Time is going crazy in the 31st Century and the long, slow death march to the end continues in the 21st... let's look at Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #15 & Legion Lost (vol 2) #15

Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #15

The only recap we really need here is that we're moving closer and closer to the return of the Fatal Five. And, apparently, male Legionnaires are threats to touch women in unwanted ways.

Let's begin! "Once Upon a Dream" is written by Paul Levitz, with art by Francis Portela. We're in Metropolis and Glorith is woken from a dream... or is sleepwalking... or in a trance... I dunno. She gets out of bed, her eyes are glowing, and she walks through a pink portal. I must be honest - I have been enjoying the massive amount of pink that's been used in this comic recently. It was always Element Lad's costume and nothing else in the past, so it's good to see they're using more of the available palette.

As I'm trying to be more positive today, I'm just going to call out the huge carved tree in her room and I like how they've designed her domicile. It feels like she's back on the Sorcerers' World, so I like it.

She emerges on another world, one that looks very medieval, and the townspeople are saying that "The Witch must die!" Since the Sagrada Familia is in the background, maybe she just went to Spain? I mean, they are speaking another language, so it would make sense. It just looks nothing like the rest of 31st Century Earth, but that wouldn't be the first time.

Back at Legion HQ, Harmonia, Dragonwing, and Chemical Kid are investigating Glorith's disappearance. It's the next morning and there were no signs of anything strange happening last night. Hadru immediately wants an alert - there's no way Glorith would leave without telling them. Harmonia tells him to calm down and a hologram of Brainiac 5 concurs. The Cosmic Boy hologram disagrees. I guess his surgery last issue went well and he's back in action.

Just as Rokk attempts to decide who's going to go searching for Glorith, Mon-El reminds him that he's still Legion leader for one more day. He then tells Rokk to rest while his magnetism heals (and no, I have no idea how his powers heal) and they get the alert - something's happening in Barcelona.

Instead of waiting for others, Mon-El takes off to investigate. Only Ultra Boy is fast enough to keep up. We get a nice explanation about how Barcelona has become an ancient religious temple - the entire city was taken over and everything looks like it was designed by Antoni Gaudi. We get a two-page spread that, once again, looks pretty good.

Okay, we're getting good artwork this issue. I guess Portela taking a few months off allowed him to really show off his skills here. Staying positive, I do like a lot of what's going on here, and not just the art. Having an entire city leaning into their past and religious beliefs is a really good way to make the cities and regions stand out. It's far better than a lake of lava...

We also have dinosaurs all over the city as well. That seems to be the bigger problem. Without waiting to find out what's going on, Mon-El slams into the closest Tyrannosaurus Rex and Ultra Boy gets between the locals and a bunch of neanderthals. That's not a metaphor - we have real primitive humans here.

Right behind them are the other four we saw earlier and Brainy is breaking down all the craziness that's going on. He then sends the others towards the "ignition point," which is a large cloud of smoke. Chemical Kid is kinda shocked by how Brainy figured everything out so quickly. Really? Are they just sitting around, trying to figure out how to make Hadru the stupidest Legionnaire ever?

Elsewhere in Barcelona, Glorith has been tied to a stake and they're ready to light her on fire. Before she can conjure any spells, she's slapped across the face. That is enough to snap her into action and remind herself that she's a Legionnaire. She starts flying away from the fire because she's wearing a Flight Ring. No magic needed and I wonder if I'm the only one getting the flashback to when Dream Girl did the same trick on Orando.

Time for our short Fatal Five distraction. Chameleon Boy has invited Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass into his quarters to discuss the Legion's search for the Five. Lightning Lass calls it "the aimless chase" and Cham wonders if there's a reason why they're failing to find anything.

Two big things I wanted to point out in this scene. It's the first time Cham invited Vi into his quarters and all she can do is be kinda nasty about the fact that it doesn't have any personal touches. I know she's supposed to be tougher, but does that also mean she's lost all tact and kindness to her friends?

And second, we see an image of this "new" Fatal Five. Tharok and the Persuader have both been redesigned and we get a "battle armor" version of the Emerald Empress. I have no idea where they're getting these images, especially since the last time we saw the Empress, she had given up her Eye. Or are we just ignoring some things that happened in volume 6 and keeping other things?

A quick aside, and I've mentioned this a few times during these rereads. I'm honestly confused about what version of the Legion this is supposed to be. Since it's the New 52 team, does this mean they've thrown out tons of stuff from the past? I don't think it's a stretch to say that this Legion book and Legion Lost seem like they're from two completely universes. And if this is the Retroboot/OG Legion, why are so many things different? For example, it's obvious that Validus was never Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad's kid. So does this mean the Great Darkness Saga ended differently?

