Everybody Stand Back. I've Lost My Emerald Contact Lens of Ekron

So I figured, let's try something. Pick out a Legion of Super-Heroes comic at random and see what's in it that I can write some kind of article about. So I reached into the stacks and pulled out Legionnaires #42. It's got Kinetix on the cover, in her kitty-cat look, being blasted by Mysa the Hag. Power... ...And Loss! (Written by Stern and McCraw; art by the Moys and Carani.)

Okay. Let's see what's going on in here. Title is "When Strikes the Sorceress!"

Basically, Mysa had previously sent Kinetix out to get the Emerald Eye of Ekron for her, but Kinetix failed to do that, and now Mysa wants to punish her, so Mysa brought a Legion cruiser containing Kinetix, her family, Live Wire, Triad, XS, and Invisible Kid to the Sorcerer's World. (Admirably limited dramatis personae!) There's a confrontation, and some fighting, and eventually Kinetix, her mother, and Mysa have an argument about some fantasy BS that ends with Kinetix being returned to her original form and powers, and everyone being magically sent home.

One thing I noticed about this issue, and the first part of the reboot in general, is that, there are a lot of women wielding power recklessly. In this story, Mysa, Kinetix, and Kinetix's mother Azra do eventually resolve their situation, but only after Mysa abducts seven people into considerable danger. Kinetix's own desire for power is always portrayed as a flaw. Elsewhere in this run, Saturn Girl's powers are always being policed in one way or another. Phantom Girl's mother and President Chu are both ruthless politicians. Shrinking Violet's tenure as Legion leader is compromised by her takeover by the Emerald Eye (itself a female-associated artifact). Andromeda's career as a Legionnaire is almost completely negated by her hateful ideas!

Meanwhile, there's no such negative association with male authorities like R.J. Brande or... well, actually, yes there is with Leland McCauley. So it doesn't all go one way.

The other thing about this comic is that it's got some chewy superpowered tactics to discuss. I love this stuff. Anytime you've got a team of superheroes and a problem, I want to try to work out what they can do to solve it. For instance:

- Mysa attacks the Legion with lightning, and Live Wire absorbs it harmlessly, astonishing her. "This cannot be!" Do some homework, Mysa

- Invisible Kid goes invisible immediately on their arrival, so Mysa doesn't even know he's there in the first place. He's therefore able to get Kinetix's family out of immediate danger. This is the thing about illusion powers: they work best when your opponent has no idea that they're facing illusion powers. Maybe he shouldn't call himself "Invisible Kid"!

- Mysa imprisons the Legionnaires in magical bonds, which XS tries to vibrate her way out of, but there's something else they could have done: what if Triad had reunited to a single (imprisoned) self, and then retriplicated? Would she then have two selves free? I think it was worth a shot

Things like this are important for teams like the Legion, where each individual hero is primarily a team member and not a solo hero. They need to know how to work the combinations to be effective; otherwise, you've just got a bunch of specialized hammers looking for specialized nails.

So that's what I got out of it. Good comic!

The Legionnaires: the Walk-Ons

Entropy Kid; Radius Lad; X-Ray Girl. Created by Brian Michael Bendis and Ryan Sook.

Bendis and Sook's fourboot Legion of Super-Heroes had, among its qualities, a large cast of characters that left many characters underdefined. I can't guarantee that every well-established Legionnaire actually got a line of dialogue over the course of the series.

Among the characters who were shortchanged were three who did nothing more than show up in crowd scenes. There's nothing in the text of the comics that tells us anything about them, but there they were, and some information has leaked out anyway. (I remember there was all kinds of speculation about who the skeleton was in the green containment suit! "Could be Chemical King! Or Infectious Lass!") Here they are.

It seems that Ryan Sook did reveal something about their superpowers, at least. X-Ray Girl can make things transparent at a touch. Radius Lad can receive and utter any broadcast signal in the galaxy, and this can be more or less useful depending on the nature of the signal. And Entropy Kid can control the rate of decay of matter. So there you have it.

Will we ever get to see these Legionnaires in action? At the moment you'd have to say it's not likely. I don't mind them existing, though; my philosophy in these matters is 'more is better'. Especially since they're obviously nonhuman; there's been too little of that in Legion comics.

Listen to Me

 Sorry for not posting more. I don't mean to not post stuff here. But it's just so easy.

Anyway, I recently appeared on the Legion of Substitute Podcasters: Tomorrow's Heroes Today podcast, discussing issue #9 of the Threeboot. Give it a listen if you're of a mind to. This may not be the best link for it, but any podcatcher you use ought to be able to set you right if it doesn't work for you.

Take care!

Time Beacons: My Time Travel Nexus Articles

In 2019-2020 I wrote a series of articles for the Time Travel Nexus website. I didn't stop so much as the website stopped updating; their newest article was posted in early 2021 and I haven't heard from them at all. The website's mission was to highlight fictional depictions of time travel, so my articles, in turn, looked at Legion of Super-Heroes stories from the perspective of what we could learn about time travel as shown in those comics. I called the series "Time Beacons", for partially obvious reasons. Might I continue writing them and posting them here? The last article is a satisfying stopping point, but certainly there's more material out there that I had been planning to cover! No promises, but I might come back to it a little bit.

Anyway, I wrote a total of ten articles for TTN, and I'm proud of them, and if you'd care to check them out yourself, this is them:

Time Beacons 1: The Legion of Super-Heroes (Adventure #247)

Time Beacons 2: The Fatal Five / The Doomed Legionnaire (Adventure #352-353)

Time Beacons 3: The Adult Legion / The War of the Legions (Adventure #354-355)

Time Beacons 4: Mordru the Merciless / The Devil's Jury (Adventure #369-370)

Time Beacons 5: The Hero Who Hated the Legion (S&LSH #216)

Time Beacons 6: We Can't Escape the Trap in Time (S&LSH #223)

Time Beacons 7: The Infinite Man Who Conquered the Legion  (S&LSH #233)

Time Beacons 8: The Great Darkness (LSHv2 #290-294)

Time Beacons 9: The Origin of the Universe File (LSHv2 #295)

Time Beacons 10: The Future Is Forever (LSHv2 #300)

Enjoy! And don't forget I'm also writing a fantasy story on my other site. It's going well!

The Legionnaires: Toyman

Toyman, aka Winn Schott, aka Winslow Schott Jr., aka Computer Lad, of 21st-century Earth. Created by a bunch of TV writers drawing upon various pre-existing Toyman characters created by lots of people.

This whole time there's been a character missing from my All Time Legion Roster page, and nobody's complained to me about it! Here's a character who joined the Legion five years ago, our time, and it's taken me this long to recognize it, and never a word from any of you on the subject. I give you one job.

Winn is a character from the Supergirl tv show. I watched the first few seasons of it, but eventually I just kind of fell away from the Arrowverse altogether. So I may not know all the things I know about this guy.

At the start he was a guy who worked with Supergirl's secret identity, Kara Danvers, at a big media corporation. He was sort of their IT expert, and he had an unreciprocated crush on Kara, which sometimes led him to engage in some crummy behaviour. Combine this with his backstory as the son of the supervillain Toyman, and you'll understand if I say that I was leery about what kinds of storylines he'd eventually get involved in. But it didn't happen: what happened instead was that he eventually did a kind of exchange-student thing with Brainiac 5, where Brainy hung out in the present day for a while and Winn went to the future and joined the Legion.

