Legion of Super-Heroes: The More Things Change

Legion of Superheroes: The More Things Change collects two storylines from the mid-eighties featuring Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz's seminal Legion. These two guys are what made the Legion great for me as a kid, and I was thrilled when I discovered that DC has been collecting some classic storylines featuring the original Legion team in these well-bound story-packed trades (The earlier trades were Legion of Superheroes: The Great Darkness Saga and Legion: An Eye For an Eye). After reading this trade my love for the Legion remains undiminished, but I felt as if something was missing from this volume. The stories featured within are solid and well-written, but none of them were as mind-blowing or angst-ridden as those found in the earlier two trade paperbacks mentioned above. Another gripe I had with this volume (and probably the reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 4) is the inconsistent art throughout the book, but this does not really detract from the sheer boyish pleasure Giffen and Levitz seem to get out of writing the Legion. There are two main storylines that appear in this book, one chronicling the fate of four Legionnaires trapped in Limbo after an apocalyptic battle with the Legion of Supervillains, and another which concerns the departure of the 3 founding members (if you're a Legion fan at all, you'll know who they are) and the search for new members to boost the team's strength. Smaller tales also appear, and most of them are quite good. Timber Wolf goes on a mission to fulfill Karate Kid's final wish, while the rest of the Legionnaires have to foil the assassinations of all the candidates running for the office of President of Earth. Action and humor mix with a nice blend of superheroing and sci-fi to turn Legion: The More Things Change into a good read. Having said that, it was still not an extremely EXCITING read, but certainly whetted my appetite for more collections featuring the classic Legion in the future.