Legion Lost #4 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

There's a big ruckus at the mall as Timber Wolf, Tyroc, Wildfire, and some cops try to apprehend Red Rage, aka Yera, and he/she/it fights back. It ends with Red Rage getting away, with Timber Wolf in hot pursuit, and the other two Legionnaires trying to keep the lid on the cops and follow along as best they can. They eventually catch up with him/her/it, only to find that someone called the Black Razors have already made the capture and now want to add three Legionnaires to their collection.

Meanwhile, Tellus and Dawnstar are doing some scanning and find Alastor in Duluth. Dawny whisks him out of there and they confront him out in the woods someplace, but he uses his Carggite DNA and transforms and splits into three on them.

Key point raised this issue? Tyroc stocked up on supplies before the Legionnaires headed back through the time barrier, suggesting that he knew something about how this was going to work out. Watch this space.

Review:

First of all.

What is this nonsense about Nicieza leaving the book after #6?

Sure, sure; I've read his reasons on the CBR forums and all. But come on. Legion Lost was always a weird idea for a book. To get one guy to develop his ideas for it for six issues and then switch to another guy... Does that strike anyone as a recipe for success? Especially considering the personnel involved. I'm willing to believe, provisionally, that Fabian Nicieza had a vision for this series and that that vision was something that would, in the long run, prove to be intriguing. I am (based on my own impressions and what I've heard from others) somewhat less ready to believe the same about Tom DeFalco. Don't take this the wrong way, but DeFalco is six years older than Paul Levitz.

I mean look. Certainly DeFalco is going to produce a proper comic book. But I want this comic book to be intriguing, and I don't see that happening now. Don't know what it's going to take to get one of the New 52 titles cancelled, but I have to believe that Legion Lost's survival chances have dropped.

As for this issue, well. It's fine; maybe a little on the short side. The Dawnstar POV seems more like a stunt than anything else, as we spent so much time not with Dawnstar; she's nowhere near most of the action of the story. Everybody's falling all over Nicieza for this rotating-POV thing because it's so revolutionary, except that novels use this technique all the time, and except that the story isn't well-suited for it because the action is so split up that the POV character isn't present for all the events you're reading about.

In this issue, for instance, I feel like I'm getting a lot more about Timber Wolf than I am about Dawnstar. And I like it, let me say that too; this is a cool Timber Wolf. (Except for the projectile fingertips of last issue.) Actually, they're all cool, mostly; Dawny's the only one who's less together than before, but in a way that actually works for her. (And of course Yera/Red Rage.)

The key figure in this series, so far, is Alastor, and when he showed up again I was hoping that we'd learn something about him when he showed up again, but no: he misses his sister, he hates humans, and he's quick on the trigger. I wonder what his plan is now? He's already released the hypertaxis virus, so what's he got left to do?

Notes:
- I'm not reading a lot of DC's other titles. Anybody know if the Black Razors have anything to do with those military types who've been monitoring the situation all series?
- I'm also not all that familiar with the north central U.S. states. Are Nicieza and Woods doing any kind of a good job of capturing the essence of the area?
- On Alastor's cap there, is that supposed to be Homer Simpson or a monkey?

Art: 83 panels/20 pages = 4.2 panels/page. One two-page spread; one splash page.

Another fine effort by Woods. Someday I'll figure out who his Dawnstar reminds me of, with the rounder face and squared-off bangs like that.