Legion Lost continues to circle the drain while the worst rescue team imaginable does exactly what you'd expect... we look at Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #11 & Legion Lost (vol 2) #11

Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #11

If someone had asked you to create the worst possible Legion rescue team, could you do better than a Star Boy who can't walk, Bouncing Boy, Duplicate Damsel, Comet Queen, and two people who aren't even in the Academy yet?

Well, that's where we are. This sextet is heading to Dominator space to rescue Brainiac 5 and Dream Girl, who were kidnapped two issues ago. Why isn't the Legion doing anything? Because, once again, when the U.P. tells them to do something that goes against their morals and judgment, they blindly follow.

Oh, and so the title of this book makes sense, let's not forget that last issue, Dream Girl had one of her patented flashes of a prediction - she knows someone on the rescue team is going to betray them but she doesn't know who. Wouldn't it be great if Nura's powers developed at all since she joined the team? Or if her premonitions weren't insanely vague?

"Betrayal" is written by Paul Levitz, with Francis Portela handling the art for 14 pages, and penciller Andrew Guinaldo and inker Dan Green handling the other six. Not sure why they decided on this split, and I really don't think these art styles mesh, but it is what it is.

We begin close to Dominator space, where a comet is blasting towards the Homeworld. The Dominator ships are pretty generic and boring, which is just a little disappointing. To no one's shock, the comet is actually Comet Queen, using her powers to hide the six of them. Are they flying in a ship? Nope. They're just surrounded by smoke.

We get a two-page introduction to the team, so I'll introduce the other two I didn't name before. Otaki's power is something called "Mindsense," and she can read the Dominators' minds as they enter their planet's atmosphere. Mwindaji is their tracker, replacing Dawnstar, and lets them know that Dream Girl and Brainy are "upwind."

So many problems with this... first, how did these two get Flight Rings and transuits? Second, do they realize that a bearded Star Boy flying around in a futuristic wheelchair is giving off heavy Chief vibes from Doom Patrol? Third, how are Dominator sensors not picking up lifeforms? This group has no way to block any high-tech devices, unless you're thinking that Comet Queen's smoke is enough. Fourth, upwind? In the atmosphere?

The Dominators, of course, ignore the comet and just presume it's an omen of good luck. So they talk amongst themselves, show off an interesting font, and the head scientist thinks it's time to stop wasting time keeping their prisoners alive.

Speaking of captives, we head to Brainy and Dream Girl's cell where she can't figure out why they haven't been rescued (great point!) and he's fairly certain it's due to political pressure. The Dominators enter the cell, insult them, and then grab them so they can conduct their experiments. When one of them pulls out a... thing... Dream Girl kicks it away.

Suddenly everything goes askew and it looks like there's a huge earthquake. Nope - it's the rescue team! Punches are thrown, Mwindaji calls Luornu "ma'am," Otaki tries to read the Dominator's minds again, and Star Boy wants to get back to the cruiser... which is floating far off in space... so far off, I'm guessing the Dominators don't know its there. 

Brainy tells them they can't leave yet - they need to get his Force Shield belt as the technology is a 1000-year-old masterpiece and is irreplaceable. What? What?? Luornu, justifiably, doesn't want to risk her life for a toy and I'm guessing she no longer was gifted a belt in this timeline... anyone else remember that? That Brainiac 5 made multiple versions of the belt? That it was just a piece of tech?

I'm sure he means that the belt is more important, and, as he puts it, is "the regalia of my line." So he and Mwindaji rush after it and Luornu takes charge, ordering them all to follow.

Now let's waste two pages where Cosmic Boy accuses Mon-El of not showing leadership because he hasn't sent a rescue mission and Mon-El saying that those six people are the best rescue team they could assemble. And to leave him alone. Yep, that needed two pages...

The first thing Brainy finds is what's left of his Flight Ring. He's surprised the Dominators didn't realize that he's the only person who could build one of these? Well, Invisible Kid as well, right? Wait, if Brainy is the only person who can build a Flight Ring, what happens when he off-planet? Or if he quits the team? Does he have a stockpile of rings somewhere in the HQ? Would the Legion lose this tech if Brainy was off the team?

Continuing the inanity of this story, we get to another part of the Dominator's lair, Brainy activates the belt from behind a wall, and he grabs it immediately. For some reason, Star Boy and Duplicate Girl are surprised by... I have no idea...

