Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion in Millennium! crossovers pt. 3

So I'm going through my old comic stashes reading some of the big DC crossovers from times gone by focusing on how the Legion fits into each one and I come across this one - Millenium.

Millenium immediately presents the flaw in these editorially-mandated company-wide crossovers. The Legion just has no business here at all. Anyway, on with the review -

The Plot: A Guardian and a Zamoranian arrive on earth to gather all of the heroes together and tell them that they are needed to help earth's next stage in evolution, a process that would be finished in 1,000 years. However, anticipating this event are the Manhunters, a group of androids created by the Guardians who want to halt the evolutionary process.

What does the Legion have to do with it?: Absolutely nothing. Laurel Kent shows up in two panels and that's about it.

The Crossovers: Legion of Super Heroes #'s 42 & 43. Laurel Kent is revealed to be a Manhunter who tries to seek out the results of the Guardians plans.


My Thoughts:

OK, the name of the series is "Millennium" right? And the whole concept is that the NEw Guardians are starting some new evolutionary process that will culminate in some grand plan 1,000 years from now. And the Legion is 1,000 years in the future, right? So why don't we see the next evolutionary step in the Legion? Probably because Levitz had the foresight to see that the whole thing would be forgotten about in a matter of months.

But still we had to suffer through two months of the Legion fighting a Laurel Kent who has inexplicably turned into an evil android who decides to do evil things. Now I was never a fan of trampy half-nekkid Laurel, so her betrayal was no loss for me. But it sure was a waste of two months of Legion story just to tie them into one of the most forgettable crossovers ever.

Seriously, is there anyone who liked these two Laurel Manhunter issues?

Yes

At the time, Laurel Kent was a rising Legion commodity. She had gained interest by her panel time in the Legion Academy and her budding relationship with Sun Boy. I personally had hoped she would eventually become the new 30th Century Supergirl and be given Legion membership.

However, TPTB determined she was more of a throwaway character than potential Legionnaire, and as all those DC "events" require fodder, Levitz deemed her the Legion's sacrificial lamb. Her conversion from Superboy decendant to Manhunter android was non-sensical, clumsily done, and quickly overlooked.

I was. Millenium pissed me off to no end for ruining her. I liked the character and the idea behind her a lot. And they never did explain how she mysteriously wasn't a Manhunter robot in Annual #1, did they...?

I always like to see Joe Staton and Ian Gibson art, but other than that, the whole Millenium series and all its crossovers were probably the worst DC ever conceived, in my opinion (on par with Marvel's Secret Wars II). I think Wally West's dad was the only character revealed to be a Manhunter that didn't make me want to punch an editor in the mouth.

I forgot what the premise was...were people kidnapped and replaced with Manhunter robots or were some people brainwashed into being Manhunters or were these people not really human in any way shape or form?

It's been forever since I've read it, and I've successfully managed to repress most of it, but I seem to remember that some were robots, and some, like Wally West's dad, just threw in with them for the money and promise of power. I can't remember (thankfully) what Lana Lang's deal was...but she was a Manhunter, too.

It could have something to with the fact that the MILLENNIUM series had such a sub-par art team...Rick Hoberg, Dan Jurgens or Dave Cockrum could have done better than Joe Staton!

AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEE! You and I both like the Legion, and we both liked All-Star Squadron, but we disagree here. Joe Staton is one of my favorite Green Latern artists of all time, second only to Gil Kane, and I loved his E-Man series. The first original artwork I ever bought was a Staton GL page, and out of the about 15 pages of comic art I own, 5 or 6 of them are Staton's.

And Ian Gibson was the great artist of the legendary 'Ballad of Halo Jones' with Alan Moore, not to mention Robo-Hunter, and art he did for many of the other features in 2000AD over the past (almost) 30 years. As far as I'm concerned, his work is beyond reproach... always beautiful.

In my opinion (which is all this is...even the "AAAIIIIIIEEEE" part) the art did more than its fair share in trying to save Millenium's crappy story.

This was the crossover that spawned the godawful New Guardians series wasn't it?

I actually bought a whole box of crappy millenium comics when I was a little kid and they were some of the first DC comics I ever read so I actually have a lot of fond memories this stupid crossover regardless of how dreadful it all actually was.

