The Legion is barely in the last issues of Crisis, so this is mostly housecleaning.
Crisis On Infinite Earths #9 (1985)
by Marv Wolfman & George Perez
This issue dedicates a lot of pages to the team assembled by Brainiac. And Validus is one of the big monsters, together with our old friend Chemo and Overmaster (a little known Justice League villain).
I do kind of wonder what Validus is trying to say to Cheshire here.
Validus’ height has never been consistent, because sometimes he’s barely taller than regular humans and sometimes he can hold them in the palm of his hands.
Much later, he’s shown with the rest of the Fatal Five fighting heroes. I never thought I’d see Validus on the same panel of Penguin, but there you go.
And that’s it for the Legion connection.
It’s a VERY dense series, it can’t have everyone all the time.
Crisis On Infinite Earths #10 (1986)
by Marv Wolfman & George Perez
Multiple Legionnaires show on the cover, along with basically everyone.
That’s because the Legion is among the various heroes (and villains) contacted by the Spectre for the final assault against the Anti-Monitor.
More surprisingly, the Time Trapper is also following this.
Considering his VERY peculiar involvement with the Legion immediately after Crisis, I have to wonder which Time Trapper we’re seeing here.
The Legion provides TWO Time-Bubbles for the plan (which involves going back before the creation of the universe… just go with it).
This moment also marks the first time the Legion meets Superboy Prime, who is not yet infuriating.
That is the SAME Superboy Prime that will eventually punch the universe to fix continuity problems and create new ones.
Including ruining the ending of TWO Legion eras!
He will also be the main adversary of “Legion of Three Worlds”, so we’ll be seeing him again once I reach that point in the retrospective sometime in the next thirty years.
The plan requires various electricity-based heroes to power up the time machines. The Legion provides two, with the Lightning twins even joining their psychotic brother.
AND they provide two magnetic heroes! The Legion is definitely pulling its weight here.
This issue is unique because, parallel to the main story, the bottom part of the page has Harbinger dictating “the Monitor tapes”. The black&white helps keep it apart from the rest.
It’s in these tapes that we learn Validus has been returned to the 30th century to attack Takron-Galtos, together with the Legion of Super-Villains.
Only to be later recruited by Brainiac AGAIN.
Specifically, they’re recruited to go back in time and stop Krona, so that he won’t lead to the creation of the Anti-Monitor and the multiverse.
In the end, even the combined powers of dozens and dozens of heroes is not enough to defeat the Anti-Monitor.
This is an epic part of the series that keeps you on edge the entire time, but there is ONE moment that takes me out of the story… Batman very awkwardly saying the role of the non-powered heroes is to cheer from the sidelines.
This issue features a speech from the physical incarnation of Uncle Sam, how is THIS the most corny thing that happens!?!?
It all comes down to the Spectre, who fights the Anti-Monitor with the power of all the magicians of the universe (including White Witch).
Aaaand it doesn’t work. This is, technically speaking, the destruction of the pre-Crisis multiverse.
Of course it’s more complicated than that, but I will discuss it with issue 18 of the Legion… which is both their last pre-Crisis issue and in a way their first post-Crisis one.
In fact the Legion and its villains don’t show up AT ALL in the last two issues of Crisis!
Their situation was truly in flux… with Superman no longer having been Superboy, it was legitimate to wonder how there could still be a Legion.
The series COULD have rebooted, like most of the DC Universe… but it will keep essentially the same old pre-Crisis continuity for another 45 issues.
Which means that Superboy is still counted as a reserve member, despite the fact that HE’S NO LONGER SUPPOSED TO EXIST.
Comics, everybody!
Legion significance: 10/10
Despite barely appearing, the repercussions of Crisis are still felt today.
Silver Age-ness: N/A
Does it stand the test of time? N/A
As usual, not giving a score since this is not a real review.
We are legion
24 active Legionnaires
7 reserve members
11 deceased members
The Penguin…versus the same Firestorm we see a little later among the elite fifty picked to take on the Anti-Monitor? I don’t do much sympathizing with villains, but how is *that* a fight?
Love the Perez White Witch. And here’s a suggestion: skip from this current Legion to the Superman and LSH that Gary Frank drew and then straight into the most recent Levitz Legion? Story wise, does that work?
I thought about doing it that way, but I prefer to go chronologically by publication dates.
After all the “retroboot” doesn’t exist in a vacuum: some of what happens is a reflection of the 5YL era, the reboot and the threeboot, all of which will be covered (although the 5YL most likely in a different way).
I will eventually get to the retroboot, hopefully within this millennium.