LEGION #25.
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THE LEGION #25

Three members of the Legion travel back through time to meet Clark Kent and to bring him to the future he's in part responsible for. Meanwhile, in the "present," the Legion celebrates its first Foundation Day, an annual commemoration of the Legion's establishment, with the formation of a Legion Cadet Program; and out in space, another team of Legionnaires discovers that a malfunctioning stargate has brought an unexpected visitor from the past...

And that's not all - this is a Legion anniversary issue, after all, and this series in all its incarnations has always laid the subplots on pretty thickly whenever there's something to celebrate. This one's no exception, with two other related subplots in addition to the ones above. That's one of the only flaws of LEGION #25 - with so many storylines, the issue makes for fairly diffuse reading, though each plot thread has interesting points of its own. The most promising of all of these is the visit of a trio of faux Legionnaires to the past to pick up a clearly SMALLVILLE-derived Clark Kent, only to bring him to a future which is clearly not the one we first saw back in 1958 - not only is it a kind and necessary nod to the pre-CRISIS origins of this team, it's a nicely done link to present continuity, and the story it promises has the most potential. Eric Wight's artwork for this plot thread, which opens and closes the book, works perfectly, capturing both the retro style of the original Legionnaire uniforms and the contemporary look of the Tom Welling version of Clark Kent.

Despite the skills of Wight and all the other guest artists, though, the art is perhaps the other major flaw of this issue. Unlike the other Legion anniversary issue that used the multiple artist approach in the past forty-five years, the excellent Paul Levitz-scripted LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #300 (Second Series) in 1983, the changes in art are fairly jarring, especially when laid beside regular artist Chris Batista's smoothly futuristic style. Tony Harris and Tom Feister come closest to fitting in with the series ethos, with their moody yet highly "sci-fi" approach, while Paul Rivoche's look back at Element Lad's torturous time alone in the Second Galaxy is every bit as bleak as it needs to be. Only Dave Cockrum and Al Milgrom's section, devoted to Mekt Ranzz's alienation as the single brother of a set of twins, is truly disappointing - it should have been a nostalgic return to the style of artwork that once defined this team, but instead it makes us grateful that we're no longer reading those issues anymore. But while none of the art styles truly blends together all that well, the continuity of Abnett and Lanning's excellent characterization and plotting carry the whole thing off quite well. Besides, you've got to love any comic that not only celebrates your favorite superhero team's anniversary but also ends on not one, not two, but three major cliffhangers. With writing like this, it wouldn't be surprising if the Legion of Super-Heroes kept fighting the good fight for yet another forty-five years.