I thought of searching around to see what some people who post on message boards think of the 1989-94 run of the Legion, and found the following statement at the Classic Comics Forum, which gives a viewpoint, if anything, that I’m sure there are others who concur with:
9. 5 Years Later/Giffbaum/Glorithverse Legion (1989-1994) Ye gods, what a Legion! I hated the art, and the writing (in general) wasn’t a lot better. As one poster here mentioned, this run reads like fan fiction. And not good fan fiction, either. Another poster said that this run is best treated as an Elseworlds Legion, and I completely agree with that. In fact, I think DC agrees with it too, as they seem to have pretended it never happened. Way to pessimistic of a future for me (did I mention that they destroyed the earth) and the lack of superhero costumes was not to my liking. Giffen’s art also get lazy, as he’d have multiple panels, or pages, with no drawing, just black panels with dialogue. He also must have hated drawing faces, as he would often have faces in shadow, so that all we’d see was a black blob where the face should be. This run rebooted reality something like 3 times in the first 6 issues, with scant explanation. Things got so confusing that they finally added a “What Happened Before” feature in the letter column to help the poor readers figure out what the heck was going on. Even that they screwed up, as they wanted to start doing that with #2, but it didn’t start appearing until #6. This series was a bit confusing, especially early on, and it was too dark for me. Out of the thousands of sci-fi futures out there in fiction, almost al of them are pessimistic, if not dystopian. Star Trek and the Legion of Super-Heroes are about the only optimistic futures I can think of, so I don’t appreciate when fanboys (and fangirls) take them away! Also, I really didn’t need to see Shvaughn Erin retconned into a man. Now, having said all that bad stuff about the Legion, I will say something good about it – Tenzil Kem!! He was awesome! The issues he was in, I loved. If I made a Legion All-Star Roster, or a list of my favorite Legionnaires, I’d have to find a spot for the 5 Years Later Tenzil Kem!
If I were to include the Legion from the Legion of Super-Heroes animated series on here, I’d probably put them at #4, just ahead of the Threeboot/Waid Legion. It was an enjoyable show, especially the first season.
Not many supervillains, mostly invasions & politics; costumes not as good or distinctive of eye catching
If I had included the Legion from the animated series, they would have ranked #4, just behind the “Archie” Legion and just ahead of the Threeboot Legion.
Years ago, I owned an issue or two from the Legion series of the time, and now that I recall, I don’t think the artwork was so great there either. Even the writing wasn’t good enough, and I’m sure there’s worse that I may not have noticed. That aside, I’m glad to see somebody else was revolted by the repellent retcon forced upon Shvaughn Erin. What makes it particularly grating is that, if memory serves, there were a few new characters seen in the stories at the time, yet for some reason, the Legion’s quasi-civilian co-star is the one who’s picked to serve a tasteless retcon that has the effect of making her look creepy and icky viewed in the context of what was thought up by Tom and Mary Bierbaum, along with Keith Giffen? Ugh. Seriously, they owe an apology.
Also, IIRC, it was in this run where Shrinking Violet was turned into a product of “punk” subculture, and implied she was lesbian. Gee, if that’s what this particular run was produced for, maybe the assigned writers should’ve created their own comic? Alas, by that time, it could be argued DC was taken over by early editions of wokesters who exploited their creations for tasteless retcons and pandering. And now that I think of it, what else did the Bierbaum couple do that’s significant? From what I could tell from their resumes, they were in writing at least until the turn of the century, but don’t seem to have much memorable in their lists. The Five Years Later run was phased out about 5 years after it had begun, and while it may have recently been reprinted in omnibus archived, I think it’d be best to save money and not waste time on something that seems dedicated more to desecration of other people’s creations than true love and appreciation of the characters involved. “5 years later” was easily the worst moment in Legion legacy, though Brian Bendis’ subsequent writings definitely rival it in badness. If anything, the early 90s Legion stories were a telling example of the encroaching wokeness that turned up at the time, and has badly influenced comicdom ever since.
Originally published here
English (US) · 