Legion of Super-Heroes vol4 #61

Legion of Super-Heroes vol4 #61 (1994)
written by Mark Waid & Tom McCraw
pencils and cover by Stuart Immonen
“special thanks” to Kurt Busiek

All good things must come to an end. You decide whether the 5 Years Later is in that category, but it’s ending nonetheless.

I’m not 100% convinced this issue counts as the ending of the original version of the Legion, since this era made SO MANY retcons and changes, but it’s the closest thing to that.
So it’s appropriate to dedicate the issue to the people who have written the best and most influential Legion stories up to this point, and the Bierbaums.

As a reminder, since it’s been a while.
R.J. Brande and the Legion recovered the Earth from the Pocket Universe in order to land the New Earth cities there. Unfortunately the new version of Earth is unstable and will soon explode, now that Mordru has been trapped inside it.

The situation is REALLY bad, and the Legion is also stranded thanks to the Legion Cruiser being swallowed by lava.
Kind of impressive to manage that when they have TWO Element Lads.

The four Legionnaires who participated in Zero Hour… the SW6 founders and Ultra Boy… now return to the 30th century, following Zero Hour #2.

Seems like Dragonmage was rebooted last time. Either I didn’t notice or even the writers didn’t care for him enough… which checks out, considering what an insipid character he turned out to be.

That’s when the Time Trapper shows up to explain everything…

…followed by Cosmic Boy.
Figuring out how these scenes fit within Zero Hour is probably a lost cause, due to the broken time thing, but he was WITH the other Legionnaires AND the Time Trapper the last time we saw him.

From her perspective, Night Girl has believed her husband was dead for several days.
From his perspective, Cosmic Boy has been away from his wife for… decades? Centuries?
And their reunion only lasts a second before she’s rebooted.

This is even more tragic than Cosmic Boy realizes, because Night Girl is only as a very minor character in the Reboot and Threeboot (does her version on those continuity even meet him?).
They’ll have to wait the Retroboot in 2007.

Not having read Zero Hour, SW6 Matter-Eater Lad is understandably confused.

30 years after his first appearance, the Legion finally sees what’s beneath the hood of the Time Trapper.

Cosmic Boy explains (to an unbelieving SW6 Ultra Boy) what happened to him in the Infinite Library.

The Time Trapper then explains that Glorith and Mordru had screwed up time SO much that they were going to completely ruin the timestream, but the unexpected Zero Hour presents a possibility.
Knowing how the Legion was not INITIALLY supposed to be rebooted after Zero Hour, you can certainly read a bit of meta-commentary here…

…about how all these retcons in general, and the decision to split the team into two separate versions, was going to destroy the franchise. Which might now be saved by streamlining it into a single version.
I might be reading too much into this, or perhaps the writers are doing this unintentionally, but if you think about it the metaphor does make a certain amount of sense.

During his explanation, Kent Shakespeare… who had been turned into a kid by Glorith… is rebooted in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.

The Dream Girls are not very reassuring.

That’s a bit too much exposition, so to keep the scene a bit more visually interesting SUDDEN LAVA!!!

Since the Time Trapper’s plan requires fusing multiple versions of the Legionnaires, however, two inconsistencies are immediately noticed.
The first one is Sun Boy: how can the SW6 version merge with the original, since he’s dead?

Well… remember how when Wildfire returned, I made it a point to warn his fans that they shouldn’t be TOO happy about it?

Because ever since his return, Wildfire has been possessing the still burning corpse of Sun Boy.
We just can’t get his gruesome death behind, can’t we? We are LITERALLY parading his corpse around!!!

I’m pretty sure this was the plan all along.
Back in issue 50, right before Wildfire’s return, we DID see reanimated body approaching one of the tombs in Shanghalla.

Now Wildfire’s comments in issue 52 and issue 59 make way more sense.

Back to the story, the other missing double is Phantom Girl… since the original is supposed to be dead, now that we’ve established that Phase from L.E.G.I.O.N. is not her.
But at this point I think that everyone has moved past caring, so the Time Trapper resurrects the original right in front of her SW6 version.

