Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes

Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes #1-6

by Brian Michael Bendis, Scott Godlweski (Illustrator)

The greatest heroes of two eras face their biggest threat...each other! It’s the 21st century versus the 31st century, with all of reality at stake!

One thousand years in the future, a Legion of Super-Heroes comes together to dedicate their lives to recapturing the great age of heroes of the 21st century. When the heroes discover that reality is falling to a great darkness in both times simultaneously, the Justice League and the Legion of Super-Heroes must team up to stop it all.

Soon, the Justice League are trapped in the 31st century, and the looming terror of the Great Darkness hovers over both time periods simultaneously. Even as the great heroes of the 21st century get to experience the fantastic far-flung future, the mysteries behind the Gold Lantern and the Great Darkness threaten all of existence. What is the secret behind the Great Darkness? And will the greatest heroes of two ages be able to stop it before it's too late?

Two of DC’s top super-teams clash, as threads from legendary writer Brian Michael Bendis’ runs on Legion of Super-Heroes and Justice League collide in a story with both the present and the future at risk!

Collects Justice League vs. Legion of Super-Heroes #1-6.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Science Fiction, Superheroes, Comic Book, Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

Published December 13, 2022

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Murphy C · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is this singly the worst comic ever produced? Quite possibly. Riddled with typos, misspellings, and other errors, neither does this comic tell anything resembling a story. A story has to make sense, to follow a logical progression of cause and consequence. And telling a story is kinda the whole point! Frankly, I am astonished that this pile of steaming garbage was ever published in the first place! This is the comic equivalent of that Batgirl movie being so bad that it was unreleasable. There was concern that if it were released, the careers of everyone involved might be damaged.

Well, based on this thing resembling a DC comic book that Brian Michael Bendis and Scott Godlewski made, and that I foolishly read (because, unlike Batgirl, it was released), by all rights careers ought to be damaged. Bendis ought to be run out of Comicstown and exiled forever. Maybe, maybe he could be allowed a writing gig on some new and terrible CW show, but that's it!

I can't fully articulate just how much I ABHOR this comic. I LOATHE it.

[Tom French · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like Bendis' LEGION. As a life-long fan (all the way back to the ADVENTURE COMICS days), I'm happy anytime the LEGION OF SUPERHEROES gets some attention, or another reboot or three.

I've said before, I find Bendis' version of the LEGION to be visually fascinating -- and in some ways, more "realistic" than two-dozen kids from different worlds who all seem to be cut from the same humanoid cloth. I also appreciated the way he tried very hard to display the cultural differences not only by young Jon Kent being 1000 years in the future, but also between the Legionnaires themselves.

But...

It's just too much all at once, trying way too hard to be clever rather than satisfying. The "story" (what little there is of it) happens almost completely off-stage, focusing instead on group conversations and clever retorts. We never find out what "The Great Darkness" really is -- there's a muddled rationalization in the final issue, but not a concrete "this was how [the bad guy] did it." Nor was there a good answer to the Gold Lantern question -- why he was different than the other Lanterns (where ARE all the other lanterns)?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't think I am. I think it's just an over-hyped, poorly constructed story with a beginning, no development, and a senseless ending.

I'm sorry to see a group, with so much visual potential, be so wasted.

EDITED TO ADD:
It's also not "VS". The Justice League never fights the Legion. It's not "versus," it's "meets."

[allowableman2 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This a utter crap, oh my god. It becoming a fucking Vandal Savage story at the end made me so confused

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Batman: We deeply appreciate this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see what the future holds. It's everything I've ever hoped for. But we need to go back to the 21st century immediately. For so many reasons. One of which is to make sure that it's still there.

Black Canary: Of course it's still there, or we wouldn't be here. Right?

Hawkgirl: That sounds right.

Batman: What do you say, Brainiac?

Brainiac 5: I'm sorry for delaying your return. Until we figure out what happened and why I think you'll agree that any attempt at time stream travel is a terrible risk to the larger cosmic systems. We are in crisis.

Batman: Then I must insist.

Aquaman: I think what Batman is saying is--

Black Adam: We'll be going home now.

Aquaman: I think what Black Adam is saying is--

Brainiac 5: You do not need to be upset.

