It's the grand finale - we look at Legion Lost #11 & 12!!

Okay, we've reached the final two issues of this epic mini-series. I think it's been fascinating to see the varied takes on the story as a whole, running the gamut from hated to beloved. After the recaps, I'm going to talk a little about the complete series and show some sales numbers.

Let's get started!

Legion Lost #11 

To bring us all up to speed - The Progenitor has been revealed to be Element Lad and Saturn Girl was messing with everyone's minds.

We start with the entire team having their own individual reactions. I'm disappointed at least one person didn't ask Saturn Girl if she was responsible.

Jan seems a little foggy, unable to remember the Legionnaires' names and comments that he's feeling threatened by Live Wire's questions. Imra immediately warns Garth, telepathically, as they all start begging for answers. How did he become the Progenitor? What's going on?

Well, Jan apparently has become Brainy. He tells them that when they were pulled into the rift, "accelerating at super-relativistic speeds, embraced by hypergravity," he "transmuted himself into Tromium, the only substance in the universe capable of withstanding the process." So after being pulled into the rift, he underwent a dramatic personality change and became a genius, especially at a type of space travel that is only theoretical. Cool.

He got the ship back into the real universe but was lost in space-time and drifted, floating in space... well, floating outside the galaxy, without any protection. He was alone for a billion years of solitude, watching stars being born and die. He was bored, wanting to interact with anyone, so he started helping evolution along on different planets, creating beings from the building blocks of life. He became a literal god.

The Legion immediately see him as a threat, Imra again warning them that he has imaginable power and they can't provoke him. I'm honestly not too sure how she knows that, aside from what he's saying, or from his thoughts. But let's be real here, as he's telling this story, if everyone isn't already seeing him as a threat, they're either naïve or lacking any rational thought.

Jan tells them he's found a way home - the Ark they discovered a few issues ago, the one that was the prison for the Omniphagos. Jan's going to use it to send them back to Earth and he doesn't have to worry about that creature - he fed it and it can no longer escape.

Then, before he sends them to rest, he cures Brainy of a micro-lesion in his brain that would have killed him and he regrows Live Wire's arm. So he's a good guy, right?

The team, hoping that Jan hasn't become telepathic, begin talking about what to do. They're immediately split into two camps - one wants to welcome back their teammate (Monstress) and one wants to make sure he doesn't get through that Ark (Cham, Umbra). Brainy points out that since he's been alive so long, and he's so powerful, he's seeing all of these lives (The Progeny) as science experiments and has no emotional connection to them. And that includes the Legion.

The finally decide they need proof - the Jan they knew was spacey but a good person. They need to see if he's behind the genocide that happened in his name. They need to see if he's a threat.

And then, we get the dumbest moment of the series - Saturn Girl admonishes Live Wire because he wants her to get into Jan's head because she's the only weapon they have. And she points out that when she used her powers to help, the Legionnaires accused her of treachery and worse. She says she's doing it now because he's such a threat - but don't ever ask her again. So the woman who was willing to trick her teammates in order to take care of an emotionally stunned team member is drawing the line at entering a mind that could wipe out all life in the universe? Do the writers even know what they're doing here?

Man, at this point, they've just given up trying to make her even slightly relatable or likeable. And if I was another Legion member, I doubt I'd ever want to spend a second with her if they get back to Earth.

Brainy, Shikari, and Kid Quantum discover that the Ark does work but they need someone to guide them through. Good thing Shikari is a cosmic tracker, huh?

Monstress, Cham, and Saturn Girl reach Jan to try to figure out what's going on and who he is. Jan refers to them as "Blinkers" as their existences blink out so quickly they're not worth noticing. He's already forgotten their names and he's acting even weirder than he did before Legion Lost.

Saturn Girl asks him what he's going to do when he gets back to Earth. He's going to make it better - like he did this universe. He's going to let the Omniphagos eat everything here and then he can focus on the Earth.

Monstress challenges him, asking him if he really means it. He says he doesn't remember making her, and Candi tells him that he didn't. So he calls her a variant and kills her. Wow - I did not see this coming at all and I'm sure readers at the time were absolutely stunned by what they did here. Even though the book is getting darker and darker, I'm sure a lot of fans weren't expecting a Legionnaire to kill another.

But could this have been even better? My rewriting of this would've had Monstress as the one who was using Jan's crystals to create a diary - she was the one who was bonding (possibly getting romantic) with him before the Blight and you could've shown some real pathos and tragedy if she had fallen for Jan before the big reveal.

Saturn Girl immediately tells Live Wire to do whatever they have planned - they have their proof Element Lad is the enemy.

