Legion Lost #5 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Alastor fights off Dawnstar and Tellus, and Tellus calls for help from Tyroc and Wildfire, while Timber Wolf gets Yera to safety. We get some of Alastor's backstory, which Tellus uses to hit Alastor where he lives. Gates shows up out of nowhere and they ponder their next move, while Timber Wolf meets the Martian Manhunter.

Review:

You know what this issue reminds me of? Partly? The Two Towers. Because Tyroc and Wildfire keep running back and forth between Timber Wolf and Dawnstar just like Gandalf kept riding back and forth across the plains of Rohan.

I have to say I liked Tellus's solution to Alastor very much. It's appropriate to the characters, it's appropriate to the theme of the book, and it's appropriate to the Legion. I approve of this section of Nicieza's master plan.

But I wonder if it means that Tellus's prediction is actually going to happen, or whether he was just saying what Alastor didn't want to hear. Obviously if humanity does change in the way that Tellus said, it means we don't need Mon-El to seed the worlds. Which is liberating for the Superman writers, I suppose. On the other hand, weren't some of these races supposed to already exist in the 21st century? Or maybe I don't quite get what's going on.

I'm also glad to see Tellus doing something useful. There's a lot you can do with Tellus and I hope we see more of it. It's worth noting the differences between Tellus and Saturn Girl: Tellus is less experienced, less confident, less comfortable in human society. But I think he also... this is going to sound contradictory... he's more innocent and also has fewer scruples. Or that's what I recall from the Baxter era, anyway; Nicieza and DeFalco may have different ideas. Only thing that bugs me about Tellus is how he thinks and talks in ellipses. Makes it seem like he's perpetually fighting off unconsciousness.

My enduring memory of Dawnstar is from the issue where Blok first joins the Legion, and she has to fight the Starburst Bandits all by herself. She says to herself, "I'm a tracker, not a stomper." Nicieza's take on her seems to be that she's a bit of a stomper too. Hey, if she can survive in space and fly faster than Superman, then it makes sense that she's got a bit of power, yeah.

So basically I think this was a good issue, one that certainly makes me want to read more, but then again DC is hotswapping Nicieza out for DeFalco, so how much does any of this matter? Maybe a lot! Maybe not at all! We don't know! Any time you have a big discontinuity looming, it sort of takes the air out of whatever leads up to it. None of which is the fault of this comic book, which is, again, fine. The first trade of Legion Lost looks like it will be recommendable. The second? Maybe! Maybe not! Et cetera.

Notes:
- glad to see Gates back, of course; now let's hope DeFalco uses him right
- it is "DeFalco", of course; two capital letters. Like DiDio
- I wonder what the lingering effects are going to be on Yera. And if there are any on Gates

Art: 69 panels/20 pages = 3.5 panels/page. 1 splash page, 1 double splash, 1 spread of 7 panels over 2 pages. Wow, that is not a lot of panels. At the moment I cannot but regard this as an anomaly, but certainly I'm going to be paying attention to next issue.