Bottomline--and possibly a slight spoiler--: The two super hero teams do not fight so much as argue in Brian Michael Bendis's TPB collection Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes. The teams meet when a mysterious temporal crisis impacts both groups "at the same time" even though a thousand years separate them. Unfortunately, the potential here is largely wasted on a less-than-spectacular "crisis" with a dull climax and conclusion. Really--the "key" to the enigma is conveyed by a weak plot-device which I won't spoil here. I was dumbfounded and disappointed.

And that would be a better title for this collection: Justice League & The Legion of Super-Heroes: Dumbfounded and Disappointed. The story barely holds together (even for a comic book!) and the incessant quips and ironic cultural references are stale. There's nothing here, really.

[NarraTea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Coming from such a titan in the comic book writing industry, this was truly something I did not expect to be this bad. There was, in the end, no concrete motivation or point to what was occurring. A large-scale threat was established, an “end of all things” if you will…(and they use this term a LOT). This all lead to a lazy narrative resolve revolving around an overused villain with a really overused motivation behind what he was doing.

There was no real resolve or technical explanation on how they stopped a MASSIVE DARKNESS THAT WAS TAKING HOLD OF TIME AND REALITY AS THEY KNEW IT. It just went *poof off screen and everything was good?? This entire event feels lazy, unnecessary, and non-important for whatever comes next in this universe. There is no real correlation with the large scale of things leading up to Dark Crisis and none of these characters felt like they were who they have been for decades. The writing felt abysmal at times, the dialogue felt as if written by someone who has never written DC characters before and there are a lot of plot points that are simply mind-staggering and lame.

This is not a hit against the writer, cause at the end of the day he is a TITAN in comics and an amazing writer—it just seems DC is not his forte, and maybe he just does not understand the characters enough. The star consists of it having a slightly pleasant structure, the cameos of Kamandi, Alan Scott, and Batman Beyond, and because the art is fantastic.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bendis' DC Comics work has been a very pleasant surprise for me. I will admit I feel like Bendis wandered around a bit during this story. I do not know whether the blame is his, or editorial (because of references to the Dark Cris event currently on going).

Is this great no. Is it fun? For the most part yes. Is it the usual time travel crisis tomfoolery? Also yes.

Yeah, me and time travel. Not always a great mix (I mean Dr. Who doesn't exactly work for me either).

Guess, I'm meandering here.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't bad but seemed a bit pointless. We also had a story dragged out over six issues that could easily have been told in four at most. There were also way too many characters to keep up with, but that almost goes without saying when the Legion is involved. It didn't help the story was very wordy a well. It was okay, just not great.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, the last use of BMB’s LSH suffers more than in the main run of the Legion’s book. It fails basic storytelling—the characters suffer the plot instead of driving the story. In short, loads of things happen TO the JLA & LSH but very little happens because of them.

Six issue “event” and every issue repeats the threat of the Great Darkness, expanding its mystery and danger, but the heroes fear to react until we get to the last issue and we’re TOLD “here’s the villain behind it all and why!” rather than having clues put together by the heroes.

Truly sad as I liked what few character bits we did see of the L’aires. Except Mon-El, who’s written as vainglorious as early 90s Superboy fresh outta Project Cadmus

Really felt like BMB just wanted to pump up his Gold Lantern (without really explaining more about his powers and how his ring differs from previous Oan rings) & potentially launch a GLCorps of the future.

[Heather - Just Geeking By · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five issues of "it's getting bigger" and "is this the end of everything?!" panic and then in one issue it boils down to Vandal Savage hiding in the Gold Lantern Ring with a very basic ("I did it over many lifetimes!") explanation slapped together in the final issue.

Oh right, Bendis wrote this. It makes so much sense now.

There were some good parts with the old and new heroes meeting and working together, but this could have been so much better if someone else had written it.

[Dallas Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rightly fun time!

Sanford Greene's work on the Justice League Annual is a beautiful wonder to witness!
Loved seeing the Legion continued and Gold Lantern fleshed out!
The Justice League are fun to bounce off of with the Legion!
All around enjoyable and short little adventure with high stakes!

[Tony Laplume · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brian Michael Bendis had some specific goals in mind when he went to DC, and it was basically nothing what fans thought: he chose Superman, a vast criminal organization called Leviathan, the new hero Naomi, and the Legion of Super-Heroes as his interests. All of them at least put in an appearance in Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes. In fact, literally and figuratively, this is the culmination of his time at DC.

