FSC: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #294

This issue of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES was the culmination of the Great Darkness Saga, a storyline that had been building in the tile over the preceding couple of months. It was the storyline that really put the Legion on the map in terms of becoming an enormously popular fan favorite series. Prior to this, the Legion had always had a strong and vocal fan base, but it wasn’t seen as a huge mainstream success. This storyline changes all that, and put the book on a footing with NEW TEEN TITANS as a step towards a more modernized and Marvel-like DC. It was also the other half of the one-two punch with UNCANNY X-MEN & NEW TEEN TITANS that really established Jack Kirby’s Darkseid as the biggest villain within the DC Universe. Up to this point, while he’d fought mainstream heroes on occasion, most of Darkseid’s activities had been limited to stories of the New Gods, and so he wasn’t yet considered a larger DC threat. But 1982 changed all that.

Writer Paul Levitz had helmed the Legion once before, where among other stories he wrote the well-remembered “Earthwar” saga. But he’d been rotated off of the assignment before hie could really become associated with it. Levitz was a huge fan of the Legion from his fan days, and he brought an energy and enthusiasm to the series, expanding out its lore and embracing even the sillier aspects of its history. He was joined in this venture by Keith Giffen, an incredibly imaginative creator who came up with a million ideas a minute and whose artwork at this time was tight and fan-pleasing, evoking some of the hallmarks of Jack Kirby but inked with the finesse of a Terry Austin. Levitz and Giffen worked hand-in-hand, with each contributor balancing out the rough edges of the other. It was a strong combination, one that left both men forever after associated with the Legion. They’d return to the characters again and again over the years.

Diving right into this massive 41page story, we open on Brainiac 5 having worked out who the architect of the galaxy’s recent troubles is: Darkseid, the legendary ruler of Apokolips. Long thought simply a legend, it turns out that Darkseid is real, and is somehow back to bedevil the universe once more. His rocklike servants appear to be reanimated champions from the past, and he’s been able to take control of the entire population of the planet Daxam, each one of whom possesses powers on the scale of Superman. Thus, Darkseid has created an unstoppable army and pointed it directly at the Earth. Faced with this threat, the Legion calls up everybody on their reserve list, including my old favorites in the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

But Darkseid has another objective, and that’s to get his hands onto a strange child that the Legion had found, one that appears to be developing at a staggering rate. Darkseid dispatches his servants to retrieve the child, but they are fought off by the Legionnaires. Ultimately, though, the Legion members are overrun by Daxamite soldiers and the lead Servant is able to make off with the mystery child, returning to Darkseid. But the White Witch is somehow able to open a space warp in their wake, a Boom Tube, carrying the assembled Legionnaires to Darkseid for a final climactic fight. But they aren’t much of a match for Darkseid and his forces–the only thing that slows down Darkseid’s servants is Shadow Lass’s shadow-casting power, which resembles Darkseid’s own energy signature. As a last ditch effort, Shady enshrouds herself and the child in darkness, and the lead servant dives in at Darkseid’s command–and then the steady ping-ping-ping of a Mother Box is heard…

..and when Darkseid dispels Shadow Lass’s darkness, he finds himself confronted by his old foes, Highfather and Orion. The child, it turns out, had been Highfather reborn just as Darkseid had been reincarnated, and he was the one who had enabled the white Witch to carry the Legion there. Orion, meanwhile, was Darkseid’s lead servant, now restored to some essence of himself and ready to play out the final New Gods prophesy that states that the son will kill the father. It is an awesome moment, and one that feels earned given the clues that had been set up in previous chapters. But it turns out that, despite the fact that its spirit is willing, this simulacrum of Orion isn’t up to the task of killing Darkseid, and is ultimately destroyed by him, though not before causing the master of Apokolips grave injuries.

Highfather, too, is spent by this point, but he uses the last of his energies to heal and protect the Legion members, so they can carry the battle from here–this is their comic, after all, despite the fact that it took a sharp left turn into being an issue of NEW GODS for a bunch of pages there. Superboy and Supergirl leap to the fore, protected from the diminishing properties of a red son and hammering away at Darkseid without restraint. But even the two Kryptonians can’t quite seem to put Darkseid down, though he’s showing the wear of the constant attacks against him. And as they reach their limit, the erst of the Legion shows up, and Darkseid is now facing a bevy of fresh foes.

What’s more, the need to call upon his own reserves of energy have let slip is control over his Daxamite army, and now an entire planet’s worth of supermen is heading his way with the intent of stomping him into goo. It’s at this point, with dignity, that Darkseid relents. He leaves the battlefield after giving the Legion a dire warning–though he pops back up unexpectedly for a moment in response to Wildfire arrogantly cheering about having made Darkseid run–bad move to antagonize so mighty a foe, Wildfire! In departing, Darkseid leaves the Legion with a curse, a curse of darkness growing within the most innocent among them. This left an interesting loose end that Levitz would pick up on and develop issues later.

In the aftermath, the Legion inducts the White Witch as a bonafide Legionnaire after decades as something of a hanger on. And Light Lass has had enough, and announces that she’s leaving the team. She tells her boyfriend Timber Wolf this, facing him with the choice of either going with her or staying. And Supergirl departs, but not before stirring up Brainiac 5, who has had a longtime doomed-by-fate-and-time crush on her. It was these bits of soap opera character interaction that helped make LEGION a fan favorite for so many years, and which compared favorably to the character-building that was then taking place in UNCANNY X-MEN and NEW TEEN TITANS. Massive stakes coupled with inter-personal emotional trauma was what the new audience of the Direct Market was craving, and with this issue, LEGION OF SUPER HEROES proved that it could deliver the goods, becoming at once another top-flight title for the New DC in this new distribution chain.