LEGION AWARDS: 5YL, Part 2

We’re finally, and I do mean FINALLY at the end of the Five Years Later era.
I didn’t start with the goal of completing this within a year, but I’ve hated so much of this period that speeding through it as fast as possible became inevitable.

To be clear, this award session follows only the post-Giffen part of the era.
The first half of the 5YL had its own awards.
And the second half does have very few defenders: while what came before it has its fair share of diehard fans, I haven’t seen a lot of love for what came after he left.
I’ve made it no secret that my opinion of the Giffen era is somewhere between intense dislike and outright hatred, so what did I think of what came afterwards?

Legion significance: 2/10
Besides providing the visual template for the Reboot look, not much else carries through other eras.
At least in-universe, which is the part that matters the most for this category.
What does carry through is having multiple Legion regular series, something that will stay through the vast majority of the Reboot.

Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Unlike the Giffen era, which went out of its way to be as anti-Silver Age as possible, some of the old-fashioned shenanigans do show up here; mostly on Legionnaires.

Depression scale: 8/10
Hey the planet isn’t going through an apocalypse every other issue and the number of gruesome deaths is way down, so that’s an improvement!
But we have one team of horny teenagers who either don’t accomplish anything or cause more damage than they prevent, and an adult team who either doesn’t do anything or is laughably incompetent at its supposed job.

Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
The Giffen era had, well, Keith Giffen on its side. I might have hated where the series went, but there’s no denying there was an artistic vision.
I can’t say the same for this era. The main series is meandering, the Legionnaires series is moronic, and the Valor series is incomprehensible.
The one redeeming factor, when compared to its predecessor, is the artwork by Stuart Immonen and Jeff Moy… but I don’t think it’s enough.
Immonen is a very good artist but he’s not given enough chances to shine, and there’s no point in checking these issues just for some good Jeff Moy artwork when he’s going to be even better in the Reboot, where he actually gets to work on good stories.
Not to mention that you might be unlucky enough to pick one of the issues with Chris Gardner artwork *shudder*.
Legionnaires is the worst offender here: while the main Legion book suffers from bad… well, almost everything… at least it doesn’t make me actively despise the protagonists.
Both series also utterly fail to do ANYTHING with the premise left by the ending of the previous era. There are SO many fascinating directions to explore the creation of New Earth, and both series decide to take none of them and simply ignore the entire thing.
And don’t even get me started on the various retcons and time travel shenanigans that make these already bad stories way too complicated to follow.
Long story short, I don’t think there’s any reason to go back reading this era unless you’re a very dedicated completionist or a masochist.

And with that out of the way: ladies and gentlemen, let’s suffer through this era one last time with the Legion Awards.

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BEST LEGIONNAIRE

 Out of all the categories for these Awards, I struggled with this one the most because I don’t really like any Legionnaire here.
So I had to take a different approach: I pulled up the list of members and proceeded to remove those who had pissed me off one way or the other.
After that, it wasn’t a long list to work with.

Winner: SW6 Cosmic Boy
He’s the only character on Legionnaires who I don’t dislike and who actually happens to have any amount of decent screen time.
Yep, that’s all it takes to get a good trophy in this era; told you I don’t like anyone.

Runner-up: Shadow Lass
It’s not just because she’s the only one to put Jamm in his place, but it certainly helps.

Third place: SW6 Shrinking Violet
She’s the template for the Reboot version, even more so than the original Violet.
The SW6 version is more one-note than what will follow, but she’s the only character that explores the “teenage hero” angle without devolving into a parody of itself.

Honorable mention: Cosmic Boy
He doesn’t do anything interesting until the very end, but I did find his transformation into the Time Trapper mildly entertaining.

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WORST LEGIONNAIRE

No lack of competition here, but the winners were crystal clear.

Winners: Live Wire
Runner-up: Inferno
I despise these two. Live Wire is stripped of ANY redeeming quality whatsoever: he’s reckless, he’s whiny, he’s manipulative, he’s just all around an awful person.
The same goes for Inferno, but at least he did get a couple of moments where he acts as a human being by helping a Dominator girl.
It can be enjoyable to have a protagonist with a horrible personality, but they have to balance it with something… charisma, comedy, action, anything… and these two simply don’t.

