Legion: Secret Origin #3 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

The wormhole near Anotrom opens wider and produces a giant spaceship, which the United Planets defeat with Brainiac 5's help. Phantom Girl gives the security directorate some data and joins the Legion. More attempts on Brande's life.

Review:

We're halfway through this miniseries now and I wonder if we know what it's about yet. The plot points we've seen have sort of been repeating themselves. The assassination attempts on Brande, whatever that business is with the wormhole, the security directorate... None of it seems to be moving very fast. It's interesting and it's done well, but I wonder if it needed six issues.

One thing I kind of expect to see is that Brande is behind the attempts on his own life, because he's looking for an excuse to put the Legion together. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the Time Trapper mixed up in this. I also wouldn't be surprised to find out that Brande is the Time Trapper, somehow.

I do like Phantom Girl's attitude in this series. It seems like Levitz has really enjoyed writing her since he's come back to the Legion. And I'm glad; she was always one of my favourites.

Given the premise of this series, I wouldn't expect much discussion of what the Legion is all about. Some, maybe, and we do have that in this issue with the Superman reference. Mostly I'd expect to see what the UP thinks the Legion is all about, and there hasn't been much of that, yet, because of course the UP has no idea what to make of them and Brande has been playing his cards close to the vest. I hope the series does touch on it, though.

The way Legion membership has traditionally been chronologically arranged, this is the stage right now with the lowest male-to-female ratio (2:3 or 2:5 if you count Luornu as three). (The early reboot era took it even further, with the high-water mark for female membership being 8 out of 13 or 10 out of 15 (depending on whether you count Luornu as one or three).) It is unusual for superhero comics; supergroup membership is almost always predominantly male. Yet I don't recall ever seeing a panel where Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy take note of the favourable odds. I would. I suppose it's in character, though; Garth has been a one-woman man right from the start, and Rokk tends to be the pursued rather than the pursuer.

And we're all caught up!

Notes:
- is it just me or is R.J. Brande starting to sound like Quislet? Hmm...
- is the security directorate ever going to do anything? And do they still exist?
- I would like to know about those other Legion applicants, eftsoons or right speedily. Especially the Starman-cowled guy and the catguy with the goggles
- who? Reep who? No, no; just happened to pick him out at random. Complete coincidence

Art: 93 panels/20 pages = 4.7 panels/page. 1 splash page. Batista still on his game.