The Great Dark saga, Legion of Superheroes’ heyday – The Danger Room –

DC men

We all remember two things about Paul Levitz (Brooklyn, NY, 1956): 20 years as a DC Publisher and 12 years as a screenwriter for Legion of Superheroes. But there is much more behind Levitz. He joined DC at age 17 and became editor of Batman at age 22, replacing Julius Schwartz.† That’s when I started writing Superboy and the legion of superheroes In issue 225, he replaces another boy genius, Jim Shooter. At that time, Legion of Superheroes, which started its journey with three members in 1958, already had 32 members permanently, which was the most normal thing to appear in every 9th or 10th episode. In parallel, Levitz had the opportunity to write another big group series for up to 14 members. All Star ComicsJustice Society, the legendary title from which the first supergroup debuted, chronicling their adventures on Earth-2 for 17 songs at a stage abruptly interrupted by the explosion of DC. Levitz assures that this is the job he is most proud of. There, he teamed up with Keith Giffen on a collaboration that Levitz previously said was “conflict.”

Levitz has done countless stand-alone stories in almost all DC titles, but these are his two longest and most well-known phases, and curiously, he felt more comfortable in stories far from the main DC universe continuum (then the Multiverse) and the drink of the past or projected into the future. in each case Legion of Superheroes survived the DC boom effortlessly and continued to increase sales thanks to Levitz’s scriptsThe ability to tackle such a large cast and give each character a voice and personality, combining adventure, sci-fi and soap opera, in collaboration with powerful artists like Mike Grell, Pat Broderick, Joe Staton,… and Keith Giffen. Surprisingly, they bonded very well here, given the previous bad experience was probably the result of both of their youth.

Keith Giffen (Queens, NY, 1952) got his first job as a cartoonist at Marvel with Bill Mantlo in the black and white anthology magazine in 1976. Marvel preview Where they made the Rocket Raccoon. after internship advocates Giffen started working at DC with Roger Slifer, which coincided with the explosion and found himself on the street, unable to publish anything for several years as Marvel didn’t open many doors for him. Anyway, DC hired him with stray horror stories in 1980 and then he did a few songs: micronotes At Marvel, as early as 1982: flash† luck smiled at him From number 285 of The Legion of Superheroes, where Paul Levitz is a regular cartoonist under his direction, and thanks to a style that absorbed Jim Starlin’s touch of George Pérez without any complexity.† Giffen has never had a complex absorption of any style, resulting in accusations of plagiarism by Argentine cartoonist José Muñoz (The Lair Sinner†

The careers of both authors have been extremely fruitful for over 40 years, mostly in connection with DC.especially in the case of Levitz, who hasn’t written anything for Marvel. Well, some of the letters he wrote as a teenager—Leviz was a very active fanzine fan—have appeared in Marvel comics, but that’s it. After proving to be a good broadcaster, Levitz is somewhat tied to DC until 2020, when he decides to leave the company with the change of guard resulting from Dan Didio’s departure. Keith Giffen intervened in Marvel, especially in the early years of this century. Demolitionbut DC works are best known for: Ambush Bug, Lobo, Omega Men… also a wildcard when the responsible editor has issues with their creative team and needs a workaround. But most of all, he is remembered by the International League of Justice and this Legion of Superheroes that concerns us and is its culmination. Epic of the Great Darkness†

glowing in the dark

Let’s start with some spam – we have a great podcast about Legion of Superheroes, of course about the late ’70s and early ’80s, when the characters were leaving their uniforms on the disco floor designed by Dave cockrum. For the purposes of this article, it just needs to be said: Levitz quickly decided that such a large and powerful group needed threats to match without neglecting the relationships between the characters.† He was the one who wrote the wedding of the founding members Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, who left the group according to the group’s charter. The first example of large-scale history can be found at: world Waris a 5-part saga drawn by Joe Sherman and Joe Staton, in which the group faces off against a coalition of their worst enemies: Khunds, Dominators, Dark Circle, and Mordru. It was a time when all factions had to deal with villains who seemed much bigger than them in power, which wasn’t very often. In this sense, Galactus was quite exceptional, but from the 1970s it began to multiply, possibly influenced by Darkseid and its derivative Thanos, Graviton, Mongul, Nefaria, Dark Phoenix or Trigon. So Levitz tried to raise the bar by choosing the “daddy” of all as the next big threat, and we won’t spoil it: about 294 on the covers of all the compilations that have been released that still have a version of the song. League of Super Heroes, the legionnaires seem to adore Darkseid. However, the most iconic image of the saga does not appear in the comic.

And it’s a shame that this cover negates the care Levitz took in creating the look of the villain, which isn’t revealed until the end of episode four, where he laughs and goes on a diet. It’s often said that this is the story that brought Darkseid back as the greatest villain in the DC universe, but he never really left.but it has almost always appeared occasionally by Gerry Conway in various collections, for example: Secret society of super villains, family of super teams or Justice League of America† What was surprising was to see how the villain survived for 1000 years, but at no point was he told what happened to him and the rest of the New Gods.

Darkseid appears as a shadow, and in a sketch, dressed in a strange suit, all to mislead the reader as he watches his minions, stony and seemingly invincible creatures gather power items. This continues to fascinate writers like Kurt Busiek. The threat escalates when the villain submits to the 3 billion Daxamites to whom Legionnaire Mon-El belongs, who live and rule like the Kryptonians but like Achilles’ heel. The situation is so dire and dire that… climax brings together absolutely all the characters who have ever been Legionnaires and any of the hero factions of the time, including the Legion of Substitute Heroes or Heroes of Lallor. In this sense, history has a call for “even greater” and advocates the holistic spirit. Crisis on Infinite Earths†

Levitz lets the story breathe so that from a modern perspective, the plots of the various characters come in. They remained a perpetually angry, arrogant group of people who never missed an opportunity to make fun of each other and show misogyny and machismo unsuitable for the 30th century. where the story takes place. For example, some friends’ disdain for the Legionnaire Dreamer, dressed in a silver jersey, whose only power is to see the future and is ignored in his attempt to become the leader of the group when nothing useful for an entity is available. I would say a leader rather than predicting the future.

Most of the compilations of this saga, including the new ones from ECC, contain the previous and next chapters, precisely because of all the personal events that went through these chapters, a situation immerses you in the future of the DC universe, which constitutes one of the most fascinating and at the same time most abused corners of the editorial.†