Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #51

Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #51 (1988)
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen
cover by Steve Lighle

As the epilogue of the cataclysmic issue 50, we have the Trial Of Brainiac 5.

The judge is going to be Cosmic Boy, the prosecutor Polar Boy, and the defense Saturn Girl.
And the crime is murder.

Not of the Time Trapper as you might expect, but of the Infinite Man.

He’s not accused of killing the Time Trapper because, as established way back in the Trial of Star Boy, self-defense is an acceptable defense. But the accusation is that Brainiac 5 knew that Infinite Man would sacrifice himself.

Saturn Girl is having none of this! As you can see Giffen has now completely transitioned into his new style, but mercifully SOME facial expressions still work.

Saturn Girl’s defense is that Infinite Man was brain dead when Brainiac 5 took his body into the future, therefore arguing that Brainiac 5 couldn’t possibly kill him.
That’s kind of a weak argument, because Infinite Man died AFTER Brainiac 5 restored his mind together with his powers. At best she could argue that Jaxon Rugarth and Infinite Man are so different from each other that they’re different persons, but with this kind of logic he would still responsible for the death of both.

Even more problematic is the idea that Infinite Man deserved to die because he was a monster.

This would be a fascinating occasion to see how the various alien races view such philosophical questions. But instead we get several annoying comments on how humans get everything wrong.
Or are we supposed to believe Blok “understands life itself” without further explanations?

I both agree and disagree, Dream Girl.
We get a very interesting story out of this, but I also consider it the last “good” issue of Volume 3.

After a recap of the events, we get into the details for why Polar Boy is accusing Brainiac 5.
And it’s not an accusation without its merits because yes, Infinite Man was brain dead, but he didn’t consent to be resurrected.
I think there’s a gigantic hole in this accusation, and I’m surprised that Saturn Girl didn’t go with a much easier defense, and we’ll get there, but I do appreciate that Polar Boy is not being entirely unreasonable.

We get a lot of reactions from the rest of the Legion, which will soon get to vote.
This is also a rare opportunity to see the Legionnaires in civilian clothing, and for the first time in forever we see 30th century fashion that isn’t completely insane.

There’s a real split between the Legionnaires, some of which is surprising.
Invisible Kid is against Brainy’s actions but still feels for his friend, while Shrinking Violet is surprisingly harsh.
(also: I see what you did there with using “reduce” when talking with Shrinking Violet)

Violet is also lashing out at Phantom Girl, even bringing up that they’ve never been particularly close. Which is kind of true in the sense that Phantom Girl was indeed shown to be closer to Triplicate Girl and Shadow Lass than to Shrinking Violet… but also she’s Shrinking Violet, she wasn’t close to anybody back then.

We have a brief interlude introducing Z-level villain Garak, a Khund that will shockingly get a couple of appearances.

I’m sorry, but as a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fan there’s only one Garak.

He doesn’t get a particularly graceful first fight.

Back to the reactions of the Legionnaires. Quislet has definitely the funniest one, while Sun Boy is stuck in his “ladies man without a brain” phase that regrettably is going to stay.

More importantly, we have an explanation for why the United Planets don’t give the Legion a hard time whenever they screw up: money.
Because without even trying, Brainiac 5 makes them so much money they have to invent new words for the amount.

Speaking of Brainiac 5, how is he handling the situation?

Looks fine to me.

He’s definitely in a “the end justifies the mean” phase.

I’m going to criticize the new Giffen style a lot in the following issues, so let me say something positive: he’s AMAZING at depicting futuristic technology.
He’s up there with 80s John Byrne.

Mon-El really took a beating from the Time Trapper. He’s currently in a coma, but I’m placing him under the “sick leave” category since he won’t be back for action in this volume.

That’s a good scene, but why does Shadow Lass have a rosary???
We’ve seen that she follows the Talokian ancestor worship (and the following issues will really highlight her belief in her planet’s religion)… so when did Mon-El convert to Christianity???
Of course this could just be a coincidence with a Talokian religious symbol that resembles the cross, but I like to think this is a memento that Mon-El took from the Kents.
We HAVE seen that Christianity is still followed to a certain extent in the 30th century, but it feels odd to include such a tiny detail here.

Brainiac 5 must be utterly insufferable to lawyers.

Brainy’s statement is quite something, beginning with declaring the trial itself irrelevant.

He also basically calls the Legion Constitution (which is the only applicable law here, since the United Planets consider the case outside of its jurisdiction) as basically irrelevant.
He says it’s because it applies to the Legionnaires on a voluntary basis, which I understand to mean implies the Constitution is irrelevant because the members can choose to modify it whenever they want.
That’s all kind of true, but then Brainy loses me when his argument is that Infinite Man would’ve taken the same steps he did. Which is both a massive assumption on his part AND it ignores what I believe would’ve been a very easy defense… more on that later.

