Legion of Super-Heroes #287 (Part 1)

Legion of Super-Heroes #287 (1982)
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen

And we are finally here: the Great Darkness Saga, without question THE most famous Legion storyline.

It’s such a watershed in the history of the team that I’ve decided to treat this as its own era; because of this, issues that contain more than one story will be reviewed separately.
I will do my best to stay as objective as I can, but full disclosure: the GDS is the first Legion story I ever read (it took me years before I got the chance to read any other Legion story), so some level of personal bias is inevitable.
Although it’s hard for me to consider this as the real start of the saga, because the first issue I read is #288.

We begin with Lightning Lad being REALLY upset that Chameleon Boy left Brande’s world without his permission in issue 286, to the point of frightening Saturn Girl.

Speaking of Chameleon Boy, he’s taken Shrinking Violet and Timber Wolf on a secret mission to the Khund homeworld. It is kind of strange that he’s pushing so much the fact that he’s the leader of the Espionage Squad… Shrinking Violet is part of that sub-team, but so is Phantom Girl: if the mission is that important, shouldn’t Cham have taken her with him?

One of the little things I’ve always enjoyed about Levitz’s run are the snippets from the Encyclopaedia Galactica. Sometimes it’s just used for infodumps or Easter eggs, but its main purpose seems to be giving some weight to the Legion universe.

It’s only now that Lightning Lad discovers what Chameleon Boy is up to.
Notice that this is the official debut of the use symbols for individual Legionnaires as part of the Mission Monitor! It’s become an iconic part of the Legion look. More on that later.

Turns out that Chameleon Boy chose the worst possible moment for a secret mission on the Khund homeworld, because of course he did.

Lightning Lad just… snaps. Taken at face value it’s kind of abrupt, but this is the culmination of problems with his leadership piling on for dozens of issues.

Back to the Espionage Squad, the infiltration is successful thanks to Chameleon Boy’s powers and Brainiac 5’s inventions. Which kind of begs the question why it’s not a standard issue gadget for the rest of the Legionnaires.

The Khund homeworld is just great, thanks to the synergy between Levitz’s narration boxes and Giffen’s artwork. They both sell that this is the worst place to be.

Yeah maybe taking Timber Wolf on the mission wasn’t such a smart idea.
Apparently just gently bumping into the wrong Khund can instigate both a fight and a trip to the gladiator arena!

Back to Legion HQ, we have a surprisingly deep scene between Saturn Girl and Light Lass.
Despite being sisters-in-law they haven’t shared a lot of scenes up to this point, so this is an interesting study in their different personalities. Not only Saturn Girl is more laissez-faire when it comes to Lightning Lad, the two women are very different on an emotional level.

Which leads to strong reaction when Saturn Girl gets a glimpse on how much Light Lass loves Timber Wolf, which puts into perspective her own romantic relationship.
There’s a lot to unpack there, going back into Saturn Girl’s history of bottling up her emotions.

Speaking of Timber Wolf, how’s the stealth mission going?

Yeah that’s about what I was expecting.

This is a rare moment for Timber Wolf to shine. It’s easy to forget, because his power isn’t as flash as his teammates, but when he gets a chance to shine he’s just amazing.
Now I really want to see a fight between Timber Wolf and Spider-Man.

There isn’t time to celebrate since, well, everyone is basically screwed now.

The Espionage Squad BARELY escapes the planet. They are lucky enough to be rescued by Saturn Girl and Colossal Boy (on a ship “borrowed” from his mother)…

…aaaand unlucky enough to crash into an asteroid.

We’ll catch up with them next issue. The second part of #287 is the ACTUAL beginning of the Great Darkness Saga.

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Bonus: since this is the debut of the Legion symbols, let’s have a look at those introduced so far.

Some are rather obvious, considering the Legionnaire in question already has the symbol on his/her costume, or it’s been on the costume in the past. The only somewhat questionable one is Dawnstar… she keeps that symbol on the tiara, but it’s not that recognizable.

Colossal Boy has a rather generic one, while Shrinking Violet basically has the ♀ symbol that technically just means “female”… but it’s s drawn smaller than the other symbols, which is hilarious.

Then there’s a bunch of symbols that are not visually identified with the Legionnaires, but you see those and you immediately think “oh yeah it’s the symbol of that guy”.

Without context you COULD mistake Phantom Girl’s symbol for Duo Damsel’s…

…while Blok gets the best symbol of them all. You just know he’s the one coming up with it.

There’s the Shadow Lass symbol that just leaves me baffled.

And finally there’s the three Legionnaires who decided to go full Interlac.
Element Lad, who will soon have the symbol on his costume, is the sole reason I remember the letter E in Interlac.
Brainiac 5 is just terrible. It’s just “B5” in Interlac. Actually, as you’ll see shortly, it’s “b5”.
And poor Mon-El… WHY!?!?

Speaking of Interlac, since this is the run when it gets standardized, here’s the “translation” for letters and symbols. I have to be honest, despite being a massive Legion fan I’ve never been able to memorize or read any of this, except the letters on Legionnaire costumes.

As far as alphabets go, this is just terrible… some of the letters are too similar and the capitalization system is awful… but damn if just seeing those symbols doesn’t immediately cement the idea that you’re in a different world!!!

Here’s a table showing the capitalization too.

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Legion significance: 8/10
It’s not really related to the Great Darkness Saga, but the ramifications of the botched Khund mission will DEFINITELY be felt. The moment is more important for what it causes in the next couple of issues and the details are not THAT important, but still, those are some hefty ramifications. Not to mention that the Khund mission is where REDACTED gets REDACTED and REDACTED by REDACTED, though since we won’t learn it for quite a lot of issues I’m not spoiling the surprise for those who haven’t read the rest of Volume 2.

Silver Age-ness: 1/10
It sure is absurdly convenient that Colossal Boy’s mom happens to have a ship that can reach the Khund world that quickly, not to mention Colossal Boy and Saturn Girl managing to get the drop on the Khunds that easily.

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
A regular reminder that this is NOT the same thing of a quality score, which I never give for any comic. This is just a measure of how much of this stuff can be done today… and while I’ll try to avoid giving a 10/10 to every GDS issue, this is basically re-printable as is.

We are legion
23 active Legionnaires
4 reserve members
1 honorary member (Rond Vidar)
1 on sick leave (Matter-Eater Lad)