YMMV / Legends of the Dead Earth

• Complete Monster:
  • "Silent Running" (The Flash Annual 1996): Tristan Mallory is the younger brother of the heroic Bryan Mallory. When his father returns from a seemingly deadly mission, Tristan is angry when said father chooses his non-religious brother for a holy mission. Accompanying his brother to the quest, Tristan takes advantage of his brother's powers even after Bryan saved him. A believer on a religion based on The Flash's deeds, Tristan puts his brother into a machine that kept him in complete isolation for 300 years and turns himself on the highest authority of his society. Seeing himself as the pillar of society, Tristan uses the machine to create a suitable environment while he also draining the Life Energy of his own people, shortening their natural lifespan to 50 and using loyal acolytes to maintain his power and youth. When Bryan is freed by a former follower, Tristan sends followers to capture him, before starting to drain the life energy of the millions of inhabitants of his city to fight Bryan to put him back in the machine and keep ruling a society dependent on himself.
  • "The Never-Ending Battle" (Superman: The Man of Steel Annual 1996): Lex Luthor is The Emperor who ordered the destruction of Kaleb's home planet Hydros and the genocide of its people. A survivor from the eventual destruction of planet Earth, Luthor created an empire from ashes and launched wars of conquest throughout the universe, which he describes as "glorious". Keeping himself alive through centuries using multiple clones, Luthor's empire has a policy of annihilating the native population of planets with species similar to Kryptonians. Once Kaleb confronts him personally, Luthor reveals that the champions of the tournaments to become his personal guard are killed, with their genes used to improve his biologically engineered guards before trying to kill Kaleb with radiation that emulates Kryptonite for the Hydrosians. A decrepit and senile old man with massive power, Luthor's ambition, paranoia and grudges killed countless innocents.
• Values Resonance: Several of the annuals—especially Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #6–built around the villains being leaders or authority figures who exploit their power for personal gain, instigate fear and prejudice to serve their own ends, or terrorize the people they are supposed to serve with the justification it is for the greater good. With the heroes framed as those fighting back against such tyranny to liberate their worlds, these stories became especially relevant as of the 2020s due to the Black Lives Matter movement, the constant protests against police brutality, and the rise of the Alt Right.