1994-1994: End of an Era

In one issue (LSH(4) #53), the new creative team cleared up all the confusion that the Giffbaum years had left, and showed the way back to the Legion we had known and loved all these years. And yet, within nine months, the old Legion was gone, and the 30th century had become a blank slate. As part of DC's continuing love/hate relationship with the Legion, the bigwigs decreed that the old Legion must be destroyed. Thirty-five years of continuity were to be put to the torch. Now, when the Legion seemed ready to rise from the ashes of its last destruction, DC decided to kill it in its prime. Comics had become a new world. When the Legion began in the late 1950s and 1960s, creators honored what had come before. Characters changed, old events were reinterpreted -- but, until the advent of the new Superman, no one denied outright that previous events had ever happened. Of course, John Byrne made his fortune perverting Superman, and comics professionals saw that there were bigger bucks in screwing up established characters, than in creating fresh new characters of their own. The rush was on. After years of denying that Supergirl and Superboy ever existed (and causing untold headaches for the Legion creative teams), DC launched new versions of Supergirl and Superboy. Green Lantern was reinvented. Wonder Woman got a new origin and a brand-new life. Aquaman and Hawkman were reinvented so many times that no one knows who they are. Relaunch fever, which had almost killed the Legion with the Giffbaum restart, could not be denied, and in a six-part series titled "End of an Era," (concluding in LSH(4) #61), the old Legion breathed its last. At least the DC continuity cops had the decency to avert their eyes for the duration of the series, and the creative teams involved were able to sneak in all manner of references to the old Legion -- including appearances by Superboy and Supergirl!