Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #53

Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #53 (1988)
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen
cover by Steve Lighle

Now that the intermissions are over, let’s go back to the main Legion series… if there are still enough Legionnaires to constitute a team.

As you can imagine from the cover, the main plot follows the three Legionnaires currently on Magnetic Kid’s planet dealing with a rogue Gil Dish’pan.

It’s a tough fight, since this one has elemental powers.

But at long last Magnetic Kid DOES SOMETHING…

…and being called a “lesser being” makes Lightning Lass really mad.

She’s really hyping herself. Although her speech could easily be read as racist towards the Gil’Dishpan.

And then he teleports away.

So the team just decides to take the rest of the day off.

Lightning Lass takes the occasion to put the moves on the kid, but he’s just completely oblivious.

His hunch is that the Gil’Dishpan elemental powers could be disrupting the weather, so the team gets to orbit to track just that.
Including Lightning Lass wearing a Science Police uniform for some reason.

This allows Tellus to capture the Gil’Disphan into the Legion’s ship, and the two exchange some insults based on the fact they’re both from the same planet.
Plus the Gil’Disphan shoots some ink at Tellus… or at least I’m praying that’s ink.

This works because the elemental powers don’t work once they’re off-planet.

The secondary plot is about the Legion dealing with its ever-decreasing membership.
Especially when all the ones with extensive technological knowledge have either left or are in a coma.

This is why I was already counting Colossal Boy as being in sick leave.

Blok sure picked an awkward time to get his own subplot. Which is not even in THIS issue!!!

And that’s not even counting the fact that Shadow Lass has effectively left the active roster, in her quest to cure Mon-El.

She also elaborates on her decision to marry him by chopping off her finger.

The Khunds have been following them since they left Daxam, and open fire on the ship.

Shadow Lass buys some time by projecting darkness inside the Khund ship. Kind of impressive since she’s not directly there, but apparently she can’t block Khundian glow-in-the-dark tattoos.

Jokes aside, this is a great showing for Shadow Lass: she demonstrates that while her powers aren’t the most impressive, she makes the most out of them.

And she defeats the Khunds with Mon-El’s help.

And that’s already over!

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Legion significance: 0/10
This is basically just stalling for time.

Silver Age-ness: 2/10
The elemental powers not being fully explained is at least a bit Silver Age.

Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Talk about meandering. Most of the issue is spent reacting to the bombshell events of the last few issues, but not adding anything of substance. And the Magnetic Kid plot has all the excitement and charisma that the kid brings himself, which means barely at all.
At least Giffen is restraining from his worst excesses on the artwork, something that won’t last long.
There’s nothing explicitly bad in this issue, but it’s one of the most meh Legion stories of the time.

We are legion
18 active Legionnaires
7 reserve members
6 resigned members
2 on sick leave
12 deceased members
45 people have been members

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Interesting letters: the election is still ongoing, and now I’m thinking how awesome a Blok leadership would’ve been.