Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Earthwar!

I haven't read this story since it came out and am about to re-read it for the first time.

Anyone have any favorite moments from this story?

was just thinking about this, i really liked jason pearson's art.

i liked when the the scientists (cicaida?) died to make sure the moon's destruction didn't do more damage than it did to the earth. (they launched a satelite to mimic the moon's gravitational relationship with the earth....sorry its been a long time...that's part of earthwar right, the end. haha)

i'm sure it was cool for the earth people to see young legionnaires flying all around fighting the dominators.

Silly, that was TERRA MOSAIC!

Which, btw, I would rather re-read any day before EARTHWAR.

I never could get over James Sherman disappearing midstream on the art chores.

I'm downloading it on my IPhone now, will give a review once I get back from laundry.

Good, I wanna hear a current review.

I remember Mr. Sherman's eye-popping splash pages!!

The Sherman art was great! I agree about the switch.

I've read a scattering of issues from around this time, but never any of the actual Earthwar stuff.

story-wise, it wasn't all that. If anything, that it took many issues to rebuild was more interesting, to me.

Great potential of a story that never quite seemed to hit the mark. Some cool stuff in it from what I remember of it. Have not read it in years.

First of all,l let me say this. As a kid, I loved this. The mystery of who was behind it all kept me intrigued as did all the characters that were wandering around.

We get a nice introduction to Shvaughn Erin as she comes to Legion HQ to deliver an important message. Later, we will discover what that message was. KNowing what I know now, this would have worked better if she had never arrived and we see he struggle to reach them throughout the story. Because as it is, if ANY Legionnaire had taken two seconds to hear her, the story would have been much different.

We also see hints of Brainy's madness in this story as he will soon descend even further into it. I still think to this day that if they were going to make him evil they should have stuck to their guns, and I have to wonder if the Brainy we are seeing NOW isn't as cured as we thought.

The story itself is ok. There is an invasion looming from the Knunds and a delegation of Legionnaires is on Weber's World to make sure treaty talks go smoothly. They don't. Much chaos ensues.

It should be noted that Tyroc is listed as being on a mysterious mission and is nowhere to be found in the story. I think I read somewhere that originally he was going to be killed off during this story. But instead of that, he is just... not there...

My favorite part of the story is when the married ex-Legionnaires arrive to save the day. It was my first encounter with Chuck and Luornu and I wanted to see more of them!

Eventually, the culprit is revealed to be... Mordru. Of course, if they had listened to Shvaughn's message that Mordru was now free from the very beginning, they would probably have saved themselves a lot of heartache. Eventually, the combined Legionnaires defeat him and peace is restored.

Oh yeah, Garth and Imra get to rejoin!

I agree with some of the above posts that the story suffered from the art swtich. Staton was never a favorite of mine and his characters all seemed to look blocky... Sherman was much better and I really think I would have enjoyed it much more had he finished out the story.

This story finished out a great Legion run and started one that was... lackluster. Legion didn't really regain it's glory after this until Levitz would return.

I agree wholeheartedly!
James Sherman will always remain one of my favourite top three Legion artists of forever.

"Earth War" was an ambitious idea that suffered somewhat in the execution. I liked the political intrigue over Weber's World and the mystery-within-a-mystery over who the main villain was.

What I didn't like was the Legion being reduced to only its four most popular members--Superboy, Karate Kid, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl--during most of the climax. I also thought the story was unwieldy and hard to follow, both at the time and upon re-reading it a few years ago. Levitz hadn't mastered subplot management, as he would by the time of "The Great Darkness Saga."

The greatest thing about "Earth War," though, was that its ramifications were felt for months and even years afterwards. It took time for earth to recover from the war. Legion benefactor R.J. Brande went bankrupt when the president stole his funds to help the poor. The Legion's HQ would be demolished a few issues later, and they would have to rebuild it themselves. The Legionnaires battled despair and dissension as they coped with the changes in their previously idealistic world.

This brutal injection of reality was uncharacteristic of Legion stories up to this time. It worked quite well and set the stage for the Levitz and Giffen eras that followed.

wow i was super off. it almost qualifies as a super power.

I read an retrospective interview that James Sherman gave in a Legion anniversary special graphic novel where he spoke about his time as an artist for Superboy and the LSH and he quoted the main reason he quit drawing for DC around that time was that he did not agree with the decision to make Mordru the mystery villian. That's why another artist finished the story (right when the reservists show up and Mordru reveals himself as the antagonist). He felt that is was a cop-out on the editor's part and felt that the "magic strikes again" outcome was totally lame, so he just up and quit! Wow ... shows you how passionate the guy was about the job. An artist in the true sense of the word.

I recall him also commenting on a general dislike of magic in Legion. Which struck me as odd, considering how magnificent his Mordru/alt-Earthwar chapter in #300 was.

Yeah, from what I recall Sherman's work on Mordru on LSH 300 is the best work I've ever seen done on the character. Irony!

You know, I agree the shift in artist during Earthwar was a shame, but it's not as glaring to me when I reread. It's too bad Sherman left as he was an awesome artist in comics and on the Legion (man, I hope Paul can get him back for a story!), but the story is still pretty solid to me.

It's not as well executed as say, Great Darkness, but it still has political intrigue, great character beats, a growing sense of epic and grandeur and just has that 'awesome' factor that still makes me feel like a little kid.

It's also a tentpole in Legion history in that it takes several concepts/characters from the Adventure run and uses them all at once in an awesome way to kind of establish firmly the story is entrenched in Legion history--the Dominators, Khunds and Dark Circle foremost. It also introduces Schvaughn, restores Imra & Garth to the team, has Karate Kid and even has the Subs.

And we finally got to see the awesome Mordru story follow-up it'd felt like we'd been promised since his first appearance. Before TMK, this was definitely the great Mordru vs. the Legion story other than his first and established him as the Legion's top villain.

I've put up oodles of Jim Sherman art up in the Visionaries forum, including some eye-popping pages from EARTHWAR!!
Click here to view!

Funny thing: for a second when I saw this thread title, I thought it said "Earthwart"!

What's bad, is that I asked Paul Levitz if this could be collected in Trade, and he said probably not because the artist shift would be to jarring for Trade form.

that's a silly reason.

I know, right?!? Let's all demand an Earthwar
Trade!!!

What?!? As if most trades feature a single art team throughout?!?!

Bull-puckey, I say!