Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #36

Legion of Super-Heroes vol.3 #36 (1987)
by Paul Levitz & Greg LaRoque
cover by John Byrne

Election time! Looks like Polar Boy paid to have himself on the cover, even bringing in gues penciler John Byrne… typical politician.

The reason for the new election is that Element Lad is resigning, feeling he failed the Legion during the Universo Project.

I’m singling out the quote because it’s important for the story, but also: the first page is a closeup of Element Lad’s face that REALLY showcases how good Greg LaRoque is, because you can definitely see the full range of emotions the Legionnaire is feeling.

In addition to being a tradition unique to the Legion, the elections are always a good moment to have a decent group shot of the entire team.
Plus to gossip about the seating arrangements!

The couples are all seated next to each other: Phantom Girl and Ultra Boy, Mon-El and Shadow Lass. Plus the “will-they won’t-they” Dawnstar & Wildfire and the “we know they’re a couple but it’s not yet safe to say it in 1987” Lightning Lass & Shrinking Violet.
However White Witch isn’t seating next to Blok, so it seems that one-sided crush isn’t going anywhere. She’s still sitting next to her sister.
You can ALSO see the close friends: Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl, Magnetic Kid and Polar Boy, Colossal Boy and Sun Boy, Timber Wolf and Blok. I would classify the same for Chameleon Boy and Element Lad, and apparently Tellus and Quislet.
This panel is just a master class on how to tell SO MUCH with a single image!
My only criticism would be not having Invisible Kid and Sensor Girl next to each other, since #31 hinted at a potential close friendship.

 

But back to the story: Polar Boy is REALLY eager to candidate himself.
Phantom Girl chastising him about “Legion tradition” continues her (admittedly minor) characterization as being a bit of elitist regarding the team.

And now we’re at my favorite part of the Legion elections: wild speculation about who is going to vote for who! Dream Girl being the biggest tease, because OF COURSE she is.

Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5 know a thing or two about serving the team even when it goes against your personal wishes, so they’re scheming to get Element Lad re-elected even without his consent.

Another minor detail that makes the most sense: Sensor Girl not caring all that much for the election. Why WOULD she, when she comes from a planet with an absolute monarchy?

It’s also a nice moment to see her interact with one of the rookies; she’s been seen only with the veterans after she was exposed as Projectra, but it’s nice to see she hasn’t forgotten them.

Polar Boy is going all-out with his campaigning!
The ice sculpture says “Vote for Polar Boy” in Interlac, of course.

Lightning Lass gets REALLY mad at this, even destroying the ice sculpture.

Don’t encourage her, Lightning Lad!!!

I never liked the retcon that Validus was secretly the time-displaced son of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, but it’s ALMOST worth it for this joke alone.

We have our first official vote for Polar Boy. Unexpected to see it coming from Ultra Boy.

Invisible Kid voting for the underdog works perfectly, though.

Since she’s now a more physically active hero, it makes sense to have Shrinking Violet being this jacked. She doesn’t look nearly this muscular in-costume, though.

But it’s time to learn about who won the election, which is done in the most understated way.

The best showcase of how MOST Legionnaires don’t care about the election.

I think we can fairly assume Shrinking Violet did not vote for Polar Boy.

I have no clue if this comment from Sensor Girl means she voted for him or not.

Of course there is NO DOUBT about Magnetic Kid.

Dawnstar should keep this as her regular look. That jacket must be uncomfortable to put on with those wings, though.

Dream Girl did not, in fact, use her powers to see who would get elected. Still no idea on who she voted for, but she WAS briefly a member of the Subs so I’m pretty sure she voted Polar Boy.

Lightning Lass continues to be insufferable. However I’m glad that both Shadow Lass and Mon-El appreciate the journey Polar Boy took.

And finally, we know Brainiac 5 takes these elections WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. Let’s hope this time he doesn’t snap and create a monster fueled by all the hate in the universe AGAIN.

But I’m willing to cut him some slack since he’s grieving the death of Rond Vidar.
Which comes with a fascinating glimpse on how cemeteries work in the 30th century.

Brainy has it rough in this volume, but it comes with some of his best philosophical musings.

This is not the first time Levitz teases his return to his planet. Perhaps it was a plot he planned that got lost along the way?

But to close the election plot: Sensor Girl got second place.

However, since she DOESN’T want to be the deputy, the job goes to the third place… Element Lad.

This is when the main series reconnects to the (atrocious) Cosmic Boy miniseries. It’s also what makes me think that this time the non-active members did not get to vote.

In other plots, Saturn Girl handles the imprisonment of Universo. After he’s put in suspended animation, we learn WHY he kept the heroes alive AND why he killed his son.

