2 - Posted on 5/5/2022

Ahh, The Curse, my splash, my everything
Swan's the answer to Darkseid dreams
You're my sun, my moon, my Dark Saga
The inks of Romeo, that's bondage art
I know there's only, only one Mordru
There's no way, Swan could have made two
Legion I'm buying more
This page I'll keep for evermore
You're The Curse, you're the splash, my everything

Posted on 5/5/2022

I read the Great Darkness Saga once. I did NOT understand why every Legion fan spoke so highly of it. I kept waiting for some incredibly amazing payoff that never happened. Then a friend told me "Oh, that's because the payoff was Darkseid appearing as the antagonist. But he is clearly on the cover of the trade paperback, so you already knew he was coming, which is why it was no surprise for you.". Uh...yeah, but you KNEW I'd be reading it as a trade paperback! I don't know, maybe it'll read better if I gave it another chance someday. Any advice or knowledge/wisdom to impart to improve my chances of actually liking it if I read it again, Miki?

1 - Posted on 5/6/2022

Unlike today, back in 1982 when this story line started, it was not constructed to be immediately collected into a Trade Paperback.The TPB did not come out until 1989. And then when it did there was additional material added to the TPB including the massive fold out poster. Also Giffen redrew a short story from LSH 291. I think they thought everyone already knew how the story played out so the additional material was needed to induce fans to buy the TPB.
Anyway, the way the story played out was that the identity of Darkseid was concealed and there was a slow gradual build up to revealing his identity. Up to this time Darkseid had never appeared in the 30th Century. The Legion were reacting to a series of seemingly unconnected events not knowing how grave a danger they were in.

The only way to appreciate how the fans reacted is to read it as if you didn't know Darkseid was coming. You can see an inkling of that in the one page I have from the initial story here.

Having just defeated one of Darkseid's servants, the Legionnaires are more concerned about their upcoming election than the looming threat.

Posted on 5/5/2022

Fantastic inking by Tanghal!

Posted on 5/6/2022

Thanks, Miki. That's pretty much what I had been thinking. The story was structured in such a way that it would build suspense on a month to month basis, until finally revealing the payoff. But it seems to me that readers who came to the story later as I did might've still had a very similar opportunity to experience the story the way original readers did, if only DC hadn't put Darkseid on the cover!

This reminds me of a similar situation with New Teen Titans. I grew up reading it monthly and by the time the series reached The Judas Contract, we long time readers finally gout our payoff. But I have a friend who has never read any Titans comics at all and he told me he was never in a hurry to read them because he did try one time, on the suggestion of a friend, who told him "You must read The Judas Contract at the very least!", and he told me he didn't understand what the big deal was. I understood immediately and told him that was his friend's mistake, because The Judas Contract is simply a 4-part payoff to the story that had already been building for a year by that point, so anyone coming in to Titans directly starting with "Judas" is OF COURSE not going to think it's anything special, because they have zero context for what came before and haven't already grown to love the characters and the sense of family (much like X-Men) they imbued.