This should be fun.

I read the Legion religiously from just before the Giffen art started (1981 or 1982, I think) and I read it up to the point where Karate Kid was killed.

Then I started up again when Legionnaires #1 came out (early to mid-1990s) and I read both Legion books for about five years.

I vaguely remember "Five Years Later" being advertised but I'm pretty sure I've never read any of those. So it will be nice to read your reviews and get some insight on this era.

I never really understood what SW6 meant either, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with 5YL.

Background Information

In 1985, DC published the epic maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths in an attempt to both catch up in sales to Marvel Comics and gain back a larger portion of the market while also boiling down their 50+ year continuity to make it more manageable for new readers. Whether or not they succeeded and if throwing out so much continuity and history was a prudent move can be debated back and forth, but the event ultimately dealt a major blow to one of DC's top selling books at the time, the Legion of Super-heroes.

At the time, Paul Levitz was in the middle of his now legendary run on book. Levitz, along with his contemporaries Marv Wolfman and Chris Claremont, was a master of juggling multiple plot threads in each issue while also driving forward the franchise forward, actually allowing characters to grow. Members left the team. Members died. Some married and retired from being superheroes. New members joined and began to replace the old guard. It was a book that understood the need for characters to not remain static and to actually grow up with the reader. In contrast to the modern comics paradigm of reboots and relaunches to radically shift characters in new directions, Levitz understood that character growth must come organically through the events they faced and the relationships they had. Like the New Teen Titans and Uncanny X-Men, the Legion grew in popularity due to its ability to push the characters into the next stage of their lives while remaining true to the continuity that came before it.

Unfortunately, the good times were not meant to last forever. The events of Crisis were a huge thorn in the Legion’s side, creating a double-edged sword situation. On one hand, the Legion, for the most part, was immune to much of radical retooling that other franchises, such as Superman and Hawkman, felt in the post-Crisis era as their existence was 1000 years removed from the “present” DCU and their status as a top selling book gave the book freedom from sales driven changes (i.e. the Byrne revamp of Superman). On the other hand, however, it was that same lack of change that quickly made the Legion a problem franchise. John Byrne’s reboot of Superman completely removed Superboy from Kal-El’s career as a superhero, retconning Superman as only putting on his cape once he was an adult. However, how could the Legion be inspired by Superboy if he now never existed in the DCU? As you may have seen in shaxper’s reviews of the post-Crisis Superman books, things got messy fast. Levitz was forced to salvage the situation as best as he could and write a way out of the paradox he now found himself in. This led to the convoluted "Pocket Universe" saga that ultimately revealed that the Superboy and the Smallville the Legion knew were simply constructs of the Time Trapper all along and that any interaction they had with Superboy was never with the real thing.



Needless to say, it was clear that Levitz's mojo took a heavy blow with this turn. Following the death of the Pocket Universe Superboy to remove the last vestiges of pre-Crisis ties to the Legion, Levitz's run quickly sank. Sales began to go down and DC editors scrambled to find a replacement to take the franchise in a new direction while Levitz himself was promoted to VP of DC. Levitz's last arc on the series, The Magic Wars, saw the United Planets besieged by ancient arcane forces in a battle of magic vs science. Though the Legionnaires ultimately defeated the Archmage and the universe was saved, it was clear that the Legion's future was a much darker place than it had ever been before, setting the franchise up for the dystopian future that would soon follow in the TMK era.

This is going to be a great thread, Pharozonk! I look forward to it!

For the first months of its existence, the 5YL Legion was my favourite book... and I stayed a big fan all the way to issue 38. You're right: it was a very ambitious project!

In the 80's and 90's - I was a LOSH fan and I kind stopped by mid-90's and this thread would be a fascinating one indeed and looking forward to this groundbreaking project of yours!

Legion of Super-heroes (1989) #1



"Five Years Later..."
Writer: Keith Giffen, Tom Bierbaum, Mary Bierbaum
Pencils: Keith Giffen 
Ink: Al Gordon
Color: Tom McGraw
Editor: Mark Waid

Grade: A- 

Summary: We open to a splash page of stars with only the words "Five Years Later" in the center of the page. From there, we move to various panels of news correspondents, including Dirk Morgna aka Sun Boy, discussing various topics. We then cut to a hooded figure watching the news as he talks to his secretary. The figure laments "watching everything fall the pieces", but the secretary reminds him of his responsibilities. The figure that removes his hood to reveal that he is Reep Daggle aka Chameleon Boy. Reep asks for his father's aide, Marla Latham, for help in his endeavor. We then find Rokk Krinn aka Cosmic Boy on his homeworld of Braal, married to his wife Lydda Jath aka Night Girl. The two are expecting their first child, living on a planet that has largely fallen into disarray. Like Reep, Rokk also laments the fall of the Legion and regrets not being there to save the team from splitting up. As he travels the streets, he is harassed by a UP soldier who asks to see his ID before he can go on his way. Meanwhile in outer space, Salu Digby aka Shrinking Violet, who is now an officer in the Imsk army, is returning to a shuttle to meet her commanding officer for a meeting. An android meets her as she exits the shuttle and asks her about removing a large scar over her eye, but she refuses to get rid of it. Her commander also brings up the scar issue, but she refuses once again and is discharged from the army for refusing to follow an order. She then sends a message to Ayla Ranzz aka Lightning Lass that she's coming to Winath to see her. Back on Braal, Rokk is meeting his friend Loomis and discussing how much things have changed since they were kids. Suddenly, Cham appears and proposes his idea of reuniting the Legion to make the universe a better place. Rokk is initially shocked, but slowly realizes that the universe needs the Legion again now more than ever. The two walk off, beginning their journey to rebuild the Legion again. 

