Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLegion of Super-Heroes Annual (Vol. 4) #3 is one of the densest single issues of the celebrated 'Five Years Later' era, delivering two landmark narrative payoffs in one package: the debut of Timber Wolf's ferocious new feral design — the visual template that would carry forward into the 1994 reboot continuity — and the jaw-dropping retcon that the Garth Ranzz who has lived as Lightning Lad for two decades is, in fact, Proty I, the Protean shapeshifter who transferred his own consciousness into Garth's body during the resurrection ceremony decades earlier. The annual also plants the seed for the Kid Quantum storyline, whose statue on Winath serves as the character's first visual appearance in continuity before his full debut in the monthly series. Taken together, these threads exemplify the Bierbaums' signature method of rewriting Legion prehistory from the inside out, turning Silver Age sentiment into mature-reader gut-punches without abandoning the team's fundamental warmth.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Written by the husband-and-wife team of Tom and Mary Bierbaum alongside co-writer Al Gordon — the core architects of the 'Five Years Later' direction launched in 1989 — the annual was plotted to run parallel to, and then dovetail with, the ongoing monthly storyline. The cover was provided by Keith Giffen and Al Gordon, keeping visual continuity with Giffen's claustrophobic nine-panel grid aesthetic even as the interior pencilling was split across multiple artists (Rob Haynes, Ian Montgomery, Joe Phillips, and Brandon Peterson), a division that gives the issue its somewhat patchwork feel noted by contemporary reviewers. The annual served a dual commercial purpose: repositioning Timber Wolf as the star of an upcoming five-issue solo miniseries set in the 20th century, which would launch in October 1992.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated July 1992; the issue is Legion of Super-Heroes Annual (Volume 4) #3, published during the 'Five Years Later' (Glorith Reality) era of the ongoing Vol. 4 series.
- Title story: 'Full Moon Fever,' written by Tom Bierbaum, Mary Bierbaum, and Al Gordon, with interior pencils by Rob Haynes, Ian Montgomery, Joe Phillips, and Brandon Peterson, and a cover by Keith Giffen and Al Gordon.
- First appearance of Timber Wolf's redesigned feral look, which became the visual basis for the Reboot (post-Zero Hour) version of the character and directly set up his 1992 solo miniseries.
- The Kid Quantum statue on Winath constitutes the character's first visual appearance in Legion continuity; his full debut as a living character followed in Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #33 (September 1992), created by Tom Bierbaum, Mary Bierbaum, and David A. Williams.
- Major Glorith Reality retcon: Ayla Ranzz discovers that the being living as her brother Garth (Lightning Lad) since his resurrection is actually Proty I — the Protean shapeshifter — who transferred his own mind into Garth's body and has maintained the identity, unknown even to wife Saturn Girl, for roughly twenty years.
- The second story chapter functions as a large-scale Legion reunion set on Winath for the christening of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl's new twin daughters, Dacey and Doritt Ranzz, with Night Girl/Lydda Jath-Krinn also going into labor during the gathering.
- The storyline introduces Thrust, a 20th-century orange-skinned alien punk who appears in the Timber Wolf chapter and was set up to play a role in the subsequent Timber Wolf miniseries.
- Timber Wolf's half of the issue — set in the contemporary 20th century — was explicitly designed as a launching pad for the Timber Wolf solo miniseries (5 issues, beginning October 1992), with the annual providing the narrative bridge between his transformation and his solo adventures.
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