It's the end of the Threeboot Legion! Jim Shooter walks away and we get a very awkward final issue! We look at Legion of Super-Heroes #49 & 50

 

Legion of Super-Heroes #49

Although we didn't know it while we were reading this comic, this is the final issue for writer Jim Shooter and penciller Francis Manapul. Inker Livesay will be back for the final issue, #50. But let's not jump over the bridge until we get there.

It's Enemy Manifest part 4: One Evil.

We begin with Projectra, training in some dark room with the rest of the Orandans who are helping her gain greater power to get revenge on the Legion and the United Planets for what happened to their planet. It got destroyed, if you had forgotten. And then she lost her title, all her power, and all her money. And no one helped her... unless you count Phantom Girl for reading old comics to her.

Projectra has become much more powerful, defeating Orando's greatest warrior with one kick. She can also force people to do what she wants by controlling their minds and motivations.

Speaking of Phantom Girl, she finally gets a Legionnaire to listen to her about her concerns regarding Projectra - she and Saturn Girl talk about what they can do. Imra refuses to do a mind probe - Lightning Lad has ordered her to never enter another Legionnaire's mind without permission.

Their drink is interrupted by a very angry Timber Wolf, who destroys the serving robot by their table and commands them to leave Projectra alone. Imra threatens to have the out-of-control Brin kicked out of the Legion so he backs away, angry about what's happening.

But Imra admits she doesn't want Timber Wolf gone - they'll need him against the alien threat they're facing. She also reveals to Tinya what she did with Ultra Boy and how she's ruined her life. If you don't remember that she hooked up with the most degenerate of all the Legionnaires (and that's saying a lot), cheating on Garth, I wouldn't blame you for trying to block that from your memories.

On the Bridge, Lightning Lad and Invisible Kid do a nice job recapping everything we know about the alien invaders - they're actually avatars, unliving creations from a virtual dimension that can create as many attackers as they need to defeat anyone. Brainiac 5 is trying to figure out how to battle them and he's figured out their "weapon," a data ripper that makes perfect copies of whatever it zaps. He zaps a sandwich, puzzled new Legion reservist Sizzle eats it, and Atom Girl is happy to have a new Legion member who's shorter than her... and dumb...

Elsewhere, the Ultra Boy rehabilitation project continues as he tells Element Lad how he would give anything to have a girl like Saturn Girl as his. Oh, and Element Lad has broken up with Triplicate Girl (who's still missing with Karate Kid) and is now dating someone else. Then Ultra Boy gets flowers from Norima - the woman he saved on Rimbor a few issues ago. Or maybe last issue... who remembers anymore?

I have to be honest, and I say this as a longtime Legion fan, even I'm struggling to keep track of everything Shooter's throwing into this series. So many side characters and so many Legionnaires who we don't see for issues at a time. Would captions be so hard? Maybe this reads better in a trade...

Brainy begins the mission to figure out what's going on, using the transmatter gate to send part a few Legionnaires to deep space, right beside the new planet that's invaded UP space. Sizzle absorbs the energy of the force field protecting the planet and the Legionnaires enter. Brainy, Colossal Boy, Sun Boy, and Sizzle fly to the surface and realize that it's not a gas giant, but a huge metal sphere.

They discover the huge "factory" building alien destroyers, Colossal Boy uses the data ripper to capture a few of the emulations, and Sizzle releases the energy she's stored to destroy a lot of the creatures.

After flying away unimpeded (great that the aliens don't care about them doing this at all), Colossal Boy "rips" the planet and Brainy's worried his computers won't have enough storage to handle all the data.

They escape as Brainy expands his force shield and head back through the transmatter gate.

To no one's surprise, Lightning Lad is not happy they did this without permission but Brainy wanted to protect him from any repercussions. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough storage to get all the data from ripping the planet. But he did learn a lot about what's going on.

And we turn to another horrid subplot. The UP President, or Kin'thea as Garth calls her, gets Lightning Lad to meet her in her limo. Once inside, they chat for a bit and we find out the President's husband died in the Khund war.

She reveals what we learned last issue, that Secretary of Diplomacy Lafong was killed when she was "data ripped" by the aliens. Garth explains, as best he can, what Brainy has explained to him and he wonders whether they can get her life force back from the alien's virtual world.

Then we get... awkward. While talking about the pressures of being leaders, she asks him if the loneliness is the worst part. Kin'thea takes his hand, staring into his eyes. Garth says that he's never been so alone in his life.

