Friday, August 24, 2012

"But That Trick Never Works!" "This Time for Sure!"

I'll get to reviews of the new issues of Legion Lost and LSH in due time, but right now I'd like to talk about a comic book I'm actually enjoying, to wit: The Hypernaturals, by DnA, published by Boom! Studios. If you haven't been reading it--and why not?--it's the same kind of cosmic stuff DnA did with the Legion and with Guardians of the Galaxy at Marvel, only this time they're playing with toys of their own creation.

The Hypernaturals is not just a Legion ripoff; it's its own thing. However, there are enough points of comparison between The Hypernaturals and the Legion (and Guardians of the Galaxy, for that matter) that it's not a waste of time to discuss it in a Legion context. So far, we've had almost three issues of The Hypernaturals; two regular issues, and the Free Comic Book Day preview issue #0. In those three comics, we've found that the Hypernaturals is a team of superheroes that defends a futuristic world known as the Quantinuum, named after some kind of futuristic technological singularity that has revolutionized human society. The Hypernaturals have limited terms of service, and get turned over every few years. The newest group has just gone out on their first mission; it didn't go well, and now some of the older ex-Hypernaturals and some new recruits have to try to figure out what happened and to keep things together.

Here are the twelve pillars of Legion storytelling, as established over more than fifty years of comics about these characters.

1. The Legion is a group of superheroes.
2. There are many Legionnaires.
3. Being a Legionnaire is a special thing.
4. Legionnaires don’t all have overwhelming superpowers, but combine their more modest talents through teamwork to be effective.
5. The Legionnaires started their heroic careers as teenagers.

6. The Legion lives in the distant future.
7. The future setting of the Legion is an optimistic one, and so is the Legion's outlook.
8. The future setting of the Legion is one in which space travel is common and there is abundant life on other planets.

9. The Legionnaires were the best friends of Clark Kent when he was a teenager, and helped him learn how to be a superhero.
10. Either directly or indirectly, the Legion represents the legacy of Superman ten centuries in the future.
11. The Legionnaires are the champions of diversity, and against xenophobia, in their society.

12. In Legion comics, characters can experience permanent change.

Now, in some ways, The Hypernaturals shares some of these points. In other ways, it resembles DnA's run on Guardians of the Galaxy. Let's explore that.

1. The Legion is a group of superheroes.

The Hypernaturals are superheroes too, although I believe that DnA don't actually use the word "superhero", but DnA's Guardians mostly aren't; they're space adventurers and reformed villains and cosmic entities and stuff.

2. There are many Legionnaires.

The Hypernaturals split the difference between the Legion and the Guardians here; at any given time the number of active Hypernaturals will be about the same as the number of Guardians, but over the years the cumulative total number of Hypernaturals, many of whom are presumably still alive, probably approaches Legion levels.

3. Being a Legionnaire is a special thing.

This seems also to be true of the Hypernaturals, but not the Guardians. The Guardians have a lot of esprit de corps, but for them it's more of an it's-a-dirty-job-but-somebody-has-to-do-it kind of situation, and the Guardians don't really have the respect of their contemporaries; they're viewed as a nuisance more than anything.

4. Legionnaires don’t all have overwhelming superpowers, but combine their more modest talents through teamwork to be effective.

This one's interesting. The Guardians have struggled with their power level throughout their existence; at first they were constantly overmatched by the overwhelming cosmic menaces they've faced, and then they were replaced by the Annihilators, who were actually too powerful. This was an ongoing theme of the comic book. Anyway, the Hypernaturals team seems to be composed of individuals all of whom have respectable amounts of generally useful power.

5. The Legionnaires started their heroic careers as teenagers.

Not true of either the Guardians or the Hypernaturals, for the most part.

6. The Legion lives in the distant future.
7. The future setting of the Legion is an optimistic one, and so is the Legion's outlook.
8. The future setting of the Legion is one in which space travel is common and there is abundant life on other planets.

The Guardians live in the present-day Marvel Universe, which isn't a particularly optimistic place, but the Hypernaturals' future is sufficiently distant and optimistic to compare to the Legion's. One thing is this: the Quantinuum is the kind of science-fiction concept that could be used as a source of pessimism, in a future-dystopia way, but in a recent interview on Comic Book Resources, they implied that they were sticking with the optimistic take on it. Also, you can see lots of traces of the present day in the Legion's future, even with the thousand intervening years, but the Quantinuum seems to have led to a future in which the past is no longer easily visible. All three comics have space travel and life on other planets.

9. The Legionnaires were the best friends of Clark Kent when he was a teenager, and helped him learn how to be a superhero.
10. Either directly or indirectly, the Legion represents the legacy of Superman ten centuries in the future.

Neither the Guardians nor the Hypernaturals have anything going on like the Legion's relationship with Superman. Nor do I think there's any way that they could. That's not a criticism; it's just a historical circumstance.

11. The Legionnaires are the champions of diversity, and against xenophobia, in their society.

The Guardians also have a specific mission, which is to protect the galaxy from all the random cosmic rifts and interstellar avatars and stuff who are always threatening reality. The Hypernaturals mission seems more general.

