It's the end of the first year of this new Legion and it's my first Holy Crap moment of the series. Let's look at LSH 70& 71, Legionnaires 26, 27, 28, and Legionnaires Annual 2

I can't believe we're already at the end of the first year of the reboot Legion. Time certainly is flying quickly, isn't it?

Looking back on the whole series, I'd say that it's been a success. There have been highs and lows, issues to brag about, ones to hide at the back of the long box, and some great new characters. I'd like to think that having two connected series would be a boon - it worked for the Superman team.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case - looking at the sales numbers, I see that the two titles are hovering around 30,000 in sales each at this point, which is an almost 5,000 drop from the beginning of the reboot. As much as I'd like to rip into DC for this, the creative team essentially gave DC editorial exactly what they wanted and DC gave them two books a month. This should be working.

But it's the mid-nineties, so if the characters aren't overly-musclebound, with massive guns and pouches, and there are multiple plot lines that make no sense, the book's not going to sell.

I could keep ranting for a while, so let's stop right there and move on the Legion books.

Legionnaires #26

Issues like this kinda annoy me. There's so much going on, there are so many stories up in the air, and we've only got five more issues before we wrap up the whole White Triangle story. So why have what is, essentially, a filler issue?

The subplots are far more important, so I'm going to focus on that. As much as I like the Workforce, this was a complete waste of them.

At the Medicenter, for some reason that makes no sense, Saturn Girl and Triad are resting in the same room when a mysterious white-haired man enters to help Imra. It's Aven, her instructor from the Titan Institute and he reaches her telepathically. So now, instead of being catatonic, she has the mind of a child. Progress??

The White Triangle is now arming themselves, stealing tech from McCauley because they don't want it to get in the hands of the "gutter races", as they put it. Apparition, who's helping the Workforce so she can spend more time with Ultra Boy, throwing his cheating right into the face of the wronged partner, Spider Girl, criticizes the Workforce for not quitting and showing that they're too good to work for McCauley. But only Live Wire quits. Not Ultra Boy? Any logical reason why not?

The U.P. President lets the Legion know that they have to keep Kinetix on the team, even though she's powerless.

But before they can argue about that, Andromeda crashes through the roof unconscious.

LSH #70

After reading this issue, I'm fairly convinced that inker Ron Boyd may be the problem with the artwork. Man, he doesn't not help guest penciller Jason Armstrong. I'm sure Boyd is a nice guy, but he's starting to become the one common denominator when the artwork doesn't work.

This issue is a spotlight on Andromeda and how she ended up on the Legion. She's suffering from lead poisoning after some White Triangle members cut her transuit and only Brainy can help her.

I honestly feel like this issue could've achieved a lot but ended up missing the target on almost everything. It's a bottle issue, where most of the "action" occurs in Brainy's lab with him doing research and Andromeda relating her past. It's dialogue heavy and, if nothing else, should further expand on a couple of things: Brainy's deepening crush on Laurel and her further understanding that aliens aren't all bad.

We start off with her being nasty to him, kicking him after he draws blood. Brainy gets a great comment:

"Frankly, I'm disappointed. I figured my motives would protect me from your xenophobic outbursts... I might be able to save you. Try to be worth the effort."

Laurel talks about her past, growing up in a White Triangle camp where she learned that all aliens are bad and never met one until she joined the Legion. When Brainy asks her whether she hates other races, she defends herself by saying that she loves her own kind. It's a horrible distinction, and one that we hear all too often today. Brainy points out how short-sighted that position is and something that he's expected from a Daxamite. So he's racist, too??

Brainy discovers Vril Dox's research on a cure for lead poisoning from the L.E.G.I.O.N. and figures out how to adapt it for Laurel. He points out that everyone needs their own cure because it's connected to their own genetic makeup. He makes one for Laurel and gloats about how an inferior Coluan just saved her life. He tells her he won't give her the serum until she admits that he's superior. But she can't.

So he changes his request:

"Then look me in the eye and tell me I'm inferior."

But she stays silent. So he gives her the serum and walks out. She drinks it, apologizing, but he's too far gone to hear it.

I have two problems with this issue based on what I wrote before - they didn't accomplish the two story points that should have been the focus here.