Before moving on to the next issue, let's do a little memorial for Monstress. For a character that looked like a complete throwaway and someone I didn't think I'd ever like, Candi Pyponte Le Parc III ended up becoming one of my favorites in the PZH Legion. Her personality was so different, so positive and refreshing, and worked as such a great counterpoint to the numerous depressed Legionnaires.

Even turning her from green to orange, making her appear less like a certain hulk, wasn't enough to save her as the creative team was looking for a sacrificial lamb to stun the readers.

Sadly, she only lasted 5 years in comics and, as far as I know, has never been brought back in any Legion stories. She's not even important enough to get her own Wikipedia page... or, at least, no one has written one for her. But for me, she was one of the best characters in the book and she will be missed.

Legion Lost #12 

For the final issue of this series, Live Wire is our narrator, and we start off with a recap of everything that's gone on before. We get to see just how broken everyone is, especially when Garth refers to Element Lad as "the most noble of us." Just a weird description for a character who's never been referred to this way.

We also see one of the worst aspects of Saturn Girl's telepathic connection between all the members - everyone feels Monstress' death. And they're all stunned and speechless. Even Brainiac 5 is emotional.

But they're Legionnaires, so they quickly regain their composure and attack, following their plans from last issue. Cham is so angry that he wants to kill Jan, but Imra quickly talks him down, reminding him that Legionnaires don't kill. Jan decides to test his shapeshifting powers, forcing Cham to change from form to form to survive. But it's like a cat playing with a mouse, wanting to see what happens before he finally kills the Durlan.

So Imra finally gets involved, attacking Jan mentally, firing everything at him.

Cham also lets Live Wire know that they've got two threats - both Jan and the Omniphagos - so they need to save two universes. Faced with these immense threats, Garth takes charge, becoming the leader they need, and the team starts to act like the Legion of Super-Heroes. They must close the gateway, even if it means they're never getting back home.

Imra is overwhelmed and the Legion faces off against Jan. Unfortunately, his powers are too great, and he defeats them easily. But before he can finish them off, Umbra arrives with the Omniphagos (no idea how she's able to do this - I guess it's because she was able to slow him down in a previous issue) and Element Lad must face off against this destructive force. The Legion beat a hasty retreat and head to the Legion Outpost, flying towards the gateway to get home and blow it up before Jan can use it.

As they reach the gateway, they realize that the Omniphagos has eaten Jan and Jan has transformed the creature into a new form - they're fused together and are heading after the Legion. The threat has gotten worse.

Live Wire blasts Cham and Ultra Boy, paralyzing them, and takes off his flight ring. He asks them to tell Imra that he always loved her. He says he's resigning from the team so he can break their most basic rule. Then he asks them to tell his family, specifically Ayla, to remember him. He jumps out of the Outpost, heading towards the creature chasing after them.

He charges up his powers, using all the electrical energy he can to give the creature a massive stroke. As he lets loose the killing blast, he sees the Outpost head through the gateway. He thinks about the Legion, about how it started, and has this final thought:

I remember when we became the Legion of Super-Heroes. I'm glad I was there when we became it again. Because we weren't lost at all, were we? Now where it counted. Inside.

You may have noticed that this recap is a little shorter than normal and I think that's really because there's not much happening here. It's the final battle and they don't slow down at all to get into any depth. It's a great last issue and there are some really strong moments, especially with Brainy's tears completely throwing everyone for a loop, or Cham fighting for his life, but it kinda felt a little empty, if that makes any sense.

I think Live Wire's death was mishandled for one simple reason - he hadn't done anything in the entire series to make readers care about it. He was always in the background, he kinda gets his leadership forced onto him and doesn't choose it or accept it, and he spends more time just being the person people talk to instead of actually communicating himself. He was a background character for too much of this.

Also, I think they needed to have him narrate his own issue earlier, to show his depth and make the readers care. This one just didn't work for me.

Random thoughts about Legion Lost (a retrospective of the entire series):

