Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #63 (1989)
by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen
cover by Steve Lighle
All good things must come to an end. Including Volume 3.
We begin with the Legion above Sorcerers’ World, trying to fight the Archmage.
And I say “try” because the Archmage is WAY beyond their weight class: he’s basically immune to anything they can throw at him.
Which is not the first time for the Legion, but unlike the Mordru and the Time Trapper (at least in their glory days) he completely lacks any charisma. And unlike Infinite Man he doesn’t have an interesting origin or moral dilemma… he’s just chaotic evil.
This is so boring. The Legionnaires weren’t able to actually hurt Mordru, but at least it was a fight.
And OF COURSE he’s singling out Sensor Girl. She’s the only one allowed to be useful.
If the Archmage had ANY charisma this might actually be entertaining.
Ultra Boy, Dawnstar and Wildfire (who has already lost yet another suit) are the only other ones that can escape… and I wasn’t kidding about Sensor Girl being the only one who can be useful.
It does make SOME sense since she’s the only current Legionnaire with magic-based powers, and I could excuse it if this wasn’t the last issue… but this is sidelining the entire team!!!
Yeah, sure, we haven’t explained anything in this storyline, why start now?
But at least Levitz remembers one of the dangling plots that was left unresolved: Dream Girl leaving the team for Atmos.
It was heavily suggested before, but now it’s basically official that Atmos has used his vaguely defined powers to make Dream Girl his slave.
And I have to remind you that all of her teammates AND HER SISTER didn’t even notice that she was being mentally abused, if not worse.
One last visit to the theory for the Universo Project: Dream Girl is now convinced that all the heroes kidnapped were chosen because their abilities depend on willpower.
So you can see why the Legion fandom debates to this day which theory is correct: even the comic isn’t sure!
The Legion drop by to take her back, since they were actually after Star Boy and this is his planet too.
And the secret to freeing herself from mind control is to knock out Atmos before he’s fully awake.
I speculate this wouldn’t have worked before the whole “science doesn’t work anymore” nonsense, as maybe it’s affecting Atmos too.
Back to the Archmage, he may be powerful but he didn’t bother to study the Legion.
Not that it matters, even with the Legionnaires escaping.
Turns out that the Archmage DOES have a weakness after all: sunlight.
Time to rally all available Legionnaires, including some returns!
I am not adding anyone to the regular roster, though, considering we don’t know if they stay after this battle.
I think Brainiac 5 is being too harsh on himself. Yes he created a lot of problems by leaving without making sure someone would still be in charge of the tech, but considering what came afterwards I can’t blaming him for thinking the team was doomed to fail.
I really missed him. And true to character, the SECOND he comes back he’s ALREADY done more to figure out how to beat the villain than anyone else COMBINED.
Back on Earth, Cosmic Boy learns about his brother’s sacrifice. It’s a good little scene that hits you, even if Magnetic Kid never really amounted to anything.
Back to Sorcerers’ World, it’s a rush to get to the surface before the artwork gets even worse.
Once there they find the wizards are just… giving up.
Including White Witch, who I remind you is the person the Legion was hoping would save the Galaxy.
And who, completing her character assassination, is the reason for this entire mess. Kind of.
Okay, if I’m getting this… and it’s a BIG “if”…
All the magic from Earth was concentrated on Sorcerers’ World, until first Mordru and then White Witch left (the latter isn’t even from this world!!!).
So the Archmage is the embodiment of all the evil magic, and there isn’t enough good magic left to oppose it. Which is why the Archmage broke free and SOMEHOW made “science fail”.
Did I get it right? Do I even care at this point?
I mean THE COMIC doesn’t care, why should I?
OH COME ON!!!
You have the courage to blame Brainiac 5 for leaving the Legion???
You disagreed with his plan and left the team during a crisis, cutting all ties, and even ignoring the fact your sister was in a clearly abusive relationship!!! And since then you even complained that you weren’t REALLY a Legionnaire, just along for the ride!!!
I can respect disagreeing with Brainy’s plans and ideology, but this is just stupid.
I just can’t stand this sanctimonious holier-than-though passive aggressive bulls##t!!!
Even this Khund kid, who we have seen maybe a couple times so far, shows more courage and moral integrity than her!!!
Too little too late, White Witch. I’m rooting for the Archmage to get rid of this stupid magic world of yours.
Just let her go, Blok. You’re way too good for her.
Good news: we ARE getting rid of Sorcerers’ World.
Even Cosmic Boy shows up, looking for vengeance for his brother… who died FREEING the Archmage.
Now that White Witch has decided to fight, everyone else has figured out she shouldn’t.
Aren’t you glad we’re bringing up NOW the chance to have Blok talk to Gemworld itself?
As if this storyline wasn’t frustrating enough… we’re also linking it to the frustrating Gemworld retcon, so the ghost of Amethyst (or whatever she’s supposed to be at this point) shows up.
