It's the end of Legion Lost and I feel better than fine... let's take a look at Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #16 & Legion Lost (vol 2) #16

Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 7) #16

All we need to know for the recap is that the Fatal Five is reforming and Chameleon Boy is investigating. We'll cover anything else as we go.

"Choose wisely" is written by Paul Levitz with art by Scott Kolins. Ugh. We're back to the boxey, Steve Ditko-inspired artwork that just doesn't work for either this book or this era of comics. What's weird is that I know Kolins is capable of doing much, much, much better work. Why did he change his style for this? Was he spending too much time reading old issues of Shade, the Changing Man and thought it was the best way to handle the Legion?

Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl arrive at Legion HQ and Jo has the unenviable task of letting us know what's going on. The leadership election is happening... again... and he's not pleased with the process. He figures Tinya should be leader. She's smart, right? But she doesn't want to be noticed at all and would rather not be leader. Not sure when shy and withdrawn was part of her character, but changing someone without warning is par for the course on this book.

They land in the Legion... I'm going to say cafeteria... where everyone's talking about who should be the leader and wondering whether they're running or not. Cosmic Boy thinks Sun Boy should run, figuring he's a natural leader. What? Element Lad asks Dream Girl whether she's running again. Her response?

    "I don't run, Jan... but I am available."

What?

Also, am I the only one who misses the good old days when someone would actually declare they wanted to be leader? I know we've pretty much ignored that trope for a while, but if you're going to let the readers choose the leader, is it so hard to write the character as wanting the position? Otherwise, the Legionnaires are just sitting around wondering who they should vote for and none of the above conversations make any sense. 

Brainiac 5 and Harmonia walk through, arm in arm... What?... while Chemical Kid tries to convince Dragonwing to vote for Jan. The older pair of Legionnaires run into Glorith, and Brainy wants her to join them.

None of these moments make any sense. I know Levitz is trying to write a "here are the Legionnaires when they're sitting around and relaxing" scene but nothing feels organic or natural.

What does make sense? Chameleon Boy grabbed a cruiser and brought Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass to Takron-Galtos to figure out what's going on with Validus. Did he check with leader Mon-El? Nope. Now that's the Cham we know and love.

They reach the huge inertron cube that is Validus' home. Gravity Kid is there and tells them that, since they can see, hear, and feel Validus slamming his fists into the walls, they know he's still imprisoned. Cham and Vi shrink down to check out what going on, which is, of course, against the rules. They fly through the inertron, small enough to pass by the molecules, and emerge on the other side.

Where they see Validus. Lightning crackles and Validus immediately attacks. Luckily, Cham turns into a bug to escape and Vi gets smaller. She also delivers some fascinating dialogue:

    "Validus isn't a him, only a beast in a cage. Zoos treat their specimens better. He should have been put down long ago. He's a murderous monster."

So much to unpack there. But at least we know they haven't changed what happened to the first Invisible Kid, right?

We get yet another moment where Lightning Lass has to remind someone (and this time a former Legion Academy member) that power doesn't always win the day and "her little Vi" can handle being in a cell with Validus.

More subplots! Star Boy is finally able to walk again and Polar Boy is happy to see him up and moving. Thom's thinking about quitting and wants Nura to do the same. He worried that he's going to end up a bronze statue like the others. Shadow Lass watches from afar and comments that she feels the same way. 

We then get yet another awkward moment between two Legionnaires. Mon-El bluntly tells Shadow Lass that she needs to get over Earth-Man's death because the Legion needs Tasmia "back to being" herself. She is very angry about this and tells him that she'll be there when the Legion needs her. But she'll never be with Mon-El again romantically. Has every Legionnaire just forgotten simple conversation and tact at this point? I say this defending Shady here - Mon-El is completely overstepping at this moment.

In the lab, Brainy is trying to figure out how Glorith was connected to the timestorm that wrecked Barcelona last issue. While Brainy and Harmonia talk about a device that might be broken, Glorith just gets up and leaves, knowing that they don't really care about her at all. I actually like this - it fits Glorith's character perfectly and it's the first scene of this whole comic where the Legionnaire reacts appropriately to a situation.

Back on Takron-Galtos, Cham wants to test a theory, so he changes shape to look exactly like Validus. He realizes he's not in danger anymore, touches Validus, and the monster disappears in a puff of smoke. Vi wonders who could've tricked Mon-El's super vision but Cham just wants answers.