Fans were confused by basically all of it. Yet Bendis made his intentions perfectly clear in the pages of the story later collected as Batman: Universe, originally serialized in the pages of the one-time Walmart exclusive Batman 100-page giants. Universe, as it turned out, was a direct preview of what was to come. He wanted very much to explore the rich tapestry of the DC landscape, which he correctly identified as differing from Marvel’s, really, by its highly developed timeline. He saw Jonah Hex and the Legion as the two goalposts between which the most famous characters existed. What he wanted to see was exactly how much fun he could have with all of it. As he had done at Marvel, Bendis quickly set about “kit-bashing,” making ostensibly new models out of the existing framework. Fans saw some of it as outright sacrilege, such as (once again) revealing Superman’s secret identity to the world (which, as noted, had certainly already happened, in the waning days of the New 52, although with considerably less hopeful results), and aging up his son, Jon. This had the effect of plausibly introducing a new vision of the Legion, as well as an origin story for the United Planets organization behind them in the far future.

Anyway, Bendis is best understood as a guy who understands the benefit of legacy without necessarily being beholden to what came before him. This is best understood in his work on Ultimate Spider-Man(s), where he first reworks Peter Parker’s whole saga and then introduces Miles Morales, a character who still endures, without Bendis, today, including in a series of animated films. Naomi was Bendis looking at this impulse from a different perspective, a Superman exile analog who’s really more of a Supergirl, who perhaps pointedly has never gotten a code name. (But it would basically be Supergirl if she did.) Naomi was a part of his Justice League (of course).

But really, his greatest gift in this run was the introduction of the Gold Lantern, and this volume is basically an excuse to finish that in the grandest way possible.

Now, by the time Bendis reached this point, fans had decided his whole time at DC was a huge waste, especially after revealing the secret villain behind his version of Leviathan was…some Manhunter who had been completely forgotten. Another bust in a whole series of them. What a waste! Of course, no era is more jaded than our current one (at least not yet!), so there was really never going to be a different outcome, certainly not when compounded by the fact that even in his heyday, Bendis was lauded as the Marvel version of DC’s Geoff Johns, who by the time Bendis came to join him (relatively speaking), was best known as one of the guys responsible for the giant mess that was the DC movie universe. So it wasn’t a great time to be an ambitious architect. And some other writer was busy at work in some other Big Crisis Book fans couldn’t comprehend…

All the same, Bendis always knew what he was doing. He started his run with the Legion following a character in a tour of future DC history. This was one of my favorite things from any comic in the past five years. This book is a response to that, too! But at its heart, it’s the completion of the Gold Lantern saga. Always, for me, very strangely, the Green Lantern Corps was basically completely nonexistent in Legion lore (you can find one ringslinger if you look hard enough!). Even after Johns did a massive expansion of Lantern lore, there was no place for it in the 31st century. When Bendis first introduced his Gold Lantern, he promised there was a mystery involved. Usually drawn-out mysteries in superhero comics (such as the secret identity of Bloodwynd) end in anticlimax that negate the entire point and legacy of the preceding material (I still cherish Bloodwynd! but I’m basically also his only fan, since most readers still think he was actually Martian Manhunter the whole time, a point made in the very story where we learn the truth). But Gold Lantern’s informs the whole story!

And what’s more, it simply adds to Lantern lore, and after Johns, this is something I’ll always appreciate, especially since DC has recently seemingly tried desperately to distance itself from it in its efforts to believe, along with fans of a twenty year old cartoon, that of course John Stewart is Green Lantern and that’s all you really need to know. Or Hal Jordan is. Or a few other recently introduced, Earth-based variants.

Anyway, I think Bendis at DC was of immense value, and this is an excellent way, if you’re so willing, to see so.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a long-time lover of the Legion, going all the way back to when they were a real bunch of dickheads (admittedly there’s several choices of period, but, hey, I go back all the way) Bendis’ handling of the Legion has been a disappointment. It’s not the reworking oof the setting, origin, and characters, it’s that Bendis never seems to know what the hell to do with the LOSH — something very obvious here, where he tries to rework Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga, Deluxe Edition in a smaller space and without Darkseid. Nothing hangs together, and there’s never an explanation for *anything* (some characters age, others grow younger, everybody reverts between panels.)

