Legion of Super-Heroes v4 Annual #2 (1991)
written by Tom & Mary Bierbaum
pencils & cover by Brandon Peterson
Mon-El has been active in the 20th century for a couple of years at this point, but he really hasn’t done anything. So it’s up to this annual to come up with a reason why the 30th century considers him a legendary figure: will it succeed?
Despite the cover showing the Dominators as the main threat, we begin with the Dark Circle and one of the only TWO pages with a Grid.
We learn that the Dark Circle is REALLY old, going back thousands of years.
With all their talk about the Eternal Darkness, this is really making me wish that the Quite Darkness was about revealing Darkseid had a connection with the Dark Circle (wow that’s a lot of dark in that sentence), instead of whatever the heck the Quiet Darkness ended up being.
In fact this is closer to a follow-up to issue 18 with the Dark Circle and the talk about losing Cargg (Duo Damsel’s planet). Is the talk about cloning implying the Dark Circle is connected to the Batch SW6 by the Dominators?
I think this is implying that the Dominators are part of the Dark Circle? If so, I don’t like it… making two big foes part of the same organization makes the Legion universe smaller.
But we move to the main part of the story, which is revealing the legend of Valor… which is the 5YL name for Mon-El (even if I’m sticking with Mon-El).
I really, REALLY like the way this is being told. Including the addition of religious imagery.
Is this the first time Mon-El’s mother is EVER named?
Seriously, I can’t get enough of this way to show past events. I’m incredibly grateful this is Brandon Peterson penciling, since I can’t imagine the Keith Giffen of 1991 to do something like this.
Unfortunately we have to mention Ultra Boy’s utterly nonsensical involvement from the first Annual, but at least it’s very brief.
Peterson’s artwork is a sight for sore eyes after enduring Giffen for so long, but what does he have against drawing Mon-El’s eyes?
Mon-El rescues some humans what have been kidnapped by the Dominators for their experiments.
I’m a bit confused by the chronological placement of this against the other 20th century adventures; this should be long after Invasion!, right? It has to be, since by this point Mon-El has already joined and left L.E.G.I.O.N., but is it set before or after the OTHER adventures he’s had in 1991?It’s not
this comic’s fault, mind you, just curiosity
This incident also shows that Earth’s heroes were truly lousy in handling the invasion, because the Dominators still have A LOT of test subjects.
As it’s shown in this truly chilling splash page.
The pre-Crisis Mon-El had extensive knowledge of medicine and genetics, since that’s apparently one of the areas of expertise of Daxamites. This is probably still true, but the Dominators are way ahead of him.
While Mon-El’s no-nonsense approach in the 5YL stories has been refreshing, the fact that he can’t solve this by punching really really hard is the right direction for the character.
You’d expect him to get allies from Earth, but instead he recruits people we haven’t seen before.
Well I wasn’t expecting Hot Dominator Lady to show up, but here we are.
I didn’t even think Dominators HAD women. It’s hilarious that the comic is also putting her in “sexy poses” like anyone would be into her.
Among the recruits is Shamarra, who is clearly intended to be the progenitor of Polar Boy’s people.
Since she’s a human kidnapped by the Dominators, I wonder where she could be from… I can’t find a definitive origin for the name “Shamarra”.
Plus a couple of random guys.
Shamarra wants to turn this into a bloodbath, but Mon-El is looking at the bigger picture.
We’ve seen Dominator society is ridiculously dogmatic, with independent thinkers being VERY rare… but apparently there’s an entire caste of them.
Well there WAS a caste anyway. We’re still talking about Dominators, so they barely survived.
Yeah I’m with Hot Dominator Lady here, these guys are here for moral support and to give Mon-El someone to mourn when some of you inevitably die.
Mon-El’s plan was to rescue one of the remaining Dominators from the Diamond Caste, since he has the know-how to free all prisoners without killing them.
Aaaaand Hot Dominator Lady is dead, what are the odds.
Shamarra is now in charge of the army Mon-El is assembling, and while being more enlightened than his brethren Smart Dominator here is still sexist.
The Dominators, their own worst enemies since 2967.
While I really liked the idea of Mon-El gathering allies to go after the Dominators, I wish they gave them more stuff to do because this doesn’t feel very challenging for him.
That being said… Mon-El is one of the very few characters that I truly believe WOULD be able to get through a Dominator’s barely-existing conscience.
He’s Superman’s big brother after all.
With everything he’s learned from Smart Dominator, Mon-El is able to save the prisoners one by one…
…including those that shouldn’t logically have any hope to survive, because he fundamentally rejects the idea of leaving anyone behind before trying to save lives.
Boundless heroism and hope? What is this doing in the 5YL era?
Meanwhile Shamarra leads to victory a squad of other people who gained her same powers.
The war continues long enough for Mon-El to grow a beard, to the point of forcing the Dominators to surrender.
It’s so bad that the Dominators decide to MOVE THEIR CAPITAL ELSEWHERE.
Mon-El tries to stop them from leaving and blowing up the planet where the rebels are, but the Dominators have Intertron shielding at their disposal.
Something that Mon-El doesn’t recognize; I wonder if this is supposed to mean Inertron was invented by the Dominators.
However the Dominators end up NOT destroying the planet, thanks to Smart Dominator sabotaging the whole thing.
So now Mon-El has won the war against the Dominators (!!!), and even gets some poetic justice by making its leaders pariahs.
