Continuing with LSH v3 #13-23, Annual #1, and The Legion of Subs Special #1

Due to request, I've included the Legion of Substitute Heroes special in this dive, even though it's only marginally connected to rest of the series. Let's start there:

The Legion of Substitute Heroes Special

To give everyone who hasn't read this a little context, once Keith Giffen left the Legion, he started to stretch his comedic legs, so to speak, and this book is one of the results. As I mentioned last week, he had both this book and his Ambush Bug mini-series selling like crazy in 1985, so it obviously worked for the fans.

Here's my first weird admission, especially after railing on about how much his art change stunned me at the time - I actually like the style with his comedic books. I think the heavy inks and facial expressions work well when he's trying to be funny. Or maybe that's just 'cause I love the Ambush Bug books and this looks and feels like one of those.

If you like this one, but haven't seen DC Comics Presents #59, where Ambush Bug goes to the future and Superman teams up with the Subs to catch him, you gotta track that one down. Highly recommended.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this issue is the first one where we see Matter Eater Lad presented as both a comedic foil and a credible hero. Giffen would use him that way during 5YL to mixed success. Or, at least, mixed to me.

This book is one of the best examples I can give of just how popular the Legion was in the 80's. This is a completely unnecessary book, starring characters that only die-hard Legion fans care about, presented in a way that makes them look completely ridiculous, and yet it sold. A lot. It was one of DC's highest grossing books in 1985.

Aside on the Legion of Substitute Heroes themselves: I've always been fairly ambivalent towards the team and can't say I care one way or the other whether they're in a story or not. For example, when they showed up during the Great Darkness Saga, I thought, "Nice, but they're gonna get destroyed..." And if they hadn't have shown up, I doubt I would've noticed.

When they showed up in 5YL as members of the resistance, I thought, "Really? We get them but not real Legionnaires? And now you expect us to take them seriously when you've spent so much time making them the jokes?"

Regarding the individual members: Night Girl is great when she gets some character development beside Cosmic Boy. I could never figure out why Polar Boy didn't become a Legionnaire during his first try-out. I could make the same argument for Chlorophyll Kid. If Chemical King and Matter Eater Lad were Legionnaires, the bar was already set very low. Everyone else - meh...

Back to the regular series

The second year of LSH v3 resulted in many changes, both to the team membership and the creative team. They also got dragged into Crisis on Infinite Earths and saw the return of a number of old villains. I think it's a really good second year for the series and, in many ways, better than the first.

Let's dive in!

LSH #13

Why is Timber Wolf one of my favorite Legionnaires? Because of issues like this one.

One could argue that he underwent the most dramatic change in character over the past seven years. In the early days, he was always written as a loner who only spent time with Light Lass and seemed to have no other friends on the team. Then, once Paul Levitz took over, he got facial reconstruction and a complete personality change. He snuggled up with Saturn Girl, lost his long-time love, realized that the Legion and his teammates were more important than Light Lass, became best buddies with Blok, and became sort of a running joke as a bit of a dummy.

But yet Karate Kid trusted him to fulfill his last request and sends him to Lythyl. If Timber Wolf is able to complete the task, he will be awarded billions of credits. Credits that he plans to use to help kids once he's done. Yes, Timber Wolf is putting himself into terrible danger for two reasons: loyalty to his friend and to help less-fortunate children. That's why he's a hero.

There are also two interesting subplots here. The first is the introduction of Myg, who would later become the new Karate Kid. Which makes no sense to me at all. Why introduce a replacement to a character who you didn't like in the first place? Or maybe since Giffen was no longer plotting the book, Levitz wanted another fighter. Sorry, but there's only one Karate Kid.

There's also the scene of Shrinking Violet aggressively flirting with Sun Boy. If I remember correctly, they are never actually shown to be dating - please let me know if my memory is faulty here. She seems to be more protective of him later on, but I don't think there's anything else going on. This is just more Violet development as she struggles to figure out just who she is. It's also fun to see Sun Boy be pursued, not be the pursuer.

LSH #15

Yes, I know that the five new members were added in issue #14, but I'm going to talk about them here because issue #15 is, in my opinion, of greater importance to the run of the series.

Let's forget about yet another Sun Boy versus Dr. Regulus battle. That's the least exciting part of the book. For the first time, the five new Legionnaires go into battle and are immediately caught by Regulus and held prisoner. This leads to the Legionnaires arguing about whether adding this many new teammates is good or bad. Again, it's ironic that they want new Legionnaires to be more experienced but yet most of them joined the team as teenagers who didn't have a clue what they were doing.

Here are some quick thoughts about the new teammates:

• Magnetic Kid - always thought that was a pretty bad name, but I liked that he was a legacy choice and it's great that he's Cosmic Boy's younger brother. He's replacing Cosmic Boy's powers and I thought Levitz did a great job showing how a younger teammate, who grew up idolizing the rest of them, would handle his new position.
• Polar Boy - as I mentioned above, I could never figure out why he didn't make the team and it was good to see him added. Again, great character work later, especially when he became leader, handling his insecurities and desire to be seen as an equal with everyone else.
• Quislet - the first of two Steve Lightle designed characters and also the first of two non-humanoid Legionnaires. Annoying, brash, and a pain for many teammates, Quislet was the complete opposite of everyone else, personality-wise, and the fact that he was a Legionnaire just for fun, not any altruistic need to help, was very different for this book.
• Sensor Girl - now this is how you build a mystery and update a character. I'll spend more time delving into her in later dives, but for now I'll just say that I think Levitz handled this long-running story about as well as he did the Shrinking Violet story line.
• Tellus - the second Lightle design and the second non-humanoid. He's replacing Saturn Girl's powers but also brings a lack of confidence to the title. It's always good to see a team member who's not rash, not eager to jump into the fight, and thinks before acting. A great counterpoint to characters like Wildfire.

