Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Dev revisits the 5YL era

I've been behind in my reading of 5YL, so I'm going to do some quick reviews of # 7-10:

Overall, I like these issues much better than the first six. The narrative is cleaner and more purposeful. The Mordru storyline is resolved (at least for now), and the overall story moves forward.

For issue # 7, three things stand out for me the most: 1) the portrayal of Mysa as an abused wife, 2) the unusual device of using text pages for the Rokk and Mordru scenes, and 3) the "introduction" of Laurel Gand (last issue's intro was more of a teaser).

Re: Mysa. I was struck by her caption on p. 11: "I dared to hope for an idyllic life as first wife to an emperor." This implies that she married Mordru of her own free will (which Mordru also implies, but he is not to be trusted). It's hard to believe that any Legionnaire would willingly marry such a villain, but this does add a bit of coloring (pun not intended) to her character. Mysa seems to have been a lost soul who became more lost after she left the Legion.

Re: the text scenes. I was taken aback by the text pages, at first. Was Giffen too lazy or behind to draw these scenes? However, they work quite well as prose pieces: the narrative gets inside Rokk and Mordru's heads much better than art would have conveyed. (Now that I think about it, I shudder at the prospect of Giffen drawing this sequence and obscuring it, as he did to the Lar/Tasmia reunion in # 5.)

Re: Laurel. Reading her scenes makes me glad that I did not buy this issue when it first came out, as I don't think I could have gotten past the fact that she was a retcon substitute (retsub?) for Supergirl. So many changes had already been wrought by 5YL both before and after the restructuring of the universe in # 5, that having one more rammed down my throat would have been too much. I don't think I would have accepted Laurel.

And that would have been a shame, as she truly is a unique character in her own right: she is far more aggressive than Kara was, yet she clearly has a soft spot for Rond. There are hints in this issue (borne out in subsequent issues) that she regards Rond as more than a teammate or friend. Such a relationship would have been unlikely with Supergirl.

Vrykos is an interesting villain. He's devoted to Mordru and obeys the emperor's edict not to engage the Legionnaires, though he disagrees passionately with the edict. He also gives the Legionnaires quite a tussel when he does engage them. However, the artistic device of depicting his face in constant shadow wears thin after awhile; it makes me think that Giffen just didn't want to bother drawing a face. He uses similar devices all too often.

So, # 7 seems to be where things start to turn around for Giffen and crew. By this time, they have many of their earlier problems ironed out.

Issues 8 and 9 present two flashback stories that delve into the history of this revised Legion universe. I enjoyed both of these stories quite a bit, despite feeling that I was talking to a patient after extensive surgery ("you'll be just as good as new"). A large part of my enjoyment was due to the fill-in artists. Chris Sprouse (# 8) and Paris Cullins (# 9) provide us with more varied page layouts as a welcome breather from the nine-panel grids. Their artwork also captures the feeling of "happier times" quite well.

Issue # 8 presents the history of R.J. Brande as told by his long-suffering assistant, Marla Latham. The story was quite entertaining, and, like everyone else, I enjoyed the easter eggs. It was particularly fun how the Bierbaums worked in the original Legion costumes from Adventure # 247 (Cos: "Pink? I thought I asked for pale scarlet!").

Yet there was a down side to the easter eggs, as well. I wondered if the Legionnaires would still be wearing these costumes when they approached Superboy, then I remembered that they wouldn't be approaching Superboy in this continuity. Easter eggs such as this pointed out more of what was lost than what was gained.

Issue # 9 focuses on Laurel and basically retells the story of Supergirl's induction with Laurel in the former's place. Again, some retcons work and others don't. One particularly jarring retcon involved the re-telling of Action Comics # 267: whereas Kara encountered red kryptonite, the Bierbaums go to great lengths to tell us that Laurel encountered lead and that she had built up an immunity to her anti-lead serum. (Really? Do all Daxamites build up immunity? If Brainy is able to cure Laurel completely of her lead weakness, did he do the same for all Daxamites? If not, why?) Then, whereas the Red K aged Supergirl so she temporarily was ineligible to join the Legion, the Bierbaums sidestep that complication completely by having Laurel join the Legion on her first try. Again, such retcons called more attention to what was lost than to what the Bierbaums and Giffen hoped to give us as replacements.

