Zero Hour Reboot! A new Legion! Everyone's back to being teenagers!

I spent a little time researching all the different reboots that DC has done over the years and if I've learned anything, it's that no one seems to agree on any aspect of reboots. Whether they're necessary. Whether they worked. What's a hard reboot. What's a soft reboot. When is the right time? It's pretty crazy.

Before looking at this Zero Hour reboot (which, funnily enough, isn't an actual DC reboot, but more a cleaning up of certain characters' histories... except for the Legion), I wanted to look at the four big DC reboots that came in the decade before this.

First, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Big changes, the death of the multiverse, the Marvelization of the DC Universe, and something that's generally considered to have been successful. Regardless of whether you believe DC had an all-encompassing plan or were flying by the seat of their collective pants, DC trusted their most popular writer, Marv Wolfman, who brought in their most popular artist, George Perez, and let them do what they wanted. This is the blueprint for how to do a reboot.

Second, the Man of Steel. DC brought in Marvel's biggest star, John Byrne, and let him Marvelize Superman and bring him up to date for the 80's. He threw out massive amounts of history, threw the Legion into a talespin from which they would never recover, but turned Superman into one of the most popular books in comic shops. He didn't last as long as they were expecting, but Byrne's fingerprints were all over Superman for at least another decade. It worked and worked well.

Third, Batman: Years One and Two. This is more of a soft reboot as they didn't need to reinvent the character, they just needed to update him and make him fit what audiences wanted. Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli reinvented Batman's origin in this story about his first year as a crime fighter. Everything got darker, more violent, and the detective aspect of his character kinda took a back seat. It was insanely popular and completely changed the way future Batman creators would work on the book. Year Two was Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane trying to keep the darkness prevalent and doing a decently okay job.

Fourth, Wonder Woman. George Perez got the opportunity to write and draw the series, tied it deeply to Greek mythology, changed a large number of characters, and turned a title that hadn't sold in years into a hit.

What did all of those have in common? DC rebooted key titles or, in the case of Crisis, the entire line with the biggest name creators they could find. They advertised the books, restarted Superman and Wonder Woman with new number one issues, and hired the best talent they could find.

I'm sure you all know exactly where I'm going with this. What did DC do when they rebooted the Legion in 1994? No number one issues. No big name talent. No advertising. Just a part of the Zero Hour mini-series.

Yes, the Zero Hour issues did sell far better than most of the Legion and Legionnaires issues that had been published before. Yes, having that tie-in did bring more eyes onto the book. But if you look at the sales numbers, there wasn't much of a boost.

If you had no idea what the Legion was and these first couple of issues were your first taste of the characters, here's the "big names" you got:

• Mark Waid, writer, who's highest profile work before this was L.E.G.I.O.N. and the Flash. He wasn't yet "Mark Waid" but was a good but still developing writer.
• Tom McCraw, writer who should've stayed a colorist. Sorry, but there was nothing that he did during his run on the Legion that showed that he should have been writing anything.
• Tom Peyer, writer, took over L.E.G.I.O.N. and did, in my opinion, a pretty mediocre job. Not someone I was ever excited to see in a credits box.
• Jeffrey Moy, penciller, whose professional career literally started five months earlier on the Legion and Legionnaires Annuals. He also suffers from some really bad inking during this time. He's as green as a penciller can be.
• Lee Moder, penciller, whose DC career started a year and a half earlier on books that were suffering from a steady loss of readers (Wonder Woman, Justice League International) precisely because they took their readership for granted and hired whichever artists they could find.

No one to really get fans excited at the time. Well, maybe Waid... but none of the others.

I have to point this out first: I'm not saying that these people didn't end up becoming very talented creators. I'm saying that when this book got rebooted, there weren't any new readers who saw any of the names in the credits and said, "I have to buy this book because of this person!"

I mentioned this last week and I'm going to say it again - DC is hiring the cheapest talent they can and pumping out two books a month to increase their market share and profitability. They are not trying to make these books successful and bring them back to their glory. If the talent ends up becoming better and producing great stories, that's a nice side benefit.

Having said all that, there are two big positives with this creative team and their editor, KC Carlson:

• They are all Legion fans and know the lore and the history
• They have a completely clean slate to work with

Let's see how they do...

