Legion of Super-Heroes v9 #2 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About: Brainiac One of Five and Tenzil Kem head to Winath to investigate Mekt Ranzz. Mekt recruits Garth into his Legion but they are betrayed to the Persuaders by Ayla. Other characters we think of as Legionnaires are also drawn into webs of evil one way or another by characters we think of as villainous.

Review: One of the things I like best in something I'm reading is a mystery that's set up so that, as I read, I know what is happening but have no idea what's going on. The first chapter of Beau Geste is one example of this. "But how? But why? And what happened to the trumpeter?"

Joshua Williamson has given us something similar but different here: we know what's happening, basically, and we know why, basically, but... but where are we going with this? Where can we go with this? I mean... is there a path from here back to regular futuristic superhero stories?

In a way, Williamson's project is counter to my own tendencies as a Legion fan. I'm more attached to the concept of the team overall than I am to the individual characters. I could enjoy a Legion comic with 100% new Legionnaires. (Assuming the thing was any good.) I think the concept of the Legion, teenage superheroes carrying on Superman's legacy a thousand years from now, is such a golden thing that it overcomes any considerations of just who those superheroes are.

But that's not Williamson's position at all. He's saying that, for his villains, the Legion is a dangerous idea that must be corrupted if not extinguished, and so they do some chronal engineering to accomplish that... but that the villains can be overcome and the future rescued, not by the inextinguishable idea of the Legion itself, but by the irrepressible heroism of the specific people who will insist on being superheroes regardless. And that's a good take on it! It's not inevitable, but it is good.

This issue doesn't advance the story very far in any direction, but the shape of it is coming clear. The villainous forces trying to shape the Legion, and the Legionnaires, the way they want, have selected targets and are trying to groom them for evil: Grimbor for Cosmic Boy; Lightning Lord for Lightning Lad; the Emerald Empress for Saturn Girl; Mano and the Persuaders for Dawnstar, and Lightning Lass, and it looks like Porcupine Pete and Polar Boy while we're at it. Meanwhile, Brainy and Tenzil are still free to operate independently and are trying to get to the bottom of the whole thing, and may be the key to breaking the pattern.

I'm still really enjoying myself with this series. I don't remember the last time months were this long.

Art: 134 panels/20 pages = 6.7 panels/page. One splash page.

Twenty pages? Let's keep an eye on that.

The thing that strikes me most about Hayden Sherman's art this issue is the panel layout. The panels are arranged decoratively, like windowpanes, and suggest illustration rather than motion. This matches the soft colour palette and Sherman's painterly rendering of the characters' faces. It's really nice to look at. It's like if Alphonse Mucha was Barry Kitson.

I'm still fighting Imra's thought-wheel speech balloons to a standstill. Sometimes I'm just guessing at what they're trying to convey. But I'm sticking with it.

Notes:

- the scene where Garth and Mekt bust up the bandits trying to rob the market wasn't particularly sinister or anything. Maybe too focused on the fighty parts to be pure superheroics. But then Mekt had to make it creepy anyway

- on the other hand, Dawnstar--I must assume it's Dawny--instructing Porcupine Pete and Polar Boy to massacre a bunch of witnesses? That might be too dark; I don't know how you come back from that

- Fire Lad may exist in this continuity. I mean, why wouldn't he, but it may be established that he exists

- So I guess Green Lanterns are evil in this future? Willpower! Nobody specified good will!

- I wondered, last issue, why Ayla (and the other Ranzzes) wore lightning bolts all over their clothes if they were trying to conceal their powers. But now that I look at them this issue, I guess that's not exactly what they're doing. They have plausible deniability