Monday, September 22, 2014

The Greatest Hero of Them All - Legion of Super-Heroes 38


Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume III) #38 (September 1987)(cover by Bill Sienkiewicz)
"The Greatest Hero of Them All"
Paul Levitz-Greg Laroque/Mike DeCarlo/Arne Starr

Doug: That's a worthy cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, don't you think? It certainly has the majesty due an icon, and the color palette seems fitting as well. If there's one thing I can say based on the comments of the past three weeks (and they've been a bit weak in number, don't you think? C'mon -- help a brother out! These things take a few hours to craft!), it's that we stand unanimously on the error that was the decision to usher in the Crisis. Some of you have remarked that DC had a unique thing going with the multiverse as it was; others have stood specifically with Karen and I in our disdain for the divorcing of Superboy and Supergirl from Legion lore. But whatever our collective beef, this has been an emotional trip down memory lane. Let's see how the Legion creators finish it off.


Doug: When last we left our heroes, Superman had defeated the more-powerful Superboy. He'd done it due largely to the fact that Superboy's heart just wasn't in the fight. Having been raised by the Kents with strong Midwestern values (I always wonder if that's a glorification of the region where I've lived, or a flat-out knock on everywhere else), there was simply no way that Superboy could be a part of any heinous plots or crimes hatched by the Time Trapper. So now the Teen of Steel and four of his Legion teammates rocket through the time stream in a Legion time bubble. Along the way we get a basic recap of this adventure, some theories laid down by Brainiac-5, and then "the rest of the story" from Superboy himself. He narrates a tale that those of us who read Crisis On Infinite Earths way back when will recognize -- skies lit red, anti-matter moving into and around a planet. In this case, Earth. But not our Earth -- Superboy's Earth, part of the Time Trapper's pocket universe. Superboy tried every power he had and every strategy he knew. And just when he was about to sacrifice himself in a heroic effort by flying into the heart of the anti-matter, the Time Trapper appeared.


Doug: The Time Trapper offered Superboy a deal -- ally with him, and Superboy's Earth would be spared. And then the Trapper narrate his side of the story, as it continued. In the gymnasium of Smallville High School the Trapper held Ultra Boy, Cosmic Boy, Night Girl, and Mon-el hostage (all still in stasis from their zapping in LoSH #37). The Trapper says that every event we've seen over the past three weeks was orchestrated by him. Indeed, since the Legion first attempted time travel (see Adventure Comics #247 if you don't know to what he's referring), they have lived on his terms -- always journeying to a time and space of his creation. In other words, even if accurate history books of Superboy's exploits would have existed, they'd never have existed in our reality. We then get a one-page interlude with Wildfire and Dawnstar -- she is none too happy with Wildfire's change in appearance, much to Drake's dismay.


Doug: Back in Smallville, the time bubble approaches the high school. Brainy had created a phony stasis ray that Superboy could use to incapacitate the Legionnaires temporarily -- by intense concentration, the young heroes could break its bonds when action demanded. Superboy burst through the sidewall of the gym with the bubble. The Time Trapper was ecstatic. Superboy offered his teammates to his "ally", thinking to himself that he was going to defeat the Trapper once he was certain the anti-matter threat had been permanently removed. But he felt more confident now, knowing that this teammates were with him. But when Superboy said the deal was over, the Trapper scoffed at him... and then caused a very large gun to appear. A gun which Superboy should now use to slay his eight friends. After all, the Trapper mused, as true heroes they surely wouldn't mind sacrificing themselves to save the planet Earth. And of course you can guess Superboy's response -- he crushes the gun in his bare hands, forming it into a ball and hurling it at the Time Trapper. And the Legion breaks free of their trance!


Doug: The Time Trapper rose to meet the Legion, growing his form to Colossal Boy-proportions. Superboy and Sun Boy attacked, but were repelled. The Trapper gloated that he was entropy incarnate, the dark ending of time itself. The Legionnaires mounted the best offensive they could, and it got a little better when Brainy figured out that he could use the stasis ray of his own crafting to free the first four that had been trapped by Superboy's ray. So now nine super-teens rallied against an unbeatable foe. Superboy launched a violent attack that only resulted in destroying the machine that held Earth together against the anti-matter. Now with that safety net gone, the focus shifted from the Time Trapper to saving lives outside Smallville High School. And then, in the midst of this suspense, we get another one-pager, this time showing mopey Polar Boy doubting his leadership abilities while being comforted by Dream Girl. Who cares??


