Well, I’m back after a small break from here. I want to eventually put out at least two posts a month on here, but I don’t know if that’ll be possible for a while. So, a post a month may do for now. Since I’m doing some other things on Random Thoughts, I thought I would revisit a crossover I talked about years ago: Legends.
Legends was DC Comics’ first crossover after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since COIE was pretty much a success, DC decided to make this a yearly thing. Legends came at a time when there was a lot of change going on. Since the Crisis, Superman and Wonder Woman were revamped. The Green Lantern Corps were on Earth. There was a new Flash in Wally West (more on Heroes in Crisis some other time). The Justice League of America was… kinda weird since it was in its “Detroit Era.” There’s also the fact that this New Earth housed heroes like Captain Marvel (or Shazam) and Blue Beetle from the former Multiverse. So, what did DC do? They have them go up against the Lord of Apokalips.
Legends was released over six parts from November of 1986 to April of 1987. While it did serve as an endpoint to one thing (The Detroit Justice League), it spawned off a number of new books like a new Flash book, Justice League International, and Suicide Squad. To bring us this crossover, DC put together a group of well-known creators. John Ostrander (who eventually went on to write Suicide Squad) provided the plot. Len Wein handled the scripting duties. We had the rebooter himself, John Byrne, doing the pencils. He was supplied inks from Karl Kesel. I thought it was an okay crossover back when I first read it. Now that I’ve re-read it and the tie-ins, has my opinion changed from 2011?
SYNOPSIS
Darkseid wants to rule Earth, but Earth’s superheroes pose a big problem. Instead of bumrushing them like he ultimately does in the New 52, he takes a more subtle approach. In Operation: Humiliation, he has Glorious Godfrey go to Earth and use his powers of persuasion to turn humanity against superheroes. He also sends a creature called Brimstone to cause havoc and Macro-Man to scare poor Billy Baston. In a fight, Billy transforms into Captain Marvel and thinks he kills Macro-Man. This causes Billy to turn normal and swear off the name “Shazam.” While Darkseid sits in his laurels, the Phantom Stranger shows up to basically tell him that he’ll fail in the end.
As G. Gordon Godfrey, GG uses his powers of persuasion to turn humanity against the heroes. It seems, though, that the only ones who aren’t affected are children. Riots break out, so President Reagan enacts an executive order banning all superheroism. Martian Manhunter even disbands the JLA because of this. This doesn’t stop most heroes like Batman, Black Canary, Blue Beetle, and Flash from doing their job. Godfrey turns up the ante because of this and even threatens a government takeover with forces from Apokalips.
During all of this, Amanda Waller gets the President to bring back Task Force X, aka “The Suicide Squad.” She also ends up enlisting supervillains instead of just expendable soldiers. They’re the ones who ultimately take down Brimstone. When one of their own (Captain Boomerang) goes rogue, they try to go “save” him. It especially becomes a problem when Boomerang (along with Flash and Changeling) get ganged up on in Washington DC.
Doctor Fate senses that some force is causing this, so he gathers the heroes that showed up in the crossover and has them go to Washington as well. Even Billy gets back in the action. Robin (who almost got killed in a riot) even gets in with some “little” help from some children. The crossover concludes in Washington DC as the heroes take on Parademons, Wonder Woman makes her new debut, and the children save the day… yeah, the children!!! (Shakes fist in air)
TIE-INS
There were a few tie-ins to this one. They mostly showed how Godfrey’s machinations affected the heroes in their own books. We even get a couple that take place elsewhere, though I’m not how Warlord fits into all of this.
- Batman (Batman #401, Detective Comics #568) – This just has Batman and Robin go up against a couple of supervillains while Godfrey (who’s looking pretty inconsistent in both issues) is doing his preaching thing. They’re both okay for the most part, but I wasn’t liking the art in both issues. Klaus Janson did the art in the DC comic, and I’ve let it be known that I can’t stand Janson’s pencils.
- Green Lantern Corps #207 – This issue sees the return of the a-holistic ginger himself, Guy Gardner, to the GL books. Reading this now, Guy is such an annoyance. I’m just glad he ain’t this annoying these days. Also, this is the issue where Hal lets it be know that he’s dating Arisa, another GL. It would be fine if Arrissa, who was apparently a teenager, didn’t use her ring to forcibly age herself into a sexy woman… comics are weird, man. Thankfully, everyone gives Hal crap for it like they should!
- Cosmic Boy #1-4 – This was a decent miniseries that had Cosmic Boy and his girlfriend come back to 1986 for a small vacation. Rokk’s actually surprised by how different this era is since the Crisis re-wrote stuff like the fact there’s no Superboy. He also runs into some issues getting back to his time. Now, this does come back later with Superman and the Legion of Superheroes, but that’s for another time.
- Justice League of America #258-261 – This was pretty much the dark end of the Detroit JLA. Dr. Ivo decides to take revenge on the hero community by killing Steel, Gypsy, Vixen, and Vibe. I won’t spoil what happens here, but let’s just say it gets pretty grim. I didn’t know this League much, but these were some interesting issues to read. They were written by J.M. DeMatteis, someone who can go pretty dark when he wants to.
