Legion of Super-Villains #1 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Saturn Queen raises hell on Takron-Galtos and recruits a new Legion of Super-Villains. Their mission is to reduce the universe to anarchy, and in pursuit of this they destroy the Rock of Eternity and are about to raid Colu to select their next target.

Review:

The biggest thing I take from this comic book is the new cosmology: the universe rests on three worlds: Dormir, Ttrxl, and Earth... no, wait. The worlds of faith, wisdom, and willpower, which turn out to be the Rock of Eternity, something we don't know yet, and Oa. This strikes me as something that Levitz (and other DC writers) could get a lot of mileage out of. Especially how the three have been conspiring against evil throughout history.

Levitz's take on Saturn Queen is noticeably different from Geoff Johns's. Johns saw her as someone who believed people were evil and corrupt deep down, and wanted to use her powers to bring that out in everyone. The opposite of Saturn Girl, who always sees the best in everyone. Levitz has (with the assistance of the blue space baby) turned her into a kind of psychotic evangelist of anarchy. I think I liked Johns's idea better, but there's no denying that Levitz is making her formidable. (Although my favourite is still 5YL Saturn Queen.)

The new LSV seems like an interesting group. I mean, anytime Lightning Lord is the voice of reason, you know you're pretty much through the looking glass. Some of the LSVers pose interesting questions, like just what is Sun-Killer's backstory? Or who was Immortus before he put his brain in the robot? General Immortus of Doom Patrol fame? What's Questor's story? (One problem: Zymyr. Anytime you have a teleporter in your group, you've got to work extra hard to make them more than just the one who gives everybody a ride all the time. Right now all Zymyr has is his alien appearance and speech pattern. It's not enough. (And if you want to go through that reasoning, substituting "Gates" for "Zymyr", it'll be just as applicable.)) (Oh, and what's Hunter doing here? Does Levitz actually have an idea for making him interesting?)

The obvious question with the Rock of Eternity is, now that it's been destroyed, does that mean that Thunder's going to be showing up in this book? Probably not. Levitz doesn't seem to like doing stuff that's already been done. Presumably that hand that appeared in the last panel of page 32 is whoever's acting in the role of the wizard Shazam these days. I like how the Rock looks like a big floating d8.

It's a pretty good comic book even though it was mostly just setup. I mean, the only reason all this didn't happen in the pages of the regular LSH title is that Levitz wanted to have some room to spread out, right? Which is fine. After all, more is better. And, even if we didn't get a complete story, the story we did get is, oh... semi-complete? I guess you could say that Saturn Queen succeeded in creating her new LSV, and that's the story. And only two weeks until we find out what happens next, and an issue of Adventure in between! We're being spoiled.

Notes:
- the being extruded by the Rock of Eternity looked a lot like Abnegazar, Rath, and/or Ghast, huh?
- wonder what kind of recruits Mekt is going to find on Rimbor
- I'm going to miss Micro Lad. Oh, wait: no I won't

Art: 154 panels/38 pages = 4.1 panels/page. 4 single-panel pages and 1 double-page spread. Nice job by Portela. In particular I like how he portrays Saturn Queen. I'm not sure that her kooky-bloodthirsty appearance really fits with her character, but it's nice to look at. (I say Emma Caulfield plays Saturn Queen in the movie.) Really, it's shocking how good Legion art has been over the decades, with the rarest of exceptions.