Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 - 1982

Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 – 1982

Writer: Paul Levitz

Penciller and co-plotter; Keith Giffen

Inks: Bruce Patterson

Editor: Laurie Sutton

Here is a “little” review of an issue that should be considered a “must own” for Legion fans. My apologies to the hosts if a thread on this exists someplace else. I did a search and didn’t find anything similar.

What makes this issue special? Lots of things. It is the first Legion annual ever, and was printed at a time when DC was reintroducing and redefining annuals. They really got the concept right for a brief time. The annuals of the 1960’s featured mostly collections of reprinted material with a new cover and some fun features. They were great fun, mind you, but the early 80’s vision improved on the concept. The new annuals had an all new story that fit in neatly with what was going on in the current series, and sometimes, even featured the regular creative team. This issue is 42 pages long. Lots of room for the story to unfold. The Teen Titans and the Legion probably capitalized on this concept better than most of the DC line, and we have some classics as a result. Sadly, it wouldn’t take long for the annuals to fall prey to the summer crossover events which eventually led them to lose most of their charm.

There are those who argue that the Levitz/Giffen team is the best the Legion ever had. That’s a subjective claim, of course , and any poster here knows that Legion fans have strong opinions regarding their personal favorites. Regardless of your position, you can’t deny the influence of these gentlemen, or that their early 80’s work brought in a standard of quality that was missing from the Legion through the latter part of the 70’s. This annual takes place between their early collaboration on “A Cold and Lonely Corner of Hell” and their classic “Great Darkness Saga”. It’s with this annual that the chemistry between Levitz and Giffen truly exploded. It’s here that their style was clearly defined. They hit their stride, laid their claim to the team, and the Legion was never the same again.

The issue opens with a roll call that uses a symbol/insignia that identifies each Legionnaire. Some of them were interglac letters. Levitz would use these symbols throughout the 80’s, usually on the monitor board or in conjunction with votes/elections. We would become quite familiar with them, and they are one of the little touches that help define his run.

The first page also shows Shvaughn Erin reporting to duty as the new Science Police Liaison Officer to the Legion. This was Shvaughn’s first appearance since the Earthwar a few years earlier during Levitz’s first run as Legion writer. This time she was here to stay, and would become one of the Legion’s most recognizable supporting characters. The new role made sense, and her communications with Chief Zendak were a great narrative device that Levitz would continue to use and build on. By page 3, Shvaughn is engaged in a comfortable conversation with Element Lad, hinting at the coming of one of the Legion’s great romances. This time, a unique one, because it isn’t a romance between two members of the team.

When Cosmic Boy changed into his new uniform, on page 6, the disco era of the Legion was officially declared over. Saturn Girl had already changed from the pink bikini to an outfit that more fully covered her body in “A Cold and Lonely Corner of Hell”. It wasn’t clear that meant a new direction, though, since it made sense for her to put on something that would keep her warm. It could have been a temporary tribute to days gone by. But when Rokk put on his uniform, and Imra appeared on the next page still wearing long sleeves and pants, we knew that a period of new designs was underway. This would be the most dramatic change since Cockrum redefined the look of the Legion in the early 70’s. Both the new uniforms were terrific. They took the best features of the classic Adventure era costumes and updated them to look sleek and modern. They also looked a lot more grown up and practical for combat.

The little girl mentioned in the title is Danielle Foccart. a young girl who was suffering from a unique psychosis caused by a rare energy overload to her nervous system. Brainiac 5 had come across her case in a medical journal and was determined to find a cure for her. She was accompanied by her brother, Jacques. In a nod to the Adventure era, Dream Girl and Mon-El show their scientific chops by assisting Brainiac 5 in the medical lab. The experiments, unfortunately, release Computo which quickly takes possession of Danielle’s mind. Updating Adventure era villains for the 80’s would become a mainstay of Levitz tenure. It was very effective. Computo was formidable, here, and the scenes of the little girl possessed were terrifying.

There is a very moving scene in which Duo Damsel tells Bouncing Boy that she can’t respond to the Legion’s summons for help because of her fear, and the memory of Computo killing one her bodies. Her grief was glossed over in the original Computo story. Years later, we finally witnessed the impact of the death on Luornu. Levitz frequently gets credit for adding a level of characterization to the Legion that it never had before, and has seldom had since. At times, I’ve seen posters here downplay or dismiss Levitz’s accomplishments in this area. Look no further for the evidence than this scene. If you aren’t convinced, there is nothing I can say that will change your opinion.

