Legion Lost #7 – Review

By: Tom DeFalco (writer), Pete Woods (artist), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: He’s the amphibious, humanoid telepath of your dreams.

The Review: Chalk this up to my wishy-washy nature, but I’ve always found it difficult to step away from a comic book series, even one that’s not performing so well.  Part of me wants to believe the title’s only going through a rough patch, one that may be hurdled over by the next issue.  Another part of me sees dropping the series as a kind of betrayal, especially after some significant investment—like the six months I put into Legion Lost.

Sad to say, that investment hasn’t really paid off.  This book has been crawling along for a while now, even some time before DeFalco took over writing duties, so you can’t really attribute its low performance to creative changes.  Even from a generous perspective, the title simply hasn’t done a remarkable job of establishing appealing, lovable characters nor a tight, gripping plot.

Aside from the aggressive Gates and Timber Wolf, none of the other Legionnaires have asserted much in the way of personality, at least none that you can really resonate with.  DeFalco might be trying to light a fire under these characters by injecting some drama into their interactions, but he does so at the cost of ignoring context and disrespecting Legion history.  I’m talking, of course, about Wildfire’s unexpectedly craven power play for control of the team.  It’s one thing to state, not inaccurately, that Tyroc hasn’t been very proactive in directing their mission; it’s another to take the leap to, “For the team’s welfare, you should step down as mission leader.”

What’s particularly problematic about this scene is it essentially disregards the years of friendship and experience these teammates have shared together.  It just doesn’t make sense for Wildfire to be so insensitive and callous in critiquing Tyroc, nor does it feel natural for Tyroc (especially since we’ve established him as “a diplomat,” in Wildfire’s own words) to shoot back, perhaps a bit too defensively, “That’s exactly what we need—another hothead in charge!”  To top it off, Wildfire reacts with a rather silly, antiquated, “Why, you—”  I’m surprised he doesn’t shake his fist under Tyroc’s nose just to complete the effect.

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.

Legion Lost #3 – Review

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

The Story: When Timber Wolf starts calling you savage, you really have a problem.

The Review: If you haven’t realized it already, let me just say: I am a Legion of Super-Heroes fan.  At the same time, it is never lost on me how irritatingly dense and confusing Legion continuity can be to new readers; that was certainly the case when I started getting into the series.  None of this was helped by the resurrection of the Silver Age Legion and all its incumbent baggage of history, which the new DCU disappointed me in not tidying up.

That said, Nicieza has taken some admirable pains to make his set of Legionnaires as accessible as possible.  Hence the constant emphasis on their major personality traits: Wildfire and his angst of not having a body, Dawnstar’s perfectionism, and most of all, Timber Wolf’s antsiness to get out there and maul something.

All that talk about wishing he could take out his anger on someone show how T. Wolf gets his reputation as a Wolverine analogue (or Wolverine inspiration, considering he predates the X-Man by ten years).  Unlike his teammates, who seem inclined to play it on the safe side and keep their activities on the down-low, Wolf takes the proactive route, tracking down Hypersapiens before they cause too much damage.

Maybe because he takes the trouble to actually get out into the real world, it explains why he’s the first of the team to begin adjusting to life on Earth 2011.  As he speeds off in a stolen cop car, he reflects, “…for the first time…a giant part of me feels free…”  That’s exactly what the rest of the Legionnaires need; instead of moping around in a telepathically hustled motel room, moaning about “this time—this filthy, backward place!” they need to put on some civvies and live a little.

Legion Lost #2 – Review

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

The Story: Can’t we just talk, energy-being to energy-being?

The Review: I’ve noticed in reviews of the two new titles featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes that folks mostly take issue with the inaccessibility of the team itself.  Like many DC properties, the Legion has a very dense, complicated history, but unlike many DC properties, it’s had to reinvent itself from the ground up at least a couple times, arguably more.  The team has tons of characters, each with a long, complex background, and a rather specific setting.

Any one of these points by itself would make Legion pretty obtuse to readers, but put them all together and you have yourself a surefire niche title, one existing mostly for the pleasure of its small band of devotees and hardly anyone else.  If Legion’s to have any chance of expanding its audience, it needs winning stories by top-notch writers and artists, and it needs it now.

Nicieza is a top-notch writer.  His work on both Robin and Red Robin demonstrated a high bar for quality titles featuring young characters.  He has a great ear for first-person, semi-stream-of-consciousness narration, and he shows it through Wildfire’s description of events this issue.  He mixes exposition with character bits (“No, really, Wolf, try stopping an energy-based form with a chunk of wood.  More sprockin’ stubborn than I am…”), reading naturally and engagingly.

