Legion of Super-Heroes #10 Review

 What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Cosmic Boy, desperate, tries to search the Dominator embassy for helpful evidence about the Brainiac 5/Dream Girl kidnapping. He almost gets caught and Ultra Boy has to pull him out. Star Boy assembles a team to go and rescue Brainy and Dreamy (consisting of Bouncing Boy, Duplicate Girl, Comet Queen, and new recruits Mwinadji and Otaki. Meanwhile, Brainy and Dreamy try to break themselves out, but it doesn't work; plus, Dreamy gets a vision that one of their rescuers is going to betray them.

Review:

It's another one of those comics where when you read it, your reaction is to think that next issue could be pretty cool. To put this into perspective, so was last issue.

I wonder if Levitz is trying to convey to us, through his characters, that the Legion at this moment is an institution that's a prisoner of its own status, and that the only characters who can take effective action are those that strike out on their own. This comes at a time when more and more creators are leaving DC and Marvel to do creator-owned stuff that they'd never have the freedom to do if they stayed. Now, if anyone's a company man, it's Paul Levitz, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. But if something's in the air then it's in the air, and after all there is supposed to be some kind of shakeup coming for the Legion.

Notes:
- Mwinadji or Mwindaji?
- use of "their" at the bottom of page 11 was quite awkward
- had trouble recognizing Bouncing Boy on the cover. Thought it might have been Matter-Eater Lad. Was thrown by the tinting of the bubble he's in
- Mwinadji and Otaki certainly do make the cast more diverse, which is all to the good. Don't forget the nonhumans, Paul!

Art: Portela: 57 panels/12 pages = 4.8 panels/page; 1 splash page.

Andres Guinaldo: 31 panels/8 pages = 3.9 panels/page.

Man, I'm going to miss Francis Portela on this comic book! He's just got this great balloony style that is, and I want you to attend to this point, very pleasant to look at. (Although I suspect that the colorists, Javier Mena in this case, also deserve a lot of the credit.) For an art highlight in this issue, check out the pages with Brainy and Dreamy on the Dominator homeworld.

Andres Guinaldo helps out with eight pages here, and acquits himself well for the most part. Sometimes he leaves facial features a bit blurry, but

Membership Notes:

Star Boy quit last issue, and it seems that Comet Queen quits this issue to join his mission. We're going to have to wait and see if these resignations "take"; the Legion could very well accept both heroes back onto the team seamlessly when this Dominator thing is over.