Issue #8 Review

What Happened That You Have To Know About:

First, Element Lad and Colossal Boy beat up some space pirates preying on prospective Legionnaires. I don’t know if that’s going to be important or not; maybe it’s just there to be an action scene.

Second, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Dream Girl meet with Invisible Kid’s dad, now an executive in the Science Police. He isn’t buying the Lemnos story and tries to get tough. Looks like he (unknowingly) got his promotion through Lemnos’s manipulations.

Third, Projectra is in mourning, and makes a reference to having ‘gained’ something.

Fourth, the Legion has more money in the bank than it seems like they ought to; Element Lad is put on the case.

Fifth, Sun Boy wants to quit and Cosmic Boy doesn’t want him to. They argue about it, and Cosmic Boy goes off on a rant over how fragmented the team is and how precarious their position is. He says some intemperate things, and then it turns out that Brainiac 5 was broadcasting the conversation to the whole Legion via the flight rings. A huge fight ensues and the Legion basically splits in half, the Cos faction versus the Brainy faction. Cosmic Boy pulls a power stunt to end the fight, but then Brainy reveals that Braal has just left the United Planets and Cosmic Boy has to go home now.

Membership Changes:

Sun Boy says he’s quitting, but I think Cosmic Boy talks him out of it. For now we can assume he’s still in.

Review:

Well, the art is a problem with this issue (Kevin Sharpe and Prentis Rollins fill in for Kitson). Not that it’s bad. It’s actually quite good in places. But some of the faces look strange; Cosmic Boy and Ultra Boy are particularly unrecognizable.

In a way this issue is all setup. In another way it’s almost all payoff. Have we ever seen the Legion crack in half before? I don’t recall it. And, because of all the characterization we’ve seen over the last seven issues (only seven!), we can believe it when it happens.

But I don’t want to get carried away. The important stuff is still what’s going to happen next.

Rating: LLL