# 2 - Legion of Super-Heroes # 1-61, Annuals # 1-5, and Legionnaires # 1-18, Annuals # 1-2 by Tom & Mary Bierbaum, Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, Tom McCraw, and Mark Waid with art primarily by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, Jason Pearson, Stuart Immonen, Chris Sprouse, and Adam Hughes
There was heavy overlap between these two titles
Valor # 1-23 by Robert Loren Fleming, Mark Waid, and Kurt Busiek with art by Mark Bright, Jeffrey Moore, and Colleen Doran
I loved the Legion when Levitz and Giffen were on it.
At first, I hated this version, volume 4, of the Legion.
It hadn’t been around for a little while and I was rabidly awaiting their return, like always happens.
Well, what did I get ?
5 Years Later, Giffen shoves us into the dark cold future.
It's still Keith Giffen, but instead of channeling Jack Kirby, he's discovered Jose Munoz, whose work is very distinctive and heavy on blacks.
The look itself was so different that visually it turned a lot of fans off not being very traditional.
Like a lot of stylized art, I eventually came to like it, but at first, I didn't so much.
Another thing, is that his co-writers, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, were hardcore Legion fans.
That in itself was way cool and what they did to shake up the franchise was radical, but I've always really loved this concept of professional creator and fans-turned-new-pros taking the wheel.
The team is broken up and in different locations across the galaxy.
We only learn snippets of what happened between the end of Volume 3, the Magic Wars, and now, in passing dialogue.
The team tried to do the best that they could with the Superboy basically never having existed from the Pocket Universe storyline of Volume 3 # 37-38.
Mon-EL (emphasis mine) became a problem too as a relative of the House of El, Superboy, so a similar character, Valor, was introduced with the re-configuring of the Legion universe timeline where reality was ruled by Mordru and Glorith.
That’s where things get crazy.
Supergirl also was replaced with new character Laurel Gand.
From there things really got nuts.
It truly felt more sci-fi than any other Legion I’d ever read, and it was in fact, scary.
You felt like anything could happen.
It really shook the entire Legion with how radically different, and more mature, they were now; even dark perhaps, as it was the 90’s of course.
This was a darker adult Legion, and eventually it was revealed that there was a duplicate set of Legionnaires created by the Dominators.
They were modeled after the team at the point in time when they were considered the strongest, just after the death of Ferro Lad.
This gave us two different Legions, with this duplicate set having more of a traditional Silver Age feel.
They eventually spun off into their own Legionnaires title, which I ended up liking quite a lot.
The "Archie" Legion had its own title and Mon-El got retconned to Valor, the Superboy archetype, and that was actually a really good series as well.
The "End of an Era" storyline crossed all three titles. I didn't really believe that DC was going to do what it looked like they were going to do, but they actually did it.
They pulled the plug on the whole franchise and rebooted it.
Remember when I said no one was safe ?
I gave it a try anyway, cause I'm a huge Legion fan, and I get why they did it, but I really have a soft spot for the Legion back then.
