Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion Archives: Volume 33

Legionnaires #18, the last issue (at least featuring the 5YL timeline) and the last drawn by Chris Gardner. Yay! I'm sorry Chris but I never warmed to your style. It was an interesting experiment but to me it never stopped looking ugly. On the plus side it often told confusing plots in a way that made what was happening clear. The appearance of the evil Legion is a good splash page as is the page showing the SPs being transformed to a Mordru-Glorithverse version. I was also never in doubt as to if a legionnaire was the evil version. Rokk's ageing showing the passing of years for him was also well done. Still I am glad that your period as artist is over.

Mark Waid really does love his paradoxical time stories and alternate versions of characters, doesn't he. Anyway this issue is a logical result of what has come before. This is the third time in this timeline that we have seen a Mordru-verse (almost) appear, with the first actual one in LSH #5, then the almost reappearance of the same in LSH#44 and now here. Not surprisingly Mysa played a significant role in the defeat each time. In the first case admittedly she was simply the one of Mordru's wives who relayed her inside information to Rond. In the second it was her determination not to give in to hate, strengthened by the love of her friends, that broke Mordru's power. Here she summons enough magic to separate Mordru and Glorith even with Projectra and Devlin faded away, just before she fades herself.

Mordru and Glorith are separated but still incredibly powerful, which suggests that the next issue in End of an Era will feature a battle with them. This somewhat parallels Mordru's previous resorting to raising the dead after he was last knocked back from ultimate power, although I would suspect more a version of the Infinite Man's ability to bring other creatures from throughout time. No idea if that is me remembering or just a guess.

There were some interesting battles between our Legion and the Mordru-Glorith version: the three Vi's with the SW6 saving the older Vi while the evil one is killed?knocked out by evil Chemical King; evil Brainiac 5 using his forcefield to squash opponents (slowly because it's fun) but the two good versions using their combined forcefields to defeat him; evil Imra shattering legionnaires minds but being stopped by the older good Imra; the older former Element Lad advising Alchemist in cocooning the evil E-Lad version (I actually looked up the elements involved and it seems to be Molybdenum Oxide which is used in some methods of creating steel, and Titanium - so I guess they encased him in very strong steel) just before he is accidentally killed by Chemical King (who is really showing how deadly his power could have been - quite a comparison to the uncertain figure we knew); and finally Night Girl knocking out evil Cosmic Baargh - which I really like.

Our main plot is advanced by further characters fading - Kono, Devlin, Projectra, Brin, Brek, Rond and Mysa - along with Rokk's journey through the library and finally (after many years for him apparently) meeting the Time Trapper.

Not a bad issue with some significant events but still it felt a bit like a placeholder to me. Not sure why. It is obviously necessary in the Mordru/Glorith story and Rokk's journey is also important, but somehow it just doesn't seem as significant as the previous LSH issue - except for the Time Trapper ending. That was big and important.

I think the 5.7/5.8 seconds the Brainys are referring to is how long the new Mordru-Glorithverse would last/survive after it is finished being created before the entire space-time continuum collapsed. It is already collapsing and their thoughtless meddling is only hastening it. I guess Mordru will be getting what he wants as he says "If we can't have the universe, no-once can!" Yay for megalomaniacs!

Superman only appears as an image projected by Green Lantern (Kyle) and guided by Metron's chair. This same image and message are being projected to every hero Metron's chair can find although Superman cannot see the recipients and only hopes the message is getting through. (In most comics the image appears green but it is miscoloured here.) This is the general call to battle for Zero Hour, and our three SW6 founders and Jo will join the 20th Century heroes to try to save time before ending up back with their remaining comrades in the 30th Century.

I thought this was effective too and one of the best parts of the issue. Good storytelling.

We can only hope.

It's hard to remember back to when this was new but I think TT's appearance was a surprise to me too, even though foreshadowed as you mention Cramey.

Evil version of the Legion appeared in one way or the other a few times in the early years. For example there was the Sun Boy impersonator, the time when the Legion was taken over by the brain-globes, and perhaps the most obvious example the Legion of Super-Villains who were evil adult counterparts and became regulars. However I imagine the one you are referring to was Superboy #117 "Superboy and the Five Legion Traitors" where Superboy is astounded when visiting legionnaires not only show him up but reveal his secret identity until he realises he is in a parallel world and is helped out by that Earth's good Superboy and captures the "greatest villains" from the future.

