Legion of Super-Heroes #290

Legion of Super-Heroes #290 (1982)
“And the Servant Shall be a Sign…”
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen

Alright, no more kidding around: we’re done with the preludes. This is the actual start of the Great Darkness Saga.
Appropriately enough we start with a great cover. The Servant won’t look exactly like this in the story, which makes me think that this would’ve been a fantastic look for Omega. He would’ve been more memorable if his body was made of stars instead of being a generic flame monster!

It’s pointed out from the start that Invisible Kid II is the rookie of the team; but he’s far more green than I could’ve imagined when I first read this story, since this is the FIRST time he shows up in costume after his debut in the Annual.

He’s not a bad character, but to my tastes his French accent will get quite annoying real fast.

We get a first look of his costume which is… pretty forgettable. I get that it’s not a very important thing for a character whose main point is not being seen, but still, even the costume of the original Invisible Kid was better!
It’s made worse by the re-coloring. For this saga I’m using the high-quality from the paperback reprint; for whatever reason, they decided to re-color the costume yellow instead of the original white.

We begin with the Legion investigating a fire at the Museum Of The Mystic Arts.
Unlike the typical quotation from the Encyclopedia Galactica, we have a review of the place thanks to “Earth On Five Mega-Credits A Cycle”.
^{Available on pre-order from April 1st 2982!}

It’s immediately clear that this was no accident: someone attacked the museum to steal a mystic artifact. We’re informed by this by magician Antonio Stefanacci, who will make further appearances at the very very end of the pre-5YL era.

Should I even make a Doctor Strange joke? He IS Doctor Strange with long hair!

Stefanacci brings up a mystic relic that most Legion readers probably thought was just a throwaway invention of this issue, since it’s never been seen in a Legion story…

…but it’s actually a surprising connection to DC continuity!
The Mentachem Wand was first seen in a Hawkman story, of all places: The Brave And The Bold #35, where it showed up in the first appearance of one of his villains, Matter Master.

Matter Master is from 1961, so he clearly pre-dates Molecule Man by two years.
While I vastly prefer Molecule Man, I reluctantly have to say that Matter Master’s connection to his wand makes more sense since his powers come from the wand, whereas Molecule Man uses a wand because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

But let’s go back to the Legion, because this is when things REALLY kick in: the first Servant is here!!!

And he’s as powerful as he’s ugly, easily dispatching Superboy without even trying.
You might also notice this is when Cosmic Boy’s magnetic powers start to be consistently depicted with the same circle pattern.

The first encounter with the Servant is fantastic. The team is utterly out of its depth, and Phantom Girl’s reaction gives him some serious horror vibes.

The Servant escapes with the wand, thanks to a portal. This is supposedly a hint about the true identity of “The Master”, but if you DO know who he is… the fact the portal just makes a PLOINK noise is hilarious.

The one time everybody agrees with Wildfire!

You regular reminder that Blok is, in fact, the best. Seriously, I can’t get enough of this guy!

On the Chameleon Boy subplot, it seems he’s finally admitting he made a Validus-size blunder.

And on the soap opera subplot, things are increasingly awkward between Timber Wolf and Saturn Girl. For basically no reason, I might add, since neither of them did anything wrong.

Levitz is still having fun with the worldbuilding. Turns out that the United Kingdom will be absorbed into “Europolis” sometime in the future, with London becoming simply a neighborhood.
I think the referendum on leaving Europolis is scheduled for 3016.

The Legion is here on a hunch from Cosmic Boy, who believes the next target might be Excalibur (!!!). There have been very minor hints in the past that CB is a history buff, but this era is when his passion for history becomes a key part of his character.

Then again, the Legion has a history with Excalibur that dates all the way back to Action Comics #276.

That was the SIXTH Legion story ever published, and the first appearance of Brainiac 5.

Levitz is also playing up the fact that the Legionnaires are galactic celebrities. We got some of it in the early mention of tourists, plus there is this hilarious bit.

Needlesss to say Cosmic Boy’s hunch was correct, and the Tower of London is attacked by another Servant, who looks remarkably different from the first.

This is the first time Invisible Kid gets a chance to do anything, and he’s not exactly confident.

He IS able to get the sword from the Servant, but not for long.

The mystery about what the Servants are gets more interesting when Wildfire discovers that he’s able to hurt this one.
I was ready to criticize the re-coloring again, since (spoiler alert) Wildfire is able to do this because the energy is yellow, but it’s clearly orange in the recolor…

…except it’s ALSO orange in the original!

This is not the Legion’s best day.

Jumping to another subplot (it IS a Levitz story), we have Lightning Lad suffering some kind of electrical dysfunction in his brain.
If you only read the Legion book, it’s clearly as a result of his mental breakdown. But he was perfectly fine in the Annual, he was fine until he fought a doppelganger of himself! We never say the end of that fight and there was no indication of him being hurt, so… it’s a bit of a mess.
On the upside, Doctor Gym’ll returns!!!