Judging by the disappointing sales, I'd argue that pretending that you're giving longtime Legion fans "their" Legion back but not actually doing it, while also insulting all the fans of the Reboot and Threeboot by burying those versions, was probably too many mistakes to overcome.

Back to Barcelona, where ancient tanks are shooting at Brainy's force shield and Ultra Boy has made quick work on the neanderthals. As the Legion keeps smashing through these temporal anomalies, Mon-El wants them moved to the beach to keep them away from the people.

Brainy has noticed that there are more arriving and asks Harmonia if she's found the nexus. They have, and it's right where Glorith is trying to escape the angry crowds. Chemical Kid pulls her away and Brainy wants to know what she's doing to attract "all this trouble, young woman." Not sure if Brainy's old enough to throw that line out, but I also don't think we've ever determined how old everyone is. It's just another line that feels out of place, which has been pretty common in these Legion books.

Harmonia tells Glorith to use a shielding spell to make it appear like she's no longer on Earth. If she disappears, they can figure out what's causing the problems. To no surprise, all the time-displaced creatures, including a Barcelona football player (soccer for we North Americans), disappear.

We get no wrap up, unfortunately. We don't know who caused Glorith to start this, but Brainy is certain it's a being of great power. Glorith wonders if she has to stay shielded, but Brainy doesn't answer her. Instead, he figures that it's the combination of her and this place that sparked this time problem. So they head back to Metropolis, determined to keep Glorith away from Barcelona until they find out who did this. If only they explained why Barcelona would be a problem. I mean, I get that the city is stuck in the past, but how it could spark a nexus is never outlined. Next issue, maybe?

Most definitely to be continued, especially when the next issue teaser is one word: Validus!

Maybe I'm just in a good mood, or maybe having Portela back on art cheered me up, or maybe the fact that this isn't the Legion Lost book, but I enjoyed this one. Yes, it was a smaller scale adventure. And yes, I'm already sick and tired of Chemical Kid and wish that Levitz would use any other Legionnaire in this role. But this was a nice, solid story that sets up some things for the future and makes the Legion look like the powerhouses they are. I wasn't even annoyed by Harmonia, which means something worked out.

 

Legion Lost (vol 2) #15

I got an incredibly nice message from Pete Woods on Bluesky this week and he made the case that writers Fabian Nicieza and Tom DeFalco were not responsible for the stories that made it into Legion Lost. I wasn't going to pry into who was responsible (I'm assuming their initials are the same letter) but I am going to be kinder towards DeFalco for the next two weeks.

Does this mean I'm not going to point out when the story sucks? Nope. But I'll stop calling him out for it.

See? I can be nice... sometimes...

I can also be not nice. I don't know how clear it is in the image above, but this cover might contain the worst drawing of Dawnstar I've ever seen...

To recap, the Legionnaires, the Ravagers, and Superboy have joined up with Harvest and his evil band of miscreants to battle against an alien robot army brought to Earth by someone named Daggor and his space dragon Thraxx. This pair is working for someone else who's joining the action later and has unleashed some sort of machine that's going to destroy the Earth and all future time. How do they know that? Captain Adym, a member of the secret Science Police organization called Echo, came back alone in a Time Bubble to take command of the Legionnaires and order them into battle. One of our heroes, Chameleon Girl, has been secretly working for him and is supposed to kill the Echo traitor in the past.

Oh, and Wildfire and Tyroc are supposed to die during this battle.

"Heroes Die" is brought to you by writer Tom DeFalco, penciller Andrew Guinaldo, and inkers Mark Irwin, Marc Deering, and Sean Parsons.

A common complaint about comics of the last 25 years is the idea of them being written for a trade instead of as individual issues. They've been "deconstructed," or stretched out over six issues when, in the past, the story would've been told in one or two issues.

Another part of writing for a trade is completely ignoring any sort of recap and just jumping into the action. The creative team has made the assumption that the reader was there last issue, so they don't need to explain anything that's going on. It makes for a better reading experience in a trade but may lose any potential new readers.

The opposite of that is to follow the Jim Shooter edict from Marvel in the 80s: "every issue could be someone's first." So you make sure you give the reader every bit of information they need to understand this single book. DeFalco is obviously doing this - the first six pages of this issue is exposition over a fight scene. 

And it's a lot. They have to explain everyone's names, everyone's powers, the stakes, why Superboy is acting weird (mentally controlled by Harvest), what happened the last two issues, and even a few surprises.

Like the fact that Captain Adym's first name is Nathaniel. That's right. Captain Atom's real name. I don't even want to do the research to find out if this is who becomes Captain Atom... this is just so wrong on so many levels. I suspected they were going to do something dumb the first time I saw this character's last name, but I was actually kinda figuring it was lazy writing, not the misguided introduction of a classic Charlton hero.

We also learn that Timber Wolf is a fan of Galaxy Quest. The quote:

Legionnaires never retreat -- never surrender!

