The Emerald Eye's a Shinin'... We look at Legion 81 - 83 and Legionnaires 38 - 40

Welcome back to another round of Legion rereads... this is a crazy week as we get (spoilers) the return of a newly introduced character, the return of someone we thought was dead, a huge heel turn, and one of the worst deaths in Legion history. Everyone excited?

Last week was the huge reveal that the President of the United Planets had been actively trying to destroy the Legion and, somewhat more importantly I think, start another war between Braal and Titan. We've got new team members, leaving team members, a secret admirer, and a love triangle that isn't really one. Oh, and some of the most melodramatic villainous behavior by someone who isn't really a villain... not sure what to classify Winema Wazzo as.

We're also getting to the point where I'm enjoying Legionnaires and slogging through the Legion of Super-Heroes. The difference in quality is becoming greater and greater each week I do this.

On a completely different take before we dive in, I think this is the most active I've seen the r/LegionofSuperheroes page since I joined and it's been awesome seeing more content hitting the site. Thanks to everyone who posted and I can't wait to see more.

Let's get started...

LSH #81

This whole issue is kinda focused on the return of Dirk Morgna, who I want to just start calling Sun Boy (that's what the media is calling him). But sadly for him, this story is the least compelling part of the book.

It's a pretty cliched story where Dirk's in some place called the "California Institute of Psychoradiology", which makes absolutely no sense for either discipline. He's being studied and treated and, no surprise here, his father has been avoiding him due to feeling guilty.

Dirk breaks out, may have killed some scientists (but we ignore that because when background characters get killed, no one cares), wreaks havoc, and is finally captured again when the Legion puts him into an adapted transuit that blocks his solar energy.

What are far more interesting in this issue are the subplots:

• Brainy is completely overloaded acting as the team doctor and I completely agree with his frustration. I mean, he's not actually a doctor, is he? It's obviously cheaper for R.J. Brande if he's not blowing up labs, but this is a complete waste of his talents. Luckily, next issue takes care of this.
• Jo is suffering phantom stomach pains and just seems to spend most of his time moaning about Tinya. Okay, not interesting, but notable.
• Spark gets another present from her secret admirer and it's being carried by Invisible Kid. So, naturally, she assumes he's the admirer. But Chameleon looks very shocked by this development, so what's going on?
• Winema Wazzo keeps popping up, this time somehow being added to Brande's staff. Can we just get rid of her at some point? The writers don't know how to actually write grief, she's just become this horrible villain, and I don't think any readers want to see her again. Just a waste of paper at this point.
• Star Boy is being called back to Xanthu so he can rejoin the Amazers. Is he 15 years old? Is he not an adult? Can he just stay on Earth? Why do they keep changing the rules over and over and not even try to explain them? I mean, I would get if he was given his powers by the Xanthu government and felt like he owed them, but they've never explained anything, so nothing makes sense.

We also get a few moments of just "what are they doing?" in this issue. Kinetix cracks a joke that is so tied to the 20th Century, and the old 20th Century, that I wonder if young readers of the 1990's would get it:

So, Doctor Brainy... will I play the violin?... Gee, that's swell, doc! I never played it before!

And then they show Leviathan acting as a construction worker, installing a panel to the exterior of the Legion headquarters. Why do that? I never understood why any superhero would be building their own headquarters at any point. Are they carpenters? Do they know construction? Are there not people who do this in the future? Or machines? I mean, we know that there are the blue, eye-less androids working in different places - why are they not building things? Are they trying to save money by having Gim act as a crane?

Then Brainy announces he's quitting the team. Wow - did not see that coming. All in all, a pretty mediocre issue - maybe if they gave Dirk Morgna any personality, I might care about his return even slightly more. Look, the old Sun Boy may have been a jerk, but at least he was interesting to read about. This guy's just bland on top of bland.

Legionnaires #38 - Does anything shown on this cover actually happen in this issue? Nope.

This is the kind of Legion story I like. It's a simple diplomatic mission that focuses on the original three members. Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Live Wire are heading to Titan to help quell the unrest that was heading towards war. I actually really love when the Legion is shown to be more than just a fighting force. They have the skills and talents to be diplomats, detectives, spies, academics, medical personnel, and rescuers. When they're just fighting again and again, they're not showing off their true abilities.