A 40-something President and a teenage superhero. Who approved this?

Back at Legion HQ, Projectra demands Phantom Girl read her the comic story about Brainiac defeating everyone and taking back his kingdom. She refers to Tinya as an "insolent peasant" when Phantom Girl refuses. And tries to punch her. With Tinya's powers active, Projectra's punch just smashes the wall.

But Tinya makes a huge mistake. She goes solid to hit Projectra, who counters with a bloody swipe, leaving Tinya bleeding profusely and unconscious. As Projectra leaves, Timber Wolf activates the alarm on Phantom Girl's ring and follows the Princess.

The Legionnaires get Phantom Girl to the infirmary quickly but Brainy figures she's not going to make it through the night. The others figure that it was Timber Wolf who attacked, and Saturn Girl blames herself for not speaking to Garth. She enters Tinya's memories and sees that it was Projectra...

Who has just arrived to explain her evil plans to Imra and let her know she was her greatest threat. Odd that Projectra is still covered in Tinya's blood, but I'm guessing they just wanted to confirm that she's gone full villain by this point.

We get the big showdown - mindreader versus magician. Projectra takes control easily, shutting down Imra's responses. She walks over to Tinya, ready to do something in case she wakes up.

The next morning, Tinya awakens and says that she fell - no one attacked her. And when Saturn Girl probes her mind, she gets the same memory. I guess Brainy was wrong. Not sure why Projectra didn't just kill her because she honestly can't come back from almost maiming a teammate.

Finally, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl have their moment - he asks what actually happened between her and Ultra Boy and she realizes that he's thinking a lot about another woman.

Which is when the scramble siren (what?) goes off and we find out billions of destroyers have deployed in every UP system. They're under attack.

Most definitely to be continued... but by whom?

Legion of Super-Heroes #50

It's the end of the Threeboot. Four years. Fifty issues. Still one of the best-selling Legion titles of the past 30 years. One of the only Legion series in the past 30 years to never drop below 20,000 in sales.

And yet it ends, much like other Legion books, with a whimper. Shooter claimed they cancelled the book rather than deal with him any more (Oh, and whenever I'm mentioning what he thought, or the stories he was going to tell, it's all coming from his blog: https://jimshooter.com/ ). 

Series creators Mark Waid and Barry Kitson had bolted a while ago. A new old Legion was coming and DC was ready to reboot again.

For issue #50, Shooter was asked to cut his 16-issue story short and end everything for this finale. He was asked to take the remaining 5 issues and turn it into 1 double-sized book. And then he found out it wasn't 30, but only 22 pages. So he walked away and someone else wrote the book.

Who? Shooter theorized that Tony Bedard did it... but I think Bedard is too good of a writer for what's about to follow.

Let's begin...

Enemy Manifest Conclusion. Written by pseudonym Justin Thyme, pencils by Ramon Bachs, and inks by John Livesay (why suddenly credit his first name?).

At Legion HQ, Brainy and Lightning Lad have gathered 5 other Legionnaires, Saturn Girl, Star Boy, Gazelle, Atom Girl, and Ultra Boy to fight back the alien invasion that's taking place across UP space. Brainy recaps everything that's been going on and says it's impossible to shut down the alien's central mainframe - it's their entire universe.

As he talks about how they need to enter their virtual world to fight them, we see Shadow Lass, Colossal Boy, and Wildfire (wow - he's back?) fighting off the aliens on different planets.

He hooks them all up to a machine to turn them digital and attack inside that virtual alien world. As they are zapped and go unconscious, we learn that Invisible Kid is also joining them after he tweaks his avatar. No idea why they didn't tweak everyone's avatar.

Brainy stays behind as the Legionnaires who've been turned digital, including a new, buff Lyle who's trying to impress Gazelle, get ready to move on the alien threat.

On an aside, why these seven? Why pick this team? I mean, if it's digital, and they can tweak their avatars, why not pick Legionnaires who would be most comfortable in a digital world where things are not what they seem? Why pick any powers when you could give them whatever powers they want? Why include Gazelle, who is so new to the Legion, obviously has no clue what's going on, and has powers that are completely useless in this situation?

Yes, I know I've just spent more time thinking about this than anyone involved in creating this book.

