If You Can't Say Anything Nice, Don't Say Anything at All

Before it slips too far below the horizon behind us, let's take one last look at Legion Lost.

Here are the best things about Legion Lost v2, the comic book series that ran for seventeen issues before it was cancelled as of this month.

6. It was a second Legion comic. It's always good to have more than one Legion comic on the shelves.

5. They were trying something. I like it when they try stuff.

4. This comic book put Tyroc in a prominent role for the first time since, oh, the late '70s, which is entirely welcome; Tyroc's a fine character when properly handled and I hope we get to see more of him.

3. Legion Lost put Gates in the forefront, something that hadn't happened since the late '90s. Plus, Tom DeFalco even had him make a couple of political comments, which is an aspect of his character I had been missing.

2. Pete Woods's art style was not at all typical of Legion artists, which was appropriate, as Legion Lost was not at all typical of Legion comics.

1. In the months leading up to Legion Lost #1, Fabian Nicieza posted a series of comments on Legion-related threads on prominent comic-book-centric message boards. But not as himself. He posted them as Alastor, and Alastor was in the middle of trying to get some justice from the United Planets for his dead sister. Nobody knew until later that these posts were intended to be a preview of the comic book; in fact, it wasn't clear what was going on at all. I thought it was brilliant: it was a genuinely new way of laying the groundwork for a comic book, it tapped into the Legion tradition of involving the fans, and it did a good job of introducing and developing Alastor. Very impressive indeed.