Sadly, the three only go to Titan. I would've liked to have seen them travel to Braal as well, keep them together, and work the love triangle a little better.

Here are some of the important parts of the book:

• They're starting to build more and more towards a love triangle but still not really doing anything to get there. Both Rokk and Garth have crushes on Imra, but she's just kinda wandering through this story without putting any effort into it. Also, is there any reason why these two are so smitten? I mean, has Imra done anything to make these two fall for her? I know this is going to sound bad, but at this point Rokk could choose between XS, Triad, and probably Violet for a possible partner. What makes Imra stand out to him? Have they shown it?
• When Imra starts going down into her subconscious, she discovers a darkness in her mind that she's scared to approach. Oh, and Doctor Aven (her former teacher and the man who saved her when she was catatonic) just enters her personal thoughts and stands wandering around. Am I the only one who finds that, well, fairly weird and creepy?
• I loved the part where Cosmic Boy plays a little magno-ball and just destroys everyone. I've always said the best way to write Rokk is as the best athlete at his sport, which is why he's on the Legion. This story showed that.
• Speaking of magno-ball, why is this the most popular sport? I mean, don't you kinda have to be Braalian to play it? At least, Braalians should naturally be the best at it, right? So why would other planets want to participate? The baseball issues of volume 4 made more sense even if they were so badly written.
• I could've done without the horrible subplot with Imra's younger sister. Wow, we've never seen a jealous sibling before. Just nothing we haven't seen a thousand times before.
• The reveal of who planted the bomb and why wasn't expected, which is always a good thing. One of the diplomats, Kwin, planted the bomb to try to show the Titan fanatics that they had gone too far and it would lead to peace. Glad they zagged a little here.
• I did really like the fact that Kwin and Ivar, the two diplomats, were more than just friends. They reveal that they "cared about each other a great deal" was exactly what I'd expect from a 90's comic but handled everything with taste and class. The Legion has always been about inclusion and acceptance, so this was a great story choice.
• Dr. Gym'll is back! About time. They Legion has a cook and an architect. Just made sense that they'd have an in-house doctor. Gym'll has always been one of my favorite backup characters and this will give the writers some new interpersonal conflicts.
• Oh, and Brainy didn't actually quit. Violet convinced him to stay. Her newfound confidence is working wonders, isn't it?
• And speaking of that, Shrinking Violet has been elected leader. I don't know why they didn't name a new deputy leader but I'm guessing this means we're going to have Leviathan in that role for the foreseeable future, right? I mean, nothing bad's going to happen to him, right?

LSH #82

We get two bad stories this issue: one team flies to Xanthu to try to convince their government to let Star Boy stay with the Legion and Ultra Boy tries to figure out why he's in such pain.

We also get some of the worst Lee Moder artwork I've seen in a while. At one point, I felt like he was badly channeling Mad Magazine's Mort Drucker. Everyone looks like a caricature. No one looks the same from panel to panel. Most of the art is so badly laid out that you have to go back and reread everything to figure out what's going on. 17 issues to go...

Let's start with the group on Xanthu.

First, why have they turned Leviathan into such a complete ass? I mean, he's rude to everyone, he's shown time and again that he has nothing but contempt for most of his teammates, he treats some of the girls on the team that he only cares about them as potential dates and objects, and he's a pretty bad deputy leader. Oh, and he's also pretty useless with his powers, continually getting his butt kicked and getting knocked out. Does he bring anything to this team? Is there any reason why most of the Legionnaires wouldn't want to kick him off the squad? I mean, now that the U.P. isn't calling the shots, couldn't they have done this?

I honestly just don't understand why they've turned Gim into such a loathsome character. It's especially maddening knowing what's coming in a couple of issues. This is a guy who was a great, relatable character in the old continuity but we'll talk more about him later...

Second, they do the complete reveal on Spark's secret admirer: It's Cham. Invisible Kid was just helping his friend out. Okay, it's nice that they're not following the cliche of a love triangle between the three. But they really are dropping the ball on what could've been more dramatic. I mean, wouldn't it be more interesting if, as soon as Ayla saw that Lyle was dropping off the present, she told him that she had hoped he was the secret admirer and she's had a crush on him for a while... with Cham watching? You get Lyle trying to decide what to do. You get a jealous Cham deciding whether he's going to be angry at his best (only?) friend. And you get Ayla causing this drama without having a clue that it's going on. You could even break convention by having Cham just accept defeat, knowing that he really had no claim on Ayla in the first place.

