Continuing with LSH #30-36, Cosmic Boy #1-4

First, a little tease for what's coming ahead. Next week, an indepth look at how to rewrite your own history on the fly. Following that, the end of the LaRocque run. Then the return of Giffen. And the final chapter in the volume 3 reread is the Magic Wars and a bit of an 80's retrospective. I'm going to attempt to explain what happened to the Legion, sales-wise, and give a bit of a comics history lesson. Less Legion stuff, and more about the whole industry. Just a warning if that's not your cup of tea. But in case anyone's reading along while I'm doing this, you now have your homework for the next month.

Let's start with the Legion's contribution to Legends, DC's follow-up to Crisis on Infinite Earths: Cosmic Boy.

But first, let's talk about Legends.

Just wanted to add a nice John Byrne cover here...

According to Mike Gold, who was the editor on Legends, DC asked him to work on the sequel to Crisis when he joined the company in 1985. I'm guessing that he completely threw out the idea of a sequel fairly quickly but kept the whole "let's crossover this mini-series into a ton of different DC books and boost sales" idea.

I vaguely remembered reading Legends when it came out, so, for this column, I tracked down the series so I'd have a clue what was going on in the Cosmic Boy mini-series. Turned out I didn't really need to, but it was an interesting read, nonetheless.

While Crisis was about making the DC Universe simpler and attracting as many Marvel fans as possible, Legends was really only about launching new books. Justice League, Suicide Squad, the Flash, and Wonder Woman all came out after this mini-series and, in the case of the first three, were basically formed during the events of Legends.

To recap the mini-series as quickly as possible, Darkseid decides to break the spirit of the heroes on Earth by sending down a couple of his minions and getting them to turn humans against the super-heroes. Basically, he turns the DC world into Marvel. The heroes moan and complain and then ignore everyone to keep fighting. A number of them do things that were completely against character (such as Batman leaving Robin to the mercies of a mob) to move the story along, a four-page fight scene making fun on Jim Shooter, StarBrand, and the New Universe, children save the day, and two new teams are formed. It's not good, there are waaaaaaay too many recaps of what's gone on before, and there's a lot of dialogue that exists solely to explain who the person is. But it sold a ton and all four books that came out of it were really good, so that's a positive.

Cosmic Boy #1

Cosmic Boy seems an odd choice to drag into this crossover, but I think DC was hoping that it would spur sales in the regular title. Yes, because the best way to get fans to read another book is by creating a mini-series that stars a character who no longer appears in that book.

The premise is simple - Cosmic Boy and Night Girl have gone back to 1986 on vacation and he is soon dragged into the conflicts in Legends. He helps fight a villain named Brimstone, gets his butt kicked, and is nursed back to health by Night Girl. That's all within the first two issues of Legends and then the first couple of pages of this mini-series.

The mini-series quickly gets to the point - Cosmic Boy, long-time historian, realizes that what he's seeing isn't the history he knows. Superman no longer remembers him, nuclear devices were actually used against people, and the space program is in trouble. Now he's got to figure out what's changed and whether he can fix it.

This all concludes with an ending kinda like Legionnaires 3 - he and Night Girl end up at the end of time, rushing to get back to their time bubble before the sands in an hourglass run out. Time Trapper gives big speeches, acts very mysteriously, and then stops time travel forever. This shouldn't come as a big surprise - this mini-series has the exact same creative team as Legionnaires 3. I think the only difference is that Paul Levitz handles the plot here - Keith Giffen is just providing breakdowns.

We'll talk more about this next week, but this is the second part of the Legion team trying to handle the ramifications of John Byrne's Man of Steel, where Superboy was wiped from DC continuity. The Time Trapper becomes integral to the plan, so they needed to bring him front and center to DC fans and start planting the seeds for the inevitable story.

What's good about the series is that you didn't really need to read Legends to understand what's going on. However, I'm not sure if any new DC fans, ones who came onboard with Crisis, would have a clue what's going on in most of this. It's a series written for longtime DC and Legion readers who want to know what happened to Superboy.

I wasn't a fan of the Time Trapper playing around with hourglasses in Legionnaires 3 and I'm less of a fan here. It makes no sense for him to do any of the things he did - he's acting like a petulant child who wants to get caught, baiting Cosmic Boy and giving him just enough of his plan to ensure he's going to get the rest of the Legion involved.

And, for a final complaint, in Legionnaires 3, Cosmic Boy helps steal a time cube to go back to the past, fully expecting to be punished because all time travel has been severely restricted. In this series, published within a year of the last one, he borrows one for a vacation with no problems at all. Did no one sit down and wonder whether they should try to be consistent?

LSH #30

What an amazing cover - simple, stark, and direct.

