Sunday, August 28, 2016

Review: Legends of Tomorrow #6.3

What Happened That You Have to Know About: I haven't been following along with this comic, so there's a lot I don't really know about. Sugar and Spike, now grown up to, I dunno, their early 20s maybe, and working as some kind of investigators, are moving into a house in Atlanta with a whole bunch of superheroic artifacts. A trio of Legionnaires shows up, looking for one particular framistat that they need to save the future. Then another one does, and another one... meanwhile, Sugar locates the thing they all need, just as Starfinger and his men arrive on the same mission. Sugar gives the thing to Starfinger so that all the Legion delegations will beat him up and then do whatever it is they had to do in the first place, without her having to deal with them anymore.

Review: I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, as it's not really a Legion story. It's a Sugar & Spike story, and, inconveniently, it's the last part of a longer Sugar & Spike story that I haven't been reading. I don't know what to tell you about how good of a Sugar & Spike story it is, as I've never actually read one before (whether they're babies or grownups), but I found it a pleasant read.

From an LSH point of view, it's a trifle. What it really reminded me of is the Wein/Giffen story from DC Legacies #6, from... man, has it been six years since then already? Holy smoke... from 2010. The one where young Clark is besieged by Legionnaires from different time-periods who all want his help with this or that, but he isn't Superman yet so he doesn't know what they're talking about. This Sugar & Spike story, of course, is also a Giffen project.

Both stories have in common the notion that the Legion is too confusing to deal with and the only way a sensible human can cope with them is to disengage entirely. I question DC's wisdom in pushing that message. Could be just Giffen exercising his sense of humour, of course; I don't doubt that his personal view of the Legion has a lot more to it than that. But still.

Anyway, it's a funny story, with some funny dialogue, and plenty of the kind of easter eggs that Legion fans have come to accept as a substitute for good Legion comics. If you've been missing the boys and girls, here they are, pretty much like you remember them. (Cover price $7.99, though! Hope you like Firestorm, Metamorpho, and the Metal Men.) Wake me when DC wants to stop faffing around.

Art: The art is provided by Bilquis Evely. Sometimes it's a little detail-light or off-model, but in general it's attractive, suggestive of actual people and places, and she doesn't skimp on the backgrounds. I'd be okay with seeing more stuff from her.

Membership Notes: One difference between this comic and DC Legacies 6.1 is that that comic had different versions of the Legion and this one only had the original/retroboot Legion from various times in their history. Read whatever you like into that.

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