Keith Giffen's "Five Years Later" Legion

Keith Giffen started his run with the Legion of Super-Heroes plotting as well as penciling the Volume 4 series restart in November 1989. His tale would begin five years after the Magic Wars with very little explanation as to what had happened to the either the Legion or the United Planets. The Legion universe had become a much darker place during those five years. Giffen weaves the tale of a group of former Legionnaires working to re-form a disbanded Legion in this harsh new universe where Earth is ruled by the Alien Dominators and ultimate destruction (aka issue #38) looms just around the corner.

Why focus a gallery on this period of Legion history?

For this reader the Legion/Giffen run is one of my most prized comic reader memories and it was a very personal choice to celebrate it and Keith Giffen's amazing cover art within a gallery.

In the December of 1993, I was a couple years into college and an equal number of years out of the comic business. At that time, I purchased a lot of titles each month so I typically found myself a bit behind reading what the more standard monthly readers were enjoying. I tended to package my reading into massive 30 - 40 issue arcs.

That said, I was on a winter Christmas break form college just as the Giffen run was drawing to a close. I had issue 1-38 in hand and was waiting the arrive of 39. I sat down and read almost all of Giffen's run in one long blissful weekend. That read remains one of my enduring favorite times reading comics. The plot challenged me and even as a long time Legion reader, I had to drop back once in a while to figure out who was who, but that didn't bother me. I liked the fact that the Legion change was sudden and distinctive. I liked that they began referring to each other by their real names rather than code names. It felt as if they had evolved, matured and I was being rewarded as long time reader. I also liked the art, which was refreshingly different from what we were seeing at the time and served, in may ways, to redefine the pacing of comic imagery.

The grim future presented by the often lighthearted Giffen struck a positive chord with me. I'm a big fan of experimental storytelling in comics and taking a big chance with an established book usually gets me charged up. You can only tell the same story for so many years, before you have to surprise the reader a little. Personally, I hate a full reboot, love long term continuity but I also really enjoy a big change when it happens. Some of the best stories I've read have come out of major changes within a title.

I don’t think every comic title needs to be packaged into a sellable trade-paperback story. Most do and I understand that's the market these days, but it would be nice to see a few titles develop longer more intricate stories. These would have to be titles with established reader bases and Legion has always seemed like a good niche title that could be used to weave this kind of story. Legion has a long running, dedicated following that has been with the book through it's many (and I do mean many) incarnations.

In closing, the dark Legion world created by Giffen is a happy Christmas memory and deserved it's own gallery on our site.

The "Five Years Later" Legion Gallery
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