Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes How do you rate the Great Darkness Saga?

I don't expect to see a huge variation on this one, but I'm curious to see if there are any outliers.

I definitely place it among the very best, but I don't think I can be impartial enough to decide if it's the best one... it was the very first Legion story I ever read, so to me the Legion is automatically viewed through that lens.

Does anyone think it's overrated? Does anyone not like it? Or if you do like it, is there a particolar moment that doesn't sit right with you?

For example I don't think the Chameleon Boy subplot is integrated well with the rest of the story, and I never really liked how the kid basically ends up being both Highfather and Orion, with the former being the one responsible for having Superboy and Supergirl keep their powers under a red sun... it's a bit of a deus ex machina, and it could've been accomplished by something the Legionnaires come up with.

How do you rate the Great Darkness Saga? single choice
	It's THE best Legion story. Period.
	It's among the very best.
	I like it but I think it's overrated.
	I have no strong opinions about it.
	I don't like it.
	Worst. Legion. Ever.
Votes accepted starting: 05/28/22 02:01 AM
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I don't like it. The story starts out promisingly enough, but soon degenerates into one tedious fight after another against the Servants. And just when it looks like it might get good again, the Sorcerors Planet sequence falls flat -- we're not even SHOWN key events. Then, the plot pivot about the Daxamites just makes it all fall apart -- bigness for the sake of bigness, regardless of whether or not it benefits the story. By the time the Kirby Fourth World Mythology is clumsily shoehorned in with little or no backstory, I have to consider this story a dead loss. And also, Giffen's art is a bland imitation of the Byrne/Perez style that was so trendy at the time, and Mahlstedt's inking makes it even worse, failing to provide even the faintest illusion of depth or solidity.

I did not care for the whole end bit with the New Genesian child or whatever, since that felt sort of like an asspull. (In a Legion story arc, I want the *Legion* to be the ones who win the day, not a miracle baby I've never heard of and will never see again.)

But other than that, I really liked most of the rest of it, and while my all-time favorite story is the Universo Project, and perhaps the LSV takeover of Orando after that, Great Darkness Saga is definitely near the top of the heap for Legion story arcs, for me.

It certainly had a lasting effect on comics, since Darkseid was kind of gone and forgotten for ages, until GDS drug him out of mothballs and revitalized his image, and he's since become the go-to 'final uberboss' showing up in various League stories, both on the page and the screen. Every time I see Darkseid touted as the biggest of big bads against the Justice League, I feel like 'the Legion did this better.'

I do like it, but I also think it's overrated. That is, it's a great story, but I also think it gets more praise than what it deserves. Not that is is not good, but it's not "that" good.

I have to say, I would place it among the very best - but I chose it being overrated because I feel some fans give it more credit than it deserves.

Highfather as baby, indeed, felt a bit like an asspull. It felt like: oh gosh, we made Darkseid too powerful, so we need a small deus ex machina. One thing that saves it though, is that the Legion and allies play very key and active roles: first, Nura and Mysa help summon the baby; second, they protect the baby until it is ready; third, they do hold off Darkseid and his Servants and the invading Daxamites long enough to make a difference. So they aren't just bystanders at least.

The Daxamite slaves were a bit... well, let's say that we saw them run riot around the UP, and apparently the Subs / Wanderers / Heroes of Lallor / Dev-Em were able to stall them long enough at Weber's World. Got it. A bit of suspension of disbelief there, but what can you do against the whole populace of Daxam.

Stuff I did like:


1) The unfolding mystery around who the big bad was, and around the Servants, was nicely done

2) Dream Girl got to show off some leadership

3) Every Legionnaire and then some got something to do, even Chameleon Boy (while incarcerated no less) and returning Legionnaires like Lu, Chuck, Jeckie, Val and Supergirl - and even the allies like the Wanderers and the Subs.

4) the enslavement of Daxam, being Darkseid's own downfall in the end

So in the end, I did love it and think it's great, I just think some others praise it too much

A very apt, and very amusing, way to put it.


I'm curious, what did you think of the Giffen/Mahlstedt art on GDS?


The George Perez/Gerry Conway/Dick Dillin JLA-JSA-New Gods team up predated GDS by a couple years. I don't think it's perfect, but I think it's at least as good as GDS, maybe better.


Agreed. And what especially bothers me is that Levitz/Giffen treated this whole Daxamite slaves thing like an afterthought -- zero follow-through. I know it's not part of GDS proper, but it's still annoying. Especially since there was story potential for a rise in anti-Daxamite prejudice across the galaxy (ironically enough, the Postboot Daxamites would be reimagined as xenophobes.) It would have been interesting to see how all this affected Mon-El (perhaps it contributed to his eventual breakdown, even though Levitz never made the connection explicit?) Not to mention the guilt felt by the Daxamites for all the destruction they caused.

