Final Night #1 (1996)
by Karl Kesel & Stuart Immonen
The Legion of Super-Heroes barely reached the 20th century before getting involved in a crossover.
Luckily for them it’s a good one; in fact I consider this one of the best company-wide events DC Comics ever did.
It was also my first true exposure to the Reboot Legion after the Zero Hour issues, because publisher Play Press actually did translate the miniseries (and many tie-ins) for its Italian books.
Technically speaking, the Legion has a brief cameo in Final Night #0 (which wasn’t included in the Italian reprint), where Superman has already recruited them to deal with a spaceship about to reach Earth.
But Final Night #1 properly begins with Mullet Superman welcoming the new arrival, next to his new friends.
The alien, a woman called Dusk, has a dire warning for the planet.
The Legionnaires are the only ones to understand what she’s saying.
Very minor mistake by Kesel here: in this period the Flight Rings don’t act as universal translator, they have Telepathic Earplugs™ for that.
Saturn Girl is the one providing the translation for Dusk’s message… which should be significant for fans of the original Legion.
This is big enough to involve every single DC superhero… and even some supervillains, as we will see later.
S.T.A.R. Labs confirms the arrival of the Sun-Eater, who looks definitely scarier than its Silver Age incarnation.
Dusk’s warning is kind of useless though, considering how close the Sun-Eater already is and that she brings no additional information.
I consider myself relatively well-versed in mid-90s DC Comics, but I have no clue who this girl is supposed to be.
When I first read this book I assumed she was familiar with Brainiac 5 given that she calls him Brainy, but… seriously, who IS she?
Superman leads a team that includes as many heroes with energy powers (including Ultra Boy and Inferno), plus the space-faring Centurion because he has a spaceship.
Not really sure why they need one considering he’s bringing two Green Lanterns with him.
Cosmic Boy is part of the other team, which will attempt to move the Sun-Eater away from Earth thanks to Mister Miracle’s Boom Tube™ technology.
The team also includes supervillain Doctor Polaris. Because he might be a villain, but he’s not crazy. Well… he IS mentally ill, but not crazy enough to let Earth die.
This is our first good look at the Sun-Eater, and this is my favorite look for it by a wide margin.
It’s incredibly simple, yes, but it makes way more sense and it’s scarier than the original pink blob.
Too bad the Boom Tube™ can’t work against the Sun-Eater because the plot demands it it’s not entirely from this dimension.
I don’t think it’s ever elaborated for this version of the Sun-Eater, making me wonder if this version was also created by a rogue Controller.
Well maybe the Sun-Eater will prefer a light snack provided by the other heroes.
This includes a cutaway about French people considering this an attack on French culture… in a panel that quite bizarrely is in French in the original version but was translated into Italian in the Play Press reprint.
As an Italian I’m no stranger to friendly jabs at our neighboring frenemies… but this is just dumb.
Good news: the plan works!
Bad news: it only works as a light snack.
Who could have seen it coming?
Well to be honest, the Legionnaires DID know it wouldn’t work… kind of.
They know there would be a crisis around this time and the Sun-Eater was active in this era, but they didn’t know it came to Earth. SOMEHOW.
And so the issue ends with establishing the premise of the whole event: the Sun is permanently eclipsed. Thankfully, this version of the Sun-Eater is a far slower eater than the original.
Final Night #2 (1996)
by Karl Kesel & Stuart Immonen
The Legion’s role in this issue is very minor, but there are a couple of important points worth mentioning.
One is that, without the Sun, Superman’s powers are diminishing rapidly.
Another is that Lex Luthor is helping the heroes deal with the Sun-Eater, with his usual charm.
He also doesn’t get along with Brainiac 5. Notably, at this point he doesn’t know he’s a descendant of the original Brainiac: only Superman and Superboy know the Legion is from the future, everyone else think they’re just aliens.
Luthor’s idea is to use Green Lantern as a probe into the Sun.
See Brainy, if you went five minutes without complaining about having to work with primitive technology, you would’ve come up with this yourself.
The Sun is not feeling well. AT ALL.
Yeah things are bad when Lex Luthor makes this face.
This gives Brainiac 5 all the data he needs, but Lex is not happy with the results.
Green Lantern has been moved kidnapped by another plot…
…and Dusk starts to doubt she went to the right planet, considering a mob tries to kill her for bringing the Sun-Eater.
But the story ends with her being saved by a new hero… who should be very familiar to anyone who has read about the Silver Age Sun-Eater.
Ferro technically debuts in a Superman story published right before this one, but I’ll review that one separately.
Legion significance: 6/10
It’s likely we wouldn’t have Ferro without Final Night.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
As mentioned I hold this crossover in high regard. The premise is classic comic book nonsense, sure, but the slow pace allows for an exploration of several aspects of a planet-wide catastrophe.
It helps that Kesel is a good writer and that Immonen artwork is always welcome.
The Legion has a relatively small role here, something surprising considering the Sun-Eater is taken from their rogues gallery. You would expect them coming from the future would play a bigger role, but that will only be explored in the Legion book itself.
The Legion is thrust into the crossover a bit too early in their 20th century visit… ideally they should’ve been given the chance for SOME interaction before it… but the fact that they are so new to this helps explain their limited role.
Who did it better?
This is obviously a VERY different story from the original Sun-Eater. I think it’s a tie between the two when it comes to hyping how dangerous it is.
A minor aspect that is preserved is that villains also help in the fight: Doctor Polaris is barely a footnote, but Lex Luthor’s involvement is quite important. And the line will be blurred in the finale.
However that was a much bigger part of the original, given it served as the introduction of the Fatal Five.
I will analyze the differences in the final when we get to it, but there are already two key aspects where the 90s version is superior.
One is of course being able to deal with the consequences of the Sun-Eater, because we actually see what happens on the planet… which as I mentioned, is helped by this not being an instantaneous destruction.The o
ther is that I believe the 90s version does a much better job at selling the cosmic horror of the Sun-Eater: while it’s ultimately an unmovable object in both versions, the Silver Age one did have to struggle a bit against multiple super-beings. The new one barely notices anything.
The most clear-cut difference, however, is just the looks.
We will see that the pink Sun-Eater CAN work well in animation, but come on: put them side to side and ask someone unfamiliar with the story which one of these is a Sun-Eater.
