Hail to you, ye lads and lasses, and the best wishes of the holiday season all around.
What Happened That You Have to Know About
The Legion is haunted by the ghost of Ferro Lad, so they recruit Scooby-Doo and his friends from the present day to help them figure out what's going on. Turns out it's a scheme by the Emerald Empress to try to get the Legion to disband, and the story turns into a fight against the Fatal Five, which the Legion and their new allies win.
Review
Very simple story here, as you might expect. The investigation phase of the story takes up about half the issue; the fight takes up the other half. So there's not a lot of time to really get into anything.
It's a Scooby-Doo comic, so the writer, Sholly Fisch, has to fudge things a bit so that Mystery Inc. can do useful things in the final battle between the Legion and the Fatal Five. That's fine; that's fair. I'm not imagining things, right, Fisch has written the Legion before? Recently? In some kind of one-off or other? Yes? No?
"Bouncing Boy and Shrinking Violet are fighting Darkseid..." Oh, yeah, I remember that story.
I continue to be unimpressed that DC keeps giving us these nostalgic versions of the Legion. I mean, as with the Batman '66 team-up, it's appropriate, but why is that the team-up they're choosing to do in the first place? Anyway, Scooby-Doo is kind of a '70s property; why not bring in the Bates-Cockrum era LSH? Just to mix things up a bit.
So, you know, it's fine. I've certainly read worse comics. The problem is not that this comic exists; the problem is that there aren't any other Legion comics coming out these days. And I have to say I'm not sure we're going to get any.
Art
96 panels/20 pages = 4.8 panels/page. No splash pages.
The art here is provided by Dario Brizuela, who's new to me. Can't really say I'm impressed. The backgrounds are almost completely lacking in detail, and the Legionnaires look pretty generic. The action is clear, but everybody seems to be waiting around until it's their turn to do something. The Scooby-Doo characters are on-model, but there are some panels where they're rendered with a thicker outline than the Legionnaires. Not sure what that's all about. If it's a stylistic choice, then why not do it all the time? Anyway, there's nothing actually unpleasant to look at here, which puts Brizuela up on a few Legion artists we've seen, but overall there's not a lot going on here that's of any visual interest.
Kudos for another year of Legion coverage, sir. This is the last comics-related blog I bother to follow, and I'm glad you've kept it up even with DC's lack of commitment to the Legion. Here's hoping 2018 gives you more to write about.
ReplyDeleteThanks; I appreciate that. And I think we’ve got a lot of things to hope for in 2018!
ReplyDeleteYeah thanks Matthew - I do check in here a lot but I appreciate there isn't much for you to write about. What about Phantom Girl's upcoming appearances in The Terrific's? I hope so as she's my favourite DC character...(maybe it will make up for the terrible way she was treated at the end of the last series).
ReplyDeleteI’m certainly going to read the comic. But I’m not sure it’s something to cover here; you may have noticed I didn’t bother with, say, the Colossal Boy appearance in _Teen Titans Go_. What I figure is, one Legionnaire is not the Legion. But we’ll see.
ReplyDeleteBoo! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping we will get a fair bit of info on Phantom Girl being in this comic - I don't think there is any info out there is there on how she happens to be around? Although I did see in the 2nd issue it mentions the team on on a giant (and that was what happened in Tinya's final appearance in the Legion). I think as we are so starved of anything Legion related maybe we can talk about it in here anyway!
I was under the impression that it wasn’t Tinya in _The Terrifics_ but someone else... but as I say we’ll see.
ReplyDeleteThis issue was pretty typical of the comic in general: simple, amusing, and with enough nods to DC's various properties and history (there's a great joke about the umpity million Starmen in the Martian Manhunter issue) for the long time fan to appreciate.
ReplyDeleteIt's always fun, but the absolute definition of low stakes.
I did really like the gag with Matter-Eater Lad and Shaggy though.
Does the art ever get more detailed?
ReplyDelete