Which is when more Dominator soldiers appear. Actually, I guess they're not really Dominator soldiers. They're the cloned soldiers they've "made" and they look a lot like rock villains from a bad animated show. As the fight ramps up, real Dominator soldiers show up, guns drawn, with orders to shoot everyone except Brainy.

Behind all of them is the head scientist... or leader... I've given up trying to figure this out... and Dream Girl points him out to Thom, saying he's responsible for all her sleepless nights. Before they can do much, Star Boy's chair explodes and they both go flying.

Otaki tries to attack the leader with her telepathic powers, but he soon turns it back on her, knocking her out. He comments that this new harvest will "improve the breed more" and I was wondering why they weren't trying to capture, not kill, them before. You would think having more super-powered test subjects would make the Dominator army even stronger.

Brainy and the leader start some sort of silly battle of strength before the Legionnaire explodes in a blast of fire. Who blasted him?

Comet Queen, who says, "Th-that's like, a present, starshine... from someone who really, really didn't like you..."

Dream Girl smacks her, immediately accusing Comet Queen of being the traitor she saw in her premonition. When is when she gets blasted in the back, knocking her out.

All our heroes have fallen, except Comet Queen, who's being held by a soldier. It's time for the Dominators to harvest them... which means, I think, eat them. And Comet Queen will be fed to the Primus Don, the supreme leader.

I know I've said this before, but would it be so hard for any character to make choices that make sense?

I think my biggest problem with this book is the choice of rescue team. What was the point? Are you elevating the six to show that they're competent and make us want to learn more about the two new members? Are you using the worst possible team to show that Mon-El isn't that great of a leader, or that the U.P. is pretty bad?

If those were the choices, they failed. The rescue team has been pretty bad for the entire issue. Mon-El's the strong one when being questioned by Cosmic Boy. And the U.P. is no where to be seen. What was the point of this?

I also think the "twist" that Comet Queen is the traitor doesn't work either for a couple of reasons. One, why would she ever betray Chuck? Two, does any reader actually care what happens to her?

It's always tough to write these when the book so completely misses the mark. 

Legion Lost (vol 2) #11

Speaking of missing the mark, I almost don't want to recap last issue because it was so horrible. Put simply, the Legion is going up against "super soldiers" they should be able to defeat easily and Timber Wolf's been shot multiple times. There are a bunch of dangling subplots that I know they're never going to resolve so I've pretty much stop caring about them.

"The Enemy Unseen!" is written by Tom DeFalco and the art is by Pete Woods, who I'm starting to consider as a tortured artist on this book...

Tellus, Gates, and Tyroc teleport to where Brin was shot to save his life. Tellus has also telepathically altered their appearances, so the aliens look like humans at this point, just to make things more confusing for anyone new to the book. Oh, who am I kidding? This book isn't getting new readers.

With a glance, Tyroc determines that Brin needs medical attention (yep, the multiple gunshot wounds are the best clues), so Oz, the con artist who has been helping Timber Wolf, says he knows someone - "close and cool!" Yes, that's real dialogue. Hello, fellow teenagers...

Which is when Gates realizes that Chameleon Girl's missing. Where is she? She's attacking the soldiers from Project Metamerican, one of which shot Brin. The shooter's name? Gunner.

We get massive amounts of dialogue between Yera and Gunner before Metamerican attaches magnetic grappling hooks to her face and Tripwire drops a ton of small explosives on her, knocking her out. Why no, I have no idea why something magnetic would attach to her face. And no, I have no idea why she wouldn't have changed into another creature to escape. And no, I have no idea why they approved this story... or why DeFalco got a writing job at DC...

Just as the soldiers are shocked at Yera reverting to her true form, as am I because they kept forgetting that part of Durlan lore in this book, Tyroc shows up to save the day. We continue making the Legionnaires look like incompetent idiots as Metamerican kicks Tyroc in the throat.

I've come up with a better answer to my earlier question. How could you make up the worst rescue team imaginable? Use the Legion Lost team as written by DeFalco.

Let's jump a few blocks away and get introduced to the latest human who's going to be part of this series. Dr. Shaleeka Mosley is working at Orchid Clinic, taking care of the sick and injured people who can't afford to go anywhere. She's stumped by the latest patient - a 22-year-old man who's mummified. But before we can get too deep into this latest subplot, Oz has arrived with Tellus and Brin's unconscious body.