By page seven, the recaps end and we start moving the story forward. That's right, we're already a third into the book and nothing new has happened.

Wildfire's "anti-energy is fully recharged" and he's ready to get back into battle. Once again, not a thing and not how his powers work. Urgh.

Dawnstar reminds him that his suit is leaking even worse than before (no idea how she knows that) but he doesn't care. He's ready for some risk, some danger, and finds a way to work in a "Long Live the Legion!" as he flies into space to confront Daggor and Thraxx... who I'm pretty sure were in Arizona last issue, but I've been trying my best to forget these stories the moment I put them down, so who knows?

Drake's joined by Psykill, one of Harvest's badly-named and forgettable goons, and they're immediately blasted by the villain. They pose, get a nice full-page spread where not much happens, and that's about it.

Could the two-page spread at the beginning, the six pages of recap, and this one-pager mean that they're stretching this paper-thin plot out even more to get to issue 16? And if that's the case, is this one of the most egregious cases of milking readers for more money on a book that they're going to cancel?

We've also reached the "each page is one plot point" section of the story. But not for the Legion. We're linking the story to future issues of the Ravagers, so we get lots of Superboy and other characters whose names are unimportant to me. As I mentioned last issue, the Legion has just become guest stars in their own book. I'm also not sure how it makes any sense to use a book you're about to cancel to build plot points in other books, but I'm sure the person running DC at the time knew exactly what they were doing... cough... cough...

To continue to show the Legion as incompetent, it's Psykill that realizes that Daggor is siphoning Wildfire's power and using it against him. We get another long, painful villain speech and then Wildfire explodes in a blast so big that everyone on Earth sees it as well. It's also big enough to completely change the solar system we live in. Check out this image:

I have no idea where that's supposed to be, but it's definitely nowhere near Earth.

Daggor celebrates Drake's death and then heads to Earth to "attend the grand device" for "the Conqueror."

Continuing with the concept that the rules of science are meaningless in this book, the pieces of Wildfire's suit have all fallen through the atmosphere and to the ground in Arizona. Dawnstar is able to pick up a piece of his faceplate and mourn the fact that "he'll never know how much I will always love him." Yeah, he knows. You've been together for a while now. Heck, you're bonded together - there was a ceremony. Unless, once again, this isn't the OG Legion. Or no one on the creative team read any prior Legion comics.

Tellus cheers her up by reminding her of something she should already know: Wildfire can't be killed. His anti-energy cannot be destroyed and he's actually surrounded her to watch over her. Seriously, she's suddenly surrounded by glowing white energy. I guess this means that Drake has... moved inside her??

Elsewhere, Captain Adym has come up with a great plan - use the Time Bubble to go back one hour and detonate a singularity bomb inside the device that appeared last issue but we've barely seen in this one. Then he'll blow it up before it causes a problem. The fact that it might destroy half the continent doesn't matter if it saves the future. Makes just as much sense as anything else that's been happening this issue.

If you've been wondering when Gates is going to show up, you're going to be disappointed. He's blipped to the Time Bubble and he's planning on leaving everyone behind so he can save himself in the future. Or he's just talking about it. I guess the hatred for the Reboot Legion is alive and well in this book as well.

Adym starts ordering everyone around and no one wants to do what he says. He even throws out this line: "As the ranking Science Police officer on site, my decision is final." Don't Legionnaires outrank him?

Anyway, everyone else tells him they're not going to help him, essentially betraying him. Even Yera says that she's Legion, not Echo, which is going against everything she's been saying or doing since we got a new writer on this book.

Adym pleads with everyone - they can't defeat the hordes of space robots and they need to set off the bomb. Which is when there's a huge explosion, knocking them out, and someone says they agree.

It's Harvest. He loves Adym's plan and he's going to sacrifice millions to save quintillions.

I have a list of things that bother me about this issue, so let's begin:

• We all know that the Legionnaires are just going to get sent back to the 31st Century at the end of all this, so there aren't really any stakes. Same with Superboy and the Ravagers - they're not getting killed in this book.
• The villains are idiotic at best and insulting at worst.
• The Legionnaires are barely in this book, and when they do show up, they're either making stupid choices or being the weaker heroes beside everyone else.
• Captain Adym might be the worst part of this - you create an annoying, arrogant character who should be a villain and now that we know he's going to become a hero, it just feels empty. 

But I've decided that the most annoying thing about this issue is the feeling I have that they're just stretching out this story to get to number 16. When you consider the number of comics that were ended with no warning, even for the creative team, this travesty is almost more offensive. They're just stealing money from the few Legion fans left at this point. 14,005, to be exact.

 

More Pete Woods love in this column: If you haven't picked up The Muppets take the Marvel Universe from your local comic shop, please do so. It puts the "funny" back into "funny books" and is well worth your time if you need a good laugh.