In the end it turns out to be Vandal Savage doing a Per Degaton thing and…well, it just ends. Literally, there’s the Big Reveal, then the combined teams show up with a “Ha ha, tricked you!” wile the cosmic threat evaporates.

Worse than that, none of it ends up meaning anything — as soon as Bendis was done, Geoff Johns did his own time anomalies bit In Flashpoint Beyond and DC launched into Dark Crisis, which rewrote the Great Darkness yet again.

[Martin Maenza · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am very old-school on my DC Comics reading, so I have a long history with both of these teams starting with the Bronze Age (1970's). I remember many monumental meetings between these two titanic teams. But, this is the newest Legion and the most current JL line-up - and very much not this father's version of either team. Still, I wanted to give it a try.

Unfortunately, it did not resonate with me. I had read Bendis' runs on both titles that led up to this mini-series. I was not a big fan of what he did with either group. A lot of the heart and history was lost. Maybe it was his writing, his approach, his style or just that these characters have changed so many times over the decades. I just could not get into it.

Plus, I remember the original Great Darkness saga from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes in the early 80's. That was an epic tale and milestone for the series and team. This rebranding to that did not hit that high-mark. This story had lots of other elements to it as well, but many seemed like they were just thrown in to the mix to see what would stick. The ending is also very anticlimactic with part of the "resolution" happening completely off panel. Comics are a visual medium where show is preferred over tell.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

It looks like this is going to be the culmination of not just Bendis!'s reboot of the Legion, but his entire but brief stint at DC. There have been some highs (Phantom Earth Saga, the creation of Jinny Hex, & his reviving the Legion) & some lows (the Invisible Mafia story & his Checkmate, YJ, & JL runs). This story is in the middle, a bland but pleasant homage to the JLA-JSA crossovers of the 60s & 70s, which also tended to suffer from overstuffing. Its invocation of holy name of the Legion's Great Darkness Saga is a little bit in poor taste & the reveal of who's beyond the Great Darkness doesn't hit nearly so well as the 1st time, but it's solid enough & has one late cameo I appreciated. Scott Godlweski does a hell of a job on art.

It also looks like this book may be the last time we see the Legion in any form for years. I had hoped Bendis!'s big name could revivify what used to be one of the marquee teams of DC from about 1962-2007, but one that has fallen on hard times after some aggressively mediocre comics from 2007-13. We didn't have any Legion comics from 2013-2019, which was very sad, but we got 22 issues from Bendis!, which were pretty fun. Here's hoping in a couple years DC poaches Hickman from Marvel & turns him loose to do the Fiveboot of the Legion.

[Norman Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably more of a 3.5 rating, but rounded up for the clean, modern artwork by Scott Godlewski (he is particularly adept at drawing crowds of superheroes while maintaining individualities). Like a lot of these kinds of crossovers, it's really not the Justice League versus the Legion of Super-Heroes so much as them working together to solve a mystery. The MacGuffin in this case is a "great darkness" that is disrupting the time and space continuum. My guess is that this is really the same darkness as in DC's upcoming Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths event. After quite a bit of back and forth between time periods, meeting characters such as Kamandi and the original Green Lantern Alan Scott, the real villain is revealed and the great darkness is handled off-stage between two panels in the final issue. The main point of this crossover seems to be to further cement Bendis's take on the LSH, trying to reconcile the various futures that DC has shown over the years. So, not a lot really happens, but it is fun seeing some of the pairings and hints at what might be coming. In the comic book world nothing much ever gets resolved; just sit back and enjoy the ride because the next writer is apt to retcon the whole thing anyway.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last gasps of a Bendis written LoSH...

Of all the things Bendis has written in his time at DC, his 20+ issue run on 'Legion...' is probably the best. The team is typical (overly)wordy Bendis writing. LOTS of banter and exposition on the pages. He also had a mediocre run writing on 'Justice League' stories. His style didn't quite mesh well with how the League has always been portrayed, but it had bright spots at times.

Cut to now. We get this VERY minor allusion to Dark Crisis. 'The Great Darkness' has been mentioned in DC since 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'. I think this was a renewed PUSH, and what better way to give Bendis a sendoff for two of his titles.
--------------------------------------
(this is a crossover, btw, NOT a 'Vs.' miniseries)

There isn't much action in this story, but rather a lot of character swapping and angst. That all translates into a pretty wordy book. For the Legion, it fits. For a Justice League meant to 'save the planet'...it's way, way, wayyyyyyy off the mark.

