The End of an Era - 1958 to 1994

 

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot

Before we get into the reread, let me just reminisce about this original version of the Legion for a bit.

The Legion of Super-Heroes were the first super team that I got into and was excited to read. I remember rushing to the local tobacco shop, later to the used bookstore, and then the comic shop, to get each and every issue when they came out.

I remember tracking down as many back issues as I could afford, either by hitting comic shops whenever I could (and in any city I visited) or ordering away. Ahh, the early days of ordering from Mile High Comics, when they weren't so ludicrously expensive that you wondered if they ever sold anything. This was before the internet, when you filled out an order form, included your money order (too young for a check), and carefully sealed the envelope.

As my comic collection grew and grew, as more and more long boxes filled my home, the Legion boxes were always front and center. Even as my tastes evolved, embracing Vertigo and Indie books over capes, the Legion stayed there.

That original team, the first group of heroes, spoke to me in a way that few other teams have ever come close. As much as I loved the X-Men, the Titans, the Justice League, they never knocked the Legion off their pedestal.

Looking back, I honestly can't say why this team had such a dramatic effect on my childhood. But they did. They were and still are the team I care about the most.

And to be honest, every reboot, every new version of the Legion has paled in comparison. I've gotten past my original "this isn't MY Legion" stance, but I still don't find them as compelling or as fascinating as the team of my youth. I feel that's a fairly normal response - our tastes are first formed when we're children and it's tough to let that go, even as adults.

So I write this final reread, with the final issues of the team that helped shape my childhood, with more than a little sadness and nostalgia.

Let's begin!

Legionnaires 17

Let's put a few facts on the table before we start:

• The writers have six issues to attempt to wrap up tons of confusing plot lines, characters, and the threat of both Glorith and Mordru - not an easy task
• One of the artists is brand new to comics, struggles with basic anatomy, has never shown any strength at drawing multiple characters and giving them their own distinct look, and is in way over his head...
• The past two years of Legion and Legionnaires comics have been confusing at the best of times, with plots thrown out, history ignored, and creative teams ignoring almost everything that Keith Giffen brought to the title... I don't expect that to change
• There are so many different Legionnaires, old and young and dead, that it's almost impossible for anyone to ensure that they'll all get enough time in these books. Aside from Valor, of course, who has his own book. He'll be fine.
• Every writer has decided that the only people reading these books are people who know all of the Legion's history, so they're not stopping for even a moment to explain anything. If you don't recognize a certain character by their costume, too bad.
• You're going to see me write three things over and over again in this column: "no idea why", "time blips", and "no matter that it's never happened before". Just warning you now.

To say this book is dense would be an understatement. Writer Mark Waid shoves so much story into this book that you barely have a chance to comprehend what's going on before he shifts to another plot line and leaves you hanging.

Also, because of the different time blips and jumps that occur throughout, there are more than a few moments when you're just staring at the page and wondering what the heck's going on.

For example, page 2 shows Chemical King blasting an asteroid to help save the day. At least, I think it's Chemical King. But his powers never worked that way before, so who knows? No idea what chemical reaction he's speeding up in a dead hunk of rock, but if the writers don't care, why should I?

They quickly solve the "Rokk's gone crazy" subplot by showing that the gauntlets he was wearing to give him back his magnetic powers were what was causing him to act out. Alchemist turns them into gas and he's fine again. Now on to the main story.

There are essentially three parts to this story. First is the funeral for Laurel on Shanghalla. Again, since what was said only last month is ignored, the funeral is not on Winath. Dev-Em speaks at the funeral, but that's the new, good Dev-Em, not the bad, helped destroy the moon Dev-Em. Honestly, I'm not sure why he'd be the one speaking, or how he survived when Glorith killed every Daxamite, but again, time blips mean nothing has to make sense.

The second part is when the two Brainys (Brainy squared) and Invisible Kid show up in the time bubble to explain that everything's falling apart. Again, no idea why Rond wouldn't be part of that, since he was the one leading the investigation with Circadia Senius and Lyle, but again, time blips.

They're using the time bubble because it's a better way to move quickly through space and they don't have time to waste... and follow that up by sending Valor, Tasmia, Dev-Em, and Andromeda, with the time bubble, to go help someone unmentioned. Okay, so they're in a rush to get places and to stop the time problems, but they'll send two of their most powerful members, plus the time bubble, away. Time blips?? Or just stupid writing??

