The Quest for Cosmic Boy begins and the Legion slows down and stretches out the stories... we look at Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #31 & 32

 

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #31

I'm always a sucker for covers that just show the team flying out towards the reader, but I have to wonder what happened to Supergirl - Barry Kitson has never drawn her like this before.

It's the official beginning of the new era of Legion stories. Series creators Mark Waid and Kitson are gone and they've been replaced by frequent fill-in writer Tony Bedard and, for this issue only, artists Kevin Sharpe and Robin Riggs.

We get an interesting change to the Roll Call page as well - it's back to Atom Girl so I guess that's her official name now... And Mekt is listed as a Legionnaire, which makes no sense. Oh well.

We begin in another one of Brainiac 5's dreams - he's the hero, having saved the Earth from the Dominator threat and Bedard uses this sequence to provide tons of exposition about what the future is like and what they did to win the battle last issue. Is he assuming that no one has read the previous issues or that we've all forgotten what Waid was doing? Dream Girl shows up to warn Brainy about the future - she tells him that this is a turning point for the Legion.

Star Boy wakes Brainy up to let him know Cosmic Boy is missing... and, for some unknown reason Brainy already knows this. They talk about who is the new leader. Just as they're about to find out, we go to Supergirl.

She's flying around the planet, saving as many people as she can. In Brasilia, she catches a falling man and finds out he's working for the U.P. He's Tenzil Kem, Special Prosecutor. He wanted to be saved because he needed to talk to her - Supergirl is the new leader of the Legion.

We head to Metropolis Convention Center, the new home for the Legion since their HQ was destroyed... again..., where Supergirl is giving a speech. Mekt and Garth talk about how it should've been Lightning Lad as leader (and in the version I have, they screwed up the speech balloons). Supergirl offers Legion membership to both the Wanderers and Sun Boy's team after their help with the Dominators.

Tenzil Kem takes the floor, addressing why he's there - they need to investigate whether Cosmic Boy should be tried for war crimes. But not Brainiac 5, who built the bomb? Or, honestly, the entire Legion who let them do it. We get more arguing about who should be in charge because Supergirl is really in over her head.

Brainy grabs her off the stage and tells her to listen - he's figured out the three most obvious places Cosmic Boy could've gone to. So she breaks all the super-powered people into three teams to go looking. Well, it looks like she's done that... but we're going to find out she only sent nine people looking and the rest of the Legion is going to... sit around??

At Metropolis Hospital, Timber Wolf gets out of bed (after choking his doctors - really?) and is greeted by Projectra, Atom Girl, and Shadow Lass. They have a new mission and since they're, in Violet's words, "the three meanest mothersprokers on the roster," it's going to be fun... or violent.

As they leave, Projectra (who I guess isn't violent or being sent anywhere) sees Invisible Kid recovering from his lost arm. They're growing him a whole new one. He warns Jeckie that Brainy's plans aren't ever what they seem.

Timber Wolf, Atom Girl, and Shadow Lass head to Lallor, where they are immediately attacked when they get through the transmatter gate. Rebels want Lallor's president killed and they're assuming the Legionnaires are those assassins.

On Earth, in the Gobi rainforest, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Supergirl are searching through the jungles. They argue over who's actually in charge - Imra and Garth figure Brainy is calling the shots.

Somewhere else, a fiery alien is watching them through monitors.

The third team, Star Boy, Sun Boy, and Mekt, are arguing as well. They're on Winath, Mekt's home planet, and seem to be more focused on why they're there instead of what they're looking for. Mekt points out that they're natural rivals - two of them lead their own teams and Star Boy was Cosmic Boy's right hand... strange, I don't remember that in the slightest. Triplicate Girl, yes. Star Boy?

They fly to the Ranzz family farm and they're greeted by Tenzil, guessing that perhaps the Wanderers kidnapped Cosmic Boy.

To be continued...

Let's start with congratulating Bedard for coming up with a new and interesting take on Tenzil. He's obviously older than the other Legionnaires (no way he'd be an underage Special Prosecutor) and presenting him as a possible threat is a nice touch.

Unfortunately, that's really the only nice thing I can say about this book. Lots of unneeded exposition ruin the first part of the book. Supergirl splitting them into three teams of three makes absolutely no sense (especially when you have the Wanderers and Sun Boy's team). The teams themselves make even less sense.

And the artwork is not good. Sharpe really struggled with such a large cast and the characters change from panel to panel. There's also some absolutely horrible poses (almost every Atom Girl shot) that make the characters look like they're suffering from some sort of spinal injury.

But Bedard has truly captured the "these Legionnaires are jerks" vibe fairly well.

Let's see if it gets better next issue...

 

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #32

We get a new artist this issue! Dennis Calero has taken over the interior and cover art. Judging by the cover, we're already getting a little more attitude. Unfortunately, we have another artist who can't draw characters the same way panel to panel. One step forward...

We begin with more exposition and a brief recap of what Cosmic Boy said right before they "destroyed" the Dominator home world. We learn that investigator Tenzil Kem's glasses are also recording devices and lie detectors. And that he's going to arrest Rokk for the destruction of said planet.