I enjoyed it and thought the way it built the tension was very well done. I don't think its the best story ever but still one of the best.

The child is only Highfather. Darkseid's last Servant of Darkness was a distorted clone of Orion who Highfather "restored" to his normal form. The rest of your point still stands although its not as bad as in some stories where the solution is something never mentioned at all. At least here we had the child appear in the middle (part 3 of 5) and knew he would somehow be part of the solution.

Also although Highfather's actions are tremendous and make it possible for Darkseid to be beaten, it is still the Legion that does the actual fighting, win the victory and who he blames for his defeat. At least that is how it feels to me.

The most annoying thing for me was the confusion over what happened to Daxam in the end. Darkseid swaps the planets moving Daxam with all its people to orbit a yellow sun and then has them reshape their planet in his image. Later Highfather through Mysa swaps them back but only the people, not the planets (see #294 page 22). So all the legionnaires, Darkseid and his servants, and any Daxamites present are now on Apokolips orbiting Daxam's old red sun. The rest of the battle fits with this with Darkseid and the restored Orion battling in a firepit and Superboy and Supergirl able to fight under the red sun thanks to Highfather. But then the final blow is the freed Daxamites flying towards Darkseid - but wait, wouldn't they lose their powers again under the red sun? It is still a collapse of his plan because they are no longer under his power (and presumably will be able to resist him now that they are prepared) and Darkseid can no longer use them to conquer the universe, but not a threat of personal attack. Then in following issues we see the Daxamites repairing their world while being carefully watched by UP fleets. But isn't their world still under Apokolips' yellow sun so they are all uber-powered? Yet that is not how they are portrayed moving forward. It's not really that terrible a plot mixup but it always bothered me.

good work pointing out the Daxam confusion, stile. Indeed, why would Darkseid have been scared then, when all the Daxamites charging towards hmi would have been depowered...


yeah, an odd one there. I think the most we saw, was the Legion helping terraform the planet (cannot even remember which now, I remember Daxam and Apokolips being switched so Daxam orbited a yellow sun I think, but no clue what happened...). and of course Ol-Vir.

I was speaking metaphorically: the child is "practically" both Highfather and Orion in the sense that while he's technically only Highfather, in practice the moment he really turns into Highfather is the moment Orion also shows up in his original form.


That's true, and Supergirl's final assault in particular is very satisfying, but to me Highfather's role in taking down Darkside is still oversized. I'd be fine with it if he either swapped the planets or boosted the Kryptonians, but doing both is a bit much.

It doesn't help that to me Highfather is the most boring character from New Genesis, which is quite an accomplishment considering the competition. Think about it: other than the characters that are more connected to Apokolips (Orion, Mr Miracle...) and those who are always somewhere else doing their own thing (Metron, Black Racer...) is there actually a character from New Genesis that is interesting on his own?
Off-topic from my own thread, I know, but food for thought :-)

Ibby, I'd forgotten about Ol-Vir. Probably because I've always found him extremely annoying, and not in a "love to hate him" way. But thanks for the heads-up.

C_A, I agree most of the New Genesis characters are dull. I personally dislike all of the Forever People far more than Highfather, because they're not just boring but also obnoxious. Jack Kirby may have genuinely empathized with the younger generation, but however noble his intentions were, it just didn't come through in the actual stories. In my opinion.

The lower-powered heroes fighting off the Daxamites was really the biggest problem for me....anyone who has read any of my fic knows I love me some underdogs with kooky powers but it was just too much suspension of disbelief that characters like Duo Damsel, Bouncing Boy and Stone Boy weren't immediately getting slaughtered going up against a world of Superman-level opponents. It didn't ruin the story for me, but I do think the creators should have put some more thought into that part of it.

Cham's encounter with Ol-Vir was a much better example to me of how to write someone way out of their depth surviving a much more powerful but also way less experienced opponent...it was clear that Cham was lucky to even survive and even then all he could do was really evade Ol-Vir rather than try to confront him in any way.

The reboot handled the idea of rogue Daxamites much more intelligently with all the White Triangle stuff, I think...there were only really a small number of them, and even then they caused immense amounts of damage and most of the Legion were visibly way overpowered and forced to use their wits to survive.

Agreed 100 percent with all of what Raz says here.

