Justice League Vs. the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 Review
What Happened That You Have to Know About:
The Legion fights a space monster, successfully, and then a weird darkness thing happens which causes one of Triplicate Girl's selves to disappear. They later tell the United Planets that it's a manifestation of something Brainiac 5 is calling the "Great Darkness". Superboy puts them in touch with the Justice League, in the 21st century, who are also dealing with something similar. The Legion travels back in time to meet with them, and another weird darkness thing happens that causes everyone except Gold Lantern to disappear.
Review:
One of the things I've learned in my decade-and-change of writing this blog is that first issues, first stories, are easier than subsequent stories. Setting stuff up is easier than keeping it rolling. Introducing things is always entertaining; using stuff that has been introduced has to be made entertaining.
For this reason I've been waiting for Brian Michael Bendis's fourboot to get to the point where it's left the introductory stage behind and is just telling Legion stories. But the old fox is too wily for me: through use of the two Millennium issues, the v8 issues, Future State, and now JLvLSH, he keeps pushing that into the future.
So what can I say about it? It's a decent introduction to whatever we're doing here. Large likeable cast, vague menace, interesting details about Triplicate Girl, more teasing about Gold Lantern.
Do we think the Great Darkness is Darkseid again? I kinda do and I kinda don't. Honestly, the way it's being presented here, it seems like it's going to be some kind of rift. Wouldn't that be great? I only read this comic book for the rifts.
What I'd actually like to do is wait until the damn thing is over and then review it all at once. But I'm not going to do that.
I know this is a short review. But there really ain't a lot of moving parts to this comic, sports fans.
Art: 50 panels/22 pages = 2.3 panels/page. 2 splash pages, 5 double-page spreads, 1 case of multiple panels being spread over two pages.
Our artist this time is Scott Godlewski. Godlewski isn't Ryan Sook, but he seems adept at working in Sook's 31st century. For the artistic strengths and weaknesses of this issue, check out pages 6-7. It's pretty. But it's also a double splash page. One of five. Five! There are only fifty panels in this whole issue. That is not a lot!
Labels: Comic Book Reviews, Legion of Super-Heroes
posted by Matthew E @ 8:42 PM
6 Comments:
I have a few quibbles, but I largely liked it. Dialogue is Bendis' strong suit and it works here for me. And thank God they dropped the Future State stuff. As that was only 16 months or so in the future of the future, that easily could have been what we got.
Quibbles:
* The three largely blank pages definitely feel excessive to me.
* Not a big fan of Blok's comment to Green Arrow - very tired of vague allusions to potential future story lines that haven't been thought out yet and, if they are followed up on later, are generally disappointing.
* I have not been a fan of Triplicate Girl/Triad/whatever since the reboot and they're carrying over the same issue here. Having 3 separate personalities and always split means, well, there's just 3 non-powered girls around. I know that they're supposed to be aspects of one person (Id, Ego and Superego), but they are never, ever written that way.
As I say, it's a perfectly good intro to a new story. That part's fine.
Hints At Future Stuff is one of those things I'm learning to let go in one ear and out the other. Remember when Wildfire was supposed to be Red Tornado?
I think writers really like Triplicate Girl. I forget where I read it, but somebody pointed out once that she's one Legionnaire that we can never really imagine what it's like to be her. We can easily imagine ourselves with Sun Boy's powers, or Shrinking Violet's. If we stretch we can even come up with some approximation of what it's like to be Brainiac 5 or Quislet. But we can not possibly imagine ourselves to be three people and also one person.
Pretty sure the Great Darkness isn’t Darkseid. Over in some other comics, including Justice League Incarnate, he’s got some connection to it, but appears to be trying to use it/prepare for it rather than being its architect.
Good to know, thanks.
Rift: still on the board!
I'm thinking that this story may set up why we have Duo Damsel vs. Triplicate Girl in Future State.
As to the Darkness? Who knows. I just expect more for my money in a $4 20 page comic versus many blank pages. Maybe that's why issue 4 will be delayed a month - it's chock full of action...
Hope springs eternal.
Post a Comment
<< Home