Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Are we all in Supergirl's dreams? To answer those questions, we look at Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #17 & 18

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #17

Is this all a dream? Have we entered Supergirl's mind and we're in deep REM sleep? Does the sight of Ultra Boy leering at Supergirl on the cover fill me with dread? Is Micro Lad hitting on Shadow Lass? We answer some of these questions this week as we continue rereading the Threeboot Legion.

This issue is brought to you by writer Mark Waid, penciller Barry Kitson, and inker Mick Gray.

We begin somewhere dark. A robot comes to life, surrounded by other robots, and they start talking about carbon reduction. Is this the DC version of Ultron?

The S.P.s and the Legion burst inside, both groups intent on stopping this new threat before it starts. Phantom Girl gets to be the sarcastic team member this issue, ripping apart the Science Police and the officer criticizing her. As the robot changes into a huge electrical threat, the Legionnaires start to realize that they may be in big trouble.

Supergirl shows up, unplugs the robot, saves the day, burns her symbol into a piece of metal for one of the officers, and flies off with the Legion. When Timber Wolf (I can call him that, right?) remarks that this whole thing is a nightmare, Supergirl apologizes, saying it must be something she ate.

I can call him Timber Wolf, as that's how Brin is identified in the roll call. Such a shame they couldn't have done that in, say, a story. Kinda like actually explaining why he was joining the team.

Back at Legion HQ, where Micro Lad is helping with the construction, Cosmic Boy, Triplicate Girl, Saturn Girl, and Star Boy are discussing the mystery of Supergirl. They know she's probably not insane, thanks to a mind scam from Imra and then Rokk gives us a nice three-page recap on who Supergirl actually is. He also explains his theory of what's going on - Supergirl is responding to the trauma of being thrown forward 1,000 years by convincing herself that she's dreaming everything.

What is Supergirl doing right now? Flying over Metropolis and getting both a tour and an explanation of how messed up the world is from Shadow Lass and Element Lad. We get some great exposition, and quite possibly the best explanation we've seen in this series as to why the Legionnaires are so irritated with the current culture, before Supergirl hears something and speeds away.

There's a building collapsing at Legion Plaza. She races in, saving a being named Seiss. She also realizes that he's the one who caused the collapse - when he has indigestion, his passes subsonic waves. Yep, his farts almost killed people. Burritos can be really dangerous in the 31st century.

This leads to Cosmic Boy offering Supergirl a place on the team, but since they can't afford to give her a flight ring (they can't afford make a new one), she'll have to wait a bit. Light Lass questions the offer and Rokk simply says, "She just stopped an earthquake by whistling. Can you do that?"

Seiss, who is stunned he actually has a superpower, is offered a position in a new group by a mysterious, shadowy figure who has a very strangely-drawn hand.

Time passes and we go to Science Police HQ. How do I know time has passed? Light Lass is there, working with Invisible Kid. Supergirl startles him and finds out that a Legionnaire has gone undercover to try to figure out if the S.P.s have been infiltrated. Why make this a mystery? If it's not Chameleon, I'll be stunned.

This gives Light Lass a chance to get angry about something and starts yelling at Supergirl, reminding her that this isn't a fantasy and things do not always go as she wants. Which, of course, is interrupted by Cosmic Boy officially offering her membership in the Legion. I guess the last time wasn't official. Maybe this is a dream...

Elsewhere, the Dominators are plotting and planning. They talk about how the ship that Supergirl destroyed last issue actually delivered a techorganic payload and they're going to focus on Earth again. He also says, "Remember the fifffffdeetu." Does this mean we're going to have to deal with an amazingly complex and irritating crossover? Urgh.

At the ceremony welcoming Supergirl to the team, Light Lass is happy to see that there's no ring. Supergirl closes her eyes and wishes for one and Atom Girl appears, delivering one from Brainiac 5. She puts the ring on and the team takes off to the skies. Only Light Lass looks irritated by this.

Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad wonder what that means. Did Brainiac 5 resign and give Supergirl his old ring? Did he make a new one?

Element Lad points out the worst option - that he took it off Dream Girl's corpse. Now that's a morbid way to end the issue.

