Legionnaires #41 (1996)
written by Roger Stern & Tom McCraw
pencils and cover by Jeff Moy
This begins the main phase of the era I’m calling “Legion Divided”, because this series will only focus on the Legionnaires that are still in the 30th century.
We begin with Live Wire waking up after the huge explosion at the end of the previous storyline, and his artificial arm has been destroyed.
That’s the second artificial arm he lost, after his organic one.
Arms lost by Lightning Lad: 3
The cover makes it look like XS was buried under the rubble, but she’s the first one to be rescued.
The Emerald Eye turned a bunch of satellites into a huge space station. Now that the Eye has vanished, the whole thing is about to crash into the atmosphere.
Always good to have a Daxamite on hand.
Not everybody made it home safe, though: seven Legionnaires are missing.
Well eight if you count Apparition, but they don’t know she’s still alive.
The United Planets help with the rescue, and President Brande takes it upon himself to update the team on what happened.
Because of the brainwashing, they don’t even remember being the Emerald Legion.
Unfortunately that was quite a public event.
There’s a silver lining though: the lost Legionnaires are not dead, they are just lost in time.
Neat detail to have M’Onel needing someone to introduce him to Rond because they’ve never met before, that would’ve been an easy detail to miss.
They are NOT with the Emerald Eye, though…
…because that creep is still haunting poor Violet.
The Eye is truly at its most malignant here, exploiting Violet’s guilt to tempt her into giving up.
Brande then makes a public announcement, revealing that Violet has been possessed by the Emerald Eye. He specifically identifies her as a victim, but this also saves the reputation of the other Legionnaires.
Interestingly, he’s also using a cover story for the missing Legionnaires.
Which makes sense: he can’t say they are lost in time without opening another discussion on the illegality of time travel, and admitting they don’t currently have the means to save them would do even more damage to the Legion’s reputation.
We also have a cameo of a soon-to-be-returning Legionnaire…
…and the official announcement of Leviathan’s death, with a glimpse of his family.
Including his sister, who will play a very minor role later in this era.
You might have wondered: given the incredibly advanced medicine of the 30th century, why does Live Wire need a prosthesis? Because while 30th century medicine DOES have the means to regrow limbs, that won’t work with his powers.
So he faces a dilemma: get a new organic arm or keep his powers?
A dilemma that lasts LITERALLY ONE PANEL, because Live Wire instantly decides he would rather keep his powers.
Well, duh! It doesn’t look like he’s inconvenienced by the artificial arm… it works exactly like the real one, and he hasn’t complained about a loss of sensation… why WOULDN’T he keep it?
He’s taking it better than other Legionnaires, including Kinetix.
Controversially, in her very last moments at the epilogue of this continuity… waaaaaay ahead in the retrospective… Kinetix will be thinking of Leviathan.
Without giving away the context, a lot of readers have complained that it would’ve made it more sense for her to think of Violet.
While I agree with this complain, and I have VERY strong and VERY negative thoughts about that story… it’s not like Kinetix would forget Leviathan considering she feels partially guilty for his death.
Someone else is taking the loss of her crush even more harshly.
It takes Star Boy a lot of effort to eventually slow down XS enough to talk to her.
She’s not just running out of grief… she’s trying to run fast enough to go back in time.
Just when you thought Jenni couldn’t get more wholesome.
Speaking of issues WAY in the future: there will be couple of stories that explore a very deep bond between Star Boy and XS. While generally well regarded, it could come across as coming out of nowhere… except these two are already sharing a moment here.
But a dead Legionnaire means a trip to Shanghalla, and even know how big it is.
Or specifically how tiny: just 15 kilometers (0.62 miles) in diameter!
That would make it about the same size of Saturn’s moon Tarvos, and it would be the 81st biggest moon in Earth’s solar system.
Yeah, Shanghalla is TINY.
Unlike Leviathan’s coffin, since he died in giant form.
So I’m guessing the United Planets completely lack any form of shrinking technology.
R.J.Brande is the one giving the eulogy, and as expected it’s a good one.
Interestingly, all the women are covering their heads. Is this because Leviathan was Jewish or is this supposed to be a weird 30th century thing?
I looked it up and I couldn’t find a confirmation, so a Jewish reader confirming this would be greatly appreciated.
Also Chameleon is the only male covering his head with what could be a kippah.
Nobody else wears this at the funeral, not even Leviathan’s family.
We also have an extremely rare appearance from XS’s father, and Apparition’s mother doesn’t wase the occasion to find allies in her hatred for the Legion.
And she gets an earful from Leviathan’s father!
Now this was a very satisfying moment.
Not the best moment, Element Lad.
Now everyone knows that Apparition is alive again… and lost again.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t particularly like Leviathan… and frankly neither did some of his teammates. But it’s great to see one of his biggest critics being the one to console his parents.
And so we close with Kinetix telling her mother about the witch who turned her into a catgirl…
…and JUST SAYING HER NAME is enough to teleport half the team to a new plot.
Legion significance: 10/10
The basis of the split between the books and the start of new Violet & Kinetix plots.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
Really solid character work throughout, helped by the usual outstanding artwork.
Sometime it’s its REALLY difficult to come up with something to say about good books!!!
Who did it better?
Nothing specific comes to mind.
We are legion
I am moving Apparition from “presumed dead” to “missing in action” since the team now knows she’s alive somewhere (somewhen?).
- 9 active Legionnaires
- 8 missing in action
- 1 resigned member (Andromeda)
- 1 honorary member (Superboy)
- 2 deceased members (Kid Quantum and Leviathan)
- 21 people have been members
- 3 Legion leaders (Leviathan, Cosmic Boy, Shrinking Violet)
- 2 members have been rejected