Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #54 (1988)
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen
I think I owe Tyroc an apology. I thought his costume was ugly but compared to the new Giffen costumes it was a masterpiece.
Even Polar Boy doesn’t look THAT bad compared to them, and he’s anticipating the 90s trend of having pouches!
With so many Legionnaires having left the team in the last few issues, giving new costumes to everyone is seriously risking a new wave of resignations.
At least Polar Boy is recognizing one of the biggest contributors to the Legion falling into ruins: everyone keeps doing whatever they want.
I would give him props for finally understanding this, if his weak leadership wasn’t a major contributing factor.
Yeah sorry PB, I used to be a fan but I can’t feel sorry for you.
The prisoner escaping his cell on Labyrinth (the prison planet that effectively replaced Takron-Galtos) is Garak, who you might recall fought Lightning Lass and Magnetic Kid if he was even slightly interesting.
The fact that he’s freeing the various supervillains imprisoned there is a more pressing concern.
It’s a brutal fight, even a bit uncomfortable to watch.
As you’ve seen from the cover, Ultra Boy shows his new costume that doesn’t work in SO many ways. The biggest sin is not showing his highly recognizable symbol, but also it looks slightly armored… which doesn’t make a lot of sense for a guy who can turn invulnerable.
I suppose it’s meant to protect him when he’s using a different power, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose of his gimmick?
That’s the same problem of giving Wildfire a human body. As is the fact that all these characters are incredibly ugly to look at now.
On top of all new costumes being ugly, nobody is recognizable. Honestly, are you able to tell at a glance that this is Element Lad?
It’s also hilarious that Shrinking Violet keeps getting costumes that don’t involve violet.
And why the heck does Chameleon Boy get a new costume? HE DOESN’T EVEN NEED ONE!!!
I can’t find a single redeemable thing about any of those costumes. Even Timber Wolf agrees, and he’s got only the SECOND worst new costume!
I consider Dawnstar to have the worst one, by the way, but that’s a tough choice because THEY ALL SUCK.
The entire jailbreak plot is basically to herald the return of Emerald Empress.
GREAT JOB, GUYS.
In other plots, if you thought Polar Boy has started to grow into a real leader… he’s just as insecure as always, if not even more.
At least Sensor Girl’s new costume KIND OF works. That’s better than what I can say about everyone else.
In other plots, Duo Damsel is testing the force field belt that Brainiac 5 left her.
Well, she can no longer duplicate, so I should probably call her by her real name Luornu.
The Legionnaires are not the only ones getting terrible redesigns. I’ve already talked about Bouncing Boy’s horrible moustache, but Shvaughn Erin also gets a new hairdo.
This is an occasion to have Luornu show that the reason why she got into the Legion wasn’t her lame power, instead having her use the force field that only Brainiac 5 used to be smart enough to have.
Just imagine the amount of creative things that you can have with her having access to it!
Aaaaand it’s dropped immediately.
This is all so freaking depressing. Is there ANYTHING uplifting left?
Yeah, didn’t think so.
You might think that I’m rushing thorugh these issues. At some level I suppose it’s true because the artwork is so ugly, but BARELY anything happens!!!
Legion significance: 4/10
The lead-up to the return of Emerald Empress. That will have some impact, but you can skip this one.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Nope.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Well… that was awful. The story is bland, the action is forgettable, characters don’t look like themselves and they’re either depressed or angry or sad or defeatist or some combination of those.
And this is just an appetizer for the Legion, because between the end of Volume 3 and a large chunk of the Five Years Later era we have just straight-up misery porn to look forward to.
We are legion
18 active Legionnaires
7 reserve members
6 resigned members
2 on sick leave
12 deceased members
45 people have been members
Interesting letters: Dave brings up a fantastic point.
Hey remember how Timber Wolf got only one plot for this whole volume and it was completely dropped? Has he even TALKED to Projectra since she revealed her identity???
I’d stopped reading Legion books long before this stretch, but I remember hearing about it back in the day. Seeing it now, I’m glad I outgrew this book in time to avoid this ugly mess altogether. But let’s be fair – Polar Boy only has one pouch. Singular. Not pouches. Which somehow manages to be worse than the 90s Liefeldian nightmare costumes with dozens of them. Nice of Giffen to make Tyroc the stylish Legionnaire, though.
I don’t blame you for rushing through the reviews of this period. I have been rushing through reading them. 🙂
I almost want to excuse what Giffen did because the changes he made were in many ways as radical as those wrought by Dave Cockrum and Cary Bates in the early ’70s. But there were significant differences. Most of the Cockrum/Bates changes were cosmetic–the Legion’s essential character as a team did not change, and, for a while, the types of stories didn’t either. Changes to the roster–such as the marriage of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel and the death of Invisible Kid–were woven in gradually.
I can also draw parallels between this period and the radical changes DnA made a decade later. I imagine DnA used Giffen’s radical approach as inspiration. Their storyline also depicted the Legion at its lowest ebb and featured some ugly (or at least very unconventional) artwork.
Giffen’s choices were designed to set up the Five Years Later Legion. But these stories come across as heavy-handed and unconvincing. The Legion has triumphed over enormous odds in the past, and key members have departed along the way. To see them reduced to a simpering and dwindling unit that simpers and dwindles even more comes across as forced.
As for the new costumes, ugh! It’s not clear from the panels depicted in the review, but it looks like Polar Boy mandated new costumes for everyone. My understanding was the Legionnaires always chose their own costumes (except for the Founders, whose initial costumes were said to be designed by R.J. Brande). For the Legion’s leader to force such a change on his teammates seems strange–and doesn’t PB have bigger things to worry about?
DC and/or Levitz gave Giffen too much freedom to do whatever he wanted with the Legion. While a story of the team going through dark days and bouncing back could be gripping and uplifting, there was no need to drag it on for so long (combining this period and 5YL) or to heap so many sudden changes upon them. Too many changes at once dilute the impact of each event. Mon-El’s death should have been a major event, for example. As depicted (when it occurs), it was an afterthought.
The redesigned costumes are awful. Giffen was trying for a “futuristic” design and neglecting the fact that 20th-century readers like good present fashions. Major League Baseball did something similar, and the results looked awful. Here are some examples: https://www.espn.com/mlb/photos/gallery/_/id/9252737/image/5/good-bad-ugly#
The Luornu-force field thing was revisited in issue # 42 of the TMK series in a Tom McCraw-written story which is one of the dumbest retcons ever.
If Computo created the new costumes, and Polar Boy hated having to tell the team that Computo was distributing new costumes, and everyone hated their new costumes…. Why was anyone wearing these costumes?