This story was before I was old enough to read. I didn't start reading comics until 1982. Any older Legion stories I read was because they were collected in the DC Digests. The Legion had very few multi-part epics by this point. This one seems pretty significant though. I believe it will be part of the next hardcover Superboy & LSH available next month. I read it earlier this year from Comixology because I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Expect some brutal opinions.
Issue 241 starts with an odd cover of brain aliens. We open the page to find Wildfire, Mon-El, Ultra Boy and Dawnstar, rushing off because something is important. So important that they are going to cause havok over the skies and cause vehicles to crash. Mon-El stops to assist. In the cruiser is SP officer Erin who was on her way to deliver a very important message. OK, I get that's he trying to create a sense of urgency with the Legionnaires but this is heavy handed. Brainy bemoans how they have 3 Legionnaires on detached status with Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad leaving soon. Erin arrives and they could care less. She doesn't get to deliver her message because there is another important Legion matter. But if Erin's message was that important, why wouldn't she have just called ahead? Panels later, Phantom Girl wonders if maybe there was an important message. Brainy says, don't be ridiculous.This all read kinda clunky. Brainy is pretty dickish here, usurping Element Lad's authority. This was typical Levitz for the time, though. Idiot plots and characters not working together. Phantom Girl is so inept she doesn't know how to help stop starships so Sun Boy mansplains her. Shouldn't they have have discussed their plan before engaging the enemy?
Sun Boy and Element Lad take point with Superboy joining. Brainy tries to help but is stopped because the raiders have 4-D cables that go through his shield. Probably the last time Levitz used that trick. The fight has a lot of dumb moments, like where the one ship has a shield that reflects Sun Boy's power exactly at Jan and Brainy (who turned his forcefield off at this point). These moments bother me more than they probably should, but it seems really improbable. Meanwhile, Tinya has disappeared and we find Cham on an infiltration mission. Vi too, but that's only in captions. There are words had with Ontiir as our first team has just rescued people from a bomb. Back to Brainy's team and we see them finally defeat the raiders. Tinya actually figures out how to use her powers at this point and we learn that now the Khunds are to poised to make a strike.
The issue ends with a Timber Wolf and Light Lass short story. I guess this is to explain their absence.
I get that Levitz was trying to make an action oriented start, and he does to an extent, but some stuff doesn't ring true. Who was left on monitor duty? A lot of Legionnaires are not accounted for in the text box so it makes me wonder why no one was there to talk to Ofr. Erin.
Issue 242 starts back with the diplomatic team, Ambassador Relnic and Ontiir. More infighting among the Legionnaires. We go back to Brainy's team. For some reason, Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet and Cham are gone, Colossal Boy is now with the squad as they are fighting off an attack on Earth from the Khunds. Element Lad decides to send Brainy to Webers World while they take the fight back to the Khunds. They eventually find that the Khunds are being manipulated and take off into space, following Superboy, who will rely on his super-hearing to track the beam that was controlling the Khund leader. In space. Where there is no sound. Meanwhile, the Dominators arrive on Webers World and Dawnstar can sense them. Not sure that was ever how her powers worked but ok.
Who are these shadowy characters? Back to Webers World where Dawnstar can feel like she is being watched. I still don't get what's going on here with her powers. Was Levitz trying to increase them subtly? Anyway. The Legionnaires who left Khundia fly light years to Webers World. And that chapter ends.
Next we get a second story focusing on Dream Girl, Projectra, Light Lass and Shadow Lass. I know people have complemented Levitz on his ability to manage a large cast, but I don't think this counts because this is our first mention of Nura, Jeckie and Shady. It's not a bad story and it shows Jeckie at her most capable: she creates illusions that she can maintain from an unknown distance, and she is able to somehow hide them in plain sight. Levitz basically established Sensor Girl's abilities right here. Light Lass seems pretty capable here, although I disagree that she would be able to raise and drop someone with her powers considering how they were previously depicted.
This issues moves the story forward and gives it a bit more scope with the idea that there are a lot of moving pieces, but I just feel like Paul did some handwaving in order to keep the plot moving. And if you wondered how fast someone could fly with a flight rings, it's at the Speed of Plot.
Issue 243. Is that Cos on the cover? We haven't seen him the entire story! In fact, we are back at Legion HQ with Ofr Erin still sitting in the monitor room. The narration states she holds the answer to why all this is happening! But we aren't going to find out yet because that would spoil the story. Or would it? She sits there in the monitor room for what surely must be days. Still, no one is on Monitor duty. Where's Star Boy? What happened to Cham, Tinya and Vi? Why doesn't she try reaching out to one of the teams? And of course she walks away before some red light starts glowing. Sigh.
