Quarter Bin 70 "McGraw & Immonen's Legion, Kesel & Grummett's Superboy"

This is a back issues feature.  The comics featured were not actually purchased with quarters.  Although technically, I guess they were, just not with the number of them you were thinking...

Legion of Super-Heroes #53 (DC)
From January 1994.
Tom McGraw doesn't get near enough credit for the exceptional contributions he made to Legion lore.  Between Legion of Super-Heroes and Legionnaires, he wrote or co-write some two hundred issues of the 30th century superteam, and I have yet to read a bad one.  In fact, the more I realize that, the more I wonder why I never became a regular reader.  This is one of those good issues, and I picked it up because I didn't realize Stuart Immonen made his name with the Legion (because I naturally assumed he made it with Superman, where I discovered him), and I wanted to see more of his Legion work, naturally.  Turns out it's typically excellent.  McGraw cleverly provides a subplot featuring a history of the Legion by way of their battles with a particular foe, and it, well, fascinating.  The greater story of the issue somewhat eludes me, dropping in from the middle of nowhere, but it seems pretty grandiose, even by the standards with which my memory judges McGraw's Legion.  So now that I've collected all of Immonen's Superman (except one Secret Files) (which is something I did by ordering the rest from the Internet after some fruitful finds in various comic books stores), I may have to start collecting his Legion.  And possibly McGraw's.  Or, you know, DC could finally acknowledge the work both these guys did, and unveil some collections...

Superboy #79 (DC)
From October 2000.
Sometimes I get the itch to see where the creators I loved from the '90s left the runs I loved reading so much.  Some time ago I read Mark Waid's farewell from The Flash (which was slightly disappointing), and now I've finally read Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett's finale in Superboy.  Kesel and Grummett created this version of Superboy during their overall run in the Superman comics, thanks to the whole "Reign of the Supermen" arc (imagine if that ever made it into the movies...!), and had two separate runs in the ongoing series that followed.  As time went on, Kesel indulged more and more of his Jack Kirby fixation, especially in the second run.  This last issue features a Kirby-esque villain, and a Superboy who has a shield (like Captain America, and the Guardian).  The upsetting part of this is that the letters column clearly promises that after a creative team fill-in next issue, Kesel and Grummett would return.  But they never did.  Eventually, Dan DiDio began his DC tenure co-writing Superboy, but the series lasted only another twenty issues before being consolidated into Geoff Johns' Teen Titans in a new direction (famously suggested by Johns' own letter in the pages of Superboy).  Whether Kesel knew it or not already, he provided a farewell statement in the issue all the same, which was great to see.  I'll always be a fan of the Kesel/Grummett Superboy...