And yes evil Chemical King is quite brutal with his power here, even if he mostly ends up KOing his own teammates.

Yep, that's the one. Thanks.

Thanks, stile! All I could think of for evil version characters was that Star Trek episode "Mirror Mirror", which was a few years later.


Ah! That makes more sense than Metron just helping out the 30th century.

Good point about Mysa playing a big part in ending the various Mordruverses. If we're talking about destiny re:Rokk, it's as if Mysa only existed to block Mordru.

It did feel a bit like a placeholder issue, with the main Legion action being the fight with evil Legion. That was well done - might have been something Waid had cooking in his imagination for a while and this was the opportunity to write it.

Thank you Cramey for keeping us going through this readthrough.


The writers over the years do keep pitting the two against each other. I suppose it's natural with them both being magic based, but even more so when you take in to account the backstory from Tales LSH #315 by Paul Levitz and Mindy Newell where we learn that her transformation in to the Hag was Mordru's doing as well. There is also the story of his part on ancient Gemworld. Mordru is one of those characters whose backstory changes with different writers, even when various Crisis are not involved, but at this point one of the Amethyst mini-series has shown his origins as either something controlling Wrynn of Gemworld or Wrynn himself and with Mysa described as the heir of Amethyst their conflict seems inevitable. Geoff Johns will double-down on this conflict in Legion of 3 Worlds with his Black Mysa plot.

Mysa is a great character and it is good to see her used in many and different roles but her conflict with Mordru has been a central part of 5YL and I guess this is Waid's final tying up of that knot.

Valor #23 "Infinite Valor" by Kurt Busiek, art by Colleen Doran & Dave Cooper, Letters Bob Pinaha, Colours Dave Grafe, Assists Mike McAvennie, Editor KC Carlson, "partners in time travel" Mark Waid & Tom McCraw

Valor and Tasmia respond to a call from the LSH ; Valor begins to disappear once again and Tasmia is unable to hold him in reality. He sees a variety of alternate lives, then a hand grabs him and pulls him back to Tasmia, shocking them both with his identity.

Rokk confronts the Time Trapper who convinces Rokk to listen to his story. The Trapper's looking a bit worse for wear, with a ragged cloak. He describes how he read through the Infinite Library, learned about the crisis in time to come and decided to build the iron curtain of time to protect the 30th century. Rokk doubts his intentions, but Trapper claims that he had noble motives when he began.

On Talus, Glorith and Mordru attack a weakened Legion when Superboy shows up with Valor and Tasmia. He immediately goes after Mordru.

The Trapper describes how he split the Legion into two time tracks to save them, setting the divergence just before the death of Ferro Lad when team morale was at its highest. He also made a few adjustments: getting an earlier Luornu and merging Garth with an undamaged version.

Superboy and the Legionnaires try to bury Mordru, who claims they have no hope. Valor agrees, shocking Superboy, but explains his strategy. He approaches Glorith with an offer to be hers forever if she'll let the Legion go. She hesitates in surprise and Superboy moves in to clock her. The infinite energy begins to leave her unconscious body. The two Nuras tackle Valor, saying they had a hunch; the energy flows into Valor.

The Trapper explains further that he hid one Legion in the Time Institute, where they were found by the Dominators. He created the pocket universe as a safe place for the other Legion, but his plans were upset when that universe was destroyed and he went "slightly mad". He kept trying to save the Legion but the paradox of two Legions kept resulting in time distortions, yielding a new reality and losing track himself of what was happening.

On Talus, Valor fights Mordru. Old Brainy is working on a plan when young Brainy shouts to Valor to let Mordru have all the energy. When old Brainy agrees, Valor proceeds. Mordru is overpowered by the energy; the Legionnaires attack him en masse and he disappears.

The Trapper relates that he was defeated (by Parallax in the Zero Hour series) and sent through time; he made his way to the end of the Library to wait for Rokk. With Rokk's help, he is convinced he can fix it all this time. Rokk is unwilling to cooperate, but the Trapper removes his hood to reveal his face.

The Legionnaires ask if Mordru is dead. Old Brainy explains the attack was a distraction so Imra could mentally command Mordru to teleport himself into the center of the planet. Imra reports that she could only get him to focus on a planetary core and Mordru chose pocket Earth, which is going to explode.

