LSH #49 - 59, Annual #5 - The final sprint towards the End Of An Era
Okay, maybe a little.
The plan right now is this:
- This week, the Legion
- Next week, the Legionnaires
- After that, the End of an Era
- Finally, a recap of the whole 5YL run
- Once we're done that, I'm honestly not too sure... part of me wants to continue with Zero Hour and another wants to go back into the Legion Archives and start in 1958... thoughts??
Before we get into the issues themselves, I wanted to talk about a few high level things that really stood out to me reading these 11 books:
First, Tom McCraw, comic book writer. I have to give credit to him for taking over a book that was in a tailspin. From the few articles I've found about him, I know that he is a longtime Legion fan so I'm sure he was pumped at the chance to write the book. But taking over this book, at this time, must've stung. DC Comics was undoubtedly putting tons of pressure on him to make the changes they wanted and sales had dropped to levels DC hadn't ever seen with this book.
I mean, can you imagine what the suits were saying, looking at the fact that a book that dominated the 80's was now suffering so much in the 90's?
So he came in and tried his best. At least, I'm sure he tried his best. Unfortunately, the results just weren't very good. It was such a shocking transition from what had come before that any readers who loved the 5YL changes would hate this new version and any reader who hated the 5YL changes had probably already dropped the book and couldn't be convinced to come back. There was no way he could win.
He was, essentially, learning on the job and the job was kicking him when he was already down. So I'm going to cut him some slack here. I'm still going to point out the horrible writing choices later on, but I wanted to at least mention that I'm far less critical of what he did than what the Bierbaums did.
Second, Tom McCraw the colorist. I only wanted to mention this once, but I could literally draw attention to this in multiple issues. McCraw went from an amazingly dynamic colorist who really made these books look great to one of the worst. I have no idea how the writer of this book, and a longtime Legion fan, makes these simple mistakes:
- Both Brainy and Tasmia change from completely white (as in, absolutely no color at all) to shaded to completely colored within the same book
- Issue #57 is horrible to look at from start to finish - one of the Khunds is completely white - no color anywhere on his body - and there are whole panels were every background is white as well
To be honest, I'm reading scans of the issues, not the actual issues, so I'm assuming that all of this has been recolored in newer printings... now that I think about that, did they actually reprint these books? If so, why?
Third, the dramatic change to Legion on the Run. We know DC wasn't happy with this book from the very beginning. We know they wanted to get the costumes and the code names back. So the idea of completely changing the tone and style of the book was something that was mandated from above.
But what I can't figure out is why create all new code names, all new costumes, and change everything about the book when you know a reboot is coming soon. Zero Hour had to be in the works for a while and I'm fairly certain DC was planning a reboot to the Legion to go along with it.
You already have Legion fans angry with the book and more and more readers are dropping the title each and every month. Why not just keep the remaining fans, the ones who loved what Giffen did, happy for the final nine months? Just stay the course, put out nine great comic books, and maintain the status quo. You could have told the exact same stories and the Khund Invasion without all the other cosmetic changes.
Just to be clear - I'm not blaming the creative team here. I'm certain that the orders to have code names came from the very top. I'm just saying this was a stupid addition that probably cost them more readers than brought in new ones.
Fourth, as you read over these books, you start to get the sense that even the writers weren't paying attention to anything that happened before. For example:
- Jan, who's in the hospital on Pasnic, which is a planet under Khund control, gets visited by SPs and other Legionnaires and no one cares that there's no way any of them would get through the Khund blockades... especially since they're about to start fighting again
- Titan suddenly becomes a monarchy and Saturn Queen needs to get married to take over the throne. Was that ever a thing in the past? Did I miss that issue? Orando, yes. Avalon, yes. Titan??
- Firefist is back... somehow... even though he was killed before and everyone saw his body. Somehow he returns and they don't even attempt to explain why.