After reading this book, you can't help but wonder why Brainy would still have any sort of feelings for Laurel. She's nasty to him and treats him like garbage, even as he's literally saving her from certain death. I'm not expecting her to make a complete and total switch from what she's believed for her entire life, but I'd like to see her show something, anything, that would make us think that Brainy has any reason to care about her if she wasn't tall and blonde. Once again, the writers are certain that we know these two are supposed to be together and that's enough.

And second, they needed to soften Laurel just a little bit. I'm not saying that I wanted her to completely give up on her racist beliefs, but I'd like for them to show something other than an apology.

This is one of those issues where the writers are trying to accomplish something and just don't quite get there. It's got some nice moments, but it just ends up falling flat.

Legionnaires #27

Last issue I kept wondering why Andromeda, a girl who grew up in a White Triangle camp, would have been chosen to join the Legion. Why would the Daxamite government allow it? Surely there are other people related to Lar Gand who would've been better choices. And let's be honest, they could've chosen any teenager, right?

This issue reveals why. Roxxas, the Daxamite ambassador, reminds her that she was placed by the White Triangle and this is all part of their master plan. If she doesn't do exactly what they want, she's going to get pulled back home and lose her powers forever.

Which is why she gives them the formula to the serum that cured her lead poisoning. Okay... so how does she have access to Brainy's lab? How could she hack into his computers and find what she needs? How is she able to replicate any of this? We've established that she basically has no talents aside from being a Daxamite. But suddenly, she's adept at this?

Once again, I get the sense that they had a plot, and a resolution, but weren't too concerned if it logically made sense to get there.

This issue also shows just how amazingly incompetent the Science Police are. The human White Triangle members are flying a probe around Metropolis, murdering couples that are in human/non-human relationships. Yep, they're literally blasting these couples into atoms in front of huge crowds of people. But are the SPs doing anything? Anything to investigate murder?

In fact, they've done nothing until the probe fires at Ultra Boy and Apparition, who are kissing and flying. Then the SPs reveal that the probe has already murdered 8 sentients.

On an aside here, because I've been looking for an excuse to start this rant, this is another example of one of my bigger problems with this whole reboot - the complete lack of any sort of futuristic ideas. Say what you want about Keith Giffen's run in volume 4, but at least he continued with the idea that they're 1,000 years in the future and there would be newer, better technology. And even if you hated the fact that during his first run on the Legion, he was constantly throwing manga-inspired tech onto the page and would forget it as often as remember it, you have to admit that it made the book look like it took place 1,000 years from now.

It was that Legion that introduced the idea of Brainy's tesseract storage systems, or the blue, eyeless robotic assistants, or the hologram communicators, or the mission monitor board, or the flying headquarters, or Computo as major domo.

But this series, in all honesty, could be set in the 20th Century and you'd never notice a difference. It doesn't look any different from any of the technology you see in comics set in modern day. It doesn't look any different from what you'd see in a Marvel comic.

I remember reading a Science Police-based story from years before this where they talk about having so few officers because there was so little crime and they had so much technology to help fight it. But in this version, there are tons of officers and they aren't able to quickly react to anything. It just feels like we've taken 50 steps backwards.

Rant over.

The human White Triangle members, being complete idiots, decide that blasting two known super-heroes is the smartest move to make. They even get mad at them for being race-mixers, but neither of them are members of the human race, so why would they care? Also, if they don't know who they are, even with the flying, and it does kind of seem like they don't know, why would they attack them? They both look human, so why would they think they're doing anything wrong, aside from flying?

They fight, I think the Legionnaires win, and Jo constantly proves that he's not that smart and continues to get blasted. He really needs to learn how to use his powers.

The book also continues with the whole "all adults except Brande are bad" subplot as the U.P. forces the team to keep Andromeda. Even Marla thinks that Cosmic Boy needs to act more mature, ignoring the fact that Rokk is completely in the right here. At some point, the team needs to take control of their own roster and future.

LSH #71

In one issue, the creative team is able to introduce Trom, make us care about the residents, and then destroy it, making a huge emotional impact on the readers. That's impressive.