We don't have, I think, a whole lot of detail on what Winn did as a Legionnaire, but his qualifications were that he was just really good with technology. And... I dunno what I think of that. This 21st-century guy is better, a lot better, at using 31st-century technology than 31st-century people? That sounds like some nonsense to me. But a) I do think that people's raw smarts don't increase over a thousand years, and b) he is the Toyman's son. So... sure? Still seems like a dumb idea to me, but I think we can all agree that there'd be a lot fewer Legionnaires on the historical list if "seems like a dumb idea" was disqualifying.

One detail: apparently Winn marries Ayla Ranzz while in the future, and they have a daughter. I don't think Ayla is treated well in these televisual adaptations. But whatever, the show's called Supergirl; this is all details.

(Probably should also note that there's a long and occasionally proud tradition of the Legion interacting with the descendants of Superman villains, and sometimes even making them Legionnaires. Brainiac 5 of course, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.)

Anyway, welcome to the blog, Winn. You earned it. You got into the Legion of Super-Heroes, and, as Sherwood Kiraly would say, that's a lot harder than getting into the phone book.

Legion of Super-Heroes (animated feature, 2023) Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Supergirl, freshly arrived on Earth, is having trouble fitting in with the Justice League because she's not used to using superpowers and misses the high-tech life on Krypton. Superman has the bright idea of sending her to the future, which is also high-tech, and she can train at Legion Academy. This doesn't go really well but Supergirl and the other Academy students redeem themselves when the Dark Circle try to steal the Miracle Machine and only the students can stop them.

This fits into the continuity of DC's direct-to-video features in some way that seems important but I don't know anything about.

Review:

Not sure what the best way is to come at this review. This feature was not a great one for longtime LSH veteran fans. We know too much and have too many expectations that get thwarted. But it's much better for new fans, and that's obviously a good quality to have.

Look what we've got. First of all, we've got Supergirl. Everybody kind of knows Supergirl, and if they don't, they get a good introduction to her anyway. Then we find that she's going to be our key into the 31st century, just like Superboy was in the Silver Age comics. That's smart; she, as a contemporary character, is going to have similar questions to what we would if we visited the future.

Second we've got the Legion Academy. This allows us to meet Legion characters in small doses, and the classes give us a lot of useful exposition about what the Legion of Super-Heroes actually is and does. It also gives us a sense of how special it is to be a Legionnaire and what an accomplishment it is to become one.

We also get a lot of longtime Legion storytelling beats, sometimes in ways that don't feel right, but nothing that isn't fair play. For instance:

I know it seems weird to see longtime Legionnaires like Phantom Girl, Invisible Kid, Triplicate Girl, and Dawnstar as Academy students, bemoaning how their weak powers mean they'll never become Legionnaires. But angsting over one's weak powers has been a Legion trope for most of their history. Angsting over whether one will become a Legionnaire has been a Legion trope for most of their history.

There's a part where one character turns traitor, and it's not a character who we're used to seeing do that kind of thing, and I imagine there's a lot of fumfuring out there about it... but it was set up very well indeed, and having a Legionnaire turn traitor has been a Legion trope for most of their history.

Stealing the Miracle Machine? We've seen that before. Brainiac 5 being a prickly outsider who doesn't think he belongs on the team? We've seen that before. One-third of Triplicate Girl getting killed? Seen it before.

So this is all fine. It's a perfectly reasonable introduction story for the Legion, with some good moments for Supergirl and Brainiac 5, and a good final villain (whom, I'll say it first, I would be perfectly happy to have this be the canonical leader of the Dark Circle). If they want to do any more Legion features, which I hope they do, they've got a good foundation to build on.

But there is a thing I don't like here, and I'll tell you what it is:

There aren't a lot of just people in this feature.

When Kara is wandering the mall at the beginning, there are a few citizens also there, including the security guard and the other girls and the building owner. But the place looks pretty empty other than them. Then, in the 31st century, I don't think we meet anybody other than Legionnaires, Academy students, and villains. This is important! What are superheroes for if not to protect regular people? They're an important part of the story. If it's just superhumans versus superhumans... then that turns it into an entirely different genre, and not one that I'm much interested in.

I understand that this would make it a lot more work to animate. Fine. I don't care. Try. Do something. Otherwise we have the premise of superheroes without the fantasy of superheroes, and that's not a good combination. (See this article for more on this.)

Notes:

- is Shadow Lass ever going to be allowed to have her own powers in animation? I remember in JLU she had some kind of pink ray, and then in this she had grasping tendrils and some kind of teleportation (right?)

- new name for "Arms-Fall-Off Boy". Also, if his power works as seen here, that's actually a pretty good street-level power. It's not a joke. The joke is if his arm just falls off and then he has to pick it up and whang people with it

- Dawnstar has an enthusiastic friendly personality here, miles away from her 1970s aloofness. Which... I'm okay with that. The aloofness was kind of an ethnic stereotype in the first place

Art:

The art of this feature was generally very good. The style they're using didn't always work for me, as in the initial race between Kara and her mother on Krypton. (Another point about that opening sequence. Those are some Chuck-Jones-Bugs-Bunny-ass-looking clouds. Not a criticism.) But sometimes it was very attractive. Making Brainy bald was an interesting choice; in general I didn't like it, but they did a good job on his facial expressions, especially in the second half, and the bald worked well with that.

A note on the sound (something that never comes up when I'm reviewing a comic book!): the sound effect of Bouncing Boy bouncing was really good.

We should note, of course, that the designs of the individual Legionnaires tended to be recent designs: Ryan Sook costumes, where available.

Membership Notes:

Boy are there ever a lot of Legionnaires shown here! I'll let someone else count 'em up. Is that Lori Morning I saw there at the end in one of her H-Dial identities? The big question for me here is, does Arms-Fall-Off Boy now count as a full Legionnaire? I'm inclined to say no, because we haven't had a story yet where he *acts* as a Legionnaire, but it's an argument...

A Farm in the Country Where He Can Run and Play

I've pointed out before how, for a while, the Legion of Super-Heroes was the franchise that DC Comics used for a lot of their experiments with long-form storytelling. The story of Lightning Lad's death and resurrection, for example, took place over nine months, which was rare in the 1960s. Earthwar, Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Great Darkness Saga... they were all unusually long stories for their time. Even the Five Years Later series was very experimental, very un-episodic, and very long.

That's not really what it's for anymore.

The Legion has been rebooted enough times that DC must have had to think, many times, about just what you can do, narratively, with this group of superheroes. One thing they've settled on, many times, is that the Legion is not, basically, a concept of a team of futuristic teenagers who were inspired by the legend of Superman. The Legion is the set of characters created in the 1950s through 1980s who live in the future and belong to a team that was inspired by the legend of Superman.

This is where DC and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye, because I think they might have been better served to be true to the concept, at times, even at the expense of familiar characters. If each reboot had introduced a whole new roster of Legionnaires, designed for the times in which they were published and brought into the comic book gradually. They didn't do that. Every time the Legion has been founded, it's been founded by Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy. They've had to go back to the late '50s, early '60s, for their starting point.

This often works against efforts to make the Legion a team that's diverse enough to be 31st-century-realistic. That's not my point, but I did want to mention it.

My point is, it's hard for this not to lead to nostalgia. It's hard for writers to have to go back to the comics of their youth for characters and not get the message that the point of it all is the going back.

Let's look at the last few times a new writer started on the Legion, long-term.