We also get to see Sun Boy and Star Boy playing Dungeons and Dragons, Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet making repairs to a cruiser, Timber Wolf and Blok providing comedy relief in the gym, Dawnstar and Wildfire getting their vacation plans ruined, and Chameleon Boy brooding over recent mistakes. There is a fun centerfold that gives us a blueprint of the headquarters, and identifies which member lives in which room in the dorm rooms. I had a lot of fun with that.

The finale of the story belongs to Jacques. He ingests the serum that gave the original Invisible Kid his powers, finds courage in battle, saves the day, and earns an invitation to join the Legion. It’s as fine an introduction story as any Legionnaire ever got. It helped set the tone for the Legion of the 1980’s, holds up more than 25 years later, and remains a high point in the team’s 50 year history.

Still my favorite single Legion issue ever! Lightning Lad finally coming out of his funk, hints about the Green Lantern ban, a tease for the Great Darkness - it had a lot of great stuff going on alongside the main plot. That's how annuals are supposed to work in my book.

Huh, double post. It's way past my bedtime.

This issue needs to be reprinted. I can't imagine a better introduction to the Legion.

Oh, and I can't tell if you're arguing this, or just saying that others do:

but I'd disagree with the 'seldom had since' part. Levitz raised the bar, all right, but subsequent Legion writers were regularly able to clear it.

It is the clubhouse and D&D scene that has most stuck in my head over the years. A great page for wandering the eye.

Yes, there have been many times when we've had great characterization since. I would argue that there are two things that make Levitz unique in this area.

1) In a review of Great Darkness a few months back, He Who Wanders talked about Levitz's ability to "manage the characters". That desription clicked for me. Levitz was able to make sure just about everyone was getting some personality,a bit of growth, and a chance to move forward a bit. I don't think anyone has suprpassed that, yet.

2) The length of his tenure gave Levitz the opportunity to present consistent, growing personalities for a greater period of time, and sometimes with more impact. For example, when Brainiac 5 resigned near the end of the Levitz run, he gave Luornu his force field belt after she had lost another body in the battle with the Time Trapper. It was a touching moment. Chuck witnessed the event. Brainy, Luornu, and Chuck all acted in ways that seemed very real. There was a deep emotional impact.
That scene wouldn't have been as powerful if we hadn't first read LSH Annual #1 years before. I'm quite sure Levitz wasn't planning that far in advance when he wrote the Annual. He did have a grasp on who he thought each character was, and he was able to present them as he saw them over a period of time.

Whenever threads or polls come up asking us to pick our favorite issues, this is one that I always think of, though I don't always pick it.

I liked the art a lot. It seemed shiny and new, to match those symbols. I loved that Shadow Lass and Element Lad, characters who don't appear together all that often, had extensive scenes together as they tried to break *in* to HQ. That in itself was a nice throwback for me, as the first LSH issue that really captured my imagination was #203, where various characters including E-Lad were breaking in to the HQ to test new equipment. Of course, that issue featured the death of the character who gets a legacy replacement in this annual-- Invisible Kid.

I liked Jacques quite a bit then. As the years have passed, the reboot Invisible Kid became a personal favorite, and Jacques himself has dimmed for me a bit (his 5YL role is still is best, I feel).

This annual really did set the tone for how Levitz wrote the LSH. An updated, deadlier version of a classic villain, characters growing together or apart, great pacing that travelled from character group to character group...

Wasn't it here that Light Lass distanced herself from Brin? And that we learned about her 'domestic' side?

I really need to dig this out and reread it. Thanks for the review that prompted this! Always a good thing.

I'd forgotten that this was DC's first annual. Marvel had been doing them for quite a while (Avengers and FF I particularly remember).

I remember when that annual came out. The characterization in that issue was classic Levitz! I felt that I actually knew the Legionnaires (and supporting cast), because they each had distinct personalities. The introduction of the new Invisible Kid into the ranks of the LSH was great!

its was one of the halmarks of the levitz-griffen era both were on their game...and Paul had regin over Keith's wanting to kill our legionnaires....no more Keith on legion ever again though!

Good review, Jerry! You did an excellent job of summarizing the annual and its significance to Legion history.

Ironically, what I remember most about the annual is that, due to a shipping snafu in my area, I read or started to read LSH # 290 before picking up the annual, so the ending of Jacques joining the Legion was ruined for me. (I had stopped reading # 290 the instant I realized I'd missed something; alas, it was too late.)