Doug: All of the Legionnaires headed outside, sans Superboy, Ultra Boy, and Mon-el -- the power trio. Those three took to the very skies, attempting to halt the advance of the red skies. The Time Trapper stood atop the high school, mulling over his plan and other-worldly events conspiring against him. He settled back to the ground to goad Brainiac-5. The Trapper reiterated that this Earth was never that of the Legion's past, but only a sliver of reality. Brainy threw a forcefield around the Trapper in a vain attempt to hold him. Brainy pressed him -- would the 30th Century survive? Sure -- your 30th Century, said the Trapper. But not this one. And as a true hero, Brainiac said to think again. The Time Trapper laughed loudly and vanished.


Doug: Cosmic Boy implored Brainy to figure out a way to save the day, but Brainy balked. The technology and power sources were beyond him. He didn't have the right supplies to fix what had been broken in the fight. But in the sky, Superboy suddenly had an epiphany -- he could fix what was wrong! Streaking past his teammates and straight to the containment device, Superboy attached himself to it as a living conductor -- he was attempting to allow it to repair itself by running all the energy through himself. With his teammates begging him to stop, the Teen of Steel used his super-breath to repel Mon-el and Ultra Boy. Sun Boy remarked that he felt like the team was being pulled back -- even transported away, to their future. As the Earth groaned, the residents of Smallville could tell that the end was nigh. Lana, Pete, Ma and Pa Kent -- all of them knew something was not right. Ultra Boy and Mon-el could hardly contain themselves as they watched their "brother". But you know what? He did it. Superboy saved his Earth. Instruments showed that the Earth was moved away from the anti-matter -- Superboy's universe was healthy, alive. The Legionnaires quickly grabbed his limp body, Brainy ordering everyone into the time bubble so that he could examine young Kal in the multi-lab back in the 30th Century. Superboy muttered to Brainy, asking if Earth was OK. Brainy assured him that it was. And as everyone got into the bubble and Blok readied for take-off, Superboy moved back outside and slammed the door shut!


Doug: Hoisting the bubble on his shoulders, Superboy flew it under his own power into the time stream, all the way to the Legion's time. As they passed through the final year, the Legionnaires burst out of the bubble, catching Superboy as he fell away from the strain. Mon-el caught him and flew like lightning toward the multi-lab. As they sped, Superboy mustered one more breath, and asked Mon-el to take care of the Earth for him. And then he died. The Legion assembled for the funeral some time later. The White Witch reported that she could not find Superboy's Earth, but that she knew it was fine. And then the team met in their hall of fallen heroes, among the statues that memorialized Supergirl, Ferro Lad, the first Invisible Kid, Chemical King, and Karate Kid. Now another statue joined those ranks -- that of Kal-el, Superboy.


Doug: I think Paul Levitz wrote a touching story that was a bit more emotionally-charged toward sadness than Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" 2-parter. Moore's story seemed to want to shock, almost as if he was mad at this turn of events in the DCU and wanted to take everyone else down with him. Here Paul Levitz pulls on our heartstrings with the heroism of Superboy, and the void we know he will leave in the lives of Mon-el and the rest of the Legion. But did you catch the "out" there at the end of the story? The White Witch said that while she couldn't find that Earth, she knew it was OK. But aren't all serialized stories written with that sort of a fail-safe? But I'm still left wanting here. How did Superboy die? Where did the pocket Earth really go? Where did the Time Trapper go? How did the Legion journey back to the pocket Earth without creating a divergent timeline that would have led to a Legion of Super-Heroes in the pocket universe? And someone please help me with this -- how could Kara and Kal-el exist together in the 30th Century, with Kara always believing that Kal was the teen version of her older (to her) cousin? Was the pre-Crisis Superboy "real" on the same Earth on which Kara arrived to?

Doug: Yeah, that multiverse thing was a lot simpler. Give me Mr. Tawky-Tawny on Earth-S any day...



21 comments:

Anonymous said...

