Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #47 (1993)
written by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Stuart Immonen
Last issue, the book literally desecrated the remains of the dead Legionnaires. Will at least be for a worthwhile cause?
I know Keith Giffen has left the series, but I kind of wonder if his instructions to the Bierbaums were “If I leave, find a way to somehow kill Karate Kid once more”.
Mordru’s spell to resurrect the dead throughout the Galaxy has been dispelled, but now that he’s not wearing a shirt he’s still a threat.
Mordru is still controlling the corpses of the dead Legionnaires, SOMEHOW, so Cosmic Boy has to convince the others to attack him directly.
I don’t know why Brainiac 5 finds this so shocking: Mordru hasn’t been a decent villain in literal decades.
The logistics of the Probes (the blue-skinned androids without eyes) continue to confuse me.
Mordru is using them as his eyes and ears… but they’re not his creation, right? We’ve seen that they are technological in nature and have been used extensively in all aspects of society.
So does this mean that Mordru just took a bunch of them to use as personal spies? Isn’t using technology like this a bit outside of his normal methods?
Also, how sentient are those things? I thought they were little more than digital assistants with legs, but if one of them talks back to Mordru they must be way more advanced.
In addition to the Legionnaires, Mordru has also resurrected some of their villains.
Including Vrykos.
Yeah, remember the vampire guy from issue 3?
Me neither.
I mean you have NEMESIS KID and Doctor Regulus around, but Cosmic Boy is more worried about the vampire guy?
Sounds legit.
At least Lightning Lass has the pleasure to take down the corpse of Zaryan, the Khund who killed Lightning Lad. Considering the (idiotic) retcon that he wasn’t truly resurrected… yeah, Zaryan really DID kill him in this continuity.
And speaking of deserved vengeance: Projectra gets to kill Nemesis Kid again!
As a bonus, Flederweb ALMOST gets a personality.
Mordru ALMOST gets creative with his powers.
But that could potentially be interesting, so instead we just have the Legion being smacked around for a couple of panels before they give up.
It’s up to Amethyst, currently possessing Kono, to save the day.
And Dream Girl, although she won’t do anything.
And Martian Manhunter, although he won’t do anything.
And Matter-Eater Lad, although he won’t do anything.
Turns out that the reason why Mordru is so powerful is that he fused with White Witch.
If this was revealed earlier, I completely missed it.
I guess that’s why we need Kono to fuse with Amethyst?
Well without that we would need to have a superhero team fighting against one of their greatest enemies against all odds, and that could potentially be interesting so it MUST be avoided.
Brainiac 5 is able to overcome his skepticism of magic to help Projectra modify a spell to attack Mordru. This is not elaborated and comes out of nowhere, because of course we couldn’t dedicate a single panel to this potentially interesting development.
Also, Projectra is followed by some magic assistants? I think? They were probably around earlier, but I was more concentrated on not falling asleep.
This separates Mordru from White Witch. Who, of course, LOOKS NOTHING LIKE HER.
Is it too much to ask for her to keep a recognizable design for more than one issue!?!?
Also the entire thing is kind of pointless since Mordru rapidly re-absorbs her.
With his newfound power, Mordru is able to throw around “the destructive force of a star”.
Which obviously does almost no damage.
But at least Mordru gets serious at the end.
Oh how I wish this was already over, Mordru.
In other plots: since this is a Bierbaum book, you were not surprised to see the butchering of old Legionnaires.
But you might be wondering where’s their other signature: horniness for no reason.
Well…
The scene is so gratuitous that Firefist gets mad at Devlin O’Ryan.
Too bad Firefist forgot that Devlin has the power to reflect energy.
Be honest, did you also forget that?
This means Firefist is dead.
And finally, we have Roxxas rescuing Element Lad (I’m a bit lost on why he’s injured).
no pages with The Grid
24 pages without a grid
no plash pages
no text pages
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #48 (1993)
written by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Stuart Immonen
What we’re supposed to get from this cover: “Oh no, how will Devlin survive Mordru?”.
What I get from this cover: “Something is seriously wrong with Mordru’s abs”.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much that Devlin is the one to get a badass moment here, because by now he’s an official Legionnaire and as a rookie he needs one… but still.
You couldn’t have ANYONE ELSE at least TRY to stand up to Mordru? Really?
Mordru falls for it, because of course he does.
Devlin reflecting Mordru’s attack would have been more impressive if Mordru himself had felt like a threat.
In the previous issue Mordru teleported the Legionnaires into their own graves to kill them.
