Legion of Super-Heroes #2-1 Review

What Happened That You Have To Know About:

Obviously, much time has passed since Season 1 (Lightning Lad and Brainiac 5, at least, look a lot older), and Superman still hasn't returned to the future. Tidbit that I think will pay off later: Brainy mentions 'the Dominator threat'.

Suddenly a time warp opens out, and some guy who looks kinda like Superman but not really steps out and recruits Lightning Lad, Timber Wolf, Chameleon Boy, Triplicate Girl and Brainiac 5 to come to the 41st century and help him fight a galactic conqueror named Imperiex. The 41st century is kind of a hole, and they definitely need the Legion's help. Superman-X and the Legionnaires fight off one squad of Imperiex's robots, and Brainy comes up with a plan for how to take out Imperiex when he and his army attacks the resistance base.

This works, kind of, but Imperiex recovers and steals Superman-X's time machine. He immediately takes off for the 31st century, stranding the Legionnaires. Then the Crisis-on-Infinite-Earths-like red antimatter bubbles start appearing, eating up this future that won't exist now that Imperiex is back changing the past. Our heroes make an emergency assault on Imperiex's cruiser, which is the only power source handy that can produce a time warp to bring the Legionnaires home and try to stop Imperiex back in the 31st. One of Triplicate Girl's bodies is killed during the raid, but the Legion does make it home, with Superman-X, only to find that Legion HQ has been thoroughly trashed.

To be continued!

Review:

Why another Superman? I just don't get why this is something that they want to do. I mean, I know that the real Superman is going to show up at some point, but I don't get what they want Superman-X around for. I don't get why this is something they want to explore. We've had the naive inexperienced Superman, now... a pragmatic warrior Superman? Perhaps it will become clearer later.

Imperiex has, of course, some history in DC Comics as a major space tyrant kind of villain. I've never read any of those comics, but my understanding was that the show creators wanted someone who was a sufficiently non-prominent character that they could do whatever they wanted with him. I wonder what he thinks he's going to do back in the 31st century without his armies to help him out? Guy didn't even bring a towel with him.

The quality of animation on this show has definitely not suffered. Everything looks great. Not just Superman-X's new energy and Crystal-Kid-like powers, but also the subtle things--check out Brainy's eyes as he's focusing them to analyze something far away in one scene.

When Superman-X and Brainy take Imperiex out, his robots all stop fighting and retreat. Why? Why would you build your robots that way? Doesn't make sense.

Interestingly, this is the second recent appearance of the 41st century in Legion lore, the first being Cosmic Boy's recruitment by the Knights Tempus in the main comic book. Yet I don't recall that ever coming up before. Curious.

But the main thing here is another chapter in the Superman/Brainy friendship. First, it's clear from the first scene just how important Superman is to Brainy; that's been hinted at before but never this strongly. Second, Superman-X hints at some dark things to come in Brainy's future. Third, both of these things are interfering with Brainy and Superman-X working together. I don't have any thoughts yet on how this is playing out, but it continues to be one of the key knots of idea at the heart of this series.

It all adds up to quite an intriguing and energetic season premiere. It's all very well done, but I'm unsure about the overall direction. Some of these new developments seem a little too extreme and proactive and totally in my face. We'll see.

Nice touches:
- K3NT
- Timber Wolf, voice of reason
- "Can I suggest something that involves less scowling?"
- the cool Cylon voice on Imperiex's troops when they say, "Long live Imperiex"
- the new visual effect for Luornu's power; similar to how they were rendering Phantom Girl's power toward the end of last season

Membership Notes:

Chameleon Boy's a member now, for one thing. Superman-X joins the cast but hasn't become a Legionnaire (yet). I presume Triplicate Girl is going to become Duo Damsel?

Promo images, the opening sequence, and the cast of this episode suggest that Bouncing Boy, Phantom Girl and especially Saturn Girl are going to play a reduced role this season. This sort of goes along with that thing I read, I assume on the Legion Omnicom, about how a focus group of eight-year-old boys advised the show's creators that there were too many female characters. To which I say, shove it, eight-year-old boys; Saturn Girl's awesome.