- Flederweb is either no longer a Khund or is no longer loyal to the Khunds and almost immediately switches sides for no reason at all
- When the Legion are accused of being traitors and arrested, they don't arrest Jacques and Drura and the UP lets them stay and work with them when talking to the Khunds. Neither of them were ever UP delegates, or elected officials. They were both in the Legion HQ when the arrests started happening but, for some reason, are never considered Legionnaires.
- When the UP training cadets, led by Chuck and both Luornus, are sent to capture the Legion, the two ex-Legionnaires just blindly follow those orders and, in the case of the "new" Luornu, look absolutely ecstatic that they get to arrest their friends and former teammates. Even more horrific is when the trainees are literally killing replicas of the Legionnaires and these two don't react at all. Glad to know that loyalty means nothing to these two.
- Is it so hard to just try a little to keep the ages consistent in this book? You've established how old everyone is, why can't they stick with it??
LSH #50
Issues 49 and 50 are Tom and Mary Bierbaum's final issues on the Legion of Super-Heroes and they're really just the perfect encapsulation of what they brought to the book. Issue 49 is another Matter-Eater Lad story where they wrap up everything that had gone on in his solo adventures in the book.
This is my last M-E Lad comment - if you had told me back in 1986 that, in the space of 49 issues of a Legion of Super-Heroes book, there would be three (3!!!) solo M-E Lad issues, I would've told you that you're crazy. Look, I make no attempt to hide the fact that Wildfire is my favorite Legionnaire. It's my reddit user name. But if I was writing the Legion, and put Wildfire in three different solo books in the span of four years, I would expect to get absolutely blasted by the fan base. And I would never do it. It's bad writing. I don't care if they were the three best books of my run. It's still selfish and arrogant to do it.
Even if you love M-E Lad, you have to admit that this is overkill.
With issue 50, the first half of the book is the Bierbaum's fanfic gone crazy and more selfish decisions. Nothing exciting happens. There's a lot of talking. Jan's spirit flies through space watching to see the Legion are doing. The Bierbaums take their favorite toys away so no one else can play with them: Kono quits and Tenzil gets married.
The second half is where McCraw and artist Stuart Immonen get to begin the storylines that will shape the Legion for the next nine issues.
The big, nay biggest, news of all of this is the return of the last missing Legionnaire: Wildfire makes his return to the team.
While the first half is a lot of talking and not much else, the second half is almost all action as B.I.O.N. comes back to life and the Legion has to fight him again.
Which is when the important subplot is introduced: Universo is taking control of the UP and convincing them that the Legion is actually working with the Khunds to take over as many planets as possible.
So, with a new direction in place, our next two issues will continue the momentum, shock and surprise all the fans with these changes, and breathe life back into the series.
Nope, they're both fill-in issues.
In 51, we go back to Quarantine to focus on everyone's favorite characters, Ivy and Validus. And Celeste and Kent. Oh, and we get a new super-hero: Mara Williams, who's been given Flash powers.
Grimbor shows up to break his daughter out of custody. You may remember Grimbor - he was the older man who hated the Legion because his girlfriend was killed in prison. Apparently, they had a daughter before she died.
So, just based on that logic, if the Legionnaires are in their 30s and 40s, Grimbor has to be, at least, in his 50s. Not in this book. Couldn't look younger.
The Legionnaires can't handle Grimbor, so the kids of Quarantine save the day. Just horrible all around.
Issue 52 is the first spotlight on a character we've seen in the new 5YL run. Spotlight issues are great because they take characters who maybe haven't gotten enough attention and bring them to the forefront. I think of some of the Paul Levitz-written spotlight issues on Cosmic Boy and Star Boy as great examples of character development and great writing.
For this one, we get Brin. Yes, the same character who was at the center of most of the big storylines. The character who got his own book. He gets the spotlight.