2003: Mark Waid, a veteran comic-book writer who had written the Legion in the past, rebooted the team to a lineup of characters that matched the Silver Age team

2005: Geoff Johns, a veteran comic-book writer, brought back a lightly edited 1980s Legion for use in his comic books, and used them as supporting characters for Superman

2006: Jim Shooter, a veteran comic-book writer who had written the Legion in the past, took over Waid's team and did some stories where he worked out some old grudges and gratitudes from earlier in his career

2009: Geoff Johns, whose retroboot Legion is the only one left standing, puts the Legion in some extremely nostalgic stories in Adventure Comics. But he quickly loses interest

2010: Paul Levitz, a veteran comic-book writer who had written the Legion in the past, takes over Johns's Legion for a few years. Toward the end, he brings in Keith Giffen as artist and co-writer, a veteran comic-book creator who had written and drawn the Legion in the past

2019: Brian Michael Bendis, a veteran comic-book writer, starts a new series with a Legion lineup that draws heavily from '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s characters, but not '90s, '00s, or '10s

Here's what I think DC's idea of the Legion is now. I think their idea is that it's where veteran writers can take their nostalgia out for a walk.

That's certainly what Geoff Johns was doing. I wouldn't dare to imagine what Shooter thought he was doing. Waid and Levitz and Bendis, on the other hand... I think all of them were actually trying to do good stuff, to bring some vision to the title. (Some with more success than others.) But I don't think that's why DC gave them the job. I think DC gave them the job because they were proven veterans who loved the Legion from long ago. And I don't think that bodes well for who gets to write the Legion next.

All-Time Legion Roster

I try to keep a master list of Legionnaires on this site. It's surprisingly difficult to decide just what kind of list it should be, but, anyway, here's this one. Please let me know if there's anything I got straight wrong or any detail I left out that's too major to be left out. Also, when I was listing continuities, I typically didn't mention "animated" unless it was specifically informative to do so.

Legionnaire	Also	Continuities	Creators & Notes
Atmos	Marak Russen of Xanthu	orig, 2b	Levitz, Larocque
Blok	Blok of Dryad	orig, 4b	Conway, Staton
Blood Claw	Blood Claw of Khundia	orig (5YL)	the Bierbaums, Immonen
Bouncing Boy	Charles Foster Taine of Earth	all but 3b	Siegel, Mooney
Brainiac 5	Querl Dox of Colu; also 5, Brainiac 5.1	all	Siegel, Mooney
Calamity King	E. Davis Ester of Touston	orig	Hamilton, Swan
Catspaw	April Dumaka of Earth	orig: 5YL	Bierbaums, Sprouse
Celeste	Celeste Rockfish of Earth; also Celeste McCauley, Neon	orig: 5YL	Giffen, Bierbaums, Gordon
Chameleon Boy	Reep Daggle of Durla; sometimes just Chameleon	all	Siegel, Mooney
Chameleon Girl	Yera Allon of Durla	orig	Levitz, Giffen
Chemical Kid	Hadru Jamik of Phlon	orig: retro	Levitz, Jimenez
Chemical King	Condo Arlik of Phlon	orig, 2b	Shooter, Swan
Chlorophyll Kid	Ral Benem of Mardru; also Plant Lad	orig, 3b	Hamilton, Forte
Color Kid	Ulu Vakk of Lupra	orig	Hamilton, Swan, Jeff Greenberg
Colossal Boy	Gim Allon of Earth; also Leviathan, Micro Lad	all	Siegel, Mooney
Comet Queen	Grava of Extal Colony (Quaal III)	orig	Levitz, Giffen
Computo	Danielle Foccart of Earth, or just Computo	orig (esp. SW6) and 4b	Levitz, Giffen
Cosmic Boy	Rokk Krinn of Braal; also Polestar	all	Binder, Plastino
Crystal Kid	Bobb Kohan of Earth	orig	Conway, Ditko, Robert Cohen
Dawnstar	Dawnstar Gr'Ell of Starhaven, or just Dawnstar	orig, 4b	Levitz, Grell
Devlin	Devlin O'Ryan of Xanthu	orig (5YL)	Giffen, Bierbaums
Dr. Fate	?	4b only	Bendis, Sook (orig Dr. Fate created by Gardner Fox & Howard Sherman)
Dragonmage	Xao Jin of Earth	orig (SW6)	Bierbaums, Sprouse
Dragonwing	Marya Pai of Earth	orig (retro)	Levitz, Jimenez
Dream Boy	Rol Purtha of Naltor	3b	Waid, Kitson
Dream Girl	Nura Nal of Naltor; also Nura Schnappin, Dreamer	all	Hamilton, Forte
Earth-Man	Kirt Niedrigh of Earth; also Zoraz, Absorbency Boy	orig	Bates, Grell
Echo	Myke-4 Astor of Khundish Calish-Aetia	orig	Shooter, Swan
Element Lad	Jan Arrah of Trom; also Alchemist	all	Hamilton, Forte
Entropy Kid	?	4b only	Bendis, Sook; pink and purple uniform, alien, long skull; name revealed on Reddit
Ferro Lad	Andrew Nolan of Earth; also Ferro	all but 3b	Shooter, Moldoff
Fire Lad	Staq Mavlen of Shwar	orig	Hamilton, Forte
Firefist	Firefist of Khundia	orig (5YL)	Bierbaums, Immonen
Flederweb	Flederweb of Aetia	orig (5YL)	Bierbaums, Immonen
Gates	Ti'julk M'rasz of Vyrga	2b, orig (retro)	McCraw, Moder, Waid
Gazelle	Giselle Smith of Triton	3b	Shooter, Manapul
Gear	I.Z.O.R. of Linsner	2b	McCraw, Peyer, Kolins
Glorith	Glorith of Baaldur and/or Zerox	orig (retro)... only?	Siegel, Forte, but also Levitz, Jimenez
Gold Lantern	Kala Lour	4b only	Bendis, Sook
Harmonia	Harmonia Li of Earth	orig (retro)	Levitz, Cinar
Impulse	Kent Shakespeare of Earth	orig (5YL)	Giffen, Bierbaums, Gordon
Infectious Lass	Drura Sehpt of Somahtur	orig, 2b	Bates, Cockrum
Invisible Kid	Lyle Norg of Earth	orig, 2b, 3b	Siegel, Mooney
Invisible Kid II	Jacques Foccart of Earth or Kit-Son; also Evanesce, Invisible Gentleman	orig, 2b, 4b, animated	Levitz, Giffen
Karate Kid	Val Armorr of Earth	all	Shooter, Moldoff
Karate Kid II	Myg of Lythyl	orig	Levitz, Lightle
Kid Quantum	James Cullen of Antares or of Xanthu	orig (5YL), 2b	Bierbaums, David A. Williams
Kid Quantum II	Jazmin Cullen of Xanthu	2b	McCraw, Peyer, Moder
Kinetix	Zoe Saugin of Aleph	2b	McCraw, Moder, Waid
Kono	Brita An'nan of Sklar	orig, 2b	Giffen, Bierbaums, Gordon
Laurel	Laurel Gand of Daxam or of Ricklef II, also Andromeda, Sister Andromeda	orig (5YL), 2b	Giffen, Bierbaums, Gordon, James Ricklef, Arne Starkey
Lightning Lad	Garth Ranzz of Winath; also Live Wire	all	Binder, Plastino
Lightning Lass	Ayla Ranzz of Winath; also Light Lass, Gossamer, Pulse, Spark	all	Hamilton, Forte
Magnetic Kid	Pol Krinn of Braal	orig	Hamilton, Forte
Magno	Dyrk Magz of Braal	2b	McCraw, Stern, Moy
Matter-Eater Lad	Tenzil Kem of Bismoll	all	Siegel, Forte
Mon-El	Lar Gand of Daxam or New Krypton; also M'Onel, Valor	all	Bernstein, Papp
Monster Boy	Arune Singh of Tor-Etto	4b	Bendis, Sook
Monstress	Candi Pyponte-Le Parc III of Xanthu	2b	McCraw, Peyer, Moder
Nemesis Kid	Hart Druiter of Myar	orig, 3b, animated (Legionnaire only in animated continuity)	Shooter, Moldoff
Night Girl	Lydda Jath of Kathoon	orig, 2b	Hamilton, Forte
Nightwind	Berta Haris of Earth	orig, 2b	Conway, Ditko, Robert Harris
Phantom Girl	Tinya Wazzo of Bgtzl; also Apparition	all	Siegel, Mooney
Polar Boy	Brek Bannin of Tharr	orig, 2b, 3b	Hamilton, Forte
Porcupine Pete	Peter Dursin of Earth	orig	Bates, Cockrum
Princess Projectra	Wilimena Morgana Daergina Annaxandra Projectra Velorya Vauxhall of Orando; also Queen Projectra, Projectra, Sensor Girl, Sensor	all	Shooter, Moldoff
Quislet	(unpronounceable glyph) of Teall	orig	Levitz, Lightle
Radius Lad	?	4b	Bendis, Sook
Reflecto	Stig Ah of Rimbor	orig	Shooter
Saturn Girl	Imra Ardeen of Titan; also Imra Ardeen Ranzz	all	Binder, Plastino
Shadow Lass	Tasmia Mallor of Talok VIII; also Umbra	all	Shooter, Swan
Shikari	Shikari Lonestar of the Kwai	2b	Abnett, Lanning, Coipel
Shrinking Violet	Salu Digby of Imsk; also Atom Girl, LeViathan, Virus	all	Siegel, Mooney
Soultaker	?	only appeared in Doomsday Clock	Johns, Frank
Spider Girl	Sussa Paka of Taltar; also Wave	orig, 2b	Siegel, Forte, Jim Tillery
Star Boy	Thom Kallor of Xanthu; also Starman	all	Binder, Papp
Stone Boy	Dag Wentim of Zwen	orig	Hamilton, Forte
Storm Boy	Myke Chypurz	orig	Siegel, Forte
Sun Boy	Dirk Morgna of Earth; also Inferno	all	Siegel, Mooney
Superboy	Kal-El of Krypton, Clark Kent of Earth, Superman	orig	Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family
Superboy II	Connor Kent of Earth, Kon-El	2b	Kesel, Grummett
Superboy III	Jon Kent of Earth; also Superman	4b	Jurgens
Supergirl	Kara Zor-El of Krypton	orig, 3b	Binder, Plastino
Superman-X	Kell-El of Earth	animated	team of TV writers led by Michael Jelenic
Tellus	Ganglios of Hykraius	orig	Levitz, Lightle
Thunder	CeCe Beck of Binderaan	2b	Ordway, Manley
Timber Wolf	Brin Londo of Zuun (or Rimbor); also Furball	all	Hamilton, Forte
Thorn	Rose Forrest of Earth	4b	Kanigher, Andru. Officially the Legion's liaison to the UP; not necessarily a regular Legionnaire
Toyman	Winslow "Winn" Schott Jr. of 21st-century Earth, also Computer Lad	Arrowverse only	that's a complicated question
Triplicate Girl	Luornu Durgo of Cargg (also Carggg); also Triad, Duo Damsel, Una, Duplicate Girl, Duplicate Damsel	all	Siegel, Mooney
Tyroc	Troy Stewart of Earth (Marzal)	orig	Bates, Grell
Ultra Boy	Jo Nah of Rimbor	all	Siegel, Swan
Veilmist	Veilmist of Khundia	orig (5YL)	Bierbaums, Immonen
Visi-Lad	Visi-Lad of Earth	orig	Levitz, Larocque
White Witch	Mysa Nal or Xola Aq of Naltor or Zerox; also Jewel	all	Bridwell, Swan
Wildfire	Drake Burroughs of Earth; also Erg-1, NRG, Jahr-Drake Ningle (Blast-Off) combined with Randall Burroughs (Atom'X) of Xanthu	all	Bates, Cockrum
X-Ray Girl	?	4b	Bendis, Sook; green-suited skeleton; name revealed on Reddit
XS	Jenni Ognats of Aarok	2b, orig (retro)	McCraw, Moy