According to THIS story, however, it’s just the mental breakdown. Which, again, doesn’t really work with what we’ve seen in the Annual.

I swear if these people just TALKED there wouldn’t been any issue. Everyone keeps acting as if Timber Wolf and Saturn Girl cheated on their respective girlfriend and husband…

…but I must remind you that THIS is what caused all this trouble:

That’s it! That’s everything they did! I can kiiiiind of understand Saturn Girl is she really did consider cheating on her husband and is feeling guilty about it… but everyone else is blowing this WAY out of proportion.

 But let’s skip to something hilarious: WTF is The Master wearing!? I am keeping his identity spoiler-free, but… once you know who he is and go back to read this story, can you seriously imagine HIM wearing this silly getup!?

The Legion, and specifically Invisible Kid, formulates a new strategy: the next time the Servants strike, he’ll follow one through one of their portals.
That’s not a bad strategy and it’s a good character moment for IK… but Superboy is being unnecessarily grim here, considering the fate of the first Invisible Kid.

So far the Servants have only attacked Earth, so I’m quite glad that the next target is on a different planet. And it’s one we haven’t seen in a while: Talok VIII, Shadow Lass’ homeworld.

It sure looks more high-tech than during Adventure Comics #365.

The target is the Orb of McGuffin, which unlike Excalibur and the Mentachem Wand is not a reference to anything.

Appropriately enough, the Servant that attacks Talok VIII has shadow powers.

And with the last Servant emerging from a Ploink Portal, we have now encountered all the Servants.
The first one was clearly based on Superman, but that wasn’t a big clue about he identity of The Master, but the look of the last one is a pretty big indication.

The latest Servant manages to steal the Orb, but at least the Legion gets its first victory of the issue by gaining a prisoner.

As if there wasn’t enough stuff going on already, this storyline is ALSO about a Legion election!!!

Element Lad running is a no-brainer, since he’s been the de facto leader for a while. But the candidacy of Dream Girl may come as a surprise! More on that on the letters page.

You might be asking: is this really the time to hold elections? And Saturn Girl agrees!

Okay at this point we have the election, the Servants, Invisible Kid’s first mission, Lighting Lad’s breakdown and relationship troubles. Anything else going on?
Oh yeah, a Legionnaire is going to be charged with treason!

Man the Legion just cannot catch a break!!!

The Legion uses Computo to analyze the Servant they have captured… and it gives Computo nightmars.
Let me repeat that: this thing gives nightmares to COMPUTO.

And so we end with The Master now back to full strength thanks to all the magic absorbed.

With all the emphasis on magic, I wonder if Levitz wanted the readers to think this was Mordru.
The Legion will WISH they were up against Mordru pretty soon!!!

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Legion significance: 8/10
This is mostly setup for the rest of the saga, but the Great Darkness Saga is THAT important.

Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Not in terms of silliness, but in terms of the kind of universe this is: magic artifacts are so common that nobody blinks and eye about Excalibur being discovered by a time-traveling alien.

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
It’s not perfect, but it’s damn close and everything could very easily be done today. Some of the subplots are a little clunky, but this is a fantastic starting point for the saga. There’s a real sense of mystery and dread; the Legion comes up as overwhelmed but still competent. Plus there are so many little characters moments and details that really makes you feel like the 30th century is a really fleshed out place.
Also, considering the election stuff was upset by the reader votes (more on that below), it’s integrated surprisingly well with the rest of the plot.

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

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Interesting letters: as promised, the election stuff.

First of all, a compelling reason for making Dream Girl the leader. The same reasoning works for all “minor” Legionnaires, since being a leader gives them a chance to really shine.

I’m surprised that Levitz did not anticipate a Dream Girl victory, since it’s been pretty clear he was giving here more space than usual. Obviously he was expecting Element Lad to get a lot of votes, but… why did he expect Ultra Boy to be the runner-up? What has HE done lately!?

The results are not that easy to read because of the baffling decision to list them in alphabetical order. But if you order them by votes, there are some intriguing details.

First of all, EVERY active Legionnaire gets some votes, which is kind of impressive! Obviously the exception is Invisible Kid II who was just introduced, plus I don’t think Superboy counts since his membership status was questionable for a while.

But other than that, here’s some voting trivia:

• Dream Girl won the election with just 14% of the votes; that’s just 21 votes more than the runner-up Element Lad
• Despite their disastrous runs, Lightning Lad and Wildfire got 28 and 27 votes respectively. That’s more than Saturn Girl’s 26 votes
• Even more amazing, Brainiac 5 is in sixth place despite almost destroying all life in the universe in the last election plot!!!
• Blok received more votes than 8 fellow Legionnaires
• The Legionnaire with the least votes is Light Lass, with just 8. Understandable considering she’s basically done nothing for a while
• Despite my earlier comment that Shadow Lass would make a good leader… she gets only 14 votes as next-to-last.
• Despite Dream Girl’s victory, the other Legion girls don’t get a lot of votes: collectively they get 31% of the votes, with every other girl getting less than 30 votes. For comparison, 36% of the candidates are girls.