Third place: Dragonmage
He’s not at the top just because being an utter black hole of personality is slightly better than being insultingly annoying.

Dishonorable mention: Catspaw
WE GET IT, she’s horny, can we PLEASE get any other personality trait!?
You know that just because you’re just writing a series starring hormonal braindead teenagers you don’t HAVE to write like a hormonal braindead teenager, right???

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MOST IMPROVED LEGIONNAIRE: Dawnstar
I initially considered doing a whole podium for this category, like last time… but despite the team having more members than ever, I couldn’t think of a single other character that got BETTER from the previous era.
Even though Dawnstar’s improvement is exclusively due to her admitting some mistakes, and by the fact that anything was better than the botched Bounty plot.

 PARTICIPATION TROPHIES

The “Even I Can’t Keep Track Of Who I Am” Trophy: Mon-El and SW6 Mon-El

The “Not Even The Writers Know” Trophy: Phantom Girl

The “I Went To The Past And All I Got Is A Terrible Costume” Trophy: Ultra Boy

The “Not Even My Husband Cried At My Funeral” Trophy: Laurel Gand

The “Not Even Showing Up For The Finale” Trophy: Kent Shakespeare

The “Most Insistent Stalker” Trophy: Spider-Girl

The “I Was Technically A Member” Trophy: Firefist, Veilmist, Blood Claw and Flederweb

The “Did You Even Remember I Was In This?” Trophy: SW6 Star Boy, SW6 Dream Girl, SW6 Bouncing Boy

The “I Was Written Better When I Was Dead” Trophy: SW6 Ferro Lad

I should point out that the 5YL era is the only one where none of my three favorite Legionnaires… Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl and Wildfire… received a single positive trophy.

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BEST NEW LEGIONNAIRE

Winner: Devlin O’Ryan
Technically he becomes a full member in THIS era. By the time he joined I had grown fond of him… and because this era hates me, it decided to completely drop him into the background very soon.

Runner-up: Computo II
She’s the only Legionnaire who is not a copy of a previous member that is not a complete waste.  If only the series did ANYTHING with her, she would be an easy win.

Third place: Spider-Girl
Utterly forgettable, but she didn’t get on my nerves as much as I expected.
Did I mention how little effort it takes to get any positive trophy in this era?

 

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WORST NEW LEGIONNAIRE 

Winner: Dragonmage and Catspaw, tie
I typically try to avoid giving multiple negative awards to the same members, but these two suck THAT much.

Runner-up: the Khund Legionnaires, tie
A bad idea executed terribly.

Third place: Kid Quantum
His introduction is incomprehensible; he adds nothing to the team dynamic and ultimately doesn’t do anything.

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BEST ALMOST LEGIONNAIRE: Mara Williams
LSH v4 #51 sets her up as a potential new member. We could have had our first Legionnaire speedster before XS.

WORST ALMOST LEGIONNAIRE: Martian Manhunter
I have nothing against J’onn, but I dread thinking about this era would have done with him if he had accepted to join the team.

MOST FANSERVICE LEGIONNAIRE: Gossamer
Did they forget she’s 16 years old at best?
I think it’s worse if the DIDN’T forget.

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BEST VILLAIN

Winner: Emerald Empress (Cera Kesh)
I was rooting for her. Mostly because I hated the Legionnaires that much, but still, having their bullied victim become their worst enemy was the closest thing to being clever that the series achieved!

Runner-up: Doctor Bendorion
I have to reach into the Valor series to get good villains! THE VALOR SERIES!
Despite the infinite awesomeness that is Doctor Bendorion, it’s just embarrassing that I have to reach into a bad series that is BARELY part of this era.

Third place: Lothar St. Maixent
He’s the closest thing to the series ALMOST doing SOMETHING with the premise of this era.

Honorable mention: the Time Trapper
He’s not on the podium since I’m not entirely sure I can classify him as a villain, given how much he helps the Legion… but he quickly showcases what poor substitute Glorith was.

Speaking of which…

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WORST VILLAIN

Winner: Glorith
Runner-up: Mordru
I feel like a broken record at this point, but these two suuuuuuck.
Glorith is by far the worst offender: she’s constantly inserting herself into every plot possible, her plots are idiotic, she lacks any sort of presence, and for all her grandiose talks she loses in the most embarrassing ways.