Right after Cosmic Boy gives Mon-El the "you were a good leader, trust me, bro," speech (ignoring that Mon's been leader before), we get the final results of the vote.

Our new leader? Phantom Girl.

It's the final page, so we have to have a shock to get you back for the next issue. Somewhere in space, "A complex quark relay performs its appointed function," then stops, and I think they're showing space ships crash into each other... maybe?? but I'm not sure.

It would make sense that they are crashing into each other for no other reason than we know Levitz loves when it happens.

I really didn't like the artwork this issue for a variety of reasons. From the bad anatomy to the strange redesign of Cham's face to the weird positions in the panels, everything about the look of this book just felt off to me. I'm going to assume Kolins was trying something new, and it's just not working for me.

The story also left me scratching my head a lot, especially when we were seeing Legionnaires interact with each other. When has Phantom Girl wanted to be unnoticed by her teammates? Why would anyone recommend Sun Boy to be leader? When did Brainy and Harmonia start acting like a couple? When did Mon-El forget how to talk to people he claims to care about? Everything here just didn't work.

The only thing I liked, and it took them way too long to get to it, was the moments where we finally saw Legionnaires really responding to all the death. Although you could make the argument that Star Boy has been making stupid choices that put him in harm's way, he was doing it to save Nura. Which makes less sense when you know she's spending more time with Brainy and flirting with Jan. Has Thom become the new Chuck?

And, at this point, would it not be better for Shadow Lass to just resign? As much as I hate this whole plot line, and think that having her date Earth-Man went against her character is so many different ways, if this is the only way they're going to use her, I kinda want her to just leave instead of only being morose but pretty window dressing.

Even worse, we know the Legion Lost team is about to rejoin, so why keep harping on this? Levitz had to know he was about to double his roster - would it not make more sense to start pretending this never happened? 

 

Legion Lost (vol 2) #16

I'm already pretending this book never happened, so let's get through this as quickly as possible.

I am somewhat loathe to write out a recap of the garbage that's been going on so far, but let's see how well I can do this from memory. I promise I have not opened a past issue, or past recap, to see if I get everything right here. Let's just see how this book is burned into my brain.

Legion Lost began, almost 18 months earlier, with seven Legionnaires coming back through time to stop Alastor, an angry man who wanted to infect the Earth with a disease that would stimulate genetic changes in humans and turn them into aliens. For example, one would suddenly have Durlan DNA and be able to shape change.

Due to the events of Flashpoint, I think, once they arrived in the 21st Century, it was impossible for the Legionnaires to return. Time travel was done and they were trapped.

The seven Legionnaires - Timber Wolf, Wildfire, Tyroc, Gates, Dawnstar, Tellus, and Chameleon Girl - tried to get their bearings in super-hero hotbeds such as Minnesota and North Dakota. They investigated these new aliens while trying to capture and stop Alastor.

Just when they thought they had him, there was a huge explosion in their Time Bubble and they were certain Gates and Chameleon Girl were dead. But Alastor, who was caught in the same explosion, was fine.

The virus he had brought with him to the past, which was first invented by him and then revealed to have been invented by the Psions, allowed Alastor to change and evolve as well. The Legion was also infected, which is how we ended up with Timber Wolf displaying claws that could shoot out of his fingers. Because so many people were infected, the Legion chose not to contact any super-heroes of the era. They were afraid of what might happen to an evolving Superman, for example.

Both Chameleon Girl and Gates were discovered to be alive and they completely ignored the fact that Yera was murdering evolved humans to suck out the DNA of those who had become part Durlan. Yes, that really happened. We got a mass-murdering Legionnaire.

But then we got a new writer and everything changed. The virus was no longer a threat and became inert. The changes in the Legionnaires stopped and, I think, reverted, while Alastor kept evolving. The Legion moved to New York to try to track him down. The government began chasing after the team, wanting to figure out who this new, dangerous super-team was. 

We also got a complete shift in motivations. They began to reveal that the Legionnaires weren't actually back in the 21st Century because of Alastor, even though they were still tracking him and trying to stop him. Now there were other reasons.

