Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #20 (Part 1)

Legion of Super-Heroes vol.3 #20 (1986)
by Paul Levitz & Greg LaRoque

Tyr barely got a cameo last time, but since he’s on the cover he’s going to be a major player… right?

The Legionnaires kidnapped by the Controller are having a hard time with Discount Warworld Tyrraz, which is… kind of weird.
Sure, most of them are not equipped to blow up a planet-sized space station… Shrinking Violet, Phantom Girl and Chameleon Boy are quite useless at that… but Ultra Boy is among them, and he can DEFINITELY destroy a planet in this era.
Heck even Element Lad should be able to!

I mean if he can create a shield of Inertron from the debris of a previously destroyed planet, shouldn’t he be able to transmute Tyrraz into something harmless?
A single line stating “My powers somehow don’t work on it” would’ve gone a long way.

To be fair, I was originally going off the assumption that Tyrraz is uninhabited, since unless I missed it that’s not been explicitly stated. The planet is LATER shown to have people, but couldn’t we get a scene with Ultra Boy confirming this with his Penetra-Vision?

If they HAD established that Tyrraz has a population… or I guess a crew… I would’ve been on Element Lad’s side from the start.

Well SOMEBODY is there already.

Despite having a truly awesome design, I never found Tyr all that interesting. Maybe he should talk to his hand more often.

This would’ve been a nice moment for Phantom Girl to prove herself useful, but… nope!

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed that Dawnstar, whose power is to find anyone, is basically NEVER the one to find any Legionnaire who gets kidnapped.

Wildfire, buddy, you’re my second favorite Legionnaire but this is getting embarrassing. Get a clue, you’re reaching Timber Wolf levels of simping.

I kind of wonder if Mon-El also thinks Dawnstar has been completely useless for a long, long time.

The solution to Tyrraz problem? Make it SOMEONE ELSE’s problem by destroying its engine and stall it in the middle of nowhere.

Sorry Phantom Girl, you don’t get points for “half-solving” the problem… mostly because THIS DOESN’T SOLVE MUCH.

Oh so there ARE other people on Tyrraz! Nice of you to show this only now!!!
Also this makes the decision to abandon them even worse: are you under the assumption that they will NEVER repair the engines!?!?

It’s been a while, but this is your regular reminder that Element Lad is ridiculously overpowered.

The rest of the team goes after the engines, that are protected by robots.
Is it any wonder that the one whose power is to avoid any fight is the one who wants to avoid a fight?

But Chameleon Boy has don’t anything during this entire storyline and we have to give him SOMETHING to do.

This is when Dawnstar leads the rescue mission to Tyrraz…

…but Mon-El was 100% right: they DIDN’T need rescuing.

And so we end with Tyrraz stuck in the middle of nowhere, Mon-El taking its engine somewhere safe.

Yeah I’m sure the Controller, who hasn’t done anything in who knows how many millions of years, is going to fix a planet full of warmongers that has been abandoned at the edge of space.

Still, you have to admire Shrinking Violet’s confidence.

In other plots, Sun Boy confirms that he and Shrinking Violet are not an item… more like friends with benefits, apparently.

Also: either that’s an alien cosplayer or there’s a 30^th century version of Peacemaker!

Nice to see Shadow Lass being worried for Brainiac 5 during one of his bouts of depression. Remember that she used to have a crush on him in her earliest appearances, plus she’s been shown to be one of the most empathetic Legionnaires.

Light Lass, on the other hand, is back to being insufferable.

Brainy is, what else, fixed on the Sensor Girl mystery.

Hang tight, Brainy. We’re about to start the storyline that will reveal her identity.

---

Legion significance: 0/10
This storyline is technically the origin of Tyr, even though he’s BARELY in it. And Tyrraz is never brought up again, despite the ending being a perfect setup for a sequel.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.

Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
It could’ve been so much more. Tyrraz is basically Warworld without anything that made Warworld interesting! Even the addition of a population/crew is botched: it could’ve been the one thing to distinguish it from Warworld, but they’re BARELY here! And showing the Legion struggling with the idea of causing the death of the crew BEFORE showing a single person was a big mistake.
I also expected more from Levitz’s ability to juggle his characters: other than Element Lad and Ultra Boy, the other kidnapped Legionnaires are useless here. The lip service to Phantom Girl contributing almost feels like an insult.

We are legion
24 active Legionnaires
7 reserve members
11 deceased members

---

Interesting letters: we have seen SOME examples of 30th century Earth religion… Colossal Boy’s family are Jewish, and either Saturn Girl or Lightning Lad are Christians of unknown denomination. But I do find the question about music VERY interesting!
Of course it’s hard to address music in a medium without sound… see the trainwreck that was Dazzler… but it’s interesting to think about.

The letters page also formally introduces Greg LaRoque, who has been the regular artist for a couple of issues (Lighle is now officially the backup artist, as weird as that sounds).
And he reveals that he really, really likes to draw Dawnstar.

WE NOTICED.