Justice League Vs. the Legion of Super-Heroes #6 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

We open on Vandal Savage as the sheriff in an Old West town. Everyone's scared of him. He's got Batman locked up in the hoosegow; apparently he's keeping him around to taunt him with how the world he knows doesn't exist anymore. While this is going on a couple of deputies bring in Jonah Hex, who Savage regards as a sort of seed of the Age of Heroes; Savage kills Hex unceremoniously. But then it turns out Batman isn't Batman. It's Chameleon Boy in disguise. And Savage is surrounded by Legionnaires and JLAers. Because all of this--since sometime last issue--has been taking place inside the Gold Lantern ring, and they've just been letting Savage think he's won because they're trying to collect a complete confession from him for the benefit of the Elders of Oa. Savage resists a little but eventually the Elders remove him from this reality and name Gold Lantern the new leader of the Gold Lantern Corps, which he is to go build. There's a bit of celebration and the Legion prepares to send the League home, and we get one last view of Savage, in some other dimension, being helped up at the side of the road by Jonah Hex.

Review:

Well, that was a legit ending. No complaints on that basis. It's an ending that made sense and was based on things that were emphasized throughout the story. And Brainiac 5 is given an excellent squelch line on Vandal Savage, so that was satisfying.

But...

If you think about what all happened in these six issues... it's not a lot. This story could have fit into one or two comics. And even then it'd be an understated kind of story.

And that would be fine if something other than plot was happening in all those comics. But really it wasn't. A lot of churn. Some little fun character moments. Really a lot of time and space was taken up by the large unwieldy cast of characters being a large unwieldy cast of characters.

(Thought experiment. Pick Brainy, Gold Lantern, and two other Legionnaires. Now pick four JLAers. Now replot the story with just those eight heroes. Think of everything you'd be able to do!)

One problem with Legion reboots is that they don't often produce classic stories in volume. The reboot was good for about five years and then great for three or four; that's the high-water mark. Waid and Kitson produced a couple of years of flawed but high-quality threeboot comics before turning it over to others. There were almost no good Legion comics in the retroboot. And now the fourboot... it's hardly even gotten started! We don't know these characters at all, and they haven't *done* anything!

I'm very disappointed. I'm glad to have Legion comics, but why are we getting Legion comics with such obvious flaws?

I'll give Bendis and Sook credit for this much: they've left the Legion in a good place. It's an interesting-looking team with a solid foundation of mythology and information and another creative team ought to be able to pick it up and do just about anything with it. I hope we see it happen.

Bah.

There was a time on this blog when I said that we were in a golden age of Legion comics and I hoped we were all appreciating it. I hope we all appreciated it.

Anyway! I'm not going anywhere; see you next time we have something to talk about!

Art: 98 panels/22 pages = 4.5 panels/page. 3 splash pages; 1 double-page spread; 2 cases of multiple panels spread across 2 pages.

I hope Scott Godlewski gets work on the strength of this series, because he's been quite impressive. Look at how he renders Jonah Hex on the last page. He's not just some fill-in artist; he portrays Hex with a great deal of assurance and an awareness of how much detail is needed. I've seen any number of fill-in artists who simply could not do that with anything like competence.