The other big change this book is this is the first issue drawn by Greg LaRocque.

I've been listening to a lot of comic-related podcasts this summer, and I found the LaRocque podcast very interesting for the following reasons:

• The Legion was always one of his favorite books and wanted to work on it when he got into comics. He loved the fact that he was drawing so many different characters and places and would never get bored. His two favorite characters to draw are Dawnstar and Dream Girl.
• LaRocque, knowing he was never going to work for Marvel while Jim Shooter was editor-in-chief, basically called up Karen Berger, wanting to work on the Legion. And she gave him the job. I have a strange feeling that she was trying to figure out who could replace Lightle, needed a good artist who wanted to be on the book (which I think is an underrated requirement), and he just called at the exact right time. According to him, Berger handed him the first available script (this issue) and once he handed in the artwork, she offered him the full-time job.
• For the most part, he didn't like the way he was inked on the Legion. He wanted someone to ink him in the Neal Adams style, light and thin. Instead, he was inked in the Joe Sinnott, Marvel-style, heavy and dark.
• I've been mispronouncing his name since the 1980's. It's "Lah-Roak", not, as I had been saying it, "Lah-Rock". If we've learned nothing else during my time writing, it's that I can be an idiot.

LaRocque drew more issues of the Legion than Dave Cockrum or Mike Grell, making him, I believe, the second most prolific Legion artist in this continuity.

Just wanted to throw in some more LaRocque artwork

Personally, I always loved his work and this is one of my favorite runs artistically. He's fourth on my list, all-time, of Legion artists and I was not especially happy when he left and Giffen came back. But we'll talk about that more in future columns.

LSH Annual #1

Speaking of Giffen, he comes back for the first annual of volume 3 and provides a nice, slower, and darker Legion story. Rather than focus on big, world-threatening adventures, this book sets out to solve a mystery - who's killing the descendants of the Justice League?

This subplot has been going on for months and months and we finally get the answers. Sadly, the ending of the book is a bit of a letdown - I would've liked to have seen a descendant of a super villain instead of a bad robot, but that's just me.

One great thing that Levitz did with Colossal Boy was constantly come back to his time in the Science Police. Most writers tend to forget, or ignore, the fact that he used to be a police officer. Having him, Chameleon Boy, and Brainiac 5 come together to solve a mystery is a perfect combination of their abilities.

Unfortunately, I think this story completely falls apart when you actually start to think about it. One, how it is possible that there is only one direct descendant from, say, Batman? Two, why would some of them still be using the same names? What are the statistical odds that someone 1,000 years in the future would be Oli-3 Queen?

Let's not get started on the Laurel Kent problems either. But, knowing what we know now, that she's not actually a descendant of Superman, why would the robot not know that? Why would the kryptonite bullet have any effect? That's a giant plot hole for a future dive.

LSH #18

Company-wide crossovers always cause logistical and story problems, no matter how good the writers are. Dragging a book set 1,000 years in the future into them is even more problematic.

Levitz solved it, kind of, with the heroes struggling with memory loss. They felt they knew what was going on but couldn't remember exactly why it was happening. No one could recall how Kid Psycho died - they just knew he did.

He also tried to combine everything with two stories - the destruction of Takron-Galtos and the revival of the Infinite Man. One showed the planetary destruction happening all over the DC universe and the other was connected to the time issues of the Crisis.

The death of Supergirl was a bigger problem. Brainiac 5 mourned her, remarking that it was the anniversary of her death, but knew there was something bigger going on. It kinda leads to the even bigger questions of the book - they would/should have all known when and where their friends would die in the past. Would those deaths have any affect on them? Would they mourn them every year?

At the end of it all, I just feel that the Legion should never have anything to do with these crossovers. The Millennium crossover coming soon is further proof that these are bad ideas. Keep the Legion in their own little corner of the DCU and don't drag them into this chaos.

LSH #23

Is this one issue the single best study of Mon-el ever printed? Is this the best art Lightle ever drew? Is this just an absolutely stunning cover?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Random thoughts about this run:

• Lots of long-running subplots here to keep you reading:
• Shrinking Violet's continued personality growth
• Dream Girl continued flirting with teammates, much to Star Boy's dismay
• Universo's control of Earthgov
• Is Brainiac 5 going crazy again?
• Who is Sensor Girl?
• The introduction of the new Fatal Five
• Adding the five new Legionnaires was a real breath of fresh air for the series. I think Levitz needed/wanted to expand with different characters and see what would happen. He balances how he uses the members so amazingly well that I doubt anyone can read his run and figure out who his favorites Legionnaires are/were.
• Love all the villains popping up - Tyr, Emerald Empress, Universo, Dr. Regulus. Love even more that they don't appear and immediately start destroying Earth. Patience in story-telling is so rewarding..