Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #15 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl are on a virtual-reality date that gets hijacked to a quasi-real Keystone City inhabited by a really real Impulse (Bart Allen). Elements of the city keep vanishing, and they bring Brainiac 5 into the situation. The four of them trace the phenomenon to its source, which turns out to be Tharok, who's, uh... gaining some kind of advantage out of doing this. They beat Tharok and part friends with Bart.

Review:

More new blood on this title as Jake Black steps in to do the writing and Robert Atkins handles the art. They do okay. Atkins doesn't really make Keystone City as interesting-looking as it would be to the Legionnaires, and he makes Triplicate Girl look kind of stretched and bendy at times. But he does capture the feel of the animated-Legion style well, I like how he draws Bouncing Boy, and I particularly like Luornu's face at the bottom of page 11.

The story. Did I mention I was sick of the Fatal Five? Because I am. And I'm still not sure just how Tharok was going to be able to destroy real cities after practising on virtual ones. Other than that I enjoyed it.

I haven't read all that many comics with Impulse in them, so I can't comment on whether it's a good portrayal of him, but I didn't see any violence done to the character. Plus it's another example of this title's anything-goes approach to story elements. Can you imagine how many Newsarama interviews it would take before Bart Allen appeared in the main Legion title? This is exactly the way it should be done.

We don't actually see all of Triplicate Girl in this issue; only Luornu-White accompanies Bouncing Boy on this date. So she effectively doesn't have any powers throughout the whole story. Doesn't make her any less effective, though; she's still able to beat up a bunch of Tharok's virtual robot drones. It's like I was just saying about Phantom Girl: Legionnaires are overqualified for most missions.

I'm trying to resist speculating about whether this issue is hinting about anything to do with Bart Allen's in-continuity fate or future, perhaps even with the Legion. That's not what this title's for, and that stuff will sort itself out anyway.

Notes:
- "You sink!"
- "A couple, actually." Triplicate Girl was having a good repartee day
- Corner of Waid and Wieringo
- It's a long way from "I drink to forget you!" to "It is an honor to meet you"