Third place: the 20th century Braalians
Not only they’re a terrible idea, they take up TWO issues of Valor!!!

Dishonorable mention: Grimbor
How did you manage to turn S&M Reed Richards into the most boring adversary ever? In one of the possibly most horny incarnations of the Legion, too???

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BEST STORY

 Winner: Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #39
The Giffen pages might be some of the worst I’ve ever seen, but the main story?
I will forget 95% of this run by the end of the year, but the scene where the old man realizes nobody is going to save him and the one where Celeste Rockfish realizes what she’s done will haunt me to the rest of my days.

 

Runner-up: Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #61
Perhaps it’s a bit cheesy and unearned, but the final sendoff to the original Legion did win me over.

Third place: Legionnaires Annual #1
The fact that an Elseworld with an admittedly very simple premise managed to get to the podium speaks volumes of how little competition it has.

Honorable mention: Valor #22
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a GOOD story. But the I cannot emphasize enough how refreshing it was to have R.J.Brande actually TRYING TO DO SOMETHING and bringing boundless optimism.

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 MOST INFLUENTIAL STORY

 Winner: Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #60
The whole reason the Time Trapper exists and allows the Legion to survive Zero Hour is that Cosmic Boy gets locked in the Infinite Library in this issue.

Runner-up: Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #53
Glorith messing up the ages of the Legionnaires changes the dynamic of the series and leads directly into the awful “Legion on the run” storyline.

Third place: Valor #17
Mon-El refusing Glorith’s offer and dying at the wrong time results in her most convoluted plans and a change of protagonist for the series.

Honorable mention: L.E.G.I.O.N. #69
Not for the Legion, but for L.E.G.I.O.N. retconning Phase as NOT Phantom Girl allows her to continue her 20th century career. At least until the Reboot gets around to retcon that.

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WORST STORY

Winner: Legion of Super-Heroes vol4 Annual #4
There are times when I read a story and I immediately think “there is absolutely no way anything else will win Worst Story once I do the Awards”.
Sometimes a different story comes up to dethrone the presumptive winner, but nobody could suck more than Jamm. This is not just the worst Legion story of the era, it might just be the worst Legion story… period.

Runner-up: Legion of Super-Heroes vol4 Annual #5
Not a big era for the LSH Annuals. This one commits two cardinal sins for a story: it’s boring and it ends up meaning nothing. Even a cheesy “it was all just a dream” would have been more dignified.

Third place: “Legion on the run”, LSH v4 #54 to #59
This seemingly endless storyline would dominate the entire podium if the Annuals didn’t suck so much. Nothing about the plot works, the new identities and looks are bad in countless ways, and at points it doesn’t feel like the Legion.

Dishonorable mention: the entire Valor series
This is a series that for the first 17 issues stars the younger version of Mon-El, without giving him anything interesting to do, then replaces him with an older version of him that is still a younger version of the main Mon-El, follows him for 4 issues before exiling him into a convoluted time paradox, and then dedicates the last issues to meandering around.

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MOST SILVER AGE PANEL
I typically don’t count moments that are done on purpose, but I’ll take my Silver Age where I can get it.

MOST 90s PANEL

MOST DEPRESSING PANEL

MOST MEME-WORTHY PANEL

BEST ALIEN DESIGN

WORST ALIEN DESIGN
Technically not an alien, but still terrible.

WORST TECHNOBABBLE

BIGGEST WASTE OF A SUGGESTED SUPERPOWER
Spaceopoly Lad not actually having the power to force anyone to finish a game.

BIGGEST WASTE OF A SUPERPOWER
Duo Damsel is given Brainy’s force field… SOMEHOW… and uses it ONCE.

WORST ATTEMPT AT A REDEMPTION ARC

WORST MUSICAL NUMBER

MOST UNEXPECTED RETURN
Beauty Blaze, Satan Girl and Urthlo

BEST REACTION SHOT

WORST REACTION SHOT
The context just makes this worse, because SW6 Colossal Boy reacts LIKE THIS when a girl flirts with him.

