Legion of Super-Heroes #293 (November 1982, w: Paul Levitz; a: Keith Giffen) brings us to the fourth part of The Great Darkness Saga and, boy, it's a dozy.
After the events of the last issue, The Legion has spread out across the galaxy in teams, trying to find a trace of the Masters or his Servants. In addition to this, we return to Legion HQ a few times, where Mon-el is still in a coma and the mysterious baby is being kept. On top of that, we see the Master carrying out the next (very important) part of his plan. All this is weaved together throughout, with our point-of-view switching rapidly between characters.
I mentioned in our look at Part 3 that the story as a whole is expertly constructed. This chapter is arguably the best representation of that. Despite the rapid changes of perspective (used to advance the story, remind us of important plot points and advance the plot as a whole), we never lose track of what's going on.
For simplicity's sake, I'll talk about this issue one plot point at a time. At Legion HQ, we are reminded that Mon-el is out of action, but also that the mysterious baby--somehow meant to be who defeats the Master, The kid is getting rapidly older and, when no one is looking, there's a definite hint that he might have impressive powers.
In the meantime, one team of Legionaires is searching a devestated planet that is supposed to be Daxam. But the Master has alread used his enormous power to switch Daxam's position with his own, burnt-out home planet. Daxam is now revolving around a yellow sun. We'll get back to this in a moment.
On the not-Daxam world revolving around a red sun, the Legion team is ambushed by the Servants. More Legionairs show up and a battle royale ensues. And it's a great battle--well-choreographed and with the various characters using their powers in intelligent ways.
Remember that the Legion now knows the nature of two of the Servants. One of them is a clone of a Guardian, who are susceptable to the color yellow. Wildfire destroys this Servant with a burst of yellow radiation.
Another Servant is a clone of Superman. Superboy joins the fight, protected from the red sun by a Braniac Five-invented device. The Servant manages to destroy this and Superboy is soon in trouble. But Element Lad encases Superboy in a lead shield to protect him from Kryptonite radiation, then turns some of the surrounding landscape into gold Kryotonite, which strips the clone of its powers. Timber Wolf is then able to destroy it.
The remaining Servants flee. The Legion has won an important battle, but they haven't won the war.
The Master has mind-controlled the entire population of Daxam. And, since he's transferred their planet to an orbit around a yellow sun, they all have Superman-level powers.
If you don't know about Daxamites, then turn in your geek card. Daxamites are just like Kryptonians, gaining super powers under a yellow sun. But their weakness is lead, which affects them the way Kryptonite affects Krytonians. Since lead is a common substance throughout the universe, it means that Daxamites must stick to their lead-free planet. (Mon-el has a lead poisoning antidote provided to him by Braniac Five, which is why he can travel about as a Legionaire.)
The Master orders his army of three billion Daxamites to fry the surface of their own planet with their heat vision, obliterating his civilization. Then, before sending out his army (three billion Supermen, Superboys and Supergirls), he has them reshape the planet into the shape of his own head--a monument to himself. It's here we finally find out who the Master is:
It's the perfect dramatic moment for this reveal. To keep the mystery going longer might have gotten a little tiresome and its now more effective to raise tension for us to know who he is and what his plan is.
There's still unsolved mysteries--most importantly the identify of the baby back at Legion HQ. And, as we've discussed in the past, at least a few attentive readers with a good knowledge of the DC Universe would have deduced Darkseid's identity already. But the final panel in this issue is still one of the best surprise reveals in the history of comics.
Next week, we'll stay in the DC Univese. Well, sort of. We'll visit a version of that Universe when we look in on the Super Friends.
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