Legion Lost #6 – Review

By: Fabian Nicieza & Tom DeFalco (writers), Pete Woods & Matt Camp (artists), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: Green man from Mars, meet the time-traveling people of the future!

The Review: I’ve made these same observations before in my review of Stormwatch #6, but it really pains me to see a writer I admire depart from a title I like.  Almost always the two things are mutually inclusive; once one element disappears, the other usually follows.  True, Nicieza hasn’t exactly made this title into the barn-burner any Legionnaire fan hoped for, but at the very least he’s remained true to the Legion’s spirit and delivered a solid, if flawed, read each time.

Soon-to-be-replacement DeFalco comes aboard this issue to help Nicieza with the script.  As a result, it’s hard to tell if the writing falls flat because of his contribution or because of some decline in Nicieza’s already faltering writing.  It’s not an obvious drop in quality, but it just feels like many of the lines have gotten slightly more generic, the plot slightly more muddled, the characters slightly more one-dimensional.

The weakness is most noticeably felt in the conception of Major Nicholson, the military lady in charge of investigating extraterrestrials and metahumans that may pose a threat to the country.  She might be attempting to sound tough and informed, but she ends up sounding immature (describing Timber Wolf’s friends: “‘Faceplate’ appears to emit some kind of energy from that oh-so-stylish suit of armor—and it looks as if ‘Lenny Kravitz’ controls sonic vibrations.”) or just plain bratty (“Shut up!”).  With any luck she won’t be a long-term antagonist for this series.

Also a bit painful to read is Martian Manhunter’s dialogue.  Paul Cornell did a fantastic job on Stormwatch making J’onn out as a badass, an image Pete Tomasi kept up perfectly in his guest shot on Green Lantern Corps.  Here, when he’s not acting confused by the Legionnaires’ “evolved” minds, he’s being confusing.  For example, you’ll never understand why, when he confronted Wolf last issue, he apparently decided to take the extra step of knocking Wolf out and having him turned into the military before he begins his interrogation.

It’s also not clear what J’onn gets out of this meeting with the Legion.  If anything, his only real purpose is to assist them in rescuing Chameleon Girl.  While he vaguely mentions something about trailing them to complete some kind of “energy signature,” it’s not clear what getting that kind of information accomplishes for him or Stormwatch.  It also strikes me as a little odd that having read their minds and knowing their purpose on Earth, he’s not a little more concerned about the Hypertaxis virus threatening humanity, which would supposedly be under his purview.

Legion Lost #5 – Review

By: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Pete Woods (artist), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: Can’t we have just a nice, calm, rational conversation, mind to mind?

The Review: I don’t think bias in a critic is evil as long as he’s aware of it and makes it clear, so I have no problem in saying that I really wanted to like this title.  Actually, I do like it, so I guess it’s more accurate to say that I really wanted to love this title, enough to convince others to give it a try and see for themselves how great it is.  Sadly, I can’t say that with much honesty—not at this point, at least.

I still maintain the series has many virtues, but there are some major missteps in the writing that undermines it as a whole.  Some of these are structural, like the increasingly annoying recap monologue Nicieza invariably incorporates at the beginning of every issue.  While it may be useful for the reader who’s just hopping on board, I suspect those people are few and far in-between.  For the fans, the recap is a tiresome bit of repetition you just want to skip over.  Plus, I imagine it’ll read pretty awkwardly once it’s collected in a trade.

Another misstep, one semi-structural and semi-substantial, is Nicieza’s choice to have each issue narrated by a different Legionnaire (except for the MIA Chameleon Girl and Gates).  If you have a character with a lively personality, it can work, but the more reserved characters seem more like they’re merely dispensing information than letting their individual attitudes speak for themselves.  That was the case with Dawnstar last issue, and much the same here with Tellus, whose pause-laden mode of speech is just as heavy and burdensome to read as you’d expect.

You also have—I won’t call them problems, per se—flaws within the story itself.  Tellus’ psychic confrontation with Alastor goes along fairly predictable lines, as attempts to reason with misguided villains so often do.  The telepathic amphibian tries to appeal to Alastor’s amenable side, throwing out such stock lines as, ““…Is this the person…your sister would have…wanted you…to become…?”  It works, I suppose, but it doesn’t make the title seem any fresher.

Legion Lost #4 – Review

By: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Pete Woods (artist), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: This—is—Fargoooo!!

The Review: To this day, I still don’t understand DC’s aversion to adopting Marvel’s recap page, which is one of the most practical, useful devices you can have in serial fiction.  And it’s not just Marvel; TV shows use the opening “Previously…” to the same effect for each episode, and many manga tend to start their issues with the last few panels from the preceding ones.  If the goal is to get new readers on board, a recap page would be a handy thing indeed.

Without one, you wind up with chunks of exposition awkwardly and repetitively laced into the narrative itself, like Dawnstar’s recollection of the past few issues’ events here: “The Legion of Super-Heroes came back in time to stop a terrorist named Alastor from releasing a deadly disease.  We failed.”  For anyone who’s been following along since the beginning, this only reiterates everything we’re already well aware of, and is thus a sad waste of time and space.

But then, Dawnstar’s entire narration feels a bit unnecessary.  Nicieza has always proven very comfortable writing internal dialogue (as demonstrated in a strong run on Red Robin), but since each issue switches the POV of the characters, you’re bound to get inconsistent results.  While Timber Wolf turned out to be a pretty entertaining narrator last issue, Dawnstar feels bland and pointless, making mostly redundant commentary on what’s happening: “I can feel their confusion through the mind-link, but also their hope—their determination to help [Yera]…”

Speaking of which, the happy return of Chameleon Girl is cut short when the Legionnaires find she can’t control the form she’s become attached to, that of human Hypertaxed into an Okaarian Rdrayyj.  At least you can rest easy knowing she’s still hanging in there, though it is a bit of a head-scratcher how they’ll get her out.  Besides, if she’s alive, there’s a pretty good chance Gates survived the big blow-up of issue one as well, so the Legion has reason to hope.