The only positive (he says with a question mark) of this issue is that they finally reveal what happened when Brin got injured and Wildfire died. Dr. Regulus wanted to destroy the sun and Brin was caught in the blast when the bomb went off. That's right, nothing heroic happened. He just jumped in too soon and was caught off guard. Then, to save the sun, Wildfire merges his powers with the sun because Sun Boy wasn't powerful enough to do anything. That's it. No one investigates. No one tries to see if they can find any of his energy. Nope, they just walk away.
I guess the best thing I can say about this is that it was a Dr. Regulus story that didn't involve Sun Boy saving the day, so that's new...
The end of Glorith???
So rather than do this in issue 50, which would've made more sense, we get the big blow-out fight against Glorith here. Rather than go and help Orando, which is being attacked by the Khunds, the Legion heads to Baaldur to fight Glorith before she realizes that, since Mordru has been defeated, the universe is now ready for her to take over.
And let's forget about the fact that the Legion easily defeated her a few issues ago, and they know she's in a weakened state, and when they did defeat her and had her trapped in a force field, they could've arrested her or imprisoned her or something, but chose to just fly away and leave her be.
McCraw plays with time in this book, moving back and forth through the story. He also provides some historical context to Glorith with a single panel at the bottom of each page, in black and white, that shows what she's done throughout Legion history. I really liked the contrast and the extra information. Immonen's artwork really shines in this issue as well.
Of course, since it's his only job, Devlin stands there, lets himself get blasted by Glorith, and reflects her power back at her. That causes this time loop as we jump back and forth.
During the battle, Glorith attacks each member in turn, either aging them (like Brainy) or de-aging them (like Kent, Mysa, and Ayla) or killing them (like Celeste). She also lets Jo know that she's the one responsible for what happened to Tinya, trapping her in time.
At the end of the story, someone else kills Glorith and the Legion just kinda stand around, wondering what happened.
LSH #54
So this is the start of the brand new era of the Legion. As I mentioned before, I have no idea why they did this when they knew they were going to reboot everything in less than a year. If I was one of those unfortunate fans who saw this issue, picked it up, and said "now's the perfect time to read this book", I'd be pretty angry in seven months when everything's thrown away. Let's be honest - that didn't happen. No one saw this book and said, "Now the perfect time to start reading the Legion!"
Everyone has new costumes and code names because no one around the galaxy would recognize these Legionnaires when they use their powers, right? Here's the breakdown:
Rokk becomes Polestar and artificially has powers because, I think Brainy gave him gauntlets that give him his magnetic powers again. He undergoes a massive personality change and becomes a horrible jerk.
Brin stays as Furball but is no longer sick, which is good. And he's got two forms, regular and rage-mode.
Mysa becomes Jewel and is now 15 years old and has undergone a complete personality change. She's nothing like the character was before.
Brainy is now B-5 or 5 (how does that hide his identity?) and he's now ancient, which means he has to wear a special suit to even move around properly. But his mind is still great, so that's good.
Celeste, who didn't die, has become Neon and is just a green energy being. Never, ever reacts to those changes or laments that she's not human anymore, but that's par for the course in this book.
Sussa dyes her hair blue and becomes Wave. I'm not sure when or why she became a member of the team, aside from to sexually harass Jo, but she's a different power set, so that's nice.
Jo becomes Dragon, forgets that his teammates ever liked or trusted him, and is now obsessed with getting back to the past to find Tinya.
Wildfire is now NRG and has a horrible new battle suit. They've also upped his jerk meter by about 1,000 percent and made him sexist to boot. I think they read what they were doing with Live Wire and Inferno in the Legionnaires book and decided to copy it.
Vi is now Virus and has taken over as leader of this team. Which, to be honest, was very overdue. Rokk has been a horrible leader for the entire run of this book, aside from his meeting with Mordru, and they needed a change. Of course, to up the drama, Rokk is now snarky and rude and hates taking orders from Vi.
Ayla is now Pulse and she's continuing to de-age. She started as someone in her 20s and by the end of this run she's a child. Her powers also change and she discovers that she can use her light powers again because... reasons?? No idea how that's connected at all.