As a reminder, Amethyst started out as a fun fantasy adventure starring a kid.
Now she commits planetary suicide to rid the universe of magic and imagination.
God is this storyline depressing.
So after 4 issues of hardship, the way to save the galaxy is just giving up and allowing the Archmage to skrunchhh Sorcerers’ World / Gemworld.
Which in turn destroys the Archmage.
As if I needed more ways to detest the devolution of White Witch… WTF is she talking about???
What DID you base your decision to agree with Amethyst???
Yes it wasn’t logic that gave her insight on how to save the day, or her personal values on what’s worth fighting for, or her relationship with others, or the wisdom of their friends… it was basically a hunch.
HOW IS THIS ANY BETTER???
Are we supposed to think this is deep??? Because to me it’s just stupid.
And apparently this entire ordeal is what will cause the greatest societal upheaval in centuries across the galaxy.
Because SOME technology broke up for a few days. Last issue was just two days from the beginning of the saga, so it’s been three or four days AT MOST.
Look, I don’t doubt that Earth would go through a rough period if technology failed worldwide for three to four days… but I don’t even think OUR timeline would then fall to societal collapse!!!
And our timeline sucks!!!
And so we truly end the series with Sensor Girl vowing that, as long as the Legion of Super-Heroes exists, there is a bright future ahead.
Spoiler alert: the next series starts with the Legion having disbanded.
No wonder their timeline sucks even worse than ours.
Legion significance: 10/10
The Magic Wars are not the ONLY reason things are so bleak when the next volume starts, but it’s a major factor. And the treatment of White Witch is only destined to get worse, not even in Volume 4 but in the Retroboot too.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
This doesn’t lean AS hard as the previous one on the “science is failing” nonsense, but it’s still almost the Anti Silver Age. 
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
The idea of defeating the Archmage by letting him win is something you don’t see coming, and I did like Cosmic Boy’s reaction to the death of his brother… but this is crap.
The Archmage is boring, White Witch is detestable, every Legionnaire besides Sensor Girl is useless, the Dream Girl plot should have been resolved WAY earlier (what was even the point to recruit Star Boy? He doesn’t do anything!)… and the artwork continues to be bad.
Plus you have the unnecessary callback to the Gemworld absurdity!
Not to mention it’s basically the exact opposite of what issue 50 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT.
I could have forgiven SOME of this if this was just a regular storyline. But to end a whole series on a plot that basically says “the world is doomed, don’t even try to fight back”???
That’s just insulting.
The Grid: 24 pages out of 27
no pages without a perfect grid (!!!)
3 splash pages
We are legion
The era ends with a rather brutal total count.
17 active Legionnaires
7 reserve members
7 resigned members
14 deceased members
45 people have been members
52 people have been rejected
And that’s the end of Volume 3. The retrospective WILL continue, but since Volume 4 is the “Five Years Later” era… I can’t miss the chance to cover it during the site’s fifth year, so the next volume will have to wait until January.
But there’s still plenty of material worth talking about since, as you might have noticed, there’s no limit to how much I can talk about the Legion!
So for the rest of the year we will talk about, in order:
1) the Legion Awards for this era, plus a secret bonus
2) an examination on the Legion’s membership changes from 1958 to 1989
3) my personal ranking of ALL the Legionnaires introduced up to this point
4) a look at how the crossover “Invasion” will influence the Legion universe
5) a look at how the series L.E.G.I.O.N. will influence the Legion universe
6) how and why the Five Years Later era will be covered in a slightly different way from the others
7) considerations on how the Five Years Later retcons influence the membership count
And only after ALL THAT we will tackle Volume 4.
What did I say about having a lot to say about the Legion?
The Archmage defeats himself. Pol literally died for nothing. The entire Legion made no difference. What an embarrassing ending to Volume 3.
Pol’s death freed the Archmage, which led to the Archmage destroying Zerox, which in turn destroyed him. Without Pol’s sacrifice, magic replaces science permanently, and the everyone needs to replace their technological devices with magical artifacts.
His sacrifice was consequential, but it does ring hollow when compared to previous legionnaire deaths. Even Chemical King managed to be personable right before his death. Pol never managed to do anything of interest, other than panicking when Ayla got too flirty.
On the other hand, the legionnaire deaths following Pol’s are…
I give Giffen kudos for trying to touch on something deep in his dialogue between Brainiac 5 and the White Witch. Mysa makes a point that science can be used to rationalize anything–just as faith and magic can be. This is a profound comparison. Human beings want to make sense of the world, and we use a variety of tools to do so. These tools often depend on getting others to agree through something called peer review. But our peers (be they ministers, lay people, academics, scientists, or voters) are as flawed as we are.
Given the above, I have no trouble believing that Mysa relied on faith to find her truth. Faith, as I understand it, differs from a hunch in that a hunch is only a feeling. Faith is arrived at through personal reflection. Both come from deep within us and are often generated through processes we barely understand, but faith is more deliberate. At least, that’s my understanding.