The statement manages to anger both the prosecution and the defense.

Then out of nowhere Rond Vidar contacts the Legion, not only to agree with Brainiac 5 but to drop important news: he’s both resigning from the team and leaving the United Planets for good, since Green Lanterns are not allowed there.

I have several problems with this.
First and foremost: yes the United Planet has outlawed the Green Lanterns, but Rond became one WAY out of their jurisdiction (they said it themselves when they decided not to prosecute Brainiac 5). He could just come back and NOT use the Green Lantern ring, something that he managed to do for TWENTY-TWO years of published stories.
And second, he gets THIS close to using the actual defense.

Which, to bring back scenes from the previous issue, is that Infinite Man wasn’t murdered by Braniac 5 because HE CHOSE TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF by opening the portal to the beginning of time!!!

AT BEST you could say that Brainiac 5 is an accessory to his suicide because he gave him a push, but you CAN’T say this was against Infinite Man’s wishes because he immediately thanks him for it!!!

There’s no reason for Brainiac 5 to argue that “he would’ve done the same if he could” when Infinite Man was the one to decide to sacrifice himself!
Unless the Legion wants to argue that Brainiac 5’s crime is to cure Infinite Man’s brain by restoring his powers, but if that was the case they would have to drop the whole discussion about whether he was dead or not at the time!!!

*sigh*

Anyway, I would’ve voted “innocent”: Brainiac 5 is not responsible for the death of Infinite Man because the latter chose to sacrifice himself.
But what will the Legionnaires think?

Despite being the first one to voice her opposition to the whole mission, White Witch doesn’t show up. In fact she completely drops off the book for a while, and when we see her again she has cut all ties to the Legion… so I’m going to consider this as a resignation.

Polar Boy obviously votes guilty, although it’s weird that the prosecutor gets a vote.
Dream Girl votes innocent: based on the reaction she had before the mission, I’m pretty sure she completely agrees with Brainiac 5.

Colossal Boy and Chameleon Boy don’t vote either, since they are busy with the Starfinger plot that will be resolved in an upcoming Annual.
Enjoy Dawnstar wearing something decent, it won’t last for long.

Speaking of new looks: Phantom Girl gets a new look.
The new costume is fine if a bit generic, but I’m not a fan of her new skunk hair.

We get another batch of votes, which is worth discussing.
Saturn Girl votes innocent, both as the defense and as a member of the conspiracy.
Sensor Girl also votes innocent, not surprisingly considering she killed her husband’s murderer.
We’ve already seen Shrinking Violet would vote guilty; Invisible Kid and Phantom Girl on the other hand were more undecided at the beginning. Brainy’s statement didn’t help.
Quislet has called the trial silly from the beginning so I’m not surprised he abstains, but I am shocked that Wildfire voted guilty.
I would’ve thought he’d be both behind the “end justifies the mean” angle and understand Infinite Man’s sacrifice, considering Wildfire sacrificed his own life in his first story.

Element Lad voting guilty makes perfect sense, both because of his spiritual side and because he’s become a rather by-the-book character.
I’m not sure why Timber Wolf voted innocent; might be the “end justifies the means” idea.
Also not sure why Tellus votes innocent, but he’s so naïve he might just be following Saturn Girl.

Also can we all agree Tellus has BY FAR the worst Legion icon? How does this represent in any way, shape or form???

Shadow Lass also votes innocent, which really goes to show she doesn’t blame Brainiac 5 for what happened to Mon-El… who is the most justified of all for abstaining.

She’s not taking this well. And things are only going to get tougher for her.

I’m quite surprised Dawnstar voted innocent; I would’ve expected her to go into the same philosophical argument White Witch had.
Magnetic Kid votes guilty, something that Cosmic Boy (who doesn’t get a vote because he’s currently a reserve) disagrees with.

If you’re keeping score we’re currently at 7 guilty, 7 innocent and 5 abstentions. There are still 4 votes before the verdict.

This is a very painful (although well-written) interaction between Polar Boy and Cosmic Boy.
The former is following the letter of the law, the latter the spirit.

But we then get the last 4 votes, and they’re all innocent.
Blok is a surprise, considering his comments about “misunderstanding life”.
Sun Boy and Ultra Boy didn’t seem to care at all about the trial.
Lightning Lass is a bit of a surprise, since I would’ve expected her to be as harsh as Shrinking Violet.
Note that ALL the current Legion couples are split on the vote! Although Mon-El not by choice.

I’ve always liked this little moment by Brainiac 5. I think he’s CONSTANTLY doing this, predicting what his teammates are going to do…

…and almost getting it right.

