Yet another shocking reveal! We look at Legion Lost #9 & 10

First of all, I wasn't planning on posting this one day early, but things change and tomorrow I'm going to be really busy... so it was either now or Sunday. Let's hope this just means another day of comments, since something really big happens!

We're sprinting towards the end of this series- crazy, I know - and we've had our first gigantic reveal: Apparition was never on the Outpost - Saturn Girl was using her powers to make everyone believe that she was there. Why? Let's find out!

Legion Lost #9 

Ah, crap, Pascal Alixe is handling pencils again, which means this is going to be badly drawn and sexist...

And if you're ever wondering what I mean when I say that these issues are pandering to the male gaze and are sexist beyond belief, this is your front page:

We start with Saturn Girl talking about stepping down from the post of team leader and then, since she's narrating this issue, reminding everyone of why she wears the Saturn symbol on her chest - it shows she's from Titan and possesses telepathic powers. She goes and talks to Live Wire, who's dealing with the bad news that their landing last issue has frozen all their plants.

They argue, talking past each other, and even Garth figures the Legion is dead at this point. There's no way they can recover from everything they've lost, even if it wasn't real. I am a little shocked that he's fine with Imra tricking Ultra Boy into thinking Apparition was there but is more offended she didn't tell him. But this entire PZH run has had a lot of moral problems dealing with Imra's powers, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Oh, and just to continue harping on the bad artwork, I don't know what Alixe was trying to do with Garth in these pages, but it's just horrible. I mean, I can kinda see the anime influence, but I swear his head changes shape every panel.

Once she resigns, in both anger and irritation (again, shouldn't Imra be taking the apologetic route here?), we move to our subplot - the Progeny destroys an entire planet because they didn't find any Variants on it.

Continuing with the Saturn Girl apology tour, she gets Wildfire's endorsement ("I ain't got a problem with you! You did what you had to, sprock the consequences! I can respect that.") but Monstress tells her that they're not ready to move past the fact that, even though she didn't deliberately give them false hope, she still did. Shikari gives the worst reply: "I cannot look at you, Fair Legion. I do not know what is true about you, anymore." Imra's angry at that response and rushes off again. Geez, she really doesn't know how to apologize, does she? I mean, what is she looking for her? If she's satisfied she made the right choice, would she care what they think? If she wants to apologize, shouldn't she be, you know, apologetic?

Ultra Boy completely ignores her as she walks by, causing her to cry for the first time. So she wasn't affected by Garth rejecting her, but is by Jo? Now this gets even more chaotic.

Somewhere else on the ship, Umbra (who's suddenly much nicer), Cham, and Kid Quantum are hanging out and talking about what happened. Jasmin is angry that she confided in Apparition, Cham that he lost hope, again, and Umbra just seems to be rolling with everything. I guess she's just had a complete personality change. Saturn Girl is still crying because she knows that no one will ever trust a telepath like her.

Subplot Part 2: The Progeny destroy another world, the Sumal.

Looking for validation, Saturn Girl goes to Brainiac 5.1, who agrees that she solved a problem, but won't let her know whether he thinks she was "right". He challenges her to read his mind and she does, realizing that he's working on nothing. He's just putting on a show, looking like he's solving the problem, because it's expected. And he admits he has no clue how to get them home and everything he's done has been to appear like he's got all the answers. Wow - the first bit of characterization that's a surprise that I do like.

And, finally, he admits he hates being called 5.1, so we're done with it. About time.

Subplot Part 3: The Dr'pp'rr are destroyed. But I like their soft drinks...

We finally get the talk between Saturn Girl and Ultra Boy, where she admits she created Apparition because she was worried he was going to snap at the thought of Tinya not being with him. She says that she saw how afraid he was, and how attached he was to her, and that she was only going to make it temporary. But she saw how much he needed her and couldn't stop. So Jo thanks her. And that he's afraid of what he's going to do now. Is it weird that I was hoping for a call back to when Timber Wolf and Saturn Girl were trapped on the asteroid? Or a call back to when she looked into Light Lass' mind and saw a greater love than her own? Anything?

They hug each other, talking about how close they are, and then they kiss. Wildfire spots them, making it awkward, and tells them they're needed on the bridge. Something bad is happening.