I haven't seen much in Legion comics for a long time that I thought was much good to read... but some of the art has been spectacular. Godlewski. Sook's been very good. Perez. Francis Portela. Gus Storms. Riley Rossmo. And I'm definitely leaving people out who oughtn't be left out.

Justice League Vs. the Legion of Super-Heroes #5 Review

 What Happened That You Have to Know About:

The Justice League and the Legion of Super-Heroes put their heads together and things get a little tense while discussing Gold Lantern. The dark rift... eats everything? I think?... but not before Triplicate Girl and Batman figure out that Vandal Savage is behind it all, in some way related to the Legion of Doom's headquarters. Apparently Savage was trying to destroy the Age(s) of Heroes, and seems to think that he's accomplished that.

Review:

My copy of the comic has two covers and I didn't even have to pay any extra for it. Plus factor for me!

I haven't read whatever comics it was that established the Legion of Doom's headquarters as something that made sense to be involved in this story. It's touched on a little bit in the issue but not in any way that actually clears anything up. In this context it just seems arbitrary and pointless.

Five issues gone by and we finally have a villain. Hey, no rush. And Vandal Savage is a good villain for this crossover! Sort of! I mean, he's no match for about two-thirds of these characters in a one-on-one fight, but other than that he's perfect. But why'd it take so long to bring him in?

This series is more overinflated than a cheap bag of chips, is why. I can't think of a reason the first five issues couldn't have been boiled down to one. If you're reading this before you've bought your copy, please take this into account!

So we've got one issue left for the JLA and the LSH to defeat Savage... assuming that it happens in this series and not in Dark Crisis or whatever. I wonder if there'll be time to explain just what Savage's plan is. I mean, I get the motivation: removing the Age of Heroes so his great enemies won't be around to defeat him. That part makes perfect sense. And, also, is thematically appropriate for this era of the Legion! I like how this fits in. Is Savage going to turn out to be the anti-Rose?

What I don't get, and this is not a complaint, is a) how he's doing that, and b) what the situation is going to be like once he's done it. He's just going to remove some eras from the timeline? Does that work?

I don't think there's time for this miniseries to turn out to be worthwhile. There's just been so much fluff so far; Bendis can't make up for all of that in one issue. But a good final issue can at least make it... how shall I put it... notable.

Are you hearing all this speculation that Discovery is going to shut down DC Comics by the end of the year? It would be horrible, of course, if it happened. But can you imagine if this series was the last Legion of Super-Heroes series ever? Gross.

Art: 111 panels/22 pages = 5.0 panels/page. 3 splash pages, 4 double-page spreads containing, respectively, 3, 5, 10, and 8 panels each. Two twelve-panel pages!

If there's one good thing about this series, it's that it introduced us--well, those of us who didn't already know about him, as I didn't--to Scott Godlewski. He's just been very, very good for five issues. Look at his Vandal Savage on the last page, panel 3; very expressive. One qualm: there are a couple of panels on pages 17-18 that just show more of this darkness, and I'm not sure what we're supposed to get from them. They don't seem to be showing us anything.

Also, I'm not sure about Godlewski's Blok. Doesn't look bad, or anything, but... something's hitting me weird about it.

Justice League Vs. the Legion of Super-Heroes #4 Review

 What Happened That You Have to Know About:

The big dark rift in the sky continues to get worse as the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Justice League all try to figure out where and when they are. Eventually Computo figures out how to bring everyone together (in the 21st century) as the rift covers the whole sky. There is a suggestion that the Legion is to blame for the rift because of their reckless time travel.

Review:

It's not like there's nothing of interest here. Gold Lantern meets Alan Scott in the 1930s, and it's kind of cool, for one thing. Batman and Rose get reacquainted, but nothing really comes of it. It's a mildly diverting read. But if anything's important here, we're only going to know it in retrospect. I don't have much to say about this comic book!

I'm glad we're getting Legion comics every so often, but getting these comics is a lot like not getting comics. Man, I hope Bendis does something cool in #5 or #6 that makes me go, "Ahhh... that changes everything! I have to go back and reread the whole run now!" That's likely, right?

Art: 98 panels/22 pages = 4.5 panels/page. 3 splash pages, double-page arrangements of 4 panels, 12 panels, 7 panels, and 8 panels.

I like Godlewski's style. I wonder where DC's been hiding him. He draws a good Bouncing Boy. Also, I like the coloring of the Alan Scott pages; very noir. I wish he had a more interesting story to draw.

That's Some Catch, That Catch-52

 Writer Jared Yates Sexton, whom I like, had a Substack post, and accompanying Twitter thread, a while ago about how today's political struggles aren't just about the present but also about our ideas of the past and the future. They are here and here; go read it and then come back here and we'll finish up. And stick around, because I think I've found something profound to say about superheroes in this one!

The thing that struck me about it that made me want to comment on it here, of course, is that it deals with the future. And around here, anything that has to do with the future might have to do with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Specifically. DC Comics is presenting us with a vision of the future in its (increasingly infrequent) Legion comics. What goes into that, and what comes out of it?

Despite that DC is owned by a Giant Corporation, I don't really think that the portrayal of the future in its comics was developed to serve any kind of corporate agenda. That would require a whole lot more competence and attention to detail than I've seen out of them in recent years. No, I think we can safely place the credit and/or blame on the various LSH writers over the years who've thought up what the future of a superhero world would be like.

And that's what it is: the future of a superhero world. Not the future of our world, because we don't live in a superhero world, and that's something we ought to be thankful for. So when we're thinking of the Legion's 31st century, we should keep that in mind. We don't want our world to be like this. We, regular humans, should have our own ideas for what we want to have happen and be working towards those.

One example. DC has, by now, given us a loose timeline for what kinds of things we ought to expect. There's a Great Disaster coming up, for one thing, and the Legion's generally more pleasant future, with its dozens of teenaged champions, only some time after that.

No matter what we do!

Well, then, there's no point in doing anything! Right? It'll be fine.

So that's one problem.

Another problem, which I don't want to not mention, but has been discussed plenty in other places, is how early Legion stories would give us a future with no Black people in it, and, when they first tried to fix that, made things even worse.

And, last, let's look at what happens in the Legion's future. (The superhero present must resemble the real-life present in at least some ways; the superhero future can look like anything.) Look at the various catastrophes that have befallen the 30th and 31st centuries: we've seen planetsworth of carnage and destruction caused by Mordru, the Time Trapper, Glorith, Computo, Darkseid, Ra's al Ghul... By superpowered individuals, is the point I'm trying to make. The cosmology of the Five Years Later era says it out loud: the fate of reality is a struggle between the Time Trapper (later Glorith) and Mordru, and the Legionnaires can only hope to keep them in stalemate.

I think I'm correct in saying that this kind of situation, in which reality is the battleground of supermen and everyone else are just faceless pawns and nameless victims, is a world of fascism. I'll go further: the basic idea of superheroes itself is fascist. (I'm not the first person to say so.) Superheroes have come a long way since they were first created, but the premise remains the same.

Let's sum up the premise of superheroes this way. Society has problems that it is powerless to solve. These problems are personified in some people who are up to no good and must be stopped. But the people of the society, including their official representatives, are powerless to do anything about it. The only person who is free to act is the superhero: an unusual person who a) has the will to take action against evil despite social convention, and b) has some kind of special abilities lifting their capabilities above the common person. Typically there's one more subtle ability that this unusual superhero person has: they can accurately identify the evil enemy.