Valor finds Tasmia, badly burnt from a stray energy blast and dying. She disappears from existence and he follows her, admonishing the Legion to fight on. They are dejected, but Superboy delivers a rousing pep talk - then he disappears. The Legionnaires don't remember who he was, but Garth leads the charge to fight on.

Comments:
There's a lot of action and emotion packed into this issue; everything seems important, even though a lot of it vanishes by the end.

The Trapper's identity is semi-revealed; we know Rokk is surprised, but all we see is dark hair and white skin. He could be Valor, Superboy, Rond Vidar, or Rokk himself. I doubt I would have decided on first reading.

The Trapper's account of repeatedly trying to fix the Legion's timeline is the perfect, one size fits all explanation for any continuity problems or different versions of characters and stories. If it came anywhere but at the penultimate end of the many years of LSH, I'd think it was a cheat.

Our hero Valor suffers a tragic ending, after defeating both Glorith and Mordru, he willingly fades from existence to follow the departed Tasmia. Departed is the word for it; she's dead by my reckoning, but he speaks as though they'll be together in yet another reality.

In the end, Glorith is brought down by love, tricked by Valor. It humanizes her for an instant.

It was also good to see a key point in the battle turn on the Dream Girls' action. They didn't clear it with the rest of the team, they just acted together. One wonders how far ahead they're seeing at this point.

Superboy shows up as the quintessential, optimistic hero. With Rokk gone, it was a nice touch to have Garth take up the call to fight when Superboy disappears, forgotten. Garth hadn't had much of a presence throughout this series, had been absent well prior to 5YL and had gone through troublesome times as Legion leader; here we see the inspiration and heroism of his early years as he rises to the occasion.

The issue ends on this note, leaving the reader with a faint hope that the Legion really can pull it off, with all that spirit and the Trapper apparently on their side for once.

I thought the solution to beating Mordru was brilliant. He wasn't "overpowered by the energy" as you said...the energy made him infinite (it came from the Infinite Man, remember?), and as his mind expanded, his claustrophobia kicked in, because suddenly the entire universe seemed too small to him.

I liked the bit about Valor feeling sorry a bit, for using Glorith's love (?) (or perhaps fascination, not love) as a way to trick her...

Sueprboy's appearance was a nice touch

Every fading/death still gutted me, to be honest. Every single one. This was it, folks. The end, unless there's some cosmic reset later on to bring everyone back...

This was a terrific issue IMO. Lots of drama and emotion and action, as Cramey said. I really enjoyed re-reading it and seem to remember enjoying reading it at the time, although I think I read these issues out of order. I was one of those who hadn't been collecting Valor and had to chase it up later once I realised its importance. I imagine there were a few of us.

I am impressed with Kurt Busiek's writing here. It's a tricky proposition because the issue has two very different parts, the action fight with Mordru and Glorith and the largely monologue of the Time Trapper which explains (almost) all of that story. His method of continually swapping back and forth between the intense action and the still fascinating exposition doesn't sound like it would work but it does. I found myself gripped and my attention maintained throughout in both parts.

Integrating Valor's ongoing struggle to maintain existence was seamlessly part of the story, which is another challenge since it is his book and even with the big Legion battle and the focus on Rokk and TT, Valor still maintains his prominence. It is not like some endings where the star(s) are overwhelmed by the guests (looking at you final episode of ST:Enterprise). This is Valor's last issue and even though in the end he fades and the issue finishes with its focus on not one but two different guest stars (Superboy and then the Legion) he still goes out with a satisfying finale.

I especially liked how his thoughts guided the issue, and how his noble character was maintained even to thinking about how to guide advise the heroic but much younger Superboy. Superboy's appearance was well-handled too. You'd think that his rah-rah speech near the end would come across soppy and a bit eye-rolling but it doesn't to me. I think it works. Really good writing.

The same goes for the Rokk/TT plot. A monologue/exposition is easy to be boring and yet I find this one fascinating. Part of it is of course our interest in the overall story but just the way the dialogue passes back and forth between the two adds to the ... umm... intensity (Is that a good word? not sure). A great example is at the top of page 12 where after the Trapper explains how he hid the chronal doubles in the Time Institute (very appropriate) and Rokk sarcastically comments how they were "conveniently" discovered by the Dominators, then we have a panel with no dialogue showing the pause in their speech followed by the Trapper's comment "It was hardly convenient, young Rokk." and Rokk's downturn of his face. Great stuff.