As the book opens, the evil Daxamite kill squad that's been flying around murdering sentients has taken over Weber's World and talk about what to do next. Why is the U.P. doing absolutely nothing here? They've murdered everyone on a planetoid but yet the rest of the U.P. is like, "nothing to see here, we'll just keep working with Roxxas and doing what he wants, no plan to censure them or get them to stop."

We learn that R.J. Brande needs the Trommites to create a certain element so that his stargates work. He asks Tarn Arrah, who's the one who been supplying the element, for help as the Daxamites have been destroying the stargates. But he can't, as he's part of the delegation to talk about joining the U.P.

We meet Tarn's son, Jan, and we learn a lot about Trommite culture, all in 4 pages. This is the perfect example of what good storytelling can do. We know everything we need to in 4 pages. Really impressive.

They introduce the new Legion Espionage Squad - Violet, Apparition, Chameleon, Triad, and Invisible Kid. They get together to talk about the White Triangle and what they can do to investigate.

We see Kinetix, flying towards her goal of finding a new artifact to get powers, but the stargate she was approaching was destroyed. So now she's floating in space, with no life support and a damaged ship.

And then, the first real gut punch of this Legion hits - 12 murderous Daxamites arrive at Trom and blast it into a dead husk. Brande has just flown away, but watches as they burn the planet with their ultra vision, killing everyone.

Even though Legion fans know exactly what's coming, this issue still hits hard. The devastation, the sheer scope of the genocide, is shown so well that you can't help but be emotionally drained after reading this. This is one of the strongest books of the run - I don't know if I want to say best because of just how brutal it is.

Legionnaires #28

To start, I just want to point out that this is one of Joyce Chin's first comic books, filling in for Jeff Moy as penciller. She would go on to produce some absolutely amazing cover art, winning an Inkpot Award at Comic-Con International in 2017. I don't think the Legion gets enough credit for finding and using such amazing young talent on their books. She's obviously young and learning here, and struggles with a lot of the characters, but the backgrounds are amazing. I was really impressed with the level of detail she brought to the book.

The Espionage Squad finds and captures the human White Triangle members (I guess it's a good thing that there are so few of them), which means that they weren't really defeated a few issues ago. We also run into a cowboy SP officer who just breaks the "reality" of the story and seems so out of place that it's annoying.

The Squad takes the prisoners back to Legion HQ to interrogate them and, once again, Lyle gets told he's wrong by Cosmic Boy but nothing actually happens to him. It must be nice to never face any repercussions. The team, using holographic headsets, basically mentally tortures them for information but gets nothing. So they argue about who could be leading them, and only Violet thinks that it could be the Daxamites. Even Lyle disagrees. Okay, I'm going to continue to take back anything negative I said about wallflower Violet - she's rapidly becoming the most important and smartest Legionnaire.

The Squad just hands the captured White Triangle members to the SPs (with no consequences for, essentially, kidnapping them), and that part of the story is over. Seriously. It never comes up again.

More importantly, we see the killer Daxamites, fresh off genocide, getting together and drinking the anti-lead serum Andromeda supplied to them. Again, no idea how she got off planet and gave it to them. Or even gave it to Roxxas. Or got the formula. None of this makes any sense.

But, good for her, she finally realizes what she's done, and how she's been used, flying off in anger to... get revenge? Stop Roxxas? No idea. She was able to insult Violet before leaving. I mean, they just don't know how to write a redemption arc, do they?

In the last couple of pages, Leviathan and Cosmic Boy are at the Earthgov Spacewatch Post in Antarctica, researching what happened to the stargates. Why? Why would either of them be there? Why not Lyle? Or Brainy? Why travel all that way? It feels like the writers just wanted to put two Legionnaires in this spot so they'd be there to see the start of the Daxamite's destruction of the satellites surrounding the Earth.

But this leads to the final chapter, the end of the first year of stories!

Legionnaires Annual #2

If it's one thing I've learned by writing these columns, it's that Legion Annuals are incredibly hit and miss, regardless of the creative team. Some, like Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 2) Annual #1, featuring the first appearance of the new Invisible Kid, are amazing. Some, like Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 4) Annual #4, featuring the first appearance of Jamm, are complete garbage.

