Long Live the Legion

    Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #5 I haven't commented on this before, but I just wanted to point out how good the covers have been so far. And this is especially good. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for aliens and lots of heads. Barry Kitson is back on art duties, which is great news. Let's see if writer Mark Waid can keep things moving along and actually progress on any of the subplots. We begin in the camp surrounding Legion Headquarters. United Planets Delegate Klarkev is working to infiltrate the numerous teenagers milling around and gets offered a free tattoo. The Legion logo is everywhere, as are aliens. Yes - I love it when Legion comics show all the different aliens in the DCU. Unfortunately for the U.P. and the Science Police, none of Klarkev's transmissions are getting through - the Legion has placed numerous psi-scramblers all over to block any transmissions. General Toling4rd of the S.P., who's not happy about anything that's going on, makes it abundantly...

  Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #3 All right, we have a rebooted version of Triad... or Triplicate Girl... or whatever they're going to call her. If Colossal Boy can be Micro Lad, then maybe Luorno could be Singular Girl. It's Triplicate Girl. We begin with her facing off against Phaxred, a terrorist who has discovered that since Legion Flight Rings are coded to the user, he can't steal her ring and fly off. She pulls him out a window and splits into three, saving him before he falls to his death. Does this Legion have a strict no-killing policy? Considering they've already fought against killers on the planet Lallor, I kinda assume not so much. I always have so many questions about Triplicate Girl's powers and this issue raises another one. One of her selves is holding up the other two, plus Phaxred, with one hand. Is she super strong now? Do her other selves not weigh anything? Just what are her powers in this new version of the Legion? Cosmic Boy promises that Braini...

Legion of Super-Heroes (v5) #1 Based on the end of Titans/Legion Special #1, I'm assuming we'll still see Shikari flying around and trying to figure out who is who... No, I'm not naive enough to think that's gonna happen. Instead, they're going to forget that ever happened and she'll magically appear with her teammates once again. For the first time in over a decade, DC Comics thought it might be a good idea to actually hire big name talent to create a new Legion of Super-Heroes title. Instead of cheaping out and going with new talent with no name recognition, we've got Mark Waid, famous for runs on The Flash, X-Men, Captain America, Kingdom Come, etc., returning to the characters he's edited and written before and artist Barry Kitson, who's already well known for runs on Azrael, Shadow of the Bat, L.E.G.I.O.N. and many others. Will it work? Will it bring in more fans? This issue sold 50,694 copies in December 2004 (and another 7,642 in January), mak...

For those of you who are new, or newish, to my columns, I'm going to give you fair warning for what's about to come. Now that we've finished with the Post Zero Hour (PZH) Legion, the Reboot Legion, or the Archie Legion and what I'm calling the Independence Day Legion (IDL), I wanted to go back and write about this entire "boot" of the Legion. Inspired by the classic movie "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", I'm going to separate the following into three sections. Just for reference so things make sense: The Archie Legion is the brightly-colored reboot that came directly out of the horrors of the 5YL Legion. It's populated by fresh-faced and young teenagers who look like they just stepped out of an Archie comic (hence the name). It ran from Legion of Super-Heroes and Legionnaires #0 (Oct. 1994) to Legionnaires #77 and Legion #121 (Nov. 1999) The Independence Day Legion (IDL) is, basically, the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (DnA)-written Legion (...