Legion of Super-Heroes #289 (1982)
“A Cold and Lonely Corner of Hell!”
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen
I absolutely love the logo with the field of stars, but I can see why it’s not the default one; it’s kind of hard to read. A great cover, though, really selling the though spot the Legionnaires found themselves into.
At least Chameleon Boy is making himself useful now, using his powers to transform into some weird creature to reflect heat.
Also: Shrinking Violet, if you’re so cold why don’t you do like Saturn Girl and get one of her older full-body costumes? I know Timber Wolf is showing more cleavage than you, but this isn’t a competition.
At least Colossal Boy is making the best of the situation.
Meanwhile, the other Legionnaires are looking for the lost teammates. Blok even missed the convention of Masters Of The Universe cosplay where he was clearly headed wearing that ugly costume!
Unfortunately it turns out that the “hostile aliens” that attacked Sun Boy and Blok are just a couple of lovebirds on their honeymoon!
Okay, that was just hilarious. And now for the complete opposite: Emo Lightning Lad!
Yeah Lightning Lad is not taking this well. Not only he’s blaming himself for Chameleon Boy’s botched mission, but also for Saturn Girl launching a rescue mission only to get herself lost.
His teammates are as supportive as they can be, but LL is basically broken.
At this point Dawnstar is the only hope at finding the missing Legionnaires. Which, considering being able to track anyone is literally her superpower, really goes to show how Levitz managed to immerse us into the situation without making us think “wait a second, shouldn’t Dawnstar be able to easily fix this?”.
Much like her twin brother, Light Lass is blaming herself since she WAS the one to push Saturn Girl into mounting a rescue mission.
Kind of weird that Light Lass wasn’t on the mission herself, though.
The two Legion girls are almost taken out by a solar storm, and let’s take the time to appreciate Dawnstar for a moment. Her flying abilities don’t get a lot of occasions to shine, considering every single Legionnaire can fly.
Unlike literally everyone else, though, Dawnstar was literally born to fly… and sometimes it shows!
It’s equally impressive because, unlike all other Legionnaires who can fly without the ring, she’s not invulnerable. Plus it’s an occasion to showcase how practical the Legion’s tech has become when it comes to operating in outer space.
Meanwhile, Saturn Girl and Timber Wolf share a moment. From a meta-perspective, this is interesting: when it comes to the soap opera aspect of superhero comics, the Original Power Couple™ of a series is typically portrayed to be the pinnacle of romance.
But here we have the relationship between Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad, arguably THE Legion couple, being treated as less than ideal.
Even more remarkable? The fact that Light Lass loves Timber Wolf THAT much will ultimately prove to be kind of a bad thing!
Phantom Girl and Star Boy are not having more luck finding the missing Legionnaires.
One one hand, Star Boy’s negative attitude isn’t really helping… but on the other one he’s kind of right, since the way Ultra Boy was rescued in the Reflecto storyline MADE NO FREAKING SENSE.
Also: it took me forever to try translating those readings from Interlac into English… but they appear to be gibberish, in fact it’s not even proper Interlac. Bummer.
Phantom Girl and Star Boy ALMOST witness the full rebirth of the Big Bad awakened two issues ago, who is prepared to make his grand entrance. Once again, I’m avoiding spoilers for the 0.1% of comics readers who don’t know who the Big Bad is. Although to be fair, even if you DO know him, good luck recognizing him!
The missing Legionnaires are on their last breath; even a last-minute signal made using some tech rescued from the crashed ship ultimately fails.
In fact, the stunt ultimately makes things WORSE because it goes out of control and burns what’s left of the supplies. Everyone survives only thanks to Timber Wolf.
With all hope lost, Timber Wolf and Saturn Girl share a moment…
…and they are JUST IN TIME to be caught by Light Lass!!!
Much will be made about the fact that Light Lass saw them together. That’s going to be a HUGE part of the character development for both her and Timber Wolf!
If you only read the future references to this moment, you’d immediately assume that Light Lass caught him cheating on her. At the very, VERY least that he was kissing Saturn Girl!
But nope. Apparently THIS is enough to completely break their relationship:
Told you they don’t have a healthy relationship.
Legion significance: 7/10
The ramifications of what happened on the asteroid are kind of ridiculous when you consider how little actually happened!
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Nope.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
This is the first FULL Legion story I ever read, so I have to acknowledge my bias… but this holds up incredibly well, with all the characters coming off as three-dimensional. It’s also a rather intimate issue: there isn’t a ton of action, and most of the space is dedicated to character interaction.
We are legion
21 active Legionnaires
6 reserve members
1 honorary member (Rond Vidar)
1 on sick leave (Matter-Eater Lad)
This issue also highlights the fact that they haven’t really decided yet just what Blok’s powers are supposed to be (Energy absorption and reflection? Semi-invulnerability?) as he demonstrates the one-time-only ability to detect sentient rocks.