Bonus: Gratuitous Kamandai cameo is...gratuitous. Only needed to verify that they time travelled.
Bonus Bonus: The Gold Lantern, a Bendis creation, is said to be one to watch out for. No reason given.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bendis' awful fourboot comes to an end.

Part of the problem has been his continued inability to offer a shred of characterization to his overly huge Legion cast.

And oh god, it includes Naomi, the worst Mary Sue in comics. At least Bendis mainly loses track of her after the first few issues.

But this third volume also has deep problems with its plot. We get five issues fighting against an abstract Darkness. Then the sudden introduction of a supervillain out of nowhere. Meanwhile, ideas of the gold ring being dangerous and any connection to Epoch from the annual are very abruptly dropped with the last issue. Did Bendis get an editorial note forbidding his original plot, or was it just a big fumble at the end zone?

I am very hopeful that this horrible version of the Legion will be entirely forgotten. Tom King was apparently planning something with the Lightning Saga Legion, and that it was replaced with this very bad ~20 issue run by Bendis is shameful. I hope we'll get back to King and his original intentions at some point.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts with a Justice League story drawn by a third grader about a time traveler named Epoch who is randomly popping up in the present. He seems to be an integral part of the story, but we never see him again.
Then move on to the Legion encountering the Great Darkness. They talk about it, and one of the Triplicate Girls gets sucked into the Darkness.
Said Triplicate Girl get deposited in the modern day Hall of Justice. The heroes talk about it.
A few back-and-forths from present to future create several new conversations about how the heroes have no clue how to stop the Darkness, or what it even is.
Then the villain reveals himself, and the heroes trick him without actually doing anything, and dismantle the Great Darkness between panels. You know this because in one frame the villain is like ‘what happened, and in the next Batman says, ‘we fixed everything’.
Bendis is such a great writer that he doesn’t even have to write a real story, just some semi-realistic dialog and then tells the readers that was a story. The end.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

When you have a Legion-focused story that promises conflict with "The Great Darkness", you've got a big legacy to live up to (specifically, the storyline of the classic Legion of Super-heroes: The Great Darkness Saga). This, sadly, doesn't come close. There are too many characters on both sides, and the dialogue and banter is reminiscent of Joss Whedon on a particularly uninspired day. The conflict doesn't make a lot of sense; there's no real mystery, just confusion and a headscratcher of a villain reveal. And there's not a lot of action; we always seem to join the story just AFTER a significant fight, battle, or event. Two stars for some great art and page layouts, and for the character story of the Gold Lantern, promising an inspiring new vision of the lantern corps in the far future.

[Jim Lang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book #23 of 2022: I wanted to like this so much. But it’s another example of what Brian Michael Bendis seems to do best these days — diminishing great characters to interchangeable parts who gather and talk. A lot. I loved the Legion of Superheroes growing up, and I miss the classic team from the 1980s, but this group of teens in updated costumes isn’t the Legion. With this exception of Brainiac 5 and the mysterious Gold Lantern, no one seems to have any unique personality. And throughout this adventure that shuttles our heroes back and forth through the time stream, characters disappear and reappear suddenly with no rhyme or reason. The reveal and takedown of the ultimate villain is kind of cool, but even then, the majority of the story seems to take place off panel. Ultimately, a slightly fun adventure that could have been so much more.

[Will Cooper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, but this was trash. Bendis has done incredible things like Daredevil, Powers, the list goes on! But the list stops before this volume. Upcoming SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

The first five issues are the Justice League MEETING, not VERSUSING, the Legion of Super-Heroes and they are kinda scared because a great Darkness is threatening everything (we call that Tuesday). Well, Batman hears "Beware the Gold Lantern!" So we think to do so as well, and yet that actually never comes back! And then the last issue reveals Vandal Savage is the villain and has been planning this and wins (Ok, not terribly upset even though nothing had set this up at all, let's hear him out) but turns out that he is just captured in the Gold Lantern ring and the JL + LSH have completely stopped the Darkness OFF PANEL?! Nah, you're done.