Agree with a lot of what was said -

Highfather is indeed quite dull, as are the Forever People

Ol-Vir was an annoying brat

And the Reboot White Triangle story indeed handled a Daxamite attack better and more realistically. Also having the four Daxamites attacking Earth purposely toy with everyone so they would suffer and die slowly, helped explain why the Legionnaires managed to survive, well, mostly.

Late to the game here - Not much to add from everyone's great comments so far.

There was a lot of great characterization here across the board, which is what people remember the most, I think. There are a lot of planet sized plot issues, namely the population of controlled Daxamites, that plague this story.

But I think why GDS is so beloved is that it marked a turning point in the Legion. It showed that you could create intelligent superhero/scifi multi-issue arcs that were pretty epic in scope. The last big story like this was Earthwar, but GDS hits the 'Epic' mark solely due to the incorporation of the fourth world elements, tying the Legion to the cosmic DCU in a significant way.

I think several stories, even in Levitz's ruin, are better than this, but it holds the place it does in fandom for what it represents about the Legion,

I do agree re historical significance - I struggle to think of a Legion story before GDS that reached this high. And indeed, it has one of the big hallmarks of great stories that I like - everyone got something to do, there was a big sense of scale.

I considered voting "among the best", but I just can't override how that run of issues is exactly where I started reading LSH as an 11 or 12 year-old and how GDS was teased in my first issue with the prologue in 287. Every time I read it, I love it all over again. As epic as everything is, I think it's that the characters are so alive and not overlooked amid all the chaos. Plus, one of my favorite comics moments of all time is when Kara and Kal team up to give ol' Darkseid all they have. My Deluxe GDS hardcover is my most prized possession in my comics collection because of all this and more.

So I'm shamelessly and unabashedly giving it the highest rating in this poll. I honestly don't think I'd be the Legion fan I am if I came in to the fold at any other time. Whatever flaws it may have, I'm admittedly pretty blind to them because of my personal connection to those issues and the ones around them.

I went with "among the best." GDS is flawed in certain ways, but it made it exciting to be a Legion fan at the time. GDS came after several years of mediocre stories and artwork, and it not only restored the grandeur and complexity of the Adventure era and the Cockrum/Grell period but took them to a new level. GDS was part science fiction, part mystery, part super-hero, and part character drama. It weaved all of these genres together as well as the various subplots.

For me, the weakest part was the Izaya revelation and climax. I suppose if you're going to have Darkseid you should work in his ancient enemy just to keep it mythical. But it felt like the Legion had become supporting characters in someone else's epic.

Even so, nobody died (the usual cheap way of making a story "epic"). However, Light Lass did break up with Brin and resign, so there was a hint that change was coming.

GDS was one of those stories that no matter your knowledge of the Legion it swept the reader along and they wouldn't resist. As HWW says, it incorporates so much - mystery, drama, character growth, excitement and the whole scale of it was awesome! Also, the art is really clean and clear and captured that scale incredibly well. Thank goodness Giffen illustrated it at this point of his artistic evolution as had it been drawn in his later murkier style of just a few years later it would be an entirely different beast.

I first read it after reading about 10 or 12 issues of the 5YL, so while I kind of knew some of the characters it was a tremendous (and very pleasant) surprise.I think it's what really opened my eyes to the potential of the team.

There are flaws though I'm not going to count the Daxamite invasion as one of them though as that was addressed afterwards enough to my mind that we were aware there was an ongoing issue - repeated references to terraforming Daxam back to a viable state and Mon El wondering how the SPs would have treated his people if they had been willing servants of Daarkseid. There was IMO enough information for us to realise that the invasion had lasting effects. Ol Vr was perhaps the worst of these, though it made sense that even on a planet usually seen as stable as Daxam, there was at least on total psychpath that agreed with the dark lords vision. I suppose, had more been done afterwards to show the wreckage that the Daxamites left behind there would be fans now complaining that Levitz was just mining his own stories rather than crafting new ones. It's a balance really and it worked for me.

While there may be single issues that I rate higher, as a multi-part story it represents to me exactly how good the Legion can be.

I reiterate my opinion that the art was bland and flat, and that a lot of it had to do with bad inking from Larry Mahlstedt. I think if Giffen's previous Legion inker, Bruce Patterson, had been retained at least long enough to work on GDS, I would have found the art at least adequate. But such was not the case. The only post-GDS issue with Giffen art that I like is #305, the Imsk issue, because that one was guest-inked by the talented veteran Kurt Shaffenberger. Comics are both a literary and a visual medium, and I stand by my conviction that whatever the strengths of Levitz's story which have been pointed out in previous posts, GDS came up short on the art.

