LSH 284-289 - Levitz returns and Giffen joins

You may be wondering why I'm only covering these 6 issues when I've combined far longer runs in previous posts. I'd like to say that it's because I think these 6 need to be covered separately because of their importance for the future, but to be honest, it's only because I want to cover the Annual and Great Darkness Saga in my next post and I didn't want to combine them with anything else.

(In retrospect, this was my first attempt at looking at individual issues and I really wish I had written more. Oh well...)

However, I do think that these 6 issues are incredibly important for the future of the Legion for a variety of reasons:

• Paul Levitz returns, taking over plotting and scripting
• Keith Giffen starts as the book's penciller, beginning the epic partnership that led the Legion to their greatest success
• Timber Wolf gets a dramatic personality change, new face, and his relationship with Light Lass ends
• Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet storyline begins, starting a long-running mystery that lasted over a year
• Dream Girl gets to do more than just sit around and fall asleep
• Projectra becomes queen, leading to the end of both her and Karate Kid's careers in the Legion (yes, I know she comes back as Sensor Girl, but she's essentially retired as Projectra)
• I believe this is the first time we see Mon-El and Shadow Lass flying through uncharted space on vacation - his love of exploring is critical to his character
• The Khunds are re-introduced and completely changed (am I the only one who's positive Levitz basically copied the Klingons for this?)
• New characters and concepts introduced: Dr. Gym'll, Nullport and H'hrnath, first appearance of the Great Darkness characters

Legion 284

Imagine you're Pat Broderick. You're a great young artist fresh off a nice run at Marvel on Micronauts. You go to DC looking or work and they hand you the Legion. It's sci-fi, like you just worked on. It's aliens, like you just worked on. And you only have, roughly, 40 characters to draw each book, plus create the look for new characters all the time. Oh, and they want new spaceships, too.

Is it any wonder that you immediately start asking for a new assignment? Legion's loss is Firestorm's gain.

Legion 285

Giffen's first Legion work is the back-up story about Dream Girl. I find this incredibly ironic, considering that in his recent podcasts, he's talked about how much he found the character useless. I wonder if this story, plus her appearance in the future Projectra story, led to her being elected leader.

Legion 286

On one hand, having yet another Sun Boy versus Dr. Regulus seems redundant. We've seen this before. So why does this work? This issue is a great explanation of exactly why Sun Boy is on the team and provides a perfect counter to his womanizing personality. It's not just the powers - he's also a scientist and a brilliant one at that. Too many times, the powers are the most important part of the character. Not so here.

I also loved that Chameleon Boy is not handling the news that R.J. Brande is his father very well. He's snippy, acts without thinking, and there's a lot of personality growth here. Even the other characters notice it too.

Legion 287

Giffen's first cover for the Legion is a beauty. It's also the first time he's drawing the main story, not the back-up. I'd say that this is really the first issue where he's starting to actively change how the future looks. He runs wild on his Khundia artwork.

I remember being completely blown away by the book when I bought it from the local tobacco shop. Yes, people, back in the 80's, kids could walk into stores that specialized in selling cigarettes, pipes, and loose tobacco, and no one thought it was weird. Now, it's just insane.

This is a great story that really shows just how good Timber Wolf, Shrinking Violet, and Chameleon Boy are as both spies (kinda...) and fighters. I wonder if one of Levitz's priorities at the beginning of this second run was to take characters that most readers wouldn't think of in certain ways and spin that perspective. Dream Girl solves a mystery, Sun Boy shuts down a reactor, Shrinking Violet is a fighter, and so on.

Legion 288

If you ever want to know why Karate Kid was always one of my favorites, this is one of the issues I point to. The fact that he really didn't have super powers (I know they wrote him as using super-Karate, or something like that, but as that's stupid, I ignored it) was one of the selling points for me. Yes, the Legion charter says that everyone has to have a super power, but I always thought his dedication and work ethic was his power. Kinda like Batman.

Legion 289

Damn, that's a good cover.

A this is an epically good story. Four teams of two race off to find the missing Legionnaires while they wonder if they're going to survive on a frozen moon.

The character work on this book is great, from Colossal Boy's clumsy attempt to chat up Violet, Dawnstar's need to be the one who finds the lost teammates, to Timber Wolf and Saturn Girl sharing an emotional moment that could cost them both of their relationships. This is the Legion fully grown up, handling mature situations like real people would.