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Title: Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga by Paul Levitz, Richard Bruning ISBN: 0-930289-43-9 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 September, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Somewhat less satisfying than I remembered...
Comment: Strangely, The Great Darkness Saga doesn't show up on Amazon when you do a search for Legion of Super-Heroes or Darkseid. I only happened upon it an someone's list of their favorite comic book sagas of the 70's and 80's.
I should say right up front that I was never a die-hard Legion fan, or even much of a DC fan when the Great Darkness Saga came out. Up until then, I thought the LoSH was, well...more of a kids' comic, if that makes any sense. I mean, come on...Lighting Lad? Element Lad? Bouncing Boy? The Invisible Kid? These are some truly lame superhero names, and they never really seemed interesting enough to investigate back then. Still, there was something about The Great Darkness that made me check it out back then, and kept me looking for the trade paperback. Maybe it was Keith Giffin's artwork. Maybe it was the mystery of Darkseid's identity. Maybe it was just me searching for the next Dark Phoenix (never found it) storyline to captivate me.
All of that said, after reading this story for the first time in 20 years, I came away disappointed. My recollection was that Darkseid came off in this story as being DC's equivalent to Marvel's Thanos - a malevolent, near omnipotent being with a complex agenda. After reading this, I realize that he's really nowhere close in either his menace or his complexity. He's just a bad guy doing bad things because...well, because he wants to. This may have changed as the character developed in other titles, but here that's all he is. While we're doing a comparison, let's be clear that the Legion aren't the Avengers either, or even the Titans. Even beyond this story, they're a group of one-dimensional characters that you really don't get to know well enough to care much about.
Don't get me wrong. There's some promise here. Giffin's art really does get better as the story goes along. The Servants of Darkness were an interesting group of villains. Wildfire is an interesting character, and Giffin seems to put more artistic energy into him, particularly in battle. And, of course, Darkseid is a great villain despite his shortcomings here (I won't give away the unsatisfying resolution to this story here).
While I'm glad I bought The Great Darkness Saga to add to my collection of stories to share with my kids when they're older, it's likely going to be my last trade paperback of DC stories. It's just not the classic I remembered, and at the end of the day, there's just not enough there.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best Legion story ever
Comment: This was the storyline that made me start collecting The Legion of Super-Heroes comics back in 1982. I actually came on board in the middle of the Great Darkness Saga, but quickly scrounged back issues to get the whole story. Everything Levitz and Giffen did afterward was shadowed by this story. Heck, this was where Darkseid made his comeback after being virtually relegated to comic book oblivion in the '70s.
Even when Kirby was writing the Fourth World comics, Darkseid was not the major player in the DC Universe that he is now. But Levitz showed the potential for the character, making him a cosmic villain of universal proportions. Like one of the other reviewers here, Darkseid was new to me simply because I was too young to know about the New Gods. But Levitz used him as a mythic character whose legend would have been known to those who read their Encyclopedia Galactica.
In this story, Darkseid takes a while to reveal himself, working through his "servants of darkness" to procure vessels of power, including living beings he sucks dry of their power. When he does this to Mordru, the Legion know they've got a problem bigger than any they've faced. In one mind-blowing subplot, Darkseid transposes Apokolips with Daxam, giving a yellow sun and the power of Superman to three billion Daxamites he mind-controls.
It's difficult to know whether this remains an official part of Legion continuity because the group has endured so many revamps and rewrites. But it remains an outstanding story. As for Darkseid, this is just one of many possible futures for DC's #1 villain. John Ostrander also did a superb job writing a climactic battle between the Martian Manhunter and Darkseid thousands of years from now.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not THAT Great!!
Comment: When this story came out, it was many times better than the awful Legion stories that faithful fans had to endure in previous years. To watch Giffen's artwork get better with each issue was a treat. Levitz and Giffen understood Legion lore and knew how to entertain the old fans.
The problem: Darkseid. Prior to this story, Darkseid had made NO previous appearance in Legion stories. Because of this, when his identity is revealed, I was left confused. Not having any prior knowlegde of this character, I wondered who the heck he was and how he fit in the continuity. Its as if Lex Luthor showed up in a Sgt. Rock comic.
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Title: Legion of Super-Heroes: The Beginning of Tomorrow by Mark Waid, Tom McCraw, Tom Peyer ISBN: 1563895153 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: New Teen Titans, The: The Judas Contract by Marv Wolfman, George Perez ISBN: 093028934X Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 17 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: JLA: The Obsidian Age, Book Two by Joe Kelly ISBN: 1401200435 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: JSA: Return of Hawkman (Book 3) by David S. Goyer, Geoff Johns, Stephen Sadowski ISBN: 1563899124 Publisher: General Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: New X-Men Vol. 5: Assault on Weapon Plus by Grant Morrison, Chris Bachalo, Phil Jimenez ISBN: 0785111190 Publisher: Marvel Comics Pub. Date: 01 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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