Thoughts: This issue is a continuity nut's dream. Every page is lined with Easter Eggs, references, and world-building that would become a hallmark of the run and it's emphasis on continuity heavy plotting. Reading this in 2015, I'm amazed at how any new reader, if there were any, could have understood this story. When I first read these issues, I had the aide of Wikipedia and Comicvine to look up any character or setting I was unfamiliar with. But in 1989? I imagine such comprehension would be a Herculean feat for a new Legion reader. For one thing, TMK (Tom, Mary, and Keith) actively reject using the Legionnaires' hero names and instead rely on using their actual civilian identities (i.e Reep, Rokk, Salu, etc.). On one hand, this gives the story a more intimate feeling, as if these are characters we've known for a long time and are revisiting after years apart. On the other hand, if you lack that familiarity, it's near impossible to understand who these characters are and what their relationships are to each other. Furthermore, the numerous nods to past Legion continuity will play an important role in later issues, which a new reader may not be privy to.

Giffen's use of a nine panel underscores the huge influence Alan Moore's Watchmen had on storytelling at the time and I think it fits the kind of story being told here. The limited panel size forces the artist to squeeze in only the bare essentials of an image to convey the message of the story, leaving much to the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. This creates a more complex method of storytelling that doesn't hold the reader's hand. One downside of this method, however, is that it often prevents any "motion" in a story. Smaller panels prevent the characters from showing any movement or engaging in any action that would require more panel size. Giffen circumvents this by focusing more on dialogue and interpersonal moments rather than action heavy set pieces throughout this run. 

What's most enjoyable about the issue is the sense of mystery TMK leave the readers with. Why is Dirk now a politician? Why is Rokk having flashbacks to a war and how did he lose his powers? Why is Salu now in the army and where did she get that scar? It leaves the reader hungry for answers and is very effective in that role. This is helped by the use of backup pages at the end of the issue that serve as clues to the overall events that occur during the 5 year gap. One example is this message from Polar Boy to the President of Earth:




Though the message is fairly concise, it sets up the tension between the government and the Legion that is developed during this run. 

Before reading, I have to state that I'm a life-long Legion fan (well, up until 2006, when I quit new comics for good) and a huge fan of V4, so this is right in my wheelhouse. Now to see what everyone else thinks.

This was both the strength and weakness of V4. It was a strength because it was almost novel-like, and they gave you everything you needed to know about the characters in the book, although it was clear that there was a bunch of stuff being left unsaid. It was a weakness, though, because comic fans at the time were so used to the "maintained status quo" that they hated the fact that they didn't have everything laid out in front of them. Fandom was HORRIBLY divided even amongst the long-time fans. The traditionalists hated every second of it, complaining constantly that this wasn't their Legion. Many, like I, felt that they'd really run out of stories to tell with that Legion, and this approach was quite fresh and rife with possibilities, full of depth and mystery. The mystery of what had happened was intriguing and I definitely enjoyed piecing things together as things went along. So much more fun for me than them just telling the story in a linear fashion.

Much complaint was made, too, that they'd changed the Legion from "bright shiny future" to the then-more-popular "grim and gritty". The difference, though, was that this was "grim and gritty" done right, not like so many imitators of Watchmen and DKR who thought it meant "let's make everyone hyper-violent with swearing". This was some very well-done dystopian sci-fi, very appropriate for a book with its roots.



And when he did have action, he handled it in the nine-panel marvelously. Fights don't have to be big splash pages or large panels to be effective. With comics, there's always been a lot of skill dealing with "what you don't see" and Keith was masterful at it.



Yup, Keith Giffen with a tablet, twenty years or so ahead of time.

I LOVED the Omnicom text pages because they were being used in much the same way as Moore used the text-pieces in Watchmen. They weren't fluff extras, but important parts of the story and not to be skipped.

Overall, this issue thrilled and excited me, by a combination of craft and anticipation. This is another one I PORED over, reading and rereading and always finding new little tidbits just WAITING for the next issue, like I did all the way through Watchmen. I was hooked in a MAJOR way.

Nicely done, and looking forward to more, Pharozonk!