You can't really tell from the compression of this post, but it was a slow, slow build, while the Legion dealt with day-to-day silliness like the election and other minor crises, and just these little shadows and hints of things to come. Then things gradually start getting darker, and then all hell breaks loose...
And by the time Darkseid gets to Daxam, the threat seems credibly cosmic, and yet not bleakly, grimly hopeless (FC, I'm lookin' at you here). I loved the new additions earning their spurs in battle, and I loved that for all their bickering, the Legion was so cohesive going up against the Darkness.
Just - yeah, everything I loved about the 80s Legion, pretty much, right there in one post.