We finally get to the meat of the story - what's happening with the time changes? There's a statue of Superboy on Shanghalla but some remember him and some don't. Everyone's memories are different and no one can agree on what actually happened in the past.

We then get the two big reveals of this issue:

• All these time fluctuations started when the SW6 Legionnaires entered stasis (15 years ago, comic time??)
• There's a black void, blocking time, in the 31st Century

The third part is when we start fighting. For some reason, there's a time beacon on Shanghalla. No idea how it got there or why it's there, but it is. Some random villains appear and start attacking the Legionnaires, who struggle as their powers start going haywire. Also, no idea why that's happening either.

Mordru (who's looking young and fit) and Glorith appear, revealing who the big villains of the book are. They stand in the back, watching the attack, before grabbing Rokk and taking him away.

The Legion defeats the villains and decide that they need to find Rokk. Dawnstar can sense where he is and they disappears in a time blip. That's going to be our "how to cause problems for our heroes" repeating scene for the rest of these stories. As soon as a character is useful, they blip out of existence.

I'm going to say this once and then not comment on it again. I'm sure Chris Gardner is a better artist than we see here, but this book is horrible to look at. I know that sounds like I'm exaggerating, but when you're drawing this many characters and this many plot points, you need someone who's at least competent. This art isn't. Bad anatomy, characters who change facial structure from panel to panel, and it makes figuring out who's who even more difficult.

Characters also just appear and disappear for no real reason. Again, I know that you can write this off as just time blips, but, for example, Mekt Ranzz is never seen in any panel of the book until he needs to fight his evil doppelganger for one page.

Valor 22

It's funny how one's memory works. I had completely forgotten that Kurt Busiek had worked on Valor. When I think of his work, I always think of Marvel and Astro City. I never think of anything he did for DC. And yes, I know DC published later volumes of Astro City...

In this issue, we learn that it was R.J. Brande who called Valor for help. The problems with New Earth have become critical - the domes are breaking apart and they're not going to last much longer. So Brande has a great idea: open up a spacial warp to the pocket dimension, pull that Earth through the opening, place it where the old Earth would've been, and then land the domes on the planet and re-settle it.

Two questions come to mind here. First, why weren't they working on this problem from the moment New Earth was formed? Second, why can't R.J. Brande, who literally made his fortune building stars, build an earth? It would have to be easier, wouldn't it?

I'm also going to completely ignore what little I know about interstellar physics, and how the destruction of the Earth would've thrown the solar system into chaos, or how bringing a new planet into this solar system would cause even more chaos, and just enjoy the craziness of the plan.

My single favorite part of this issue is that someone finally let Tyroc use his powers. It's been decades since he last let loose a scream that did anything and I loved it. If anyone at DC is reading this, please have Tyroc be an important member of whatever Legion reboot you have planned.

My second favorite part of this book is when Valor and Tasmia are having memory issues and she starts calling him "Mon-El" and asks if they're married. I always thought they were an amazing couple and loved the way Paul Levitz built their relationship. Seeing it all come back here was beautiful.

Unfortunately, once they get the planet out of the pocket dimension, they uncover a horrible problem. The core is unstable and will explode in 72 hours. So now there's a different time crunch to worry about.

Of course, they have a time bubble. Couldn't they grab the Brainys, go 100 years into the past, figure out the solution, and come back and get the core back to normal?

I normally praise Colleen Doran's artwork here, but I'm not too sure what she's doing with Valor. Some panels it looks like he's gained about 50 pounds of water weight and other panels he doesn't. But even with that, she's still got the facial expressions down pat and has a cartoony style that works here.

After reading Legionnaires 17, this book is a lot more relaxed, if that makes sense. Busiek builds the plot, shows the personal issues and concerns, and doesn't overload you with plot and exposition. He got the lucky chapter to do this - Waid had to overload the story to get every reader somewhat up to speed. All in all, I enjoyed chapter two much more.

LSH 60

We start off on Baaldur, where Glorith and Mordru have taken Rokk prisoner. The two villains talk about how they have to face... the other...

Back in the rest of the universe, every Legionnaire is rushing to Winath to join up and figure out how to save Rokk and solve the time problems. There's a weird moment when Spider Girl/Wave gets the two Aylas to hang out, hoping that'll help the one who's getting younger and younger. I don't remember there being any moments where Spider Girl and Ayla spent any meaningful time together and I'm not sure what inspired this. Time blips, right?

The other thing that really confuses me is how the old Legion is keeping to their new code names rather than their real names. It makes no sense for Celeste to call Vi Virus. I mean, the new code names made no sense anyway, but they make even less sense when they're all hanging out together on Winath and there's absolutely no need to hide their identities.

