It's the end of the first year and a new Legionnaire appears from a pebble... we look at Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #11 & 12

Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #11

Blood running down large logos is never a good thing in the Legion universe. Just ask Karate Kid.

The regular creative team is back: Mark Waid writing, Barry Kitson on pencils, and Mick Gray on inks. Is there a reason why we're changing inkers so often?

Legion HQ is destroyed. The Flight Rings can no longer communicate with each other, so the two teams trying to convince Dormir and Ttrxl can't find out how the other is doing. Destroyed comic books are strewn throughout the wreckage.

Dream Girl lies there, dead, while Invisible Kid and Brainiac 5 stand in shock.

For the first time this series, every Legionnaire gets a bubble explaining who they are, where they're from, and what powers they have. That's including Brin Londo, who's not actually on the team.

For reasons only known to him, Brainy places his force-field projector on Dream Girl's body, protecting her. Invisible Kid begs him to keep it, knowing they need to go and face Elysion, who's now destroying the metroplex and getting the Earth ready for Lemnos' invasion.

What's Brainy's plan? To beat death by out-thinking it.

Knowing that he can't get Brainy to join him, Lyle starts giving orders to the teenagers standing around what's left of the Legion HQ. He needs their help and he's proud to fight alongside them.

To Dormir first, which is the communications hub of the universe, and the Legionnaires find that red balls of energy are attacking... kind of. They're actually flooding them with information, so Cosmic Boy flies up and gets struck by one of them. He now understands... whatever the ball hit him with.

He leads the rest of the team through Dormir to meet up with the leaders of the planet. The red balls are sentient lifeforms and they explained this to him. The being they meet is humanoid but is just an image of the weather. Light Lass, again showing how smart she is, just reaches out to touch something and gets smacked away by the Dormiran. Element Lad saves her and the rest of the Legion is ready to fight.

But Cosmic Boy tells them they can't risk damaging the machinery - according to him, this is the equipment that's controlling the Public Service, the technology the adults use to control underagers. The thing that the Flight Rings block.

Next, to Ttrxl, which is in five dimensional space. Nothing works properly, including Chameleon (who can't control his shape-changing). Saturn Girl scans for lifeforms and Sun Boy tries to keep everyone calm. We learn that Ttrxl is the planet where all transmatter power comes from - so no Ttrxl, no transmatter teleportation.

How would you pronounce Ttrxl? And is it connected to Bgtzl? 

Shadow Lass suddenly disappears and is replaced by some new alien, Agent Skelter, who wants to arrest them for interdimensional trespassing. Another fight ensues and the Legion are completely outmatched. Skelter can change places with any of them and none of their powers work as expected.

Sun Boy figures out they're switched powers, so he uses Shadow Lass' dark-casting powers to cover Skelter and they all fly away. It's just so convenient that a person's powers switch with their opposite number. Which means, of course, that this won't be true the next time we see this group. Suddenly, they discover Saturn Girl is missing... and since she's no longer telepathic, but still mute, she can't call for help.

Back to Dormir, where the Legionnaires are more than a little angry that Cosmic Boy knew this planet was the home of the Public Service but didn't tell them. He says they can't destroy anything to try to keep Dormir allied with the U.P. Rokk begins speechifying again, telling the Dormiran that Lemnos is there to destroy ideas, like he did on Colu. And since the beings on Dormir are pure idea, they're in big trouble.

As he's talking, they start to realize that they're all turning into ideas as well. Star Boy is now surrounded by an image of the galaxy. Rokk convinces the being, who asks what to do. Star Boy suggests they re-establish communications and find out what's happening with Ultra Boy's team - the one that went to Lemnos' secret base.

Which is where we go now. The five of them, Ultra Boy, Projectra, Karate Kid, Triplicate Girl, and Phantom Girl, discover that they are very badly outnumbered. There's an army waiting to go through transmatter gates to continue the attack on the U.P.

Back to Earth, where a teary Brainiac 5 has realized that he's not smart enough to save Dream Girl.

To be continued... 

But wait... we get a back-up feature. Waid is joined by Dale Eaglesham on pencils and Art Thibert on inks.

Elsewhere in Legion Plaza, the underagers living around the HQ are now trying to rescue as many beings as they can. As they're pulling injured beings out of the wreckage, they're stepping on different old DC comics that show the 21st Century heroes rescuing people as well.