And each Legionnaire had some sort of secret they didn't want the rest of the team to know. Tyroc had some prophecy. Tellus knew something no one else did. Gates had some weird scarring. Yera was on a secret mission. Timber Wolf wondered if they had been sent back by some shadowy future agency called Echo as a punishment. Dawnstar was... well... I think her secret was that she was starting to fall for Timber Wolf. Wildfire's secret was that the new writer had no clue what his powers were.

We had a huge crossover with Superboy and the Teen Titans where they fought against this evil villain known as Harvest. Not much happened except Wildfire got a new, faulty suit that was damaged. He was going to die.

Then we met Captain Adym, the Echo leader who had sent Yera back to kill an Echo agent who had gone back to the past and betrayed their group. Yes, longtime DC fans, Captain Nathanial Adym (or Captain Atom) was an evil police officer from the future.

He came back by himself in a single Time Bubble to recruit the team to stop some evil machine that's going to create damage to the time line and mess up the future. Who sent the machine? We don't know the name of the big villain yet, but his two flunkies, an alien named Daggor and his flying dragon named Thraxx, have activated the machine in the deserts of Arizona. The Ravagers and Superboy have arrived to assist the Legion, as have Harvest and his gang of D-list villains, and we have this big showdown in the desert.

Wildfire went off to fight Daggor, who blew up Wildfire's suit, resulting in pieces of it falling on the desert. Which explains how his face plate would end up being discovered 1,000 years in the future. But the creative team finally realized that Wildfire is an energy being who doesn't die when his suit is wrecked, so that energy is now floating around, or in, Dawnstar.

If any of that made sense, you're smarter than I am. This entire series has been marked by a complete misunderstanding of the characters, the "rules" of the series, and logic. I, for one, and damn glad we've reached the end and if I ever talk about rereading Legion Lost again, you have my permission to smack me. Hard.

 

"Last Stand!" is written by Tom DeFalco, pencilled by Andres Guinaldo, and inked by Mark Irwin. 

We begin, as we have with almost every issue, with a few pages of exposition to get readers up to speed. Harvest and Adym are working together to stop the machine - Adym plans on using the Time Bubble to go back one hour and destroy it. Why is this a bad idea? He's going to set off a bomb that will probably kill millions of people. To Adym and Harvest, the death of millions is worth it if they save quintillions in the future.

To our heroes, that's not a fair trade. So Harvest knocked a bunch of them out last issue. Here, he hands Adym what looks like a damaged piece of green metal and says that it's a precious tool that will be valuable at the right time. Oh, I forgot to mention that Harvest is from the future as well and acts like he knows everything that's about to happen. Which, of course, makes no sense because no one can travel through time which is how the Legionnaires got trapped in the first place... except for Adym and Harvest... and the Legionnaires before... 

Adym gets into the Time Bubble, which, of course, works completely differently from any other bubble we've even seen in a Legion comic.

The battle around the machine, which is wrapped in a protective force field, continues. Tyroc and Chameleon Girl talk about how they have to stop Daggor. He sounds like he's ready to die - that's the prophecy, of course. But Yera is, after complaining about the Legion and their methods for a while, fully onboard with the Legion way and is ready to fight.

The rest of the Legion continues to fight and I'm only slightly thrown off by the fact that it looks like Dawnstar is bathed in flames. Yes, it's Wildfire's energy, but I think they're trying to make her look like some sort of holy angel in battle.

To no surprise at all, the rest of Harvest's team immediately betray the Legion and the Ravagers. Okay, betray is a harsh word. They're just ready to leave the battle because they don't want to die when the bomb goes off.

 

I have to pause this reread for a moment. 

 

The plan, and let me repeat this for everyone, is for Adym to travel back in time one hour so he's within the force shield that surrounds the mystery machine of death, set up a singularity bomb, destroy most of the US Southwest, and save the planet.

Look, time travel always causes headaches. If Adym is successful, he will have actually gone back in time before he arrived on Earth the first time and will have turned Arizona into a crater. So he will never have actually met the Legion and Daggor wouldn't have reached Earth because everything he planned was already destroyed.

Which would mean that this entire battle wouldn't be happening.

Also, and I'll keep pointing this out until we finally get an answer, Daggor is working for someone else, their master, who's planned all of this out. So there's still a bigger threat out there.

And if the Earth has passed this master's test, and has been deemed worthy of something, why does Daggor want to use a machine to destroy so much of it?

 

Back to the reread.