Again, why I should be writing a Legion book... hehe...

Third, we meet more of the Amazers. Well, some of them. We meet Insect Queen, Monstress, Atom'X, and the new Kid Quantum. She's James Cullen's younger sister and apparently actually has powers. We also meet two others - one girl whose head flies around and another naked, bald guy who they never introduce or show doing anything. Wow... they just didn't care if this book made sense.

Eventually, the Legion end up fighting the Amazers in something called a Photon Cage Match - winner keeps Star Boy. No surprise, the Amazers cheat as Kid Quantum uses her powers to affect the Legionnaires. But then the Xanthian diplomat says something stupid about James, Kid Quantum gets mad, and uses her powers to... honestly, no idea. Characters fly around and bonk into each other, doing things that I never knew a quantum field could do, and somehow the Legion wins. I don't know if I want to blame the bad art or bad story on this one.

But Star Boy gets to stay so... yay??

The second story revolves around Ultra Boy and his stomach pain. We get Winema Wazzo again, who's going through Tinya's room and cleaning everything up. She gets the worst line when Jo tries to comfort her:

Don't touch me! If you ever soil me with your touch like you soiled my baby, I'll have you killed!

Yeah, I really think Tom Peyer has either checked out or burnt out.

So a mini-hurricane starts in Tinya's room and Jo, continuing to be the worst at using his powers, gets knocked unconscious. Winema, in a complete change of personality, flies him to the medical center to save him.

There, Live Wire is talking to Dr. Gym'll about regrowing his arm. Gym'll drops this little surprise - he can regrow the arm if Garth lets him deactivate his powers first. Wait, is that possible? Can a good doctor just turn off some of the Legionnaires' powers? Could a villain learn how to do this?

Winema busts in, scares Garth away, and drops Jo on the examination table. Within milliseconds, and without a single piece of equipment, Gym'll lets them know that there's ectoplasm within Jo's body. Then there's a bright flash and suddenly, the ghost of Apparition appears. And only Jo and Winema can see her.

Wow - what a horribly plotted and laid out issue. Like, just bottom of the barrel bad. Bad story. Bad art. The coloring is good, so that's nice...

Legionnaires #39

LSH #83 - I love Alan Davis but the facial structure here just looks... off... right?

Legionnaires #40

These next three issues are the first part of the huge Emerald Eye storyline. There's a lot going on, so hang on to your hats. I'm going to write this 'stream of consciousness' style as I'm reading, so let me know if this works for you!

Let's start off with the return of everyone's favorite villain who exists solely as a threat for Sun Boy - Dr. Regulus is back!

The issue starts with Kinetix's personal journals. I do like that letterer Pat Brousseau (who I haven't called out before but I really like their work) went lower case for this so it looks handwritten. Ironically enough, I doubt anyone in 20 years will know how to write by hand, let alone 1,000 years in the future. We're already running into a strange problem with driver's licenses and credit cards - people under 25, for the most part, don't know how to write a signature so everyone's printing their names.

Anyway, we see just how deluded Zoe is as she talks about how hard she worked to get her powers. Yep, getting blasted by a magical talisman and then getting zapped by a witch and given her magic is hard work.

We see that SPs are taking Dr. Regulus to Takron-Galtos and bad things (of the metal-melting variety) are happening. I can't honestly say that I'm too excited about Regulus' return.

We get a great moment in the commissary as everyone sits around, eats, and catches up on the subplots and gossip. Triad's personalities are fighting with each other, XS finds out that Spark's secret admirer is Cham and not Invisible Kid, Ultra Boy refers to himself in the plural, Leviathan and Violet catch up on Legion business (why is he still deputy leader? Shouldn't the runner-up have that spot?), Element Lad and M'onel are off duty, and everyone's ignoring Brainiac 5, which makes him as happy as he's capable of being. So, of course, we can expect something bad to happen.