Speaking of identities, everyone's surprised when Brek calls Inferno Sun Boy... which was his name after he woke up from stasis. So why are they weirded out by it? Time blips!

Sadly, Catspaw disappears for no reason whatsoever and she makes a brief cameo at some point in the future, but that's it. Can we get her back in a reboot too? DC? Anyone?

Surprisingly enough, not much happens this issue. The Legion reunites on Winath, so we get the dramatic shot of everyone standing there. History is once again ignored as old Star Boy is suddenly fit and has a full head of hair again.

Then Glorith and Mordru attack the SP Station on Talus... which I think is the old Legion HQ but I guess the SP kept it even though, again, the Legion were cleared on all charges. Man, they don't even care about what happened in the last six issues.

The Legion flies to Talus and gets there almost immediately - space travel is amazing these days - and the battle commences. The villains use the time beacon (not sure why they didn't use the one on Shanghalla) and bring Infinite Man back to life. Once they do that, they steal his powers for themselves, making them ready to rule the universe.

On the dead/disappearing Legion front, they kill Leviathan, which causes Gim to completely disappear. So does that mean that if either the old or young Legionnaire dies, the other blinks out of existence? So Cham and Jeckie should be gone, too, right? Oh wait, the problems only happen now, not at any time in the past... even though it makes no sense that it's happening now... or any sense at all.

More time changes occur. Ayla is back to normal (still much younger than she should be), Live Wire has a robot arm again, Vi's eye is healed, some old costumes return, and Spider Girl and Kid Quantum disappear. Glad they spent so much time saving Kid Quantum, making him a Legionnaire, just to blip him out so quickly. I mean, honestly, why did they do anything but tread water for the past year?

The most important part of this book is that Rokk ends up in the Infinite Library and trapped forever. And even though it contains books on magic, and Glorith's journal, she and Mordru don't care at all, happy that Rokk's trapped. Yep, that's more good thinking from the villains.

I will be honest - I am going to miss Stuart Immonen on this book. I may have some complaints about how he draws some of the Legion, but he's by far the best penciller of these three books.

Legionnaires 18

Let's continue on with the Mordru and Glorith quest to take over the universe. They touch hands, merge their powers, and the entire galaxy starts changing to reflect how they want things to look. Buildings become castles. Spaceships completely change form and the people within change costumes and swear loyalty to the two villains. More Legionnaires disappear, such as Kono.

One thing I really liked here was the way Waid and Garner show Rokk studying in the Infinite Library as he ages, magically making himself young again, and continuing to learn more and more. They dedicate about one-sixth of almost each page to this, showing him become a master of mystic arts. Even has the goatee for that too.

Because we now live in the evil, mystical universe, there's a mystical, evil Legion, who attack our heroes. Luckily the good ones aren't affected by the spell that's taking over the universe (no idea why) but it makes for some exciting Legion vs. Legion action.

The mystical Legionnaires get together in a circle and begin casting spells to stop Mordru and Glorith. Devlin sits in the middle of the circle, ready to absorb the mystical energy and shoot it at the pair. No matter that he's literally never done this before. Unfortunately, before he's able to help, both he and Dragonmage disappear in a time blip. This seems to be a recurring theme - just as the character is able to help, they disappear.

Then Furball, Polar Boy, and Rond Vidar all disappear. There seems to be a connection to why these characters are going away - have you figured it out yet?

Continuing the complete lack of logic, Mysa just decides to get angry, use the power of Amethyst, and blasts the pair apart. Their magic immediately dissipates, all the changes they made disappear, and everything's back to normal. So why didn't she do this before? Why would these two be so easy to defeat when they have their own powers plus the Infinite Man's? Does anything make sense?

Oh, and since she can defeat them, she disappears as well. Time blip!

Rokk, having read every book in the library, is finally greeted by a visitor and a secret door opens. Behind it is the Time Trapper, who's drawn like some crazed 20-foot tall alien. Kinda odd, but makes as much sense as anything else I've seen so far.

We get an issue of fighting and the Legion trying desperately to stop Mordru and Glorith and not really much of a resolution. I mean, they could just rejoin and do everything again, couldn't they? Why not? And with Mysa gone, there's no way they could defeat them, right?

Hopefully next issue has a completely logical conclusion where the heroes fight, using teamwork and Legion know-how to defeat them. Hehe...

