LSH 1994 Reread, part eleven

Covering Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 4 # 96-99 and Legionnaires# 53-55, 1997)

Major developments:

*In the 20th Century, we learn to our shock that Cos has actually been unconscious for weeks, still comatose. Imra's subconscious has been animating him. She is actually in love with Garth.
*Jo and Tinya get married.
*Crossing over with the Justice League and the New Gods to battle Darkseid, Ayla's powers are altered and she can now make things weightless.
*Brainiac 5 obtains one of the alien "Mother Box" sentient supercomputers. He had already been experimenting with Doc Magnus's "responsometer." Magnus and the Mother Box merge into a robotic intelligence called COMPUTO, attacking everyone else in fear that they will disassemble him once they've returned through time.
*In the 30th Century, Monstress is fitting in wonderfully and bringing good cheer to the once-gloomy team, although Magno, who has returned home to Braal, despairs of the loss of his powers.
*Lori Morning has found a HERO dial and is assisting police on small incidents disguised as different seen-once-only superheroes.
*The creative team is as before: Tom McCraw, Tom Peyer, and Roger Stern writing, Lee Moder and Jeffrey Moy as principal artists. Derec Aucoin assists with pencils on LSH # 99.


Oh, lord, the 20th Century stuff is just murdering me. There's SO MUCH OF IT that I didn't know was out there. There's a Supergirl Annual. There's a second line-wide crossover called Genesis. There's an issue of Secret Files & Origins. They're in Action Comics. That random other character who came back from the 30th Century with them, Inferno? She gets her own series! Good grief!!

Remember in the 1960s when Brainiac 5 built a supercomputer called Computo and it turned evil, because that's what supercomputers did in the 1960s? Well, here, Brainiac 5 takes the little "responsometer" device that powers the Metal Man Veridium, who used to be Doc Magnus, and plugs it into one of those odd "Mother Boxes" that Jack Kirby gave the New Gods, and it technoprestomagically turns Doc Magnus into C.O.M.P.U.T.O., which stands for something unimportant, and then it wants to wipe out humanity, and part three is in an issue of Action Comics which I don't own. I honestly do not care if I never read it.

Again, the 30th Century material is much better, and, as Lee Moder seems to be drawing less and less of the main book, it's more consistent because Jeff Moy never seems to take a day off. I'm enjoying it a heck of a lot and, as I've said many times before, I think it's a very underrated title that totally deserves its small but loyal fanbase. Shame about the crossovers though. They kill it stone dead.

Well, I promised eleven installments of this little project, and here's the eleventh. I'm enjoying the book a lot and have many more comics to read, but the chapters about the 1994 reread have found virtually no audience. People came to read me when I was talking about the Paul Levitz-helmed books, but either the 1994 series is much less popular than I believed, or people just aren't linking to it, or something. Each Levitz-reread chapter was getting 300 or more views, and the last few of these have barely managed a sixth of that. So that's the last of these; I'll write some more about detective fiction for the rest of the month. Thanks to all of the Legion's fans who read, commented, and emailed while I was doing this, and I hope that you keep me bookmarked for more little reviews about books and comics. LLL!