Legion of Super-Heroes vol.3 Annual #3 (1987)
by Paul Levitz & Greg LaRoque
cover by Ken Steacy
Is it just me, or does this look like an awesome album cover?
We begin on Night Girl’s native planet Kathoon (bless you!) that gets a lovely encyclopedic entry.
She’s enjoying her vacation with Cosmic Boy, now that he’s resigned from the Legion.
And Greg LaRoque needs to draw something to get your attention while CB reflects on all the time travel shenanigans of the main series.
After another interesting encyclopedic entry…
…turns out there’s finally a chance for Night Girl to do some heroics on her own planet.
This story is probably the most focus planet Kathoon (bless you!) will ever get; it really goes to show how much of an utopia the 30th century is when they’ve had their own superhero for so long and never needed her.
Someone is stealing power from the PowerSphere™ that supplies all energy to the power, something so against the mindset of the locals that Night Girl is convinced it’s the work of off-worlders.
Where the heck was THIS Cosmic Boy during his own miniseries???
It’s such a shame that Batman barely ever visits the 30th century, and never goes beyond Earth. He would love this place!
They’re able to follow clues that bring them to a secret Dominator stronghold.
Haven’t seen these guys take central stage for a while! They’re such an important part of the Legion universe in later stories that I always forget how rarely they used to show up.
Meanwhile on Earth, we check up on Bouncing Boy training the next generation of heroes at the Legion Academy.
Comet Queen is still there, but she’s been joined by newbie Visi-Lad and by an old acquaintance: Myg (remember him from #13 ?), who has now taken the mantle of Karate Kid.
I’ve always found Myg incredibly boring, but it’s really noticeable when he’s next to the endlessly entertaining Comet Queen.
She’s nova to the max, starshine!
Even Visi-Lad isn’t that bad. He has a bunch of eye-related powers.
But they’re eventually called on an actual mission.
Which is not to follow the Legion, which has its own mission…
…but to man the Mission Monitor. This is because THE ENTIRE LEGION is going to be present during the signing of a treaty between the United Planets and the Dominators.
So Polar Boy wouldn’t let Brainiac 5 take the whole team with him to fight the Time Trapper, even if he had a time machine, but he’s fine to do this for the signing?
It’s notable that this whole situation is indirectly Universo’s fault: the Dominators were already prepared to sign a treaty when he interfered.
Because of this, it’s the Legion Academy trainees that receive Cosmic Boy’s call for help, not the actual Legion.
Comet Queen is absolutely hilarious, but you have to avoid overusing her because she can DEFINITELY be too much.
So Bouncing Boy decides to take Comet Queen and Karate Kid with him to help Cosmic Boy.
Cosmic Boy’s reaction when he sees WHO has answered his call is rather funny.
Cosmic Boy has been the greatest disappointment of my retrospective, but it’s incredibly satisfying to see the signs of the fantastic character he’ll become SLOWLY emerge.
This improvised team isn’t exactly the best available, but they put up a good fight.
I’m still disappointed Night Girl hasn’t been offered full membership, she’s been consistently great for some time now.
When its robots keep getting smashed, the Dominator in charge activates some kind of portal that sucks in the entire team.
We now learn what’s going on with a scene on Dominion, the very rarely seen homeworld of the Dominators.
The whole treaty situation is revealed to be a trick: the Dominators are going to destroy Weber’s World (the artificial world acting as the United Planets bureaucratic center), and the fortress on Kathoon is there to fire the world-destroying blast.
As for the Almost Legion, they’ve been sucked into an another dimension.
Which is a pretty deep cut, calling back to the use of a similar technology during the first appearance of the Dominators, Adventure Comics #361.
Cosmic Boy is right in pointing out that this dimension doesn’t resemble the one from that issue.
Also, while Bouncing Boy is correctly remembering that he WAS in the mission… Cosmic Boy wasn’t in that story!!!
Apparently this interdimensional shortcut isn’t used only by the Dominators, making me wonder why the United Planets don’t bother with it.
A bit convenient perhaps that My knows about this and that Cosmic Boy is able to magnetically identify where the portals lead, but this is a good team effort.
The Dominators also have a stronghold in this dimension, and almost the entire team gets taken out immediately.
Don’t make Comet Queen angry. You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.
The two newbies take on the Dominators without help from the veterans. Maybe tanks to Karate Kid’s unexplained ability to dislocate his leg.
Too bad Comet Queen doesn’t really join the Legion because I would absolutely love to see her interact with Brainiac 5.
Apparently there’s a bit of a hesitancy among Dominators on the whole “declare absolute war” thing. I always appreciate it when the “obviously evil race” gets some nuance.
But then again, they’re literally called Dominators. Not exactly a name that inspires trust.
There’s only one portal that leads to their homeworld, and they’re fully expecting the Almost Legion to show up.
So they blast the ship that emerges from it…
…except it was just a decoy, a ship held together with Cosmic Boy’s powers to draw away the fire.
It was Bouncing Boy’s idea, for the record!
Time for the kids to shine! 
Although I’m not entirely convinced Night Girl doesn’t have super-strength in this scene.
Cosmic Boy gets to destroy a whole Dominator warship.
The Dominators have one last trick up their sleeve: the weapon on planet Kathoon (bless you!).
Except the Dominator forces are not the ones to receive the order…
…but the rest of the Legion Academy!
Only Duo Damsel gets explicitly named; there are a couple of familiar faces, and others will be introduced later.
The one in full Superman costume is Laurel Kent, who finally decided to wear actual clothes apparently, and who’ll get her own storyline soon.
And so we have reached the epilogue.
Turns out Night Girl is the one who doesn’t want to join the Legion, unless her boyfriend comes along.
More importantly, this is the origin story of the second incarnation of the Substitute heroes!!!
Refreshing to see a version of the Subs that gets respect from the start, and Comet Queen brings along enough goofiness to avoid being completely serious.
A bit weird that Cosmic Boy singles out secrecy as an important part of the original Substitutes, since that stopped being a thing relatively early.
Legion significance: 1/10
Sadly this version of the Subs will get barely any screen time at all.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really, even calling back to a specific Silver Age story.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Not groundbreaking, but a solid entry that gives some much-needed polish to Cosmic Boy and the Substitutes, with Night Girl continuing to be great.
On the other side, Comet Queen doesn’t get much to do and Myg continues to be rather shallow.
The artwork is generally good, but there are some bizarre poses here and there, plus some of the facial expressions can be distracting.
We are legion
24 active Legionnaires
6 reserve members
12 deceased members