Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion in Crossover!! Pt. 2: Legends

The Plot: Darkseid decides that the best way to destroy the heroes of earth is to discredit them and take away the people's admiration of them.

How's the Legion involved?: Not by much. Cosmic Boy just happens to be vacationing in the 20th century at the time and he spends the first two issues fighting the fire-giant Brimstone. Along the way he mets the (Detroit) Justice League, Firestorm, Changeling, and the Flash. AFIK he only shows up in the first two issues, and pretty much gets his butt kicked, too. I never got parts 5 & 6.

Crossovers: The four part Cosmic Boy mini series, only the 2nd time a Legionnaire hets his own solo series. The first two issues show Cosmic Boy dealing with what he perceives to be changes in history. For one thing, Superman was never Superboy, and man's first trips into space were faced with difficulty (this series came out shortly after the Challenger explosion). Periodically, we are updated on events of what is going on in the Legends series, but Cosmic Boy and Night Girl have very little to do with that.

The last two issues have nothing to do with Legends as Rokk and Lydda try to get back to their own time period only to face the Time Trapper at the end of time. After a nifty little fight, TT sends the two Legionnaires back home, only to end the series on a strange little cliff-hanger - Superboy and Krypto seemingly under the spell of the Time Trapper! The whole series was basically a set-up for the Death of Superboy story.

Also, Firestorm #55 - The ads show Cosmic Boy on the cover knocked out. I never got this issue. Does Cos have much to do in it?


Comments to follow -->

The one thing I like about Legends is that it didn't try to live up to Crisis. It was an entirely different series, and much less cosmic in scale. It's also the series that introduced the DCU to Wally West/Flash, Captain Marvel, the new (Giffen/DeMatteis) Justice League, the Suicide Squad, and (I think) the reintroduction of Wonder Woman. So historically it's pretty important.

So what the heck is Cosmic Boy doing there? It seems as though he's there just to have a Legion connection to draw in more readers. Paul Levitz goes along with using Cosmic Boy, but ultimately for his own purposes as he begins to lay the foundations for his "pocket universe" concept. That seems to be the sole purpose of the Cosmic Boy series.

As for the series itself, it's not too bad. It probably could have been squeezed into 2 or 3 issues, but it does explore a side of Night Girl never seen before by Legion readers. The art is pretty godd sa well with Keith Giffen and Ernie Colon doing most of the work. Much of it remind me of Giffens earlier work when he was still a good artist. And of course the cover by Steve Lightle are amazing as usual.

So it's not much of a Legion connection to the DCU, but at least the 30th century wasn't forgotten. So what did you all think of Legends /Cosmic Boy? Did you have any idea where it all was headed wehn you first read it (Death of Superboy)? Did it just seem like a Legionnaire was just tacked on for the heck of it?