Ra's Al Ghul returns in a two-part story that makes me wonder if the writers are even trying anymore. We look at The Legion #17 & 18!!

The Legion #17

The return of the villain we all wanted to see again... well, some of us did... well, not me... but Ra's Al Ghul is back. I guess the Legion doesn't have enough of their own villains they could use. Or writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (DnA) are under strict orders to not go more than a couple of issues without having someone from the 21st Century show up in the book.

We have another guest artist this issue, Alejandro Barrionuevo, and this is his first published artwork for DC Comics. He's been working consistently from 2003 until present day and has worked on some big books for both DC and Marvel. So I've got high hopes for this and the next issue.

We begin in some sort of prison and M'onel and Shvaughn Erin are heading into a maximum security facility to go have a chat with Ra's. Shvaughn explains how Ra's has numerous lawyers on retainer and they've been fighting for his civil rights, such as the right to not be held in stasis. M'onel is there to talk with him and find out what he knows.

I know this is going to be a crazy rant here, so bear with me. First of all, am I the only one who finds it sad that the legal system hasn't improved at all in 1,000 years? The way Shvaughn explains it, it sounds like the red tape and paperwork is still just as horrible as it is today. And second, am I the only one who thinks that Ra's' lawyers are correct - he should be awake and able to stand trial? I've always bristled at some past Legion S.P. stories when they get a little too much like a police state and her complaints just bring that all back.

Also, and I'm just throwing an idea out here, but why wouldn't they have someone from Titan scan Ra's mind for information? They already don't seem too worried about his sentient rights and we've already seen that the Science Police have telepaths on their roster. What's stopping them?

I'm getting really strong "The Silence of the Lambs" vibes here as M'onel and Ra's talk about how the latter thinks he'll be free any moment now, trusting his lawyers to take care of the issues, and the former wondering if Ra's understands what he's done.

After two pages of this banter, we get to the point of the story (and more Hannibal vibes) - M'onel and the Legion need Ra's' help.

To the past and to Xanthu we go... sorry, "the murdered world Xanthu," as the caption reads. XS and Star Boy are discussing some plans to save the planet. They can bring life back to Xanthu and deal with the Terrorforms at the same time. Thom laments that Dreamer doesn't seem interested in him anymore. Glad his priorities are right.

The plan? They're going to take the seed-pods created when Ra's sped up the evolutionary process on Earth... which is one-fifth of the Earth's population... and sow them on Xanthu. Then the Terrorforms activate them, restoring life to Xanthu, and they threshold all the humans back to Earth.

During this insanity (can you guess what I think of this plan?), one of the Robotican drones comes alive and starts attacking. It starts killing people and Star Boy rushes to the rescue. Kinda. He suddenly collapses in pain. As they're all distracted, the drone shoots a Terrorform. A blast of hypertaxis energy is released and it hits Neo-Kinetix and Sensor. Zoe is okay. Sensor is dying.

This is why the Legion needs Ra's' help - no one knows more about hypertaxis energy. If he helps, they'll look into changing his cell. If he doesn't, they move on. Ra's, of course, needs to see her. And, to no surprise at all, shows that he knows everything about Sensor, from a genetic standpoint, already. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Ra's could list off the abilities of every single person in the universe. DnA are writing him as if he's smarter than Brainiac 5... which just feels wrong.

On Legion World, Brainiac 5, Invisible Kid, and Dr. Gym'll are watching over Sensor as her mRNA is overwriting itself and her stats are dropping. Chameleon watches in terror, unsure of whether he'll lose a friend or not.

Tinya joins him, holding the Cub (is that his name or did I miss it when Jo and Tinya actually named their child??), and asks how things are going. Cham is confident - this is the 31st Century after all and they can cure anything. I think he's just trying to convince himself, which is actually a nice take for the scene. But then Tinya suddenly rushes out for absolutely no reason, clutching her child (who, I should mention, looks remarkably younger than last issue).

She sprints through the threshold area, where she sees Ultra Boy say goodbye to Saturn Girl. They hug. And Tinya goes immaterial (and, apparently, invisible) to avoid them. There was a time when I was certain DnA were writing the Jo/Tinya romance better than it had been done since Paul Levitz was writing the book.  Now... not so sure...