That SOUNDS like a terrifying move until you figure out that it would have been useless against several of them… Ultra Boy and Laurel Gand could have escaped easily, Matter-Eater Lad could have eaten his way through, Shrinking Violet could have shrunk between molecules, and so on.
Of course watching the Legionnaires survive on their own could have been interesting, so we focus on Amethyst leaving Kono’s body to enter Mordru’s mind.
The struggle ends Mordru’s control over the dead throughout the Galaxy. Something I thought already happened previously.
Mordru has one last trick up his sleeve: turn into a fire lion.
Mordru is now obsessed to finding out where White Witch’s power, the one that allowed him to increase his own, came from.
And it turns out that it was because White Witch loved Mordru.
WHERE THE HECK IS THIS COMING FROM!?!?!?
Even Mordru doesn’t buy it!!!
Yeah, you know, MORDRU THE MERCILESS. That’s truly someone that a Legionnaire could love.
At last White Witch is able to completely strip Mordru of his powers (and his muscles).
The sisterly reunion between Dream Girl and White Witch would have a much bigger impact:
if A) Dreamy had actually DONE ANYTHING besides calling Martian Manhunter, who himself didn’t do anything
if B) White Witch didn’t CHANGE HER FREAKING DESIGN AGAIN
White Witch gets a much deserved vacation. She will appear again in this era, and I wish I could say that her treatment here is the worst she’ll ever get… but her character assassination will be EVEN WORSE THAN THIS in the Retroboot.
But at least Devlin gets a wife!
Still a better love story than White Witch and Mordru.
However Flederweb and Veilmist are forced to resign from the Legion, returning to the Khund.
It’s early for the awards, but I can’t avoid commenting this one.
The Legion Award for Most “We Did Not Think This Through” Panel goes to: Cosmic Boy arguing for slavery.
And the only reason this doesn’t work is because Devlin is a minor.
Wait, by Khund standards or by human standards? Is Devlin really supposed to be THAT young!?
Oh my God, Cosmic Boy, WHY ARE YOU ARGUING ABOUT THIS!?
They imposed the Khund members against the Legion wishes!!! You didn’t want them in the team and they BARELY helped, why are you fighting to keep them!?!?
This is truly absurd. Fighting to prevent the Khunds to annex the colonies from the United Planets, yes I get that, but the emphasis he put on the Khund Legionnaires is nonsense.
You guys really suck at this whole superhero business, don’t you?
Firefist is not REALLY dead. I’m going to consider him as having resigned.
The subplot about the redemption of Roxxas is left hanging.
Instead of being ejected into space.
And we close with the revelation that White Witch and Amethyst are still fused.
I think.
no pages with The Grid
24 pages without a grid
no plash pages
no text pages
Legion significance: 3/10
I know White Witch shows up again, but I’m willing to guess this whole thing doesn’t end up meaning anything in this era. Although, as I mentioned, White Witch shows up in the Retroboot to be treated much worse… it’s not a DIRECT continuation of this (it’s complicated), but I’m pretty sure showing her in love with Mordru here influences the completion of her character assassination.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
There’s some Silver Age in Mordru being knocked out by Devlin’s power.
Depression scale
#47: 4/10
We’re mostly desecrating villain corpses, but poor Projectra is once more traumatized.
#48: 7/10
Mordru is mostly defeated by Amethyst and by FORMER Legionnaires. But most importantly, the heroes are completely unable to prevent the Khund from taking planets from the United Planets… and worse, they seem more vocal about the technicalities of the deal.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
The premise isn’t that bad, but it botches the execution and the finale.
At absolutely no point in the story I found Mordru to be a legitimate thereat to the Legion, which isn’t surprising since that’s been the case for a long time at this point.
The battles are uninspired, any potential drama that doesn’t involve White Witch is not addresses… and the latter is a complete embarrassment.
White Witch has been in love with Mordru the entire time? Despite knowing what a monster he is? Despite him torturing her, both physically and mentally?
That’s a textbook toxic relationship; the ONLY reason this doesn’t warrant a negative point is that I’m absolutely sure the Bierbaums didn’t think ANY of this through.
We are legion
The last 3 surviving Khund members are moved to the resigned category, although I’m considering Firefist as being dead for 1 issue.
Which up to this point is probably the shortest Legionnaire death.
31 active Legionnaires. Of these, 19 are in the “Legionnaires” team.
