The Dominators are back and they've grabbed a couple of Legionnaires... and I recap the Culling... ugh... Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 7) #9 & Legion Lost (volume 2) #9
Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #9
If you haven't yet, I urge you to go down to your local comic shop and place an order for Legion of Super-Heroes #1. You've got until August 10th to get that pre-order in. We want to do everything we can do to send a simple message to both the comic shops and DC Comics - we want a monthly Legion comic!
Anyway, last issue of LSH was kind of a placeholder. Cosmic Boy and Night Girl look like they're back together and, more importantly, someone's trying to put the Fatal Five back together!
"Capture" is written by Paul Levitz with art by Francis Portela. In Metropolis University, Harmonia, Brainiac 5, and Circadia Senius are discussing whether time travel is possible or not. Brainy refuses to believe that it's been shut down and is certain they can get to the past. Dream Girl has shown up just to let us know that she foresaw something important happening there today... she couldn't have called?
A black circle opens up behind them and a couple of monsters emerge. Brainy's force shield isn't working, so Dream Girl shows, once again, that she's the strongest member of the team. She kicks the most Alien-looking creature, named Dys, in the head while Harmonia is taken down by the one that looks like a dinosaur.
On Takron-Galtos, Mon-El is making sure that Validus is still being held prisoner. Gravity Kid shows him that Validus is still in an inertron cube and unable to escape.
Back to the battle - while the women fight, Brainy realizes that the Flight Rings aren't working either. So it's not a power issue, it's something else. He finally gets involved and smacks Dys in the back of the head. Which leads that creature to swing its tail and slam Brainy into a wall.
Dream Girl's not happy with this, and fires a left cross into the alien's head. It's not enough, however, as Dys grabs her with one tail, grabs Brainy with another, and says that this may get him a bigger reward from his masters. He calls to the other alien, Trog, telling them it's time to leave. Trog's struggling against Harmonia's powers, so Dys leaves in the black circle.
In Legion HQ, Cosmic Boy is back on Monitor duty (really? again?), and he notices that all three of the attacked Legionnaire's comms have gone offline. He sends Ultra Boy to go and check it out.
Then he lets Mon-El know what's going on and also reminds him that, once again, the Legion is short-handed and being spread too thin. Here's a crazy thought - the Legion rejected all those Academy students that should've joined the team, and allowed ones who shouldn't be there to be Legionnaires... why not recruit the others asap? Or reach out to XS and see if she's done doing nothing.
Ultra Boy bursts into the Time Lab and helps Harmonia fight Trog. Jo knocks the alien out with one punch and Harmonia points out that the black circle, a "small warp," is still there.
Jo grabs Trog to get some answers, but the villain obeys "rule the fourth" and collapses into goo. And the warp closes. I'm not a fan of just jumping into a teleportation circle without knowing where you're going, but it's better than doing nothing, right? And I'm pretty sure Jo could handle anything on the other side.
Where have Dream Girl and Brainiac 5 been taken? The Dominator homeworld, of course. The chief Dominator scientist is very happy that he's got the Coluan so he can take Brainy's genes and clone new scientists from them.
They keep both unconscious and take their Rings away. We also learn that Dys sensed that Dream Girl has a "similar strength of mind" and may be useful in the future. Dys also said that "she seemed" Brainy's "companion." So I wasn't the only one reading this who thought that Nura was acting more like someone dating Brainy than someone who's just friends with him.
In the Time Lab, the S.P.s actually do something useful. While the two Legionnaires just stand there and complain about the goo, one of the officers scans the organic mess that Trog has become and says it's similar to the food the Dominators consume.
Cosmic Boy takes charge because Mon-El's still heading back to Earth and Brainy's missing. He starts ordering an attack on the Dominator homeworld but Mon-El quickly stops him. Earthgov has just told them they're not allowed to enter Dominion space. Star Boy is, to no surprise, not happy with this decision.
So he quits the Legion, promising to get Nura back, even if he has to do it himself. I'll just point out that he's still in his chair and unable to walk. This could be the shortest rescue mission ever.
For 22 pages, not much really happened here. I'm happy to see that the Dominator threat is escalating, and kidnapping Brainy is a great step towards the final battle, but we didn't get enough story here.
Also, and I know I've already mentioned this, but is there a reason why Levitz is writing Brainy/Nura like they're a couple? It seems like she's showing up at the lab every issue while Thom is just sitting in their room and doing nothing. I'm not going to lie, I'd be a fan of this ship (yep, trying out some new slang) and, after Threeboot, the whole concept has really started to work for me.
