Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #5 (1990)
story by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, Tom & Mary Bierbaum
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Keith Giffen
Welcome to one of the most confusing parts of the Legion’s history… which is saying something.
Pray for me.
After Mon-El killed the Time Trapper last issue, the Legion has been removed from history.
This has resulted in changing history so that Mordru took over the United Planets in the past.
Which means things are even more depressing than they already were.
So now we have an unrecognizable Ferro Lad teaming up with an unrecognizable White Witch, in an unrecognizable 30th century.
Full disclaimer: I have never been able to UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON in this story.
I’ve had to resort to other people summarizing this to understand that in this alternate reality a bunch of people who used to be Legionnaires in the old one (including an unrecognizable Rond Vidar) are staging a conspiracy to change things back to how they were.
This story reintroduces a character that will be the bane of my existence during this era: Glorith.
Remember her from aaaaaaall the way back in Adventure Comics #338 ? She was the Time Trapper’s follower.
This era has an unexplainable fascination with Glorith, who in this reality somehow ended up as Mordru’s wife.
And I have no idea why. From her original story I had the impression that Glorith was from the Legion’s future… with him removed from the timeline, how did she end up in the 30th century?
On the other hand, if she’s a native… why exactly would make her important enough for Mordru? Separated from the Time Trapper she shouldn’t have any powers.
Yeah sure she’s a beautiful woman, but in this reality she isn’t even Mordru’s ONLY wife.
Also unexplained: how can Rond Vidar have ANY clues about the previous timeline?
The plan is to have White Witch SOMEHOW tap into Mordru’s mind while he’s sleeping, and doing something that involves Rond Vidar as well.
Don’t ask me what it is.
Through this mind link they’re able to see Mordru’s memories of the previous timeline (I THINK).
Which involves watching the Time Trapper bringing into the 30th century the Durlan that would become R.J.Brande, and bring Phase into the past.
To understand any of this you are REQUIRED to be reading the L.E.G.I.O.N. book. Which is already bad on its own, but you also have to take into consideration that THERE IS NO FOOTNOTE FOR THIS.
In theory, watching a revived Ferro Lad have adventures in a post-apocalyptic pseudo-medieval setting should at least be interesting. But that would require being able to UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON, and this issue continuously loses me.
Glorith finds out the plan because she’s been keeping tabs on White Witch, and kidnapping Rond Vidar is the last step.
I hate the grid so much.
To the best of my understanding, because this comic refuses to EXPLAIN ANYTHING, Glorith will undergo some kind of ritual that will turn her into the next Time Trapper.
Somehow.
A spell that requires her to draw some symbols with her blood.
I just have to point out that this is BY FAR the reality where Mordru is at the height of his power… and he loses everything while he’s asleep.
Mordru continues to be one of the greatest disappointments of my entire retrospective.
The spell works… kind of. This reality where Mordru is in control disappears, to be replaced with a new timeline that is close to what used to be but that will include MANY retcons.
And since its created by Glorith, the new timeline is sometimes called the “Glorithverse”.
The Grid: 25 pages out of 26
no pages without a perfect grid
2 splash pages
1 text page
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #6 (1990)
story by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, Tom & Mary Bierbaum
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Keith Giffen
So now we’re entering a new timeline, removing all nasty continuity hiccups inherited by the mishandling of the Crisis. Sounds like a good point to introduce the Legion to new readers, so let’s avoid giving any idea of this on the cover.
We begin with Sun Boy introducing us to private investigator Celeste Rockfish, who will become an important supporting character, and who has been hired to find the truth about the murder of Blok.
This era will treat Sun Boy like absolute crap, so enjoy a rare moment of him being a freaking human being for once.
Even if he’s being manipulated by supervillain Circe, who works for the Dominators.
Who don’t want to be publicly linked to Roxxas, even if they were the ones to set him free.
We then meet Mordru, who in this reality never conquered the United Planets but still managed to take over the planet Tharn.
Chameleon Boy came to this planet with what he hopes to turn into a new Legion, and Ultra Boy has brought Kono with him.
In case you forgot she comes from a world where women have all the power, don’t you worry: she’s going to remind you. EVERY. OTHER. PANEL.
I’M NOT KIDDING. This gets annoying, FAST.
Which is too bad because Kono’s irreverent nature CAN deliver some good scenes!
Also she’s brought Furball with her. We’ll learn his deal later in this review.
I’ve said before that I like characters that are insufferable in-universe, but Kono takes this too far for me. It’s not because she thinks “fems” are inherently superior to males, but it’s because of just how relentless the story is in reminding you.