Two of the teenagers are surprised by their own blood, having never seen it before. Then they spot "Elastic Lad," who's crawling through the rubble to find more old comics. He's accused of taking them to sell and then a fight begins. Which matches more of the old comics.

The fight stops instantly and Elastic Lad says that he didn't want to sell them, he wanted to protect them. These old comics helped give the Legion inspiration and they're important. Every comic cover matches everything that's happening with these "Legionnaires."

Another underager tells him that he can either save the comics or help the survivors. Which is when he drops everything, letting the comics scatter to the winds. They rush off to help as many people as they can, with the final line being, "It's just comics."

That was about as subtle as a brick through the window. I get that the creative team loves, loves, loves the Silver Age, but every single reference to the old comics undercut what was actually going on.

 

Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #12

We've reached the end of the first year. How time has flown by...

We get a two-page recap of everything that's happened before; the chaos, destruction, death, and dispersal of the Legion. At the end of the final page, we get this:

Brainiac 5 has placed (Dream Girl's) body within a protective force-field. Seemingly in shock, he cannot take his eyes off her. Pity. For until such time as he turns his gaze a few feet to the left... he will not notice, amid the rubble, the one thing that might yet save the universe.

Has a character started writing the narration? Why would writer Mark Waid write "pity"? Why would anyone think they'd still be using feet for measurement in the 31st Century? 

Great. I am already annoyed by the recap. Time to focus on the positives...

We get the new Legion Roll Call page, featuring everyone. But no powers or origins here. And a nasty "Deceased" written over Dream Girl's face. Is it just me, or do most of the Legionnaires look annoyed, angry, arrogant, or distrusting? Not really how I want the Legion to look.

For this issue, Waid is joined by penciller Barry Kitson (with Ken Lashley drawing the final two pages) and inkers Mick Gray & Drew Geraci.

We begin in Lemnos' planet? HQ? War room? Ultra Boy uses his penetra-vision to discover that Lemnos is there (about a quarter-K east... see? metric in the future) and Brin Londo is in a cell. We also get this charming line from Ultra Boy, when asked how long he's had the ability to see through objects:

Since about a day before Saturn Girl started wearing lead underwear.

I've become convinced that all the women on the Legion have horrible self-esteem, if this is the guy they're all wanting to be with. To no surprise, neither Projectra nor Phantom Girl react to this shudder-inducing statement.

Karate Kid's only response: to tell Jo to stop joking and focus. Why is he helping him? Why is anyone wanting to be within 20 meters of Ultra Boy? Why hasn't he been kicked off the team?

As they argue about saving Brin, and how it's obviously a trap, Cosmic Boy appears in a red flash, using the Dormirans' powers to communicate. Karate Kid delivers the bad news - over 10,000 troops are waiting to attack. The obvious solution is to shut down all transmatter lines, but Cosmic Boy doesn't want to strand the five with Lemnos and his soldiers. Karate Kid tells him to do it and, with Ultra Boy, they'll be fine.

On Ttrxl, Skelter grabs a stunned and silent Saturn Girl. But Cham's taken her place after Shadow Lass darkened everything. Lightning Lad blasts the bad guy and Sun Boy tries to get Imra to scan Skelter's mind.

Cosmic Boy interrupts, letting them know the new plan. Garth asks about Earth, which leads us to see Brainiac 5 searching through the rubble for something. So I guess he did look a few feet (or one meter) to the left. He starts talking to a pebble and then looks for a weapon to deliver it... he grabs one of Robin's slingshots. Yes, that's right... one of Robin's slingshots lasted 1,000 years.

Back on Earth, Elysion has made his way to U.P. Headquarters and is wreaking havoc. Other super-powered beings are trying to stop him, but none are strong enough. Brainy shows up just as the U.P. is regretting not listening to the Legion and Elysion gets his hands on a bloody and battered Invisible Kid... who is a distraction.

Brainy uses the slingshot to send the pebble towards Elysion. It hits him in the forehead and immediately turns into dust. Elysion gloats a bit before screaming in pain as his left shoulder rips open. Atom Girl bursts from his chest, Legion Flight Ring on her hand, and lets everyone know she's been exploring Brainy's microverse. Then she kicks Elysion in the head and pulls out a gun.