It’s nice to have another Legionnaire to acknowledge the death of Rond Vidar! Up to this point ONLY Brainiac 5 reacted, AT ALL. I know they were close friends, but Rond was a honorary member of the team.
The complete lack of acknowledgment, plus Levitz practically admitting in the letters page that Rond is still alive, is why he’s still alive in my count.

This is the last appearance of Universo in Volume 3 (if you can call it that), but his connection to the Green Lantern Corps will come up again.
I’m glad Universo isn’t involved: I love both the Corps and the Legion, but Universo’s involvement into the Green Lantern mythos didn’t make any sense.

Timber Wolf FINALLY gets a plot that doesn’t revolve around being sad Lightning Lass dumped him! It feels like AGES since he’s had anything to do!!!

This doesn’t really go anywhere interesting, but we’ve been so starved for ANY Timber Wolf scenes that “dating a journalist” feels fresh.

But we have a VERY important subplot, centering around Quislet.

Wildfire decided to pay him a visit, because Quislet’s powers are one of the VERY few things that can interact with his energy outside the containment suit.

Which Quislet interprets as MAKING HIM A NEW BODY.

Which we don’t get to see this issue. That’s a blessing, considering it’s going to look atrocious.

And we close the issue with the Time Institute being destroyed by the Time Trapper, starting the plot that will accompany us until the end of this era.

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Legion significance: 8/10
Polar Boy’s leadership will turn out to be quite significant, both positively and negatively.
But we also have the start of the Wildfire plot.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.

Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
I’m biased towards election issues, those are some of my favorite Legion moments. But this one works rather well, both as a breather between sagas and to a bit of characterization.

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

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Interesting letters: the next storyline will have the Legion come into contact with the post-Crisis DC Universe. It’s interesting to see that most letter writers were looking forward to it, with one exception.

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The election results! Apparently voter turnout was extremely low this time.

A few things of note.

The column says there were 419 ballots, but if you sum all the numbers that’s 424 votes.
This means that Polar Boy won the election with just 11.6% of the votes.
The three “in-story” candidates (Polar Boy, Element Lad, Sensor Girl) collectively received 31% of the vote.

Sensor Girl got the second place in-story, but she actually came up third: the new leadership STILL respects the reader votes, with Element Lad second.
Poor Magnetic Kid is the only one without a single vote!
Saturn Girl is not listed, probably because she re-joined last issue and therefore couldn’t be voted.
But Star Boy is listed despite having left the team several issues ago.

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And finally, as I always try to do with the elections of this period: how did the Legionnaires vote?
Here’s what I came up with.

11 votes for Polar Boy:

• Magnetic Kid, Ultra Boy and Invisible Kid: explicitly
• Polar Boy: it’s against tradition to vote for youself, but he would gladly break tradition.
• Dream Girl: as mentioned, possibly because she was in the Subs
• White Witch: she didn’t know her sister would vote for him, but she might have talked him up previously
• Sensor Girl: she would respect Element Lad’s wish not to be voted, and wouldn’t vote herself
• Tellus and Quislet: could have been convinced by fellow rookie Magnetic Kid
• Colossal Boy and Sun Boy: they tease Polar Boy, but they seem to find his enthusiasm endearing so I’d say they voted for him.

6 votes for Element Lad:

• Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl: explicitly
• Phantom Girl: definitely didn’t vote Polar Boy. Element Lad would be a more traditional Legion leader than Sensor Girl, and she’s really into tradition in this period.
• Dawnstar and Mon-El: based on their reaction, I don’t think they voted Polar Boy. Didn’t have major complains about Element Lad’s leadership.
• Wildfire: hard to say, since he complains about everyone all the time. I’d say he ignored Element Lad’s wishes and voted for him.

7 votes for Sensor Girl:

• Element Lad: I don’t see him as voting Polar Boy, so he might have voted Sensor Girl. Although it would be a bit hypocritical, since she didn’t want to run.
• Shadow Lass: her reaction to Polar Boy’s victory isn’t particularly strong. Could’ve voted for any of the three, I’m assigning her to Sensor Girl to avoid giving her the same vote of Mon-El.
• Chameleon Boy: I’d say he votes for a fellow Espionage Squad member.
• Blok and Timber Wolf: they’ve worked well with her.
• Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet: ABSOLUTELY didn’t vote Polar Boy. I’d say they respected Element Lad’s wishes and voted Sensor Girl; they’ve both gone through much character development, perhaps they related to her?

This is assuming nobody voted for a fourth candidate. I would totally see Saturn Girl picking up a couple of votes after the Universo Project.

It’s not a perfect analysis and I had to decide a couple of votes to align the final results with the actual votes. But hey, Levitz had to do the same thing.