Threeboot begins! Waid and Kitson on the Legion! We look at Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #1 & 2
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), making it the 25th best-selling book on the market. It outsold Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Adventures of Superman and was the best-selling solo Legion comic since v3.
So yeah, it worked.
Let's see how good the story is.
We begin with a history lesson, telling us that history used to be made on the battlefield. We see images of ancient warriors, Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, Jesse Owens, Sgt. Rock, and the Justice League.
But the fighting is over. In the 31st Century, due to interstellar alliances, Earth is peaceful and living in a utopia. The narrator is bored and sick of the safety and security. The narrator? A member of the Legion!
And Legion they are. According to the Science Police, they number about 75,000 - any kid in the galaxy can join the team as long as they believe the vigilantes of the 21st Century should be admired.
There is also a core team - 15 to 20 with code names and costumes. They're the "cowboys." Which is, of course, a term that not everyone would understand.
They're endorsed by the United Planets so the S.P.s can't arrest them. Speaking of the S.P.s, we're getting all this background exposition as two of them talk about the Legion. To make this scene slightly more confusing, we soon realize that these two people are actually in the same room, back-to-back, but communicating through screens. I'd joke at this being crazy, but I've seen cell phone users doing the same thing...
We meet our first six Legionnaires: Shadow Lass, Sun Boy, Star Boy, Colossal Boy, Ultra Boy, and Light Lass. Everyone's in new costumes and they're already arguing with each other. Ultra Boy seems to be especially testy.
The S.P.s arrive and order the "children" to drop the head of the robot they just destroyed. So Ultra Boy does exactly that - on the S.P.s. Thankfully, Light Lass uses her powers and saves them from being flattened. Does this mean Ultra Boy is okay with murdering the police or did he know Light Lass was going to prevent him from committing an atrocity?
We learn that the team doesn't much like the S.P.s and keep their helmets as souvenirs. We learn that Light Lass and Ultra Boy used to date. And we learn that Star Boy is now Black. And he's used his powers to keep the S.P.'s guns stuck to the ground.
The six fly back to Legion Headquarters, which is surrounded by thousands of their members. Sun Boy talks to a woman with tentacle-like things growing out of her back - she tells him that they've added 1,400 new Legionnaires on Lallor and are becoming a political movement. Unfortunately, they've also been outlawed on Daxam.
We then meet up with Lyle Norg (remember him from the Titans/Legion special?). He's not just invisible - he disappears from all wavelengths. Light Lass flirts with him a bit and gives him his new code name: Invisible Kid.
They joke about code names when we learn that Colossal Boy's name is actually Micro Lad - he comes from a race of giants and his superpower is the ability to shrink to six feet tall.
The Legion has a rule about code names - because everyone in the 21st Century had their gender in their name like SuperMAN or BatMAN, Legionnaires have to do the same. Unless they have no gender - like Chameleon. So we're just ignoring, you know, Green Lantern, Robin, the Flash, etc., etc., etc... If only they could have said they were inspired by one specific hero, one with "boy" in his name, that would make this all make sense.
We enter the Headquarters, decorated with musical instruments, a foosball table, and spinner racks full of DC Comics. For Invisible Kid, it feels like home.
In the Mission Room, Cosmic Boy is talking to the U.P. delegates when he's interrupted by Star Boy and Shadow Lass, and then by Ultra Boy simply shouting "Lallor!"
They sprint to the Transmatter Room and fly through, immediately teleporting to Lallor. A revolution has taken place. There are dead bodies everywhere and fires smolder in the background. The adults have wiped out the Legion membership there, killing them because the adults knew better.
Sun Boy takes charge, ready to attack, when Cosmic Boy orders them to stop. They can't attack - only defend to protect themselves. Lallor isn't a U.P. world and they must be careful.
Sun Boy doesn't care, ready to attack and get revenge for the Legionnaires who died on that planet. Cosmic Boy, at the urging of the U.P. delegates, wants them to stop. If the Legion attacks, we get closer to an intergalactic war. And who fights in these wars? The youth the Legion are trying to protect.
But Sun Boy argues - they're not the U.P. and the Legion fight their own battles. Cosmic Boy thinks for a moment and then shuts the U.P. down with the battle cry of "Eat it, Grandpa." He tells Sun Boy and his team to kick some ass.
The Legion defeats the adults on Lallor and Star Boy and Invisible Kid have a nice little chat about things to wrap up this issue. We learn why there are thousands of kids living on the streets around the headquarters - they're there to protect the Legion from the S.P.s. As Star Boy says, "They're not here because of us... we're here because of them."
My first thought is that this story might be even more effective today than it was in 2004. With "Okay, boomer," being an epithet, this version of the Legion might connect with readers now in an even stronger way.
Let's talk about the positives:
- This is a well-written first issue - it's the Legion but with enough changes that it won't get tied down in continuity any time soon. The names are the same but that's about it. I really like this new teenagers versus adults theme and Waid does a great job making sense of every aspect of Legion lore - the code names, the ages, the inspiration...
- I love Barry Kitson's artwork. His redesigns are incredible. We finally get a Shadow Lass who dresses like a warrior representing an entire planet. Star Boy looks amazing. We have aliens, we have futuristic designs, and we actually have something that feels like the 31st Century. Two thumbs up!
