The Great Darkness Saga is my first original Legion of Super-Heroes comic. While I’ve read the new one and I do have a cursory knowledge of some of the characters (picked up over the years from various comic books), I found no problems following the character relationships in the story. Having only read the new series, I didn’t know what to expect from the original and the importance of those relationships was a real surprise. The Legion has a seemingly impossible to handle large cast--probably fifteen to twenty characters whose names are important in Great Darkness Saga. Most of them are white people. There’s a rock guy, a really annoying black Cajun guy (the only low in terms of characters), and Superboy. Superboy’s white, but he’s real recognizable. I’m trying to think in terms of movies--how many characters can one follow in a movie? Comic books might be the best medium for such a large cast, actually, just because they’re a read medium. They exist in a time created by the reader, not in real time. Gives the brain time to comprehend.
The story takes place over five issues, not including the short prologue and a longer, needless epilogue. The epilogue features some narrative cuteness and some lifeless Curt Swan art. There was no depth to the illustration. It looked like someone had slapped stickers onto a landscape or something. Also, the idea of an epilogue coming right after Great Darkness Saga... the emotional investment has already been fulfilled. The well is empty and the epilogue (in an annual a couple years after the last issue of Darkness) is something else. It’s not an actual part of the story. A comic book series has stories and then there are stories of the comic book series. By the time of the annual, the story had become part of the series, so it might have played different read in that manner. I didn’t have that context, however.
To some degree, I never accept big science fiction. A swarm of three billion super-powered aliens wrecking havoc across the galaxy. I don’t buy it. I do buy, however, the characters’ reaction to said swarm. Paul Levitz writes good characters and writes a full story. The five issues of Great Darkness Saga took me about two hours to read. Those are full issues. While there is quite a bit going on besides the main story, it’s really not too much--maybe an eighth of it. There’s one really disconcerting moment, in between the second and third issues, when a bunch of stuff happens off-panel and is never directly referenced. It feels like something didn’t get done, but the feeling quickly passes as the story gets into gear again.
DC has let the trade collection of Great Darkness Saga go out of print, which is unfortunate, because the new series would definitely lead people back to it and this story is an excellent one. Mainstream superhero books usually have a ceiling--oftentimes because they can’t negotiate being stories about flying people in tights with something relatable. The Great Darkness Saga does it--Paul Levitz makes me care about character relationships I didn’t know existed before I opened these comic books, relationships his intended audience certainly would have known about. I caught myself caring and I took note, because it doesn’t happen. It’s a particular achievement.
Highly recommended