Legion of Super-Heroes #0

Let's start with the first "why would you do this for a reboot?" moment: Stuart Immonen drew this book to finish off his run. I would think you'd want to bring the new penciller on with the first book that would grab new fans, but what do I know? He's also struggled with drawing teenagers for his entire run of the Legion, but not as bad as his struggle with middle-aged heroes, so I don't have high hopes for how this book is going to look.

We start with the Ranzz siblings joy-riding in space and out of power, so they head to Korbal. I think this scene is the "Batman's parents being killed" story of the Legion. We've seen it so many times before that I'm fairly certain every writer on this book feels they must tell their own version of the story. Heck, Paul Levitz did it at least twice during his run. We all know the story - they have no power, this time Ayla, who's the educated one, suggests they get the lightning beasts to recharge the ship.

And then Garth wakes up from his dream.

He heads to the spaceport to wait for the space ship that's going to take him to Earth so he can look for his older brother, Mekt.

Then we're introduced to Rokk Krinn, who's a MagnoBall champion heading to Earth to make more money. The Internet has nicknamed him Cosmic Boy due to all of his success. Just to let all the younger readers in on this - when this comic came out in 1994, the Internet was still a novel and new way of sending messages. I'm glad to see it lasted 1,000 years.

Rokk's accompanied by Mr. Cuspin, his business manager, who seems just a little shady.

One little thing here that I think is hilarious: they have the space ship's flight plan on display: Tharn, Imsk, Zuun, Braal, Winath, Titan, Metropolis. Not Earth. Metropolis. But we don't get the city names for anywhere else.

Next, we meet Imra Ardeen, star telepath on Titan who's a member of the Science Police. She's also heading to Earth to join the S.P.s there.

Everything is pretty straight-forward and there aren't any big changes to Legion continuity so far. No "This isn't MY Legion" yet.

All three get aboard the space ship and begin traveling to Earth. For some reason, Rokk, who's a famous athlete, is sitting in the same section as Garth, who should barely have enough money to travel. But they chat, bond, and then Garth ogles Imra, who reads his mind and is not impressed. They reveal that she has to wear a pin of Saturn so that everyone knows she's a telepath. I really like that touch to explain her super-hero name.

They also reveal that Braal and Titan were at war and Rokk figures that's why she'll hate him more than she hates Garth. Will this be brought up again?

We also get the introduction of R.J. Brande, who is no longer the richest person in the galaxy - he's now the third richest sentient in the cosmos. Glad that they're no longer calling the beings of the universe humans.

Brande also is no longer a maker of stars, which is good. He's now the builder of Stargates, which is the quicker and easier way of transporting through the galaxy.

Next, we get the second-most popular Legion story to retell - the saving of Brande. Not much changes here. Imra reads the assassins' minds, Garth and Rokk blast them, the bad guys are arrested, and Brande has an idea.

While pondering the idea, Brande is joined by his partner, Doyle, and his assistant, Luornu. He's trying to figure out what to do next and ends up meeting with the United Planets President to offer to finance a new symbol for the U.P. to rally around.

Luornu then visits Imra, who's not fitting in at the S.P., Rokk, who's struggling in training, and Garth, who's been arrested and is about to get attacked by criminals who work for The Mace, and gives them a message. Brande has invited them to his offices to discuss something.

The three reunite and we realize that there are three Luornus, who merge back together. Rokk has brought Cuspin, who Imra reveals to have stolen massive amounts of money to feed his gambling problem. Rokk fires him immediately and we begin the final part of the story.

Brande starts his presentation, showing the famous heroes of the 20th Century: Superman, Batman, the Flash, etc. I do like that the three teenagers were only vaguely aware of who these characters are. Also, with no Superboy, no continuity problems.

Brande says that he wants to create heroes like that and offers them jobs on this new team. They all immediately agree and we have a new super team!

Then it's revealed that Doyle is the person behind the assassination attempt and he's going to destroy the U.P. and Brande.

Okay, so far so good. They haven't broken anything. They've kept the basics of the Legion intact.

Legionnaires #0

I was not exaggerating before when I said that Jeffrey Moy didn't have a lot of experience when he took over this book as the regular penciller. According to the Grand Comics Database, this is his fourth job in comics. The other three were also on the Legion. So he's young, he's raw, and he needs a good inker to get him over these rough patches.

I don't think Ron Boyd was a good fit, so this issue looks a little rough. Hopefully, they get this figured out sooner than later.