This four-part story really brought it home to me that the people at DC hadn't thought through the effects of the Crisis. My points have been raised by others, but it won't hurt to reiterate: Get rid of all the alternate Earths, then explain away the Superboy/Legion inconsistency with a brand new alternate Earth? For that matter, explain away Superboy but somehow forget Supergirl was also in the Legion? I got the impression that no one even thought of the Legion-related problems until after issue 12 of CoIE had been published. Maybe there was no perfect way to rationalize the troublesome aspects of Legion history, but there had to be a better one than this. (See also: Hawkman, Wonder Girl.)

Also, did they ever come up with an explanation for Mon-El? It seems that, as of the conclusion of this four-parter, he came from Daxam in the main DC universe, traveled to the Krypton, Earth and Phantom Zone of the pocket universe, then emerged on 30th-century Earth in the main universe when Saturn Girl rescued him. I know that eventually this was all rendered moot by the "Glorithverse," but before then was there any attempt to explain it?

Rusty

Doug said...

Thanks, Rusty, for launching the comments this morning!

My apologies to all for a couple of the subpar scans. Last week was a busy one, and my attention to detail was not what it usually is! Additionally, the two-page spread at the end is as good as it can get -- my scanner bed just isn't large enough to accommodate an image of that size.

Doug

dbutler16 said...

Count me as one of the camp that believes that COIE was a bad idea, as DC had a great thing (and really not complicated!) going with their multiverse. Also, exhibit A as to why COIE was a bad thing is the Legion of Super-Heroes. I’m not sure any DC property has suffered as much due to those events as they have. You need a playbook and a PhD to figure out the Legion since then. Also, I think Rusty is spot on that DC hadn't thought through the effects of the Crisis.

I loved this four parter, and I do prefer this story to Moore’s "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow". I agree with Doug that Moore seemed to want to shock. It was a very well done story, but I prefer this sort of story. Plus, I love Greg Laroque’s art, especially with Mike DeCarlo’s inking.

Murray said...

Personally, I think the cover is a fargin' sloppy mess. Dawnstar dominates it way too much. I can think of a few covers from Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes annuals and such that do the job much better.

Greg Laroque's art leaves me yawning. Stiff and clumsy.

I'm not sure who in the comic book production line is in charge of word balloon choice and placement, but they really mucked this up. Trying to build the gravitas of the anti-matter skies and Superboy being powerless. Let's toss in ridiculous balloon of Lana going "Eek" like she saw a big bee. (To name one.)

The final funeral splash page is another compositional mess. The art dominated by a big blob of blue and only the word balloon tells us it is Mon-El. Yeesh.

Sorry, not a single heartstring tugged. Here or with Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?.

This is a lot of hindsight talking. Back then, despite the shock, I suspect I had a naive fanboy hope that DC may have flattened the grand old city, wait until you see what shining new city they'll build...!

Edo Bosnar said...

Sorry for not commenting last week Doug; I was pretty sick at the beginning of last week and really couldn't come up with much to add.
Anyway, I'll just say I thought you did a fine job with these reviews. It's been interesting reading up on this attempt at "fixing" the Legion post-Crisis. It seems like Levitz really put some effort into it, but as noted by you and Rusty, some loose ends and/or inconsistencies (Mon-El, Supergirl) remained.

And for what it's worth, I like the art, including the cover...

Doug said...

Ah, Edo -- you don't need to apologize! You're one of our stalwarts!

And Murray -- jeez, brother. It was all bright and sunny here this morning until I read your comments. Sheesh!

;)

Doug

Doug said...

Super Blog Team-Up, part 4 (actually part 3 for us) is coming Thursday. Prepare for review-a-palooza here at the BAB!!

Four of 'em -- count 'em -- 4!

Doug

J.A. Morris said...

Nice review from Doug,I never read this one, even though I "defected" to DC when Byrne took over Superman & Action. I guess I never read this because Byrne didn't draw it.

Pat Henry said...

I wonder how much of the "erasure of Superboy" was intended to settle copyright litigation with the Siegel family? 'Cause these stories read like they were written by corporate trial lawyers, not comics lovers.

Rusty wrote, “Maybe there was no perfect way to rationalize the troublesome aspects of Legion history, but there had to be a better one than this.”