This was a nice slow issue where we take care of some subplots, introduce the new villains (and the Dominators are always a great villain for the Legion), and show the team kinda rallying together.

I honestly don't know why it's Light Lass who's so irritated by Supergirl's membership and I'm really hoping they're not going to reveal she's just jealous because the boys won't pay her as much attention. Would it have been so hard to give us one page of Ayla and Garth talking about this and arguing about which way the team should go? There's just so much of this book that is never explained, so I guess I shouldn't complain, should I?

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #18

Am I the only one who thinks Supergirl looks like an elf? Or am I the last person to make this joke? Seriously... it looks like she's been pulled from a Lord of the Rings movie.

Slight change to the creative team this issue - Kitson is handling layouts, Adam DeKraker is on pencils and Gray and Drew Geraci share inking duties.

This issue gives us the first real taste of the underworld of Metropolis, and the S.P.s are investigating a possible machine uprising. Waid is borrowing from the Matrix here as he reveals that, centuries ago, almost all human life was threatened by A.I. They comment that even if the population doesn't know the history, they know they need to stop the threat.

As machines attack, the S.P.s rush off to fight. One who leaves his post, Officer Daggle, is wearing a remarkably obvious Legionnaire uniform under his clothing. Really? He couldn't shapeshift that away? You couldn't put Chameleon's real name on the Roll Call for any readers who don't get the reference?

To no one's surprise, the S.P.s do not want the Legion's help and they're quite angry even discussing it. Shades of Batman/G.C.P.D. here.

We then head to Brainiac 5's lab to see how he's working on bringing someone back from the dead. He's recruited the Imskians who has saved to do something to the unconscious Lemnos. He can't get any help from his own people, the Coluans, as their minds were destroyed by the now unresponsive villain.

Timber Wolf arrives with a device Brainy requested he locate and we learn two things. One, Brainy hates the "boy-lad-lass-girl" code names as much as most non-Legion fans. Two, the Imskians are "mining" Lemnos' powers over memory. They're recoding his brain to help bring Dream Girl back to life. Yep, her body is still there.

Timber Wolf is, to no surprise, a little shocked by this.

At the same time, the Legion is dealing with the High Seer of Naltor, who's wondering when Nura's body will be returned. Lightning Lad doesn't know anything about this and the High Seer tells him Brainy has the body... and then he threatens the Legion by saying they've already taken compensatory actions. Which, of course, makes little to no sense. If they can see the future, and they know that Brainy's done this, they would also know that no one else had a clue what was going on. So they're going to punish the Legion for Brainy's actions? Or, because he said "compensatory," they're going to demand payment of some kind?

Elsewhere, Saturn Girl has facilitated a mind link between Supergirl and Cosmic Boy to try to figure out what happened to her. We see a bunch of heroes, and energy pulsing through the sky, but nothing else. Supergirl just doesn't remember anything. The Legion bursts in, saying they need to find Brainy, and Supergirl speeds away.

In a private apartment, Projectra uses her powers to pretend to be with her parents again. Star Boy interrupts her memories to check in on her and see if she needs anything. Wow... a Legionnaire who actually cares about his teammates? This is new... And not Timber Wolf, who you would think would be the one reaching out.

As the Legion follows Supergirl... somewhere... they chat about everything that's been going on in the book and Ultra Boy makes another creepy, misogynistic comment. She can hear the cries for help coming from under the city and rushes down to join the fight between machines and the Science Police.

The Legion starts making short work of the robots and we get a nice moment where Ultra Boy takes a punch to the jaw. Yep, this is where we're at on this book - I'm happy to see a Legionnaire get hit.

As the battle ends, Cosmic Boy asks Supergirl to use her microscopic vision on some sort of powder that the machines were "feeding" to the biggest one. What does she see? Atom Girl. Or Shrinking Violet. Is it too much to just pick one name and go with it? Violet takes off and the team rushes off to confront Brainy... which they should have already done...

After breaking into Brainy's lab, and confronting him on what he's doing with a dead body, the Legion is both stunned and offended by the explanation. To put it simply, Brainy trapped Dream Girl's soul, or her "configuration of data," in her dead body and he's planning on bringing her back to life.