But even if they're good or bad, I've always preferred annuals that are directly connected to the current storylines, even if they're not directly in continuity. During the 5YL Legion, the annuals provided much needed background on what happened to the characters during the missing years. During the Levitz Legion, even though it was a bad issue, we got to see Karate Kid and Princess Projectra get married.

So I'm very, very happy that the creative team decided to use Legionnaires Annual #2 to conclude the long-running White Triangle story. Unfortunately, it caused the regular books to use a bunch of fill-in artists (some good and some, not so much), but the end result is well worth it. Jeff Moy does an amazing job on this book.

We start off with the White Triangle Daxamites on Earth, causing massive amounts of destruction and, I'm guessing, killing Evolvo and Spider Girl. They Workforce members are shown getting beaten by these Superman-level villains after they failed to protect Miami. No other Workforce members are there, so does this mean McCauley split them up to protect his different interests? Or have they left the team to actually be heroes?

We get pages and pages of different Legionnaires fighting a Daxamite. Rokk saves the hospital that Imra's at. Jo gets beaten up, again, trying to protect the weather controls. Leviathan and Inferno are trying to stop a Daxamite from causing a volcanic eruption, with help from Triad and Spark. These attacks make no sense and the Legion seems woefully under-prepared for everything.

Andromeda bursts into Roxxas' chambers and they start fighting, but not before she reveals to everyone who he was talking to that he's the brains behind this whole attack. He's the one who's trying to destroy the U.P. We also learn that, because the Daxamites took the serum that was meant for Andromeda, they're all going insane. Sadly, we don't see evidence of that at any time in the book, but it's a nice throwaway line to explain... something??

Garth goes to the hospital to talk to Imra, who's been asking for him. Upon seeing him, Imra's mental issues immediately end and she's back to normal. This is yet another example of past Legion stories, that don't exist in this version of the Legion, driving what's happening here. We've never seen any reason why these two are bonded. He likes her, but she's shown no interest in him at all. If anything, she's been more attracted to Cosmic Boy. So why is his presence saving her now? Because history...

Let's just ignore all that. She's better, and the three original Legionnaires reunite at the headquarters.

Andromeda and Roxxas keep fighting and she's realizing that she's losing. Well, of course she's losing. He's bigger, stronger, and knows how to fight. Against another Daxamite, she's literally just an untrained teenager. But then Roxxas' body starts to seize up and he collapses. Is it the serum?

We'll find out later - Brande has just returned to Earth with a passenger who has the power to turn the Eiffel Tower into gas... who could that be?

Now we get our first "Holy Crap!" moment of the series...

Jo and Tinya are fighting a Daxamite. Jo smacks down the villain and, thinking he's defeated him, turns and gives Tinya a hug. But the Daxamite is still conscious (man, Jo is an idiot here) and blasts them with his ultra vision.

After the smoke clears, we see that Tinya has been killed. But Jo's perfectly fine. Wow. Wow. I did not see that coming at all. I mean, I know that, for some reason, most of the Legion writers seem to hate Tinya, but I did not think they'd kill her off. Not when they were forcing their relationship on us with little regard if it made any sense at all.

And also, why is Jo okay? We've seen, time and again, that he's bad controlling his powers. Why would he remain invulnerable when he thought the fight was over and he was hugging his girlfriend?

Back to the Roxxas/Andromeda fight, we learn that Violet had shrunk down and thrashed his motor control center. But Roxxas recovers, opens the atomic furnace that, for some reason, is nearby, and unleashes a huge atomic blast. Violet escapes, but is certain that both Daxamites have perished.

The final plan, the only one the Legion could come up with, is to lure all the other Daxamites to Legion HQ, where Brainy opens a stargate that Brande's passenger, Jan Arrah (the only surviving Trommite), helped build. All the Daxamites are transported to an uninhabited red sun planet where they're powerless.

The entire team is there, ready to celebrate their victory, when Jo flies in with Tinya's body. Reality hits, and we see there are two new statues beside Kid Quantum's - Apparition and Andromeda.

On the final page, in the big twist, Cosmic Boy learns that Andromeda isn't dead. She's in the prison on Planet Hell after turning herself in. And the President of the U.P. says that no one can ever know that a Legionnaire almost destroyed the U.P - no one would trust them again.

We end with the Legion battered but victorious, with three team members believed dead. Earth has been saved, as has the United Planets and the Legion are the heroes the galaxy needed.