In case you’re confused… I don’t know how, everything’s been super clear… Phantom Girl skipped THE ENTIRE Five Years Later era.
And somehow her first question upon seeing Ultra Boy isn’t “What are you wearing???”.

And now, one after the other, several Legionnaires are rebooted together.

I really like the perspective of the Element Lads, happy that they don’t go out as the last survivor of their own race. We’ll see him again in the Reboot, but it will take some time.

Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass follow.
They will both be MAJOR characters in the Reboot from the start; despite what the fandom pushed for, they won’t be a couple there… in fact DC won’t have the courage to acknowledge them as a couple for a shamefully long time.

Then it’s up to Triplicate Girl, who will immediately be an important part of the Reboot.

Followed by Bouncing Boy. He will be back in the Reboot as a civilian; he doesn’t have powers there, as he was considered “too silly”.

Star Boy and Dream Girl go out exactly as you expect they would.
They will both return for the Reboot, although for Dream Girl will take A LOT of time for her to be an actual member.

Brainiac 5 will also be in the Reboot (would it even be the Legion without him?), while Matter-Eater Lad will meet the same fate of Bouncing Boy: “too silly” to be a member, he will be relegated to a supporting character. Although unlike Bouncing Boy he won’t get much to do.

One by one, almost everyone in the team joins his/her counterpart to be rebooted.
This takes up a few pages, and I have to guess that the moment must have been underwhelming to any reader that wasn’t a longtime Legion fan.
But it’s treated as a very respectful and somber occasion, a goodbye to characters that had been around for decades in KIND OF the same version
Having seen other Legion continuities end, this is a luxury not afforded to them.

In total, the above scenes about counterparts merge reboot TWENTY-FOUR Legionnaires.
Appropriately, all who remain are the three founders and their SW6 counterparts.
Well, as far as THIS issue is concerned… see the final comments for those left behind.

The goal of this plan is to prevent the recreation of Glorith, Mordru and the Time Trapper himself once time is restored.
This will work partially, since both Mordru and the Time Trapper WILL show up in the Reboot… but hey at least we got rid of Glorith, who will NOT return!!!
Well, there IS a character in the Reboot who is widely speculated to be a younger version of Glorith destined to become her, but mercifully it never goes that far.

The Time Trapper leaves, to be killed off in Zero Hour #1.
We see a repeat of a scene from there, but this time SW6 Saturn Girl doesn’t do a weird pose.

And so, the three old friends say goodbye one last time. Despite everything that happened, they would gladly do it all over again.

Quite a journey from three people who shared the same panel for the first time 36 years earlier.

To close off the era, we have a two-page spread celebrating the team’s history.

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Interesting to note that only ONE of these final moments is from the 5YL era.

Two moments from Volume 3 are included: the swearing of new recruits from LSH v3 #14 and Karate Kid’s last stand from LSH v3 #4.

Surprisingly only one is from the Hamilton run: Lightning Lad’s resurrection from Adventure Comics #312. I guess it was inevitable, given that Proty is one of the last three Legion members thanks to that stupid retcon.

Two moments are from the Shooter run. One needs little introduction, being Ferro Lad’s sacrifice from Adventure Comics #353.

The other is a bit surprising. It’s from Mordru’s original story Adventure Comics #369, something you’d expect.
What you would NOT expect would be representing the panel focusing on Triplicate Girl.
Not a bad choice, considering that was the moment she became an actual character.

The moment chosen to represent the 5YL era from the last page of Volume 4 issue 1.
Unlike the others it’s not a recreation of the same panel: it’s flipped, showing them facing the reader instead of walking away.

The last panel represented in the double-page spread is the team’s origin from Superboy #147.

I admire the restraint of not choosing any moment from the Great Darkness Saga. Considering it was, and still is, the Legion’s most famous storyline by a considerable margin.

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The last line of dialogue of the original Legion had to be its catchphrase.

