Too…many…characters – Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #5

I know that the Legion has been a popular team over the years, but I’ve never shared in that enthusiasm.  That’s not through informed disdain, but more from my ignorance of the characters.  By the time I became literate enough to buy comics — in the 80’s — the Legion weren’t occupying the same lofty level where they once were perched.  And, woefully behind in my Legion lore, I’ve never been able to keep the myriad Boys, Girls, Lads and Lasses straight.

So I don’t get along very well with the Legion.  It’s my fault.  I admit it.  I’m so ignorant, I can’t even begin to properly analyze an issue.  I just don’t get the whole vibe from these far-future youths.  But there’s one dude I can get.

Darkseid.

Perhaps the greatest villain in the DC Universe, the stone-faced ruler of Apokalips is the big bad of all big bads.  He rules the rogue roost, if you will.  He’s so tough, he’s still menacing all of creation in the far-future of the Legion.

Now, I have to confess, I’ve never read “The Great Darkness Saga.”  I hope to correct that soon, but this annual (actually a reprint of a regular Legion of Super-Heroes Annual) serves as a sort of epilogue to that classic from The Legion of Super-Heroes.  While I liked the writing style of scripter Paul Levitz, not being familiar with that earlier story (or the characters, for that matter) I was a bit bewildered by all the goings on.  The plot involves Darkseid secretly kidnapping one of Saturn Girl’s twins at the child’s birth, sending the kid back and time, making him a villain, and trying to get Saturn Girl and the child’s father, Lighting Lad, to unwittingly kill their own offspring.

At least I got that part.

The treat for me was the pleasant contrast between the two pencillers for this issue.  Curt Swan handled the bulk of the story, while Keith Giffen tackled a few framing pages at the beginning and the end.  While I’m pretty dumb when it comes to the Legion, I know enough to grasp that these two gentlemen are very closely tied to these characters because of their long associations with them.  And you couldn’t pick two artists whose styles are more different.  Swan’s has a softness to it, an elegance, while Giffen’s is harder, all sharp lines and deep shadows.

For example, there are the different ways that they draw Saturn Girl.  Here’s a page from Swan:

And here’s one from Giffen:

There’s a definite contrast, but the way it’s handled in the story works.  Kind of like hot fudge and ice cream — one’s hot and one’s cold, but boy oh boy, do they ever go together.  The same holds true here.  Giffen’s pages deal with Darkseid’s machinations, and his firm style melds nicely with that character’s cold, rocky evil.

Now I need to go track down some of those “Darkness Saga” issues.  I’ll have to put myself through a weekend-long cram session on the Legion at some point — this giant gap in my comics knowledge can’t go on.  It just can’t.