Long Live the Legion

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #35 Oh no... we've reached that time again... when the cover doesn't match the story inside. It's always the first sign that the Legion is headed towards bad times... Also, if you told me that Light Lass wasn't on the original version of this cover and got Photoshopped in later, I'd totally believe you. It's The Quest for Cosmic Boy: E.R.G.onomics part 2 by writer Tony Bedard and artist Dennis Calero. For those of you who missed last issue, and this Bedard run, here's the quick recap. Supergirl was elected team leader but Brainiac 5 is running the show. Cosmic Boy disappeared (he actually joined a super-team 1,000 years in the future) so Brainy figured out three places where he may have gone. Atom Girl, Shadow Lass, and Timber Wolf headed to Lallor to try to find their former leader and discovered a plot to assassinate Lallor's president because he wants the planet to join the U.P. A super-powered assassin named E...

  Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #31 I'm always a sucker for covers that just show the team flying out towards the reader, but I have to wonder what happened to Supergirl - Barry Kitson has never drawn her like this before. It's the official beginning of the new era of Legion stories. Series creators Mark Waid and Kitson are gone and they've been replaced by frequent fill-in writer Tony Bedard and, for this issue only, artists Kevin Sharpe and Robin Riggs. We get an interesting change to the Roll Call page as well - it's back to Atom Girl so I guess that's her official name now... And Mekt is listed as a Legionnaire, which makes no sense. Oh well. We begin in another one of Brainiac 5's dreams - he's the hero, having saved the Earth from the Dominator threat and Bedard uses this sequence to provide tons of exposition about what the future is like and what they did to win the battle last issue. Is he assuming that no one has read the previous issues...

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #29 Two things stand out about the cover. First, the dead Dominators. I've mentioned before that I'm not sure if the Legion Code against killing still exists in this version and now I'm fairly certain it doesn't. I think it's kinda weird that Mark Waid took that off the table, especially considering how much he loves the Silver Age team. But the bigger thing that stands out is that we have different creators. Writer Tony Bedard, penciller Kevin Sharpe, and inkers Mark McKenna and Jack Purcell are working on the book, taking over mid-storyline. You may ask why? I'm asking why. Why have the main creative team drop the book for an issue right in the middle of a the big, multi-part story? I can understand the artist needing a month, but the writer? The answer may be this. This issue is cover dated June 2007. Do you know what other book is cover dated June 2007? I know I'd be pissed if I saw such a horrible drawing of Kara...

  Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #27 This is the first page of this book... it should be the cover:   The Dominion invasion has begun. Last issue, a big robot released something red into the air and Brainiac 5 let the Legion know that they were already defeated. Other stuff is going on but who cares... let's get into the action. This issue is brought to you by writer Mark Waid, penciller Barry Kitson, and inker Mick Gray. Three issues in a row - congrats! We begin on the Dominion Homeworld, where two of the leaders are happily providing exposition and bringing us up to speed. It was the A.I. Virus that they released in the red cloud last issue and all technology is now under their control. Everyone on Earth is panicking because there's no more food and the Dominators are confident they've already won the war. The one with the biggest disk on his head (so the leader) turns and we see that Sun Boy and his team are being held captive. The Dominators have scraped thei...

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #25 To recap everything that's been going on (by the way, I do this as much for myself as for all of you... this book drops subplots like they're on fire): Sun Boy and his group of former murderous criminals have been blipped out of the universe Brainiac 5 still has Lemnos, the villain who led those criminals, locked up somewhere A new group of villains, made up of one who creates sonic waves when he farts, a Titanian who's almost as powerful as Saturn Girl, a bunch of giants (like Micro Lad) from Big City, Nemesis Kid, and Tarik (we don't know if he's mute yet), have about to attack the Legion HQ on Earth and no one saw it coming... you would think, even if was a transmatter jump, there'd be some sort of early warning system... That same group of villains broke into a museum in Kandor to steal the Phantom Zone projector, even though there's absolutely no reason they would have a clue it existed The Legion grabbed th...