Before starting talking about the issue, let me give some praise for the great idea of basically turning the Legion into a bi-weekly comic. Legionnaires isn't its own book, it's just the next chapter in what happened in the Legion. DC was doing this a lot in the 90's, between the Superman books and some of the Batman stories. I'm sure it's a big headache to coordinate, but it is better for the readers.

Now that we have the team, we have to show the evolution and the expansion of the group.

First, we see the promotional video showing the three members and we see their names, ages, and super-hero names:

• 15-year-old Rokk Krinn - Cosmic Boy
• 15-year-old Imra Ardeen - Saturn Girl
• 14-year-old Garth Ranzz - Live Wire

I know this is going to bother me for the entire run, so I'm going to start complaining about this now. So the Science Police allows 15-year olds to be members? So a 14-year old went to a bar, got arrested, thrown in jail, and no one contacted his parents? Also, how did Garth get into the bar in the first place?

My suspension of disbelief is going to be off the charts for this series.

We get our next new member of the team, as a young brunette shows up, stressing about getting documents to her mom. It's Tinya Wazzo. She's got to rush these computer pads (can't call them iPads) to the U.P. council. I guess the Internet isn't that great yet...

Once in the chamber, Tinya has to phase through this big globe in the middle of the room and her mom isn't happy, grabbing her by the ear and telling her that she's embarrassing. And the "Tinya's mom is abusive" plot line begins.

The Legion arrives, in new costumes, and because Tinya discovered that there's a bomb in the globe, they're able to save the U.P. council and prove that they're not just a bunch of dumb teenagers. They capture the would-be killers, with Tinya's help, and 24 hours later, Triad (Luornu) and Apparition (Tinya) are on the team.

Next, and I really like this plot choice, we see a bunch of other teenaged super-heroes getting messages to join the Legion as representatives of their planet.

Gim Allon, another teenaged S.P. member, finds out he's been recruited. On Xanthu, they don't get Star Boy or Atmos, they recruit Kid Quantum. On a research station, Jenni Ognats gets the message. On Durla, a cloaked teenager is recruited. Back on Earth, S.P. Officer GiGi Cusimano gives the summons to Lyle Norg. And finally, on Colu, Querl Dox ignores the request, tossing it in the trash. Glad computer pads are so common that they're just garbage.

Why does Earth get two heroes? Or is Gim considered Martian?

They are not wasting time growing the Legion.

So I guess my question for those of you who discovered the Legion through these books, was this introduction enough of a hook to get you to want to read more?

The other thing I'm curious about is how many new readers this reboot actually got, and how many were just the long-suffering fans who couldn't quit the books? Sales numbers shows that the Zero Hour boost barely got these books over 35,000 in sales each and then the numbers dropped under 30,000 fairly quickly. And stayed there for the entirety of this reboot.

Here's my humble request - I never read these books when they were originally published, so I have no idea how readers responded to them at the time. If you were a new fan who loved this version, please share your thoughts below on these, and future issues. I'd love to read what worked about these stories for you.

And back to the reread...

Legionnaires #19 - I really like this costume design

The next two issues, LSH #62 and Legionnaires #19, are kinda hit and miss for me. Let's talk about the good parts first:

• The U.P. interference - I really liked that they showed the U.P. getting involved with the Legion and taking some of the control away from Brande. Forcing the team to take six new members to ensure all the member planets are represented was a great way to build the team and cause some problems. Having Gim, now Leviathan, be appointed team leader, even though he wasn't ready for that responsibility, was a good choice as well.
• Triad's multiple personalities - they started bringing it up in volume 4, but they go heavy into this now. She has three distinct personalities and it's obvious who's who when they split. Having the costumes colored differently makes it even clearer.
• Chameleon not speaking Interlac and bonding with Invisible Kid, who speaks Durlan - Making Reep even more alien and strange to this team was a great choice and makes the team dynamic better. They also throw in a healthy dose of xenophobia, which they're only going to build on as the stories continue.
• XS's panic and fear when first on the team and then her overcoming it to save the day really worked well. She was basically forced to be a hero, had no training for it, and had to discover it within herself. I would've like that to be a longer-running subplot (I think they resolved it way too quickly), but I'm happy they added it.