More trouble on Webers World. Wildfire causes use his power to form an energy cage? Jan's crew arrives. The Khunds attack Earth and we see the Legionnaires rise to defend, including Star Boy, Jeckie, Cham, Phantom Girl, Light Lass and Cosmic Boy, with Dream Girl and Vi in the cruiser. How they organize without going to the monitor room, I don't know. The Legionnaires are taken down easy.
This is part of why I always disagree with putting your most powerful members on one team. A cruiser would not take much longer to get to these worlds than traveling under their own power. Moving on.
More intergalactic politics and they realize that Earth is in trouble. Meanwhile on Earth, the Subs put up a good line of defense but don't hold up long. The Dark Circle is behind it all! The damn red light is still flashing in the monitor room. Where's Timber Wolf? Where's Shady? How do we know things are dire? Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy arrive to save the day.
I know, I am poking at the plot holes, but this should be airtight. Again, if they wouldn't act like idiots, they wouldn't be in this predicament.
Issue 244. Next Chapter. Superboy joins the Power Squad from the first issue. Recap for those just joining the story. Dawnstar has some more ESP and Mon-El notes her skin is tough. Really, I'm sure she moisturizes. We go back to the ex-Legionnaires (?) and three of them have ray guns. It's noted that Saturn Girl's powers are of no use so she does some weird kick. They defeat a Khund Cell and Saturn Girl learns of the Dark Circle. Ofr Erin is back at SP HQ, kicking butt until she is overwhelmed. Deus ex Machina Karate Kid surprises her with a save. More Khund fighting. The Legion use a tank to try to make a break for it. The tank is stopped and just to prove how utterly worthless Chuck and Lu are, they get knocked out. Garth and Imra don't stop, they are too important to the plot. Everyone makes a bee-line to the Presidential Palace where they find the defeated Legionnaires, Brainy, Timber Wolf and Shady, and the Subs. Obviously no one cares that Brainy didn't rendezvous with them on Weber's World. No idea how Brin and Shady got there. The meet the fellow manipulating it all who given them an ultimatum. They try to take him down while the rest stop this negative sphere. The big bad turns out to be Mordru who manipulated events that Ofr. Erin couldn't tell them he escaped.
I'm OK with Mordru as the big bad here, but how we got to this point? IDK. I think it would have been better to have Chuck and Lu actually try to draw fire so that Garth and Imra could try to do what they needed. Even if Ofr. Erin told the Legion that Mordru was free, would they have tried to find them our would they have did what they needed to do anyway with Weber's World and the Khunds? There were no hints that indicated Mordru was behind this. Even if she told them he was free, it wouldn't have mattered.
Issue 255, final chapter. This starts and focuses mainly on Superboy, Val, Garth and Imra. Imra actually uses her powers effectively here. Mordru likes to hear himself talk. Superboy does some weird thing with a glass bubble he created. At this point, the captured Legionnaires are freed. They attack Mordru and Imra decides to mind-link them all to find a way to stop them. Levitz never uses this trick again either because it makes too much sense. Imra points out there is no sound in space. I wonder if someone reminded Levitz of that. Saturn Girl mind-links Jan and Brainy so Brainy can give him the elemental composition of... soil? They cage Mordru and win. Yay!
Epilogue - the Legion constitution is amended to allow Garth and Imra to stay. Chuck and Lu decline because they know they are worthless. They decide to build a family (spoiler alert: never happens). Everyone is freed from Mordru's influence and there is peace. Hurrah!
So this chapter we see the Legionnaires actually work together for a change. That is one of my biggest gripes with Levitz's writing, the lack of teamwork exhibited at times. In this case, only three needed to work together because they already knew what Mordru's weakness was. I feel like the climax could have been more dramatic than just Element Lad casting his powers from afar. As I noted, there is plenty of handwaving and some unnecessary plot points. Levitz relies on mind control to tell his story. It's his crutch, really. Also, there is no indication of how much time passes in the story. Showing that this happened over days would make it feel more epic. The dubious Superboy miracles are always unwelcome.
I also feel like Levitz tries to correlate that the more characters there are in a story, the more serious it must be. Now, having a Subs appearance will hit the spot for some people, also the return of Karate Kid. The return of Mordru is also a plus. It's definitely a story to satisfy long term readers. But I don't think it holds up well, 40 years later. The infighting gets old as a way of creating dramatic tension. I feel that the side stories were out of place as they did not connect to the main story. If their point was to show why they weren't in the main story, that's a narrative fail. In fact, I would have been fine if Timber Wolf and Ayla were not in the main story at all, because they were on another mission the whole time. Then we could have seen that mission at the end. That obviously goes against what Levitz wanted to do: use the Legion as a whole in the final battle. So as a story, I would give this a C+. It's not terrible but he relies on some pretty standard tropes to tell his story.
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