It had that Harbinger chick as a member - you know, the one that used to be the Monitor's aide, Lyla...

Possibly worst DC crossover we had to go through...waste of space for 2 months of Legion...yeah, I pretty much agree SLK.

I was never really a fan of Laurel either, although I liked her continuing friendship with Dawnstar a lot.

I can see why Levitz saw this as a good time to drop Laurel from continuity in regards to the post-crisis DCU though...

I actually have fond memories of it too, Shadow Kid. I remember buying the Millenium comic and then reading all of the crossovers in the drug store while my mom did grocery shopping next door! But after looking through it the other night, it was pretty dreadful. Especially when half of one issue is spent on some seriously wacked out view of existence talking about "one" and "two" and so on. Ugh, you mean there was really an editor that saw that and thought people would want to read this?

And as for Laurel Kent, even if she was a Manhunter operative or an android, it would make no sense whatseover to have her go off the deep end the way she did and just start attacking the Legion. It would have been much more convenient for her to use the Legion to find what she was looking for. But then we wouldn't have had any action for two issues I guess.

I remember my brother reading it to me and being really, really confused. To this day... I'm not sure I truly understand wtf was going on.

But, I must admit, I thought Brainy was a babe from the Millenium issues of Legion. And that alone made it worth it!!

Yeah, you could be right about that, but it didn't feel that way at the time. It felt like there was an editorial edict that each DC series needed a longtime supporting cast member to be revealed as a Manhunter. They all felt so forced, except for in the Flash, who benefitted from Wally not really having a longtime supporting cast in his book yet.

To me, it always just felt like Laurel was the most minor character Levitz could get away with sacrificing. You know he wouldn't have wanted it to be one of the Subs or something, and he probably would have let it be one of the actual Legionnaires before he would have let it be Shvaughn.

I think they should have let Dr. Gym'll be the Manhunter. Seeing that little guy in a Manhunter get up would have been worth the price of admission.

Im actually surprised he didn't make it Star Boy since he never really did much with him.

and Gym'll would have been hilarious. I could also see it being Yera.

Wasn't the real reason for using Laurel Kent just because they needed to divorce the Superman mythos from the rest of the DCU for good?

Thank God Levitz didn't decide to use Millennium as an excuse to *finally* do something with Tenzil...

The obvious reason for getting rid of Laurel was to avoid DC being committed to Superman having descendants.

The other major contender for a manhunter would probably have been Dev-Em, because of his Superboy/Kryptonian connections.

I dunno... Her believing she was Superman's descendant, didn't necessarily make it so. It's been a while since I've read the preboot, but the way I remember it, the Legion treated it as a possibility, not accepted fact.

Expecially since in Byrne's Superman revamp, Kal-El is the last, last, last surviving Kryptonian, with no exceptions (boooo). I don't know how Dev-Em was luckiy enough to manage to slip through the continuity cracks.

Consider that Lana Lang was also a Manhunter as well as Laurel Kent - both directly linked to Superboy. They were designated Manhunters because they got Byrne'd.

If Jimmy Olsen hadn't been remade, dropping his Elastic Lad past/future, he probably would have become one as well.

He could have been the evil Yoda of the Legion...

Not Star Boy, not hot Star Boy with his beard...it should have been Dream Girl as the Manhunter - her vampiness alone would have made her role a tad ironical

I think they chose Laurel over Dev-em because she was more prominent a supporting character at the time. Besides, with his powers, Dev-em could have been retconned into a Daxamite easily.

Both...ie Lana Lang was kidnapped as an infant and Dr. Whitley's Manhunter replacement inserted an microchip in her spine (every child in Smallville since Clark arrived on Earth had that same operation) that made them "sleeper agents" so to speak.

Firestorm (the combination of Ronnie & Mikhail) had just been "reborn" and didn't have much memory. It was as if he was a blank slate. Manhunter Police Chief (I think that was his position) Ferguson took advantage of this and convinced him that he was a Manhunter. Ferguson had recently discovered Firestorm's identity when Doreen Day confided in him. Fortunately, he was able to snap out of it in the nick of time.