The very essence of being a writer for superhero comics is the knack to explain the inexplicable. That is the job. Roy Thomas made a famous career out of trawling through old stories, searching for a way to knit them together in a way that made sense.

If DC really HAD committed itself to the questionable and ultimately bankrupt idea that there would only one survivor of Krypton and he would have no junior career, then write him out of Legion history entirely. COIE reknit the universe, so why elaborate further? Maintaining the conceit that somehow the Legion is a kids’ club paying homage to the memory of Superboy is the problem; all things considered, this homage is one of the most trivial and unimportant aspects of Legion, so just ditch it. Reknit reality so they were inspired by the career of SuperMAN, or ignore the conceit altogether.

You get the feeling through all this that the COIE writers thought they were a lot more masterful of the material than they really were. “Gee, watch us smash the bottle city of Kandor, tee-hee!”

It’s like a fan-fic written by folks who aren’t fans.

Doug said...

J.A. --

I only bought these two issues because they had Superboy on the cover. I just love the cover to LoSH #37 with the Smallville sign!

Did any of our readers partake of the Levitz/Giffen series, where the Legion aged to adulthood? I don't have any of those, but recall leafing through a few issues. Definitely not my cup of tea.

I came back on board with the Legionnaires series and stuck with it (and the LoSH mag that alternated in the same month) through Legion Lost and Legion Worlds. I tried to get into the Mark Waid series, and although I have the entire run of it I don't think I read more than a couple of issues. Can anyone recommend those before I sell them?

Doug

--Pat Henry said...

Am I the only one who thinks Stan or Julie could've handled the whole post-COIE Legion thing with a couple of asterisks and --ed footnotes?

Anonymous said...

I was waiting until the end of the reviews to give an overall assessment of the stories. If I had any complaints, I think it would be:

1) Why is Superboy more powerful than Superman?

2) Why don't these characters look more like kids? I mean, this could be any issue of any team book. The characters don't project an aura of adolescence to me.

3) Why did Superboy have to fly the bubble back? Was it damaged? Was there an issue with it's guidance system or power supply? I'm guessing there was still a threat that Time Trapper could alter it's course or pluck it from the time stream.

4) Shouldn't Superboy's line have been "It is finished" rather than "It is done"?

The Prowler (doing what she likes, doing what she likes).

Pat Henry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pat Henry said...

[corrected]
Prowler:

1. Because this was Silver/Bronze Superboy. Superman was de-powered post Crisis.
2. Good question. A lot of the “kid’s clubhouse” stuff had been written out of LoSH, so not much point to “Us kids are here to play Superboy!”
3. Presumably, a mechanic to get him into the future where he could be slain by the writers while still leaving a memory that he’d inspired the Legion (see #2).
4. Chuckle. The other “super son” had better writers :D

Anonymous said...

Pat Henry: I like your way of handling Superboy better than what DC came up with. If you're going to do away with a character, bite the bullet and do away with the character.

Prowler: regarding your second question, I believe there was a pre-Crisis story that explained that the normal human lifespan in the 30th century was 200 years or something, so it wasn't unusual for people in their twenties (as the Legion were supposed to be by the time of the story) to still refer to themselves as a boy, girl, kid or whatever. Hence so many of the Legionnaires still having juvenile-sounding (to us) code names. Superboy's knowledge of this was erased before he returned to the 20th century so he wouldn't be tempted to try to extend the Kent's lifespans. Personally, I think that a 17- or 18-year-old with a potential 200-year lifespan would be no less desperate to be considered "grown up" than one in today's world and wouldn't be able to shed their boy/girl/etc. code name fast enough, so I never really bought this.

Rusty

Anonymous said...

Personally, I think the whole COIE saga was way too convoluted. Multiple dimension storylines are tricky at best pull off, and I think the Legion suffered from this.

First off, the cover : Sienkiewicz is an acquired taste. I've never been a fan of his art. Generally, I find it too angular and scratchy for my taste, but I have to admit this cover really is dramatic. By the way, the artwork, especially the faces here, looks reminiscent of Paul Gulacy, don't you think?

