Issue #1 Review
What Happened That You Have To Know About:
Not much; most of it's pretty introductory. The Legion is established as a youth movement that exists to bring the conscience and vitality of twentieth/twenty-first century superheroics to the stagnant thirty-first century. They're at odds with the (adult) Science Police and United Planets because of this, although, interestingly, they also have a United Planets endorsement. There's trouble on the planet Lallor, and the authorities there try to crack down on the local Legion movement unsuccessfully.
Legion Membership:
Not entirely clear who's in the group and who's not, to start with; we're kind of thrown into the middle of things. Invisible Kid joins the Legion this issue.
Review:
A first issue has to do two things: it has to give the reader the basic premise of the series, and it has to interest the reader enough that he'll go out and pick up #2. It doesn't have to carry a big load of plot, and it doesn't have to provide much in the way of exposition and character origins. Legion #1 does what it has to do, very well, and doesn't do what it doesn't have to do.
Which makes this a better one-issue-long-so-far series than it is a single comic book. There's a lot of sizzle here, but not much steak. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series, but this will not be considered a classic issue of that series.
Rating: LLL (out of a possible five Ls)
Labels: Comic Book Reviews, Legion of Super-Heroes
posted by Matthew E @ 5:36 PM
11 Comments:
So was the threeboot worth it? In the long run,no.It did get a sales spike,but that happens every time DC slaps a #1 on a cover.Fans take this as the usual "New&Improved!" hype,but to reboot something that fandom already regards as being in a perpetual reboot was unwise.All it did was tick off the mossbacks,and they live in a perpetual state of irritation anyway,so big deal.They're best left ignored.
In retrospect,WaK should've done what DnA did when they took over:blown everything up and gone from there.And put a #1 on the cover.
So was the threeboot worth it?
Tough question.
- Artistically, the reboot wasn't in such rough shape that it needed to be swept away. Not at all.
- From a sales point of view, Waid has said in interviews that the best thing would have been to bring back the original Legion, but that option wasn't available to him.
- The threeboot did provide us with some memorable Legionalia that I'm glad exists.
In retrospect,WaK should've done what DnA did when they took over:blown everything up and gone from there.And put a #1 on the cover.
Isn't that what they did?
True, in some ways their take on the Legion was a conservative one, but in other ways it was quite radical.
There's a lot of blame to spread around for the threeboot's demise.
DC,for undercutting it with an alternate version that popped up in the Superman books and elsewhere.Why didn't they use the threeboot?We may never know.
The fans,with their mad corrosive love.They love the Legion so much they want to embalm it and put it in amber so it will never change. Well,life is change.It keeps things fresh.Without it,the Legion is a dead duck.
But the most blame goes to Waid for not doing a better job.There are always moaners,but good word of mouth would've gotten more sales and that's what DC really cares about.
Still,the Legion as rebels with a cause caught in a static utopia is a great idea.Someday,somebody should revisit that idea and do it right.
I agree, although I think that Waid did accomplish a lot of really interesting things in his time on the threeboot.
He did,but it could've been better.
That's the sad epitaph of the threeboot:It Could've Been Better.
Well, any Legion era could have been better than it was. But that's not the point, is it?
Well,what is the point?
The point is, what value does it have? Not what value might it have had but didn't. Is it worth reading or isn't it, does it make you think or doesn't it, is it not a waste of your time or is it, are you glad you read it or aren't you, is it a valuable addition to the body of Legion comics or isn't it.
Oh.
*Reading a Legion comic is never a waste of time.Not like I had anything more important to do at the time,which is why I was reading a Legion comic.
*Any comic book makes me think,if only to think,"That was a bad comic book."
*Valuable or not,every Legion comic is an addition to the lore of the Legion.Whether all that lore needs an addition is another matter.I think a Legion story reads better when there's less backstory crammed into it.
Please excuse the lateness of this response.
Not at all. Is this the same Anonymous or a different Anonymous?
I prefer to go light on the backstory myself.
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