I really like it.

So, the more I think about it, if the art had been more to my liking I would probably vote "I Like It But I Think It's Overrated." To elaborate on my previous post, I like the Giffen/Patterson art work in LSH #287-289 and in LSH Annual 1; it's not my favorite Legion art, but it gets the job done and then some; I also, as I mentioned in that post, liked LSH #305 drawn by Giffen/Shaffenberger (two issues after that, Giffen changed his style in the opening installment of Omen/Prophet.) In the end, my mild hostility towards GDS comes down mostly to my profound dissatisfaction with Larry Mahlstedt's inks.

But there's another bit of context that I think is important: the first time I read GDS, I was 22 years old and growing increasingly disenchanted with comic books. In addition, most of what little else I had read of the Legion failed to impress me. I found 5YL off-putting, and I couldn't yet appreciate the Postboot (that wouldn't happen until after I joined Legion World.) I liked the work of Legion artists such as Dave Cockrum, Steve Lightle, Greg LaRocque, Curt Swan, and (for one issue only) Eduardo Barreto. And, again, it took my interaction with Legion Worlders to fully appreciate the Legion mythos. Yet I remain underwhelmed by certain Legion milestones, and GDS is one of them. That's just my opinion.

I really like it.

I definitely preferred the GDS Giffen over the 5YL/Late v3 blocky style.

Ditto I quite liked the GDS art overall. I did find some of the lines on characters’ faces a bit odd though.

Yep - that said, Giffen isn't even my favorite Legion artist. Like, by a wide mile.

In fact, knowing what I know now, with all the various "Legion Hall of Fames" and "Legion Mount Rushmore" discussions I've seen online and in podcasts, I'd not vote to have Giffen on either.

The GDS grew across a number of issues before becoming the central story, from Mon El & Shady's discovery of a certain rocky planet through the servants searching around the galaxy. It was Levitz becoming comfortable with his multiple ongoing plotlines weaving through the book.

We didn't just get the GDS, we got the leadership contest, which worked really well, along with the main story, to bring Nura to the fore. We had the fallout of Cham's mission to Khundia, and relationship with Brande, which resulted in him being present Ol-Vir attacked Takron Galtos. There were tensions in the group involving Brin, Ayla and Imra that would have a lasting impact. Lightning Lad was unable to continuie his leadership due to mental health issues.

The core story played up the power of the villain by showing just how much more powerful he was than the Legion's previous big foes. While this could be seen as dimishing them, had they been left as they were, Levitz would later relaunch each of them from events here. We would also have the curse that while not going teh way it was initially intended, certainly worked on readers' minds over the following months.

The story allowed Giffen to show off the worlds in which the Leigon operated, as they investigated the disaperance of artefacts. He would go form strength to strength on the book from here, creating one of DCs best selling partnerships, along with Wolfman& Perez on TItans.

The reveal of the mockeries was played out really well across issues, with one of them becoming key in the confrontation agianst the villain himself.

There hadn't been many cosmic epics ranging across severall issues before this time. ales of teh Green Lantern Corps mini was in 1980. To have one, while still keeping a faithful distance from Kirby's works was another really strong point. The Return ofthe New Gods folded in 1978, but they were part of the super Justice League 183-185 in 1981. So they weren;t forgotten characters, but the creators would have only been too aware of doing justice to Kirby's work. The plotting here would influence later tales such as Crisis - the early plot revolving around artefacts, the scenes of Supergirl/ Superman against the Monitor and the, ahem, legion of characters against a single foe at the finale.

I've never been a fan of miracle babies groiwng to adults in plots. I think I first saw it in V. I didn;t like it there, and probably thought the GDS had taken it form there, before finding out the date order. But it didn;t get any better in Crisis, The Titans, certainly not the Avengers or anywhere else. At least here, it was as the result of the ritual on the Sorcerer's Planet. But even so...

The stakes rise, from missing artefacts to the switching of worlds, the rise of dark gods and the advance of a population of supermen. But the heroes don't defeat Darkseid. It is Darkseid's realisation that the level of power he now has is not as it once was. He stops himself, and departs. There's more going through this tale than a siimple slug fest.

Looking at the voting options... it's not what I consider to be the best legion story ever. I don't even think it's the best story in the Levitz/GIffen run, although it has a fantastic scope. But while it may make an easy entry in some fandom lists, there really is a lot in there to unpick, to argue agianst it being overrated.
So, I'm in the "It's among the very best" category.