Legion of Super Heroes - the Levitz/Giffen Era Reviews

[Zero Hunter]

Imra was actually stranded on the icy asteroid with Yera and should've picked up that she was an imposter.

It is not like Irma goes around constantly scanning her teammates minds and they were all in a very high stress situation so any odd behavior would just be attributed to that anyway. When you add in the fact that Irma and Vi have never been shown to be that close of friends to begin with it makes perfect sense she would not have noticed anything amiss.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Pol Krinn was a disappointing choice. I don't know if Levitz planned on killing him all along. If so, I can respect his choice to kill off one of his own characters.

Paul may have made the decisions that put, er, Pol on the road to joining the Legion, but Pol was created in 1965 by Edmond Hamilton & John Forte.

[caj]

Legion of Super Bloggers review of Legion of Super Heroes #306 - it's Legion Leader election time and Star Boy is afraid Dream Girl will be re-elected, while they wait for the results, Star Boy shares his past with Wildfire, and the election results prove to be surprising.

http://legionofsuperbloggers.blogspo...eroes-306.html

[Nomads1]

Legion of Super Bloggers review of Legion of Super Heroes #306 - it's Legion Leader election time and Star Boy is afraid Dream Girl will be re-elected, while they wait for the results, Star Boy shares his past with Wildfire, and the election results prove to be surprising.

http://legionofsuperbloggers.blogspo...eroes-306.html

Being an act first, think later, if ever, kind of guy, Wildstar actually having to be the one to do damage control at the end of that issue was kind of hilarious.

Peace

[caj]

I really liked this issue. Honestly, I didn't really know much about Star Boy or Dream Girl's history with the Legion, so I drank this up.

I sound like a nerd (and I probably am) but I was always fascinated with those symbols that represented the Legionnaires. I could decipher a lot of them, but others were a process of elimination. I LOVED how Levitz and Giffen used the symbols to show how everyone was voting. While some didn't make sense (why would Superboy and Mon-El vote for Dream Girl over Ultra Boy???), most of the votes did.

Wildfire was a lot of fun here as well.

Incredible cover by the way. Enjoy the beautiful Giffen / Mahlstedt art on this one. It doesn't last. (sniff, sniff)

[Sutekh]

Man, that starfield costume of Star Boy's was awesome. Soon people as diverse as Donna Troy to Genis-Vell over at Marvel were getting on the starfield train, but Thom (and, Eternity, I guess...) were the trend-setters!

[kcekada]

Great cover (probably my favorite of Giffen's run) and great costume (thank you, Dave Cockrum). I guess it wasn't being used when Phil Jimenez updated Donna Troy's looked to be a combination of her Wonder Girl and Troia outfits, but I've always felt it was too similar to Star Boy's Bronze Age look.

[caj]

Notice the plug for Giffen's Legion poster at the bottom left hand corner of the cover. Comic shops must have been popping up at this point, especially since we're so close to starting the Baxter books.

Does anyone remember if there were a lot of comic book posters around this time?

[caj]

Legion of Super Bloggers review of Legion of Super Heroes #307 - While investigating the destruction of a research base, Phantom Girl and her team encounter two beings of extreme power, Dream Girl leads a team to Khundia to help the UP negotiate with the Khunds (if that's possible), and Saturn Girl & Lightning Lad have expectant news.

http://legionofsuperbloggers.blogspo...eroes-307.html

[Nomads1]

Legion of Super Bloggers review of Legion of Super Heroes #307 - While investigating the destruction of a research base, Phantom Girl and her team encounter two beings of extreme power, Dream Girl leads a team to Khundia to help the UP negotiate with the Khunds (if that's possible), and Saturn Girl & Lightning Lad have expectant news.

http://legionofsuperbloggers.blogspo...eroes-307.html

Next issue, the art takes a wierd downward (IMHO) shift.

Peace

[caj]

Next issue, the art takes a wierd downward (IMHO) shift.

It actually started here in this issue. It's odd because some pages look like classic Giffen/Mahlstedt while others look like crap.

I admit I hated this storyline. To this day, I still don't know what Levitz was trying to accomplish with these two villains.

There had been several hints that Saturn Girl was pregnant but she and Lightning Lad finally share the big news with Cosmic Boy.

I love the teasing Cham gives Star Boy and ending up with a black eye.

Dream Girl didn't let losing the election prevent her from still being fun.

Clearly Phantom Girl and Shadow Lass did not enjoy being around Timber Wolf. Not sure why.

[Nomads1]

Clearly Phantom Girl and Shadow Lass did not enjoy being around Timber Wolf. Not sure why.

Because last time he was stranded with other female legionnaries, he used his animalistic powers of making girls cheat on their boyfriends on Saturn Girl, and they were afraid he'd do the same with them. Go figure!

Peace

[kcekada]

Notice the plug for Giffen's Legion poster at the bottom left hand corner of the cover. Comic shops must have been popping up at this point, especially since we're so close to starting the Baxter books.

Does anyone remember if there were a lot of comic book posters around this time?

There were becoming popular around this time. I think this was one of the first, but a Perez Titans poster followed shortly thereafter. Marvel initiated their Marvel Press line to release posters. I have quite a few posters in storage -- mostly Perez and Alex Ross prints. I did get my Legion poster at a shop that opened near my college campus. I recall exactly where they had one on display. I probably purchased it the first time I saw it.

[Zero Hunter]

I think a big part of the problem with this era of the Legion was Levitz and Giffen were starting to work double duty not only coming up for ideas for this series but also the upcoming Baxter series that was going to launch in a few months. You can tell all the best ideas got used in the Baxter series and the left over ones like this story were used in this series. While most of the upcoming stories in this book were at least decent it was a definite drop off quality wise compared to what had been coming out previously and what was about to come out in the Baxter series.

This is the issue where the Legion proper book kind of became the neglected stepchild.

[caj]

This is the issue where the Legion proper book kind of became the neglected stepchild.

You really did get the feeling that, after the Violet story ended, they had no real stories to tell until the Legion of Super Villains arc they were counting on to launch the Baxter book.

Issues #307-313 were pretty much filler stories. They weren't all as bad as Omen/Prophet, but also nothing nearly as spectacular as #286-306.