R.E.B.E.L.S. #28 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Claude St. Aubin (penciller), Robert Campanella (inker), Rich & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: You’re not the boss of us anymore, Starro!  We’re taking back our streets!

The Review: It’s been a strange, not-so-long journey for DC’s non-Green Lantern-related space opera.  Having started with a fairly high-stakes mission rebelling against the rule of Starro the Conqueror, how fitting it is that we finish with—a mission rebelling against the rule of Starro the Conqueror.

Unfortunately, there’s little interest to be had in reading L.E.G.I.O.N.’s (way to make even the title for this series pointless) final adventure, as the conclusion is pretty much foregone. Last issue Lyrl had already conceived a foolproof way to free the Rannians from the grip of Starro, so there’s not much left to see on that point.  Last issue also saw Lobo and Smite’s duel cut short by their mutual love of bars, so we can’t even look forward to that possibly entertaining brawl.

Speaking of which, as amusing a gag as Lobo and Smite’s newfound bond, you can’t dismiss the fact that it comes out of nowhere and for no reason.  Well, no reason except to have Smite provide the non-essential members of L.E.G.I.O.N. a convenient way to get back to the planet.  And also so Bedard can execute a silly, conclusive wrap-up to Starro the Conqueror’s uneven career as a villain, indicating you were never supposed to take any of this story arc seriously.

Pretty much the only moment of tension in this issue is Starro’s last act of defiance, threatening to have all the Starro-controlled citizens do away with themselves.  And yet there’s a bizarre gap of logic in all this: all the Rannians bring knives to their throat.  Where and how they find such instant, universal access to knives (especially Adam Strange’s little daughter), we don’t know.  It’s pretty clear this is the only method Bedard can think of to threaten their lives without having the risk of their actually harming themselves too soon.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #27 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Claude St. Aubin (penciller), Scott Hana (inker), Rich & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: Prepare to be sucker-punched—and by sucker-punch I mean getting a telepathic starfish in your face.

The Review: A big cast can be a handful to write, but their usefulness to fiction is invaluable.  The more well-developed characters you have, the more opportunities you have to mix and match them up to see what kind of reactions you can get out of them in various situations.  If you give them a chance, they can practically build their own stories for you.

So it’s not a shocker that when Bedard gets more of the R.E.B.E.L.S. involved in the plot, the issue instantly feels more active and invested.  The back-and-forth chatter among them has an energy and dynamic that’s largely absent when it’s just Vril Dox condescending to whoever manages to get his attention that moment.  It’s also plain refreshing to see the team acting like—well, a team.

Even so, they still get comparatively little to do, what with half of them beaming back to Rann to counter the Starro invasion, and the other half going off to find Brainiac (a mission which proves virtually worthless as the first team winds up accomplishing both).  Really, it’s Vril’s son and lady-friend who get the most page-time, with Lyrl devising a method to free the Starro-infected, and Blackfire facing off against the Conqueror himself.

Lryl’s use of Tribulus to disinfect the Rannians from the possessing starfish is quite ingenious, although the science behind it doesn’t get explained very well.  It also seems a bit too easy, as the invasion barely feels like it’s started (mostly because Bedard’s focus in past issues has been on Starro the Conqueror and his Lobo clones).  On top of that, the whole plot has been executed predictably; Starro stories rarely go any other way, after all.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #26 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Daniel HDR & Claude St. Aubin (pencillers), Scott Hana (inker), Rich & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: Place your bets, folks—who’ll destroy the system first: a Starro invasion, or a rampage of Lobo clones?

The Review: By now, you should know the drill: with this title’s cancellation imminent, a step back to see where things went wrong can always be a valuable move.  For R.E.B.E.L.S., its biggest downfall has been it doesn’t live up to the kind of title it claims to be.  It’s a team title that spotlights only a couple characters and sidelines the rest, and it’s a cosmic title that seems less interested in traveling the stars and more interested in establishing a bureaucracy.

The first problem has been present and obvious in every issue since day one, and this one is no different.  Things weren’t so bad when Dox was Bedard’s only pet character, but once he brought Lobo in, the rest of the cast got reduced to nearly cameo roles.  Even with Dox under Starro control and Lobo distracted with fighting Starro’s henchmen, the rest of the team still only gets a couple pages total (cumulatively!) of panel time.

Instead of letting the other R.E.B.E.L.S. take more important parts in the story, Bedard fills the issue by fleshing out Lobo’s origins—and none too well, either.  If you’re at all familiar with the baddest alien in the galaxy, you already knew he caused his own race’s genocide.  It’s not as if Bedard brought much depth to that grim event: Lobo was different; his people outcasted him; he took revenge, somehow (we don’t see how) bypassing their own regenerative resilience.