To the Command Deck, where we see R.J. Brande getting ready to leave for his mission to the Kwai galaxy. He talks about how excited he is to go and Kid Quantum asks him is he's decided which Legionnaires are going with him. Sorry, but why is he choosing this? Shouldn't Jazmin? Anyway, he mentions Chameleon, Spark, and M'onel before they're interrupted by Triad letting them know that M'onel is bringing Ra's Al Ghul onboard.

It is kinda sad that Triad has just been reduced to "Legion World Management" at this point. Didn't she knock out Ra's just a little while ago? Now she just waits for Kid Quantum to make her acting leader whenever something exciting happens.

We get a really long sequence as Ra's arrives through a threshold, gets threatened repeatedly by Shvaughn, and then breaks a tooth and spits... acid?? I have no idea what that was supposed to be or how it makes any sense... He knocks Shvaughn off the floating platform they're on and makes his escape by killing the other S.P. officer.

M'onel, after saving Shvaughn, is stunned that he's trying to escape. After all, they're on Legion World and there's no where to go.

Which is when Ra's flies himself into a wall and blows up.

That was 7 of the 22 pages of story. Man, they love Ra's Al Ghul. No point in focusing on, you know, the 22 Legionnaires. We've gotta show you just how dangerous Ra's is.

The Legion #18

I didn't mention this last issue, but Kev Walker is handling the covers. Am I the only person who's reading this who doesn't have a clue who the female character on the cover of issue #18 is supposed to be. According to the Grand Comics Database, it's Shikari. Wow... just... wow...

We start on Legion World, where Invisible Kid has called Star Boy in to answer some questions. Once again, because this is a story that every Legion writer loves, Thom is certain they want to know about how his powers didn't work properly last issue. But that's not the reason. Lyle explains that, since Thom's powers allow him to "perceive mass and density more precisely than any of <their> equipment," they want him to help them understand why Ra's Al Ghul died.

I'm trying to stay positive here. I really am. I really have enjoyed most of DnA's run so far. I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here. I'm ignoring that no other writer has ever given Thom these added powers. I'm ignoring that knowledge of mass and density doesn't really help you understand why the villain killed himself. I'm just going to enjoy Star Boy involved in something different.

Why do they need him? They recovered every microscopic bit of debris from the crash and they want Thom to figure out its total mass. Do they not have incredibly precise machines in the 31st Century? Is Brainiac 5 trusting his teammates now?

We go to the Command Deck, where Kid Quantum is dressing down M'onel for bringing Ra's onto the ship. She checks in with Yoda... sorry, Dr. Gym'll... and finds out that Sensor is still mutating and has become incredibly deformed.

Thanks to Thom, Brainy has determined that the debris is about five kilograms lighter than expected. Five kilograms? About 11 pounds... And you're telling me no computer could've figured that out? Brainy's conclusion: Ra's has escaped because his blood escaped. Since his blood is also charged by the Lazarus Pit, it can exist outside of his body, carrying his consciousness, and if he gets into a clone he can come back to life.

And because I was curious, by my math, assuming your blood is 7% of your body weight, Ra's is about 157 pounds. So he's... I'm sorry to the thin people out there... on the smaller side. But this does explain why Triad was able to take him down so easily.

The Legion figures out that he's headed for his clones... which are being stored on Legion World. Why? Why wouldn't the U.P. have those clones on Takron-Galtos? Or anywhere? Is everything on Legion World? Is this the new Earth because the regular Earth keeps getting attacked?

M'onel and Star Boy rush to the clones to try to stop Ra's. While flying there, M'onel says that Ra's has no obvious meta-talents... but didn't he make short work of almost every Legionnaire when they first squared off? So you're telling me that he was able to defeat the Legion and he's as strong as a regular human being? Wow...

M'onel can't believe that he basically gave Ra's everything he needed to escape, from telling him about the clones to bringing him to Legion World. He and Thom notice a hole in the ceiling, like acid burned through the metal (so Ra's is like an Alien?), and then all the stasis tubes open and they're facing off with many, many clones.

One of them punches Star Boy, knocks him out, and steals his flight ring. Does Star Boy still have his invulnerability or is he just controlling mass? I honestly don't remember. Ra's then says, "Command word... Talia..." and the other clones attack M'onel while our villain flies away. I would also like to point out right now that previously, Ra's mentioned that he didn't know there was so many clones of him in existence. But he was able to give them a code word to, I guess, attack someone. Would they need a code word to attack M'onel?