All over as I have said I really liked this issue and see it as a fitting end to the Valor series at the same time as integrating perfectly into this final Legion narrative. It definitely leaves me looking forward eagerly to the final issue of this Legion.

Pretty sure I would have no idea too, even though as I said above, I think I read these out of order so can't really say. Since I think this was what the writing team was going for I think they succeeded.

Good point and well put.

Yes a tragic but still somehow victorious ending to my eye.

The way Glorith has been treated in this book has been a delight. It's always good to see the "human" side of a villain. Makes them more believable and even to some extent relateable.

That was good, wasn't it. The double Brainy act was pleasing as well.

Really good point. I hadn't thought about how having Garth be the rallying leader at the end was so fitting but you are right. It was well done and it works.

Yes I really liked how this was handled too.

Valor's noble character is well-displayed in this issue, appropriately as his swan song.

I thought Superboy was handled well too and it was obvious that he was quite young, and impressive that the writing made that readily seen.

This same version next re-appears in Superboy #8 immediately after his disappearance here. Summary to appear shortly ...

(Is it weird that spelling auto-correct doesn't like Superboy but thinks a good alternative is Superbaby?)

A couple of fun comments from the letters page:

Colleen has done some great work here and in previous issues. I wouldn't say she is my favourite artist but these Valor issues have been a delight to read an look through and her art has been a big part of how ell the story has come across.

Finally the "Lamenting Next-Issue Box" is signed off by Eddie Berganza (who is not listed in the credits for this issue but was assistant editor at the start of this run) with this "signature":

Zero Hour: Crisis In Time - script & layouts, Dan Jurgens; finished art, Jerry Ordway; editing, KC Carlson

After re-reading this, I'm beginning to think that maybe the event haters have a point. Perhaps superhero event storylines are a hopeless, self-defeating task, even for those creators who are sincerely trying to tell a good story.

Having said that, I would not include Dan Jurgens and KC Carlson among the creators sincerely trying their best. The single word that best sums up Zero Hour is "rote." Also the phrase "going through the motions." Which, funnily enough, is exactly how I felt about Zero Hour when I first read it, hot off the presses during the summer of 1994.

Jurgens is an artist I've always considered underrated (but as for his writing...well, I'll get to that shortly.) When he's at his best, Jurgens has a good eye for character design, as well as a strong sense of how to break down a page to make it as exciting as possible without going over the top; and this is all built on a solid foundation of derivative but visually appealing draftsmanship.

Here, however, Jurgens appears both overworked and overwhelmed. The breakdowns are flat and stiff, the draftsmanship uninspired. Embellisher Jerry Ordway, often superb as either inker or penciler, does seems to be going that extra mile to jazz up the subpar pencils he has to work with, but in the end, the effort is wasted.

As for the story itself, it is so incomprehensible, mean-spirited, and filled with loose ends and astro-sized plot holes, that it almost makes me wonder if I was too harsh on its most obvious forebear, the 1985-86 event Crisis on Infinite Earths. I mean, at least CoIE had the odd sparkling bit of dialogue from Marv Wolfman, or the occassional inspired visual flourish from George Perez (BTW, Ordway was one of the inkers on CoIE.) No such luck here. The only sequence that seems to carry any real conviction on the creators' part is the one where Extant (an insipid villain about whom it's not worth going into detail, since he's the straw-man for the true menace) brutalizes the Justice Society of America, killing several members and leaving most of the rest old and feeble. Even with the 20-20 hindsight that it's all setup for the upcoming Starman ongoing series (James Robinson's idiosyncratic take on Golden Age heroes and their legacies,) it's all a bit too grotesque for me to bear, especially because while I respect the opinions of Robinson's fans, I myself am deeply ambivalent about his work. Put it this way: after all the heartbreak from the damage that CoIE wreaked on the Golden Agers, the blunt crassness of Zero Hour must have left their 80s caretaker, Roy Thomas, feeling gutted. At least in the immediate aftermath.

And the caretaking of the DCU icons seems to be a sub-theme writ large across this event -- if fallen-hero-turned-ZH archvillain Hal Jordan, in his Parallax guise, and the hapless Extant are both "wrong," then what exactly makes the equally destructive actions of the Spectre and Oliver Queen "right?" I didn't expect any clear answers from the creators, which is good, because I sure as hell couldn't find any. Not in 1994, nor in 2021. No answers, much less the kind of elegant moral ambiguity of the best latter-day superhero tales. Just a great deal of pointless wank.