That's all very fascist. Go ahead and compare that to the kinds of things that far-right groups claim to think about themselves; it's a good match. (At one time, the stereotypical superhero was a rich white guy; that's not nearly as true anymore. That part has gotten better.)

But here's the thing: if you know me at all, you know that I am not about to condemn the superhero genre. I love it, have for a long time, expect to continue for another long time. So there is a catch. (If we're feeling playful about it, we can call it Catch-52.) I propose

The First Hypothesis of Suprmetrics: A genre is a premise plus a fantasy.

I'll give you a second to take that in.

So, we laid out the premise of the superhero genre a few paragraphs ago. But the superhero fantasy is this: superheroes can be trusted with their power and will never abuse it. And the reason why I love the superhero genre is that the superhero premise is redeemed by the superhero fantasy.

Look, for the superhero genre to be fascist, it would have to not matter whether superheroes were benevolent or malevolent, whether the average person could count on them or not. But it does matter. It's the key to the whole thing. And I don't think this is well enough understood. I saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness a while ago. And there were a lot of things about it that bugged me. (Click through to this article I wrote about Saturn Girl if you want to know why in detail.) Basically it comes down to, I prefer the Scarlet Witch as a superhero.

Or take The Boys. I've never watched (or read) The Boys; it doesn't sound like a good time to me. But it sounds to me like--any setup where superheroes all have to work for the government sounds like--the writers don't accept the fantasy of superheroes and are trying to write about just the premise.

I am not arguing that any of this is extendable to the real world. I am certainly not arguing that anyone who seems to be arguing in favour of some part of the fascist premise of superheroes is redeemed by the fantasy of superheroes. It's just the opposite, most likely. I do think that that's how it should work on the screen and on the page... but we should have different standards once we close the cover.

--

I invite comments! I wrote this fast and I may have overlooked something that should not go without saying, or been wrong in some other way.

Justice League Vs. the Legion of Super-Heroes #3 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

While the rift is threatening the 21st and 31st centuries, Batman remembers that a Justice League villain named Epoch warned the League about Gold Lantern, telling them to destroy "it" if they ever found it. The rift subsides, but some Legionnaires and JLAers are scattered in time:

• Brainiac 5, Naomi, and Mon-El in Kamandi's future
• Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy in the Batman Beyond future
• Aquaman and Ultra Boy in prehistory
• Gold Lantern in some kind of Metropolis with airships and, still, the rift
• everybody else in the 31st century dealing with the Science Police; Chameleon Boy has just called his mom for help

Review:

Now that's something a little more like it. First, and most important, breaking up the crowd and focusing on smaller groups give the individual characters a chance to shine. That's something Legion comics have needed ever since Brian Michael Bendis took over as writer.

Second, almost as important, is Ultra Boy's insistence that there's someone behind this giant rift. That's the kind of thing you don't put in a comic book unless you plan to make it pay off. Usually. Whether it's true or not, at least we're thinking about it, and it's creating tension. Some malefactor weaponizing a rift is a lot more interesting than a naturally occurring rift.

Third, the choice of some of the temporal destinations for our heroes suggests that this might all tie in to Rose's adventures in LSH: Millennium. And that's something that needs some followup. Is Rose around? Some of the JLAers almost certainly know her; I'd like to see that encounter. Don't take your eyes off Rose, true believers; in some ways she's the secret protagonist of the fourboot.

Okay, well, this series might be picking up a bit. We might get a few chucks in before it's over. I don't have a lot of hope that the whole thing is going to turn out to be worth it, but there may be some points of interest raised.

Art: 95 panels/23 pages = 4.1 panels/page. 1 splash page, 2 double-page spreads, 1 case of 2 panels spread over 2 pages.

Thing I don't really care for in this comic book is the muted colour palette. Nothing ever gets really bright.

Godlewski continues to hold up his end of the bargain. This issue is a little light on the panel count (with an extra page!) but then, 7 of them are used up by only 5 panels put together. Look at... try the last panel on page 18; that's one that jumped out at me. But they're all good. I also particularly like the way he renders Computo.

Justice League Vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes #2 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Everyone who disappeared last issue just went to the 31st century. We get some of Gold Lantern's backstory and some interacting between the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Justice League. Then there's a rift.

Review:

Called it!

I'd like to propose a new Legionnaire. His name would be Rift Lad, and his power would be to seal rifts. He'd never be short of work. (Yes, his power would be adaptable enough to seal zoo cages.)

It does seem like there was an effort made this issue to really let us get to know some of these characters. I appreciate it. After all this time, too many of them are ciphers, or hidden behind Brian Michael Bendis's signature bantery dialogue voice, or a combination of the two. But it seems unbalanced to pay attention to some characters when there are so many other characters around.

The plot was advanced by exactly one step this issue: our heroes are now fighting a rift mostly from the 31st century. And I know we also got some good art and some character stuff. But, ideally, in a comic book, you'd get art and character stuff and action and plot. Is it too much to ask? Bendis is not a beginner here. We had a whole year off of this title and two months since last issue.

I don't know where the Legion would be without Bendis. Waiting for Geoff Johns to get off the dime? It's not clear to me. Certainly it seems like it's entirely Bendis's franchise now. If he left it, would DC find another writer, or just cancel it? But... when the fourboot started, it had some very promising ingredients. Years later, it's still just ingredients. I'll stick with it, but the recipe is not currently working.

Art: 101 panels/22 pages = 4.6 panels/page; 1 splash page, 1 case of 5 panels spread over 2 pages.

That's more than twice as many panels as last issue! Interesting. Godlewski's the artist again, and his style is still fitting very well into Ryan Sook's 31st century. Check out page 10, panel 1; how many artists have had the chance to take a swing at a panel like that? I liked it. Scott Godlewski is holding up his end of the bargain.

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!

If I Cannot Bring You Comfort

 It is the Christmas season, for those who observe, which signals the end of the year as measured by the Gregorian calendar, and as such it is time for us to take stock of our time which is ending, and our time which is about to begin. We can start with the Legion of Super-Heroes (remember the Legion? It's a blog about the Legion) and then move on to other matters.

We already knew that 2022 would see the Legion appear in... a miniseries? an arc?... called Justice League vs the Legion of Super-Heroes, which will, apparently, be about both Gold Lantern and the Great Darkness. I'm not super nuts about the only Legion series being a limited run like this, but it's more than we've got now, and, at least, it's part of Brian Michael Bendis's vision for the team.

Speaking of Bendis, in his newsletter (click here for the whole thing) he announced that he's working on developing an animated Legion of Super-Heroes series for HBO Max. The series will be aimed at grownups and will feature his fourboot Legion. Some points:

- this is, of course, very positive news

- the odds that this TV show actually gets made are not great. Not because of any failing of Bendis's or the Legion's or HBO Max's. Just basically because most TV shows don't make it to air

- the previous LSH TV show, the two-season cartoon on Fox Kids, was a respectable success, and its influence on its young viewers will someday be of tangible benefit to the Legion of Super-Heroes franchise; this TV show, if it makes it, could do similarly

- the process of taking comic-book stories and turning them into TV is likely to accentuate Bendis's strengths as a Legion writer and mitigate his weaknesses

- I've long been of the opinion that any successful translation of the Legion to TV must be animated, not live-action, so I think they've made the right decision here

My big takeaway from both of these impending Legion stories is that the LSH does have a future, and I'm aware that that sounds like a joke but in this case it isn't, and that I hope we can all be around to see it.