Like I mentioned last week, these issues that focus on the team just being people are the ones that make readers care about what's happening. In this book, Brainiac 5 is trying his best to get through the day and focus on a better future. He apologizes to Sensor Girl, actually goes out and has some fun, and there's even a hint at a romance for him with a fellow scientist. It looks like everything's getting better. Until the last page, when he learns that Rond Vidar has died.

This is also the final issue to set up the Universo story line, as the team is split apart, the most powerful members are scattered around the universe, and only Element Lad is worried about it. I'll say it again, but this story only works as well as it does because Levitz took his time establishing Universo's plan, created a mystery to keep the readers invested, and the slow build made everything far more compelling.

LSH #32

The Universo Project ran from #32 - 35 (yes, four-part stories used to be commonplace) and was the culmination of the long-running subplot. Universo has taken over EarthGov and has mentally taken control of the most powerful Legionnaires. He has achieved everything he's ever wanted and gotten revenge on those who stood against him.

But what about all the missing super-heroes and Science Police? This issue starts with Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy, Dream Girl, and Brainiac 5 mind-wiped and trapped on a planet with all those missing people. They're working in some sort of farming colony, harvesting food, while the rest of the universe is falling under Universo's control.

As the story unfolds, Saturn Girl breaks free from the mind control and frees her former teammates as well. They start plotting to get off the planet and rescue everyone else. Unfortunately, they might just be the four physically weakest Legionnaires, so they're going to have to plot and plan to succeed.

One of the best things about the Legion, in all its incarnations, has been the way they handle the characters who aren't super strong or super fast. I mean, this is a team that has Triplicate Girl and made her relevant and important. They don't need to be able to crush a mountain to be important and conquer the villains - they just need to be smart, hard-working, and use excellent teamwork. The sum of the parts makes up for the individual weaknesses.

This story shows that at its best. Dream Girl has long been considered the most useless of Legionnaires, but yet shows just how capable she is when she's faced with a horrible situation. Saturn Girl's compulsion to get back to her family drives her to never give up, even when she's out of practice and hasn't been a regular member of the team for a while. Brainiac 5's strategy and planning more than make up for his lack of brawn. I'd say that only Chameleon Boy brings any sort of super-strength to the table, but he's far more valuable for his espionage skills.

One of the best lines of the book is when they're trying to figure out why they were taken, why these four? And Brainiac 5 calmly says that it's obvious - they're the four smartest Legionnaires. Universo knows that smarts beats muscle every time.

When Universo is defeated, Saturn Girl rejoins the team, becoming the first female super-hero ever who leaves the husband back home to raise the kids. More progressive story-telling!

LSH #36 - Another John Byrne cover! DC getting their money's worth!

I wanted to point out this issue because of another Legion tradition that made them different from other books: letting the fans vote on the Legion leader.

If you needed better proof that fans wanted to see Polar Boy on the team, his election as team leader showed everyone that it was a long time coming. I don't know if it made sense from a story perspective, but neither did Dream Girl becoming leader. Instead, it made the writer move in a different direction and brought new characterization to the book.

Random thoughts about this part of the run:

• I thought it was a shame that they never did anything more with Dr. Chaseer, Brainiac 5's possible romantic interest. One, she was another alien in a book that needed more unique looks. Two, she was smart enough to keep up with Brainy. Three, they could have done so much with the smartest person on the team struggling with a romantic relationship.
• Projectra's new personality, shown in issues 30 and 31, becoming more regal and acting like the wise, experienced team member, was a very interesting take on the character. Longtime fans who grew up with her as the "makes illusions and then hides in the background" teammate probably found this very shocking. When Brainiac 5 apologizes to her and she just accepts, catching him off guard, you see that her change isn't just a surprise for the fans.
• Issue 31's flashback, with a spotlight on Projectra, was a great story. I love these flashback issues where they focus on one teammate. But one thing that stood out to me was Ferro Lad. He died long before I became a comic collector (actually, before I was born, and I'm old...) so I don't have any connection to him at all. It was nice to see him handled well by Levitz and given some much-needed attention. I also just learned that Jim Shooter, when he created him, intended him to be black but that was vetoed by Mort Weisinger, who Shooter called the meanest person he's ever met in comics. Maybe the next reboot will add that back to the character.
• I always wondered about this, regarding Universo's powers: does his power work on the physical make up of the brain, and if so, how was he able to control Wildfire and Quislet? Actually, even if they don't, wouldn't Quislet's weird energies be immune?
• Are we supposed to believe that Universo kidnapped Atmos, knowing that it would result in Star Boy being summoned back to Xanthu, knowing that this would confuse and distract Dream Girl, making it easier to mind-control her? All that planning for Dream Girl? Makes you realize just how important she is to the team.

Next week: how to rewrite almost 30 years of history. And did it work?