DC Universe Legacies #6-7

[Jeff of Earth-J]

DC Universe Legacies #6 is another beautifully drawn issue, this time penciled by Jerry Ordway and inked by George Perez. As the cover blurb indicates, this issues covers the aftermath of the Crisis through the events depicted in the Legends limited series and its crossovers. If I have one quibble with the story, it’s that it presents the formation of the “Detroit era” Justice League of America as occurring after the Crisis, but we can forgive this lapse of chronology for two reasons. First, this series represents the history of the DC Universe as Paul Lincoln remembers it. (“The weird thing is, even now, after all these years, I don’t know of any two people who remember what happened that day quite the same way.”) Second, a major focus of the story is the transition of the Justice League of America from the Detroit-based team to the post-Legends Justice League and the story just works better that way.

The back-up feature is an tongue-in-cheek out-of-continuity look at the day the Legion of Superheroes first contacted Clark Kent.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I can't quite put my finger on why, but this is the funniest panel I've seen in a long while:

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Actually, I got a kick out of the Daily Planet headline: "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?"

[The Baron]

It would've been funnier if the Anti-Monitor had then proceeded to kick a baby deer.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

Actually, I got a kick out of the Daily Planet headline: "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?"

Ha, yeah, that was great! That's more an Onion headline, don't ya think?

Oh, and I think you hit the nail on the head with the line about everyone having different memories of events surrounding (and before) the Crisis. Len Wein gets the world's biggest No-Prize!

[ClarkKent_DC]

Once, I saw an indie comic with a story about a blind man whose ambition was to be a great photographer (hey, why not?) -- and in one panel, he's in a diner, and there's a newspaper lying around with this headline: "POPE SAYS HELL WITH IT; WHY NOT?"

That never fails to crack me up.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Rob Staeger said:

That's more an Onion headline, don't ya think?

I don’t know… the Planet also published the famous: “Earth to Aliens: DROP DEAD!” headline during the Invasion. (I've still got my paper copy.)

Rob Staeger said:

I think you hit the nail on the head with the line about everyone having different memories of events surrounding (and before) the Crisis.

And that goes not just for characters, but readers, too.

[ClarkKent_DC]

I finally got issue #6, unfortunately after issue #7 -- a direct result of the belated decision to actually get the entire series. I finally decided to do so, thanks to the positive word of mouth from you guys (thanks, guys!), the use of top artists (George Perez! Jose Luis Garcia Lopez! Jerry Ordway! Joe Kubert! Adam Kubert! Andy Kubert!), and the fact that I recently dropped Captain America and Wonder Woman and The Lone Ranger is coming to an end, which opens some slots on my monthly list.

One neat surprise in issue #6: Our stalwart Metropolis police officers operate from the 87th Precinct! As a longtime fan of Ed McBain, that was a nice little Easter egg.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Oh! I was just about to start a new thread for issue #7, but seein's you just bumped this one up to the top, I'll post it here and change the title.

DC Universe Legacies #7 deals with the “dark days” of “Knightfall” and the death of Superman. The art is, fittingly, by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway, but I’ve gotta tell ya, I wasn’t a huge fan of the whole “Death of Superman” thing, and the kind of hyper-continuity represented by “Knightfall” is what eventually drove me away from the Bat-titles. Personally, I prefer this one-issue recap to either of the original storylines. The biggest liberty taken with continuity this issue was to move the death of Aquaman’s son contemporary with these stories and The Killing Joke.

The back-up feature retold the last days of Camelot with Arthur, Merlin, the Shining Knight, the Silent Knight and Etrigan the Demon all thrown into the mix and drawn by Brian Bolland. In a neat touch, the battle was observed by the Atom via Professor Hyatt’s Time Pool. Have we even seen the Time Pool post-Crisis?

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I'm pretty sure we have -- it's possible that Ryan Choi might have even used it toward the end of his series. Of course, I've actively tried to block the Remender issues from my mind, so I can't be certain.

And liked that Easter egg, too, CK!

[Chris Fluit]

I've definitely been enjoying this series.

Unlike Jeff, "The Death of Superman" and "Knightfall" were two of my favorite stories because of their grand scope. I also enjoyed seeing them recapped in this issue. However, it didn't work for me in one sense. The Death of Superman took place in a day story-wise; Knightfall over several months. That chronological discrepancy kept tugging at the back of my mind, preventing me from enjoying it as much as I could have.

One of the things that I've really enjoyed about this series has been its structure. So far, the issues have corresponded to the various historical ages of comics. Issues 1 and 2 were the Golden Age. Issues 3 and 4 the Silver Age. Issues 5 and 6 were the Bronze Age (going with the later date with the Bronze Age starting with Giant Size Uncanny X-Men and moving to DC with the New Teen Titans). Now, issue 7 corresponds to the Copper Age. Considering that I wrote a big series of articles about this earlier, the series structure has pleased me to no end.