[Nicholas (was Allison) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes: I thought that this actually was a rather good comic. I really liked that there were so many superheroes in the story, and that each of them had a reason for being there. The plot itself got rather complex, as some of it I didn’t understand, so I had to reread more than some scenes. Otherwise, I would’ve given this five stars.

I very much enjoyed reading about the Justice League interacting with the Legion of Superheroes. There were just so many other good characters that were in the story too, that it all felt so heartwarming. That’s also one of the reasons why I read this in a day, since I was always wanting to know what happened next. So for me, this was a rather good story, and I fairly enjoyed it as a whole.

[Chris Aylott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I so wanted to love this book. The Legion is my favorite superteam and I'm always down for some fun with the Justice League. But something went horribly wrong here.

The basic premise of "holes in time bring the Legion and the JL together" is just fine. The two groups hanging out and various legionnaires fanbeing their heroes is lovely! Even the villain matchup (once finally revealed) had potential. But . . . I just don't know what happened here. Maybe they ran out of time, or just had no idea where the plot was going early on, but the resolution to the story is so abrupt that it's actually mostly off stage. It's a huge letdown, and ruins the fun of the earlier issues. What a disappointment.

[Doctor Doom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork was like a bell curve - some really good, some really bad but most was decent but just so.
The story was much better than the artwork.
The two groups were interesting though the Legion and the Gold Lantern seem wokified [if that's your bag- fine, but it ain't mine]. My Legion memories are mostly from the 1960s and early 1970s so I was not familiar with the changes in old characters [Ultraboy, Monel being a desendant of Superman rather than being a Daxamite, Bouncing Boy being so tall, and Timber Wolf being a Logan clone.
The cameos were really fun [SPOILER ALERT] - Kamandi, Jonah Hex, Batman Beyond, and Alan Scott come to mind.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

There have been many stories where some members of both teams have found themselves in a time-travel adventure that brings them to meet some of the others, but never have we seen such a grand-scale team-up of the past and future all in one go. The threat of the Great Darkness, a lead-up to the highly anticipated event “Dark Crisis”, made this a remarkable story to get lost in. The way the teams come to life, as well as the study of the futuristic Gold Lantern and the role they play in these events, was great to see on the page. A definite must-read!

[Dexter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es passiert nicht viel, aber das wird in 6 Kapitel und von vielen Figuren erzählt. Aber ich mag Zeitreise-Abenteuer, dazu die Justice League, dann die Legion der Superhelden aus dem 31. Jahrhundert und smarte Dialoge. Alles das, durch Bendis’ Gabe frisch und geschmeidig getextet, aber noch viel viel schöner von Godlewski bebildert. Es dauert halt lang, bis klar ist, wer was warum gemacht hat. Und leider ist das dann auch noch unfassbar mau, aber das ganze Figurenensemble und der Spaß, den dieser ganze Quatsch macht, tröstet über die dünne Story hinweg.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the Justice League, I like Bendis' writing, and the Legion of Super Heroes is my all time favorite superhero team. However, there was something about this story that fell flat to me and I cannot put my finger on exactly what it is.

I don't think I could recommend this book to anyone who wasn't already a hardcore fan of the characters or the creative team, which is disappointing because I really wanted to like it.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine this. Another boring Legion of Super-Heroes comic from Brian Michael Bendis. It's 6 issues of the Legion and the Justice League standing around talking in multiple eras. The Great Darkness in this scenario is just a rift in the spacetime continuum. It's fitting that Bendis ends his DC tenure on the worst thing he wrote while at DC, the Legion of Super-Heroes. It's a real shame too. I'm a big Legion fan and originally looked forward to this until I actually read his Legion.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Umm, what a weird end to the Bendis Era on these two books. We get a lot of character interactions, but it's all walking slowly around a big vague threat that suddenly condenses to the surprise villain on the last page of the 5th issue, so beating him in the 6th doesn't feel connected to any of the rest of the story. This could have been fun or scary, but it ended up floating aimlessly between either of those.

[Jaime Guzman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was hoping that Brian Michael Bendis would create stories that would give DC a resurgence tomit's comics like he did in Marvel but so far I have been very disappointed. It seems to me that he doesn't have a grasp of these iconic DC heroes.
This JLA VS Legion story is weak in both story and dialogue.
Give this one a hard pass.