Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #15 (1985)
by Paul Levitz & Greg LaRocque
cover by Steve Lightle
Talk about throwing the new recruits into the fire!
We begin with Wildfire jumping into a new containment suit. Glad to see he keeps a few spares, and there’s a built-in explanation for any inconsistency about his powers.
Weird that Brainiac 5 was never able to re-create the original suit that gave him many additional powers in his first appearance in Superboy #195.
Of course it’s entirely possible the problem is with Wildfire himself and he’s just assuming it’s the suit.
The Legion is dealing with a somewhat recurrent problem: the space dragons of Imsk, Shrinking Violet’s planet.
The Legion is not fighting the dragons, though, they’re just preventing them from going towards the planet since the beacon steering them away is broken… which is done (at least in part) by having Shadow Lass BLOCK THE LIGHT OF A STAR.
Which might sound overkill for Shady, but she HAS blocked the light from an entire star at least once before.
This is a surprising amount of worldbuilding for a part of the Legion universe that basically never gets into play.
In a truly bizarre move, Levitz decides to use the first story where the new recruits are officially Legionnaires… by having them defeated and kidnapped OFF-PANEL!?
That sounds like an exciting fight THAT WE DIDN’T SEE, Element Lad.
Man joining the Legion is hard, isn’t it? Even if you go through formal training AND pass multiple rounds of auditions AND often you get some admittedly light-hearted hazing… and they STILL give you crap for being a newbie.
The Legion’s investigation brings them to a star that captures Mon-El.
It’s basically a tradition to use Mon-El as the punching bag to show off how dangerous the villain is, but… since this is a yellow star, why exactly is this painful to him?
I know the energy of space dragons is involved, but still.
Mon-El gets slammed into an asteroid, and I’m with Sun Boy here: it’s kind of difficult to feel particularly worried for him.
Element Lad is basically sending all the Legion powerhouses to save the newbies, but he hangs out at Legion HQ to have some banter with Dream Girl…
…but it’s his conversation with Star Boy that I find more interesting.
It shows that Element Lad is not as confident in his leadership as he pretends to be, and there is the slightly questionable consideration of Dream Girl’s leadership.
Element Lad WAS quite critical of her during her tenure, as was most of the Legion.
You guys do realize you didn’t HAVE to recruit five people at once, right?
Back to the main plot, Mon-El turns out to be fine. But the asteroid where he crashed is more hellish than anticipated.
Turns out this is the work of Doctor Regulus, which I guess we’re supposed to consider a surprise but HE WAS ON THE COVER, so what was the point!?
Regulus is keeping the newbies hostage for… well he basically has one plot, so what do you think?
Not only Regulus does actually keep his word and lets everyone go now that he has Sun Boy… but we don’t really get an explanation for HOW he captured the newbies.
Yeah I know Regulus is not a lightweight but I have soooo many issues with this setup:
A) not ALL of them are so inexperienced to fall for the first trap
B) their powers are not particularly weak
C) as even he mentions, Polar Boy SHOULD have a great defense against heat powers
D) Regulus should have little defense against Tellus’ telepathy
E) Regulus should have NO defense against Quislet possessing his tech
F) Sensor Girl doesn’t even get to show her powers! Heck not only the readers, but THE LEGIONNAIRES right now don’t know what she can do!!!
G) Sun Boy has defeated Regulus before, but did the Legionnaires seriously let him on the asteroid alone with his arch-nemesis!? WTF is wrong with you people!?
Look I know I’m a Doctor Doom superfan so I should be the first to like the whole “scientist blames an innocent man for his own mistakes and becomes obsessed with revenge” thing, but… at least Doctor Doom ALSO DOES OTHER THINGS. Regulus feels sooooo one-note now.
There’s nothing wrong with the fight itself, but I feel like I’m watching a re-run here.
What I do enjoy, however, is Shrinking Violet STOP SITTING AROUND LIKE THE OTHERS and actually DO SOMETHING!!!
Too bad one of these two is invulnerable because I’d like Violet to kick them both in the nuts.
Sun Boy wins the fight by using a trick we’ve seen Dream Girl use a couple times.
Well that was pointless.
In other plots, Karate Kid gets his tombstone in Shanghalla. Of course he’s not actually buried there, since he died on Orando and that planet is currently isolated in another universe.
And his sensei recruits Myg from the previous issue, so that he can train him to become a new underused and underdeveloped hero.
On a more light-hearted note, now that the Substitute Heroes have officially disbanded the original Legion HQ is now a museum…
…and Cosmic Boy, despite having gone through massive character development, is still kind of a dick.
Also: his joke doesn’t make any sense, right? Didn’t the Legion remove the age limit for new recruits last issue!?
And finally, Brainiac 5 discovers that the Crisis is catching up with the Legion.
Yeah I’m sure this is not going to be particularly important or sad.
Legion significance: 0/10
I completely forgot this story existed and will likely forget it again in a couple of days.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Just the space dragons in general.
Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Thise one felt like a story on auto-pilot, quite possibly a fill-in. New artist Greg LaRoque does a great job, nothing to complain on that side.
But what a wasted opportunity! We JUST introduced the new members: this should be their chance to shine, not to reduce them to be sentients in distress!
And I think I’ve made my opinion on the use of Regulus clear enough.
The ONLY moment when the story kind of wakes up is when Shrinking Violet finally decides the Legion should do something, but she’s immediately stopped and we quickly discovered this was not a huge deal to begin with.
Not to criticize Sun Boy, but… if HE could beat Regulus so easily, that doesn’t exactly speak well of the FIVE Legionnaires that lose to him OFF-PANEL.
We are legion
24 active Legionnaires
8 reserve members
10 deceased members
Interesting letters: I never realized it, but it’s sadly true that Karate Kid’s death did not affect most Legionnaires like previous deaths did.
Levitz does acknowledge this as a problem (and he will do a minor course correction in the future), but at least this shows that Polar Boy joining the team was something that at least some readers wanted.
This issue marks the first Legion work by my favorite Legion artist ever, Greg LaRocque, who draws the hottest Dream Girl ever. When she flirts, it practically feels like she’s flirting directly with the reader.
LaRocque is awesome; the story not so much: a stale take on the “one hero fights alone” riff. The only thing Dr. Regulus had going for him was a cool costume. It’s beyond disbelief that Polar Boy and Sensor Girl (even though we don’t know who she is yet) got captured by this Ahab wannabe.
No new evidence. The prosecution abides.
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it is Saturn Girl playing telepathic chaperone to the founder-less Legion. That’s a more Xavier use of her powers than usual, but it makes sense. The similar costume color scheme is too obvious tho. Unless she’s making everyone not notice or suspect, which would be Very Xavier lol.
Laroque and Lightle possibly my top two artists on LSH.
That Shady pose, her Scarlet Witch-like hands, use of power, and more covered up costume are awesome.
Love this run on the Legion leading up to the Sensor Girl reveal and the prison planet 4 parter (although can’t remember which came first right at this moment)