Adventure Comics #3.1 Review
What Happened That You Have to Know About:
Sun Boy and Polar Boy are on Tharr, tracking down a loser Tharrian villain named Cryo-King. When they finally run him to ground, he's got a map of present-day Earth and says, “You think you're the only Legion with an Espionage Squad in the 21st century?”
Review
Now that's more like it!
This particular backup story is ten pages long instead of eight. The fight with Cryo-King is quite a decent one and provides as much action as we need. The story gives some nice character moments to both Sun Boy and Polar Boy, and some humour too—and yet there's intelligence behind everything; the banter is never gratuitous. Clayton Henry does some deft work with the characters' faces. And it's a complete story.
It's no substitute for a full-length comic book, but it's a nice piece of work. More like this!
Labels: Comic Book Reviews, Legion of Super-Heroes
posted by Matthew E @ 11:14 PM
22 Comments:
Not really into Sun and Polar Boy so much, but the Legion back-ups in this series are at least getting better by the issue.
Unfortunately they're also almost over. The last Johns/Shoemaker backup may come as soon as next issue, and it's anybody's guess when the next Legion story will come after that. I know, I know; whenever Levitz takes over. When's that? #8? #10? #20?
Do we know what they'll be doing between Johns's last LSH backup and Levitz taking over? And Levitz = whole book being Legion, right? Please?
I actually thought this was a decent issue after the first two lackluster ones. Even the Superboy half wasn't so bad. Sun Boy! Polar Boy! References to Brek being Legion leader (which makes me wonder when the diversion happened again). Have we ever actually seen Tharr before? Besides Brek's origin flashback.
Oh, the Subs. How I adore them.
Plus secret Element Lad / Dream Girl time. I'm please that Nura is *probably* going by the name Lori, what with Lori Morning and Glorith and all. Or maybe Lori *is* Lori Morning and not Nura at all, and she's destined to remember her time with a Legion or become a love interest or a villain.
Do we know what they'll be doing between Johns's last LSH backup and Levitz taking over?
We don't know. Or at least I don't know.
And Levitz = whole book being Legion, right?
Yes? Not sure, really. I'm sure that the Legion will have the main story, but I don't know if there'll be a backup or not, or if there is, who's in it. (One thing to watch: if there's no backup anymore, does the price go down? DiDio has said that it would, but we'll see...)
References to Brek being Legion leader (which makes me wonder when the diversion happened again).
I think the branching-off point is still around Crisis. No reason for that to prevent Polar Boy from eventually becoming leader.
Have we ever actually seen Tharr before?
Yes, in the Baxter series. There was some kind of mission on Tharr. I forget the details.
If Lori does turn out to be Dream Girl, I hope some time is spent explaining how she managed to disguise herself as a teenager.
Well, Nura always enjoyed her 30th Century beauty treatments...
Ah, much fun -- loved the story, loved the way it connected to LSH history (but was Dirk ever the leader in the new timeline?), and the surprise ending made it even richer (though, whey would he admit that fact to Dirk and Brek?). Well done!
Have we ever actually seen Tharr before?
Yes, in the Baxter series. There was some kind of mission on Tharr. I forget the details.
LSHv3#40. Newly elected Legion Leader Polar boy takes Mon-El, Dawnstar and the White Witch to stop extortion attempts by Starfinger (2). It's a bit different to the Tharr we see here but not incompatible. They do mostly live underground where it's cooler so the cold core is an interesting extrapolation.
I quite liked the Polar Boy character bit of comparing himself with the villain ("he's from Tharr, has cold powers, and is rejected by a Legion") and Sun Boy's compliment about Polar Boy's leadership term was pleasing. I always thought he got a rough time in story terms in the original.
Polar Boy was the second to last reader-elected leader, right? Right before the Sensor Girl term that didn't really happen. I always wondered if the creators reacted negatively to Brek being elected and intentionally made it difficult because they didn't want to have to deal with him as leader... his Legion was fairly rife with betrayal (the Time Trapper conspiracy) and people undermining his authority in spite of having elected him, which seems odd from the way leadership terms usually played out...
I think that was some good character work by Levitz in the Baxter run. It makes all the sense in the world that the veteran Legionnaires would have a hard time accepting Polar Boy as leader, and it makes all the sense in the world that Polar Boy would come across like a bit of a jerk trying to maintain authority.
Johns's more devil-may-care take on Brek is very much revisionist history. I like it, but he's changing it away from something that worked.
I always wondered if the creators reacted negatively to Brek being elected and intentionally made it difficult because they didn't want to have to deal with him as leader...
I don't think Polar Boy's term as leader (and the Legionnaires response) was a negative reaction from the creators... yeah, Polar Boy was probably a bit surprising, but no more surprising than Dream Girl winning a couple of years earlier. I suspect that the creative team enjoyed the challenge.
I think that was some good character work by Levitz in the Baxter run.
I totally agree.
Johns's more devil-may-care take on Brek is very much revisionist history.
I don't see Johns' current take on Polar Boy to be that revisionistic from what's come before. He's always been a bit of a cheerleader for the team... an eager beaver... Granted, we're not seeing Polar Boy used the same way as when he was leader. At that point in time, he was acting like he had something to prove. Now, Johns seems to be showing that Brek is comfortable with his role on the team (although not quite as comfortable when he goes back home. But that also makes sense. People can become a certain type of person once they leave home, but then they may have trouble being the person they want to be when surrounded by all the people they grew up with).