MOST FANSERVICE PANEL

WORST FANSERVICE PANEL

MOST GRATUITOUS FANSERVICE

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BEST PANEL
No other moment in the 5YL era, and that includes both pre-Giffen and post-Giffen, has hit me as hard as the panel where this old cross-eyed guy realized nobody will come to save him.
In an era where people die by the truckload every issue and there is more than one event that kills billions of people, this was the only moment that felt serious.

WORST PANEL
From the same issue of the best panel, we have the worst Giffen artwork.

BEST DOUBLE PAGE SPLASH

BEST SPLASH PAGE

WORST SPLASH PAGE

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BEST COVER
This was surprisingly though, since if nothing else this era has a lot of good covers.

 WORST COVER
The artwork, the poses, Jamm. ‘Nuff Said.

MOST FANSERVICE COVER

MOST EDIBLE COVER

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WORST NEW COSTUME

 Winner: B5 (Brainiac 5)
Not only this looks incredibly stupid, but it also requires you to believe that THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE couldn’t build a better exoskeleton.

Runner- up: Emeral Dragon (Ultra Boy)
The first time I saw him I wondered about two things: who he was and why only one of his shoulders needed protection. It’s been decades and one of these remains a mystery.

Third place: Grimbor
Whose idea was to turn S&M Reed Richards into Discount Cable????

Dishonorable mention: Wave (Spider Girl)
The actual costume is fine, but the idea that dying her hair would disguise her identity when NOBODY ELSE IN THE GALAXY has prehensile hair is just too dumb to dismiss.

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 BEST NEW COSTUME

 Winner: the Legionnaires uniform
I will talk AT LENGTH about the Reboot uniforms, which are introduced here for the Legionnaires. And I absolutely love what they accomplished.
They allow you to IMMEDIATELY identify the wearer as a member of the same team, while simultaneously allowing enough variations to give everyone a distinct flair.
So many superhero teams have tried something similar (the X-Men in particular) but I don’t think anyone NAILED IT like the Legion.

Runner- up: Avalon Ferro Lad
Would it look this good without the Pelletier artwork? Probably not.
Still awesome.

Third place: Fairy Tale Starfinger
She looks infinitely better than ANY other Starfinger.

Honorable mention: Polestar (Cosmic Boy)
The only halfway decent costume from the new identities. It’s not a GOOD costume, but considering the others he deserves some recognition.

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Since this was, for better or worse, a very important part of the Legion’s history, long before I started the retrospective I asked the wonderful folks at Legion World what they thought about this era.
Note: this combines the ENTIRE era, not just the post-Giffen part.
I asked the question: what’s your opinion of the 5YL era?
Unsurprisingly, it was polarizing.

(note: I’m editing the comments only to use the codenames instead of the civilian names, to stay consistent with the terms used in my reviews)

I didn’t read much of it, but what I did read seemed really unpleasant, as if the writer kind of hated what had come before and wanted to tear it all down.
And not in a deconstruct it to strip the characters / concept down and build them back up stronger than ever, but more ‘I’m done with this sandcastle, and now I’m gonna smash it apart.’
SET

 

5YL: love it or hate it, not much in between.
I really liked most of it. Some parts were so-so, a few were bad. Quiet Darkness dragged and Darkseid was unnecessary with everything else going on in the galaxy. Some things didn’t hang together too well, but were more noticeable on the re-read than initially. I didn’t like how all the characters were portrayed (notably White Witch) but that goes for any Legion version.
FAT CRAMER

 

It began with loads of potential, storytelling depth and some great plotting/art.
4 issues in and DC torpedoed it editorially.
In among the fill in issues that formed part of the fallout from that, there were some great moments.
More uncertainly behind the scenes, resulted in glacial plotting of future arcs.
Giffen’s departure allowed some okay issues with excellent art.
The last creative team produced better issues than I thought at the time.
THOTH LAD

 

Stuff such as Bounty, the Proty-Garth retcon, and Sun Boy’s eventual demise were horrid and/or simply cruel for the sake of cruelty. SW6!Inferno also happens to be one of the few Legionnaires I genuinely hate. I still cannot make sense of what happened with Element Lad and Shvaughn/Sean.
That said, it wasn’t entirely bad. There was some great character development in regards to Ultra Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, and Spider Girl, plus we had far more representation regarding Ayla and Vi even if they STILL couldn’t outright be called lovers. The M.E.L. issues will always be my favorites. Over on Legionnaires, Computo II’s one of my favorites of the era. I enjoyed Dream Girl’s redesign as a full figured “Auntie Mame” type of character and the fact nothing about her new physique was played for comedy against her. This era also gave me most of my favorite supporting characters like Ivy, Styx, Stiletto, and the Tartarus heroes.
SARCASM KID