EVERY SINGLE PAGE with her is “Remember how she thinks fems are superior? Remember that? We’re so clever and edgy!”
Then everyone is forced to revisit their most painful memories. For Kono, it’s witnessing her mother being brutalized and presumably raped before her eyes when Kono was just five years old.
For Chameleon Boy, it’s having to murder his own brother back on his home planet.
Don’t worry, you haven’t forgotten an old story: this is a retcon.
For Ultra Boy, confusingly it’s not really a memory of when he was swallowed by the Space Whale that gave him superpowers… he’s hallucinating the corpse of Phantom Girl as well.
Cosmic Boy is re-living his war days, but understands Mordru is changing the visions to make them more painful by adding his dead brother.
For Furball, it’s the memory of being hit with too much radiation during something called Black Dawn (which we’ll revisit later in the era)… back when he used to be Timber Wolf.
The would-be Legionnaires are not the only ones experiencing the visions: there’s also the White Witch… who is now one of Mordru’s concubines, continuing her character assassination.
Meanwhile a mysterious blonde decides to get involved.
And we close with a new character deciding to visit Element Lad’s planet.
Meet journalist Devlin O’Ryan, who will also become an important character.
The text pages, in addition to telling us how Mordru took over Tharn, tell us that in this new timeline Glorith had several fights with Mon-El in the 20th century.
And it also “explains” some of the Eltro Gand nonsense from issue 4.
It’s also retconning Dev-Em as being a Daxamite instead of a Kryptonian. We’ll see him again in this era, but of course he will be unrecognizable.
Also important from this story: it begins the era not edited by Mark Waid.
The Grid: 21 pages out of 26
no pages without a perfect grid
2 splash pages
1 text page
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #7 (1990)
story by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, Tom & Mary Bierbaum
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils and cover by Keith Giffen
The cover is a good representation of having to power through many 5YL issues at once.
The blonde coming to rescue the would-be Legionnaires is Laurel Gand, the Daxamite equivalent of Supergirl for this era.
She’s mostly here for Rond Vidar since apparently they were a couple, and she fights a servant of Mordru who also happens to be a vampire.
His powers seem to be a match for her buttshots.
And then this comic does one of the most baffling things I have ever seen… the talk between Mordru and Cosmic Boy is done IN PROSE.
WHY IS THIS IN A COMIC BOOK???
The reason why the would-be Legionnaires came to Thran was apparently to recruit White Witch (who OF COURSE is unrecognizable)… and if I’m reading this correctly, she went to Mordru WILLINGLY with the intent to redeem him.
Ladies and gentlemen, the character assassination is complete.
WHY IS THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN COSMIC BOY AND MORDRU IN PROSE?????
Laurel gets the team to safety…
…and when the vampire tries to kill Rond Vidar, he discovers she replaced him with Chameleon Boy at super-speed.
They are then allowed to leave the planet unharmed by Mordru, meaning THE RESOLUTION IS IN A FREAKING PROSE PAGE.
This is ESPECIALLY irritating because it was supposed to be the turning point of Cosmic Boy, who managed to negotiate with Mordru despite losing his powers… and WE DID NOT GET TO SEE IT.
So what have we seen of the all-powerful Mordru so far?
In a timeline where he’s conquered the universe, he’s defeated in his sleep.
And facing a ragtag team of nearly broken heroes, he capitulated OFF-PANEL.
At the end of the story we have an advertisement that finally EXPLAINS SOMETHING about the Probes.
For reference, 3 million megabytes are about 2.86 terabytes. An astronomical amount for 1990, but not that futuristic for 2025.
The Grid: 19 pages out of 25
no pages without a perfect grid
0 splash pages
6 text page
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #8 (1990)
story by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, Tom & Mary Bierbaum
dialogue by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils by Chris Sprouse (flashbacks) & Keith Giffen (present)
cover by Curt Swan & Keith Giffen
Let’s close this batch by establishing the NEW origins of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Aside from an introductory page and an epilogue, Chris Sprouse takes over the artwork… which means WE’RE FREE FROM THE GRID!!!
The flashback is narrated by Marla (R.J.Brande’s assistant, who debuted in Ultra Boy’s first story) and begins with him meeting a Durlan when he was just a dock worker.
Said Durlan has amnesia, because he’s THE Durlan from L.E.G.I.O.N. (not that we’re given a footnote, of course!). And he gets sent back to Durla.
In his time on his home planet, R.J. conceived the future Chameleon Boy.
It’s interesting to see this framed as the two Durlans “impregnating each other”, as we’ll later be told that gender is VERY complicated for them.