Then we head to Gallan, where Leland McCauley and the Workforce are living on a completely industrialized and ruined planet. Suddenly an SP ship lands without authorization... I think we know where this is going.

Lori Morning, desperate to get her first kiss, grabs Rond Vidar and forces herself on him. Well, that's not consensual, is it? She's not impressed, he falls off his chair (in shock, I assume), and we get our first big surprise:

Rokk and Imra are kissing. He says he's wanted to do that for a long time and I'm glad they're moving this plot line forward. But, of course, they're interrupted by Shvaughn Erin telling them about the ship on Gallan, so Violet orders an away team to help.

To Gallan we go, where Violet has brought Kinetix, XS, Ultra Boy, Triad, Cham, Spark, Cosmic Boy, Leviathan, and Dirk Morgna, since he has some experience stopping Regulus. Would it not have made sense to bring Imra, who led the team that stopped Dr. Regulus before? Could they have not given Dirk a code name? Are they just adding anyone now?

I did like the fact that Violet ordered everyone into their transuits before they started the mission. Great bit of leadership and I've been waiting for this for a while.

They head into the noxious clouds surrounding the planet and, suddenly, the ship completely disappears. No idea how. They say that there's no navigation systems so they jumped out, but is that enough of a reason to bail out of a ship that's protecting them? And would it have been hard to have one panel where they actually jump out of the ship and leave it in orbit?

I'm getting this horrible feeling that we're going to have another story where everything goes just a slight bit too fast and nothing actually makes any sense.

They get to the main industrial center and find McCauley and the Workforce in the dark. They say that Regulus has wiped out most of the power on the planet and Karate Kid and Inferno are somewhere out in the darkness.

The team of Kinetix, Triad, and Cosmic Boy finds Karate Kid and they can see the damage Regulus' heat powers have caused.

Somewhere else, Cham, Ultra Boy, Spark, and XS have found the villain... or they think so. It's actually Inferno, burning everything and claiming that she doesn't want to be claimed by the darkness. Not the Darkness... she's just afraid of the dark and she freaked out. A quick smack from XS gets her senses back and Inferno stops attacking. Cham and Spark have a nice little moment and promise to talk about everything after the mission. Is it possible that we're going to end a long-running subplot with mature behavior?

Which leads us to Leviathan, Violet, and Dirk, heading to find Regulus. They quickly do and discover that he's "plugged" himself into the planetary power grid and that's how he "sees"... I'll just ignore that somehow a completely blind man was able to get off his ship, find the power grid, and connect.

Before Dirk and Regulus can start fighting, the first team arrives to help. Cosmic Boy wraps Regulus in metal and then... the next shock...

Triad splits into three completely different versions of herself: One younger, one the same age, and one older and... more mature??

But before they can deal with that surprise, Regulus emerges from the metal, says that he controls electromagnetic forces as well, and plans to take over the entire planet.

We go to an office, where Evolvo and Spider Girl have stuck with McCauley to watch over the planet. Seeing that the workers have evacuated, and the atmosphere is getting worse, McCauley orders them to leave, abandoning the rest of the Workforce and the Legion. Spider Girl is still worried about Jo, even after her told her that they could never be together again last issue, and I've now reached the point where I feel sorry for her and the way she's been written.

Let's see, over the past year Spider Girl has been:

• Cheated on by Ultra Boy
• Broken up with by Ultra Boy (kinda - did he actually ever do that?)
• Beaten close to death by the Daxamite White Triangle members
• Stuck working for McCauley and with Inferno

Can she not have anything go right for her?

Back to the battle: The Legion has been reunited and they're all ready to defeat Regulus. He can see everyone's heat signatures, allowing him to react to their threat.

(Before I start writing about this, I'm just going to point out that the Legion has two members with super speed who could incapacitate Regulus almost instantly and end this battle in seconds)

Regulus blasts some pre-regulatory transformers, which contain pure dichloraxin, which will paralyze someone if it touches them. No idea how Kinetix would know this, but they needed something to show how cheap and dangerous McCauley is, right? They've been overpowering Kinetix for the past couple of issues, showing that she has knowledge she shouldn't. Or is it her magic?

