Saturn Girl, Wonder Woman, and Supergirl by Curt Swan

Where do I even start with this?  Maybe with the fact that I never, ever, EVER thought I would ever get to own any art by Curt Swan, the legend who drew the legion's very first appearance on the cover of Adventure Comics #247, and who went on to define the team's look in the Silver Age.  He's one of my favourite Legion artists of all time, and certainly one of the greatest, and even outside the realm of LSH comics he remains an artistic legend.  I stumbled across this piece on ComicLink and practically did a backflip, and when all was said and done I managed to win it!!!

So, now I own a Curt Swan piece.  It's just a dream come true, and as for the piece itself, I really couldn't be happier!  I'm not at all familiar with its story - it's personalized with thanks to a "Joanna", which I find really, really sweet in and of itself.  Maybe these were her favourite characters!  I tried to do some digging around, and a Google search for "Curt Swan Joanna" does indeed bring up a Pinterest post featuring this exact piece, making reference to a Joanna Sandsmark, but no other information besides.  If you happen to know a little bit more about this piece, please do drop me a line or a comment, because I would love to know more of the history behind it! 

On the topic of the characters, I'm just thrilled with the ones that make this piece up.  Firstly and foremostly is Saturn Girl, in her classic Silver Age uniform.  She was the big draw of this piece for me, because it's Curt Swan pencilling a Legionnaire!  Having a Wonder Woman drawn by him is pretty cool, too.  She's a great character, but as a Legion collector there aren't many opportunities to acquire art that features her, so a piece like this is the perfect "excuse" to add some Wondy to my collection!  And then there's Supergirl.  I love Supergirl, I'm sure Curt Swan loved Supergirl, and the cherry on top is that the costume she's wearing here is my favourite of all the costumes she's ever had!  It's the costume she wore in the first classic Legion stories I ever read (in my dad's Great Darkness Saga and The Curse trade paperbacks).  Plus, she counts as a Legionnaire, too, and don't let anyone ever tell you any different!

I think, above anything else, I love the diversity Curt put into this piece.  On paper, it's three lady Superheroes standing in a row, and it would have been easy enough to sort of copy/paste their poses, faces, or anything else.  Instead, Curt made sure each of our three ladies was fully distinct from the others, in every way he could think of.  They're all different heights, with the adult Wonder Woman being the tallest, of course (and confirmation from the Legion Legend himself that Saturn Girl is taller than Supergirl??).  Their poses are all distinct, with Saturn Girl's being sweet and a little shy, Wonder Woman's being firm yet kind, and Supergirl's being proud and confident.  Even their faces are distinct from each other - Wonder Woman, being the oldest, even has smile lines!

Something else I really love about this piece is Curt's clear mastery of anatomy.  It's that clear, strong, Silver Age-y look that I'd honestly describe as timeless, at this point.  Comic art has gotten a lot more stylized since Curt's time (and even by the time this piece was drawn!), but when you see his work, you know right away you're looking at superheroes, in their best, brightest, happiest light.

One thing that really stands out to me is that it's a treat to see Curt's pure pencils, without any inks overtop of them.  In any given comic book you're always seeing the inker's touch over the penciller's, so it's really wonderful to see a sample of the pencilwork that would lie beneath those inks.  The coolest part is that Curt even used different weights of shading to differentiate between colours!  The red parts of our heroines' costumes are shaded more lightly than the blue parts.

One last thing I find amazing about this piece (after that whole laundry list of other things I found amazing about this piece) is that it's from 1995, done a year and change before Curt's death in 1996.  I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that even near the end of his life, Curt's work was as beautiful and timeless as ever.