This tells us that the Durlan woman we saw in LSH #263 was really Chameleon Boy’s aunt, not his mother. It also talks about his brother Liggt that was introduced, and killed, in the previous issues.
The rest proceeds as per the pre-Crisis continuity: now stuck in human form, the Durlan takes the name R.J.Brande and becomes immensely rich.
Aside from showing him appearing with amnesia, the story completely ignores the fact that he’s been time-displaced from the 20th century… in fact, that retcon adds ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the character!!!
Unfortunately R.J. is not the only Durlan stuck in human form, and his associate Doyle is more trouble than he’s worth.
As Doyle gets more and more unhinged, R.J.Brande is focused on the 20th century exploits of Mon-El. Something that, I should point out, has not been clearly established in the series yet.
You know the rest. Just substitute Superboy with Mon-El (who is going by his real name of Lar Gand, but I refuse to call him anything but Mon-El).
The Legionnaires reacting unenthusiastically to the original costumes got a chuckle out of me.
In case you were wondering, we’re ALREADY ignoring the Secret Origins #46 retcons.
Even Marla can’t find a reason to consider Triplicate Girl a valuable addition to the team.
Marla is the one to recruit Chameleon Boy. I like this WAY better than the original revelation that R.J. created the Legion because he hoped his son would join.
In the epilogue, the would-be Legionnaires are watching Laurel’s thong fight some Khunds.
Future letters will complain a lot about Laurel going REALLY overboard with the fanservice.
Also she’s had a kid with Rond Vidar.
Laurel’s daughter is called Lauren, because that’s not going to be confusing.
The Grid: 19 pages out of 25
no pages without a perfect grid
0 splash pages
6 text page
This time I’m doing the letters before the votes because they will help me explain my position.
I agree with Dick 1,000%. I cannot stress enough just how difficult it is to UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON in this series, and even after doing a deep dive into the entire Legion history I still have trouble navigating the references!
If the letters page is anything to go by, I’m not the one with the same complaint.
We also have an insight of how many positive and negative letters were received.
I still have a hard time understanding people who were enthusiastic about the changes from Volume 3 to Volume 4.
In fact I wholeheartedly agree with Monte Wilson’s letter.
The comparison between The Grid and Watchmen was already being done in 1990. I hope I’ve gone into sufficient detail to explain why that’s not a good comparison, but… why is “It doesn’t read like a comic book” a positive thing for a comic book???
Looks like The Grid was generally disliked.
I forgot to comment the little detail of calling Brainiac 5 a X.D. instead of a Ph.D, but I really like the idea.
Charles’s letter is why I moved this section before the votes. Because while issue 4 gave me hope for the Legion, had I been a regular reader at the time I would also have dropped the book after the incomprehensible issue 5.
Legion significance
#5: 10/10
It’s part of why any Legion-related thing until 1994 exists. So it’s essential reading… despite being nearly unreadable.
#6-7: 2/10
While technically introducing Laurel Gand, Celeste Rockfish and Devlin O’Ryan, they’re not exactly developed.
#8: 4/10
Some consolidation between various continuities, but not too much new stuff.
Silver Age-ness
#5-6-7: 0/10
#8: 2/10
A bit of the old magic shows up during the flashback. That’s about it.
Depression scale
#5: 10/10
#6-7: 9/10
As dark and oppressive as they come, but at least in issue 7 there’s SOME hope.
#8: 1/10
R.J.Brande’s backstory is still quite tragic, but holy crap is this a breath of fresh air!!!
Does it stand the test of time?
#5: 0/10
A controversial opinion, since I know that many Legion readers hold this issue in high regard.
I absolutely hate it.
I found it too hard to follow, too mean-spirited, too oppressive, too unrelated to anything else.
#6: 4/10
Things are improving slightly, as we finally get SOME backstory for SOME events and the plot is moving forward, even if it’s a glacial pace. But we also introduce new subplots despite not having closed a single one.
#7: 0/10
There are a couple of good moments. But the prose pages are a crime against comics and an insult to the reader. Laurel’s introduction is also very clumsy and not very compelling; mercifully she will improve.
#8: 8/10
What is this? Artwork that is allowed to be bright and have creative layouts instead of the oppressive Grid? A story you can actually follow, with understandable dialogues and recognizable characters? A plot that has a point and isn’t meandering? What’s it doing in THIS volume???
We are legion
The Legion is still officially disbanded. But now that Laurel Gand is retroactively added to the continuity, I’m including her among the resigned members.
0 active Legionnaires
0 reserve members
43 resigned members
10 deceased members
53 people have been members
51 people have been rejected
I see Keith Giffen discovered he liked drawing butts.