I'm thinking maybe the ultimate reasoning behind this story was to separate the Superboy persona from the Legion, because for many years this title was known as Superboy AND the Legion of Superheroes. Perhaps someone decided the Legion had grown up and needed to stand on its own without the input of DC's flagship hero. Anyone care to expand on this hypothesis?


- Mike 'dazed and confused' from Trinidad & Tobago.

Teresa said...

Ok, first off...Sorry for the rant. But the LSH is my favorite comicbook ever. Haters be damned.
I've been pulling the LSH off the spinner rack since the Dave Cockrum era.

As a side note: I haven't been around lately. Had some health stuff. Better now (-:
Glad you all are still here. I wish I had checked in sooner for the LSH love-fest.

In the later years of the LSH, leading up to COIE, Superboy and Supergirl were rare guest stars. Mostly a couple rare panels.

DC could have divorced the LSH from regular continuity easily and never look back. They could have just not brought it up. The LSH was barely part of the regular DC continuity already.

I've collected all incarnations of the LSH. The continuity grafts were so painful.
The Cosmic Boy miniseries... Trying to re-establish the LSH in the post COIE. Another continuity skin graft. Ouch!

There was a real sense of loss to me as a long time reader of the LSH. They had 30 years of unbroken continuity. No Golden or Silver age versions to come to terms with, no Earth 2 version needed.
It wasn't a "Heroes from the Future" comic book. It was a comic book about heroes living in a Future Present. They even tracked the year they were in.

The LSH always had a firewall against continuity issues. They had been dealing with it for a long time. The LSH started in 1958. They had to adapt to Superman getting rebooted, even before the great Byrne.
Whenever they dealt with characters from the past, it was said "But the records from your time were lost long ago." That left room for change.

Fast forward 25 years after COIE and many reboots. They brought back 90% intact the pre Crisis LSH.
What a waste. Editorial mandates are more ruthless than Computo.

Doug said...

Thanks, everyone, for the passionate discourse today!

I need to make a correction to a comment I made above, about the Super Blog Team-Up. Somehow I'd missed a date change, and the big day is actually Wednesday. So for those of you who look forward to such things, you have one less day to wait!

Doug

dbutler16 said...

Doug, when you ask about the Levitz/Giffen series, where the Legion aged to adulthood, are you referring to issues 50-63 of the Baxter series (1988-89)? If so, I have all of those issues. They're not as enjoyable as the earlier issues (I despise the art, and the writing gets darker, as if to match the art) but I still like them. I'd give them a B-, whereas I'd give almost all the other Levitz Legion stuff a solid A.

dbutler16 said...

Oh, by the way, I agree with Teresa that DC could have divorced the LSH from regular continuity easily and never look back, not to mention her other thoughts. Unnecessary complications and confusion over the years, and now they've tried to go back to the pre-Magic Wars Legion, but the Genie is already out of the bottle.

Anonymous said...

"The very essence of being a writer for superhero comics is the knack to explain the inexplicable. That is the job. Roy Thomas made a famous career out of trawling through old stories, searching for a way to knit them together in a way that made sense.

If DC really HAD committed itself to the questionable and ultimately bankrupt idea that there would only one survivor of Krypton and he would have no junior career, then write him out of Legion history entirely. COIE reknit the universe, so why elaborate further? Maintaining the conceit that somehow the Legion is a kids’ club paying homage to the memory of Superboy is the problem; all things considered, this homage is one of the most trivial and unimportant aspects of Legion, so just ditch it. Reknit reality so they were inspired by the career of SuperMAN, or ignore the conceit altogether.

You get the feeling through all this that the COIE writers thought they were a lot more masterful of the material than they really were. “Gee, watch us smash the bottle city of Kandor, tee-hee!”

It’s like a fan-fic written by folks who aren’t fans."

Perfectly and succintly put.

When DC went ahead with the Crisis, they handed over the Superman universe to "fans" who didn't care for Superman, hated the mythos, Lois Lane, Supergirl, Superboy, the Legion, Krypto, the Fortress of Solitude... So they decided to break Superman and turn him into something else, pretending they were bringing him back to basics when in reality they were throwing the baby out with the bathwater, limiting the kind of stories could be told with the character and wrecking his universe because they hated it and wanted to make their fanfiction canon.

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