Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #1 (1989)
plot by Keith Giffen & Al Gordon
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Keith Giffen
The first cover of the new era of the Legion of Super-Heroes gives us a guy in a dirty trench coat walking on the ruins of the Legion.
Which is very on-brand for what’s coming.
The very first page is a field of stars with the three words that will haunt the Legion until 1994, and in other ways still to this day.
Five.
Years.
Later.
After mentioning much better Legion storylines we could be reading right now…
…we learn that the Legion has been disbanded for quite some time, and Sun Boy is being interviewed as liaison with Earth’s government.
If you happened to like Sun Boy, or worse if he was your favorite Legionnaire, this era is going to be horrible. Because I’ve seen very few characters being subjected to worse character assassinations than what he will have to go through.
The first familiar face we see is Chameleon Boy, talking to this eyeless thing.
A little tangent here.
When I first read this series, my only exposure to the Legion were the Great Darkness Saga and entries in the latest “Who’s Who”. So I was really hungry for ANY Legion material whatsoever… and I couldn’t understand ANYTHING from this series.
Case in point: those eyeless people confused the hell out of me, because I could not understand what the heck they were supposed to be!
Well, turns out that they’re not people: they’re drones or androids used as personal assistants.
Something that is NEVER EXPLAINED WITHIN THE STORY, at the very least not for several issues.
Expect me to complain that something is not explained in the story A LOT during this era.
We then jump to Cosmic Boy having nightmares about his time serving in the army.
I’m going to call him Cosmic Boy even if the comic insists on using his real name of Rokk.
A lot has happened to him since we last saw him: not only he’s been in a war, but he’s married with Night Girl who is heavily pregnant.
Not a lot of people seem to have nostalgia for the Legion.
Cosmic Boy is back to his native planet Braal, which has been hit by the war almost as badly as his PTSD.
I guess this is supposed to be about the horrors of war, but to me this is getting so extreme it’s kind of laughable for how hard it’s trying.
Also, what happened to writing in Interlac?
Cosmic Boy then meets with his war buddy Loomis, and there’s talk of leaving the planet.
But he also meets Chameleon Boy, who might just be the only character who is not a villain that gets to smile for these first few issues.
We also learn that Cosmic Boy lost his powers during the war.
Chameleon Boy has been looking for him because he wants to start the Legion again.
Be thankful that Cham is here: not just because without him the team would stay dead, but because he’s one of the few characters that doesn’t treat the Legion as a terrible mistake.
Which brings us to what is possibly the worst retelling of the Legion origin I’ve ever seen…
…and the continuing tradition of cutting Night Girl out of the Legion business.
Granted she’s about to give birth, but come on.
Another Legionnaire we meet is Shrinking Violet, who has also been in the war… because her planet was at war with Cosmic Boy’s.
They also did some nasty war crimes.
And we close the issue with a villain doing villain stuff. Good luck figuring out who this is supposed to be without context.
And that’s it for the story. But in this period the last pages have supplementary texts; I won’t be reviewing them all because the format of my reviews is not suited for it, but I will mention notable things.
Like a list of the reasons why the Legion was disbanded, from a United Planets memo.
It’s fairly common stuff that you’ve seen tackled for most superhero teams, really.
Also at some point Polar Boy was elected leader again, because he was the one to officially dissolve the Legion. Because I guess he did SUCH a great job the first time he was due for a second term.
The issue is dedicated to the memory of John Forte, who died in 1966.
What better way to remember him than to show characters he co-created living broken lives after their spirit has been crushed, I guess?
Votes will be given at the end.
The Grid: 22 pages out of 26
no pages without a perfect grid
1 splash page
3 text pages
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #2 (1989)
plot by Keith Giffen & Al Gordon & Tom & Mary Bierbaum
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Keith Giffen
We will focus on Ultra Boy now. Can’t wait to see how HIS life has been ruined!
But first we’re introduced to Kono, a teenager with intangibility powers that will be an important character throughout the series. She’s from the matriarchal Sklar, who you might remember as the all-female space pirates we’ve seen a couple of times.
She’s so much in trouble with the authorities that they put out all the stops to apprehend her.
At least I think? I can barely understand this whole sequence.
We already had it in the previous issue, but sometimes we randomly get in-story ads here.
Bizarely enough, including a cameo by Dartalon from the Wanderers.