Yeah, but Polar Boy has never been portrayed like the swashbuckler Johns has turned him into. He was enthusiastic before, yes, but always in an earnest way. And, I say again, I like it. I have noticed a resistance among some to admitting that something in a Johns Legion story can be both new and good, but I think this is such a beast.
Yeah, but Polar Boy has never been portrayed like the swashbuckler Johns has turned him into. He was enthusiastic before, yes, but always in an earnest way.
Earnest... yeah, that's a good way to describe it. I'm not sure I see him as a swashbuckler, but I can see where you're coming from and I think it's a logical development for Brek. Not so much a change in personality (like in Garth) but a progression. It works.
Do we know what they'll be doing between Johns's last LSH backup and Levitz taking over?
Matthew: We don't know. Or at least I don't know.
We can make a really good guess, though: whether or not there are Legion stories running in Adventure, there will be stories involving pre-Legion Mon-El and undercover Legionnaires in the 21st century. Even if Levitz is still a year down the road, there is an ongoing Legion story playing out.
References to Brek being Legion leader (which makes me wonder when the diversion happened again).
Matthew: I think the branching-off point is still around Crisis. No reason for that to prevent Polar Boy from eventually becoming leader.
Best argument I've seen for the branching point is just prior to Superboy's Death. Preserves some great Levitz stories and avoids later problematic ones. And then from a continuity standpoint, the later the breakpoint, the more stuff which would lead up to Polar Boy being elected would be in place, so many post-breakpoint events like that would still be likely to occur in both continuities.
As an interesting side argument, a breakpoint would split the late Levitz Legion (Conspiracy, Magic Wars, Giffen's return) into the same continuity as the 5YG. And that solves the question of Lu's second body who died in Countdown, I think.
After doing some re-reading of the Levitz run, I'd have to put the break between #14 and #15, the reason being that #15 is centered around Brainy's reaction to the death of Kara. Now that we have a Kara/Supergirl running around in the 21st century, that would make #15 (and thus all subsequent issues) out of synch with the current DC Universe.
What I hope most of all is that it turns out not to be important when the branching-off point is.
More and more it looks to me like there isn't any one branching off point. It's a whole new ball game... similar in many respects to Levitz' Legion... except when it isn't.
In the latest Secret Origins (spoilers) Brainy references battles with the Time Trapper and Mordru when the team is only at eight members, which I don't think happened in original continuity until after Superboy joined.
At this point, though, I'm not really fussy on what happened... I'm more curious to find out what's going to happen. And some of that will have to be built on what went on before, but I'm confident that we'll find out what's important to know as the story is being told.
More and more it looks to me like there isn't any one branching off point.
That's probably about right. But I'd say the two timelines run pretty close to each other until Crisis, at which point they diverge.
But I only care up to a point. Mostly I just want good Legion comics, and keep 'em coming.
I think I have to agree. With comments like those referencing early battles with Mordru and the Time Trapper, we're either left to say this is a different timeline or that there were a whole lot of Legion adventures in the early days which we never saw or heard about, even as later passing references. (Which I suppose probably is true -- Superboy wasn't with them every day, probably -- but it feels off.)
Better is probably to treat it not unlike how we had to treat both the reboot and the TMK divergence -- this isn't exactly the Legion we remember, but it's close, and we can assume that most everything we care about is still the same. And then get on with our lives and enjoy *this* Legion.
I also think that some of the Time Trapper revelation we had years ago still come into play here: the Time Trapper keeps pulling at the threads of destiny, trying to accomplish something or other, and those threads keep causing subtle changes and inconsistencies with the Legion, sometimes "Lightning Boy" level, sometimes major revamps. But it's all still the Legion, and at any given time, the Legion we have is the "true" Legion.
Although let's remember that, when both Mordru and the Time Trapper were first mentioned, the Legionnaires already knew who they were from some unrecorded previous encounter(s).
I mean, I don't insist that everything fit together, but this one thing seems to fit anyway.
Let me take a different tack on this: any time that they revisit the "past" of the Legion, something is going to differ from what we already know/knew, whether it's a dropped in reference like that one or that fact that classic Supergirl no longer was ever able to could have been there. But since it's the Legion we're getting at the moment, it is valid ("DC approved") and thus "true", meaning either we play Twister to wedge the new stuff in with the old, or we treat what we're getting as (mostly) separate from what came before.
You want a "branching" point for the Johns Legion? There isn't one. It can't be LSH #14 becauswe of Brainy's fixation on Supergirl, for example, because of all the Superboy/Girl/Pets stories which came before that. You have to revise/rewrite dozens and dozens of stories to remove those influences, and in doing so, the continuity definitely is no longer the same. (cf TMK and the Superboy Hokey Pokey). But the earliest stories -- Lightning Boy, 21st century Legion children meeting Supergirl, Sigellium -- also don't mesh with much of anything else.
So there is no divergence or branching point. There is only variation and parallel.
The large events of the Johns Legion closely parallels those of the Hamilton/Shooter/Bates/Levitz Legion (Adventure #300 through LSH v3), with increasing divergence post-Crisis. I don't think it's worth the effort to say much beyond that.
No, me neither.
I mean, it's one thing for Roy Thomas to tell new World War II superhero stories using Golden Age JSA comics as a backdrop in the pages of All-Star Squadron. That was cool. It's quite another to retell old Legion stories using somewhat less old Legion stories as a backdrop.
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