Jo spends his time talking to the ghost of Appariton (or is it just Apparition?) and tries to kiss her. Triad points out how crazy it is to try to kiss air (since no one else can see her) and thankfully the artist has changed and we get Mike Collins on pencils. Actually, maybe I should hold back the praise until we get further into the story. These pages aren't much better.

Vi orders everyone to retreat due to the rising toxicity levels but Dirk and someone else attack. Really, can't tell you who it is at all.

And Saturn Girl suddenly shows up. And Triad can't combine. And Saturn Girl becomes XS and says that Rokk is her heart's desire. What the heck is going on?

Thankfully, the dialogue tells me that it's Dirk and Inferno attacking Regulus. Honestly, no idea who that was supposed to be on the previous page.

Regulus blasts the two, injuring them, and Vi rescues Inferno. Then Leviathan says, "Sorry, Vi, honey... but I'm not letting another stupid kid die because he's too stubborn to follow orders." Honey?? What?? So he rushes in to help and finds Dirk, who's oddly not glowing anymore even though his transuit is wrecked.

The battle continues and Regulus starts to pull up radioactive canisters from under the ground. Okay, we get it - McCauley doesn't care about environmental regulations. He also doesn't care about the law, or freedom, or anything aside from money. I've always said that the best villains have layers and some redeeming qualities. McCauley is not a good villain.

We return to Legion HQ, where Element Lad is meditating and floating in the chapel. Okay, guessing this is because of the flight ring. At least I hope they haven't given him another power by accident. He sees his parents, who basically tell him to commit suicide. Saturn Girl rushes to talk to him and he says that his death is his heart's desire. More desires appear, everyone ignores Brainy, and Live Wire gets his arm back. Oh, and Legionnaires actually listen to Gates... that's a little sad that his desire is just to be listened to (not quitting the Legion?), but okay.

Back to Gallan, the fight continues and, just in case we had forgotten about the Emerald Eye, Kinetix thinks about how much easier everything would be if she had it. Regulus starts growing to take over the planet and Leviathan matches, wanting to make sure no one dies this time.

They face off and, I'm guessing because the art is pretty bad here, Gim blasts Regulus with some power cables, they burn up into gas, Regulus turns into goo, and Gim collapses, badly injured.

Vi tells Gim that he took care of Regulus and that he's a hero. And he says that this was his heart's desire. And he dies...

I never thought I'd read a Legion comic that would have a worse death then the original Invisible Kid's, where he just gets grabbed by Validus, doesn't struggle, and gets crushed to death. Well, they did it. this is worse. At least the Legionnaires liked Invisible Kid. I would imagine most of the Legionnaires are relieved Gim's dead.

Vi screams, her eyes green now, and she yells, "Come back! It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. It's not what I wanted! Come back!"

Then they teleport to Legion HQ, washed over in green flame. And we learn the truth: Violet has the Emerald Eye.

I guess we'll call her Emerald Violet now, right?

Kinetix tells the team that they've got to get the Eye away from Violet, but she's already changed her costume and "possesses power absolute". She uses her powers to remove non-Legionnaires Karate Kid, Dirk Morgna, and Inferno. Have I mentioned before that it actually hurts my soul that they haven't made Karate Kid part of the team yet?

She then pulls every Legionnaire to the assembly room and calls a meeting. This includes M'onel, who was in deep space, and Apparition, who she cannot see, right? They all give their names just to ensure that the readers know who everyone is and then she teleports Brainy away to take care of Gim's body.

We learn that she found the Emerald Eye way back when they were fighting an old Superboy villain, the Scavenger. Glad one interesting thing came out of that story. Then Vi claims that the Eye has been a better friend than any Legionnaire was, looking directly at Zoe. In Vi's defense, Kinetix hasn't exactly been a great friend.

Shvaughn bursts in and gets zapped, turned into a baby. Well that was a waste of a page.

Violet reveals that she spent so much wasted time trying to find Zoe and Gim wouldn't even help, even though he was mooning over her and not Vi. So Vi liked Gim? When? Was that ever even hinted at?

But the Eye gave her confidence, made her feel good, and made her a leader. And she wanted to take care of the Legion, which is why she gave each of them their heart's desire. And her plan now: to bring Gim back to life.