Blok’s role is telling. Mysa trusts him because he’s “the stuff of which worlds are made,” i.e., rock. Perhaps this explanation fits in with her magic orientation in the same way that those who practice witchcraft (real witchcraft, not the fictional versions) rely on nature for insight. It may defy logical explanation, but it speaks to her worldview.
Giffen wanted to completely upend the Legion’s universe, and, in that, he succeeded. Our heroes have feet of clay. They don’t always behave heroically. They fight amongst themselves. Some desert when the going gets tough. But the rest hang in there and do their best against overwhelming odds. At least that was Giffen’s stated intention for his Legion run. He wanted to truly test our heroes outside the norms of the positive and prosperous future in which they had always operated. I commend him for this effort even though the results didn’t always express his vision. There were many problems. The villain, as you said, lacks charisma. He’s just another godlike being who wants to dominate or destroy everything (see Omen, Darkseid, Mordru, even the Time Trapper). He’s basically Omen 2.0, a terrifying image meant to give children nightmares and nothing more.
So many of the Legion’s “ultimate” story lines featured the entire team battling the threat en masse (as in the Great Darkness Saga). I imagine Giffen wanted to do something different by focusing on a small group of Legionnaires, as Levitz did toward the end of Earthwar. This approach can’t help but feel anticlimactic as we expect all of our favorites to participate in the final battle. But Giffen stated that he didn’t care what fans wanted. What reaction he was shooting for is uncertain.
“Magic Wars” was also burdened by having to fit in a lot of appearances and resolve loose threads (such as Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Atmos). The expectations for a final issue were high. This makes the addition of Gemworld crossover all the more baffling. The Legion’s universe features enough mythology to wrap up the story without the late introduction of elements from a series unfamiliar to many Legion fans. If you must do a crossover, introduce the characters and setting much much earlier.
Thanks for taking us through the highs and lows of this journey. I look forward to the awards and other addenda.
It should be noted that Books of Magic #4 (1991) has a two-page spread depicting the Magic Wars.
One more review I’d like to see is the LSV Silver Age appearances outside LSH stories. Besides their original Superman 147 appearance, they also showed up in Jimmy Olsen 63 and 87, and Action 286 and 332.
I’ve scheduled the Books of Magic appearance for the next era.
Not a bad idea to conver the remaining LSV Silver Age stories… I’ll probably do that at some point.
Sorta spoilers but in that Books of Magic appearance they are as confused about the whole Magic Wars ordeal as pretty much everyone else, it’s hilarious. Gorgeous art tho
Also very confused about what the White Witch looks like.
This whole storyline was just trash. It would have been better to just end the series in #59. Lots of bad art, bad storytelling, bad characterization and character assassination, starting with Mysa.
I don’t think I ever trusted Giffen’s judgement much since.
and thus, ends the OG version of the Legion, not with really a bang but not a full-blown fart either… just a whimper.
what a ride they had, from being Supporting cast members to Superboy and Supergirl, to taking over Superboy’s own books not once but TWICE, Fighting villains like Darkseid,Mordu and the Time Trapper to Mostly Surviving the Crisis intact DESPITE the major changes to the DC Universe…
and we end on a confusing mess of a story that ends up leading into pretty much I consider the most damaging thing the Legion never fully got over…
“Five years Later”…
“the most damaging thing the Legion never fully got over…
“Five years Later”…”
Maybe not a popular sentiment, but I LOVED and still loved what they were trying to do with 5YL (with some big exceptions).
I really got into comics at this time and loved complex stories that were dependent on understanding the backstory. At the time anything I didn’t know was an excuse to go hunting for more (pre internet, so comic book shopping).
Technically, if not for 5YL I never would have read earlier Legion stories (although)/ I had read some). It’s in my personal top 10 ever and a highlight of my love of the legion.
That said, it really is a shame that they chose that time to make the Legion hard to access for the masses because they could have had big readership at a time when other books really took off.
A lot of the popularity of other titles directly led to TV, movies, games, etc. and the legion could have been part of it. Hell, they were a top DC book for years. And all the legion got from this era was the first of many reboots. So, it definitely failed from a growth standpoint.
And for this book to end on this?!! I never understood and did not enjoy this ending.
Honestly, as much as I loved it, 5YL could have been a second book with the traditional stories ongoing. Technically they did that in the end with the Legionnaires book anyways.
It is a shame, to they did deserve better than this. Should have ended with issue 50.
While I do agree with the fact it had some pretty good ideas, the execution of them was a real mix bag.
but really, the big issues with the 5YL era boils down to the tone(especially the first half) and the honestly convoluted way they had to address certain elephants in the room they had lingering around due to not fully committing to the post crisis reboot and either the DC Editor in Chief or the Superman offices raising a stink about it.
That’s among other things I really can’t say because, well, that falls under major spoilers.