And this origin story ends up having no effect on the plot, as Starro the Conquerer backhands Smite from feeding it to the Lobo-clones (in hope they’ll avenge their ancestors’ deaths).  It’s unsurprising though that Smite would try for such a desperate choice.  Dox says it best this issue: “Only Lobo can beat Lobo.”  It effectively sums up Lobo’s limitations as a character; he’s incapable of defeat, so you never feel danger when he’s on the job.

Not that there’s much danger to begin with.  With Starro, the plot spells itself out fairly predictably: a bunch of starfish on people’s faces, mass hysteria/paranoia, the heroes find a way to break the connection, celebrations ensue.  That leaves fairly little to look forward to as this arc wraps up, unless Bedard somehow brings a totally mind-blowing new twist at the eleventh hour, and there’s little hope of that—he can hardly keep track of the details he already has.  Blackfire offers her services to Director Sardath in defeating Starro, yet several pages later Sardath has been Starro-ed (we never see how it happens) and she’s nowhere to be seen.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #24 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Claude St. Aubin (penciller), Scott Hana (inker), Rich & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: With a bout of peace at last, our R.E.B.E.L.S. finally have some time to work on their romantic entanglements.  These are…the days of their lives…

The Review: With the last issue focused mainly on the Vega sector’s Green Lanterns, the R.E.B.E.L.S. haven’t had much opportunity to develop their characters and show their stakes in this whole operation.  Unfortunately, that’s been the case for most of the series’ run.  Despite a great cast of cosmic personalities, Vril Dox continues to get the lion’s share of page-time and big moments, and that’s really no way to keep up the integrity of a team comic.

This issue does some work to reverse that trend.  Sure, once again Dox’s burgeoning relationship with the edgy Blackfire gets the biggest showcase, but at least you also get touching scenes with Adam Strange’s wife and daughter (still one of the most well-adjusted families in the DCU), Captain Comet trying to drink away his problematic crush on Starfire, and even Lobo getting some action.  These are all good moments to give the characters some drama besides cleaning up whatever mess Dox has gotten them all into again.

On the other hand, Tony Bedard tends to be a little too talky with his writing.  He does pen some good dialogue, especially where his pet characters (Dox and now Lobo) are concerned.  But too often the characters talk about their problems or recall events instead of having those things shown, and that’s a pretty lame use of a visual medium.  For example, Strange and his wife spend two pages talking about their past and their friends’ love lives, all in panels of various close-ups, like the storyboard of a soap opera.  It doesn’t make for very lively reading.

And after all that, you still don’t really get much of a new handle on these characters than you did before.  Comet’s still a lovesick dog, Strange an adaptable family man, and Lobo—well, he’s still Lobo.  Dox still gets the most profit out of the issue as his evening with Blackfire show the semblance of his sensitive side—possibly even a genuine one.  It’s still pretty clear, however, that there may be some plotting happening from both parties.  These are probably the scenes that get the best treatment and have the largest stakes in the long-run for this series.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #23 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Claude St. Aubin (penciller), Scott Hanna (inker), Rich & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: John Stewart, along with the Vega rookies, arrive on Rann as a delegation from the Green Lantern Corps to make nice with the R.E.B.E.L.S.  But with Vril Dox scheming on how to turn the photo op into profit on his end, both the ancient and new orders of peacekeepers may not be enough to save the system from total annihilation.

The Review: For a while now, R.E.B.E.L.S. has been the only title offering adventures from the cosmic corner of the DC universe that aren’t Green Lantern-centric.  That’s changed with the current story arc, which pits Vril Dox’s capitalist police force versus the newly-minted Lanterns in the same sector.  The crossover makes perfect sense for the story, and given that Tony Bedard’s writing duties now include Green Lantern Corps, the characterization of the Lanterns works very well against the more pragmatic R.E.B.E.L.S.

The downside is this issue feels more like a Green Lantern title.  God bless them, but there are already plenty of series about the Corps without them poaching the one dedicated to the rest of the universe.  Their guest shot had a mixed effect; on the one hand, they injected a good feeling of liveliness and direction to the story, but they also served to highlight just how aimlessly R.E.B.E.L.S. has been wandering around lately.

Bedard just hasn’t given the R.E.B.E.L.S. much to do.  Since their defeat of the re-imagined Starro the Conqueror, most of their work has involved butting heads with each other or with established cosmic villains, like Blackfire or Brainiac.  These aren’t bad choices for antagonists; they just feel done to death.  This title has access to everywhere in the DC universe that isn’t Earth—the motherload of story potential.  Every issue that crutches on previous material instead of introducing new characters, world, or concepts wastes the opportunity to generate a sense of adventure, the lifeblood of cosmic titles.