Ahh... so that's why so many things were happening in the past few issues that made no sense. I guess Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl didn't actually kiss. But when Cosmic Boy saw Saturn Girl, who then turned into XS, and they kissed, whose heart's desire was it? Do they have any memory of this?

And is Triad's heart's desire (or the three desires) to be young, more mature, and separate? Are they going to delve into this in the future? I mean, if you have three beings that share the same body, kinda, are they don't want to be together, what kind of therapy cures that?

We find out that Saturn Girl got into her mind to suggest Kinetix not go on the mission to figure out how to save Gim. So those left behind in Legion HQ start plotting to get to the real Vi.

M'onel heads to some deep space temple to learn the secrets of bringing the dead back but they refuse to tell him. So Vi takes him over and makes him threaten the beings there. At the Necrological Institute, Live Wire, Ultra Boy, and XS find out that Gim's far beyond revival... so does that mean Gim could've been revived? What is the science here? How dead can you be before they can't bring you back?

Anyway, when the android working there discovers the ectoplasm around Jo's body, Jo flees to save Tinya. They now know that her being there wasn't because of Vi, because the android spotted the energy, and they have a nice romantic moment before Vi interrupts. Man, these two have no sense of priorities, do they?

We gather everyone back at HQ, Vi splits into two bodies to show the battle she's having with herself (no subtlety here, I think), but the evil Eye has taken over. To solve everything, Vi has created her own Emerald Legion, which is the team remade in her image.

We'll be back next week with the conclusion to this saga. So much happening and so many times when it just felt like the creative team wasn't even trying to make the story make sense. Why such a rush here? Can't they just let the story breathe for a bit? I had this same problem last week and it's not getting better.

 

Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight, and this is fitting considering what just happened:

What do we all think of Colossal Boy/Leviathan/Micro Lad?

(I know we're out of order and this should be Superboy, but I couldn't resist)

It is not easy to find an image of Silver Age Colossal Boy...

When I think of Colossal Boy, I think of this:

• When I make a list of Legionnaires who've been most badly handled since the end of Volume 3, Gim Allon is at the top of the list. What the writers have done to him is almost criminal. From generally being an ass, to cheating on his wife, to actively choosing to not save his former teammates and friends... it's been horrible.
• To me, Gim is one of the most "regular" Legionnaires out there and, therefore, one of the most relatable. He has always seemed like someone who is not comfortable being on the team and continually strives to be better.
• When Gim was young, he was the awkward (because of his great height) goof who had a huge crush on Shrinking Violet and never acted on it. He was always there to help anyone, did his absolute best, but was always an afterthought to the team.
• I loved the fact that writers in the 70's and 80's gave him so much back story and made him far more interesting. Whether it was dealing with his mother as the President of Earth, or when they made him Jewish, or when he became the first Legionnaire married to a non-Legionnaire, everything they did just made him better.
• Speaking of the marriage, and the horrible way he and Yera got together, I actually liked the way he grew and developed with this - especially as he realized that he didn't love her because she was Violet, he loved her because of who Yera is.
• The only good thing they did with him in the 5YL stories was make him a full-time SP Officer. That made complete sense. Everything else was garbage.
• When making a list of the all-time worst costumes in the history of the Legion, Colossal Boy is there at least twice. Man, he's had some stinkers. If you've never seen his monstrosity from the 70's with the bare legs... or the one that adds the orange... don't go and look. They're horrible.
• Gim's friendship with Cham was something I always loved in the first continuity and it's a shame they've never brought it back in any reboots. The two of them worked so well together because they were such complete opposites. Cham could sneak and hide anywhere. Gim couldn't sneak up on anyone.
• And as I mentioned before, the way they've been writing Gim in the PZH Legion has been insulting. Again, I get that some characters just aren't the writers favorites, but why go out of their way to make them as unlikable as possible? Just because you find them boring, why would you think making their repugnant is better? So, in a weird way, I'm actually kinda glad they killed him off so they couldn't do more damage to him.
• Don't get me started on the horrible idea Micro Lad was. Just... wrong...

Thoughts? What do you think of Gim Allon?

As I say every week, please don't hesitate to share your thoughts below, whether your agree or disagree.

Until next week, when I assume Emerald Violet is going to take over the universe and create an emerald version of Leviathan...