We all know that he didn't really destroy it and they just placed it in the Phantom Zone... but most of the Legionnaires think he killed everyone. So we all have to pretend that any of this makes sense as this whole storyline feels like a bad Three's Company episode.

The trio on Winath, Mekt Ranzz, Star Boy, and Sun Boy, enter Mekt's family home, looking for anyone. But no one's there. Kem explains how he beat them to Winath - they've been tracking the same electromagnetic bursts that Brainiac 5 did to determine where Cosmic Boy might be.

Star Boy calls in to Legion HQ for help but gets Brainy, who doesn't seem too helpful. He complains about all the work he needs to take care of, solving the U.P.'s problems. Star Boy tells him that everyone is gone and all Brainy has to say is that they need to be better than Kem.

A storm is coming so Mekt leads them down into the storage bans. It's empty - completely empty. Mekt has never seen it like this before.

Kem has spotted something a little concerning. There's a big painted symbol with the word "Validus" underneath. Mekt overreacts, they start fighting, and Star Boy uses his powers to get them under control.

Mekt is nice enough to explain what Validus means. According to him, it's a local myth, the Lord of Lightning. The god that controls the storms that ruin their crops. The cult of Validus was formed as the Winathians are very superstitious and they recruited Mekt, sent him to Korbal so he could find Validus. When he got electric powers, instead of being lauded for being more like Validus, Mekt was shunned by the cult.

Tenzil wanders off, looking for a comm signal, and falls for the oldest trick in the book. Two kids tells him to follow and they'll show him where the mayor is. He ends up in a grain silo, locked in, and wheat starts dropping down on his head. It takes very little time for him to be covered.

The other three soon find the mayor and the rest of the Winathians... including Mekt's parents. The Validus spray paint is there, along with a ton of candles (which seems like a bad idea with the wheat dust in the air), and they're not happy to see Mekt. In fact, they believe he must be punished and Validus commands it.

The Winathians shoot lighting at Mekt, blasting him while they're chanting about the Lord of Lightning.

Thus ends chapter one of "The Quest for Cosmic Boy: Lord of Lightning."

 

To be blunt, it really feels like editorial told Bedard to write stories in the opposite style of what Mark Waid had been doing. Everything has slowed down to a crawl and we're focusing on Legionnaires and guest stars who we've barely seen before.

You may have also noticed that these recaps are shorter than normal. Whereas Waid wrote incredibly dense stories that took a long time to read, Bedard has started his run off by padding the stories and stretching them out. Not much happens in #32 but takes 22 pages to get... somewhere...

On one hand, I do kinda like these "lowered stakes" stories where we get to see how individual team members act on short little missions. On the other hand, this is such whiplash from what this book's been doing for 30 issues that it really feels like we're reading a different title.

I'm also not sure why the focus is on Mekt and Tenzil when there are actual Legionnaires who we've barely seen since the title started. I mean, could we not get something with Micro Lad? Or Element Lad? Or Shrinking... Atom Girl??

Art-wise, Calero is really hit-and-miss in this issue. You can see the Maleev and Sienkiewicz influences on every page, giving this story a very different feel from what we've seen before. I'd compare what I'm seeing to the Legion Worlds mini-series - everything's so dark and grainy that you've completely lost a lot of the sci-fi elements of the book... which fits on Winath but I'm not sure I'd want to see it for a big space battle.

 

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

 

 

Not many pictures on Google search today...

One of the best things about the reboot Legion are the new characters. I already praised XS and Kinetix the last two weeks and Gates might be my favorite of the new Legionnaires.

Ti'julk Mr'asz, from the planet Vyrga, has the power of teleportation. He can open green-colored gates to allow himself, and others, to move from place to place.

Gates brought two big improvements to the team when he joined:

First, as non-humanoid character, he made the team look more alien and helped them lean more into the sci-fi aspects of the Legion. I've said this again and again, and will probably say it more in the future - the more aliens on the Legion, the better. Having an insectoid character just added to the diversity of the team.

Second, his personality was a refreshing change from a lot of the other Legionnaires. He never wanted to join the team and saw them as a fascist, militaristic group. He didn't want to bond with any of his teammates at first and was openly hostile to them. But unlike Brainiac 5, who just kinda came across as a jerk, Gates' personality never seemed to cross that line. He didn't want to be there, he was contemptuous towards the Legion, but we all still liked him. Is it because there was no previous version to compare him to? Is it because his socialist tendencies made him more sympathetic? Is it because, when he complained about the team, he was echoing a lot of complaints we had? I don't know. But it worked.

Yes, the socialism was occasionally turned up to 11 and didn't make sense. Yes, his sudden connection to certain Legionnaires didn't make a ton of sense. But all in all, he had a great run on the team.

Well, until Abnett and Lanning turned him and his people into engines in a story that made no sense whatsoever.

I've been happy to see that Gates is one of the few reboot Legionnaires who has survived multiple reboots. He came back in the second version of Legion Lost and keeps popping up in different series and shows. Hopefully this means we'll see him again in the future.

 

Thanks for reading - please leave your comments about Gates or the new direction of the Legion either here or on Reddit and we'll see you next week for the exciting... hehe... conclusion of the first part of the quest for Cosmic Boy.