- Words cannot describe how happy I am that we didn't have to go through yet another retelling of the three teenagers saving R.J. Brande story. We jump right into the action and let exposition flow to catch us up.
- I spent last week complaining about what a reboot should be - this is most definitely it!
Legion of Super-Heroes (v5) #2
Before we start, here's the sales data:
Issue #2 sold 42,176 copies, ranked 30th for the month. They only dropped five spots in the sales rankings, so DC must've been dancing with these numbers.
Continuing with introductions to new Legion members, we find Karate Kid, Element Lad, and Dream Girl saving U.P. delegates from an assassination attempt. Working from Brainiac 5's calculations, they break into the chamber, beat up the traitorous translator, and save the day. We learn Karate Kid likes to break things, Element Lad's powers only work if he's touching the thing he wants to transmute, and Dream Girl zones out when she's seeing the future. Once she wakes up, she evades the attack easily, disarms (literally) the villain, and Karate Kid's very happy to have a precog on the team.
We also get our first captions in the series explaining who the characters are, spread over two pages. I guess this is kinda like the Legion roll call. My only gripe - Element Lad's soul patch.
One week later, Brainy and Cosmic Boy are arguing in Brainy's lab. If you thought the reboot Brainy was a jerk, we're about to get a whole lot worse. He says he'd teach a goat to talk to (instead of Cosmic Boy) if he wanted to be patronized by someone he respected. He's snappy, arrogant, and upset over the fact that Dream Girl comes to the same conclusions he does. Science versus super powers and he's angry about it.
Dream Girl tells Cosmic Boy that she's going to take Karate Kid and Shadow Lass along and we all realize she's having a conversation that the others haven't had yet. Where are they going? Naltor. Why? Because every Naltorian under the age of 18 haven't slept for nine days.
On Naltor, Dream Girl confronts the High Seer, trying to find out what they're doing for the youth of their planet. He says that they're just going to wait and see. But Brainy puts a Legion flight ring on the boy and he immediately falls asleep. There's no disease - the Naltorians are creating this sleeplessness in the children (or underagers as they're called here). Dream Girl wants to find out why the Naltorian government is doing this but Brainy doesn't care why.
To explain, if you don't remember or didn't read this series - every planet pushes out their signals that go directly to their citizenry's brains. The Legion ring blocks those signals so they can't be tracked or overloaded with propaganda. By placing the ring on the youth's finger, they no longer suffer from the Naltorian signals that prevent them from sleeping.
Brainy flies off, and we soon learn why Karate Kid and Shadow Lass are here - Naltor's police, the Precommandos, have shown up. They want to arrest the Legionnaire on charges to be determined and the fight begins. Since the Precommandos can see the fight before it happens, they start making quick work of our heroes. So Dream Girl joins the battle. She threatens them, telling them to focus on her.
Which is when Shadow Lass and Karate Kid smash them from behind, knocking them out.
Since Dream Girl basically took care of everything herself, why did we need the other two?
Dream Girl needs to go to sleep, to discover what the Naltorian government doesn't want the underagers to see. Karate Kid hits her, knocking her unconscious. Which isn't how dreaming works, but oh well...
In her dreams, Nura sees death and the planet's destruction. And some threatening-looking guy. She wakes immediately, searching for Brainy. He's at the Naltorian Public Service Broadcast Tower, trying to stop the subsonic frequency that's messing with the underagers' brains.
Dream Girl and the High Seer tell him to stop. The war she saw would take the lives of most of the youth of Naltor. The High Seer thinks it's merciful for them to not be able to see their fate. The Legion disagrees and Dream Girl destroys the device.
Back at Legion HQ, Brainy and Dream Girl talk about whether they did the right thing. He doesn't talk about morality, he talks about possibilities. One young person might find a way to stop the war. He says that her predictions don't have to be infallible.
Dream Girl's response: "You'll feel different when we're married."
He's stunned, but knows that she's joking. And someone has to do a better job to mock him.
Which is when he discovers a herd of goats in his lab.
In one issue, Waid and Kitson take Dream Girl from a joke to one of the most interesting and dangerous members of the Legion. The previous reboot played around with it, especially when Dreamer was training with the Khunds, but never showed her at full power. But now, we see why she's such a valuable member of the team.
On the bad side, we once again have no idea what Karate Kid's actual powers are. If he's a martial artist and a human, with no special powers, I have no idea how he punched through an entire wall. But I do like what they're doing with both him and Shadow Lass.
On the worse side, I really can't stand Brainiac 5 as arrogant ass. Can't they give him one redeeming quality?
But these issues come as no surprise - you hire two amazingly talented people to work on the Legion and you get two amazingly good issues.
Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight... Echo!
I got nothing. Honestly, I couldn't have picked this character out of a lineup for $1,000,000. I thought Visi-Lad was scraping the bottom of the barrel, Legion-wise, but this one is the perfect example of just how badly the 5YL Legion became an exercise in dragging up obscure characters from the Silver Age.
Here's his Legion of Super-Bloggers page.
If anyone has any memories of this guy, please share. I'm at a blank...
Thanks to everyone for checking out this week's column and we'll see you next week, continuing the Threeboot Legion!
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