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. #25 – Review

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

The Story: The return of Starro the Conquerer!  Or, more technically, the return of the return of Starro the Conquerer!  By the way, it’s raining Czarnians.

The Review: There are generally two kinds of villains: your garden-variety, day-to-day thugs who might end up occupying our heroes for half a day, if they’re lucky; and then you have your big-momma, criminal masterminds who will push the good guys to the brink of defeat before inevitably giving way.  No matter which you end up, they all end up like bad houseguests: no sooner gotten rid of before they’re back again.

Starro the Conquer certainly fits the bill; since his introduction, he’s served as the main baddie of now three story arcs in R.E.B.E.L.S. Considering the series is still relatively young, at twenty-five issues, this feels like one arc too many.  Although the initial concept of a humanoid Starro offered some interest at first, by now we all know that besides a giant axe and super-strength, he follows the same M.O. as all Starro plots: possessing people by throwing starfish in their faces.

It all boils down to predictability.  Bedard writes the issue competently enough, but you just can’t help having a “been there, done that” attitude about the whole thing.  After all, Starro is still after taking Brainiac 2 for his own, and he’s still all about galactic conquest.  Since his motivations aren’t any different than before, and neither are his means for carrying them out, half the premise has been recycled from previous stories—not exactly thrilling.  Still an army of Lobo clones (male and female, interestingly enough) has some potential for thrills, though it’s unclear how they’ll be used in this arc.