A 3-star Amazon review.
For fans of the Legion only -which suits me, as I'm one.
Despite the price tag, given that you get nearly 400 pages of story, plus a script and some Keith Giffen sketches and all on glossy paper, this isn't a bad deal. Published in 1982-83 before the impact of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Miller's Dark Knight, et al, this is a fairly traditional if long standard piece of superheroics. With often up to 8 detailed panels on a page plus a large cast of heroes, never mind the other characters, it's a relatively slow (but never dull) read, rather there is just a lot to get through. The art by Pat Broderick isn't that great but it picks up a lot with the arrival of the art team of penciller Keith Giffen and inker Larry Mahlstedt. Indeed this is my favourite period of the Legion.
If you aren't familiar with the Legion you may find one aspect of it all a little irritating. The Legion was created in 1958 to tie with Superboy (indeed they featured in an episode of Smallville), but note the period which was when superheroes names ended in boy, girl, man, woman and they called each other by these names. As a result in 1982 they address each other by their sobriquets and when these include names like -Phantom Girl, Sun Boy, Star Boy, Element Lad, Invisible Kid, Bouncing Boy, Duo Damsel (who used to be Triplicate Girl), Colossal Boy, Light Lass, and many more and that's completely omitting the Legion of Substitute Heroes- it can get you grinding your teeth. If you can accept that then this is a good piece of vintage future supheroics from the year 2982.
Of course you, dear reader, won't be able to enjoy the final reveal of the villain's identity, after a long buildup over the months, that we long-term readers of the Legion did as his face takes up half the front cover of this edition.
This isn't great comics by any stretch of the imagination, but it does have its own charms and if it wasn't for those damn stupid names I'd have rated this 4 stars.
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