Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #6 (1985)
by Paul Levitz & Joe Orlando
cover by Steve Lightle
After the trauma of the previous issues, this time we have a bit of a breather focusing on Lightning Lass.
Unfortunately Orlando’s artwork is a bit sketchy to say the least.
While most of the Legionnaires made it back home at the end of last issue after the Legion of Super-Villains was defeated, Lightning Lass and Lightning Lord were teleported away together with the resident Gil’disphan a-hole, Zymyr.
This is where Zymyr learns her origin story, and we get a bit of insight into her relationship with her older brother. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lightning Lord has been nuts his entire life.
For once, the “Lightning Beasts of Korbal” that gave the siblings their powers have a recognizable design. For the longest time, every time this flashback was shown they had a different design!
Once she awakes from the stasis, she has to reluctantly team-up with Lightning Lord to escape from captivity.
In addition to regaining her electrical powers, Lightning Lass also recovered her spine because she’s a badass again.
She’s the one to continue the flashback, including the somewhat goofy way she was exposed in Adventure Comics 308. Levitz keeps the detail of her being caught because she doesn’t have an Adam’s apple…
…but at least he keeps out the detail about her untanned neck.
Considering nobody in the original story ever commented on her voice, I still wonder if Lightning Lad had a high-pitch voice or if she was lowering hers when she was pretending to be a boy.
I wish we had THIS attitude from Light Lass during the Hamilton era.
She was a bit of a doormat instead.
At least she’s done criticizing Timber Wolf for dumb reasons.
I don’t mind her pointing out he was “mixed up” as a criticism, since Timber Wolf would be the first to confirm this.
It could be Orlando’s pencils or the fact that Zymyr’s robots are extremely generic, but this is a rather boring fight.
At least the scene where one of the alien dinosaurs Zymyr is experimenting on tries to eat his bubble is kind of funny.
Zymyr decides to teleport the siblings back to their home planet Winath…
…where they end up fighting each other, because Lighning Lord isn’t any less nuts.
Their fight is not as good as the one they had the previous issue, but it’s still MILES away from everything these two ever did before Volume 3.
And so, instead of staying on her planet with the woman who is totally just a good friend and not her lesbian lover…
…Lightning Less returns to Earth to rejoin the Legion.
Technically speaking she rejoins officially as an active member next issue, but I’m counting her already.
In other plots, Wildfire and Invisible Kid II are fighting. So nothing new, really.
More importantly, the Legionnaires who had been stranded outside of the regular universe are slowly finding their way home.
Very, very slowly.
I typically have far more to say about Legion stories, but not much happens this time.
Legion significance: 3/10
Lightning Lass basically returned to active duty during the previous storyline, and it’s not like we learn anything new.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
As a consequence of inheriting the silliness of Lightning Lass’ first story.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
It’s fine and we did need a breather, but… didn’t Lightning Lass already get her character development during the previous storyline? We don’t learn anything new and Zymyr is not a particularly interesting villain. This could’ve been a 6/10 with a different artist, but the regular series alternates between Giffen and Lightle… the Joe Orlando of 1985 really isn’t in the same category.
We are legion
20 active Legionnaires
8 reserve members
9 deceased members
3 resigned members
1 honorary member
41 people have been members
41 people have been rejected
Personally, I think Dirk is just such a horn dog that he automatically knew that resurrected “Garth” was female. He didn’t need any clues beyond his personal indicator pointing at “him”.
To me, this issue serves two purposes. First, it introduces Ayla’s new costume, which is probably the best she ever had, and, second, it provides her with motivation for returning to the Legion. Simply getting her lightning powers back wouldn’t have been a realistic motivation, but, in stopping her brother, she recognizes she has a purpose beyond being Garth’s sister and Brin’s girlfriend–which is how she was usually portrayed until now.
That’s true, but I find it a bit redundant since she already defeated Lightning Lord in the previous story after she saved herself from a seemingly desperate situation.
It’s a nice expansion, sure, but I’m not sure it was entirely necessary.
I agree on the costume. This version rocks.
My copies of these issues are buried way down among some other boxes, so I’ll have to go by your descriptions of them in this and the previous reviews. It’s true that she had already defeated Mekt, but it was part of a larger story that focused on Karate Kid’s sacrifice. A solo story was perhaps meant to re-establish her as an effective hero in her own right. Levitz could have given her a different villain, I suppose, but Ayla squaring off against anyone else just doesn’t carry the same emotional weight as her conflict with her older brother.
I do think this is the most attention Ayla ever got after her introduction in Adventure 308 (when she was, of course, impersonating Garth and didn’t get a chance to shine in her own right). As with Projectra, she is effectively redefined as a competent and effective hero who doesn’t adhere strictly to the Legion’s rules.