The problem: thousands of ships approaching and none of them will respond to their hails. They're all fleeing from something and the Legion doesn't know what. One of them crashes into them, damaging the Outpost, and then they see what they're running from: The Progeny.

Okay, this was just a bad all around issue, and I'm not just talking about the artwork, which was horrible. I mean, if this was the book you bought after hearing how good this mini-series was, and you had heard how great Coipel was, you'd be stunningly disappointed.

I complained before about the way they handled Cosmic Boy when he got mind-controlled by Saturn Girl and how he just forgave her, moved on, and promised to make things better again. I think Ultra Boy's reaction is even worse. How can he feel, knowing that everyone figured he was so weak, so emotionally out-of-control, that they needed to make him think his wife was still there? How can he feel, knowing how he's communicated to Imra for the entire series, thinking it's Tinya? And could Imra have handled this any worse? At this point, I'd be surprised if half the team was willing to be in the same room as her.

Legion Lost #10 

The good news? Olivier Coipel is back!

The bad news? Wildfire has flown out into space, by himself (the creative team has completely ignored that there are two personalities in Wildfire, so I will too), to battle the oncoming fleet, and Live Wire desperately asks any other Legionnaire to help.

This issue is narrated by Wildfire, so we get to see just how he thinks about everything. I honestly get the sense that this might be the character the writers, Abnett and Lanning (DnA), are most excited about handling. Of course, they've also forgotten everything about the character, but so be it. For example, he's constantly referring to himself as Wildfire, completely ignoring his actual, real name... or names... And in the "let's just ignore that he's actually too non-Earthlings," he refers to himself as having "the soul of a human." Which leads to my question - are people from Xanthu human or is that just an Earth designation?

The one thing I do love about this is they show Wildfire's strong adherence to the most basic of Legion rules: do not kill. He's careful not to kill any Progeny but, instead, is crippling their weapons and ships. Ultra Boy, Kid Quantum, and Shikari join him and Wildfire starts going off on how he can't date anyone because, you know, he's an energy being. So in 5 pages, DnA have just reverted him back to how he was when Levitz/Giffen were handling the character and ignored anything that happened during the PZH run. As a longtime fan, I'm actually not too sad about this.

My only quibble is this: I have absolutely no idea how you can destroy ships to the point where "explosive decompression smacks" the Progeny "on the way out" without killing them. I actually think this would've been a great moment to have some of the members (especially Wildfire) push back on the rule against killing.

But even though the four Legionnaires have done their best, the Progeny have reached the Outpost and caught it in anchor beams. Boarding parties have landed and are moving through the ship. The Legionnaires left onboard, like Monstress and Live Wire, start fighting. But Wildfire knows they're already lost - they're no longer a team and people like Saturn Girl have completely given up. The Progeny are going to win.

So Kid Quantum takes charge, ordering the four back to the Outpost. Wildfire waxes poetic about how they're no longer the Legion... a Legion Lost, so to speak... and they need to find that unity and drive that made them a team. Which is ironic, because Wildfire was never, actually, a Legionnaire. So he doesn't actually know what made the team special. Does he? I mean, he saw a bit before he got blasted by Mordru, but I'd argue that he didn't really see the Legion at their best at that moment either. Perhaps it's more that Wildfire always has to be the contrarian - no matter what the rest of the Legion is doing, he's the opposite, even if it makes no sense for the character.

Shikari gets blasted so Wildfire rescues her. The carnage aboard the Outpost is just described, not shown, as the communications link goes blank and he can't hear anyone else. Not even "Ultra Boy's lurid cussing." Wildfire surrenders, telling the Progeny that they don't need to blast him. Of course they do.

When he wakes up, the Legion has been taken by the Progeny, who tell them they have no rights and are their property. All of them have been fitted with restraint locks that will kill them if they try to use their powers. When asked why they haven't deleted the Legionnaires yet, the Progeny tell them that they're following Progenitor's orders and being taken to their home world, the Rosette.

Once the Progeny leaves, the Legion decides they're going to get Brainy to disable the locks and then wait to meet this Progenitor, hoping they'll be easier to reason with than the soldiers. Wildfire keeps talking about how the Legion looks beaten and lost. Then he notices that Kid Quantum is still holding on to one of the crystals Element Lad used to send messages to the team (remember the first issue?). She seems to believe that Jan would solve everything - he'd rescue them if he was here. Again, why is she so connected to Jan? This just seems a little forced right now and takes everyone out of the story.

