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L.E.G.I.O.N. '89
"L.E.G.I.O.N.'89" February to December 1989 The whole 1989 series run - 'Legion'89'! *** Contains Issue #'s 1-10 *** Legion of Superheroes spin off - Vril Dox attempts to put together an intergalactic police force with Lobo as his prime co-conspirator!! Violent, fun and action packed!
Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Keith Giffen
1,941 books217 followersKeith Ian Giffen was an American comic book illustrator and writer. He is possibly best-known for his long runs illustrating, and later writing the Legion of Super-Heroes title in the 1980s and 1990s. He also created the alien mercenary character Lobo (with Roger Slifer), and the irreverent "want-to-be" hero, Ambush Bug. Giffen is known for having an unorthodox writing style, often using characters in ways not seen before. His dialogue is usually characterized by a biting wit that is seen as much less zany than dialogue provided by longtime collaborators DeMatteis and Robert Loren Fleming. That approach has brought him both criticism and admiration, as perhaps best illustrated by the mixed (although commercially successful) response to his work in DC Comics' Justice League International (1987-1992). He also plotted and was breakdown artist for an Aquaman limited series and one-shot special in 1989 with writer Robert Loren Fleming and artist Curt Swan for DC Comics.
Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.
He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.
Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.
He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 5, 2023
Like a lot of interesting 90s DC runs, L.E.G.I.O.N. is entirely uncollected - thanks to the kind Goodreads angel who put up this fake compilation of its first run.
But I'm right to say "interesting" rather than "good". LEGION (I'm not going to bother punctuating it again) might at some point *get* "good" - it was a mainstay of my pull list for a while - but this first almost-year of the run isn't there yet. For one thing it's early American work from Alan Grant and artist Barry Kitson. It doesn't feel like Grant's used to either the 22-page format or writing a team book, and these issues feel very oddly paced - some with lots happening too quickly to have much weight, then issues where almost nothing seems to happen apart from members of the cast wandering around the LEGION HQ checking in on one another. Kitson's not quite fully baked as an artist either at this point - nice big airy panels but no real flow in the storytelling and stiff figures.
It's all very much a work in progress, which might be appropriate, as that's what the story's about. If you don't know LEGION, it's the "present-day" equivalent of the Legion Of Super-Heroes, but recast as a galactic police force. The comic tends to follow the super-powered commanders of LEGION and treat them as a coherent super-team, but they and the wider organisation follow the same leader - Vril Dox, authoritarian child of the super-villain Brainiac.
Vril Dox is, not to put too fine a point on it, a fascist. He controls LEGION from its HQ on the planet Cairn, which he takes over in these issues, enforcing regime change with an army of Lobo clones (Lobo's regular presence in the comic later on during the height of his popularity is probably why it managed a 70-issue run, even during the 90s boom). The previous government was in the hands of drug cartels, which Dox feels gives him carte blanche to put the planet under new management. After an intro following up the INVASION! mini-series which introduced him and his teammates, this stretch of the comic covers the takeover of Cairn and the initial founding of LEGION.
It's easy to see why Grant was tapped to do this - who better to write a comic starring a fascist anti-hero than a man who's been writing Judge Dredd for years? But this was Dredd mostly before the era where the stories really started interrogating the fascism, and for all Grant's interest in leftist and anarchist politics, there's really not a lot of depth to LEGION here. Vril Dox's opposing forces are a totalitarian computer and then a bunch of fairly cartoonish narco-villains, and the rest of his team exists mostly to hang around and go "tut tut, this won't do at all" when Dox's schemes are revealed.
The comic would be more entertaining if said schemes seemed particularly intelligent or devious - there's real pleasure in seeing a well-laid-plan come together, especially if it's managed to hoodwink readers along the way. It would establish Dox as the kind of bastard you want to read about. But his schemes here mostly involve "Use Lobo to beat them up and then hope he doesn't kill me after". You never get the feeling you're reading about an arch-manipulator, just an arsehole lucky enough to work with a lot of stupid people.
Reading LEGION is a window on a lost comics world - one where an entire first year of a series can be devoted to setting up the premise with no existing star characters on board. But even in that world, it's surprising this survived.
But I'm right to say "interesting" rather than "good". LEGION (I'm not going to bother punctuating it again) might at some point *get* "good" - it was a mainstay of my pull list for a while - but this first almost-year of the run isn't there yet. For one thing it's early American work from Alan Grant and artist Barry Kitson. It doesn't feel like Grant's used to either the 22-page format or writing a team book, and these issues feel very oddly paced - some with lots happening too quickly to have much weight, then issues where almost nothing seems to happen apart from members of the cast wandering around the LEGION HQ checking in on one another. Kitson's not quite fully baked as an artist either at this point - nice big airy panels but no real flow in the storytelling and stiff figures.
It's all very much a work in progress, which might be appropriate, as that's what the story's about. If you don't know LEGION, it's the "present-day" equivalent of the Legion Of Super-Heroes, but recast as a galactic police force. The comic tends to follow the super-powered commanders of LEGION and treat them as a coherent super-team, but they and the wider organisation follow the same leader - Vril Dox, authoritarian child of the super-villain Brainiac.
Vril Dox is, not to put too fine a point on it, a fascist. He controls LEGION from its HQ on the planet Cairn, which he takes over in these issues, enforcing regime change with an army of Lobo clones (Lobo's regular presence in the comic later on during the height of his popularity is probably why it managed a 70-issue run, even during the 90s boom). The previous government was in the hands of drug cartels, which Dox feels gives him carte blanche to put the planet under new management. After an intro following up the INVASION! mini-series which introduced him and his teammates, this stretch of the comic covers the takeover of Cairn and the initial founding of LEGION.
It's easy to see why Grant was tapped to do this - who better to write a comic starring a fascist anti-hero than a man who's been writing Judge Dredd for years? But this was Dredd mostly before the era where the stories really started interrogating the fascism, and for all Grant's interest in leftist and anarchist politics, there's really not a lot of depth to LEGION here. Vril Dox's opposing forces are a totalitarian computer and then a bunch of fairly cartoonish narco-villains, and the rest of his team exists mostly to hang around and go "tut tut, this won't do at all" when Dox's schemes are revealed.
The comic would be more entertaining if said schemes seemed particularly intelligent or devious - there's real pleasure in seeing a well-laid-plan come together, especially if it's managed to hoodwink readers along the way. It would establish Dox as the kind of bastard you want to read about. But his schemes here mostly involve "Use Lobo to beat them up and then hope he doesn't kill me after". You never get the feeling you're reading about an arch-manipulator, just an arsehole lucky enough to work with a lot of stupid people.
Reading LEGION is a window on a lost comics world - one where an entire first year of a series can be devoted to setting up the premise with no existing star characters on board. But even in that world, it's surprising this survived.
Displaying 1 of 1 review