It might also mellow out Brainy and have him acting less prickish every issue.
After the Earth-Man/Shady "romance," I'm kinda okay with any new pairings at this point.
Legion Lost (vol 2) #9
Because I don't want you to suffer, or because I'm a masochist, or just because I've never read these before and I actually want to kinda understand what's going on, I'm going to read all 4 parts of The Culling this week.
For the non-Legion Lost issues, I'll be commenting a paragraph or two just so you get the hang of the story. And for my own sanity.
Since I'm a stickler for what things mean, let's begin with the Merriam-Webster definition of cull:
- to select from a group
- to reduce or control the size of something, such as a herd, by removal, as by hunting or slaughter, of especially weak or sick individuals
If this is a nice story, we're just selecting a team that will become The Ravagers.
If this is a not-so-nice story, we're going to be killing off some heroes.
Teen Titans Annual #1
The Legion and Teen Titans end up in something called The Crucible, facing off against each other as the villain, named Harvest, watches.
Since no one's going to kill anyone else, the battle quickly ends and the two teams end up joining forces.
Oh, and to make things even more confusing, everyone's in different costumes and all kinda look the same. I don't mind Brett Booth's work, but he's really struggling with all these characters.
The writing, by Tom DeFalco and Scott Lobdell is much weaker. This is just pretty meh.
It's Lobdell & DeFalco again, with pencils by R.B. Silva and inks by Rob Lean & Iban Coello. This artwork is seriously not good. Like painfully not good.
Now it's Legion/Titans against the Ravagers (some of whom defeated the Legion in issue #8.
Ripclaw challenges Superboy's choices, saying that he's been bred to be a killer. Dawnstar helps him and says that he can make his own choices.
Lots of teenagers died and I'm not sure when. The Ravagers are defeated by numbers, I guess.
The only interesting thing is when Timber Wolf recognizes Impulse's scent and attacks him for something he's going to do. Meh, again.
Now let's get to the book I'm supposed to be reviewing...
"Part 3: Unbeatable" is written by Tom DeFalco with art by Pete Woods.
We get a one-page splash recapping everything which, even though I've read the previous chapters, helps because this story is already so dumb my brain is instinctively cleansing itself of this tale.
Since confused is my middle name, let's go over the things that don't make any sense so far:
- Somehow N.O.W.H.E.R.E. built a secret base under the Antarctic and it's insanely massive. Did no one tell them that this is the entrance to Tartarus?
- From what I've gathered, the Culling only involves a bunch of teenagers, including the Teen Titans. Did no one realize that the Legion, especially in this timeline, isn't made up teenagers anymore? All of these characters are in their early twenties. Okay, maybe Gates is a teenager. But that's it.
- For reasons that make no sense, every Legionnaire was placed into a white version of their costume. This includes Wildfire. So yes, N.O.W.H.E.R.E. has the technology to recreate his containment suit. Or they just painted him white. It would've been nice if they had gotten new costumes, or costumes that matched what everyone else was wearing, but nope... just the same old things. Must've been easier for the colorist.
- If the Legion are in white suits, why are the Titans in what I think are their regular costumes? And why are their costumes all glow-in-the-dark? Seriously, every Titan looks like their costumes came from Tron: Legacy.
- This is my Legion bias showing, but can anyone explain how the Legionnaires, who have been heroes for far longer and are bigger, stronger, faster, and more experienced than the Titans, end up looking like chumps against them?
- How long has this Culling been going on? We've been introduced to the characters who survived last year's. How far does this go back? How many superhumans were killed? And if this has been going on for a while, how did older heroes survive it?
- Why have a Culling to find a new team of Ravagers? Isn't that the dumbest way to put together a team?
Ugh. Let's begin.
Just a warning - I'm not going to try to explain who all the Titans are for no other reason than I don't care.
Harvest, who's the big villain here and just kinda looks like someone tried to draw Brother Blood from a description but never got any reference pictures, has teleported the prior Ravagers away and is going to kill the Titans and the Legion.
For the first time, the two teams decide to work together and Tellus establishes a telepathic link between them all. Bunker jumps into action, gets smacked away by Harvest, and lets out a "Yikes!" Seriously... that's what he says as he's back-handed away.
The two teams have to figure out where the exit is and how to get all of Harvest's captives out of there. I stupidly thought they were all dead from last issue, but maybe they're referring to the other team?
Chameleon Girl ignores Tyroc's orders and attacks Harvest. He knows who she is, calling her by her real name, Yera Allon, and refers to her masters at Echo. Like Wildfire, I'm wondering who or what Echo is. Timber Wolf seems to know and Harvest wants Brin to tell them what's going on.