Valor 23

Wow - this issue has it all! I'm honestly surprised that this wasn't the final issue of the story. It's really only a Valor story by name only as the focus is far more on the Time Trapper's revelations to Rokk than anything else.

And what revelations those are.

For over a year, the creative teams on both Legionnaires and Legion of Super-Heroes have been ignoring or throwing out almost everything that Keith Giffen did during his three years on this book. The SW6 Legionnaires have forgotten everything they did before stasis, the older Legionnaires have all gotten younger and have personality shifts.

Now they ignore everything that made the Dominators so dangerous and reveal that neither team is made up of clones - the Time Trapper created two groups of Legionnaires himself. In order to save the timeline from all the damage that was occurring, he needed the Legion to fight for him.

I'll let him explain:

"I had to save the Legion of Super-Heroes from the cataclysm somehow! That innocence, that bravery and commitment... it had to be preserved! To achieve that goal, I divided the Legion... concentrating my vast power into a chronal scalpel to split them into two possible time tracks. I chose to make the divergence occur just before Ferro Lad's death - back when the team's camaraderie was the highest. There were exceptions. I had to take Luornu from a slightly earlier time - merge Garth with an undamaged temporal version... but it was important to restore them, to have the team unbroken and pure..."

And after Rokk asks if they are clones:

"No. They are not copies of any sort. You and they... are merely divergent channels of the same timestream. Each as real and valid as the other. And therein lay my fatal error..."

So instead of everything we knew, that the Dominators cloned one of these teams, kept them in stasis until they needed them, we learn that the Time Trapper created them and then hid them on the Earth. The Dominators just got lucky and found them one day.

And, even though he created these two teams to fix the chronal problems, he never actually used them. Ever. The one just lay in stasis even as he was watching everything fall apart. So Time Trapper's an idiot. Cool.

So to explain this as I think I understand this. The Time Trapper discovered this wave of entropy that's moving through time and is going to destroy everything. In order to save time, he split the Legion into two equal groups. By doing that, he created a paradox that caused all of these time problems. So he created the problem by trying to solve the problem that he created. Time travel makes my brain hurt.

I'm of two minds about this. One, I think this is a really creative way to write yourself out of the problems that DC Comics is causing for you. You have to tie into Zero Hour. You have to reboot the universe. You have all these past events that you can work with. So you create a time paradox to explain all the damage that's occurring. It's not like the Legion's time issues are new - they started with Crisis.

But it's also clunky and makes no sense if you've read a Legion comic in the last five years. If these characters are the same person and there's a massive paradox, why were they able to interact and work together? And why didn't certain characters disappear when their doppelgangers died? And next issue gets even more confusing if you stop to think about it for even a moment. Also, the claim that there have been time issues since the Time Trapper created the second team doesn't make sense either. And finally, didn't Glorith's mystical sacrifice solve all of this at the beginning of the 5YL run?

The second part of the book, where the Legion defeats Glorith and Mordru, is almost secondary to what the Time Trapper tells Rokk. It shouldn't be, considering Superboy shows up and joins the fight, but it's very anti-climatic.

How do they defeat them? Valor distracts Glorith by offering to stay with her. Because she still loves him, she drops her guard and Superboy sucker punches her and knocks her out. That's it. And he punches her so hard that she loses all the Infinite power she absorbed and is never seen again in this story. Yep, never wakes up and tries to fight back.

Does Superboy sucker punch people?

Valor absorbs the power, fights Mordru, then gives Mordru the power, which overloads his mind, and he teleports to the center of the pocket universe Earth that's about to explode. I'm glad they remembered that dangling plot line that they haven't mentioned for two issues. Normally, burying Mordru under that much dirt would be good, but since the planet will explode, it means he'll be back soon and just as dangerous as before.

Sadly, Tasmia got blasted by Mordru's powers and dies. When she dies, Valor has no more reason to try to stay on the Earth, so he disappears. The sarcastic side of me wonders why he wouldn't want to stay for the love of his teammates and friends and to save the universe, but this is a far more romantic and touching end to the character. I just wish that Tasmia had been given any sort of agency here - she exists for Valor, not for herself.

Finally, in one of the... most unintentionally funny scenes I've seen in a while, Superboy gives a rousing speech to the remaining Legionnaires, telling them to keep fighting and that they will be victorious... and then he disappears. And most of the Legion has no clue who he was.

