L.E.G.I.O.N. '92 #46 pg 18

A piece of art that's long overdue for a proper description!

This gorgeous page was my second OA purchase ever, and the story behind it is the first of a long-standing pattern of happy coincidences that sort of characterizes my collection. There I was, freshly introduced to the world of comic art, looking at all my old favourite comics with new eyes and daydreaming about being able to own the prettiest pages as art. Issue 46 of L.E.G.I.O.N. has some of the best art Barry Kitson ever did for the series, so I was poring through it and wondering if I could ever find a page from it to call my own. When I came to this page, I said to myself, "if I could only own one page from this issue, I'd want it to be this one".

Yeah, right. Kitson L.E.G.I.O.N. pages were absurdly rare to come by, at that point. I'd been looking for one for months. I'd be lucky to find ANY page to add to my collection, let alone this one. Right?

Not even a week later, my mind was wandering during an online chemistry lecture, I decided to do a few eBay searches to ease the boredom... and there it was. I couldn't believe it (and mind you, this was before I started regularly checking eBay for art! It was a three-day auction that I easily could have missed!). As it turns out, it was the inker for this issue, Romeo Tanghal, who had put it up for auction, and it was the first eBay auction I ever had to compete against other bidders to win. I learned a lot from buying this piece, actually! How to bid competitively on eBay, how to examine a piece of art to make sure it's the real deal... the horror of eBay import taxes...

It was worth every penny, though. I love this page! I love the incredible coincidence that led to me bringing it into my collection! My favourite character, Vril Dox, is featured in every panel, coming up with an unhinged plan as only he ever can, and there's some great subtle writing by Barry, too (it takes one hell of a crisis for Vril to ever actually be HAPPY to see Stealth). For a bit of context, not only is L.E.G.I.O.N. scrambling to evacuate an entire planet before the rain poisons its populace, but another L.E.G.I.O.N. member, Captain Comet, is currently possessed by a psychic entity and wreaking havoc on the L.E.G.I.O.N. flagship.

In terms of art, I'm almost (figuratively) speechless. It's Barry Kitson at his absolute finest, bringing us gorgeous anatomy, fantastic expressions, and impeccable linework. And, considering Tanghal was a guest inker and not Kitson's regular, I think he did an outstanding job enhancing and refining Barry's pencils!