They reach the Rosette, head inside the massive structure, and come face-to-face with the Progenitor. We also get the second big shock of the series - it's Element Lad.

Okay, I have to admit, I did not see this coming. At all. Even with the incredibly clunky moment with Kid Quantum referencing the crystal.

We'll talk more about this reveal next week when I give a little recap of the whole series, so I'm going to save my thoughts on this until then...

Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight... Shadow Lass/Umbra!!

In case anyone was wondering where I've been finding some of these great Mike Grell Legion pics, here's the link to his Commission Info: https://catskillcomics.com/artistcommission.asp?artistid=7 And if you don't think I'm trying to figure out how to get the money together for a pic without my significant other finding out, you haven't been reading these columns for long enough.

Some of what I'm going to write may seem awfully familiar if you read my thoughts about Mon-El. That's easy enough to explain because I feel these two characters are connected and should be a Legion couple, regardless of the reboot or version of the title.

I've always found Shadow Lass' origins to be somewhat crazy. I mean, how many other characters are introduced as already dead before they even appear? We first saw Shadow Woman, and not blue-skinned, in 1968 in an Adult Legion story... which is another crazy thing about the Silver Age that we don't talk about enough. Jim Shooter was just writing himself into corners again and again and didn't care if it made sense when he was done.

I would argue that maybe no other female character benefited more from the 1970's and the Legion creative team wanting to add a little diversity and sex appeal to the roster. Maybe they weren't allowed to add a Black character, but they could definitely use the blue one as often as possible. (And no, I have no proof that this is true - just my own feeling on this) And in order to sell more issues to teenage boys, having Shadow Lass show up in her "is it a bathing suit?" costume probably helped sales pick up.

Some other random thoughts about Tasmia Mallor:

• Making her a warrior, who had to fight for her title as Shadow Champion, was one of the best things they could have done with her. Talok VIII was a planet different from Earth, with its own customs and culture, and most of the Legion writers in the 70's and 80's did a great job bringing it to life. Tasmia always had a different vibe to her because of this and, and I know this sounds crazy, I think they sometimes made her feel more like royalty than they ever did with Projectra.
• As I mentioned before, her relationship with Mon-El was amazingly well done and one of the cornerstones of the original continuity. I can't say I loved the fact that Mon didn't have a say in their marriage, or that she cut off a joint on her hand to get married, but at least it showed just how deeply committed she was to him. Much like I said about Val and Jeckie, this relationship was slowly built over time and felt real to most readers. The wedding wasn't out of place at all, even if the circumstances were.
• Also, another point about that marriage - you could argue that Tasmia knew Mon would refuse because he was injured, and this was another way Tasmia wasn't going to take no for an answer. She was Mon's life partner, whether he wanted her to be or not. It was a honest portrayal of her character, even if it wasn't the nicest choice. She wouldn't have taken no - she was bonded to him forever.
• I always thought they placed her powers too far into the background, depending on the writer. The ones who understood that being placed in complete, all-encompassing darkness would be so shocking and disturbing were the ones who wrote her well. The ones who thought she just kinda made things dark missed out.
• I also really liked the counterpoint between her and Phantom Girl and their friendship was so well done. I always say Tinya as the talkative one and Tasmia quiet, and that's why they were such good friends. It's yet another point of pride that you can say the Legion was one of the only comics you could read that focused on female friendships as much as the male ones.
• With the PZH version, there were things I liked (the new powers and the forceful personality) and things I didn't like (resorting to xenophobia, again, to make for character issues). The design was good, although it never made sense for her to have a big 'S' on her chest as her name was Umbra. Jeff Moy did bring a lot of personality and style to her.
• Threeboot kinda worked - liked the fighter aspect and some of the changes to her past, but wasn't as much of a fan as how they made her so... unlikable... but that kinda describes a lot of the Legionnaires in this version.
• I've also always been surprised how the DC universe embraced Tasmia and the other from her home planet, whether it be in L.E.G.I.O.N. or in some of the big crossovers. I think she's one of the more stand out characters in the Legion and should be used that way.

All right - that's it for this week - we'll see you all next week with the last two issues, a look back at the series and whether we can consider it a success! Until next Saturday!