This is the final issue of Valor and it's probably the best of the series. I know this is tough to read, but this book was destined to be cancelled from the very first issue. The stories were usually very lacking, the art mediocre, and DC was just counting on whomever was reading the Legion book to continue with this one. They weren't going to put any money into it - why, when the sales numbers would be average at best - and they were just content to have a cheaply-produced book sell at those numbers.

LSH 61

We reach the end, with no one really left to fight, no big reveals to occur, and 22 pages of story to wrap up 36 years of Legion history.

All the Legionnaires have traveled to the pocket dimension's Earth, where it is a sea of exploding lava. They try to settle the planet, creating bits of land to stand on, and try to figure out how to stop the planet from exploding.

The original trio of Legionnaires, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Live Wire, plus Dragon, arrive from the past to tell them that reality is collapsing and they may not be able to save anything. By the way, they don't arrive in a time bubble or anything else - they just pop in. I love how they've just given up on trying to make anything make sense. In Zero Hour, these characters just faded out. But we need them here, so who cares whether it makes sense?

Oh, and I do quite like that Live Wire's personality has completely changed and the three of them have no memory of any of the things that happened in the Legionnaires series. These characters have all just been reduced to their basic components.

Then the Time Trapper and Rokk show up, so we now have everyone who's left in one place. Rokk sees Lydda, kisses her, and then watches her disappear as well. The Time Trapper tells him that he got his goodbye and that was all he could do.

The Time Trapper pulls off his hood and reveals that he's actually... a white guy with a receding hairline. Sorry, that's he's actually Rokk. I gotta be honest, if they hadn't have said it in the dialogue, I never would have made that connection. Immonen doesn't draw him to look anything like either Rokk in this scene. Or I could just be dense.

He presents the solution, the way to solve all of these problems and end the time blips. The two teams must reunite and end the paradox. They have to sacrifice their lives to save the universe.

Unfortunately, they have Inferno, Wildfire, and Apparition, none of which have doppelgangers... and none have blipped out yet.

Time for the first big reveal! Wildfire is actually living in Dirk's dead body. He pulled his energy together, possessed Dirk's body on Shanghalla (remember issue 50??) and that's how he's been alive. I gotta be honest, if they set up that plot line for this reveal, then I'm very impressed. It also means they knew they were doing a reboot for over a year. I'm going to go with a happy coincidence.

The Time Trapper reaches back and pulls the other Tinya back to the present. She and Jo swear their love for each other... right before they all die... romantic??

On a complete aside - Phase is Tinya. Sorry, don't care about all the rewrites and that, according to the L.E.G.I.O.N. book, she's actually Tinya's cousin. She's Tinya. End of story. L.E.G.I.O.N. was coming to an end and about to be rebooted as R.E.B.E.L.S., so they could've just kept one of Giffen's story ideas and removed her from the team, couldn't they?

The rest of the book shows the team members touching their counterparts and fading out of existence. We're left with the original three, who all join hands and disappear together.

Two thought about this:

One, if the Cosmic Boys fade out of existence, doesn't that mean that the Time Trapper never exists, which means these paradoxes never existed, which means there was never a time problem, which means they didn't need to do all of this, which means... I hate time travel...

Two, speaking as a parent, I always love these moments where you have characters with children who never give a moment's thought about them. Rokk has just watched the mother of his child disappear. Garth and Imra have four children. None of them would've wondered, "who's going to take care of my child/children once we sacrifice our lives?"

There's a final image of the team holding hands with shots of... I'm guessing the Legion's greatest moments... maybe... I dunno... surrounding them. I tried my best to try to figure out why they chose these images and I just couldn't:

• The five new members joining in Volume 3
• The Proty sacrifice to bring back Lightning Lad
• Ferro Lad dying to destroy the Sun Eater
• Triplicate Girl crawling through Superboy's secret tunnel in the first battle with Mordru
  
• The original three saving R.J. Brande
• Karate Kid fighting Nemesis Kid
• Cham convincing Rokk to reform the Legion

 

I guess they're showing every time a Legionnaire sacrificed his/her life in the line of duty... well, except for 3 of the images. And they skipped a few dead Legionnaires.

Honestly, I would've much preferred an image with every hero who had appeared in a Legion comic over the past 36 years. I know that would've been harder for Immonen, but it would've been more dramatic.

Then everything fades to white... and the oldest super-hero team in the DC Universe is rebooted...

 

Even now, there's a part of me that's absolutely stunned that this is how the Legion ended. I'm going to talk more next week about this, and what led to this finale, so I'll save my thoughts until then.

Now that's how you get people to come back for the next column!