That's murder, right? Attempted murder? I'm guessing we've thrown away the Legion code against killing.

Back to Lemnos' lair, he stands and watches Brin, wondering why the Legion hasn't attempted a rescue yet. Then he gives a long-winded speech about how his army is an agent of change and that history will remember them. Just as he finishes, the alarms go off and it looks like the Legion is attacking the army.

Well, some of them are. Projectra conjures a spell outside Brin's cell and then Phantom Girl phases in to rescue him. Somehow Triplicate Girl ends up in the cell as well, but I've honestly kinda given up trying to make sense of anyone's powers so I'm just gonna roll with it.

Projectra gives Brin a big kiss to say hello and then explains her illusion-making powers. All the security cameras will only see what she wants them to see. I really like this new take on her powers - embracing the magic side along with the illusions. I'll ignore that she's undergone a complete personality change, but I guess that's what happens when your planet is destroyed.

Who's fighting the army? Ultra Boy and Karate Kid. We get a few jokes about how stupid Rimborians are before Brin shows up and now we have 3 against 10,000.

Three... people... against... 10,000... And one of them has no super-powers... I think... I'm assuming that Lemnos got as many superpowered villains as he could, so it's not like it's 10,000 normal people against three Legionnaires.

Cosmic Boy hooks into the Dormir communication set-up after taking off his ring (so I guess he's part of the Public Service) and begins talking to the galaxy. It's now Legion Channel One. He orders Lightning Lad to shut down the transmatter lanes and calls on everyone wanting to be free to fight against Lemnos' army... and be a Legionnaire.

To be concluded...

But wait... we get another backup story...

Written by Stuart Moore with art by Ken Lashley and Greg Parkin. We also get the note that this story takes place before the events of Legion #1.

Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are on the planet Vash, where the radiation flooding over the planet has shortened everyone's lifespans so it's an entire planet of teenagers. No one thought of, I don't know, trying to block the radiation. Or move them to another planet? Or anything to save lives?

The Legionnaires have arrived to try to set up Vash as an observation base and the "elders" of the planet must decide if they want what the Legion is offering. As they wait the 40 minutes for the planet's leaders to make their decision, Garth and Imra discuss whether they should be recruiting this planet. Won't they be putting them at risk?

Imra points out the the Legion isn't stable and they're growing too quickly. Garth knows that they need to protect all the under-eighteens (I guess we're not using underagers) and this is the only way to protect and change the galaxy.

The elders of Vash accept the proposal and Imra and Garth wonder when they'll have to face this mysterious invading force.

Well that was a whole lot of nothing... At least the art was good.

And yet again, I'm fairly certain editorial isn't paying attention in the slightest.

Instead of giving my thoughts on these issues, I'm going to wait until the end of this grand storyline to comment on everything. So next week... it'll be a long one... 

 

Our next Legionnaire in the spotlight... Firefist!!

 

 

In case you were wondering how unimportant these Khundian Legionnaires are, The Legion of Super-Bloggers didn't even give them their own pages. Yep, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Which, considering how bad these comics were, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

Firefist is basically the Khundian equivalent of Tharok, as he's the leader of this group of "villains" and he's lost half his face to electronics. Unfortunately, while Tharok had a huge effect on the Legion, Firefist is best known as the guy who Devlin O'Ryan killed by accident. He was badly written and, since he's part of one of the worst runs in Legion history, he's pretty forgettable.

I already talked last week about how Firefist's wife, Veilmist, was a completely wasted character and the creative team could've done so much with her. I can make the exact same argument with Firefist. Just imagine how the Legion would've responded if, say, the U.P. forced the Legion to accept Firefist as their leader during the crisis on Khundia. Yes, he was the co-leader, but that just meant the regular Legionnaires could ignore him. If he was the only leader, it would've been far more interesting.

Then he murdered his former wife and we never cared about him again. Don't worry, we're getting close to some real Legionnaires... just a couple of weeks of Khunds left.

If you haven't listened to my brand new podcast, please check out the latest episode, our first spotlight on Saturn Girl. JimboFett and I are having a blast on these and I really hope Legion fans around the world enjoy them.

Until next week...