And while we're all on that... I hope you can all be vaccinated up to your maximum available amount of protection, and can keep yourselves safe from the coronavirus in all the other ways. Ironically--which is the word we use when we don't want to say "ridiculously"--the coronavirus is the least, and most tractable, of the major problems facing the world in general and us in particular. It's no coincidence that all of these problems--I'll list "climate change" and "fascism" as the big two, but there are more--are exacerbated by being denied, promoted, defended, and/or sponsored by a loose but cooperative network of groups and entities whose interest is not in the future but in making the present as bad as possible.

I hope, in 2022, that we (I am definitely including myself in this hope) can do all we can to be part of the solutions and not part of the problems, and that we're wise enough to choose the right ways to do that.

I haven't been writing much on Legion Abstract recently. This is partly because there haven't been any Legion comics to write about. Maybe I'll chip in another article or two here or there. Certainly I'll review JLAvLSH when it comes out. I don't believe in permanent goodbyes on the internet, and this isn't even a temporary one, but if you need to see it in print: I'll never close down this blog as long as I'm alive (although it may sometimes be less active than other times). I have, however, started writing a couple of other projects, and I'll tell you more about them if and when they become something.

And I'll end this post with this, which strikes me as also to be appropriate for an end-of-the-year summary.

Over the last couple of years, I've started coming out to my friends and family and other people as agender. This isn't exactly a new thing. No need to share the specific details, but all my life I've had a very distant relationship with masculinity, and recently I've come to understand that it's because masculinity wasn't actually a thing that was for me at all.

Why am I telling you this? You don't really need to know it, and I don't really need you to know it. It doesn't make a difference to my Legion opinions that I'm neither dude nor chick. But I do have a couple of reasons.

First, I've always understood that the value of coming out is in its effect on other people: first, people who haven't come out themselves can see more people they can identify with and become comfortable with the idea that people like them belong in the world, which they do. Second, people hostile to LGBTQ+ people will increasingly get the (accurate) sense that they are outnumbered, and will be more likely to change their opinions or at least shut up about them if they don't change them. Both of which are worthwhile goals.

Plus... I'm white, and male-passing, and in a sense I've not been subject to transphobia my whole life. See, "agender" is a subcategory of "trans" in this sense: I was assigned the gender of "male" at birth, and have now said that that is not my gender. That's trans. It's true that the word "trans" has connotations that don't really resonate with my experience, but that's neither here nor there. So I don't reject the label.

But while I can look back on the considerable amount of bullying that I experienced much earlier in my life and say that, in retrospect, it was partly based on being a precocious agender kid, I didn't know that at the time. They called me "gay" (and other related terms), sure, but as far as I knew, they were just wrong about that. (Also, being gay and being agender are not at all the same thing, but that's a nuance that would have been lost on these kids.) So in my mind, I wasn't being picked on because of something that I was that wasn't hurting them, and therefore I didn't beat myself up for being it, and so was spared one specific kind of damage. In retrospect, they were clearly picking up on something about me, but since I had no idea, there's a level on which it doesn't count.

But there are any number of trans people out there for whom that's not true. They've had to deal with a lot of static while knowing what it was the whole time. So what I'm intending here is to stand with them.

(FAQ: Are you changing your pronouns? Nah; I've had about fifty years of getting used to he/him. But if you want to refer to me as she/her or they/them, that's okay too. I'd a lot rather be called "she" than "Matt".)

There's still a lot I don't know about this topic. There's still a lot I don't understand about myself. I'm no expert. (And a lot of the answers one finds boil down to, "it's different for everybody! You get to decide for yourself!" Great. Thanks. I'm sure that's right. But it's no help.) Having said that, if anyone is coping with something similar and thinks it would help to kick it around with me, please let me know; I'm happy to do what I can.

So my last thought here is, let's all be ourselves in 2022. And let's all get to work. Tired as we all are, there's a lot that needs to be done. The truth is somewhere here.

Pan

 A quick thought about the "current" Legion of Super-Heroes comic book.

There are things to like about it (the design, the energy, the faithfulness to the core ideas of the Legion) and things not to like about it (the inconsistent character details, the sparse characterization, the pace, the insistence on using the entire team all at once all the time). But, this current hiatus while Brian Michael Bendis and Ryan Sook get their ducks all in a row?

It's not good. It's bad.

Yes, absolutely, you should make sure you know what you're doing before you do it. You should give the artist time to get ahead of the work. You should plan and coordinate and all of those other good things.

But doing this while getting a book onto the rack every month is part of the job. If there's a fill-in artist, or a delay of a week or two, or an inventory issue, well, so be it. Those are known possibilities; we can deal with them. Months of nothing? That's amateur hour. That's clownshoes. It's a failure on the part of Bendis and Sook and it's a failure on the part of DC Comics.

If the resulting comic books turn out to be really good, well, that will partially make up for this. Partially. Because it's perfectly possible to turn out really good comics on a monthly basis. We all know of some. So, *if* they're really good, then, great, congrats to Bendis and Sook for accomplishing something... but they're supposed to be professionals. They're supposed to have some idea what they're doing and not just get into the middle of it and realize they don't.

It's just highly unsatisfactory.

Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 Review

I'm going to put a sentence here just because I want to try something.

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

The Legion confronts Element Lad and Saturn Girl discovers that he and the Trommites weren't responsible for the devastation of the galaxy. Really it was the Titanians who were using Saturn Girl as a puppet to manipulate the rest of the Legion, and through them the Trommites and everyone else, for xenophobic purposes. The Legion responds by locking Titan away in its own little pocket where they can't interact with anyone else, and promise to carry on from their and be the Legion again.

Review:

What we got here is a fairly old-school two-parter. Big scary threat, resolved in two issues. I've read Justice League stories from the '70s and '80s like this. And it's... it's fine, is what it is, although we could have said the same thing Back Then that I'm saying now: the villain seems too powerful to defeat that quickly. But it's fine! It really is fine.

So, in a vacuum, here's what we got. Two-part series showing what might happen to the Legion in a hundred days minus, I dunno, a dozen or whatever. Some new looks for the characters, some possible fault lines along which the group may splinter. A reaffirmation of the team's purpose. And a quick fight and resolution. That, in a vacuum, is fine.

The problem is with what comes next. But never mind that; that's not this issue's fault.

No, the main problem with this is the same problem we've been having: we still don't know much about these characters. Probably this wasn't the time for them to go into that, but... well, some time must be the time. I believe it was the boys at the Legion of Substitute Podcasters who floated the idea that Bendis is giving us core Legionnaires and, what shall we call them, wallpaper Legionnaires. We get to know the core Legionnaires but the others are just there because we need them to make the Legion a big group. And, well, that's possible. I would be okay with such an approach. But I don't really feel like I know the "core" Legionnaires (Superboy, Saturn Girl, Brainiac 5, Ultra Boy... Wildfire? Lightning Lad?) that well. Not fourteen, fifteen issues worth. And I don't know the other Legionnaires at all, some of 'em!

Here's another thought. There's a thing that you get in superhero stories these days... often, the threats or villains in the stories will be internal. The hero or heroes will do something that releases danger, or provokes it or facilitates it in some way. And then the hero or heroes have to triumph over it. But if they hadn't done anything in the first place, or hadn't been around, nothing bad would have happened. So it's not really an advertisement for superheroes. LSH: Future State is one such story. I prefer it when the villains are external. I know it's supposed to be Teh Profound when the heroes end up fighting themselves or whatever, and there's a place for that kind of thing occasionally, but in general I prefer when the threat is external and you get a conflict between two sides that have little to do with each other and therefore their interaction is something we haven't seen before.