This is where we meet Ultra Boy, who of course is going by his civilian name.
He’s also working with Kono in some capacity. And get used to her “what the nykx” catchphrase, which is going to be annoying fast.
We’ve gone through too many pages without bloodshed, so Ultra Boy’s fling gets brutally murdered by the people looking for Kono (I think).
Ultra Boy gets his revenge later against these… uhm… I’m gonna say androids.
Following Night Girl, we might have a cameo from Tellus. Although it might be someone else from his species.
More importantly, we check on Shvaughn Erin who is still in the Science Police.
We are retconning the fact that she’s not from Earth, but more importantly… she’s supposed to be 20 years old? HOW!?!?
Remember this is “Five Years Later”, so was she supposed to be FIFTEEN YEARS OLD when we last saw her!? She must’ve been AT THE VERY LEAST around 20 years old on her first appearance, there’s absolutely no what whatsoever she’s 20 now!!!
Is it too much to ask for a series that hinges on a 5 year time skip to think twice before mentioning years!?!?
I also have my doubts she went through her entire career as Legion liaison, especially since the 5 year gap included multiple persecutions against the Legion by Earth’s government, without her ever getting a single investigation or reprimand.
Neat easter egg for “Andrew Nolan Fellow of Valor”, because that’s Ferro Lad’s real name.
The one keeping tabs on Shvaughn is new villain Circe, who is also Sun Boy’s lover.
And we close with the reveal of last issue’s villain being… a guy whose identity we’ll learn in the next issue.
In the text pages, we learn Phantom Girl died during the gap.
The Grid: 21 pages out of 23
no pages without a perfect grid
no splash pages
2 text pages
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #3 (1989)
plot by Keith Giffen & Al Gordon & Tom & Mary Bierbaum
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Keith Giffen
If you know what the cover is actually depicting, it’s one of the most gruesome covers ever.
We begin with those eyeless things… which I’ll be calling Probes if I remember to do it… checking on various former Legionnaires.
They apparently work for Mordru.
Who A) is back B) has been keeping busy torturing Rond Vidar.
Since this series can’t stay in one place for more than one scene, we check on Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad. They have retired to work on a farm on his planet, and she’s pregnant again.
Living on the same planet are also Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet, enjoying nudity I guess.
This is still the late 80s so we’re not explicitly told they’re a couple, but I don’t think they fooled any reader.
Also I think we just learned that women from Imsk don’t have nipples.
I wonder what the fallen Legionnaires would think to have the statues commemorating their sacrifice ending up in a nudist camp.
Enjoy the brief Superboy cameo, because issue 4 will retcon him out of existence.
Chameleon Boy and Cosmic Boy are set to meet Ultra Boy on his planet, and this is were we get our first glimpse at Furball. Whose identity is still supposed to be a secret, so no spoilers in the comments.
The big moment of the issue comes when the Dominators reveal they are the ones responsible for freeing the villain we’ve glimpsed at the end of the previous issues, and we are set to watch a tape of his latest crimes.
Said villain, the one with the lipstick and the 1700s getup, is Roxxas: the space pirate who genocided Element Lad’s planet.
And in this flashback, he’s meeting a heavily injured Blok.
And within this recording, we get to see Blok having a vision. How the heck is THAT being recorded!?!?
Specifically he’s having a vision of Strata from L.E.G.I.O.N., talking about how she’s the last female of their race just like Blok is the last male.
I’m guessing Blok is accepting the inevitability of his death? Why was it necessary to bring up another member of his species that lived 1,000 years earlier?
As implied, Roxxas just murdered Blok and sent video proof to the Science Police.
Worse than that, he sent a message to the son of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl…
…along with THE CORPSE OF BLOK.
But hey, Cosmic Boy now thinks that the Legion might have a chance of starting again, so happy ending I guess?
In the text pages, we learn that Lightning Lad has retired from super-heroing because he contracted the “Validus Plague”.
Which is called like that because their son Garridan, after being transformed back into a human after spending years as Validus, was the one spreading the disease.
Something that would actually have been interesting to see IN AN ACTUAL STORY instead of in supplementary material!!!
At the very last page, we have the resurrection of Mon-El. Who is speaking with TWO other voices in his mind now.
The Grid: 21 pages out of 25
no pages without a perfect grid
no splash pages
4 text pages
Legion significance: 10/10
Love it or hate it… and I’m in the latter category… but the Five Years Later era is an important part of the Legion’s history, and these three issues set the tone. Not a bad concept!
