly found his feet and by the time he left the series he was hitting his stride.

Throughout his stay his work exhibits a rich vibrancy which brought the Legion a visual freshness, which even now, over 20 years later, makes it seem new all over again.

Dig Dave's funky alien landscapes

His alien landscapes had a disturbing organic feel well before Giger’s Alien with none of the latter’s disturbing sexual overtones. Sadly while Cockrum’s alien landscapes were unique among his peers they were similar if not identical to each other.

Machinery, too, benefited from the Cockrum touch. He had a way with depicting any metallic object, rendering it sleek and desirable. The Legion now had ships of a majesty to match their prominence.

Contrary to popular opinion not everything he did during this period was solid gold, he was young and raw, and it often showed with ill-proportioned figures and awkward postures. Still, there is no denying the richness and energy he brought to his work, and his run on the Legion showed a steady improvement.

After
Leaving DC and the Legion, Cockrum moved to Marvel and the much-celebrated X-Men taking several potential Legion members and rejects with him including Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus. Cockrum had originally planned NightCrawler to be among the line-up of the Outsiders. Intended as a spin-off to the Legion the series never took off. Murray Boltinoff is purported to have dismissed NightCrawler as "too funny looking".

During his stay at Marvel he did some excellent work on the Avengers, but, I feel he reached his peak with X-Men #107, which introduced the Shi’ar Imperial Guard a rather blatant copy of the Legion. Indeed some costume designs had been originally intended for the Legion. Sadly, after this his work steadily declined, and although he contributed 5 pages to LSH #300 it wasn’t up to his highest standards.

Outro
Despite some misgivings Cockrum is my favourite all-time Legion artist. He brought a new much-needed energy and vitality to an ailing Legion. Without Cockrum it’s doubtful that the series would’ve recovered when it did, if ever. Conversely, if he had stayed with the Legion, who knows, we may now be bemoaning the introduction of the umpteenth L-title

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