Long Live the Legion

Legion of Super-Heroes (v5) #1 Based on the end of Titans/Legion Special #1, I'm assuming we'll still see Shikari flying around and trying to figure out who is who... No, I'm not naive enough to think that's gonna happen. Instead, they're going to forget that ever happened and she'll magically appear with her teammates once again. For the first time in over a decade, DC Comics thought it might be a good idea to actually hire big name talent to create a new Legion of Super-Heroes title. Instead of cheaping out and going with new talent with no name recognition, we've got Mark Waid, famous for runs on The Flash, X-Men, Captain America, Kingdom Come, etc., returning to the characters he's edited and written before and artist Barry Kitson, who's already well known for runs on Azrael, Shadow of the Bat, L.E.G.I.O.N. and many others. Will it work? Will it bring in more fans? This issue sold 50,694 copies in December 2004 (and another 7,642 in January), mak...

The Legion #38 I usually like Kevin Nowlan's artwork, but this cover... woah... I can't stop staring at Karate Kid and wondering if this drawing is more than a little offensive. We've reached the end of an era, the end of the second-longest version of the Legion, or "reboot" or whatever you want to call it. Tune in next week for the overly-long and wordy retrospective of the entire ten-year-long saga. For those of you who've forgotten what happened before, a group of villains named after Justice Leaguers, Devil, Canary, Arrow, and Lantern, have somehow used Dreamer's powers (connected with Canary's) to shut down all technology in a huge part of Metropolis. They shot the U.P. President, who also happens to be Apparition's mom.  They caused Brainiac 5 to go crazy (the things on his face were actually mood-altering devices) but, luckily for him, one slap across the face from Umbra restarted his computer and he's fine again. I guess it's true a...

The Legion #36 Wow - a Kevin Maguire cover to grab our attention. I love Maguire's art, but this one just doesn't work for me... oh, and once again, we have a Legion cover that doesn't actually happen inside the book. In case you forgot what happened last issue, some bad guys stopped all technology in the middle of Metropolis and shot the U.P. President, and now the Legion has to figure out how to save a bunch of people, rescue Dreamer, stop the flying prison called Oasis One from crashing to the ground, and stop Brainiac 5 from going crazier. Writer Gail Simone has really upped the stakes for this one, hasn't she? She's joined by artists Dan Jurgens and Andy Smith to see if the Legion can get out of all these problems. Reporter Trudy Truesoe is our narrator and she's stunned while she watches Apparition try to save her wounded mother. U.P. President Winema Wazzo is lying there, bleeding all over, and there's no one who can help her. Nothing's working. N...

  The Legion #34 Okay, I'm trying my best to stay positive here. This is always tough when we get to the end of a series or run and you know that nothing matters, we're seeing the final appearances of some great characters, and usually the stories have really lost their spark. Good news - this issue is drawn by Steve Lightle. It's always great to see him handle both pencils and inks and his work really stands out. There's a vitality to his artwork that is lost sometimes. And even when he gets a bad script (cough... issue #24... cough), he can still deliver an issue worth reading. News that I'm not sure about yet - this issue is written by Keith Champagne. He got his start at DC as both a penciller and inker and I believe this is one of his earliest writing jobs. Fingers are crossed that he does well. This issue starts on Qward, which is the anti-matter universe's version of Oa. They've been devastated by endless wars and have now been saved by Thalon, the na...

  The Legion #32 And we're back! I hope everyone had a great holiday, no matter which holiday you were celebrating, and we're ready for an amazing 2025. My boundless optimism in the face of everything going on in the world will annoy my friends and family, but I can live with that. It's the Legion way, right? My only New Years wish? That DC Comics gets a Legion title up and running in 2025. And if they get me to write it? That would just be gravy... Let's stop this review to go over a little inside knowledge about comic books. How do you know when a title is about to be cancelled? Here are some not-so-subtle clues: The cover artists get replaced by whomever is the cheapest and youngest talent the publisher can find The creative team leaves very, very quickly and never get to wrap up any of their subplots Tony Harris and Tom Feister are no where to be seen - instead, Eric Wight handles this cover. It's pretty... generic... and doesn't really grab the attention th...