Legion: Secret Origin #4 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Not much really. More of the same; ships out of the wormhole, Legion continues to grow, attacks on Brande. Looks like the Legion is going to use the carrot of time travel to recruit Brainiac 5. Also, big surprise, the Legion's going to be called in to help out at the wormhole.

Review:

In a way I don't believe what I'm reading here. Paul Levitz has a technique for writing where every time he revisits a storyline he advances it in some way. But if that's what he's doing in this comic book, I'm missing it. I mean, it clearly is going somewhere, but slowly, which suggests to me that this whole thing could be done in fewer issues. How many assassination attempts on Brande do we need?

Part of the problem is that the various elements of the story--the security directorate, Brande and the Legion, the wormhole--all get introduced early, and now we're just watching them all shift into position. Plus there's too much attention paid to the stuff we already know about, like the various Legionnaires joining. I prefer the approach in the first issue or two, where the Legion was mostly in the background. Plus the idea of this series was supposed to be that we're getting all the behind-the-scenes stuff that nobody ever knew about the formation of the Legion, but there really isn't much of that. I mean, sure, we can see the security directorate discussing the Legion, but it isn't of any consequence.

I don't know. I like this series, but man, it's moving slowly. One thing, though: it's going to make an excellent jumping-on point for new readers. Once it's complete and collected in TPB form, you know.

It is possible, as with Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, that there's really something interesting coming up and this has all been setup, and the thing will be great once we get to the end of it. That's fine for guys like me who are going to get the whole thing regardless, and it's fine for the tradereaders, but it makes for a lousy serial experience. If you have a hook, you don't wait for the second-last issue to put bait on it.

There have been too many decent Legion comics recently. And not enough really good ones.

Art: 86 panels/20 pages = 4.3 panels/page. 2 splash pages.

Chris Batista does give his characters the long smooth horsy faces, doesn't he? Reminds me a little of Lee Moder only without the big hair. I mean, I don't have a problem with it or anything; it's just that's his style.