Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #8 Review

What Happened That You Have To Know About:

On a slow night at Legion HQ, Bouncing Boy and Superman ask 2/3 of Triplicate Girl out on two separate dates. Superman turns out to be Starfinger in disguise, though, and insinuates that he and Triplicate Girl know each other from before, and demonstrates some unexpected superpowers in pursuing her various selves. A few Legionnaires pile into the fight before Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl take him out with some nice magno-ball moves.

Review:

Could we be seeing some continuity in this comic? Some kind of ongoing plotline with Starfinger? I'm up for it, but I didn't think that they'd want to go that way.

Thoroughly charming issue. Art by Serra. I forget which issue he drew before this, but I recall being a little distracted by the way he draws Luornu's right eye seemingly floating isolated in a sea of hair. No complaints. In fact, you know what I liked about this issue? Lots of small panels. More panels = more story! Messrs. Shooter and Manapul, please take note!

The main point of the story here is Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl starting the relationship they've had in every other version of the Legion. Intriguing/poignant thing here is that it's the white third of Triplicate Girl who seems most interested in him, and that's the one who was lost in the future in the cartoon. Which makes me think it's more likely that she'll survive being consigned to oblivion by the end of the season.

Points:
- first appearance of Shvaughn Erin with this Legion
- it's a very happy-looking cover. Surprised they aren't saving it until February
- it was a little weird seeing Superman acting like Mr. Smooth, and probably preferable that there was an explanation for that
- I would someday like to see the rules for magno-ball codified
- I know I'm not the only person who keeps hearing, in his head, "Star-Finger! Pretty girl..."
- we all knew the foul ball was going to be a plot point, right? We've all seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

Membership Notes:

Matter-Eater Lad appears here, so now every Legionnaire from the TV show has also appeared in the comic, except... hmm... Ferro Lad, Chameleon Boy, Karate Kid, Nemesis Kid, and Superman-X. And there are obvious reasons for all of those.

In the lettercol, Johnny DC gives us more "lesser-known Legionnaires". Which means that nobody noticed anything wrong the last time they did this, which in turn means that DC's tacitly accepting the Legion Sourcebook info for Five Year Gap information. See this Continuity Note for more details on that. Anyway, the Legionnaires mentioned this time are Element Lad, XS, the White Witch, Crystal Kid, Nightwind, Visi-Lad, Ultra Boy, Catspaw, Tellus and Karate Kid. Combine those with the ones mentioned in issue #5 and it covers basically all of history. The only eras that aren't specifically covered (i.e. by a character who appears only in that era) are the threeboot and the DnA era. Between the comic and the lettercols, we'll get all seventy-nine of 'em in there eventually.