Valor #23

Valor #23 (1994)
by Kurt Busiek & Colleen Doran
cover by Stuart Immonen

After what really feels like an eternity, the Valor series finally ends.

Mon-El starts to get rebooted, but Shadow Lass is able to bring him back like he did with her in the previous issue.

Nice detail showing she cut her little finger all the way back in vol3 #52. It’s not always easy to spot the detail.

Mon-El is able to get a few glimpses of his past and of potential alternate realities.

Even her love isn’t enough to avoid his reboot, but he does get saved. We’ll see shortly by who.

After gaining total control over time thanks to the power they stole from Infinite Man, Mordru and Glorith resort to shoot generic energy beams.
Because these two never fail to disappoint.

That’s when we learn who saved Mon-El: it’s the original Superboy!
See, there WAS a reason why I included him in the membership count.
And he shows up with a pose that has all the stiffness of John Forte artwork and none of the charm.

Here’s how much the Legion of this era sucks.
They know Mordru’s one weakness is being buried, and in fact in the past he’s been defeated by Element Lad creating a planet around him.
Now they have TWO Element Lads, and not only they couldn’t think of doing this before…

…but they immediately drop the ball.

I’m with Superboy. This is my reaction to 99% of what happens in the 5YL era.

I don’t get this. The strategy on Mordru was working, why are you giving up!?
You wouldn’t need a symbolic victory IF YOU ACTUALLY TRIED.

The alleged Big Bad of this entire era, everybody.

If Mordru alone is as bad as him and Glorith together, doesn’t that imply that she contributes nothing?
Which… yeah that’s EXACTLY MY POINT, but it’s so weird to see the comic agreeing that its biggest threat sucks.

With Glorith unconscious, the time energy she absorbed from Infinite Man is leaking.
Sounds legit.

When Mon-El attempts to absorb the power himself, the two Dream Girls stop him in what is easily the most Dream Girl moment of this era.

And in typical 5YL fashion, this accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Wait, I’m confused. If Mon-El is using the Infinite Man power to fight Mordru, why exactly were the Dream Girls trying to stop him?

SW6 Brainiac 5 deduces that the best course of action is giving ALL the power to Mordru, while the regular Brainiac 5 is a bit slower to get it.
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate what this era did to my boy Brainy?

As dumb as the journey to get here was (and it was VERY dumb), the resolution is actually clever.
Brainy deduced that Mordru’s claustrophobia could be triggered…

…by making him bigger than the universe.

Is this the final defeat of the original version of Mordru?

NOPE.
You guys suck at this, you must know that at this point right?

Good news: Mordru is trapped beneath the Pocket Universe Earth.
Bad news: he’s going to get out once it explodes.
Worse news: that’s where the population of New Earth currently resides.

You might think that I’m being too harsh on the Legionnaires, but in the middle of that battle nobody noticed Shadow Lass being hit.

Which leads to both of them being rebooted.
That’s particularly sad with the knowledge of future incarnations, because while they will both be back in all new versions of the Legion… as of 2025, they haven’t returned as a couple.

But that’s fine, because Superboy gives them an inspirational speech!

Only to be rebooted.

But despite that, the Legion is now galvanized to find a way to save the day.

---

That was the final page. But just like last time, in parallel to all this we have the continuing plot about Cosmic Boy… and once again, it’s by far the most interesting part.
Which is the Time Trapper explaining his actions over the decades.

First of all, we learn that the entire reason he became the Time Trapper was preventing Zero Hour.

That’s also the origin of the Time Trapper’s fixation with the Legion…

…and the creation of the SW6 Batch.

We also have a formal acknowledgement that the SW6 timeline makes no sense, to the point that the Time Trapper had to make things way too complicated.

After all this time, that’s the official explanation of what the SW6 Batch was.
Although honestly it was pretty easy to figure out once Glorith confirmed they aren’t clones and that time manipulation was involved.

Why would the Time Trapper even need time stasis pods?

After all this is a guy who could CREATE A WHOLE UNIVERSE on his own!!!
In the only good panel of the issue, by the way.

Leading to the biggest understatement of the history of the universe.

This contextualizes ALL the times the Time Trapper showed up as twisted ways to eventually save the Legion.

And only making things worse.

This eventually lead the Time Trapper to completely lose sanity.

Which is fitting since insanity is the only thing that can explain Adventure Comics #338.

There’s potentially some meta-commentary here, in how continuously introducing retcons damaged the Legion beyond repair.
Notice that the reason given for Mordru being such a challenge to the Time Trapper is that he’s in a weakened state… so much for the 5YL attempt to make them equals.

Confusingly (but that’s a given with the Time Trapper), this is happen simultaneously to him being attacked in Zero Hour.
Whose first issue shared the publishing date with this comic, and which will get its own review.

The last hope of the Time Trapper lies in Cosmic Boy…

…as he reveals his true face. Which we don’t see here: that will be in Zero Hour.
(once again, no spoilers in the comments)

---

Superboy v4 #8 (1994)
by Karl Kesel & Tom Grummett

Superboy didn’t get rebooted IMMEDIATELY: he was first thrown back into the 20th century to fight the post-Crisis Superboy.

Which is a neat story, but the Legion connection is quite flimsy so I’m not going to review it.
It’s kind of the reverse of the original Pocket Universe storyline, since this time it’s the original Superboy discovering the post-Crisis reality.

This results in, what else, a super fight.

But eventually the two patch things through.

It’s a neat passing of the torch moment.
By far the best way to deal with any of the Legionnaires who are being rebooted, which is no surprise since it’s happening in a GOOD series.

---

Legion significance: 6/10
The explanation for what the SW6 Legion is, and half of the new origin of the Time Trapper.

Depression scale: 6/10
Despite all the inspirational speeches, the heroes don’t accomplish much.

Silver Age-ness: 8/10
The all-powerful sorceress being defeated by a bonk in the head is extremely Silver Age.

Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Once again I find the Time Trapper scenes to be the only ones remotely interesting.
This batch of retcons turns him into a truly tragic figure who has been constantly attempting to save the day, only to screw up time and his sanity so much that he goes mad.
It doesn’t entirely work as a retcon, but it does have a built-in excuse for any inconsistency thanks to the idea of the Time Trapper’s actions unraveling time.
Still, it is one long infodump with Cosmic Boy providing almost no commentary: it’s not enough to overcome the rest of the story.
Now that we’ve reached the final issue, I think we can easily call Valor a complete failure as a series. The first issues were trying to turn the 20th century version into an appealing character, but clearly had no idea how to accomplish that or of what made Mon-El a beloved character.Killing
him off to replace him with the SW6 version (which is already a confusing mess on its own) was one of the most baffling editorial decisions I’ve ever seen… one that ended up meaning absolutely nothing. The last issues aren’t even really Mon-El stories, but Legion story that give Mon-El a bit of focus.

---

We are legion
Shadow Lass and Mon-El are rebooted. Superboy was already counted as dead.

33 active Legionnaires. Of these, 17 are in the “Legionnaires” team
1 in sick leave (Kent Shakespeare)
1 presumed dead (Cosmic Boy)
no reserve members
12 resigned members
46 deceased or rebooted members (25 are rebooted)
92 people have been members
68 people have been rejected

---

There is still ONE issue of Legion of Super-Heroes left, but before that we’ll have to go through Zero Hour… and before THAT I’ll have to tackle the incredibly confusing origins of its first main villain. Assuming I understand it myself.