Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2 (1983)
by Paul Levitz & Dave Gibbons
cover by Keith Giffen
You are cordially invited to the wedding of Queen Projectra and Karate Kid.
We begin on Daxam, where the Legionnaires are trying to restore the planet to its pre-Great Darkness Saga status with some light terraforming.
The fact that THIS is not immediately considered a lost cause really goes to show the absurd level of technology of the 30th century.
It’s still wild that Orando is joining an interstellar organization despite being a planet still in the Middle Ages.
The various Legionnaires arrive at the planet. Saturn Girl continues to hint about her secret, but come on, every reader has already figured it out, right?
Blok is naturally a bit confused about the whole concept of marriage, but he’s a good sport.
He even manages to make Timber Wolf stop thinking about his breakup with Light Lass for five minutes.
Shouldn’t being leader push Dream Girl to use her precognitive powers MORE, to help her take decisions? Seems like a weird decision.
One of the Legion ships is knocked off course by Superboy arriving in the 30th century at the wrong time (ironically).
It’s a big reunion for a lot of old friends…
…except the Legionnaires inadvertedly pushed through time by Superboy’s arrival.
Specifically, they’ve been sent to Earth’s past. That’s the team that will get the most focus.
This is one of the first stories to utilize Cosmic Boy’s passion for Earth’s history, which will become one of his core traits.
To figure out in what century they are, he asks Ultra Boy to check the biggest monuments.
And that’s enough to pinpoint that is about 200 B.C.
With Ultra Boy here, they SHOULD be able to travel back to the 30th century… except it doesn’t work.
That actually makes sense. The way Superboy and Mon-El travel through time is by going so fast they break the time barrier… but Ultra Boy can only use one power at a time, so if he’s using it for flight he’s not invulnerable.
I’m not 100% sure we’ve never seen him him travel through time alone, but in most instances that I recall he WAS flying with the others.
White Witch doesn’t have a useful spell for this, and the Legion is briefly interrupted by the locals. Who naturally are absolutely no match for them.
Dream Girl’s powers predict that the way to get back to the future is in one of the cities spotted by Ultra Boy, so that’ll be the plan.
There’s some tension with Star Boy; he hasn’t had anything to do lately, so this is good characterization. And it shows that Ultra Boy is not the only one criticizing her leadership.
Their relationship drama will have to wait, because it doesn’t take the Legion long before reaching Greece.
This is an interesting set of Legionnaires to throw back in time, because none of them are from Earth and only Cosmic Boy knows anything about history. Not having a classic point-of-view character is quite novel for this approach.
About these people not knowing anyone with superpowers, though, is not exactly right because SUDDEN PANTHEON!!!
Meanwhile in the future (ehm), the Legion is trying to find where the missing Legionnaires have disappeared…
…but they’re not exactly worried sick about them.
Looks like the Legionnaires will have to deal with the Greek Gods on their own. Where’s Wonder Woman when you need her?
Well they’re KINDA the Greek Gods… they’re actually aliens.
Not very technologically advanced, relatively speaking, because according to them time travel is impossible.
Then OUT OF NOWHERE we discover they’re from Durla, Chameleon Boy’s planet!!!
With all the talk of Durlans forgetting their original shape, it’s extremely disappointing to see they were once humanoid (although we’ll soon see they might not be).
While Dream Girl talks with Zeus, the others escape from their cells thanks to Cosmic Boy sabotaging the computers.
I can’t believe how boring a fight between the Legion and the Not Greek Gods ends up being.
They didn’t even use their shapeshifting powers during the fight!!!
The Durlans escape with the rocketship, and that’s the last we hear from them.
We get more explanations on how Chameleon Boy found the Legionnaires than what was up with those Durlans.
So… that’s a bit of a mess.
First of all: obviously Levitz can’t say that the Greek Gods were aliens throughout history, because Wonder Woman. So they must’ve simply taken the form of existing gods, fair enough.
But the Durlans were supposed to have developed shapeshifting powers AFTER their nuclear war, which hasn’t happened yet… but now apparently there were already mutants with the same powers that escaped to another planet? WTF!?
The only way I can salvage this is if these aren’t actually Durlans from 200 B.C., but from some other time in the future after their nuclear war, and “Zeus” was not telling the truth about not knowing about time travel. But even that just unnecessarily complicates the Durlans.
The whole thing was just a colossal waste of time that SHOULD have been dedicated to the wedding, but at least we get a few snippets of Legionnaires interacting.
Plus, for my Legion countings, Projectra and Karate Kid officially resign.
I rarely use the “resigned” status for the members, but this is pretty hard to ignore.
As it’s tradition of this point, the wedding is celebrated with a two-page spread.
Everything seems to be going well… but we end the story with a cliffhanger promising a MASSIVE twist coming up soon.
Legion significance: 4/10
Projectra and Karate Kid marrying will be extremely important, but all things considered it’s a small part of the story. Mercifully, the nonsense about the old Durlans will be thoroughly ignored.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
I can totally see Silver Age Superboy accidentally knocking someone into the past.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
Quite a disappointment. The wedding and the relationship stuff are fine, but there isn’t much of either. The entire part of the story set in the past, though, is almost completely a waste.
It doesn’t work well with what we know about the Durlans, you have to actively forget we KNOW Greek Gods are real in the DC Universe, and the Legionnaires are not exactly impressive.
Even the fish-out-of-water possibilities are wasted, because outside of a couple of comments the fact that none of the time-traveling Legionnaires are from Earth has any weight.
Dream Girl doesn’t seem to be doing a good job as Legion leader. To be fair I don’t think Levitz is suggesting the opposite, just showing she’s in above her head, but it’s still getting tiresome.
It’s a chance to see Dave Gibbons work with several unusual settings, but he doesn’t seem to be at his best… the only image that stands out is the beautiful two-page spread, but everything else seems bland. Weird because Gibbons is a much better artist, maybe it’s the inks?
We are legion
22 active Legionnaires
6 reserve members
1 honorary member (Rond Vidar)
41 people have been members
What I like most about this issue is that Chameleon Boy’s fall from grace started with him getting a team of legionnaires stranded. Now he’s come full circle: fully integrated back into the team, rescuing a team of stranded legionnaires.
Actually, Cosmic Boy was born on Earth, but . . .
In reading this review, I was struck by how little I remembered of this story. To me, it was huge that Projectra had become queen, married Val, and they both resigned from the Legion. Everything else is filler.