We have reached the BIGGEST moment for this story when it comes to its influence: Mon-El proposing to the kidnapped humans to settle new planets instead of returning to Earth.
This is actually the origin of MOST planets in the Legion universe where everyone has the same superpower. Although the idea that the Good Dominators were around to help with their development gets dropped fast.
I really like the reasoning given for assigning a specific planet for specific powers: it’s where they’ll be able to develop them best, given each planet’s characteristics.
All planets mentioned here are the homeworlds of Legion characters:
Bismoll (Matter-Eater Lad), Cargg (Triplicate Girl), Geequo (Apollo from the Devil’s Dozen), Janus (Double-Header), Lallor (several, but oddly without native powers), Myrna (Braino of all people), Somahtur (Infections Lass), Tharr (Polar Boy), Winath (Lighting Lad) and Zwen (Stone Boy).
Mlain and Thanar are VERY obscure references. They come from Adventure Comics #324 and Adventure Comics #332 respectively.
These were just one-off planets mentioned once!
Mind you, this isn’t the origin of ALL races that look exactly like humans… Daxamite predate this by a lot, we already had Cairn on the pages of L.E.G.I.O.N., and there’s contradictory evidence whether Rimbor (Ultra Boy’s planet) is one of those… but most of these don’t have entire populations where everyone has the same planet.
As far as worldbuilding retcons go, I rather like this one.
Mon-El is heroic enough to avoid exterminating the entire Dominator race, but also smart enough to defang them as much as he can.
We ALSO have an explanation for why the Dominators were such a big deal in the 20th century but took their sweet time to act again: Mon-El basically crippled their warmongering capabilities.
Even their caste system was abolished until the often mentioned 28th century wars.
This is all well and good until Glorith inserts herself into the plot.
Oh for crying out loud, DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO REVOLVE AROUND GLORITH!?
Canonically, the entire reason the Legion and the United Planets exist is that Glorith was horny.
In the original continuity, Mon-El was exiled into the Phantom Zone because of Superboy’s mistakes.
In the 5YL era, Mon-El is exiled into the Not Phantom Zone because Glorith just inserted herself into the story.
I’m only partially joking by not calling this the Phantom Zone. It’s basically the same thing, but officially it’s a “buffer zone” between Earth and the Bgztl dimension (where Phantom Girl is from).
Does this mean the woman on the cover is Glorith?
In any case, this works EXACTLY like the Phantom Zone exile. Including Mon-El being able to occasionally get glimpses of reality.
Until he’s eventually freed by the Legion in the 30th century…
…to help them fight a super-robot.
Which is kind of taken by Adventure Comics #300, although this “murderous android from the past” somehow looks more ridiculous than Urthlo.
Eventually the Legion finds a way to cure his weakness to lead permanently and he joins the team… and now you know why he’s basically worshipped as a god.
We previously saw Superman adored by the 30th century in a similar way, and honestly this looks to me a more realistic consequence of a mythical figure returning to life.
Mon-El reacts as best as he can. It’s a bit of a missed opportunity: the Reboot will use the opportunity of the same backstory to make him stop using the name Valor, but the 5YL era either sticks to it or (as usual) reverts to use his civilian name of Lar Gand.
And so we end with the Dark Circle not exactly sure of what they learned.
The Grid: 2 pages out of 54
51 pages without a grid
1 splash page
0 text pages
Legion significance: 10/10
Essential for everything regarding Mon-El. This extends further than the 5YL era, since he essentially has the same origin (although the reasons for him reaching the 30th century are completely different and a bit more organic).
The fact that most of the United Planets were settled by him will also be VERY important in body continuities.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
The war is a bit too gritty for it, but it does reference a few goofy Silver Age stories. Plus there’s the COMPLETELY OUT OF NOWHERE involvement of Glorith.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
This is the first time I’ve read this story; considering I despised retcons of the first Annual, I fully expected to detest it. But I rather enjoyed it, and it’s remarkable how it still holds up being potentially be placed in multiple continuities.
Mon-El is great here, really embodying the best Superman tropes. He tries saving everyone, he doesn’t give up hope, he inspires others, he’s even merciful with his enemies but not to the point of being dumb about it.
The supporting characters are a bit of a throwaway and most of them don’t get to do much, but they give Mon-El someone to talk to and to inspire. You have to love how he insists he can’t do everything on his own and needs the help of others, while simultaneously winning a gigantic war mostly by himself. Great stuff all around… until Glorith.
Setting aside the fact that her boasting to be behind everything is beyond parody at this point, she REALLY doesn’t fit the story.
I understand you have to get Mon-El to the future at some point, but they REALLY couldn’t find a way to tie this to the Dominator plot? Really? Not even a loyalist using one of their weapons to exile him? The Dark Circle framing device also feels a bit weak.
But those are relatively minor complains, considering most of the issue is dedicated to Mon-El’s war with the Dominators.
As mentioned, the Brandon Peterson artwork is such a colossal relief after Giffen.
It’s quite solid and dynamic, especially when it comes to the page layouts… something that doesn’t come off well in my review, but he does experiment a lot.
It’s not without flaws, though. In particular there are a couple of awkward faces…
…especially this one, where Mon-El is suddenly stuck by a bad case of Giffen Lips.
Thank Valor we were spared from Giffen penciling this story, can you imagine those faces the entire time?