Which is bleak, dark and at points disturbing. And if that’s not enough, it already starts three trends that contribute to my dislike: making it really hard to figure out what the hell is going on, relegating MAJOR plot points to the text pages, and clearly playing favorites with the Legionnaires instead of even trying to balance them.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
This is almost the antithesis of the Silver Age. Which is why I’m introducing a new category specifically for this era:
Depression scale: 10/10
How depressing are things? The future is dark and dirty and nasty, Legion has disbanded, most of its former members are in disgrace, many hate their past, and one of the team’s most innocent members gets CHOPPED INTO PIECES AND MAILED TO A CHILD.
Only Chameleon Boy and at the very end Cosmic Boy have SOME hope for the future, but it’s too little too late.
Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
I will give this to the early period of the 5YL era: it has a vision. Break the team to rebuild it.
And I truly do respect the attempt to do something complex and expand the universe; I could believe that if this was my first exposure to the Legion I would respect it more… except like I said this was only my second exposure, and I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING of what was going on!!! Admittedly this isn’t AS bad as some of the future issues, but it was really hard for me to keep track of what was actually going on. The Grid and the ugly, ugly artwork surely don’t help.
A lot of this feels like complexity and darkness for its own sake. And right now all characters are just plain unlikeable, with the only exception being Chameleon Boy who doesn’t even get all that much screen time. Kono will become a decent character, but here she’s an unlikeable brat.
Had I been a regular reader at the time, after these three issues I would have given the book one last chance before dropping it… and issue 4 would have given me hope, as it’s a good story that I will look at on its own.
Too bad that for me everything goes down the drain after issue 5.
We are legion
The Legion is still officially disbanded.
See the specific post for how the retcons influence the count.
From these issues we have the deaths of Phantom Girl and Blok, and the resurrection of Mon-El that is counted back to the resigned members.
0 active Legionnaires
0 reserve members
43 resigned members
10 deceased members
52 people have been members
51 people have been rejected
Interesting letters: issues 1 and 2 don’t have them.
But issue 3 begins what is a true godsend for me, because the letters page begins with a summary of the previous events. And I suppose they added it because there are several letters in future issues complaining that readers can’t UNDERSTAND WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING, so at least I’m not the one confused by the writing!!!
Mark Waid takes full responsibility as the editor for the decision to restart the book at number 1.
Considering he says that a big reason for this was leaving the Levitz run intact, I kind of wonder if he didn’t like the creative decisions of the writing team.
THE ONE TIME editorial interference would have PREVENTED screwing up the Legion and he didn’t take it!
Considering Waid will be the main creative force behind the next TWO reboots, the first one going through great lengths to distance itself from 5YL… food for thought.
Mark Waid needs little introduction to readers of superhero comics.
But Al Gordon and the Bierbaums are mostly known for the 5YL run… the Bierbaums especially… so this is how they are introduced.
That’s not a particularly big resumé for the creative team of a book that DC was really hyping, so I’m guessing they were really counting on Giffen’s popularity.
Tom liking Matter-Eater Lad and Ultra Boy is not surprising, considering they will get a lot of attention in this era.
Mary liking Mon-El tracks for the same reason, although I am a bit more surprised by Saturn Girl since I don’t remember her being a big part of the era.
Placing Dev-Em on the top three favorite characters is WILD… he BARELY showed up in Legion stories!!!
I liked that some things are just hinted at, for readers to figure out on their own. As I said before, that drew me in at this time.
What definitely seems like Sun Boy character assassination at this point in the series takes on a different tone in issue # 28, which is one of my favorites, a great use of the medium to get into the character’s head.
IIRC, issue # 2, in which the text piece of Tinya’s “death” appeared, was published simultaneously with L.E.G.I.O.N. # 9, in which she appears in the 20th century as Phase.
Totally agree about the Blok-Strata thing. That made no sense.
And yes, Superboy is retconned out by issue # 4, but he’s a little retconned back in in issue # 13, in a very confusing way. The 2995 Mayfair Sourcebook tries to make that make sense, but I thought they did a ham-handed job. Back then, I had written a Windows Help file as a reference to the Legion (don’t know if you’d been aware of it, it has made the rounds in Legion fandom), which included certain implicit replacements in stories that were affected due to these retcons, and I came up with my own version of the re-insertion of Superboy into Legion history. For what it’s worth, Mark Waid (I corresponded with him on CompuServe. Does this date me, or what?) said he liked my version better.
