Once again, and I am tired of writing this, we approach the end of a Legion run... we look at The Legion #34 & 35

 

The Legion #34

Okay, I'm trying my best to stay positive here. This is always tough when we get to the end of a series or run and you know that nothing matters, we're seeing the final appearances of some great characters, and usually the stories have really lost their spark.

Good news - this issue is drawn by Steve Lightle. It's always great to see him handle both pencils and inks and his work really stands out. There's a vitality to his artwork that is lost sometimes. And even when he gets a bad script (cough... issue #24... cough), he can still deliver an issue worth reading.

News that I'm not sure about yet - this issue is written by Keith Champagne. He got his start at DC as both a penciller and inker and I believe this is one of his earliest writing jobs. Fingers are crossed that he does well.

This issue starts on Qward, which is the anti-matter universe's version of Oa. They've been devastated by endless wars and have now been saved by Thalon, the narrator's father.

Thalon shows off his fists of power and demands that the "trash" and "sewage" standing in front of him (the people of Qward) become his army and fight. With one page, they establish this is the villain the Legion is going to face. And on the next page, he orders guards to take his son from his sight before he "kill(s) it and grow(s) another."

The son, named Vox, escapes from capture and hides. You would think he would be scared. But no, he wants to be just like his father. So this is definitely an unhealthy parent/child relationship.

Thalon heads into a locked room, in full villain monologue mode, talking about how he was only able to reach his position of power by using the power of someone else. He holds up the helmet of the person, talking about how their power makes him a god. I know that this is supposed to be Wildfire's helmet, but the art really doesn't make that super clear.

He continues through the chamber and we see a huge globe, holding a being of immense power. Thalon stands in front of his prisoner and sucks all the power he can into his armor.

Vox wanders through the underbelly of the castle he's in, talking to himself and pretending to be his father. He's by himself (I think - there is one panel where there's another face beside his so, yet again, I'm confused by strange art choices), yelling out that his enemies should die.

But even though he's yelling at the top of his lungs, he's somehow able to approach the Legion without them noticing. We get the dialogue and hear the Legionnaires talking about how they need to figure out where they're keeping Wildfire. Vox turns a corner and sees Umbra, Karate Kid, Invisible Kid, Shikari, and Chameleon.

(Can I just complain for a minute that they've got Shikari referring to Wildfire as "FireLegion?" Does no one actually read this comic? They've been close friends for a while...these nicknames need to stop.)

Vox escapes as, once again, a bunch of super-powered heroes aren't fast enough to catch a non-powered person. Not even Cham, in fish form, is quick enough. The boy gets out of the water and tries to get help from a guard. For reasons, the guard states that he's supposed to kill anyone who wants to disturb Thalon and he's happy to kill Thalon's son.

Tellus shows up and beats up the guard. Sorry, Cham pretending to be someone from Hykraius beats up the guard. There are more guards, of course, because it makes sense to have a ton of soldiers guarding an underground body of water that's going nowhere, so Cham starts beating them up too. Dozens of guards emerge from the door Vox opened and we have a big battle.

Vox goes to see his father, who's not happy he's disturbed the power transfer. We see from inside the globe that there's a skeleton hanging off a steel cable. Vox tells Thalon about the attack and his father spares his life. Then the skeleton asks for help.

We're already on page 14, so Thalon takes out each Legionnaire with one blast.

Back in the chamber, it's not the skeleton talking, it's an energy being that looks a lot like a teenager. He's asking for help, telling Vox that his father is using him to power the entire planet. For some reason, this changes Vox's opinion of his father - he's not the hero he thought... This would make any sense at all if Thalon had shown himself to be anything other than a petty tyrant, or if we hadn't seen Vox pretending he was killing his enemies.

Thalon moves to kill Umbra but Karate Kid was only pretending to be unconscious. He kicks Thalon's power fist away and then throws him with a nice judo move. But even a karate master can't last too long against a man in a suit of armor with Wildfire's powers... kind of... I guess this proves that Wildfire is more powerful than M'onel, because Val was able to fight him.

Vox frees Wildfire, who is somehow able to use all of his powers in his new, human-like form. I'm going to assume that Wildfire is completely different because we're in the anti-matter universe and not because no one on the creative team had a clue what his actual powers were.

Wildfire kills Thalon (no other way to look at that) and then Vox spits on his father's body.