I have no idea what Laurel's new code name and can't be bothered to go back and try to figure it out. She cuts her hair, puts on a new costume and shades but otherwise doesn't change much.
To make it even more confusing, these names are revealed slowly and without any real background. So when some of the Legionnaires start shouting out "Jools", expecting you to understand they're talking to Mysa, it doesn't land at all.
Leaving the team are Kent, who's too young to be a team member now, and Devlin, who's... I don't know why he left. And they didn't even include a scene where he talked to anyone about leaving. They just have Rokk telling everyone that Devlin's not on the team. So the opposite of the famous cliche "Show don't tell." Look, I'm not the biggest Devlin fan and I hated that he just became the team's deux ex machina, but he deserved, at the very least, a goodbye.
Good to know they're still using 20th Century technology in the 30th Century
Here's the high-level plot of the six issues of this bold new direction for the Legion. They're on the run and the UP wants to arrest them for treason because they're accused of working with the Khunds. The Khunds are invading more UP worlds, again, and there are video images of Tenzil working with them during the attacks.
So I guess no one on Titan saw these videos and thought, "Hey, Tenzil, the husband of our queen, is being accused of treason. Maybe we should show everyone that he's right here, on a moon of Saturn, and we can prove that he's not part of the battle." Also, the UP never went to Titan to confirm or deny this.
To continue the inanity of this plot line, there's actually no other proof that the Legion is working with the Khunds. It's literally just the video of Tenzil. Yes, Universo is mind-controlling everyone. But since we already know he doesn't have his mind stone, or whatever it's called, because it showed up in issue 49, we know he's not as powerful as he was before.
So the EarthGov (yes, they say EarthGov) votes to disband the Legion, which makes me wonder a couple of things. First, isn't Troy Stewart (Tyroc) the President of the Earth? Wouldn't that mean he's the head of EarthGov? Why would they have any say about the Legion being together at all? On that note, why would the UP have any say over the Legion either? There still, really, isn't a Legion. It's a bunch of people who hang out on a crappy asteroid with everything paid for by a rich Durlan. They don't have any connections to any government. Why does this matter?
Also, why are the Legionnaires (the young ones) not being split up as well? Would anyone separate the two? Wouldn't Universo want to remove both threats so he can take over the universe?
The Legion run to Rimbor to hide out because that was the most obvious place for them to go and none of them have any strategic skills. While on Rimbor, they discover that the Khunds are actually funding the Rimborian government and illegal Silverale sellers and they start a revolution. But they have to flee the planet when the SPs arrive.
The Legion heads to Darzyl to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds. It's never really clear why they're doing this, or why this two-bit criminal is so important, but we needed to get every faction onto one planet that we've never cared about, so this is how we do it.
Everyone descends on Starfinger's mansion: The Legion, the Khunds (including the former Khund Legion members like the dead Firefist, Tenzil, and the heroes of Lallor), the UP Academy members (including the former Subs and the new Luornu) and anyone else they can think of to make things more confusing.
At the same time, a Khund delegation has arrived at Weber's World to discuss a treaty or cease fire. Universo is not happy and Jacques is concerned. Later, Universo is fired by someone for letting the Legion escape Rimbor. So Universo is not the brains behind this operation, which is how he's always been portrayed, but just someone's flunky?
Almost instantly, Firefist kills Starfinger. Okay, mission over. Time to go home.
During the battle, Tenzil gets knocked out and we realize that it's actually Chameleon Chief. We also realize that the heroes of Lallor are under some sort of mind control and that's why they're helping the Khunds. We learn this because they discover one of the mental restrictors on Flederweb... the Khund who's been loyal to his planet since he was introduced and shouldn't need to wear one of these.
