Legion of Super-Heroes #10 – Review

By: Paul Levitz (writer), Yildiray Cinar & Wayne Faucher (artists), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Family, the ties that bind…and gag.  Chameleon Boy finds to his regret that having a rich aunt isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Review: Before I get to the specifics of this issue, I think it’s important I stake my claim as to why I think this series generally has been so unsatisfying to me so far.

I’m not a longtime Legion reader.  I started when Jim Shooter, a veteran Legion writer, took over the “Three”-boot Legion.  After I fell in love with the series, I read some of the biggest stories from past Legions, just to get myself up to speed.  Those stories were great, but they only made me happier to read the new adventures of a fresh Legion.  I was disappointed when DC chose to bring back the Silver Age team, but since I considered myself a Legion fan, I gave it a shot.

To me, the current Levitz legion reads much far too much like his run from the eighties.  It has all the stylistic qualities of overemotional, explicit dialogue and exposition that may have been the rage back then, but now just seem outdated and exaggerated.  Now, you have to remember that Shooter wrote and worked in the same period as Levitz, but his “Three”-boot scripts read as fresh and contemporary as any other title on the stands at the time.

Of course, the problem doesn’t lie entirely with Levitz’s writing.  You have to consider that this Legion is no longer a team of fresh-faced youths.  They aren’t so much the Teen Titans of the future anymore, but the Justice League—but considering how the current Justice League has so many young’uns on the team, this Legion feels even older than that.  I wrote in my first review of this series that it feels like the bulk of this Legion’s great tales have already passed; I have no reason to change that opinion.

Legion of Super-Heroes #9 – Review

By: Paul Levitz (writer), Yildiray Cinar & Wayne Faucher (artists), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Brainiac 5 and Chameleon Boy hit up Durla for some new leads to the assassinations on the United Planets Council, while Tyroc and Timber Wolf try to prevent more deaths.

The Review: The Legion’s massive cast tends to pose a lot of difficulties for writers.  For one thing, it takes a lot of effort to give each Legionnaire a fair chance in the spotlight.  For another, keeping track of all their different personalities and backgrounds in the context of whatever storyline they’re caught up in can be a taxing juggling act.  Then there’s the obstacle of dreaming up a mission/opponent big enough to challenge for the two dozen or so members.

Paul Levitz has the expertise to handle all three of these problems, but he doesn’t do so with much inspiration.  This Durlan plot to assassinate the UP council just doesn’t have much teeth to it.  Some of the missing bite comes from how unthreatening the assassins have been portrayed so far.  They’re quite lousy at assassinating people; across three issues, they’ve only managed to kill off two individuals, one of which had almost no importance attached whatsoever.  If there’s a bigger mastermind behind all this, let’s hope he or she (or it—we’re dealing with Durlans here, after all) shows up soon, because the henchmen aren’t really selling.

There’s little reason to hope more formidable opponents will pop up anytime soon, considering the sluggish pace Legion has now.  By the end of the issue, all you’re left looking forward to is a visit to Chameleon Boy’s aunt, who may or may not be directly or indirectly connected to the Durlan conspiracy.  That’s the kind of stakes the Legion deals with now.  Like Timber Wolf says, “We’re Legionnaires—not nursemaids!”  Quite right—shouldn’t they be out preventing galactic war, or trying to stop an invasive species of hyper-flies from eating the time-space continuum, instead of mostly waiting around for an opportunity to thwart some raging shapeshifters for the umpteenth time?

The Legion of Super-Heroes #2 – Review

by Paul Levitz (writer), Yildiray Cinar & Francis Portela (pencils), Wayne Faucher & Francis Portela (inks), Hi-Fi (colors), and Sal Cipriano (letters)

The Story: Earth-Man joins his first mission with the Legion as the Legionnaires deal with the fall of Titan.  Meanwhile, Saturn Queen returns to wreak havoc.

What’s Good: In his return to writing duties, it’s clear that no one gave Levitz the memo about decompression.  Thank goodness for that because the result is that the Legion reads like no other book on the stands right now.  This book is thick.  It’s a 30 page story, but that doesn’t do justice to how dense it is.  Levitz somehow manages to perfectly balance the Legion’s notoriously large cast with around four to five sub-plots.  Much like last month’s debut, it’s mind blowing how much actually happens this month as well as how many scene changes there are.  This issue is so ridiculously packed with content and story that were it $2.99, I’d feel like I was short-changing DC.

What’s particularly remarkable is that Levitz never loses control.  Things never feel scattered.  More remarkable still is that Levitz finds time for a good amount of characterization.  All of the many characters carry distinct voices.  Braniac 5 in particular remains a total blast under Levitz’s pen.

Much like Levitz wonderfully manages his multitude of characters, he also is able to make every single of his sub-plots engaging.  Every plot strand left me wanting to know more and left me wanting next month’s issue.  What the heck is going on with Saturn Girl’s kids?  What’s Saturn Queen up to?  What’s going to happen to Titan’s refugees?  Individually, each of these plots is standard fare, I suppose, but when weaved together, the result is overwhelming.  It’s really fun to find so many corners of interest in a single comic.

I also enjoyed Levitz’s use of Earth-Man even more than last month.  Indeed, Earth-Man, for me, is the most intriguing of Levitz’s many threads, if only because so many questions abound, particularly regarding his Green Lantern ring and what he’ll end up doing with it.  Levitz is quickly fashioning Earth-Man into a fully realized, three dimensional character who is showing the potential to be more than a simple, xenophobic asshole.

I have nothing negative to say about Cinar’s work on this book.  It’s clear that he was the right choice for the Legion and he manages the book deftly, with a good mix of modern sleekness and the old school vibe that’s a necessity for a sci fi book like the Legion.  It’s nothing overly fancy, but it also remains friendly throughout.