Legion of Super-Heroes vol4 Annual #6

Legion of Super-Heroes vol4 Annual #6 (1995)
cover by Stuart Immonen

The first Annual of the Reboot is going to focus on the three characters highlighted on the cover.
Neat detail: you can see on the bottom that this is supposed to be a hologram.

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“Deep Background”
written by Tom Peyer, Tom McCraw & Mark Waid
pencils by Tom Simmons

But this is also a proper introduction to the new version of Shvaughn Erin, who is not exactly thrilled to be the Legion liaison.
While she WILL play a role in this continuity, it’s definitely a reduced one. I would imagine it’s because in this continuity there’s a larger age gap between her and the Legionnaires.

I wonder what’s the age of retirement in the 30th century.

That was just the framing device for the meat of the first part of the Annual, which is just a series of pinups of Legionnaires that lists what we know about them.
I’m not going to show all of them, but the Adam Hughes pinup for Triad is both one of her best representations AND it shows that Hughes actually CAN draw women with realistic proportions!

The Shvaughn Erin part is just the framing device for her watching the pinups and reading through reports about the stories we’re going to see.
And after all of those, she ends her segment with a renewed sense of appreciation for the Legion.

I did look through the information on the pinups, but the most interesting thing I’ve noticed is that Kinetix is supposed to be shorter than Spark; they’re typically shown as the same height.

Shrinking Violet is the shortest overall, because duh.

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“Running Scared”
by Tom McCraw & Stuart Immonen

The first REAL story is about XS. It is, in fact, her extended origin.

She’s unique among the direct descendants of Barry Allen: she’s the only one who does not have super-speed from birth.

Like in the 5YL era, the Tornado Twins die at the hands of the Dominators. But in this continuity, it happens years before the Legion is created.

Note that XS is older than her cousin, who will grow up to become Impulse. Probably not by much.

She’s taken prisoner by the Dominators, who torture her father in an attempt to learn WHY she doesn’t have super-speed.

Well they DO find her speed, so mission accomplished I guess?

While we are occasionally told that Jenni is close to her father, he appears VERY rarely… barely half a dozen times across her entire career.

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“From Dawn To Darkness”
by Tom Peyer & Alan Davis

Next up is Kinetix, who begins her story by saving a planet from starvation.

In her dreams.

She has dragged Violet into an archeological dig, because that’s one of her passions.
Right behind looking for powerful magical artifacts.

The early Reboot sure isn’t subtle about her lust for power, although it’s not treated exactly as a stereotypically villainous thing.

Her origin is that her mother was an archeologist (no relation) who fell ill when she was little, so Kinetix used one of the magical artifacts she discovered to heal her.

After that first run-in with magic, Kinetix became obsessed with finding more artifacts to give her powers.
And to be honest, do you really blame her? If THIS universe was full of stuff that can give superpowers, wouldn’t YOU look for them?

Kinetix’s problem isn’t that she wants power. Is that this obsession makes her rush into things: for example, picking up a shining artifact…

…which then takes her powers away.

Kinetix frames her need for power as the desire to be able to help others, but it’s clear to anyone else that she’s using this to help with her insecurity.
And that’s where things are going to stay for now, because the story ends without her regaining her powers: that’s going to be a whole other plot in the main series.

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“Greater Good”
by Mark Waid & Mike Collins

Our last story focuses on Leviathan, flashing back to when he had just been drafted.

His original relationship with GiGi Cusimano remains, but she will play basically no role in the Reboot.

His actual origin remains basically the same, but no Starfinger is involved this time (much to my relief). Given his original close friendship with Chameleon Boy, it is interesting that in this version he was chasing a Durlan.

The problem with White Triangle extremists goes back earlier than the Legion.

The story explains why Leviathan accepted the draft despite being a Science Police officer: his chief was exploiting his celebrity and not allowing him to do his job.

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Legion significance
Kinetix story: 7/10
Everything else: 0/10
Kinetix’s story kicks of a major plot for her. Everything else if fluff.

EDIT: as pointed out in the comments, the XS story is the first time it’s officially acknowledged that she is a descendant of Barry Allen. Since it will influence her entire history, it definitely warrants a new score.
XS: 10/10

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.

Does it stand the test of time?
Kinetix story: 9/10
Everything else: 6/10
My only real complain about the Kinetix story is that there is absolutely no reason for it to be HERE instead of the main book. Other than that, it’s the only story in the book that tells us something significant about the Legionnaires.
We don’t really learn anything new about XS or Leviathan, or even Shvaughn.
The pinups are nice, but not really worth the price of the book.

