From Beyond the Unknown Giant!

As mentioned here and elsewhere, there's a new Legion story out today in "From Beyond the Unknown Giant" #1, available at your finer Walmarts everywhere (that's what the indicia says on the inside back cover). The issue will also be sold at your local comic shop on March 25, with a new cover. In any case, the Walmart version has "Mass Market Edition" in the indicia, we'll see what the LCS version has next month.

“From Beyond the Unknown” 100 Page Giant, complete with a sneaky new Legion story from ⁦@DCComics⁩. pic.twitter.com/HbRCN3NuCD

— Dan Jurgens (@thedanjurgens) January 29, 2020

The original From Beyond the Unknown, by the way, was a 1969-73 science fiction series from DC that reprinted stories from Silver Age titles like Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, they're just reusing the title. And it's a 100-Page Giant, thus the name - it's the Giant version of "Beyond the Unknown", it has nothing to do with being beyond an Unknown Giant (I suppose if the Unknown Soldier gets Colossal Boy's powers, though....). The issue has a new Green Lantern story and a new Kamandi story, and reprints of Superman/Adam Strange from DC Comics Presents #3 and Batman/Metal Men from Brave and Bold #113, plus Alan Moore's F-Sharp Bell story from Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3.

Here's what the two covers will look like. The Direct Sales cover was revealed on Feb 20, 2020.

From Beyond the Unknown Giant #1 Walmart cover Art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (reprinted from DC Comics Presents #2)	From Beyond the Unknown Giant #1 Direct Sales cover Art by Kenneth Rocafort (new art)

I didn't know why Dan Jurgens got to write a story about the Legion from the 1980s, so I asked him about it:

DC asked me if I had time to fit a short LSH story into my schedule and I wasn’t about to say no. We talked about different eras/costumes and settled on this. Your placement in issue numbers is generally on point.

— Dan Jurgens (@thedanjurgens) February 15, 2020

I wanted to try and figure out where it fits in continuity, because as I told Dan, I am a huge nerd at stuff like that. I thought I had narrowed it down to sometime between LSH v2 #295 (January, the Green Lantern story following the Great Darkness Saga) and LSH v2 #301 (July, new costumes for the Legionnaires), because:

• Jacques first appears in LSH Annual #1 and joins at the end of the issue, which takes place in between issue #289 and #290. He doesn't get the white stripe in his hair until the end of issue #291 in the Great Darkness Saga, right after he saw Darkseid, and this story does not take place during the GDS.
• Shrinking Violet, Chameleon Boy, and Colossal Boy all appear in their traditional Bronze Age costumes in this story (Violet in green, Cham in red and purple, and Colossal Boy with ornaments on his costume), and all had new costumes in issue 301 (Violet in purple, Cham in purple and yellow, and Colossal Boy without the eagle medallion). Each had their old costume at the end of #300 in the group shot.

However, while recording the podcast, Darren reminded me that Cham was either in custody or without his powers during that whole time frame. D'oh! I'll demote myself in rank from Captain Continuity to Corporal. So now where does it fit? Well, short answer, it doesn't fit between 295-300 after all:

• Cham gets arrested early in issue 291, he arrives on Takron-Galtos in issue #292, and it's revealed in #296 that when he's pardoned, his powers have gone. He leaves with Brande to go to Durla in 300, and gets them back in 301.

So we're left with one of the following:

1. Jacques is incorrectly shown with the white stripe in his hair, meaning this story takes place between LSH Annual 1 and LSH 290 (though he's more confident in this story than he was on his first mission in 290).
2. Cham, Violet, and Colossal Boy are incorrectly shown with the wrong costumes in this story, which takes place after LSH 301.

The easiest answer is that there is one thing wrong rather than three, so let's go with Jacques's hair drawn incorrectly and say it's in between the Computo Annual and the start of the Great Darkness Saga. 

That said, there are some other anachronisms which I'll just chalk up to artistic license:

• The Legion Cruiser in this new story is clearly the Cockrum version, which is distinguished by the teardrop shaped bubble on top of the saucer section, offset to the front (below, top). The Grell version has a round bubble that covers almost the entire saucer (below, left). Collectively, they were known as the Mark 10 Cruiser. But by 1983, they were using the Mark 494 version of the Cruiser anyway (below, right, from LSH 291).
  
• Wildfire's costume is also the Cockrum version. Cockrum was the only one who drew Wildfire with the black visor wrapping under his chin, while Grell and everyone else who followed had the faceplate stopping around the lower lip area, allowing Wildfire to have a chin. His chest symbol in this story is also closer to the Cockrum version, with a winged star beneath the helmet on the center of his chest; by 1983, the winged star had grown and stretched down to his waist, merging with the red piece at his stomach that was separate from the star in his earlier appearances. Below, a Cockrum model sheet on the left, and Giffen/Mahlstedt from the cover of issue 298.
   

Not to get all fanfic-y about it, but to make up an in-universe explanation, they had to grab an old Cruiser because there were no Mark 494s available, and Wildfire's costume was malfunctioning so he grabbed an old one just like he did in LSH v3 #15 (below), after his regular one had been destroyed in the previous issue.

Phantom Girl is displayed with an interesting use of her power - she is shown phasing out of Dawnstar's body, having been inhabiting it. We've only seen that a handful of times. Val Beasley reminded me that Tinya hides inside Lightning Lad to survive a tornado in Superboy #201 (1974), I recalled one when Tinya's brother Gmya phased into Sun Boy's body (accidentally "eclipsing" him) while an assassin phased into another Legionnaire's body in Superboy #215 (1976), and Val also remembered at least once during the Reboot when Tinya hid out in Ultra Boy's body after everyone thought she was dead (LSH v4 #82 maybe?).

Given that this issue is marketed to the general Walmart shopper and not the hardcore DC fans, it's safe to say that this story was not written to the level of fandom as the 5YL version. We meet some never-before-seen aliens on a never-before-seen planet. It's relatively low stakes, nobody gets hurt, lessons are learned, and everyone lives happily ever after.

For what it is, it's an effective story. In 8 pages, we learn who the Legionnaires are, their names and powers, and wrap up an adventure. It's not trying to be the Bendis-written ongoing series. This could have worked as a fill-in backup story anywhere in the 80s, and I bet that was the intention.

But given the finale of Doomsday Clock #12, the pre-Crisis Earth-1 is now known as Earth-1985, and the presence of a living Supergirl and Flash in panel 6 suggest that the cutoff point is prior to Crisis #1 where characters start dying. So this seems to be the first appearance of Earth-1985.