Status
Available
Publication
DC Comics (2022), Edition: 1, 352 pages
Description
Experience the Legionnaires' far-flung adventures leading up to the great darkness saga! The second volume of the Legionnaire's incredible run is here! Discover the answers to these intriguing mysteries in Legion of Super-Heroes- Before the Darkness, an astonishing collection of action-packed episodes from acclaimed talents Gerry Conway, Paul Kupperberg, E. Nelson Bridwell, J.M. DeMatteis, Jim Janes, Steve Ditko, Jim Sherman, Frank Chiaramonte, Dave Hunt, and more! This second and final volume collects The Legion of Super-Heroes #272-283, The Best of DC- Blue Ribbon Digest #24.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.
Containing Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #272-83, this collection fills in the last part of the gap between the last of the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives and The Great Darkness Saga deluxe edition, meaning that DC has collected
What is less astounding is the actual stories collected here. While volume one had a certain madcap old-school sci-fi charm, thanks to that volume's main scripter Gerry Conway, this one was much more the typical pedestrian Legion of the 1970s. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of the typical Legion melodramatics here, including an extended storyline where Ultra Boy seemingly dies but actually loses his memory and becomes a space pirate. But I found it hard to care, you know? The characters seemed to lack the solid grounding that makes the best Legion stories sing. I found it really hard to care about Reflecto or the Time Trapper here. Perhaps part of the issue is that none of the regular artists are among the Legion greats, even when they've done good work elsewhere.
The one thing you can say in favor of this saga is that it does also explain away Brainiac 5's turn into villainy and murder way back in Superboy and the Legion volume two. Perhaps we'd have been better off ignoring that, to be honest, but I guess it's good for one of our heroes to not be murdering women in squalid apartments, even when insane. This volume has a lot of the slow-simmering background plotlines that would be perfected during the Levitz and Giffen era, but they aren't so effective here; eventually I started to wonder if there would ever be any movement on the "Colossal Boy's mother is president of Earth" and "maybe Timber Wolf is going to leave the team" threads that never seemed to go anywhere.
My favorite story was a small one, and surprisingly the work of Roy Thomas. I mean, I enjoyed Roy's work on DC's Earth-Two stuff, but I don't feel like he has a particular aptitude for the Legion. But he gives a solid and keen look into the origin of Wildfire, showing the insecurities of the Legion's most blustering member. Nice stuff.
Containing Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #272-83, this collection fills in the last part of the gap between the last of the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives and The Great Darkness Saga deluxe edition, meaning that DC has collected
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a full run of the Legion from 1958's Adventure Comics #247 to 1984's Legion of Super-Heroes #313, which is quite frankly astounding. (Now all I have to do is track down the last four archives I need...) As a friend of mine has pointed out, there's no series other than the Legion where DC kept going once the archives sputtered out.What is less astounding is the actual stories collected here. While volume one had a certain madcap old-school sci-fi charm, thanks to that volume's main scripter Gerry Conway, this one was much more the typical pedestrian Legion of the 1970s. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of the typical Legion melodramatics here, including an extended storyline where Ultra Boy seemingly dies but actually loses his memory and becomes a space pirate. But I found it hard to care, you know? The characters seemed to lack the solid grounding that makes the best Legion stories sing. I found it really hard to care about Reflecto or the Time Trapper here. Perhaps part of the issue is that none of the regular artists are among the Legion greats, even when they've done good work elsewhere.
The one thing you can say in favor of this saga is that it does also explain away Brainiac 5's turn into villainy and murder way back in Superboy and the Legion volume two. Perhaps we'd have been better off ignoring that, to be honest, but I guess it's good for one of our heroes to not be murdering women in squalid apartments, even when insane. This volume has a lot of the slow-simmering background plotlines that would be perfected during the Levitz and Giffen era, but they aren't so effective here; eventually I started to wonder if there would ever be any movement on the "Colossal Boy's mother is president of Earth" and "maybe Timber Wolf is going to leave the team" threads that never seemed to go anywhere.
My favorite story was a small one, and surprisingly the work of Roy Thomas. I mean, I enjoyed Roy's work on DC's Earth-Two stuff, but I don't feel like he has a particular aptitude for the Legion. But he gives a solid and keen look into the origin of Wildfire, showing the insecurities of the Legion's most blustering member. Nice stuff.
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Language
Original language
English
Physical description
352 p.; 10.45 inches
ISBN
1779510772 / 9781779510778