The Legionnaires revive and start talking to Vox, who has learned nothing from this, still hates everyone, still wants to be violent and aggressive, and calls the Legion "soft." So the Legionnaires leave. We learn that he betrayed his father because he was "weak" for stealing Wildfire's power, not because he disagreed with what he was doing.

We get a final moment with Brainiac 5 where he explains that my guess was right - in their universe they see Wildfire as a blob of energy but in the other universe he's, according to Umbra and Shikari, "quite handsome." Brainy also drops the bomb that, because he was literally powering the entire planet, he's drained and his power will run dry and die. Wow - so they threw that into a fill-in issue?

I don't even think this is worth reading for Lightle's work. Just a bad story, badly done. I'm all for writers wanting to make their one-issue stories have some heft, but this one just didn't work for me. Champagne spent way too much time on Thalon and not enough time explaining why any of this was happening? How long was Wildfire held? Long enough for Thalon to build the armor, to build a way to siphon his power? If so, why did it take the Legion so long?

The Legion #35

I guess if you're looking for a cover to grab attention and make people want to check out what's going on, you could do a lot worse... and I think I've become numb to the exploitative way they've used Dreamer for a while now...

We have a brand new creative team for the final four issues of the series... which I've heard rumors writer Gail Simone didn't know was the fate of this title. I can't find any confirmation online, so if someone has a link to an interview, please share. If it's true, that's stunningly crappy.

She's joined by breakdowns artist Dan Jurgens and finisher Andy Smith - do I need to explain how talented these two are and their backgrounds? Can anyone explain why these two would do the four final issues of a badly-selling book?

For those of you who don't know why they sometimes write Breakdowns and sometimes write Penciller, I'll try to explain. Please remember I could be very wrong here. From my understanding, if you are doing breakdowns, you're doing very loose pencil sketches of the page layouts and the character basics. No backgrounds. No shading. Just the key elements. The finisher than inks everything and completes the page. When you see Penciller, that person is drawing almost everything and the inker, essentially, is going over the pencil lines, making the book look connected to the rest of the comic line, and handling the shadows.

I'm sure there are far better explanations than that, but I'm trying to be brief. It's a struggle.

Regardless, we have a really experienced art team, so if nothing else, the book's going to look good. And Simone, at this time, is very early in her career and just starting to make a name for herself. She's also a huge Legion fan, so this is probably a real dream come true for her.

We begin with Karate Kid flying someone called the Organ Thief to the new prison called Oasis One. They're talking about how the Thief feels he could've beaten Karate Kid in a fight and taken his lungs. Lovely. 

Oasis One is a huge floating prison that doesn't look too scary to keep the locals content. It also, according to our narrator, can be vaporized by a single button on the desk of the President of the United Planets.

The narrator, who hasn't identified themselves yet, tells us that they've just turned 21, are finally telling the truth, and informs us that something called "Spike" is about to occur.

In the center of Metropolis, President Winema Wazzo arrives on a space craft, accompanied by a Durlan named Taan, to honor Wazzo's daughter, the Legionnaire we know as Apparition. Reporter Trudy Truesoe is also there to cover it.

They approach the Legion, who are wearing what I guess would be called "regular clothing." Thumbs up to that - I always enjoy seeing the Legionnaires out of their uniforms. Winema immediately goes into "mom" mode, criticizing Tinya's choice of hair style. Brainiac 5 immediately starts complaining, saying that he hates wasting his time for this event.

From Legion World, Chuck lets Brainy know that they can't find Dreamer - her ring isn't registering anywhere. We find out that most of the Legion are off-world, trying to stop a civil war on a planet called Karahdia. So Saturn Girl can't help by scanning for Dreamer. It's up to the team we have: Umbra, Ultra Boy, Chameleon, Apparition, Violet, Brainy, and Timber Wolf.

In front of the Metropolis Museum of Anthropology, the President begins her speech. A man, on a far away building, stands up with an ancient rifle, and takes aim at her while singing in Italian. A huge holographic display of the Legion appears behind Winema and most of the Legionnaires look really uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable, we finally see what's happened to Dreamer. She's been shocked unconscious by a blue woman who looks like a demon, sorry, a woman called Devil and her partner named Canary.

Back to Oasis One, where Karate Kid is handing over the prisoner and, while walking him to what's called the Indoc Center, he runs into a woman. She says her father is the Persuader.

We jump forward to the cell, where the woman tries to talk to the Persuader. He doesn't want to know her, doesn't want to see her, and wants her gone. Could it be because of her horrible facial tattoo?