(Another retcon that left me puzzled: This is probably the first time Triplicate Girl is called Triad--apparently, she was always Triad in the Giffenverse. But in a universe with Saturn Girl and Phantom Girl, why was this change necessary?)

The parts of the story which worked were the original parts of Laurel's origin: Thwarting the Kunds' invasion of Ricklef II as a little girl, being sent into the 30th century equivalent of a witness protection program, and her assertive role in her romance with Brainiac 5. The revelation (in # 10) that the father of Laurel's child is Rond, not Brainy, further distances the character from Kara and makes her a unique and interesting addition to the Legion.

It's important to note that a significant theme of the Baxter series had been the (apparent) rehabilitation of Mordru on Sorceror's World. It's perhaps not so crazy to believe that Mysa would be invested in believing that Mordru was now good, and indeed was what he war presenting himself as, namely the savior of the survivors of Sorceror's World.

Issue # 10 presents the first part of the long-in-coming showdown with Roxxas, and the pacing works quite well. Giffen and the Bierbaums keep the suspense building as scenes of Roxxas's progress in infiltrating Winath are interspersed with scenes of the ex-Legionnaires getting back together. Here, Giffen and crew fill in the emotional holes left in the earlier issues: We get to see Garth and Rokk hug each other; we get to see Ayla wax nostalgic about a Legion cruiser; we get to see Brainy, in his aloof manner, agree to help a teammate (Mysa); we get to see Violet's anguish over her impending encounter with Rokk. At last: this is starting to feel like the Legion.

And then Roxxas strikes. To Giffen and crew's credit, this obscure villain from Adventure # 307 (and who wasn't much of a threat in Superboy # 211) becomes a resourceful nasty who catches heroes off guard and beats and shoots them. His multiple-voice monologue has also been toned down, making it easier to follow, and parts of his dialogue are quite amusing (fretting over his hair, for example).

Unfortunately, I do not have # 11 (or # 12), so I'm missing the conclusion to this story. However, the build-up was extremely well done and made me excited about 5YL for the first time since I started participating in this review project.

Hm. I don't remember Mordru's apparent rehabilitation.

I guess I'm finding it hard to believe that any Legionnaire would trust in the "rehabilitation" of an enemy who had tried to kill them (and nearly succeeded) multiple times and who was, at one time, one of the most feared beings in the galaxy. Certainly, marrying such a former foe requires more of an explanation than given here.

Re: Mordru and the rehab. I do seem to remember that he seemed almost childlike in the last appearance of the Baxter series...I want to say it had art by McManus.

Its been a long time since I've looked back at it, but the Sorcerors are supposed to have stripped him of power and cleansed his mind of evil tendencies, or somesuch.

The inference that we're supposed to draw is that, obviously, it didn't work as well as they thought it would. Mordru is able to take advantage of the post-Magic Wars state of the Sorcerors and become their leader. Should they have been more skeptical of him? Probably. Mysa especially though, has as one her defining character traits "faith", and so its not completely out of character that she might place too much faith in the supposed "inner goodness" of the man that is supposed to have been magically rehabilitated and now seems to be offerring the survivors hope.

Interesting point, Eryk.

Faith should not be confused with blind faith, however, or even naivete. I'm not well invested in Mysa's character, so I'm not sure which of these words, if any, applies to her. But I do think that five years is a very short time for her to go from being a Legionnaire to being the wife of one of their greatest enemies.

Well, the other aspect that we have to take into account is that Mordru is a master manipulater on a number of different levels. Presumably he plays along with the whole "reformed" role at first, and by the time the evidence of his continued evil surfaces, she's already married to him and he's too powerful to stop.