2 on sick leave (Timber Wolf and SW6 Mon-El)
3 reserve members
33 resigned members
18 deceased members
83 people have been members
65 people have been rejected
Interesting letters: to be fair, SOME liked the direction taken for White Witch.
In this letter that I’m cutting for brevity, for example.
The same letter praises the use of Spider Girl. The fact that I’ve BARELY mentioned her being around should tell you what I think about her.
Also, we STILL don’t know what Celeste Rockfish’s powers are!!!
According to the letters page, the readers are still divided between those who miss the Giffen days and those who see the new direction as a breath of fresh air.
While I’m finding this part of the run to be quite uninspired, letters like Jim’s remind me what a mess we left behind.
See, this is why I’m considering the Legionnaires as members of the Legion.
Mysa’s character assassination gets much, much worse. I genuinely do not understand what was going through Tom McCraw’s brain with her. Speaking of McCraw, we only have 2 more issues to go until he takes over.
Back to the Legion, so some clarifications to offer here:
1) Mordru has never been averse to using technology-based pawns. He manipulated plenty of them during the Earthwar, just as one example. Not sure I can account for the one with a mind of its own, but perhaps preservation of Mordru is something it was programmed to care about, even against Mordru’s own ego.
2) Cosmic Boy is “concerned” with Vrykos since he seems to be in charge of the army of resurrected villain corpses. Not that he’s more afraid of him than of the more powerful ones.
3) Kono needed to be “fused” with Amethyst (more like possessed, I’d say) because Amethyst was nothing but a spirit and needed a physical vessel to get her to Mysa (when Mysa freed her, she was immediately taken over by some item of Mordru’s, Amethyst didn’t get the chance. Then Amethyst entered J’onn, but found him to be too incompatible. Young girl Kono was a better vessel).
4) Brainiac 5 is not skeptical of magic, or at least has not been for quite a long time.
5) The black hair happened as soon as Mysa was possessed by that Mordru spirit. It’s not one of her classic looks, but is consistent with what happened in the most immediate stories. And while she’s still seduced by the dark side, I mean consumed with anger and hate, she remains under the Emperor’s, I mean Mordru’s control. (The story isn’t very subtle about how that works.)
6) Jan is injured because transforming all of the resurrected Trommites into harmless tsarin crystals overtaxed him.
7) Last time (before the 5YL began), Mordru was purged of his evil nature. It’s not too much of a stretch that during that phase of his existence, Mysa fell in love with that version of him. Of course, he clearly was restored to his old self at some point, but like many battered wives, Mysa was misled into blaming herself for his backsliding.
8) Cos didn’t want the Khundish Legionnaires, but having discovered that these two, at least, were not willing soldiers of the Khund army, his attitude changed, so yes, he was using Khundish slavery laws to try and free her from re-conscription to the Khund army.
One additional note: Legion Annual # 4 takes place in the middle of the Mordru storyline. Perhaps, since this is the first time you’re reading these issues, you didn’t realize this and that’s why you didn’t review it in the middle. Warning: reading the “Bloodlines” company crossover is not an enjoyable experience. And the annual combines that with a Legion run that you hated. Caveat reviewer.
Would a walking rock need a skeletal structure? When Roxxas made a jigsaw puzzle out of Blok, there weren’t any bones in the debris. But given that no one gave much thought to Blok’s external appearance, considering his random anatomical changes post-Omen, it really isn’t surprising that no one has considered his internal structure.
At least Blok does get to stand loyally beside Mysa in the retroboot. I do wish her storyline there had carried forward to some kind of conclusion. There was clearly meant to be more, if the retroboot hadn’t crashed and burned.
Is it just me, or does White Mordru look too much like Travis Morgan? I’m surprised he didn’t show up and do nothing too.
The Retroboot didn’t so much crash and burn, as it was short-circuited by the New 52, which affected everything’s story, except Batman and Green Lantern.
The New 52 certainly didn’t help anything, but the main Legion book ignored the New 52 except for the loss of the Legion Lost members. There was nothing inherently wrong with the Legion under the New 52, until Levitz and Giffen made deliberate choices to crash the book so thoroughly that their issues could never be referred to again. The death and cannibalization of Sun Boy. Tinya turning coward and fleeing. Brainy somehow being stupid enough to hand Tharok the keys to taking over all technology. Karate Kid randomly alive again. Validus rampaging despite Garridan and Graym still being with their parents. None of it was imposed by the New 52. It was Levitz and Giffen burning it all down.
On the shortlist of character names shared between Marvel and DC, we have “Firefist?” Where’s Deadpool when you need him?