Comics Archeology

Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #80 (1996)
written by Tom Peyer & Tom McCraw
pencils by Lee Moder
cover by Alan Davis

This issue marks the end of what I’m counting as the first era of the Reboot: will they manage to pull off a satisfying finale?

Things are pretty rough: three Legionnaires have been murdered, and the Galaxy is in turmoil between the return of the Sun-Eater and a new war between the planets of Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl.

Can you blame Cosmic Boy for losing it?

The Legion literally can’t touch the mastermind behind the conspiracy, because it’s Amnassador Wazzo: the mother of the deceased Apparition.

She and her new assistant Gullo have kidnapped both Brainiac 5 (who wasn’t killed at the end of last issue despite appearances) and the President of the United Planets.

First order of business is stopping Titan’s fleet from actually starting a war.

Even Saturn Girl would have trouble dealing with a whole ship of trained telepaths, but that’s what mentors are for.

So you can understand why the subplot of Ultra Boy’s mysterious illness has to wait.

The Rescue Squad has joined the team; including Element Lad, who SHOULD be able to just end the conflict… if he didn’t care about casualties.

Evidently Leviathan isn’t the biggest fan of the Legion’s no-kill rules.

I’m sure Leviathan will come around after Element Lad transmutes Persuader’s Atomic Axe into cheese!!!

They also have to deal with the Fatal Five, including giving the perfect summary for why Empress sucks without the Emerald Eye.

Turns out that Mano’s characterization from his debut storyline hasn’t been forgotten (yet), because he’s the one to stop Tharok from committing genocide.
Also, evidently in this version Mano doesn’t really need his helmet.

Andromeda even grows the courage of treating Mon-El like a person and not a god!

Something that makes him quite proud of her.

But back to the person behind it all: Brainiac 5 manages to have Ambassador Wazzo confess her entire conspiracy on camera!

The Ambassador has gone SO off the deep end that she even vaporizes Gullo when he (she?) refuses to execute the President.

The President is saved by Brainiac 5, at the cost of his life.

Nobody is more surprised by this whole sequence of events than the President herself…

…because SHE was the one behind the ENTIRE conspiracy!!!

And now we have the big revelation: Cosmic Boy has been on top of this whole thing THE ENTIRE TIME.

Because “Ambassador Wazzo” was actually Chameleon, “Gullo” was actually Shrinking Violet…

…and every member of the Espionage Squad just faked his death!!!

If you’ve been paying attention to the Reboot, you might be wondering: how was Chameleon able to pretend being Ambassador Wazzo if he doesn’t speak Interlac?

BECAUSE HE CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK IT.

I believe this is the reaction of most Legion reader once they realized just how AMAZING Cosmic Boy’s plan turned out to be!!!

So how long has this being going on? Since Legionnaires #26, when Cosmic Boy was informed behind the scenes by Saturn Girl’s mentor.

The conspiracy is also the reason why Cosmic Boy has been acting like a jackass for so long.

Cosmic Boy couldn’t do this alone, which is why he deputized Invisible Kid to use the Espionage Squad to gather further intel.

Something that doesn’t sit right with the ACTUAL deputy leader of the Legion.

Even the whole Starfinger storyline was just a red herring!

Started by the fact that Brainiac 5 mastering time travel was too much of a threat for the President’s paranoia.

If you thought Ambassador Wazzo would be grateful for the Legion’s help… what series have you been reading?

But there is one person who hates the resolution of this arc more than her… R.J.Brande.
Because he’s just been elected President of the United Planets.

And you better believe President Brande is awesome!!!

You can understand why I chose THIS to be the ending of the draft era.

Legion significance: 10/10
The conclusion to most of the storylines so far, plus the permanent abolition of the draft.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
I feel like in the Silver Age, the Ambassador WOULD have confessed everything on camera for real.

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
The way the ending ties up together so many things that happened in the previous issues is quite a feat; even readers who don’t really care for the Reboot have admitted that this is an awesome ending.
The fact that President Chu was the one behind everything probably wasn’t a surprise for anyone: at this point she and Ambassador Wazzo were the only suspects, and the Ambassador was being pushed too much as the villain to fool everybody.

But I doubt many saw just how much Cosmic Boy masterfully prepared for this awesome takedown! Because while I could be leaving behind a couple of minor points, THIS was his plan:
1) pretend to blindly follow the President
2) pretend to be a jackass to avoid Saturn Girl from spoiling everything
3) recruit Invisible Kid into running his investigation
4) with his help, assemble the Espionage Squad AND the Rescue Squad behind the scenes
5) keep Chameleon Boy’s Interlac fluency a secret
6) alienate everyone who wasn’t in the plan
7) see though the Starfinger plot and use it to recruit Element Lad
8) have Saturn Girl’s mentor give him intel on how to avoid an all-out war
9) kidnap the Ambassador and replace her with Chameleon
10) have Brainiac 5 pretend to surrender to President Chu
11) fake the Ambassador having a colossal meltdown
12) expose President Chu’s confession to the public

What reaction could you possibly have to that except…

“By damn!”: 15
This is probably the issue that pushes it the most as Brande’s catchphrase, as he says it SEVEN TIMES across the story.

Who did it better?
There have been long-running plots by Legion leaders in the past, but I don’t think a single one of them compares for the sheer length and complexity of this one.

But how does the plan actually hold up to scrutiny, and were there clues scattered here and there?

First of all, it’s important to note that Cosmic Boy being a dick wasn’t ALWAYS because of his plan. Most notably the whole Composite Man storyline is set BEFORE he learns anything about the conspiracy, so he really WAS a terrible leader for a while.
However, I would argue that one of the reasons why the plan went so well is that Cosmic Boy learned from the mistakes he did during the Composite Man arc.

The idea that Invisible Kid was working under Cosmic Boy’s orders might be a later addition, considering how he talks with the rest of the Espionage Squad.
I see three possibilities, in order of increasing likelihood:
1) he could be testing them
2) he really WAS going behind Cosmic Boy’s back… only to be officially recruited into the plan once Cosmic Boy learned what he was trying to do
3) he was going behind Cosmic Boy’s back when investigating the White Triangle, but he was working for Cosmic Boy once he started investigating the President.

Although it’s hard to tell: the first panel here is from the White Triangle investigation and the second one from the President’s investigation.

The fact that option 3 is the most likely makes this panel from LSH #72 hilarious in hindsight.

The other point to analyze is the revelation that Chameleon has learned Interlac. Which isn’t a big stretch: he was initially able to understand only Invisible Kid because he spoke Durlan, but we’ve had PLENTY of occasions when someone was talking to Chameleon and he not only plainly understood what they were saying, he was replying with just a heavy accent!

In fact, Chameleon stopped speaking Durlan with Interlac-speaking Legionnaires soon after the Planet Hell storyline.
I think the most likely explanation is that he really took the effort to learn the language right after it.

Specifically, I believe that this moment from Legionnaires #26 might be when he reveals to Invisible Kid that he can speak Interlac now.
He COULD be revealing stuff about his backstory that we will learn in issues I have not reviewed yet, but it feels less likely.

We are legion
I’m returning Live Wire, Brainiac 5 and Andromeda to the active membership.
I would normally also put Ultra Boy and Element Lad as official members, if it wasn’t for the first page of next issue to plainly stating that they aren’t yet.