Just like Mekt's rehabilitation, that has since been blackwashed back into crazy-bad-guy status, Mordru's backslide into cackling imbecility (since his plans *never* work) is just annoying to me.

I am not a fan of the villain-turns-antihero stories (such as Marvel attempted with Venom), since they are usually written terribly and just serve to fluff up popular villains (exceptions abound, such as the first few years of the Thunderbolts), but I am a big fan of *change* occuring in comic books. Mordru got redeemed. Move on to other villains. Perhaps even have some red herring / bait-n-switch where it *seems* like Mordru has reverted to form, only to discover that he's being framed by someone who is attempting to steal his powers. Same with Mekt. He got over it. Having him turn around and rejoin the LSV and be *even more psychotic than before* is, IMO, lazy writing. Find someone else for Garth to have family issues with.

Let Mordru and Mekt live on as reformed bad-guys, and, in the process, show that the Legion of Super-Heroes isn't utterly pointless. That their battles do have the potential to *change things, for the better.*

But no. Can't mess with 'the brand.' No matter how many times he's cured, Xavier's got to get back in that darned chair. No matter how much cooler he looks in black, Spiderman can't leave his traditional costume behind. No matter how many times he's been returned to the form of Ben Grimm, the Thing always ends up stuck as a pile of rocks. No matter how many times prominent characters get pregnant, the babies always mysteriously grow up in another dimension or vanish or die or are wiped out in a time-shift.

Because the writers fear change or growth or character development.

Everything has to be reset to how it was back in the '70s. Again.

Good speculation.

It's interesting to read 5YL in conjunction with the Conway era. In Conway's day, writers went to great lengths to explain motivation and back stories so a character's actions made sense. Conway even goes to the extreme by giving us too much exposition in some instances.

Giffen is the complete opposite: he doesn't provide enough information. He leaves it to the reader to figure a lot of things out. While this can be an effective means of storytelling--it respects the reader's intelligence and gets the reader more involved in the story--it can fail if not enough information is provided. I think this is the case with Mysa: we're left to draw our own conclusions about how she ended up as Mordru's wife. I don't think this strategy illuminates her character; rather, it obscures her.

It's not the writers; it's the company. Writers, for the most part, are hired hands--"work for hire," to use the legal term. Everything they do must be approved by the powers that be.

A valid point. Many writers love nothing so more as to take an established character and add something new. But, at a certain point, that writer leaves, or fiat comes down from on high, and things start changing back to the way they were a decade ago.

One thing that's interesting is that the character's are expected to act in character, because we hold our fiction to higher standards of 'making sense' and consistency than we do people in the real world, who regularly do 'out of character' stuff that baffles us.

Even when people act out of character, there's usually a reason for it. We--family, friends, general observers--may not be aware of the reason until much later, as we are usually preoccupied with our own lives or the person who is acting out of character may be adept at hiding changes that are going on within (drug abuse, for example).

But you're right, Set, that in fiction--not just comics--characters should have established personality traits and adhere to them unless something that makes sense changes those traits. Fiction is all about making sense of reality.

I don't think that we necessarily hold fictional characters to a higher standard. I think that it comes to something HWW said...there's usually a reason for breaches of character.

If a comic character does something "off character," we as fans want to know why. We want to have it shown to us. Something else else to justify this change.

A perfect example would be what happened to Hal Jordan. Total breach of character. Suffering the loss of that many friends and loved ones at one time would be a "cause" for his erratic actions. This has of course all been retconned away with the Parallax entity. But it still stands to reason that even though Hal had "come to terms with it" an issue or two before, something could have easily snapped in him causing what happened.

From the Legion, you have reboot Jan going insane after spending a long time (forget exactly how long they stated it was, something like millions of years) alone. That would do something to anybody's psyche.