After Harvest drops more clues that he knows who everyone is, and knows the future, he drops an even bigger reveal - he's sent for the Legion and they're not here by chance. Okay, so he pulled a bunch of super-heroes from the future to "try out" for his super team 1,000 years before? Doesn't that seem like a gigantic waste of time and energy?
Far above the battle, in the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. HQ (I think), Dawnstar has led Beast Boy, Thunder, and Lightning to try to find an escape. Caitlin Fairchild shows up and says that she's quit N.O.W.H.E.R.E. because they betrayed her.
Next, Rose Wilson arrives with swords drawn and, because somebody wanted it, we get a Caitlin/Rose battle where we're just going to ignore that one has razor-sharp swords and the other has nothing. Nothing except magically disappearing glasses.
Elsewhere in the building, Gates and Bunker are wandering around and chatting. Bunker asks the question I've been wondering about for a while - what happened to Gates' face. And he doesn't mean, why has the scarred side of his face moved from left to right between these issues? Gates calls it "an ill-advised fashion statement" and compares it to the horrible white suits they're wearing.
This is why Gates is one of my favorites.
Then they discover a Time Bubble. What??
Back at the battle, we have yet another time-honored Titans tradition. While everyone else is fighting, Red Robin and Harvest are laying out the plot for the readers. Harvest wants to save the future and he doesn't care if he kills hundreds to save everyone else. He says there are no coincidences - the Titans are together because he wanted them to be.
The Legion attacks using "Attack Formation -- Alpha 428K" and Harvest easily blasts them away. But he says that their coordination and training is "the reason I manipulated the Legion into sending you here."
Next surprise - Harvest, who's looking more and more like a Keith Giffen-designed villain (all mouth), tells them that the Hypertaxis virus "would continue to evolve until it lost its mutagenic contagions." And he knows this is a surprise to all but one of them - Tellus.
Back to the Rose/Caitlin battle, which would make any sense if I had been reading Teen Titans. Since I haven't, and don't plan to, I can only assume that these two dated at one point in time.
Ridge (the crocodile-looking Ravager) hits Rose from behind and wants to escape with Caitlin.
Back in the pits, Wildfire tells Tellus to surround himself and Harvest with a telekinetic force shield. Our villains says that he knows what's coming and it will fail. That doesn't stop Drake from unleashing the full force of his powers, attempting to destroy Harvest.
To no surprise, it doesn't work, and Harvest uses his Null Field to shove Wildfire's energy back down into the suit and kill him. Well, that's what it looks like.
He then demands everyone else to surrender and kneel.
Okay, I get that Legion Lost has been selling really badly, but is the best plan to just throw away everything that's come before it and push into a new direction? And is putting everything under Harvest's control the best option?
Writers Lobdell & DeFalco, penciller is Ig Guara, inker is JP Mayer
Okay, we can relax - Tellus can sense Wildfire is still alive.
We've already forgotten what happened last issue as the team uses the psychic bond to communicate - which is something Harvest broke into before.
The teams split up, the Titans fighting Harvest and the Legion destroying the power core.
I think this is the worst chapter of the story. Harvest escapes and says that this failure was all part of his plan. Red Robin does better against the villain than Wildfire. The Legion escapes with a Time Bubble and the art was pretty mediocre the whole way through. When everyone has the same face, it's hard to tell them apart.
I was going to read The Ravagers #1 but I've tortured myself enough today. Someone else can figure out whether this whole crossover was worth the paper it was printed on.
Once again, I'll say something positive to start: The Legion Lost issue might have been the best of the four.
If the goal was to get more readers checking out Legion Lost, this crossover definitely worked.
Issue 9 sold 23,794 copies for 108th place in sales.
Of course, Teen Titans #9 sold 50,261, so that means more than half of the readers didn't care to get every part of the crossover.
And next month, Legion Lost is down to 17,581, so I'm guessing none of the new readers stayed. Not a surprise, considering how badly-written this whole crossover was.
Here's me at my snarkiest - why did comic companies keep handing Scott Lobdell writing assignments?
Another Long Live the Legion podcast has arrived - this time we head back to the 70s with Alan Williams and talk about Pulsar Stargrave. What worked, what didn't, and how did they get into the mess they ended up in. Multiple writers, multiple artists, and bell bottoms that wouldn't quit. Check it out on your podcast supplier of choice or on YouTube! https://youtu.be/5qdTmP7fyQY?si=2G0AqYVxv_9tFJgj
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