And the low points:

• Why do Kid Quantum so dirty? Did they just want to have a Thunderbird character and figured he was the one people cared about the least? Could they not have given him even one positive attribute before they killed him?
• And also, could the rest of the Legion cared less about his death? Man, they were cold as ice after he died. Saturn Girl just calmly states that his death was his own fault and Cosmic Boy states that his death was just one of the many mistakes they're going to make on the Legion. Wow. Just no empathy at all.
• We get one reference to the Giffen Legion - the no-eyed blue android who's assisting with the burial of Kid Quantum. It's nice to see, but really? That's it?

Legionnaires #20

The next two issues see the introduction of a long-time Legion foe, Mano. He's angry at the fact that Leland McCauley, super-rich guy, sold the chemicals used in a war that killed everyone on Mano's home world and turned him into the creature he is. He can now survive in space and destroys everything he touches.

Mano destroys his entire planet by touching it, goes to McCauley's base on the moon, and starts killing people there as he hunts for McCauley.

Of course, when McCauley asks for help, the Legion rushes off to save him.

Once again, I kinda sympathize with the villain here.

These two issues that deal with the Mano story are shaky at best. The writers do a good job establishing that both Mano and McCauley are threats and going to be problems for the Legion. But at the same time, there are huge plot holes and weird twists that make no sense. At its simplest, why didn't Mano get to the moonbase, sleep for a while to recharge, and then destroy the moon to ensure McCauley was dead? Story over...

Nope, instead he wanders around, kills some random people so that we, the readers, know he's the bad guy, and then gets caught pretty easily by Cham and Lyle (are they the new Devlin O'Ryan?).

More important things happen that are not part of this main story:

• We meet the Athramites, who are tiny aliens that design costumes and make the team more fashionable. I always love when this book leans heavily into the sci-fi realm with new aliens that aren't humanoid. They're silly, but it's a nice comedy break.
• We get to the new Legion headquarters and I'm so glad it's not an upside-down rocket. But it makes the team feel more like the Legion, if that makes any sense.
• We meet the new chef at the headquarters: Tenzil Kem. Okay, I'm sure all of you who know that I'm not the biggest Tenzil fan are probably thinking that I'm happy with this development. But I'm not. This just doesn't make any sense. He's a Legionnaire. Just make him a Legionnaire if you're going to add him. Making him a chef seems even more insulting to any Tenzil fans. Am I wrong? Also, why would you want a Bismollian, someone who can literally eat anything, as your chef? Does he have a good palate? It just seems like the writers wanted to include him but didn't want to actually make him work.
• We are introduced to four super-powered villains who are behind the attempts to destroy the U.P. and the Legion. They hate cross-breeding, hate aliens living together, and head to a new planet to do... something bad, I'm guessing. More to come with this...
• Live Wire kicked off the Legion so the real Winathian representative, Ayla, can join the team. I know that I said before that I liked having the U.P. get involved with the Legion decision-making, but this seems a little too much. Why not just have both right from the beginning?

Finally, I just wanted to make a couple of points about the creative team:

Tom Peyer takes over as Legionnaires writer on issue #20 and, to be honest, I'm not really happy about that. I didn't like his work on L.E.G.I.O.N. (but that might also have something to do with the horrible artwork that was part of his run) and his writing is pretty clunky in these issues. The dialog is just off. Let me give you an example:

When the President of the U.P. brings Live Wire in to let him know that he's being replaced, and they introduces Ayla as the new Legion member, this is her response to Garth's shock and surprise at seeing his twin:

"Then you do know your sister! Good! I was worried."

Is that supposed to be sarcastic? Is that supposed to make any sense? The entire issue is full of lines like that, where you are literally scratching your head and trying to figure out what the writer was thinking. Or why the editor didn't make them change it.

Jeffrey Moy gets a new inker - his brother Phillip - and it's so much better. For all his struggles, and there are many in these issues, he's the only artist on these books who actually draws the characters as teenagers. So I will give him a huge pass on anything else that he does. I'm a fan.

On the other side of this, Lee Moder's work was very disappointing. Sometimes, the characters look good. And sometimes they look like bodybuilders. I don't think I've ever seen an artist make Apparition look so muscular and huge. Hopefully he settles into this series and becomes more consistent.

 

You know, all in all, this was a pretty good first six issues of a reboot. We've established characters and the universe they're in. We've got a team. We've got only one horrible costume (sorry Leviathan). Things are looking better than before.

Be here next week, when we meet more team members, see more rebooted characters, and start building more subplots. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments below!