Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #55 (1988)
written by Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen
pencils by Keith Giffen, Ernie Colon, J.L. García-López, Erik Larsen
cover by Steve Lighle
That’s a lot of pencilers! At least Lighle delivers a wonderful cover suitable for a story featuring four plots with little in common.
The framing device is that we’re going to follow Legionnaires who have either left the team or who aren’t checking with headquarters.
Although maybe it’s not their fault since Polar Boy can’t even use the system after Computo updated it.
The first Legionnaire we check is White Witch, in a segment with Ernie Colon artwork.
She hasn’t formally left the team, but I’ve counted her as resigned since she completely dropped off the map going back to Sorcerers’ World.
White Witch is incredibly frustrating. I liked what Levitz was doing with her since she joined the team, showing her growth as a hero and as a person… but after issue 50 she completely regresses.
Did you like having a Legionnaire who had a slightly different worldview from the others but still helped and showed that there isn’t only one path to be a hero?
Well too bad, because she just happened to be around and didn’t really believe in the Legion.
Some big magical thing is going to involve Earth, and the Sorcerers want her to go there because she’s the most familiar with the planet.
And she’s like “nah, I’m just going to send an email”.
We COULD have her go to Earth… confronting the Legionnaires, reflecting on her decision, maybe change her mind… but no, we’re going to send this guy.
We’ve seen him a few times but I’m not even bothering remembering his name.
Instead White Witch is going to stay on Sorcerers’ World to teach magic to this Khund child.
It’s a disappointing conclusion to her character. We’re going to see her only once more within Volume 3… and I don’t like how this issue handled her, I really REALLY wish this was her last appearance overall. Her character assassination hasn’t even begun.
The next Legionnaire we check is Brainiac 5, in a segment with Giffen artwork that starts with a really interesting discussion about his planet: why ARE its inhabitants so smart?
It’s a FASCINATING discussion with little additions to the lore: we already knew they have a very long lifespan that other species have tried to replicate, but they did the same with their intelligence.
Brainiac 5 has been spending his time exactly the way you thought he would.
He doesn’t seem to miss the Legion at all.
Until the other Coluans inform him that his research on time travel is forbidden, even if it’s just theoretical.
The restrictions on doing research of time travel were a big reason why Brainy left his planet in the first place, and he does have a point: even if it turned out that Time Bubble™ didn’t really work and all the time travel was done by the Time Trapper… that STILL proved that time travel is possible!
Unfortunately, if there’s a consistent theme about the people of Colu throughout most continuities is that they’re really smart but INCREDIBLY resistant to change.
Doing this entire thing without even THINKING about asking permission is a very Brainiac 5 thing.
Spending time with the Legion has made Brainiac 5 appreciate the value of socialization.
I find it interesting that there seems to be only six people ON THE PLANET that are his age!
It does make sense that a species with a long lifespan would have a low birth rate, but the Coluans are not immortal… I doubt this rate is sustainable.
Unless there’s a lot of Coluans living off-planet, which based on previous stories is unlikely.
Next is Dream Girl, in a story that is basically the follow-up to her Annual story.
By exclusion the artist must be José Luis García-López, but it doesn’t look like his style AT ALL.
With both Star Boy and Atmos active on their home planet Xhantu, it was only a matter of time before they got into a dumb fight.
And Star Boy decides to just leave the planet. He only has ONE appearance left, at the very last issue of Volume 3… yet another disappointing end to a Legionnaire’s career.
And speaking of disappointing: this is ALSO Dream Girl’s second-to-last appearance in Volume 3.
It’s become pretty clear that Atmos is using his powers to SOMEHOW keep Dream Girl under control, seemingly even dampening her precognitive abilities.
I did tell you that you’d end up hating Atmos, didn’t I?
Out of all the Legionnaires that left abruptly, I feel bad for Dream Girl the most.
Star Boy didn’t fight for himself when his planet called him back, White Witch was whiny and selfish, Brainiac 5 was so fed up that he didn’t leave the Legion the means to replace him, Shadow Lass could have least have resigned officially instead of leaving everyone in the dark (pun intended)… but Dream Girl?
She’s manipulated by an abusive boyfriend! With her friends, her ex boyfriend and HER SISTER completely ignoring her because they’re all caught in their own personal drama.
And finally there’s Blok, with pencils by Erik Larsen. This is VERY early in his career, but he’s still recognizable.
Blok is on a quest to learn about his own people, and we see him traveling in a ship that is HALF-DRAGON.
Larsen gets really experimental for no reason on just one page, as Block speaks with the short alien that recruited him for the quest.
The fact that Blok’s body is constantly changing would work much better if EVERYONE didn’t suddenly and drastically change their looks in the past five issues.
This WOULD be an interesting plot… Blok doesn’t know anyone else from his own species and there’s drama to be explored… but it’s squeezed between so many other plots that it gets lost in the shuffle.
Blok’s simplicity sometimes makes him look like the dumb one, but he deduces pretty quickly that his benefactor has basically kidnapped him.
The little alien (who can teleport) is not the main bad guy of Blok’s plot. That would be the Inquisitor, who has THE MOST TERRIFYING DESIGN EVER.
He’s also interested in finding other people from Blok’s race, but for different reasons.
And we close the issue with Polar Boy managing to fix the mission board, only to be informed that nobody is answering his calls.
Legion significance: 1/10
Last appearance of White Witch, Star Boy and Dream Girl until #63, the ending of Volume 3.
The only thing SLIGHTLY significant is the confirmation that Dream Girl is not herself.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time?
Let’s do something different and score all segments individually, making an average for the whole score.
Polar Boy: 0/10
YOU SUCK.
White Witch: 0/10
YOU SUCK EVEN WORSE.
Brainiac 5: 6/10
There’s some interesting concepts here. But it’s nothing new, we’ve already seen Brainiac 5 dealing with the Coluans being so cautious they don’t want to do anything. And that was just a couple of scenes way back in the first Infinite Man story, it’s not like there wasn’t the chance to explore it in much bigger detail.
Dream Girl: 2/10
This should’ve been in the Annual. Dream Girl is already denied agency by the plot, the fact that most of the story is narrated by someone else doesn’t help… and she doesn’t actually DO anything. Losing even more points by how poor Star Boy is just shoved away by the plot.
Blok: 7/10
Even if the artwork is quite bad… I don’t mind Larsen in later years but he’s very unpolished here… and if it’s just a couple of scenes. But Blok is the only Legionnaire in this issue that isn’t completely passive and tries to do something about his situation!
Average: 3/10
This really feels like the “let’s shove all the plots Giffen doesn’t care about into a single issue”. The way the book is just unceremoniously abandoning characters is just depressing.
We are legion
18 active Legionnaires
7 reserve members
6 resigned members
2 on sick leave
12 deceased members
45 people have been members
Interesting letters: the entire letters page is dedicated to the reactions to issue 50, which predictably is very divisive.
I agree with Rex Joyner. Not just because I really, REALLY liked issue 50, but because it’s incredibly obvious that Levitz is just going through the motions now and left the heavy lifting to Giffen.