It does not make the next set of actions by wither character any easier to justify, but it does give a basis for what happened. After all, these characters are "only human (Tromiam)," in that 4-color world we call comics.

Issue #20, Jul 91 - Venado Bay

Not a bad issue. There's a lot of little things going on that move the plot forward. One thing I really liked, and it was really a small thing, was that Jo had an obvious tan in his scene. Nice little touch.

The Dominators are coming to Earth in force.

Dirk is being burned alive by his power and being reported dead by Earthgov.

The U.P. is trying to help...to no avail. S.P. troops are rebelling against the Dominators, and being purged. Circe takes a stand due to her troops being slaughtered.

Devlin meets someone in the "sewers."

Some hijinks involving Celeste, Kono and various other members of the Legion.

Mysa dreams of Amethyst.

Salu has a blue leg.Garth and Imra have twin girls.

Jo has fun with his "state of mind" tests after his recent bout in the past.

Rokk talks about Venado Bay with an Imskian soldier. We learn that Kent was on Braal's side during the war, and that it was Rokk that gave Salu the scar. This being the case, I totally understand her not wanting to loose it and what it means to her as a reminder of the things that had been done.

Ulu, Dag and Drura talk about the weather and "him."

"Him" of course being Tenzil.

Text pieces include Dominator battle strategy, and a piece on Venado bay by two opposing views.

Boy there are a lot of details with Modru that you guys need to be filled in on from that 2995 LSH Mayfair book.

Mordru had his powers restored because of the Khunds attacking socerrors world. That's when the evil in him returned.

I would be lying if I said I just loved TMK from the get go.

I love it now but much of it was VERY frustrating to me at the time. True fascination that blossomed into unbridled passion for it began with the intro of the batch SW6 around # 25.

Of course, I love it ALL now and realize it was a masterpeice from the start but all the unending death and destruction was-- WHEW.

Then came LSH # 11.

Now THAT was freakin' funny.

Then came #14.

Now THAT was freakin' FUNNIER!

I probably owe these 2 issues a lot for re-boosting my spirits and keeping me hanging on long enough to become the big LSH lover I became. (Infectious Lass didn't show up until about 16 or so; I shudder to think I could have dropped it before she appeared again). I certainly owe them for making me a Tenzil supporter for life!

Forgot about all that. I have to find my copy.

Sourcebooks and the like are fun, but they should not be relied upon for essential information that readers need to understand the story.

I feel the same way about the text features in 5YL. They can augment the world of the story and increase our appreciation of it, but the story should stand on its own without any supporting material.

Hmm... I'd agree about the sourcebooks, but I'd consider the text features an integral part of the story.

Anyway, I like my take on Mordru better, so I'm sticking with it.

This is another area where I felt Giffen adopted the stylistic conventions of Watchmen without fully understanding how they worked. If one doesn't read the text features in Watchmen, one still understands the story. For example, we learn what we need to learn about Hollis Mason's book within the story itself (e.g., the Comedian's attempted rape of Sally Jupiter, Mothman going insane, etc.). The chapters of the book printed as text features add loads of additional informaton but are not essential to understanding anything within the story. For example, we learn the fates of Dollar Bill, the Silhouette, and the possible fate of Hooded Justice in the text features, but these are, relatively speaking, minor characters who have no bearing on the "present" story of Watchmen.

With 5YL, unless I'm mistaken, the first and only place we learn about Tinya's supposed passing is in a text feature. This is a major piece of information as she was a significant part of the Legion and Jo's life.

Stories are not research papers. They should not be annotated or have appendices.

Quick reviews of # 13-16.

First, #13:

Okay, so I missed the resolution of the Roxxas arc and jump back in during the middle of Kent Shakespeare's battle with the Persuader on Quarantine. The artwork and coloring of the underwater scenes made it very difficult to tell what was going on, but Kent's resolution of the battle was quite funny: using the Persuader's head to plug a hole in the auto forcefield.