The aliens, who sit and watch the violence brought on by the Legionnaires from their equivalent of an ivory tower, ask Minister Lafong what they can do to get the Legionnaires on their side. She offers to try to persuade them.

She heads out into the battle field to explain to the Legion that these aliens are preserving life within this virtual world and they abhor being really "alive." She warns them that their goal is to eradicate all life before the aliens shut her off, killing her again.

We get a horrible moment where Gazelle talks about how Invisible Kid looks better than she ever expected... wait... didn't she meet him in person before? I know he was going invisible a lot, but didn't they talk on Triton... way back when... and really? You only have 22 pages and you're wasting it on this?

They keep fighting and Lyle asks Brainy to turn off the tweaks he used in the avatar. But before he can, the aliens overrun the lab, knock out Brainy, and it looks like they tear these unconscious Legionnaires to shreds, killing their bodies.

Brainy wakes up, places himself in a force shield, somehow places a force shield around everyone in the virtual world, and starts taking control of the virtual world. He's in the code so he can do what he wants.

In two pages, he shuts everything down, shuts down every avatar that's attacking the UP, and basically saves the day. Well that was quick. And so simplistic.

Oh, and because we need to have Lyle happy, he gets a hug from Gazelle. I think that's the only reason she came on this mission.

One week later, after Brainy had enough time to regrow bodies for the seven in the virtual world, he brings them back and the Legion is back to normal. So they were just wandering around a virtual world, surrounded by beings who wanted them dead, and nothing happened? Or did Brainy kill everyone there?

Brainy also brings back one more person who's been living virtually... except she hasn't been - Dream Girl's back too.

No resolution for the Projectra saga. Or Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. Or, really, anything else that's been going on. Man, that was... a comic... 

For the most part, this is exactly what Shooter had planned for his story. So i kinda think that most of it is actually Shooter but the editor had to make some changes to get everything down to 22 pages. Oh, and the Dream Girl part was new.

As much as I'd like to say that this ruined where Shooter was going to take the Legion, after reading his outline on his blog, I actually think this might've been a mercy killing. Some highlights:

• Invisible Kid comes back in a female body, with Gazelle's powers, but without her weaknesses (kudos on wanting to introduce a trans character but wow, this comes out of nowhere)
• Brainiac 5's memory wiped
• Projectra getting Orando back and not really facing a lot of consequences - and also killing her parents
• Another Super character tied to Krypton
• Cosmic Boy returning from the future
• Cham dating insects
• Element Lad dying 

Let's be blunt, I can't imagine my response if I was a fan of the Threeboot Legion to find out it was being cancelled so suddenly, and not because its sales were horrible, and not getting any sort of resolution to anything. Would this have kept me away from the Legion? Maybe. Also, you had Final Crisis happening at the same time, so I'm guessing they wanted a fresh start... again...

And in defense of Shooter's claim that DC didn't cancel worst-selling books - here are the DC books that Legion #49 (at 22,177 copies sold) outsold:

• Batman Confidential #24 - 21,467
• Batgirl #6 - 20,747 
• Birds of Prey #125 - 20,158

They were also outselling Marvel books like Runaways, Captain Britain, She Hulk, and New Exiles. 

I seem to be saying this a lot, but once again, we have a Legion reboot that wasn't needed at all.

 

We close the book on the Threeboot, and to be honest, I'm quite happy it's over. I never really enjoyed the ultra-violent, team of jerks that was this Legion. It contained far too few moments of actual heroism or moments that "felt" like the Legion and, more often, felt like the creators were writing what they thought edgy teenagers would want to read.

To focus on the positives:

• Mark Waid did a great job thinking about the Legionnaires' powers and taking them in different directions
• Barry Kitson's redesigns were amazing and between him and Francis Manapul, I found myself enjoying the books for the art
• The addition of Supergirl worked far better than I ever expected
• Jim Shooter proved that he could still write engaging comic books and I'd argue he succeeded slightly more than he failed

But any positives are far outweighed by my negative impression of this version of the Legion. It's tough to make me start to actively dislike some of my favorite Legionnaires, but this version accomplished it on more than a few occasions. Ultra Boy. Brainiac 5. Shadow Lass. Saturn Girl. All made into horrible versions of themselves.

 

Please add any comments you have on either this page or the Reddit message boards. 

I'm going to take a slight break to recharge before starting a different version of the Legion. It's time for Geoff Johns to guide the team and I'm excited to see what he does with the OG version of the team.

See you in a few weeks!