 

We have learned that Leash (one of Harvest's lackeys) is able to move through the force-field that is protecting the machine and is wondering why they didn't just do that and let Adym blow up the bomb now, instead of an hour ago. Harvest gives his usual confusing answer, picks up the green piece of metal he gave Adym before, and they all head off to his Mongolian base. Why no, I have no interest in reading any other comics starring this character... do you?

Gates is continuing to have a moral quandary about what to do. He knows everyone's going to die in this battle and, to no shock, doesn't want to meet his end. So he's teleporting around the world, angry about what his teammates are doing. He ends up deciding to go back and help the Legion because, well, he's been shunted to the background enough in this version of the Legion so he has to do something in the final issue, right?

Gates ends up inside the force-field (I do love the fact that they've completely given up on trying to make his powers make any sense - yes, he can teleport wherever he wants, sight unseen) and, because the machine is now weakening the "the boundaries between time and space," runs into the Gates who disappeared in Legion Lost #1 when the explosion went off.

The two Gates work together so that one distracts Daggor and the other opens up a gate to the nearest black hole. The Gates from the past gets zapped by Daggor, which is how half of his body gets scarred. But the power from the black hole starts to affect Daggor. By the way, this whole scene establishes that Gates remembered this entire sequence and knew he was going to end up in the force-field and blasted by Daggor before he started his teleporting around the world wanting to leave. So he could've just teleported the entire Legion into the force-shield and they could've changed everything and saved the day.

Somewhere in the past, Adym realizes that the green piece of metal is actually a Null Field that can protect him and the Time Bubble. But because he's reached a temporal anomaly, he can't travel forward in time anymore. Only backwards. So he's going to head back and be better prepared to face Harvest and the Legion. Really? A useless piece of metal is a Null Field? And do I want to read any more of Captain Adym's adventures? Nope.

And then I think he sets off the bomb. We get a big splash page of an explosion in space and there is smoke everywhere. 

Back to current time. Something is happening in the force-field and the Legionnaires duck and cover from the aftermath. Tellus lets us know that the machine, Daggor, Thraxx, and Adym's bomb were all sucked away to a distant star. How he would know that, I have no idea, but we need to wrap this up quickly, so who cares?

Also, was it the black hole that Gates "gated" to or was it the bomb from an hour ago? No idea.

Did the black hole suck up the energy of the bomb? If Gates is really so powerful that he can create a gate to a black hole that can suck away a powerful bomb that would destroy half of the U.S., then why didn't he do this a while ago and get rid of the machine? 

According to Tellus, Gates is gone. He can't sense him at all. He can sense all the exposition needed for the readers to even have a slight idea what's going on, but not a teammate.

The force-field implodes and the robots they were fighting collapse. For no reason at all, we get a page of Ravager and Superboy subplots. I'm trying to think if there's anything dumber than setting up subplots for better-selling books within a title you're about to cancel.

They finally remember this is a Legion book and we see fire-Dawnstar tracking Harvest's men, wanting them to pay for their "crimes against humanity -- and the murder of Wildfire!"

Except they didn't kill Wildfire, it was Daggor who blew him up. And Wildfire's not dead, which Dawnstar knows. And I guess these idiots didn't escape fast enough when they said they were going on a while ago. Or Harvest left them to die.

One of them shoots a missile at her except it's not a missile... it's... Wildfire's original containment suit. The energy leaves her body and Wildfire's back. Do they explain why they gave him back his suit? Nope. Or why this villain was carrying it? Nope.

The Legion reunites, Gates even appears through a gate with zero explanation of where he want, and it looks like everything is good again.

Well, until Tellus lets us know that he flashed into Daggor's mind and learned that the big machine was not built to destroy, but to communicate. Yes, the evil master is on their way.

We get a splash page again, with a nice "Long Live the Legion" chant, and, of course, it's Superboy who's front and center.

 

I know that no one sets out to make a bad comic book, but if you told me that the writers and editors of this book made bets to see how just how deep into the dung they could get, I'd believe it.

If there's one positive thing I can say here, I guess it's good that the creative team returned the Legionnaires to, essentially, the same condition they were in when the book started. So no long-lasting damage was done.

Well, no long-lasting damage to the characters. To me? 

 

The newest Long Live the Legion episode has just been released and we spend some time looking at the Emerald Violet storyline in the reboot Legion. We're joined by Matthew Elmslie or Legion Abstract fame! Check us out on YouTube!