Superman #29 - Legion of Darkseid Part 2: Legion Lost!

Superman #29

Released August 26, 2025
DC Comics, Color
22 Pages

Legion of Darkseid, Part 2 - Legion Lost

Joshua Williamson - Writer
Dan Mora - Artist
Alejandro Sånchez - Colorist
Ariana Maher - Letterer
Jillian Grant - Assistant Editor
Paul Kaminski - Editor

Synopsis

*SPOILERS ABOUND*

Superboy Prime ruminates about his past and how he made mistakes by becoming an archenemy of Superman, but that Prime always wanted to team up with him.  In the now, Prime, Superman and Doomsday Time Trapper talk about it.  Superman takes offense, as Prime killed many heroes, but Prime counters that most of them have been brought back to life.  Time Trapper has brought them together because Prime is an anomaly outside of spacetime and will be able to do what it takes to stop the Legion of Darkseid as he promptly fades away.

Prime breaks the "fourth wall" of the comic panel and they fly through many alternate realities with the intent of finding Booster Gold.  They appear in a devastated Metropolis of the future with dead Legionnaires of all versions (Retro, Reboot, Threeboot & Bendis/Sook) scattered across the hellish landscape. 

Superman finds retroboot Imra's body as Prime says that whatever is happening in his present is causing this future. Prime continues to rub it in saying the battle of all the Legions would have been epic to witness, but that the amount of destruction is bad even for him.  Then stating that the War of Legions is over, Cosmic Boy appears with a shovel saying they just need to bury the dead.  They walk to join another group of Legionnaires and find Dawnstar, Kinetix, Polar Boy and Gold Lantern all amazed at seeing Superman, but Polar Boy freaks out about Prime's presence.  

They meet with Brainiacs from all four versions of the Legion.  Well, actually five - during the Legion War, they were apparently able to capture the Darkseid Brainiac 5 alive.  While analyzing him they see that he is from a world created by Darkseid himself and hacked his systems to track down their base to the Time Institute. Threeboot B5 offers to lobotomize him. 

Superman tried to inspire a demoralized Starman and the rest. He rallies the ragtag Legionnaires to help find Booster, and they head back outside (apparently leaving the captured B5 in the lab). Prime asks why Cosmic Boy needs to carry a metal shovel, and the truth is revealed - Cos is actually Darkseid Chameleon Boy, who transforms and kills reboot Brainiac 5. Prime beats off Chameleon, and reboot Brainy dies in Superman's arms, as more of Darkseid's forces close in. Superman charges to the Time Institute.

A bearded Booster is chained up against a wall.  Superman frees him and we get a quick recap of the events of All-In with booster going into the time rift, and we are given the revelation that Booster's been held hostage for two years.   The reunion is interrupted when the rest of Darkseid's Legion appears, having caught the earlier stragglers. Saturn Girl says that they want to help Darkseid end everything.  Superman is suddenly zapped in the back with heat vision, as Booster is electrocuted by Lightning Lad.  

Prime, who had just zapped Superman, is now siding with Darkseid's Legion.

TO BE CONTINUED

Commentary

Well. I guess the thing to say to start is that if you're mainly reading this as a Superman fan, you'll probably really love this issue.  If you're reading it as a long time Legion fan, well you may not.  That is to say, you'll enjoy seeing the representation of Legions on the page, but you'll probably cringe at what's being done.  But it's only issue two of three.  Anything could happen, and probably will, and we definitely know that Darkseid's Legion is around to stay for a while longer. It *IS* interesting, however, that this story appears to be the reference that was made back in Flashpoint Beyond in 2022 where we saw Batman at a chalkboard that mentioned the War of the Legions and the Legion of Four Worlds. 

Guess we know how that turned out now. 

What's good about this issue? Dan Mora's art, as always.  Seeing Kinetix again - in her best look AND WITH DIALOGUE - was a huge boost for me, being a fan of the character. The characterizations were, for the most part, pretty good - bonus points for the Threeboot Brainy being written true to form as an ass and retro Brainy calling him out on it. Same with characters like Polar Boy freaking out at seeing Prime.  Although, I was surprised that Kinetix wasn't able to get a verbal barb in given all the talk about characters coming back to life, but maybe that's for the better.  We get to see more of Darkseid's Legion, this time including Sun Boy, who I think is Ultra Boy and what appears to be either Lightning Lass or Kinetix; it's hard to tell.  They definitely appear to be a force to be reckoned with.  Finding that Booster has been held prisoner for two years was interesting - which means that this War of the Legions has been going on for a while now. As much as I hated seeing it, reboot B5 dying in Superman's arms was an interesting (and I wonder if it was intentional) callback to the animated series of 2007. 

Well, that's about all that was good.  What was bad?  Well, Superboy Prime for one.  What I was afraid of happening at the end of the prior issue is happening now.  He's being a mouthy prick and taking all the oxygen out of the room.  I guess we will see over the course of the next issue whether his little stunt at the end is a ruse or if he's reverting back to type.  I'm just done with the character and honestly hope we never see him again after this storyline. 

The main thing about this issue is the Ugly.  And that's all the dead Legionnaires. Seeing all the carnage was pretty horrible.  I see: three different dead Colossal Boys, Sook versions of Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy and Timber Wolf, a retro version of Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl, threeboot Light Lass.  A Thom Kallor that adds PTSD to everything else he's carrying, a dead reboot Brainy, and god knows who else. 

I guess I should be happy I didn't see Zoe get mindlessly killed again, right?

I keep telling myself that this is only part 2 of a three-part story, so we will wait to see how this all plays out.  But we know we will be seeing more of the Darkseid Legion in other issues to come (they are in a couple panels of an upcoming JLU for sure). But we also know that we are getting - at some point in the next couple of years - a Legion that fans of all the versions will be happy with (I think I'm paraphrasing what Mark Waid said here). But if - and that's a huge IF, since again we don't know how this plays out yet - this is the route that is taken to get to a new Legion, I'm not okay with this approach.  It smells too much of the "Giffen Hat Trick" idea from the early 90s where a battle Royale would kill random Legionnaires and the survivors would basically form a new Legion.  But I'm willing to wait and see on that, as a lot of people in the back office hated that idea back in the day.

No, my bigger issue is using the Legionnaires from all different versions as cannon fodder, just as was done in Legion of Three Worlds, which I was honestly not a huge fan of outside of the Perez art. And this is in the flagship Superman book, which one hopes is seeing a readership boost due to the new James Gunn movie that just came out.  Does DC think that new readers will want to read about a team that has been reduced to roadkill?  I just am not seeing the vision here, but again, I am happy to be proven wrong. It just feels like the smearing of the Legion underfoot is becoming a bad DC trope.  Hell, it was done a couple years ago in the Johns JSA for a page.  The Infinitus Saga from Justice League Unlimited was a better approach, even if a lot of the Legionnaires were just background eye candy; at least they were alive and in the fight. If you're going to bring an entire Legion back, Lemire's approach works better than Williamson's IMO.  Show heroes be heroes.

Grade: B-.  This might be a great read for someone who is mainly a Superman fan, but if you're a Legion fan - of ANY particular version - you're not going to like it.  Caveat that we won't know the end of this story for at least two more months, and the FINAL end resolution for many more months after that.

UPDATE - The Legion of Darkseid storyline is THREE issues, not FOUR, and the changes have been made accordingly.  The management regrets the error and apologizes for any inconvenience.