And with that final throwback to the origins… we fade to white.

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And speaking of last times…

1 page with The Grid
17 pages without a grid
3 splash pages
2 double splash pages
no text pages

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Legion significance: ???/10
Does this category even make sense, considering it’s the last chapter of this continuity?
The Retroboot will pick up the Legion from when the ending of Volume 3 left off (plus a few retcons, because of course) and will completely skip the entirety of Volume 4.

Depression scale: 3/10
It’s a bittersweet ending, but it does close on a positive and hopeful note.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
The way everything is explained in a rush at the end is a bit Silver Age, but in addition to the gruesomeness of Wildfire possessing the corpse of Sun Boy this is one of the rare occasions where the Silver Age would have been MORE cohesive.
As much as I make fun of its inconsistencies, to be fair the Silver Age was surprisingly stable in how its time travel rules worked… and this one seems to be all over the place on that regard.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Standing on its own, it’s not much of a story. Not a whole lot happens, most characters are there just to say goodbye, and a large percentage of the book is one big infodump.
The first time I read this story, it was more than a little underwhelming. But with some historical perspective… as the ending to a continuity, it could have been FAR worse.
As of 2025, this is the only instance of a Legion continuity getting a true finale!
The “real” original continuity, whether you count it as ending with Crisis or with the ending of Volume 3, never got an ending unless you consider THIS to be its ending.
Both the Reboot and the Threeboot will end with “Legion of Three Worlds”, which I have VERY STRONG opinions about… and as a finale to these two continuities it’s an insulting travesty.
The Retroboot and the Bendis Legion never got a true ending either, as far as I know.
As an ending to a continuity, Volume 4 #61 does a lot of things right that “Legion of Three Worlds” will COMPLETELY botch.
It pays homage to its rich and complex history, taking the time to give one last scene to every character. Most of which are at least somewhat uplifting; none of them are gruesome deaths for shock value or character assassinations. And most importantly the Legion is the protagonist, without additional characters taking the spotlight, and it’s not constantly thrashing the current version to hype the next upcoming continuity.
It’s easy to take those basic things for granted, but a Legion finale could have been MUCH worse in my opinion.
I know this might sound like false praise… I hated most of this era and I’m giving a high score to the issue that ends it all… but it made me nostalgic for the characters we’re leaving behind AND thrilled to see the new version, which was exactly what the story was set up to do.

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We are legion

Housecleaning from Legionnaires #18: I missed Timber Wolf being rebooted.

This issue has A LOT of changes to the roster, as you noticed.
Returning to active duty: Cosmic Boy, Phantom Girl (only to be rebooted!)
Rebooted: Dragonmage, Kent Shakespeare, and 24 couples in the mass reboot.
Finally, the founders and their SW6 counterparts are rebooted.

You would think this would leave with zero active members, but there are THREE that we never get to see rebooted!!!
Celeste Rockfish was last seen in Valor #23 (she’s the bald one), but she’s not in this issue and she’s never shown being rebooted.

I could not see SW6 Invisible Kid in that story (ironically), but he WAS in Legionnaires #19; he’s not seen being rebooted afterwards.

Most bizarre, Chameleon Boy was last seen in LSH v4 #60 and he’s never seen again in the following chapters, without explanation.

Because we never see them being rebooted, I am considering the final members of the original incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes to be Chameleon Boy, Celeste Rockfish and SW6 Invisible Kid… ironically (and certainly by complete chance) we ended up with 3 members, exactly like we started.

That leaves the last entry of the 5YL membership as:

3 active Legionnaires. Of these, 1 is in the “Legionnaires” team.
no reserve members
11 resigned members
20 deceased members
58 rebooted members
92 people have been members
68 people have been rejected

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That was simultaneously anticlimactic and more meaningful than I expected.
In real life, the Legion of Super-Heroes returned with a new continuity the following month.
For this retrospective it will take a bit longer, since I have A LOT of post-series analysis before we can start the Reboot.