I like Kent as a character, and this issue establishes him quite well. I felt sorry for Ivy when she overhears him planning to leave Quarantine to rejoin the Legion; I also felt sorry for Kent when he recalls her blistering farewell to him ("I hope you die on your first mission!").

The scenes of Jo being stranded on Khundia were quite good. I liked it that neither he nor we the readers (apparently) know that Jo is stranded in the past. That makes his confusion even more real.

Question: What color is the Khunds' skin? In various scenes during these four issues, the Khunds are shown to be yellow, somewhat lobster colored, and Caucasian. While it's understandable that their race might have more than one skin tone, it gets confusing in a book already overcrowded with aliens.

The scene between Rokk and Vi was very moving. Rokk, being the mensch that he is, actually apologized to her.

I'm not sure what to make of the "Interlude" with Glorith and the Time Trapper. Didn't we already establish that the Trapper was erased from existence and that Glorith took his place? Why was it necessary to show her killing him and taking the last of his power. She was already all-powerful in this continuity, wasn't she?

#14:

I think Giffen's calling is humor moreso than drama, as this issue is quite funny. Tenz remains unflappable no matter what happens to him, even being sent to the Evillo's Realm of Darkness. Of course, the Realm includes "the candle that must never ever ever ever be blown out"--and we know that it will be blown out in the end.

Page 9 contains probably the best use of the nine-panel grid I've ever seen.

This issue also works in several characters from the Legion's past surprisingly well. For the most part, Giffen and crew drop long unseen characters into the book like children popping in to say "Boo!" But here, time is spent with Calorie Queen, Saturn Queen, and Sugyn to establish their personalities and give them something meaningful to do. As a result, the story flows much better than most 5YL issues have so far.

I did not understand why Brek stayed behind to tutor Evillo's daughters. Granted that they fawned over him like a celebrity and Brek (the Charlie Brown of the Legion) probably isn't used to being treated that way. Still, his decision had no set up or explanation.

# 15-16:

The opening scenes of # 15 begin on a humorous note with the Legionnaires trying to fix their new headquarters on Talus; these scenes, however, do not prepare us for what lies ahead. The Khunds invade Orando and unleash a horrific new weapon: the Red Terror (shades of McCarthyism!).

The Legion make a decision to go to war and are immediately drawn into conflict with the Khunds. Several things happen on several fronts: Vi loses her leg in battle; Cham meets with a Khund spy; Furball is injured (off-panel); Chuck and Lu contemplate a possible invasion of the militia training academy on Xolnar, where they serve as inspector generals; and Lar and Tasmia show up on Talok VIII to render assistance.

Although the Legion gets into the battle too abruptly, the above scenes are choreographed very well. I must disagree with Dev's opinion that the fill-in art by Brandon Peterson is bad. Scenes such as these need clear establishing shots, a variety of page layouts, and distinctive character portrayals--all of which Peterson provides in abundance. Giffen's ususal art, confined to nine-panel grids, simply would not convey the fast-moving action and drama required.

In issue # 16, things go from bad to worse for our heroes. We can tell they're worse on the first page, as Brainy sports an eye injury. Despite a narrative that doesn't always show us important scenes such how he got the injury in the first place, Giffen and the Bierbaums effectively guide us through the battle. The tension is increased as our heroes try to figure out where the Khunds will strike next and err in thinking they will go to Talok instead of Xolnar.

The realism of these scenes become quite unnerving. I kept hoping that Chuck would use his Bouncing Boy powers, for example, and set things right. Instead, he and Lu have to give up the academy and make their stand in the pluridium mines--all the while losing some of their cadets to enemy fire. I'm not used to seeing Legionnaires in real war situations--and losing. This, I think, is 5YL at it's best: Giffen does indeed challenge our preconceptions of who the Legionnaires are and what their universe is about.

Again, I credit Peterson with rendering all of this in a style that makes every action clear, every character distinct.

Unfortunately, I'm missing # 17-18, which is a shame as I'm psyched to see what happens next.