The aforementioned wank extends to the meager amount of "screen time" that the Legion gets. We see Rokk Krinn attack his future self, the Time Trapper, in a fit of denial, but the payoff happens almost entirely offscreen. By the time we see a focus on the Legion again, it's just for an abridged version of the corny all-hands-together climax of the corresponding ZH tie-in, namely LSH v.4 #61, which I will not spoil here.

Zero Hour is, in the final analysis, aptly named. Its entertainment value is indeed zero. And, the arguable merits of the Postboot Legion and Starman aside, its endurance as a touchstone of the ongoing DCU saga is, if not zero, then still underwhelming.

I'm making a mental note to take a look at this when I unearth my collection within the next few months for the move, as I am 100% sure I have it, but it was so unremarkable to me that I just remembered the event for what it did with the titles I was reading versus the story itself.

I only remember a few things about the special issue, mainly Crazy Hal, but at the end of the day, the whole damn thing was a means to an end to create sales and try to reset/re-establish some continuity items in several titles. Which I guess is ok, as long as there's a decent story to back it up.

But Ann, I think your comparison to COIE is a good one, in that its a reset event, but is a poor clone of Crisis (whatever one thinks of that story), and one that's not very memorable in itself - I remember very well the impact to the Legion, but not in many other titles in the DCU, and I was reading many of them at the time.

While your negative review is about what I expected Ann, it did make me stand back a bit because I can remember feeling some enjoyment about the event, yet I pretty much agree with most of your points. So what was it I liked about it at the time?

I think the answer is that I liked a lot of the actual crossovers in the main books, as opposed to the event books themselves. Having time mixed around and different versions of characters popping up and interacting with the current familiar DCU characters was used well by some of the writers and told some interesting stories such as: Superman meeting his Kryptonian parents who managed to stop Krypton exploding after they sent him off and have now arrived to take him home right in front of the Kents, a new character Alpha Centurion showing up as Metropolis hero in place of Supes including being involved with Lois, the current Robin Tim Dodd meeting up with a young Dick Grayson, a whole slew of Batmans showing up to teamup with Superman during the crisis with each one drawn in the style reminiscent of a famous previous Bat artist, and finally the current clone Superboy (Conner before he was Conner) meeting up with the Pre-Crisis Superboy fresh from his meetup with the Legion - but more on that shortly.

There was also a Batgirl/Barbara Gordon who was kidnapped by the Joker when he shot her father instead of the other way around, and who apparently ended up in a romantic relationship with batman subsequently. This story was average (although the reaction of Oracle to meeting her was interesting) but this Batgirl would appear in the Zero Hour title series and become one of the few seen therein to show a slight bit of character.

You are absolutely correct there Ann that this was definitely not Dan Jurgens at his best. Pretty much everyone sounded the same (years before Bendis-speak) including the four legionnaires with only ones like Guy Gardner showing a little character. The interaction between Hal and Ollie was technically correct but felt without the real emotional connection even though that is what was trying to be portrayed. It almost made it towards the end but still fell a bit flat to me anyway. This felt much better done years later when Hal/Spectre resurrected Ollie in Kevin Smith's Green Arrow. The Green Lantern book following Zero Hour with the confrontation between Hal/Parralax and Kyle was also done better.

But the whole plot while cosmically spectacular (tries to) raise significant moral issues but fails to really deal with them.
1. Hal Jordan/ Parralax destroys all of space/time to use the energy to remake all of space/time in a way that makes everyone happy (yeah he was pretty much loony tunes at this stage). To him he is the hero (and frankly I like seeing this portrayal. "Villains" are always far more interesting when they see themselves as the hero. Without getting in to the whole "should they have made Hal a baddie" I thought the descent of Green Lantern and rise of Paralax was a good story.)
2. All the other heroes think "playing god is bad" so they hijack the recreation of everything to allow it to play out "naturally", the way it was "meant to be". (One good part of the story is that a handful are divided in their thoughts, wondering if it would really be so bad to fix a few things.)
This is stretched over 5 issues mostly by having the heroes running around dealing with disasters and twists in time and only revealing Hal as the "villain" at the end of the penultimate issue, then completing the "recreation" in the final issue.