Some random thoughts about this whole story line:

• When villains are escalating threats, it makes no sense when they suddenly reverse course and become less of a threat. The destruction of Trom was gigantic, both visually and emotionally. Unfortunately, it made the final attack on Earth seem illogical and less dramatic. Let me put it this way - in the original Star Wars, the Empire shows how vicious they are by destroying the entire planet of Alderaan. Then, when they approach the rebel base, the audience knows they're capable and willing to destroy another moon to achieve their goals. The Empire never backs down from that. But here, the Daxamites wipe out an entire planet with no remorse. So the threat is established. Why wouldn't they do the same thing to Earth? The audience is confused because, for the entire Annual, you're left wondering why they don't just blast the Earth like they did with Trom. The writers needed to include something, like them acting crazy, or them claiming that they wanted to "enjoy" destroying Earth, or something that would make this make sense.
• Both the United Planets and the Science Police end up looking really bad in this story. Again, they could've shown something to let them keep a bit of their strength, or make them look somewhat effective, or even put some doubt into the readers' minds. For example, when the White Triangle is literally murdering people in the streets, have the SPs show up but get beaten by the Triangle's superior tech (which they got from McCauley, which would propel that story). Or show the Daxamites negotiating behind the U.P.'s backs with some of the smaller planets, promising protection.
• One thing I wanted to see during the final battle with the Daxamites was the entire Legion assembled and fighting side-by-side. Although I liked seeing them all over the globe, battling different problems (Special props to the XS in Japan bits), I always love seeing the Legion united against a common foe. There's something special about those issues.
• I also wanted to see, during Andromeda's and Roxxas' battle, her pointing out that the only reason he was immune to lead was due to a Coluan's intelligence. It would have been a great mental attack on the villain and would have shown she was growing as a person. At the end of the entire story, I never felt that she learned anything - she was just angry that she had been used by those who she trusted.
• Which, of course, leads to my problem with her turning herself into custody. Why would she do that? Her flying off into space to "find herself" would've made more sense. At no point during any of this, did Laurel act like she regretted anything. Again, they needed a moment when she saw the death and destruction she caused and that didn't happen.

Okay, I've written way too much, so it's time for our new feature. This week - Saturn Girl!

 

 

What do you think about Saturn Girl? Here are my thoughts:

• She's the brain of the Legion. She's one of their most intelligent members.
• I don't think she's the "Ice Queen", but I think she's reserved and very control of her emotions. She doesn't let too many people know what she's thinking or feeling.
• I think she should be with Lightning Lad/Live Wire - that's a keystone of the Legion.
• I don't think people give her enough credit for being an important female character in the history of comics:
• For one, I'm fairly certain she was the first female team leader in comics history, taking over the Legion in 1963. Wonder Woman had been the JSA secretary, but never the leader.
• I'm also fairly certain she's the first DC super-hero working mother (Sue Storm was the first ever).
• She cares about every member on the team, wanting the best for them, but struggles to show it.
• The last thing she wants to do is use her powers to affect anyone else, which is why some of the later reboots, in my opinion, missed the mark on her personality.
• She has an insane amount of self-control and discipline - I'd compare her to Karate Kid in that respect. She could literally know every secret of everyone around her, understand how they're feeling and change it, and control every decision of those around her, but chooses not to.
• That leads to the fact that she's one of the most powerful members of the Legion.
• I always wanted to see her bonding with other members of the Legion - she needed to have one "friend" to confide in who isn't Garth and I don't know if they ever gave that to her.
• Why did they never give her a different code name, especially after she got married and had kids? Could they not, at the very least, made her "Saturn Woman"? Or, like Live Wire and Apparition, updated her name?
• I think I'm the only Legion fan who doesn't hate her 70's costume. Yes, it's a pink bathing suit. And yes, it lasted way too long. But it was perfect for the time period and far better than a lot of bad Legion costumes at the time.

As I say at the end of every column - please share your thoughts in the comments below. I'm really looking forward to reading what you thought of both the White Triangle saga and Saturn Girl.

Until next week, when we see how the U.P. and the rest of the galaxy are worshiping the Legion and letting them have complete control over their team because they just saved everyone...