Superman and the Legion of Super Heroes #1-5 Review
What Happened That You Have To Know About:
Lightning Lad is competing in the Space Olympics, or whatever they think they call it. His event is the dodecathlon (which is awesome). Unfortunately, he's up against some stiff competition consisting of a Bismollian (I think his name is mentioned as Tenzil; anyway, it's clearly supposed to be him), Jo Nah of Rimbor, and Mekt Ranzz of Winath (no lightning powers, though). Mekt cheats and wins the gold but Garth also medals. Meanwhile, Superman and Phantom Girl are there as spectators, sitting in the presidential luxury box with Phantom Girl's mom, and it's all very awkward, especially since the Fatal Five keep trying to assassinate President Wazzo and Superboy and Phantom Girl have to stop them without causing a panic. Climax of the story: during the medal ceremony, Mekt unwittingly lets the Fatal Five through security in return for helping him cheat, and the Legion (plus Jo and Tenzil) has to beat them to save the president.
Review:
Perfectly good episode. Continues the pattern of having a *lot* of action packed into a short period of time, and yet still getting a lot of story handled. Phantom Girl continues to provide cool moments in the fights; there were two occasions on which she phased through somebody in order to grab them from behind, and, best of all, in the final fight she phased Mano underground and then pushed him up out of the ground so that his disintegrating hand melted Tharok's cyborg leg.
We did have some plot holes. Like why did the Five need Mekt to melt the security dome during the ceremony, if the Emerald Eye was already inside? Or the 'dot bomb' that was planted on the presidential skybox. According to Phantom Girl it's powerful enough to blow up half a planet. If that's so, why was Tharok hanging around outside a moment later? Choose your answer:
- Tharok is a suicide bomber
- Tharok only showed up once Superman flew off with the bomb; the Empress must have teleported him for him to be there so fast
- someone other than the Fatal Five planted the bomb
- no good reason
The most important thing about this episode was how it put Lightning Lad on display. Garth has been a bit of a jerk in this series... but not too much. He gave Superman and Timber Wolf a hard time when he first met them, but once they joined the Legion, he accepted them as his teammates. In this episode, he shows perspective: doesn't let Mekt goad him into a fight, doesn't hesitate to save people in danger even if it means losing a race. He's got a temper and he can be abrasive, but he's not close to forfeiting his good-guy status.
One thing I didn't like was the subplot about Phantom Girl not getting along with her mother. It was cliche from start to finish, it wasn't funny, it was all over the place in terms of characterization and I would rather it had been left out entirely.
Nice touches:
- Phantom Girl thinking Jo was cute
- comedy (1)--Phantom Girl mocking Superman for his awkwardness upon meeting her mom
- when the Emerald Empress called to the rest of the Five to get their attention, the Emerald Eye turned to meet her gaze
- the sportscaster at the beginning referred to "the lucky 343rd Galactic Games". 343 is obviously three times as lucky as 'lucky 7', as 343 is 7 cubed
- comedy (2)--Superman moves in on the buffet table, saying, "Hey, crab legs!" At which point a face appears from the cluster of 'crab legs', retorts, "Monkey face!" and scuttles away
Membership Notes:
When President Wazzo is thanking the Legion at the end, there are six people there on the podium, five of whom helped out in the fight: Superman, Phantom Girl, Lightning Lad, Jo Nah, Tenzil, and a four-eyed corkscrewy alien named Zzok of Sephia (he has burrowing abilities). So are we to believe that these last three are now affiliated with the Legion? I hope so. That'd be cool; a new Legionnaire who only exists in the cartoon. Both Ultra Boy's and Matter-Eater Lad's symbols appear on the Mission Monitor Board sequences in the credits, which would imply that they're already members, but that's not reliable.
Also, apparently Drake Burroughs's name appeared in Interlac at one point.
Rating: LLLl
Labels: Episode Reviews, Legion of Super-Heroes
posted by Matthew E @ 4:19 PM
10 Comments:
After the first race, the leader board included Jo Nah, Tenzil Kem, and Drake Burroughs (all in interlac). However, the guy who everyone knew was supposed to be Tenzil was called "Camden Mismullion" for some reason.
I didn't see it as Tinya not getting along with her mom. I saw it as a typical teenager with a mom who keeps embarrassing their kid (like every teenager's parents) and making sure her daughter meets a nice boy (like every teenage girl's parents).
Not sure if Zzok, Jo, and Camden are "with" the Legion now, I guess we'll have to wait. But remember we have seen Ultra Boy and Matter-Eater Lad in the opening credits.
Camden Mismullion? That was in Interlac? Huh. I wonder if this is for the same reason the Timber Wolf episode wasn't on Zoon.
I didn't see it as Tinya not getting along with her mom. I saw it as a typical teenager with a mom who keeps embarrassing their kid (like every teenager's parents) and making sure her daughter meets a nice boy (like every teenage girl's parents).
Whatever you want to call it. I stand by my evaluation.
Not sure if Zzok, Jo, and Camden are "with" the Legion now, I guess we'll have to wait.
Oh, I'm okay with the small cast for now. I'm not going to start pressing for huge rosters unless this show actually lasts for a few years.
No, "Tenzil Kem" was in interlac on the leader board. When the announcers called him by name, they called him "Camden Mismullion" (that's how closed captioning rendered it multiple times).
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Isn't it more likely that it was an error on the closed captioning's part? I heard "Kem the Bismollian" when I watched it. 'Bismollian' wasn't pronounced like I had imagined it would, and "the" was spoken quickly enough to slur a little, but the name was pretty recognizable.
Dunno why he was always addressed like that when no one else was, though.
Oh, well that's fine, then. You can't go by closed-captioning; it has a hard enough time with regular English.
Yeah, I'm an idiot. But "Camden Mismullion" is kind of a cool name, though.
The closed-captioning also spelled out the "Khuns" as well.
I watch it with the closed-captioning turned on because it helps while I'm annotating the episode's LegionWiki entry.
"Or the 'dot bomb' that was planted on the presidential skybox. According to Phantom Girl it's powerful enough to blow up half a planet. If that's so, why was Tharok hanging around outside a moment later? Choose your answer:
- Tharok is a suicide bomber
- Tharok only showed up once Superman flew off with the bomb; the Empress must have teleported him for him to be there so fast
- someone other than the Fatal Five planted the bomb
- no good reason"
I'll take E - PG exaggerated. Always the most reliable explanation for when a character says something that doesn't make sense.
I dunno... when it did blow up, out in space, 'half a planet' didn't seem completely out of the question.
Watching this episode now,in light of the Sochi games and the concurrent unrest in the Ukraine...the more things don't change,in fiction as well as reality.
I didn't even think of this episode. But, yeah, I guess you're right.
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