All of this theoretically to straighten a few issues remaining from how COIE only rebooted some things and not others, in particular Hawkman and Legion. Arguably Legion worked but I have never heard anyone who thought Hawkman did. So the end result is Hawkman as confusing as ever (until Geoff Johns comes up with the reincarnation retcon a few years later) and Legion performing a complete Reboot more like was done with Superman and Wonder Woman after COIE. (Oh and as Ann mentioned the apparent decision to close out the JSA and establish a new Starman. They even use "passing the torch" in the dialogue.)

Coming back to Legion (oh that's right, that's who we are talking about here), 5YL Jo Nah Emerald Dragon and SW6 founders are cookie cutter heroes here. The one big thing they do is arrive back in the 30th Century thanks to Waverider and Metron and close the void fissure threatening New Earth. Of course it is a hollow victory since Hal/Parralax just opens it up again but it gives them something to do and hopefully hooks readers into the fact that something big is happening with the Legion. Of curse with the writing I think that was a hollow and unachievable goal, and the full page ads appearing in several series did a better job of attracting new readers. And of course in the Legion books themselves the reboot had nothing really to do with the Zero Hour crisis but was the cumulated effect of Trapper's manipulations with assistance from Glorith and in the end Mordru. As such Legion could have been rebooted without the rest of Zero Hour.

So It seems that I like what some writers did with the effects of Zero Hour without actually liking the title series itself. I do think however it is a bit unfair to compare this to the later annual events that both big publishers seem committed to. Zero Hour was created with the purpose of straitening out the leftover messes from Crisis which, with the possible exception of the Legion, I think it failed to do. Nevertheless it had a goal separate from the "lets have an event and make a lot of money from it". Was that a part? Of course it was. Still I don't think it was the original driving force.

Boy I can blather on - and I STILL haven't covered the Superboys meeting.

Superboy #8 written by Karl Kesel, pencils by Tom Grummett, inks by Doug Hazelwood and Dan Davis.

Superboy (Cadmus clone of Superman with leather jacket and sunglasses, not yet Connor) is flying over the USA with Dubbilex accompanying in a USAAF plane when sudden lightning strikes the plane along with the appearance of pre-Crisis Superboy. (I had better think of abbreviations for them or this is going to get confusing. How about Clone Superboy and Clark Superboy abbreviated to CS and ... no that's not going to work. Look let's call them Connor and Clark even though Connor isn't Connor yet, we all know who I mean.)

Anyway Connor and Clark both get under a wing of the jet and help bring the plane down safely but it is raining so hard that neither sees the other and the pilots each assume they are looking at Connor. As they land they fly over a billboard saying "Welcome to Smallville - the Home of Superboy" showing an image of Clark in costume. Clark flies off to check on Ma and Pa Kent while Connor, feeling useless to help the pilots work on the plane, decides to check out the nearby small town. At first Clark is confused because he can't find his secret tunnel but after a wave of dizziness it reappears. Nobody seems home so he changes to Clark clothes and wanders the street, only to bump in to an adult Lana Lang. They are both confused which gets more so for Clark when Lana asks if his youth is because of some super-villain attack. Clark is shocked that she knows his secret but she explains that Clark told her himself when he was eighteen, only to realise that this Clark hasn't reached that age yet. Clark realises he is in the future and noticing Lana's ring asks if they are married, at which point Pete Ross sticks his head out to ask his wife about something but doesn't see young Clark who runs off upset (as any typical teenager might). Lana chases after him and tells Clark he will find someone else. It may not be her but she has the same initials, and Clark realises he is being a jerk and settles down, offering to buy her a sundae at the local icecream parlour. Lana is confused because she has never seen the shop before. Clark is confused because he remembers it well and becomes upset and shouting when Lana knows nothing about Insect Queen and Superboy robots and Krypto. Connor, who has been showing off his strength by lifting a truck and checking out a record store flies in when he hears the noise. Clark, who has had one too many shocks today, dashes off to change and flies back punching Connor, declaring him not to be Superboy.