Back to the villains. One of them, Lantern, is flying around, reporting to Devil what's going on. He says that Arrow is the one who's aiming the rifle at the President. Devil gets in a little rant, complaining about how she hates everything and she's going to end... society? The Legion? Unclear right now.

Devil keeps talking about her plans as the Science Police arrive to stop Arrow from shooting. She tells Dreamer that Canary's super power is to amplify a Naltorian's powers. And since Dreamer is such a powerful precog, things could get combustible.

To no surprise, Arrow overpowers the S.P.s and takes over their cruiser. The Legion jumps into action just as Arrow jumps out, letting the vehicle drop to the ground.

Canary kisses Dreamer and suddenly everything goes crazy. The Legion flight rings stop working. The force shield protecting the President goes down and Arrow shoots her. Brainy just collapses on the stage, giggling that nothing is working.

Our narrator returns finally, talking about how anyone with implanted organs has started collapsing, as did all the hoverships. We finally learn who the narrator is: Trudy Truesoe herself. Who just turned 21? What?

All technology is gone, which, I guess, includes Violet's brain... for some reason I don't understand, she just stops doing anything, gets blasted by Lantern, and crashes to the ground. She did grab the S.P. cruiser though.

Brainy looks like he's going crazy and says to Umbra, "Did you ever wonder, Umbra? Hee. What those little implants on my face do? Heh Heh Heh!"

And Apparition is in shock, watching her mother bleed out, so Trudy rushes to the rescue.

Devil is still ecstatic and starts gloating to the now-conscious Dreamer. She says one is down and lots to go.

On Legion World, Gear and Chuck are just starting to figure out the damage. No technology for 40 kilometers and it's growing. Wildfire wants to help, knowing what happens without the environmental and radiation filters, but Chuck stops him - any tech-dependent Legionnaire should stay far away. He then states that they'll need the Legionnaires and the cadets - and they might have to evacuate Earth.

Back to Oasis One, where Karate Kid breaks through doors to escape because the floating prison has only 10 minutes of organic backup before they crash to the ground. Karate Kid asks about the woman he met before (still no name, of course), and the prison guard lets him know how horrible the situation is: 400 prisoners, no riot gear, only 32 officers, and when they crash, they'll probably kill over 10,000 people.

Most definitely to be continued...

I'm going to hold off talking about this story until I get to the end, but my initial thoughts are just one - the more you think about what's going on, the less sense anything makes.

For example, how can a Naltorian's powers have any effect on technology? Wouldn't it have been simpler to just explode the 31st Century's version of an EMP?

But I do want to end on a positive note - there were things about this issue I really liked. For example:

• As mentioned above, the Legionnaires out of costume
• New villains are always good
• Liked the shift from Winema as just horrible villain to overbearing mother
• More background info on the Persuader
• A callback to Brainiac 5 being slightly crazy (or worse)
• Just a beautiful looking comic - I really liked the artwork here
  

Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight... Visi-Lad!!!

Why yes, we are scraping the bottom of the barrel here, aren't we?

I can't lie, there's not much to say about Visi-Lad. He appeared on a couple of panels. He spent some time at the Legion Academy. He likes Shvaughn Erin. He was lucky enough to not get killed in any version of the Legion. I kinda like his costume design and think he looks much better the bigger his head is drawn.

There's one part of his origin story (which, let's be honest, was only ever fleshed out in Who's Who) that is just the purest form of comic storytelling. He was abandoned as a baby with four eyes and then adopted. His adoptive parents took him in and taught him how to use his super powers.

Just imagine - you're with your longtime partner and you're ready to adopt. The two of you are just regular people, no special powers, no special training. You have regular jobs and no connection to anything super-powered. Heck, you've probably had something you're connected to ruined by a super fight or two.

And when you get to the orphanage (stunning they still exist in the 30th Century), you're given the opportunity to raise a baby who has unknown and uncontrolled super powers. And you say yes. You spend the rest of your adult lives either overly stressed as your kid breaks/wrecks/intrudes/freaks out your home and lives. No one feels comfortable around you. You probably stop getting invited to family events. But you get to raise a child and teach them how to be the best person they can be.

This whole concept is so deeply ingrained in comic books. It's Superman's origin. And, kinda, Batman's. And Spider-Man's.

Glad to see there's another character who got the same kind of upbringing.

Until next week, where we continue with the last The Legion storyline and get closer and closer to the big look back at the Archie Legion. Please leave your comments and thoughts either here or on Reddit.