The greatest costume in Legion history returns... oh, and so does Supergirl! We look at Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #15 & Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #16

Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #15

On one hand, I'm happy to see Dawnstar, Blok, and Tyroc, three of my favorite Legionnaires from my childhood. On the other hand, I really don't trust this title to not turn them into jerks. Sigh...

We have a guest creative team this issue: writer Stuart Moore, penciller Pat Olliffe, and inker Livesay. I'm not expecting much as Moore's last Legion short story was pretty mid at best. Fingers crossed.

We start with three underagers gathered around a lantern, sitting outside and talking about how they can't be Legionnaires. After all, the HQ is in shambles after the previous storyline and no one knows what's going to happen next. I'm going to assume this story happens before last issue so this makes a little bit of sense. Wow... crazy that the editor couldn't have mentioned that...

A mysterious, almost phantom-like stranger appears, clad only in long blue robes that cover their face as well. They talk about how being a Legionnaire isn't about powers (although it historically always was) but about being heroes. We get our first story about how the core Legionnaires can do anything.

Well, actually, we get to see the Golden Age and Silver Age Green Lanterns trying to save the Golden Age and Silver Age Flashes. Some Legionnaires show up in a Time Bubble. Brainiac 5, Element Lad, Duo Damsel, and Bouncing Boy arrive to try to help.

If you wanted to see heroes helping heroes, look elsewhere. The Green Lanterns call them kids, which the Legionnaires take offense to. Bouncing Boy makes a fool of himself, Brainiac 5 figures out how to save them, and no one seems to like each other very much. One of the other kids calls it "the stupidest story I ever heard" and I'm not disagreeing.

Next story, we get the 70's Legion on Weber's World. We see Saturn Girl (back in her pink bikini), Tyroc, Wildfire, and Dawnstar aggressively going after Ambassador Relnic about the Dominator problem. Karate Kid suddenly arrives from the 20th Century, with the Secret Society of Super Villains and Captain Comet in tow. They fight, the Legion wins, and Saturn Girl wipes their minds so they can go back in time and not remember anything.

Our next story is Crisis on Infinite Earths - the Flash is standing in front of the Monitor's antimatter weapon and starts running in order to destroy it. The 80's Legion arrives, with Blok, Quislet, Sensor Girl, and the White Witch ready to help. They destroy the weapon, kinda save the Flash (makes no sense that they just leave him with only a protection spell) and fly off to Zero Hour.

The guy in the cloak talks about how his story, the final one, may not be real but that doesn't matter. It only matters if it inspires us. Then he takes off the cloak and looks a lot like Superboy. But, he's not. He's just another regular underager and he's also a Legionnaire.

Yep... that was a fill-in, all right. I don't know if it's a good thing to show characters that I'd rather read about in a fill-in, but what do I know? It was nice to see the classic Legionnaires show up after more than a decade, so I'm going to give it bonus nostalgia points.

We get the final reader mail section with Triplicate Girl answering all the questions all by her-three-self. She introduces the entire team, explaining their personalities and powers. Knowing what's going to happen next issue, it would've made far more sense to put this section in issue #16... but, once again, I don't know if the editor's paying that much attention to the series at this point.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #16

I'll just wear my ignorance like a badge here - I have absolutely no idea why it says 1001 years later on the cover and I don't really want to go look it up. So if I miss something, and you're reading this and yelling at my lack of knowledge, I'll own it right now.

Why add Supergirl to the book?

February 2006 sales -  Legion #14 ranked 62nd with sales of 32,500

                                 Legion #15 ranked 65th with sales of 31,637

March 2006 sales -     #16 ranked 41st with sales of 47,420

This is the second best-selling Legion-only book since before Zero Hour.

Our regular creative team is back as well - writer Mark Waid, penciller Barry Kitson, and inker Mick Gray.

We begin with a very uptight couple complaining that the Legion is gathering outside their apartment. The husband dresses like he's heading out into the dead of winter to complain.

At ground level, Ultra Boy, Shadow Lass, Chameleon, and Light Lass are tossing a Science Police officer around like he's a football.. either type of football. When the man tries to interfere, Light Lass shows him their new legal status. Ultra Boy reveals that the S.P. officer is actually an imposter and they're arresting him because they have those powers now. Shadow Lass takes the man's glasses and they keep referring to them as geriatrics and seniors.

The man leads a mini-revolution, leading to more age jokes from the Legionnaires. Our "heroes" eventually fly away with the adults complaining and the kids staring at them in adoration.

Cue the rant: Maybe I'm just old, and I can empathize with the "adults" complaining, but this entire scene makes the Legionnaires just look like a bunch of irritating, smug jerks. If there was anything the adults were actually doing that was so bad, or if they had shown, even for a moment, why the underagers were so angry at the adults, any of these scenes would make sense.