Let's talk about clone morality for a bit. Unlike the Roboticans, these clones don't have any minds. Or souls. So M'onel could just heat vision all of them, right? I mean, that wouldn't go against the Legion code, right?

Back to the Command Deck, where Shikari quickly finds all the clones and Gates looks nervous about Ra's wanting revenge. Kid Quantum spreads the news to the rest of the team, who are scattered around Legion World looking for Ra's... even though Shikari literally told them what decks the numerous clones are on. Is Jazmin sending them to specific places? Nope. Also, how did these clones, who have no superpowers, get past M'onel?

M'onel lets them know that the real Ra's has Star Boy's flight ring which means, of course, that he immediately takes it off so he can't be tracked. He jumps away (or flies, not sure).

Shikari tells Gates and Neo-Kinetix that she's tracked Ra's, ignoring the ring (and why didn't she tell everyone?). Gates teleports the three of them to the threshold chamber and more fighting ensues. Ra's somehow grabs a gun and sets it to overload, blasting Zoe into unconsciousness.

Ra's needs Shikari to use a threshold but before that, he wants to get revenge on Gates. Just as he's about to kill out favorite bug-alien, M'onel shows up. He punches Ra's across the jaw and Ra's just brushes it off and they start fighting. Ra's beats M'onel pretty easily. Like, amazingly easily.

Ra's grabs Shikari and tells her to activate a threshold or he'll kill the other Legionnaires. I guess he's forgotten about his revenge on Gates. Shikari asks Ra's where he wants to go and he just... gives up. He knows M'onel will keep tracking him so he surrenders. The Legion knows he can escape whenever he wants so he wants respect from the team now.

They all go to the Medibay and, luckily, Ra's puts on some clothing. Did I mention that he's been naked this entire issue? Not pretty...

He can save Sensor but can't return her to her original form. Jazmin lets him do what he needs to, in spite of Brainy's objections. So he gets to work.

On Xanthu, XS is crying as she sees that the planet is viable again. All the seed pods opened and returned to Earth. All the Terrorforms (except Zoe) expended their energies and returned to human form. Xanthu is back.

Hold on - so if Zoe was there and expended her energies to help Xanthu she'd be back to normal? And they didn't do that? WTF? They didn't send her back after they took care of Ra's? Did she not want to go back to normal? Could she still expend her energies? Can she stop being a Terrorform?

Back in the Medibay, Sensor has become humanoid and doesn't look happy. Which is completely understandable.

On the final page, M'onel is chatting with Ra's, who thanks him for the window in his cell. And we find out Ra's is being held on Legion World. Ra's comments that Sensor is lucky because she has friends to look after her... something he doesn't have. M'onel promises to look in on the villain from time to time.

I don't think this is going to come as much of a surprise here, but I think this is the worst story of DnA's run so far. Nothing made sense. None of the choices, none of the actions, none of the plot, nothing. At every moment, I was just scratching my head wondering why they didn't do something even slightly logical.

I remember reading stories about how Paul Levitz had these giant white boards in his office that he used to keep track of everything going on the Legion while he was writing the book. At this point, I'm fairly certain DnA weren't even keeping post-it notes to make sense of this.

I also don't know why they are trying their best to wreck two of the best Legionnaires from the previous run - Kinetix and Sensor.

Or, and I'm unsure about this, but is this about the time when their writing partnership was falling apart? It would make complete sense if the two of them were starting to push against the other. It doesn't excuse new editor Stephen Wacker for not tracking any of this, though.

I wanted to talk about the artwork for a bit. Barrionuevo was really suffering from the same things I saw over the previous two issues drawn by Walker - characters looking different from panel to panel, rough transitions, bad anatomy - and I'm starting to wonder if I'm blaming the wrong person.

I wonder if maybe we're just dealing with a bad inker. Is the problem Andy Lanning more than any of the pencillers?

Let's hope the next issue is better than these two.

 

Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight... Calamity King!!

You know you're an unimportant character when, after an image search, you get more pictures of Chemical King than the person you're looking for.

I thought I had nothing to say before... I have no idea who this is. I have no memory of him appearing in the 5YL stories. I don't recognize his Robin Hood hat. He even, apparently, showed up in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds and I have no memory of that.

He might be the Mr. Irrelevant of Legionnaires.

And because The Legion of Super Bloggers explain him better than I could, check out their page for him! 

Until next week everyone - I'm really hoping The Legion gets back on track.