3 out of 5

This is one of those comics for which I wish I could’ve been there to hear the editorial decisions behind its publication.  A prestige format series with no superstar hero to grace its cover, or any real distinct connections to the then-Marvel Universe, and that can’t be said to have sprung from any promote-able crossover event…?  What is that?  And, not to undersell Mr. Gerber, but this wasn’t exactly an era of sales-nabbing output from him.  His wasn’t likely a name to guarantee X dollars

Yet here we are in 1991, at 4.95 a pop, Gerber matched up with the soon-to-be Image stylings of Whilce Portacio, dabbling in a pretty heavy and violent story of cults and Fin Fang Fooms and shadows, starring, cutely, several players from the mini Gerberverse hay-days of Man-Thing.  I can only assume this was a favor of some type, an opportunity for Steve to see if he could kick off a more modern incarnation of his -verse, combined with some of the darker myth stuff that crept into Void Indigo.  And, y’know, though Legion is uneven, I’m really sad he didn’t get the chance to do more with the characters (beyond one follow up short), because typical of Gerb of any era, he stuffs the thing with more ideas than he knows what to so with.

The first half of the story is actually pretty stellar.  Steve slickly navigates through a large cast of characters – those who will eventually form the demon-battling Legion – and starts seeding in his over-arching concept of a Cthulu-esque being whose dream will overtake the world (and that being is Fin Fang Foom…), which gives opportunity to nod at the aforementioned Void Indigo, and to have a fantastic Man-Thing cameo, to get in some keen Steve commentary regarding the notion of power and its fleeting nature, and to even maybe prefigure his work on Sludge with lead Charles Blackwater, who’s resurrected as the Legion-leader hosting zombie after tangling with the wrong folk.

I swear, this all goes down really easily.

The second part is rather scattershot, though, with Fin Fang Cthulu arisen and the Legion something something descending into dreams to fight the fight and there are about fifty ideas too many before a really underwhelming final blow.  Because Steve was fixing to write more Legion stories, I sense this was him tossing things out to see what stuck for him or readers, with more comical / surreal aspects of the dreamworld versus a surprising-for-Marvel risque and gory moment as well.  The series has a grimmer tone that’s frankly better served by the latter, but had Steve been able to spread this out to more than two prestiges, the former would’ve been great as well.

The art, frankly, doesn’t help.  While Whilce’s designs for Omen, the Legion leader, are fascinating,  his Image-y excessive line work – and this may be due to the inkers, Scott Williams on book 1 and Dan Panosian on 2 – ends up looking pretty lazy in spots, with some panels and faces downright ugly.  There’s also, I think, something up with Paul Mounts’ colors, or maybe the printing quality; the cover of book 2 is a pretty cool shot of monsters fighting, but the interior version of the same thing looks really.muddy in comparison, and that texture carries over throughout the book.  With the cover image, Besides the swapped backgrounds, the only difference I cam discern with the interior version are the colors, so, again, Mounts or printing quality I can’t say, but it doesn’t serve the art well.  Whilce also switches between two page layouts’ and single page without much reason.  I, of course, can’t know if that was scripted, but it seems like a bid to justify the “prestige” format when it just ends up making for confusing panel reading order on some pages.

Also unfortunate, and surprising, is John Workman’s lettering.  For such a seasoned dude, there’s some very odd bubble placement, and it lacks the energy of most of his lettering.  It feels cramped, and the sound effects don’t feel like they sit on a good layer with the art.  Should we blame Whilce again for too much scritchy-scratch in his panels?  Sure.

I revisit legion of Night every now and then, with a similar reaction each time: the first issue gets me super amped, amd then I’m slowly deflated by issue two.  Still, for Gerber fans, I think it’s a fascinating What If…? Read.  As a standalone experience, though, its probably more of an oddity than anything else.