This era has my favorite version of Sun Boy, full stop. I never felt like any other era had done anything interesting with him and he was at worst a sleaze that didn’t care about his preexisting relationships. v4 #28 is one of my favorite Legion issues period.
I feel like I’m going to seriously disagree with fans of issue 28… but I have point out that the “Sun Boy is a sleaze” part of his characterization didn’t come out until Volume 3.
I really don’t get why Volume 4 and some fans treat him as some kind of monster, but we’ll get into details once we get to #28.
Blok was the first new legionnaire I got to see inducted, so his death was quite a blow to me. Symbolically, it makes sense to kill him off. The most innocent legionnaire’s death symbolizes the death of the Legion’s more innocent eras. The creators probably didn’t intend for his butchering to symbolize their butchery of the Legion as a whole.
Did Blok have a death-vision of Strata or were the readers treated to a flashback scene where Blok met Strata days or months before his murder? We’ll never know. Readers of L.E.G.I.O.N. will learn that Strata and Blok aren’t the last of their kind. There are subterranean Dryadians like Green Lantern Brik.
It’s ironic that the classic legionnaires rarely use their codenames in this era, but new legionnaire Kono rarely uses her real name. In a less crowded era, where she had time to tone down her misandry a bit (or at least suffer the occasional negative consequence of it), I probably would have come to like Kono better than I did.
Shvaughn is said to be “20 sola-years. ” Readers can be forgiven for not picking up on this reference because, to my knowledge, it was used only once. In Superboy # 191. Sun Boy was said to be 11 sola-years old. A footnote told is this is 17/18 earth years. Who knows what the equivalent of 20 sola-years would be?
If 11 sola years equals 17.5 Earth years, then 1 sola year equals 1.59 Earth years and 20 sola-years equals 31.8 Earth years. That makes much more sense.
Another hallmark of this era is deep cuts like this, without any footnotes. What a way to be inclusive to new readers.
A deep cut would have been something like the name of her planet of birth being a place mentioned once in a different story that didn’t feature her.
This is just making nonsense for the sake of a reference: “sola-years” are not used as measure of time anywhere else in the story or the previous ones, they ALWAYS use “years”.
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for ONE panel using sola-years when the characters consistently use years.
That’s just bad writing.
I agree that “sola-years” was unnecessary. Looking through the review, I see that Giffen put in a lot of “Easter Eggs” from past stories. I’m not sure if this was an attempt to appeal to fans (especially trivia-minded fans) or an effort to make the Legion’s universe seem more real and cohesive with past stories. To me, it came across as an unnecessary device borrowed from Watchmen (like the grid). Moore and Gibbons famously put in a lot of background details that can be tracked from issue to issue. But while this device added depth to Watchmen’s world, here it makes things unnecessarily complicated in an story that is already too complicated.
Thanks for figuring this out.
It would have been science fiction-like if they had used this measurement consistently, but I believe it was used only once before. Like slang expressions such as “cool up,” it was attempt to make things sound futuristic that didn’t catch on.
I’m never been a huge follower of DC, but I do know they learned all the wrong lessons from Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns and spent the next several decades amping up the grimdark to really prove they weren’t the company of Batman 66 anymore (ah! The joys of seeing Ted Kord’s brains being blown out, Phantom Lady being graphically impaled, and Superboy-Prime ripping people’s arms off and beating the Golden Age Superman to death – and that’s just a tiny smattering of the fun from just one crossover).
I’m wondering if the eradication of any semblance of fun from the Legion was the one of the first symptoms of the DarkGrittyitis that would infect DC and become especially virulent during the Didio era?
I didn’t diislike this run nearly as much as you did. The unfortunate squishy faces notwithstanding, I actually thought Giffen’s art looked much better than it had for some time, although I disliked the Grid immensely.
I felt this run was meant for long-term readers (like the Bierbaums) more than it was for new readers, so as a long-term reader myself I actually had some fun piecing things together from the clues the stories offered. I thought the first issue was very dull, but that things picked up quite a bit in issues #2 and #3. The two issues after these are the highlight of the run, but then it takes until the Terra Mosaic for things really to be interesting again.