- Firestorm #55-56
Firestorm gets personally affected with the whole Legends plot. It definitely gets bad between Ronnie Raymond and Prof. Stein since Stein doesn’t want to form up as “Flame-Head Man” anymore. This was also written by Ostrander who eventually took over writing duties on this book. It was also an interesting one to read. - Secret Origins #13-14 – This series went into origins for certain characters. In this case, #13 went over the supposed origins of the Phantom Stranger. We end up getting four possible origins for the character. Alan Moore even wrote one of them. It’s actually kind of interesting and makes you wonder which of the stories are actually true. As for #14, it goes into the origins of the Suicide Squad. We see the original expendable soldiers from back in the day as well as the new iteration. We even get an origin on Amanda Waller. This issue especially feels like required reading for anyone interested in Ostrander’s SS run especially since he wrote the thing.
- Blue Beetle #9-10 – This pretty much has BB go up against Chronos while dealing with the superhero ban. He also has his own stuff to take care of here too. These were two okay tie-ins as a whole, though.
- Warlord #114-115 – Now, this one is a weird tie-in. I don’t know crap about Warlord other than he looks like a mish-mash of Green Arrow, Thor, and the John Carter from Mars. Anyway, this has Desaad go to Skartarsis (a land hidden in the Core of the Earth) and try to turn its people against Travis Morgan, aka Warlord. Meanwhile, Warlord has to deal with his own stuff as well as quite a few scantly-clad ladies. At least he’s sporting his own loin-cloth to fit in. These were also alright.
- Superman (Superman #3, Adventures of Superman #426, Action Comics #586)
Finally, we have a three-part crossover with the three Superman books at the time. In this story, Darkseid teleports Superman to Apokalips in order to screw with him. What ends up happening is tht Clark gets amnesia, becomes a “Savior” for the Hunger Dogs, hooks up with a lady named Amazing Grace (seriously), and faces off against Orion and Darkseid. It’s not the greatest crossover, but it is pretty fun. I especially liked that weird Roman-like armor Superman wears at some point.
REVIEW/CONCLUSION
Now that I’ve finally read Legends along with the tie-ins, what do I think? Honestly, I think I still have the same feeling I had from 2011. Legends is a decent story for the most part. It has good parts, but there are some things I’m still not a fan of here. I think I’m gonna start labeling these things so it won’t get too cluttered.
The Story
As a story, Legends is fine. The idea of having humanity being opposed to superheroes is something we’ve seen for years. We got it in the Marvel Universe with characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men. We even see it more these days in superhero stories. Legends plays with the trope but not too well. It all ends up being mind-control via Darkseid and while that is fine, it’s not that great. That being said, G. Gordon Godfrey was fine as a villain. He was definitely reminding me of… certain folk you see in the news. If anyone says that comics don’t get political, tell that person to actually read a comic!
As for our heroes, they get to shine well. Even when they’re being outlawed, they still shined… well, except for Superman, who followed the law since he’s just that dude. At least he had his fun on Apokalips. The standouts for me, though, were definitely the Suicide Squad. I think it was this that got me interested in collecting Ostrander’s SS run. By the way, I think I’m only missing the Oracle issues. The only hero doesn’t shine for me here is Guy Gardner. Thank God someone toned down his jackass tendencies in the modern era.
As for the things I don’t like, the dialogue could’ve been better. I don’t think it’s my modern tendencies slipping through on this one. I even felt that way in my other review. Another thing that is weird is that it seemed to repeat itself a lot. While that was the norm for comics, this one did it much more than it needed to especially with Billy. Also, what was up with the children saving the day? While these were meant for kids, that plot point was a little cheesy even for me. Now, this is a nitpick, but it does kind of suck that Darkseid is completely on the sidelines. While he usually does this in some stories, it would have been nice to see him face off against the heroes at the end. Other than these things, it’s a fine story overall.
The Artwork
If there’s one thing that’s consistently good in this event, it would be the artwork. Byrne was already handling the DCU with Superman (and Action Comics since it was a team-up book), so seeing him draw other heroes was cool. Byrne’s Darkseid even looked pretty cool. Kesel also worked nicely with the inks. Other than some okay panels, the artwork is solid through and through. Oh yeah, Black Canary’s “Flashdance” costume sucks! Other than that, it’s all good.
The Tie-Ins
Finally, the tie-ins were fine for the most part. Some of them did their job and tied into the event nicely. Some of them went off the cuff a bit and those were the ones I liked. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Cosmic Boy miniseries and the final arc of the Detroit JLA. Both Secret Origin issues stood out as well. Finally, Superman’s stint on Apokalips was also pretty fun. The only ones I wasn’t feeling were the Warlord and strangely the Batman ones. I guess that crappy artwork for the Batman issues ruined it for me.
……………………………………….
In the end, Legends was a fine event overall. While I wasn’t a fan of some story elements, it was a good event that started off some good things. Wally West finally got his Flash book. The Justice League was retooled into something possibly better. The Suicide Squad got their own awesome book. Oh yeah, we got introduced to “The Wall” herself, Amanda Waller. If I remember this event for anything, it’ll be for that as well as Darkseid’s toy collection. In the end, this event gets 3.5 Darkseid Action Figures out of 5. I think I’ll stay in the 80’s for a while. Besides, I got another DC event right on my mind: Invasion! Until then, Peace and God Bless.
Comic Crossover Central 
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