You know?

Anyway, I don't mind it every now and then. As long as they don't keep going back to that well.

Legion comics mess with Titan a lot. I think the reveal in this issue might be an echo of the first Legion of Super-Villains story where Saturn Queen was evil, like most Titanians, because she was a way from the beneficial influence of the planet Saturn. But then it's also kind of like Orando getting sent away to its own dimension in the supervillain war at the start of the Baxter run.

So we've got a couple of months off now, because Bendis wants to take time to plan and get some issues in the can before reassuming the monthly schedule. I appreciate that. I can wait. I hope the title returns better than ever.

Notes:

- pipe the mustache on Jon Kent

- Blok look like the Rhino to anyone else on that last page?

- there's one panel where Brainiac 5's name is spelled "Braniac". It's one of my pet peeves. Guy's got nothing to do with cereal!

- had to go back and figure out just where Cosmic Boy was during the fight with Element Lad. There? Not there?

Art: 96 panels/22 pages = 4.4 panels/page. 3 splash pages, 1 double-page spread, 3 multiple-panel spreads.

Riley Rossmo again, and it still looks good if very off-model for Legion comics. Uh... I have to say I haven't really gotten used to the Future-State look of the Legionnaires. There are a lot that, not only don't I recognize them, I haven't even tried to recognize them. Because I don't know if it matters. If we're only here for two issues, and Bendis isn't making it obvious who they are, well... why put in the effort? Anyway, I'm glad I got to see Rossmo's take on the Legion. Not sure what I think about this being what the team looks like going forward, if that's what happens. I especially like the panel layouts; very inventive.

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Damned if I know.

Well, okay, I can do a bit better than that. We're some time in the future of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion has been broken up for a while, because of something Element Lad did (with the Legion only having existed for 100 days?). Apparently he was concerned that the universe was being destroyed by its own elements, so he did something catastrophic to fix it, and is now on the run. The Legionnaires are all scattered and divided by these new circumstances. And, of course, Ultra Boy is trying to put the team back together, and his handful of Legionnaires confronts Element Lad.

It's not clear how much any of this is going to matter. Writer Brian Michael Bendis is talking like, hey, maybe we'll just stay in this future!

Review:

Not much story this issue: heroes assemble and go see Element Lad. That's basically it. The comic book is filled out by a lot of revelation, instead. Revelation of what happened, of what some Legionnaires look like these days, of what happened to everybody. It's all been introductory. Which means that next issue is going to have the entire story part of the story.

Assuming that Future State is done in two issues! Bendis has been hinting he might stick with it.

And I'm not sure what I think about that. I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I think it's a dumb idea. On the other hand, we know so little about this team, does it really matter?

I'd rather there was a third mind for me to be of.

There are elements of this setup that resemble the start of the Five Years Later era of the Legion, in the late '80s/early '90s. There are also elements that resemble the start of the The Legion series, in the early 2000s. Those are two of the very best runs of Legion comics ever created... but you know what else they had in common? The 5YL era came after thirty years of Legion storytelling during which we came to know the characters closely. The The Legion comic came after five years of very consistent twice-a-month storytelling during which we came to know the characters closely.

This particular reset occurs after twelve issues of dedicatedly superficial comics.

I mean, this kind of story can carry considerable weight, but the weight consists of everything that came before. But in this case, nothing has come before! We know a few of these Legionnaires a little, and some of them literally not at all.

I know: Future State is a line-wide initiative, and Bendis had no choice but to have the Legion participate in it. That's fine. I can wait it out.

But if he wants to jump permanently to this future-future... I don't know what he's thinking. I hope he decides against it.

You know what this comic book needs? It needs a couple of years of two-issue stories featuring small teams of Legionnaires handling interesting problems. It needs to let us spend time getting to know them. We can't do it fast! I hope Bendis understands that. He's supposed to be a pro. But, well... let's just say that we haven't yet cashed in the benefits of that professionalism.

So we'll see what happens after next issue. I'm hoping for the best, but I don't really like where things are going.

Notes:

- much Interlac this issue

- what the flip was Shadow Lass blasting Ultra Boy with?

- what's a lightsong?

- the Legion get referred to as royalty a lot in this issue. I wonder what the deal is with that

Art: 130 panels/22 pages = 5.9 panels/page. (Deep breath) 1 double-paged spread, 5 double-paged arrangements of multiple panels (9, 7, 10, 10, and 11 panels). Single pages of 10, 13, and 11 panels!

The art comes to us from Riley Rossmo, and, I dunno, man. Not that it isn't good! It's very good. But it's a, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what word to use for Rossmo's style. Not "cartoony", because that's the word I apply to someone like Mike Wieringo, and this isn't like that. Heavily detailed, slouchy, caricatured proportions... It's good, and I appreciate how the high panel count makes me pay attention, but I'm not sure that the style suits the Legion.

Not all styles do! The great Steve Lightle, whom we lost recently, was a wonderful artist with a style that I always felt was too pretty and delicate for the Legion. I *might* think the same thing about Rossmo.

But then, I'm the one who keeps saying that I like it when people try something new. And this art style is new for the Legion. So I'll give it a chance. Maybe this is the start of something big!

Membership Notes:

For the most part there's nothing to note here, because there *is* no Legion, formally speaking, in this issue. But check out page 8/9: I don't know if we should know who everybody is (check out Shrinking Violet with the animated-series look!) but that's Kid Quantum there, isn't it? Also, why is Superboy there? Would he really stick around for all this?

 What Happened That You Have to Know About:

Well, it's a big fight against Rogol Zaar and Mordru and the Horraz, and the Legion wins. Dr. Fate and Mon-El come back.

Review:

I think we're supposed to understand this issue to be the end of our current storylines. Which is welcome. But I don't really feel like the menace of the various villains was developed particularly extensively. Really I'm not sure what it is we've been doing for twelve issues: what was all that time spent doing? I'd say that this series has been less than the sum of its parts except I'm not really sure what the parts were.

Saturn Girl tells us that Rogol Zaar was responsible for the destruction of Krypton, which prompted Jon Kent to create the United Planets, which created the Legion, which provoked Rogol Zaar to try to destroy New Krypton or whatever he was going for. According to Saturn Girl, it's a "circle". I don't see it like that. I see it as one troublemaker who won't go away. (Timely!)

Really it's an insulting and insidious idea: for this to be a circle, you have to give Rogol Zaar's desire to kill and destroy the same legitimacy as everyone else's desire to survive, prosper, and associate. So let's not do that.

At the end of the first twelve issues I have to say I'm disappointed in how this series has gone. I still like the roster and the costumes and concepts and the setting. There are a lot of good ingredients here. But it's like we skipped from the beginning of the story to the end without doing the middle.

And now we're going to jump ahead in time to see some canonical details of the future! Just in case there was more stuff we wanted to skip over.

I dunno... I like to have more to say about these comics in these reviews. But I have a hard time finding a lot to say about this issue.

Art: 85 panels/22 pages = 3.9 panels/page. 2 splash pages, 2 double-paged spreads.

Bit of a different look from Sook this time; check out his faces for Jon on page 2. Really the issue looks a little rushed, is what I *want* to say, but looking over the art closely makes me wonder why I want to say it. It isn't less detailed or less competent. I think it might be suggested to me by the panel arrangements. So that's interesting.

Also, a colouring note: check out Triplicate Girl on page 15. That's pretty cool. People who know: does this make optical sense? Does blue+cyan+magenta = black? Anyway I like it a lot.