Ultra Boy is angrier about the fact that Brainy gave Nura's flight ring to Supergirl. Nope, no worry about the treatment of the body... but we draw the line at grave robbing! Does anyone, aside from Star Boy, have any sort of moral compass here? Ultra Boy isn't all bad, though. He does step forward and demand they take the body to Naltor and give Nura a hero's funeral.

Which is when they're interrupted by Rol Purtha, Dream Girl's replacement from Naltor. He's been assigned to the Legion by the U.P. I guess we now have a Dream Boy.

Before anything else, I just want to compliment DeKraker for the fill-in work. No, he's not as good as Kitson, but he's pretty good. I'm really happy that he was able to distinguish each character and make them look different. The facial expressions were really good too.

As I'm reading over these books, I can't help but ask many, many questions:

• Why is Brainiac 5 so obsessed with bringing Dream Girl back to life? He never showed anything but contempt for her... and for everyone, actually. Would it have been so hard to have written something, anything, to make this story make sense? To show why he cares in the slightest.
• Can I say that it's impressive storytelling that there are aspects of this book that I find incredibly good, such as the Supergirl problem, combined with aspects that I couldn't care less about, such as almost every moment Brainiac 5 appears? I mean, it's impressive enough that they've taken one of my favorite Legionnaires and made it so I can't flip the pages fast enough when he appears.
• Is this actually a Legion book, or just one focused on two or three main characters? At this point, they should call it Supergirl, Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy, and a bunch of tag-alongs.
• How much better would this book be if, instead of a reboot, Waid and Kitson relaunched The Legion and kept using the PZH Legion? Would the sales boost have been exactly the same? 
• Why did they not reboot any non-Silver Age Legionnaires? Where's the reboot for Dawnstar? Or Blok? Or Wildfire?

 

Our last pre-Zero Hour Legionnaire in the spotlight... Spider Girl!!!

 

 

 

Did you know that Spider-Girl, or Sussa Paka, holds the record for longest amount of time between appearing in a Legion comic and joining the Legion? She first appeared in Adventure Comics #323 way back in 1964 and finally joins the team in 1993. Has anyone else waited 29 years?

She's also the first Legionnaire I've written about here in a long time who has her own Wikipedia page. So congrats to whoever wrote that one.

She has an interesting history. She applies to join the Legion and is rejected. So, like all real heroes, she turns evil and joins Tarik the Mute's Legion of Super-Villains Academy. Yes, that was a real Silver Age story - a bunch of villains had joined together and created a school for bad guys.

She next appeared in the epic LSH/LSV showdown to start volume 3 but didn't really do much except pose and get blasted. We didn't see her again until volume 4, where she quickly became a key part of the story and joined the Legion... finally. She also soon displayed a character trait that would follow her into the PZH Legion:

Her unrequited love for Ultra Boy.

In 5YL, it was fairly uncomfortable as she wasn't aggressively harassing Jo, like Kono did to all the male Legionnaires. But it was still awkward - she kept pushing herself onto Jo, who wanted nothing to do with her. The writers actually decided to show that she wasn't completely insane by finally letting Jo go and encouraged him to find Phantom Girl in the past. At least she was able to hold her head high (as much as any character could in this trainwreck of a series) emotionally. She dyed her hair blue, became known as Wave, and we're all happy to forget those stories.

In the PZH Legion, she was a member of Workforce, actually dating Ultra Boy, but as that stood in the way of a relationship with Apparition, she became the third wheel in the most annoying romance in Legion history. Even worse, she got cheated on by Jo, got lied to by Jo, and was humiliated by him. And then, to add insult to injury, she was beaten half to death by the invading Daxamites and no one cared in the slightest.

No wonder she has always come back as a villain. Being a hero sucked for Spider Girl.

 

In podcast news, our latest episode came out today and Jim and I talk about what makes a successful Legion creative team and what DC Comics can do to help. Considering we know a new Legion series is on the horizon, I hope we're more than just a little prophetic with our topics.

 

Thanks for reading and please leave your comments either here or on the Reddit Legion page. See you next week!