(Of course you knew they would have to end up fighting, but the way it was done was pretty good.) It is actually a pretty short fight as Connor charges at Clark who just lets him bounce off him and then superspeed punches him to the ground, telling him "get a haircut, and get a job because this one is taken". Lana tries to calm Clark down but he says how he feels like something is pulling at him and he has to keep fighting it and flies off to try to find someone who remembers him, namely the Kents. Lana helps Connor up who asks if she is worried about those Kents, but Lana says she is worried about the boy because "the Kents won't know him, not the way he thinks they will, and he doesn't deserve that kind of heartbreak." (It is worth noting here that this Clark is probably meant to be the actual Pre-Crisis Superboy as opposed to the Pocket Universe version. It doesn't make much difference though because this version is a lot younger than the PU SB was when we last saw him and so their backgrounds are probably the same.)

Clark realises that with time all screwed up perhaps the Kents are still out on the farm and never moved in to town and just as he is flying over the farm Connor catches up to him and slams him into the ground behind the barn. Clark of course is not too fazed by it but Connor uses his tactile-telekinesis to hurl some firewood at Clark who burns it away with his heat vision. Clark feels he has won but is confused because the silo on the barn is in the wrong place. As he talks about it the silo switches and Connor points out that he thinks they have found the time anomaly. Clark is dumbfounded to realise he is the one who has to go. He and Connor have a talk that is really well done. Clark asks if he is from Krypton and Connor tells him that he is kind of a clone of Superman and guesses he is the next one up for the job. Clark agrees that is "the toughest part - always having to prove you're worthy of being Superman, every minute of every day". Clark doesn't want to leave without fixing things and Connor offers to do that for him. Clark agrees that is exactly what he would have said and fades away saying to Connor "If people here forget me, don't let them forget what I stood for, Superboy."

At this point Jonathan and Martha Kent coming running up to find a somewhat humbled Connor and, though we don't see it, Connor later relates to Dubbilex what a nice time he had with them and that he reminded them of their son. Suddenly Superman's Green Lantern/Metron image appears calling all the heroes to help and Connor takes off over the billboard which now says "Visit Hawaii - Home of Superboy" with an image of Connor.

I really enjoyed this issue. It's not required reading for End of an Era as it has no effect on the Legion there but if you would like to see what happened to Superboy after he faded out of the 30th Century or just read an enjoyable story of young Pre-Crisis Clark confronting post-Crisis reality I recommend it. The Karl Kesel/Tom Grummett Superboy run is generally not very deep but usually fun and it does have its moments like here.

GL, I agree 100 percent about Zero Hour's lack of a decent story to back up its cynical, commerce-driven roots.

Stile, after reading your review of Zero Hour, I thought you might be interested in this. It's an old Gym'll's post with my take on the whole Hawkman thing:

http://legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=912803#Post912803

Never read the Zero Hour series or the Superboy issue connected to it, mostly due to being a bit broke at the time. Hearing about Hal Jordan/Parallax, however, didn't make me want to seek out those issues later. Some of the character twists that stile mentioned sound interesting, but like a lot of event stories, something's lost in the effort to throw everybody into the mix. There's something about event series that aggravates or disappoints people. We could probably do a list of 10 common characteristics of the comic book event story.

Funny that Superboy asked to be remembered - Garth asks if they'll be remembered in LSH #61. And I just read the Snowpiercer prequel in which people bemoan the likelihood that there will be no people around to remember them. I guess we all want something to remain of us when we're gone, even fictional heroes. This issue sounds like a much more satisfying read than ZH, bittersweet with Clark (the Superboy I grew up with) being the character who doesn't belong in the picture.

I remember this story (again... its one of the buried mass of boxes under the stairs, so I can't read it right now), but I very much enjoyed the Kesel/Grummett SB run. It was a lot like the Legionnaires title in that it was just fun to read a lot of the time, like you pointed out stile. In fact, that same team is who wrote the first Future Tense chapter a year or so later.


Very much so. I had vague memories of the main ZH story from Ann's review. I remembered all the details from stile's recap. One story was fun. The other story was dull.

I'm more familiar with Kesel & Grummett's second run on Superboy (issues 50-79) than their first, but I agree their work was great fun.

A while ago in the re-reads, I mentioned Kesel and then-spouse Barbara Randall-Kesel as a possible alternate Legion writing team to have followed Levitz instead of TMK. Their work on Hawk & Dove holds up quite well in my opinion, better than most of what came out of DC from '88 to '91. Also, Barbara contributed a great deal to the Legion's 1988 Who's Who mini-series.

THAT would have been interesting to read!

