L.E.G.I.O.N. '93 #50 (Part 2)

L.E.G.I.O.N. '93 #50 (March 1993)
title: "L.E.G.I.O.N. '67"
writer: Alan Grant
penciler: Denis Rodier
inkers: Denis Rodier
colors: Digital Chameleon
letters: Gasper Saladino
editor: Dan Raspler
reviewer: Mike "Nostalgic Kid" Lane

(Last week, I covered the first half of this issue, which resolved our heroes fight against Vril Dox's former girlfriend, Ig'nea. We are now turning to the second story in this anniversary issue, which is a "What If?" style tale from Alan Grant and Denis Rodier. So lets skip the detailed recap of recent events and start off with the Forward to this story.)

Forward: It's not every day that monthly comic book science fiction adventures series reach their 50th issue. In honor of this auspicious event, we have dug through some of the DC Comics' archives and selected the following backup feature as a tale out of time.

It is unlikely that many current L.E.G.I.O.N. fans will recall this plucky, fun-loving group located somewhere between here and the Pre-Crisis DC Universe. In fact, some have said that such simple-hearted stories are not to the taste of today's sophisticated readers. To that we can only say, "Hey! You! Get offa my cloud!"


The story opens with the evil Mr. Dark-Starr battling Hippie Lobo, who urges the villain to give peace a chance and to, um, "dig his flower power." His appeal fails.

On Cairn, the core members of our team are on stage performing a bastardized version of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Bek is handling vocals, with Stealth on base and Strata on drums, while someone I do not recognize is on their knees burning their guitar in an homage to Jimi Hendix. Their show is interrupted when Lobo plummets down from space and crashes into their stage. Dox is there and I do not think any description I can offer will do justice to his appearance.

The two get high and Lobo warns that his attacker was Mr. Dark-Starr, the current incarnation of the Adding Machines of Colu. There is a flashback to Dox's youth and to his father, who worked for the Adding Machines. Again, its best if you just see a few of these groovy panels for yourself.

Dox declares that they must talk the Adding Machine Tyrants out of whatever evil plan they have. Telepath uses his abilities to track the Tyrants to an unstable star, Jimorrison, which is about to go nova.

At his secret base near Jimorrison, Mr. Dark-Starr has finished creating a heat-resistant strain of LSD-13. When the star explodes, the shockwaves will carry the drug to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Unless our hippie heroes can stop him!

Dox sympathizes with Dark-Starr and understands that he has had a hard life with no parents or friends. Lobo invites him to join their commune where they can get his mind, body, and spirit back in alignment.  Mr. Dark-Starr almost fall for it until he remembers that they he hates all flesh and wants to gum out all life in the universe. He knocks over the LSD-13, which covers the L.E.G.I.O.N. and sends them on a very bad trip.

The distraction prevents Mr. Dark-Starr from escaping his base before Jimorrison goes nova and he is lost with our heroes.

When I reread issue 50 to cover it for this site, I had no recollection of this second parter from my youth. Which means I likely did not know what to make of it when I first read it and may very well have skipped over it on later rereads. It was still a mixed bag for me but I did appreciate what they were going for, even if it did not quite carry through in the execution.

Credit to Denis Rodier for conveying the most humorous aspects almost entirely through his art. The image of hippie, afro-haired Dox was delightful, as was the flashback to his youth, which included the appropriate Beatles cameo and one goofy version of the original Brainiac. He did a great job capturing the style of art from The Yellow Submarine. Seeing a mellowed-out Lobo and many of our core team performing on stage were also nice touches.

On the other hand, the handling of the Adding Machine Tyrants and their master plan felt fairly dull and I certainly would not describe anything here as laugh out loud funny. I think maybe I am slightly too young to appreciate what Grant was going for here, and some of it simply escaped me. Overall, a fun concept, with some amusing moments, but not a particularly memorable tale.

So we have hit issue 50 and finally resolved a couple of longstanding plot points, such as Captain Comet's attacks and the whereabouts of Stealth and Dox's child. It appears Stealth and Dox may have also finally achieved some peace in their relationship, although we all know that can change course at any moment. The new recruits should probably not be considered "new" anymore as they have proved themselves to be valuable members of the team. We do have quite a large cast at this point so it will be interesting to see who sticks around and who does not. Check back with me next week as we start to get a taste of this new era for the L.E.G.I.O.N.!