She immediately takes a look at the chest wounds and hopes that no gang members are going to come and finish the job. She's also unsure if she can save his life. Wouldn't it have been great is Tellus had used his telekinesis to prevent Brin from bleeding out? Or to assist her in the surgery? Or anything that would show these characters actually have super powers... 

Wildfire and Dawnstar are still in the Antarctic, looking for any sign of Harvest or his complex. The rest of the Legion left them behind last issue because... oh, who cares...

They talk about his damaged suit (if you remember from last issue, he couldn't find a new suit when they went to the future and was worried that he's going to... well, they didn't finish that thought) and he reassures her that they can repair his current suit. So either he's lying or they're throwing away another plot point.

Then he drops this line: "I'm more worried about our relationship... I've seen the way you look at --"

Which is when Gates arrives to tell them that Brin's been shot. The subtext, if you can call it that, is that Dawnstar's been looking at Timber Wolf and Wildfire's not sure they need to rush back to save him. Yep, let's just make our heroes less heroic... and introduce something that hasn't been referenced, well, ever.

Tyroc and Yera, both injured, continue fighting the soldiers while trying to convince them they're not really the enemy. Um, one of them just shot Timber Wolf - why are you talking to them about anything?

Speaking of Brin, he's healing very quickly and the doctor is stunned. She's also confused by the strange way Tellus speaks, which makes more sense.

Oh, and I have to say, putting "Space Frog" on Tellus' shirt is a nice bit.

Continuing the subplot, a firefighter is attacked by someone who looks like a mummy while he's walking home from work. Okay, I guess we're just leaning into the concept of the Legion is street level heroes in New York. Am I the only one who feels like DeFalco is using rejected story ideas from Spider-Girl?

Since Yera has a concussion and can't change, and Tyroc has a throat injury and can't use his powers, they're struggling against the soldiers. I guess that's one way to make this a "fair" fight.

We go back to the Orchid Clinic, where Dawnstar is immediately overdramatically concerned with Timber Wolf's health and wants him transferred to a facility that does not exist in the 21st Century. As a result, Wildfire is incredibly depressed and is mourning the loss of his relationship. Wow - that's a massive jump, isn't it?

The doctor shows up and kicks everyone out of what is a recovery room and then we enter Brin's memories. He's thinking about when they arrested someone named Zorak and the Science Police sent him to Echo instead of a prison planet. What is Echo, you may ask? I have no idea either.

Tellus and Dawnstar find the mummified body the doctor was working on before and she recognizes Alastor's energy signature on the body. Instead of calling for help, because no one on this team would ever consider doing the smart thing, the two of them fly off to find the villain that we've been ignoring for a while.

Wildfire is just flying by himself, feeling sorry for himself, and reveals that he lied to Dawnstar. With his containment suit damaged, and his inability to repair it, he'll eventually dissipate and disappear forever... which isn't how his powers work at all and would it have killed anyone who worked on this book to read a single Legion comic before taking the job?

Timber Wolf wakes up and Gates is there waiting. Brin reveals what Echo is: "A top secret division of the Science Police..." that protects "important witnesses by mind-wiping them and securing them here in the past." He then wonders if that's what happened to them. And if there's an Echo Case Officer among them.

I am so very close to throwing this comic across the room.

The fight with the soldiers ends, thankfully, and the enemies laugh at the fact they were able to exploit the Legionnaires' greatest weakness - "their concern for each other."

If you thought that this book couldn't get any worse, the big cliffhanger of the book is the fact that Alastor's powers have mutated again and now he can possess other people, burning through them and leaving them looking like mummies. He takes control of Dawnstar and she/he's ready to attack Tellus.

And we get this horrible next issue blurb: "Dawnstar... or Pawnstar?!"

What is the sound of a comic hitting the wall? "Whack!" "Bam!" "Thud!"

I think reading this book is making me retroactively hate everything Tom DeFalco has ever written. 

 

Let's be much, much, much more positive here. The latest Long Live the Legion podcast has been released and we spend a lot of time talking about The Magic Wars, the four-issue story that wraps up Paul Levitz's second time on the Legion. It's also the precursor to 5YL, so we're starting to see artist Keith Giffen's artistic moves towards what would be central to volume 4. Lots of nine-panel grid, for example.

We're joined by Sara Century, star of https://saracentury.com/, so go and check out her amazing comic books!

Download the podcast at your podcast provider of choice, or on YouTube!