 

What many find a flaw in this series, the obscurity of certain facts and the need to put significant effort in to understand what was going on, was something I really enjoyed about it. This wasn’t a comic I could read through in a few minutes and think “that was good – what’s next?”. It took effort and thought and piecing together the puzzle pieces offered. The reward however (at least to my mind) was finding a world that had been thought out – what the ending of the Volume 3 era implied for the future, the implications of that, how it affected the existing characters, what might happen as a result. To me it fitted together and made sense, and rather than destroying a hopeful view of the Legion it showed the Legion’s ultimate strength by rising up from the worst that had ever happened to them.
STYLE 86

 

My opinion is I thought the stories were well done. However…
I’m thoroughly sick and tired of dystopian futures where everything is bleak and grim. A couple of interesting takes on it in scifi, okay. But the endless “It’s all bad oh woe!” turns me off to no end. Legion was about a bright future. Not perfect by any means, but bright. This was all grim, gritty, and depressing.RICK
SHAW1

 

I still think the failures far outweigh the achievements. And while editorial is partly to blame, I think the lion’s share of the blame has to go to the creators. Their arrogance, elitism, pretentiousness, ignorance, indecisiveness, and tendency for mean-spirited fan-windups all combined to destroy any hint of a solid foundation upon which to build their “challenging” work of art. I’d go so far as to say that the superhero genre *simply cannot* support the level of ambitious deconstruction that the creators aimed for! There are several issues where the super-powered protagonists literally sit around doing nothing, because if they did, the story would be resolved too soon! And as for Erin Shvaughn, that fiasco of a subplot is simply transphobic bigotry and we all need to stop acting like it’s anything other than that!
ANN HEBISTAND

 

5YL was, for me, ROCK bottom. MY LEAST FAVORITE. I don’t know how the hell I kept buying all that time.
Midway thru it, I joined “KLORDNY”, was a member for 15 years (even when HALF the membership quit in one go in response to “ZERO HOUR”). I met my best friend in the group, and we’ve stayed in touch every week since then. So I guess something good came out of it. But it had nothing to do with the comics.
I recall the endless long-winded arguing in KLORDNY every issue as to HOW WRETCHEDLY AWFUL each new comic was, or HOW ASTONISHINGLY BRILLIANT each issue was… every time a new issue came out.
The “PRO” faction kept insisting that they would re-read the entire run EACH time a new issue would come out, so by the end of the first year, they’d read the 1st issue 12 times, and each time, they’d “get more” out of it. While it’s fun to “get more” out of a comic or story or movie or TV show each time you watch… I don’t think you should HAVE to re-read (or re-watch) OVER AND OVER AND OVER just for the damned thing to make sense at all in the first place. And this, to me, definitely was like that.
PROFH0011

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IT’S OVER!!! IT’S FINALLY OVER!!!

You have no idea how hard it was for me to speed through this era.
I fully sympathize with the readers who abandoned the franchise during or after this period because I cannot IMAGINE having to suffer through this in real time.

And believe me, I’m so eager to get back to a period of the Legion that I actually like.
I know I’ve had a few readers mention in the comments that they completely dropped the Legion in this period and had no interest in what followed.
My message to those readers, and to those who dismiss any other version of the Legion, is that I hope you will stick around for the Reboot retrospective to let me argue my love for that continuity.
Its detractors will also get something to enjoy though, because while I think the Reboot does A LOT of things right with the franchise, it does still include questionable and riffable moments.

But the Reboot will have to wait a little while, because as anticipated we have quite a few post-series analyses, including:
-the very few cameos and apocrypha
-the analysis of the Grid and Depression counters across the entire 5YL era
-the analysis of the membership status
-the updated ranking of all Legion members, including all NINETY-TWO members of this continuity
-a ranking of all the Legion eras so far
-a discussion on whether a reboot had become inevitable