12. In Legion comics, characters can experience permanent change.

This is mostly because the Legion is relatively insulated from the maelstrom of DC continuity by their future setting, a state of affairs that has been allowed to persist for most of the Legion's existence. The Guardians don't have the same thing; during DnA's run with the Guardians there was quite a bit of crossover with other Marvel events, and the characters who died (for instance) are probably not going to stay dead. None of this applies to the Hypernaturals, who have their whole universe to themselves, and are wholly owned by Abnett and Lanning, who can permanently kill them all off at any moment if they're of a mind to.

So the Legion and the Hypernaturals do have some common ground, and it's going to be interesting to contrast the two future settings, if nothing else, as LSHv7 and The Hypernaturals continue. In particular I'm interested in the Quantinuum, in just what it is, and in how its existence changes storytelling in that setting. It's the kind of thing I wish Levitz would try in LSH, tell you the truth.

I don't want to get into too many details of The Hypernaturals, but one of the characters I'll be keeping an eye on is the kinda-like-Brainiac-5 guy Thinkwell. Similar superintelligence, similar high-handed way of dealing with people, points of distinction not immediately obvious. I look forward to doing another of these three-way comparisons of Thinkwell, Brainy, and Qubit from Irredeemable.

I don't want to get too enthusiastic about The Hypernaturals. I mean, it's good, and DnA are pretty reliable as writers, but it's easy to do the first story; the real test is the second story, which we won't see for (sigh) a year. Anyway, if you're disenchanted with the Legion, it might scratch your itch.

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11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad you're enjoying a comic title, but I'll just stick with the Legion. After 30 years of collecting and enjoying the Legion, I think I'll stick to my guns. Besides plenty of reviewers out there have enjoyed the last Levitz story arc, so there are good things to say about current Legion comics without jumping off the wagon to read something else.

8:50 AM  
Blogger Matthew E said...

Yeah... it's not that I'm not enjoying LSHv7; it's fine. But I have a pretty good idea it isn't going to get any better than this, and I don't have that sense with The Hypernaturals.

12:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you're bored with the Legion, then perhaps you should change blog titles and write about your new fave. Otherwise, review the last three Legion titles that you've missed. I check out your blog for Legion reviews not other comic titles ahead of them. Sorry to be blunt, but I want Legion news or I'll have to do what you want done with Legion Lost... and cancel.

8:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If anyone has been coming to this blog and has been frustrated that the last issue of Legion Lost and the last 2 issues of Legion haven't been reviewed yet, then check out latest current Legion reviews at SciFiPulse.net LegionWorld.net ComicboxCommentary.blogspot.com or dangermart.blogspot.com.

8:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm..it's sad to see someone who can't make up their own mind about things.

11:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for this review (and all your others). I hadn't heard much about the Hypernaturals previously.

12:13 AM  
Blogger Matthew E said...

How many of you guys are the same person?

Taking you in order...

1. I'm never bored with the Legion. I am underwhelmed by current Legion comics.

This article was, in part, about the Legion and about some former Legion writers. If what you wanted was to read about the Legion, I gave you that.

The Legion reviews are coming. Am I really three behind? Oops; thought it was two.

I don't do Legion news; I do Legion analysis and commentary. I don't have the connections or the inclination to do news.

You are welcome to come and go as you please.

2. Thank you.

I think.

4. You're welcome!

10:38 PM  
Anonymous Jim Davis said...

Here are the twelve pillars of Legion storytelling, as established over more than fifty years of comics about these characters.

I agree with most of these. However...

9. The Legionnaires were the best friends of Clark Kent when he was a teenager, and helped him learn how to be a superhero.

The "helped him learn how to be a superhero" is largely a Geoff Johns retcon going back only a few years. For the vast bulk of the Legion's history Superboy was either the Legion's mentor or out of continuity altogether.

11. The Legionnaires are the champions of diversity...

"Champions of tokenism" would be closer to the truth for much of the last half century. The diversity aspect only became important after the '90s reboot and the attempts at diversity were almost invariably clumsy and/or unpopular. (Tyroc, Sensor as snake, Kintetix as whatever that was supposed to be, Monstress, Shikari, black Star Boy, etc). And the retroboot largely wiped the slate clean once again except for, thankfully, Gates (shuffled off to the 20th century) and XS (not being used for reasons unknown).

9:39 AM  
Blogger Matthew E said...

The small answer to your comment is that the teaching-Superboy thing was actually introduced by the Legion cartoon, and Geoff Johns ran with it, and that the diversity thing first came up in a small way with the SW6 batch and was developed throughout the reboot, at which point, again Geoff Johns ran with it. See my first chapter in Teenagers from the Future for more on this.

The large answer to your question is that, while it's true that those two elements are relatively newer than the others, they're certainly part of the Legion's premise now. They're thematically appropriate, they're useful, and I don't think they're going away.

9:57 AM  
Blogger Katherine Ann said...

It was a shame that I couldn't find copies of this comic in my local shop, though the clerk told me that everyone who had read it enjoyed it.

I'm not sure what it says about the Legion storyline that I haven't read any of it for ten years and I'm still managing to find the current plot a little...flat? Not bad. Just safe.

Anyway! Hope you don't mind me barging into your blog here. :D

8:53 PM  
Blogger Matthew E said...

You might be able to order it from the Boom! Studios website. Or wait for the trade; that might work.

I agree about flat and safe. But then, Levitz is kind of the flat and safe choice for Legion writer.

And of course I don't mind! Welcome.

11:17 PM  

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