But consider this scene - the man is watching the Legionnaires physically abuse an S.P. officer. He tries to get them to stop. And they belittle him. And steal his glasses. He actually hasn't done anything wrong and, to be blunt, has no power to either make the Legionnaires suffer or improve their lives. So why is he the enemy?

This really just feels like a creative team trying to create tension when there isn't any. And trying to show what they think teenagers consider cool...

Rant over.

We get a new kind of Roll Call page, where we get outlines of every Legionnaire but only the members participating in this issue are shown and have captions explaining their powers. Kind of. In this issue we get Ultra Boy, Cosmic Boy, Element Lad, Star Boy, and Light Lass. Which means, of course, that we'll see them plus a few more. What is the point of a Roll Call page if you're not actually going to use it for what it's intended to accomplish?

We go to U.P. Headquarters, where Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are being briefed by Imra's mother about some Unidentified Celestial Object (UCO) that destroyed an outpost moon. Then the UCO almost hit Neptune and is heading straight towards Earth.

But to make this UCO even more interesting (like the threat of Earth's destruction isn't enough), whatever is within is wearing Supergirl's symbol.

To Legion Plaza, where Cosmic Boy and Micro Lad are... I think building the new HQ. Again... does no one have construction equipment in the 31st century? Anyway, Rokk drops the bomb that he's resigning as leader and there are going to be open elections. As Micro Lad reacts with shock, and enough shock that his face changes panel to panel, Light Lass calls in an emergency.

To Earthspace we go, where a bunch of bunch of Legionnaires are just waiting for the UCO to hit. It's Karate Kid's first time in space while the rest of the team is acting like this is no big deal.

The UCO arrives, decloaks, and they realize it's a old Dominator weapon. They work together, tearing it apart, and finally Micro Lad tries to stop it. The ship blasts through him, leaving him a little stunned and his Flight Ring starts sparking. Ultra Boy is injured, so he can't do much, and they realize that Gim's ring is hurting him... well, I think that's what's happening. Element Lad can't change the complex nature of the ring and they watch as the ship heads towards Metropolis.

I know I've cracked this joke before, but why would anyone live in Metropolis when it's always Ground Zero for any attack?

But it's Supergirl to the rescue. She punches the ship (I think), saving the day. Honestly, she's just punching colors. If it's supposed to be the ship, I'm guessing everyone was tired and didn't want to draw details.

She greets the people she's saved and lands in their midst. The Legionnaires join her quickly and Cosmic Boy is quick to thank her. She asks him where she is, he tells her it's the 31st century, and before she's able to identify herself, the crowd goes wild, shouting her name.

Cosmic Boy asks her if she's actually Supergirl, from 1,000 years ago. She grabs him and flies him to the top of a building... he mumbles, "up, up and away..." Which, admittedly, is a nice touch.

And they she reveals her truth - she is Kara Zor-El, she's real, and the Legion does not exist. She's dreaming them.

Okay, that was not the cliffhanger reveal I was expecting. It's a fascinating one.

I know this is going to sound like a weird critique, but I think this might be the worst-written issue of the Waid/Kitson run so far. Too often things were really unclear, they jumped through things really quickly, and there were moments that just made absolutely no sense. Both art and story just didn't gel for me.

And I say that loving the fact that they've introduced Supergirl to the Legion. We haven't seen her for a long, long time and this is a great twist to the series. Fingers crossed this progresses in a positive way.

 

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

 

Finally, we get to talk about the only Khundian Legionnaire actually worth anything.

Flederweb (or Batweb in English, and no, I don't know why a Khundian has a German name) joined the team with the other three but was the only one who actually ended up wanting to be there... and not dead.

He was a genetically-modified Aetian who was viewed as more of a freak than a person, so when he joined the Legion, he was quite happy to be treated like an equal. The Legion freed him of his mind-control device and he helped them free the Heroes of Lallor.

Yes, the wings, the ability to stick to walls, and the basic blue and black costume didn't make him too unique, but he had a power set that was very different from the rest of the team. The fact that he could be a "reformed" hero with this new, darker Legion would have worked really well for future stories. He also would've allowed the team to be a little more diverse. By this point in Legion stories, they were, once again, pretty uni-colored... cough...white...cough...

Unfortunately for him, his appearances were limited to 8 issues and then didn't even make a cameo comeback in Legion of 3 Worlds... which might have been a blessing in disguise. Much like the other three Khunds I've written about, Flederweb is yet another example of how the post-Giffen 5YL stories were all about missed opportunities or just bad ideas. I'd argue that they could've done more if they'd only been allowed to keep telling these stories, but the much-needed reboot was coming quickly.

Now for my dumb question of the day - was Tangleweb created for the PZH Legion as an analog for Flederweb?

 

Thanks so much for reading. Once again, please leave any comments here or on the Reddit Legion page. Be here next week when we continue trying to figure out if we, like Supergirl, are just dreaming this version of the Legion...