• I mentioned this last week and I'll say it again - I think this is a series that works much better then first time you read it but kinda loses some of its luster with each reading after. The writers (DnA) knew exactly where they wanted to get to and didn't seem overly concerned if they made huge leaps to reach their finale. For example, how long was Wildfire a star? Why did Umbra suddenly become good when nothing really changed for her? Why was Ultra Boy okay with how he was treated? How did Element Lad become immortal? How did Live Wire jump out of the Outpost without his flight ring and get close to the creature?
• But for all those complaints, I have to say that I can completely understand why this series is placed on the pantheon of great Legion tales. It's exciting, the Olivier Coipel artwork is great (especially for the time this book was published), you get some of the best character work the Legion has seen in a while, and it is an exciting and dramatic conclusion. Most people love when books get dark and gritty and this is no exception.
• Would I place it on the pantheon of great Legion stories? That's a tougher question to answer. Do I think it holds a candle to some of the best Levitz/Giffen work? No. Do I think it's better than almost everything that came in the last few years of PZH? Yes. Do I think it's the best DnA story? Yes. So I think it's up there and I think it fixed a lot of things I didn't like about PZH Legion (Wildfire, Brainy), but there were too many negatives that keep me from putting it up at the top.
• What were some of the story problems I'm talking about? I think there were just a lot of missed moments in this mini-series and some odd plotting choices. For example:
  • Did they even read the last couple of years of the PZH Legion? I understand wanting to start fresh, but there were so many little story beats they could've used to make this series better. For example, Monstress' connection to Element Lad. Or Cham's friendship with Sensor, which was never addressed. Or part of Wildfire being a former teammate of Monstress and Kid Quantum.
  • Why spend so much time dealing with Singularity when there were so many more important things to deal with? I mean, they solve that mystery while ignoring actually dealing with Umbra's emotional issues. And couldn't they have focused on more interesting aspects, like Saturn Girl's actions, or Brainy pretending to try to find a way home? The pacing was just off.
• The less I say about the any non-Oliver Coipel artist, the better. They really could've found anyone to do a better job on the fill-ins.
• Did cancelling the old books and starting a new mini-series work for DC? Yes. This series did what DC wanted it to do. Here are some numbers:
  • The final issues for the PZH series had these sales numbers: LSH #125 sold 17,838 copies while Legionnaires #81 sold 17,343 copies. This is low, even for DC Comics at this time. To give a comparison, the best titles, such as X-Men, are selling over 100,000 copies.
  • Legion Lost #1 sold 21,830 copies. So an okay uptick for a new mini-series.
  • Legion Lost #12 sold 20,178 copies. Which is lower than the first issue, but a really strong hold on readership through the whole series. I think you can safely say the series got new readers and held them. I'm guessing the 1,700 they lost were collectors only buying first issues and longtime fans not happy with the new direction. If you're DC, you're probably happy with these numbers. Sales are up 13%.
  • And when you consider that Superboy's Legion #1 sold 22,975 copies, I think you're starting to see that, in the early 2000's, there were approximately 20,000 Legion fans buying the comics.
• And finally, the wrong character sacrificed themselves at the end of the series. I'm sorry for her fans, but it should've been Saturn Girl. They establish her as the one who's willing to do anything to succeed and protect the team. They have this whole dramatic reveal and half the team wants nothing to do with her. But if she had been the one who killed the creature and saved the team, everyone would look back at her in a completely different light. It would also allow her to "atone" for her "crimes" against the team. Back on Earth, there could be the drama of "do we let everyone know how she played with our minds or do we keep her as a perfect martyr?" How does Live Wire move on? How does Ultra Boy move forward?

Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight - Chemical King!!

This is, hands down, the toughest one of these for me to write. Why? Because I have absolutely no connection to the character in the slightest and don't really have any memories of him, aside from back issues and flashbacks. For me, poor Condo Arlik has always been dead and not really missed.

Surprisingly enough, I think this opinion is shared by almost everyone who's ever written a Legion comic book. He's almost never come back, at least not as a superhero, and was rarely, if ever, used even in flashbacks. He's kinda become the forgotten Legionnaire.

You can somewhat understand why - his power set, to speed up or slow down chemical reactions, is fairly limited and no writer ever really showed just why he was capable of being a Legionnaire. I think this was yet another example of Jim Shooter throwing whatever ideas he had, especially from his junior high school classes, into the comic book. I imagine he was sitting in science class, learning about chemical reactions, and thought, "Now that would make a great superhero!"

Chemical King was introduced in 1968 and dead by 1977, suffering from the same problem Matter-Eater Lad had in the 70's - no self esteem. They each got their own mopey issue where they wondered why they were even Legionnaires. At least Condo got to save the world.

His return, as a reporter, in PZH was fan fiction at its best and just served to give longtime fans something to get excited about. I don't know why they couldn't have placed him on the support team, just like Chuck and Tenzil.

I'm not counting Chemical Kid here, as it's a different character and wasn't a Legionnaire (I don't think)...

I honestly think that if I was ever allowed to write a Legion title, I would make it my mission to try to make this guy interesting again. And if I could pull that off, what couldn't I do?

Thoughts? Please share your impressions of Legion Lost - I'd love to hear from those fans who got interested in the Legion because of this series. This is one of the most important series in Legion history and there have to be fans out there who love it as much as I love the Great Darkness Saga.