I’m sure you could find a moment when they have touched before, but this is still a powerful moment.

There’s still one outcome of the previous issue that needs to be addressed: the death of the second third of Duo Damsel.
Kind of depressing that Phantom Girl was the only other Legionnaire to bring it up.

Brainiac 5 has dropped by to offer his apologies and a gift: his force field belt.

Which he’s not going to need for a while, since he’s resigning from the Legion.

He’s going to be absent for a good chunk of the remaining 12 issues of this series.

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While I’m at, a bit of housecleaning: after #52 and the Annual, we’re going to take a bit of a break to look at the Wanderers miniseries and the “Who’s Who In The Legion Of Super-Heroes” inserts, after which we’ll get to the final 10 issues.

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Before the scores: what would have happened if the reserves COULD vote?
I think the innocent verdict would’ve been much more overwhelming, possibly as high as 16 to 7:
-Cosmic Boy is on the record saying he’d vote innocent
-Duo Damsel clearly would’ve voted innocent
-Bouncing Boy would likely have followed her decision
-Lightning Lad would likely have voted innocent, same as the other founders and his sister
-Star Boy might have voted innocent because of his own trial, or perhaps abstain
-Matter-Eater Lad would most likely have abstained

What if abstaining was not allowed and every member had a vote?
I don’t think it would’ve changed the verdict, bring it to a 13 to 10.
-White Witch blatantly would’ve voted guilty
-Mon-El would definitely have voted innocent
-Chameleon Boy might have leaned towards voting guilty, considering his own experience with breaking the rules
-Colossal Boy would definitely have voted guilty
-Quislet would have to be forced to vote, but he’d most likely vote innocent because he doesn’t consider the offense serious enough. Weird that Brainiac 5 was sure he’d vote guilty.

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Legion significance: 8/10
As an epilogue to the previous story, but also the various defections.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Definitely not.

Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
As much as I’ve complained about the reasoning behind the trial, this is not a legal drama so I’m inclined to cut the story some slack.
My only other complain is that I really wish we had more information on why some Legionnaires voted they way they did, since for most of them we either get nothing or very little.
Of course we had even fewer reasons in the Trial Of Star Boy, which I think holds up much better than this one, so it’s not the only factor to consider.
But it’s a nice character study of Brainiac 5 and a good examination of rapidly the Legion is crumbling from within: you can tell there are already several members at each other’s throat.
Which is going to become a problem, but gives this story a very distinctive feeling.
The artwork holds up for the most part, but Giffen is going to get on my nerves very soon.

We are legion
Quite a few changes in the roster.
Rond Vidar and Brainiac 5 resign; I’m moving both under the “resigned” category instead of the reserve, since they seem to want to completely cut ties with the team.
I’m also placing White Witch in the same category, but she’s a bit more complicated: she just completely stops interacting with the Legion after this, but towards the end of Volume 3 it will become abundantly clear that she considers herself to have resigned.
I’m also placing Mon-El under “sick leave”, where he’ll stay for basically the rest of the run.
This means there are no more honorary members and that the team is down to just 21 active members. It hasn’t been this low since the death of Supergirl.

21 active Legionnaires
6 reserve members
5 resigned members
1 on sick leave
12 deceased members
45 people have been members
50 people have been rejected

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Interesting letters: J.W. Pierceall is credited as figuring out the members of the conspiracy before they were all identified.
Interesting to see Levitz saying he strives to give the readers enough pieces of the puzzle to figure out the solution to his mysteries. It worked for the Shrinking Violet impostor, while I still think the Sensor Girl one wasn’t handled very well.

The Paul Levitz run on the Legion will peak at 9 years, although not consecutive issues (to name just one, he did not write #283).

The longest run by a single writer is typically considered the 16 years by Chris Claremont on X-Men… which is wrong, because Robert Kanigher wrote Wonder Woman for an unbelievable TWENTY YEARS STRAIGHT: from 1948’s Wonder Woman #30 to 1968’s Wonder Woman #176, there isn’t a single year without a Kanigher story in the book.
Tracking Sgt. Rock’s run is a bit tricky to check, given the multiple series, so it MIGHT be right behind the Wonder Woman run.
If we do include runs with a guest writer for at least one story and we limit ourselves to Marvel and DC, they’re followed by Marv Wolfman (15 years on Teen Titans), Brian Michael Bendis (12 years on Ultimate Spider-Man), Peter David (12 years on Hulk), Mark Gruenwald (10 years on Captain America) and Lee/Kirby (10 years on Fantastic Four). Unless I’m forgetting someone, everyone else ties with Levitz at 9 years at best, but someone might be above Levitz on the exact number of issues.