Who did it better?
Compared to the Colossal Boy extended origin, the Leviathan one lacks Starfinger.
So it’s immediately the superior story.
Okay that’s a bit too harsh. Despite my total lack of interest in the Starfinger plot, the original WAS objectively better… but with the unfair advantage of being a full story, not just 8 pages.

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Bonus: ever wondered why Leviathan never flies when he’s in giant form?
There is a limit to how much the Flight Ring can lift. Probably inspired by how in the original continuity Blok needed more than one ring.

Ever wondered what’s inside the pouches of those belts the Legionnaires always carry?
Everything you regular superhero needs, plus snacks.
Proving that they are superior to Batman’s Utility Belt, unless he carries bat-snacks (hopefully not made from bats).

Wait the Omnicon is THAT small!?

We have a two-page spread with the schematics of Legion HQ.

 

Things of note: there’s a chapel, a Brainiac 5 lab, and a SECRET Brainiac 5 lab.

According to the blueprint there are 20 personnel suites, so at this point the Legion is probably not expected to grow past that.
In previous eras whenever we saw the blueprints, we had a men’s wing and a women’s wing, with exceptions for couples. While there are no couples yet, you can see that the wings are not divided based on gender. In fact, they seem kind of random: for example, the founders are not all in the same wing.

A couple of interesting things do show up if you think too much about this arrangement (which you just know is what I’m doing).

Chameleon and Invisible Kid having rooms next to each other makes perfect sense: at this point, the kid is the only one who can speak to him.

Several close friends have adjacent rooms (with one exception), making me think that the Legionnaires chose the rooms for themselves. Triad and Apparition are the only combination that I wouldn’t consider “best friends”, but they ARE the only two volunteers joining after the founders.

Most of the Legionnaires without a neighbor are who you’d expect: I can totally see Saturn Girl, Andromeda and Brainiac 5 preferring to be alone.
In fact, you just know both Andromeda and Brainy insisted.
The only exception is having Leviathan and Kinetix next to each other… until you remember that Kinetix has a crush on him.
In my headcanon, Kinetix was SUPPOSED to have a room next to Violet, but she insisted to move next to Leviathan. And of course, Violet being Violet, she didn’t raise any objections.

Does any of this actually matter? Absolutely not, but it goes to show that the Legionnaires already have such defined personalities that you can EASILY come up with a story just from their living arrangements!

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And finally we have the list of members of the United Planets, which is A LOT shorter than I expected: only 60 planets! They do explicitly say it’s not the COMPLETE list…

…but you know I can’t resist tracking them down. Even leaving aside the Legionnaire homeworlds, there’s a tons of references here!!!

Credit goes to both Legion World and DC Database for helping this completely unnecessary job.

Angtu is Mano’s planet… which he destroyed, so I’m guessing this is an obsolete list.
Corvan IV is the planet from Superboy & LSH #246 that the Fatal Five took over.
Cyranus is a deep cut: that’s one of the planets from Adventure Comics #359.

If Exor is a misspelling of Exxor, that’s the homeplanet of the Wonder Twins from the Super-Friends.
Fandua, Ganzz and Tanvor are a REALLY deep cut: that’s from Adventure Comics #374.

Grxyor, Lythyl, Myar, Tsuron Vengar are where Antennae Boy, Karate Kid II, Nemesis Kid, Ontiir and Emerald Empress are from; Manna-5 is the planet where Wildfire dies in Superboy #195.
Ikros is from Action Comics #380, Alkos and Jorna from Adventure Comics #350, Korr from Adventure Comics #309, Mohado from Adventure Comics #371, Toonar from Adventure Comics #318, and Rygor from Adventure Comics #325.

I don’t know about Vaalor-7, but Vaalor is from Adventure Comics #341.

Perhaps the most obscure is Rovann, seen in the Emergency Board in Adventure Comics #327 (I would NEVER have found this without Legion World!!!).

Quarantine is likely Quarantine World from Adventure Comics #313, Remor is from Superboy & LSH #230.
Plevitz and Schwar are obviously in-joke references to Paul Levits and Julius Shwartz.

It took me FOREVER to figure out those references and I’m still missing several planets; do any of you know if there are specific references?
Ardemo, Chiron, Domar, Gahhn, J’ff’n, Nitwon, Orsde, Risijs, Silvan, Syngtom and Taltar.