But the annual is a prime example of Levitz's ability to "manage the characters" and his mastery as a storyteller. Most scenes are very brief: they contain just enough information so we can follow what is going on, and no more. Typically, Levitz will cut away from a scene just before something "big" happens and then get back to it in the aftermath. Case in point: Darkseid's servant is shown flying toward earth. When next we see him, he's the victim of deadly collision with a runaway Legion cruiser. The collision itself is not shown. The scene is much more effective and funnier this way.

But Levitz also used this cutaway approach in serious scenes. It truly enhances suspense in this story.

The annual is not without flaws. The worst for me was the constant narration between Shvaughn and Chief Zendak at the top of each page. While visually this made a nice unifying element, I found that it slowed the story down; after awhile, I began to ignore the captions.

Also, while this is Jacques' big introductory moment, not enough time was spent building up his character. He speaks with a French accent, he loves his sister, he's faced with an impossible choice . . . typical comic book shorthand for characterization, but it doesn't make Jacques a unique person nor give me a reason to care about him. His personality would be developed much better, I thought, in later stories when he discovered an unfortunate side effect to Lyle Norg's serum: unwanted teleportation.

Overall, this annual was the culmination of Levitz/Broderick and Levitz/Giffen's reclamation of the Legion as something to be reckoned with after several years of substandard stories and art.

One of my alltime favorites. THIS is the Legion...

Wonder who that servant was who died....which 20th century hero was it. And by the way...shouldn't Keith have made Lyrissa in L.E.G.I.O.N. be Lydea because of all the hype that Shady gave her...because her apperance in L.E.G.I.O.N. was far more heroic than Lydea's ever was.

One other thing that Levitz did which I greatly appreciated at the time was his attention to the Legion's past. In this issue, for example, we have an old villain returning (Computo), an acknowledgement that this villain had killed a Legionnaire (one of Triplicate Girl's three bodies), a scene of Lightning Lad fighting a doppelganger in his old costume, a cameo by the original Invisible Kid (whose invisibility serum plays a pivotal role in the story), an acknowledgement that several Legionnaires had joined under similar circumstances as Jacques, a trip to Mon-El's underground lead serum vault, and probably others. Most previous Legion writers ignored the the Legion's various trappings and minutiae; Levitz's run is saturated in them.

In retrospect, Levitz may have overindulged his fanboy whims, as too many references can weigh a story down. (There is little reason, for example, for Jan, Shvaughn, and Shady to find themselves in Mon-El's vault; any other location would have served the story.) But such attention to detail truly helped build the Legion's mythology during his run: this Legion had both an exciting past and an exciting future.

This summary seems to answer a question I recently had seeing them pop up in the cartoon: did Levitz and Giffen originate the mission monitor board symbols?

I've always suspected as much but wasn't sure. So to clarify, did they originate the symbols or just modernize them? IIRC, previous depictions of a MMB in classic stories (if indeed there was an MMB shown before), simply showed the characters's photographs.

Both the Interlac alphabet and Leigionnaire symbols are Giffen's inventions, as I recall.

The Mission Monitor Board dates back to the Adventure Era, but, as you say, it was originally either pictures of Legionnaires or their names next to their locations.

LSH Annual #1 was one of the main reasons I got back to reading the Legion full time. The Levitz/Giffen era stories were rich in drama, characterization, artwork. It was at this point that I invested in back issues dating back to the Adventure Era.

Anyway, this was the one of the first times the Mission Monitor Symbols were used extensively.(and yes, Giffen did create them)

This was the last issue the Bruce Patterson inked over Giffen's pencils. I didn't much care for Larry Mahlstedt's inks at first, but as his run progressed, he got better.

If memory serves, LSH Annual #1 was one of the first issues to use an off color (non-black) plate in the printing process for the line work illustration of a scene. For example, the D&D game characters were in a blue and magenta printed lines, not the traditional black line coloring book technique comics typically used up to that point. I'm sure the idea had been done previous, but it became commonly used by Giffen and other DC artists (like George Perez) right around this time.

This is one of the Levitz stories I could never find for years and years until I finally bought it with Pov during one of our first get togethers. I always thought it would be cool to read to see the intro of Jacques and the return of Computo, but when I finally did, I got to see just how great it was. Top-notch quality all around and one of my favorite of Levitz's stories. It has everything you need in a story, and everything an annual should really be.

This should be the blueprint for how Annuals are done, since that art seems to have been lost 15 years or so ago.