Flederweb immediately shifts allegiance and reveals the whole plan - the Khunds want to blow up Weber's World and there's a ship heading there now to plant the bomb. Let me clarify - a warship, full of soldiers, is heading to Weber's World so they can sneakily plant bombs. When they could just start firing and wipe everything out. Cause this is a war.
They all head to Weber's World and keep fighting. Some of the Legionnaires go to find the bombs and some attack the warship. Unfortunately, they can't be everywhere and they can't go and save New Earth so they prioritize. Rokk isn't happy with this decision and yells at Vi. Odd, since Rokk has zero problem ignoring Earth for months while the Dominators were committing genocide, but glad that he cares now. Also, aren't the young Legionnaires there? Can't they handle it? Rokk just steals a ship and heads off to New Earth on his own.
During a fight between Duplicate Boy and Wildfire, Dawnstar suddenly shows up and smacks Duplicate Boy in the back of the head with a piece of metal, knocking him out. I'm going to ignore all the plot holes with this and instead say something good. I thought the best part of this entire run was the way McCraw handled Dawnstar. She went back to her home planet of Starhaven, faced a spiritual challenge to find herself, and came back to see Wildfire and be with him. Her scenes were poignant, well-written, and showed that he really understood the character. The reuniting of the two was very well done and showed flashes of the Levitz-era romance. I loved these parts.
Running through everything is the time falling apart subplot, as Rond Vidar discovers that there is no time line leading to the future and everything's breaking down. People are blipping into different versions of themselves (Celeste becomes a Darkstar) and Rond even pulls Circadia Senius from the past for help. They're building up towards Zero Hour and this is done well enough to make me interested in what's going to happen. Certainly more interested in the main plot.
At the same time, Glorith and Mordru have joined forces to take over the universe. That can't be good.
Does Immonen just like drawing covers of things that are not really important to the story? Or one issue too early or late? Or is the editor just confused when it's supposed to be used? So much doesn't make sense.
Sadly, the Legion doesn't find all the bombs and a huge piece of Weber's World blows up. Even worse, Laurel was caught in the explosion and dies.
This is another issue where McCraw tells an out-of-order story, jumping from present to past, to wrap everything up in a nice little bow. Universo is arrested for conspiring with the Khunds. Somehow he never noticed Jacques using his invisibility to follow him around and gather evidence. One of the most powerful psychic minds didn't notice anyone following him.
The Khunds have been pushed back and the heroes of Lallor, no longer under mind control, have joined Flederweb to stop them.
In one of the most uncomfortable scenes ever, Mysa (who's a teenager) spends the entire issue cuddling with Brin and then finally asks if he wants to date her. Brin, who at his youngest would be in his late 30's, says that he's worried about hurting her... not that she's an emotionally immature kid who, if she still remembers being with Mordru, got out of an abusive relationship and needs therapy more than anything else. And not that she's a teenager and this is illegal. Just so bad on so many levels...
Jo and Valor get a chance to talk and, amazingly, Valor remembers that when he was in the past, he met an amnesiac woman named Phase who looked like Tinya and had the same powers. Jo's angry that he didn't tell him sooner but, to be honest, I'm amazed that Lar remembers anything from 1,000 years ago, even though they were on the same team for a while. Jo is further driven to get back to the past and find out whether this is Tinya.
Crazy Rokk has headed to New Earth to do... something... and could potentially kill everyone, but the Legion is confident that the young Legionnaires can handle it, so they head to Shanghalla to bury Laurel. No thought of taking responsibility for or helping their own teammate.
Again, I will repeat, they could've told the exact same stories, and possibly done them better, if they had thrown out the entire Legion on the Run plot and not introduced new costumes and code names. All of it was just so unnecessary.
I've got nothing to say about Annual 5 - it's a comic. It's not horrible. It's not good. It's just there. It contains the very first Legion artwork from Jeff Moy, so that's interesting. Unfortunately for him, he gets different inkers on his pages and they look so different you'd be surprised they're drawn by the same person.
Is it bad that I'm just happy to be done with these?
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