Thanks for the link Ann. Makes me want to go back and re-read that Hawkworld mini-series. It has been far too long.
In mentioning Johns later retcon I was not comparing it to Truman's Hawkworld so much as noting how John's version ended up satisfying the continuity geeks better, mostly due to DC's decision to place Hawkworld in to the immediate present. The mess would never have happened if they had gone with the "happened in the past" approach you say Truman originally intended. Interesting to speculate on what might have been if that had become the canon backstory.

LSH #61 "Borrowed Time" by Waid, McCraw, Immonen, Boyd, Pinaha, McAvennie and Carlson, special thanks to Kurt Busiek!

The remaining Legionnaires arrive on Pocket Earth, which is highly unstable. Mordru's mind can not be reached. Lava erupts and the Legionnaires manage to stabilize a section and remain protected by the Brainys' force fields. Adult Jo and the three SW6 founders appear.

The Brainys seem to be defeated but the others refuse to accept failure.

The Time Trapper appears with Rokk. Lydda disappears after embracing Rokk. Rokk reveals that the Time Trapper is him. The others are astonished, fearful or confused.

The Trapper delivers the bad news: the universe can only survive the temporal storm if the two Legions merge. There are scenes of friends and relations disappearing throughout the galaxy.

Inferno claims the Trapper is lying since he has no doppelganger, but Wildfire reveals that he has been inhabiting Dirk's burnt corpse.

The two Nuras confirm that they see only darkness in the future.

Tinya begins to fade, but the Trapper grants adult Jo the boon of his Tinya's return.

The Legionnaires begin to merge and disappear: first the Jans, followed by Aylas and Violets, Luornus, then Chucks, Nuras, Thoms, Jos, Tinyas, Brainys and Dirks. Only the founders and Trapper remain.

Trapper Rokk gives an inspirational speech and leaves for one final task. The founders work together to survive long enough to join hands and merge on the increasingly unstable planet. The Imras detect no sentient thought anywhere else. The group agrees they'd do it all over again. There are a few scenes from LSH history as the six join hands. The final scene shows Rokk, Garth and Imra preventing the murder of RJ Brande; the scene disintegrates like an electronic image dissolving, followed by four blank pages.

Comments:
What a finale! I hated this issue when I first read it: Rokk as the Trapper who messed everything up, the Wildfire/Dirk reveal and the end of everything Legion. It was a real kick in the gut.

Twenty six years and a few more Legion obliterations later, I can appreciate the emotional punch of the farewell. I've gotten over the Trapper Rokk business, consider the Wildfire confession to just be misplaced in the narrative (should have come an issue or two earlier) and see my personal end of everything a bit closer on the horizon.

The final image, not fading so much as suffering electronic interference, was an interesting depiction. The four blank pages were like the flatline on a machine, but didn't even have that line to indicate a sentient presence. Everything was truly gone.

The Trapper has a great speech writer, full of all good inspirational hero stuff. He sounds too much like a politician, however. It's the quiet, gentle acceptance of the Legionnaires as they say farewell and sacrifice themselves that touches the heart. Garth's question if they'll be remembered, their smiles at the end.

I always did like Tinya's return; it was like healing a wound, a final wish granted to complete that long and enduring romantic relationship.

There's a book, The End of Everything, by Katie Mack, explaining the different theories of how the universe might end. In the final chapter, she asks other scientists how they feel about the end of our universe. They were sad. It's an immeasurable time away, but they're saddened to think about it. I feel the same way about the end of this fictional universe. There's a new Legion on the horizon, but there's a profound sense of loss with the passing of the original.

I am with you on Tinya's return, FC....even though it'd make no practical difference whether they brought her back or not, it felt like something that readers deserved to have happen

Nothing really to add. Your comments sum it up pretty well Cramey. If the Legion had to go (which of course will always be an ongoing debate) this was a good ending. Good art and pretty good writing. The emotional tribute to what had been passed was well done (in my opinion) and tied up the few remaining major plot threads while remaining largely true to the characters. A good appropriate goodbye from a Legion that gave its all for the universe's survival.

That last two-page spread still makes me tear up every time...

And yes, Tinya's last reunion with Jo. Also, Lydda's last reunion with Cos.

The merging of the Lus and the Chucks, and Aylas and Vis, also made me cry a bit. The dialogue... Lu finally feeling whole.

And Thom's last kiss with Nura. Dang.