Unfortunately, a lot of the narration gets wasted on the same set of expository points: Alastor, an alien of the future, enraged at the death of his sister from Earth’s xenophobia, goes back in time to “our” present day to infect humanity with a virus that will transform them all into mutant hybrids.  Not only did the debut cover this ground already, but this issue actually goes through this whole spiel twice, meaning you’re already feeling worn out from half the plot in two issues.

Legion Lost #1 – Review

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

The Story: Seems like everyone’s going retro these days.

The Review: Paul Levitz’s at best uninspired run on Legion of Super-Heroes almost continuously dragged its heels from the day it relaunched and only rarely delivered any goods worth staying on for.  Adventure Comics, its youthful counterpart, bore some promise, but eventually slipped into the same lifeless pattern.  While too jaded to give Levitz’s go at the umpteenth relaunch of the title a try, Nicieza’s merits always earns his work a perusal, I’d say.

Frankly, what he gives us is everything the Legion should be.  First off, he sets them up young—not quite as baby-faced as their original portrayals, but significantly less thirtyish than the exhausted, grim-looking folks we got the last couple years.  But more than appearance, the tone of the characters has liveliness again.  They still retain a gloss of experienced professionalism, but mostly they sound energetic, focused, and open to adventure, which is as it should be.

Then, too, Nicieza gives us a very potent mix of Legionnaires, including a few fan favorites and also some interesting, unexpected choices.  Of course you have Timber Wolf (“Wolverine Lite,” as I like to call him) and Wildfire and Dawnstar, the 31^st Century’s Ross and Rachel (or, for you more current readers, the 31^st Century’s Sammy and Ronnie).  But you also have helpful amphibian Tellus, actress Chameleon Girl, surprisingly foul-mouthed Gates, and Tyrok, who’s gained quite a bit of stature as of late, playing leader here.

Their sheer diversity alone had no guarantee of assuring rich interplay (see Justice League International #1).  Nicieza’s strong character writing puts all their personalities and powers in the forefront without having to spell it our right to you—for the most part, anyway.  With any luck, once this introductory issue gets out of the way, Nicieza from now on has the freedom to just play and not worry about the initial logistical stuff.

Anyway, as it stands, our heroes already have a lot on their plate.  Already facing the prospects of getting left stranded in the past (our present), they also have to deal with malfunctioning flight rights and fritzing powers.  And while our villain may have a howling rage for humankind (Earth’s future xenophobia is literally coming back—in time, that is—to bite us in the butt), by issue’s end, his presence becomes moot, though the damage has already been done.

Legion of Super-Heroes #14 – Review

By: Paul Levitz (writer), Fernando Dagnino & Raul Fernandez (artists), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: If it is wisdom you seek, die first.  No, I’m not kidding.

The Review: When this title rebooted last year, it introduced the character of Harmonia Li to be of some significance and then pretty much shelved her.  Yet Levitz never really allowed the her to be forgotten; she continued to dog this series, reappearing in the most random moments of often unrelated story arcs to remind us of her vague existence, but never actually following up with any real interest.

This issue finally gets into her mysterious origins, and it’s underwhelming, to say the least: as it turns out, she is a denizen of Utopia, a world of wisdom, which just happens to be the last target on Saturn Queen’s demolition list.  Since Levitz spent so little time in previous arcs laying the groundwork for this revelation, it really comes out of nowhere, and feels more like a convenient too to allow the Legion to access an otherwise inaccessible world.

Still, Levitz deserves some credit for neatly tying all his disparate plotlines into one common thread: Dream Girl’s attempt to purge Star Boy of—something—in his costume; Dawnstar’s search for the being that attacked her and Wildfire; Mon-El’s quest across space with Dyogene; and of course, the Legion of Villains’ quest for the three worlds of balance.  The cost, of course, is none of these were explored in enough detail to be of any interest, resulting in a climax that lacks much in the way of excitement or novelty.

Certainly, Levitz’s dialogue does nothing to help matters, having finally descended from purely clichéd and pointless (the issue starts actually starts off with, “Nooo!”) to completely incomprehensible.  Both Dyogene and Master Kong of Utopia are given to speak gibberish as a pretense of wisdom: “…and if Dyogene’s master of the rings’ power is greater, know that this moment was foreseen long ago in shaping this one.”  “…but if man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.”  Tortured grammar is the least of their problems.

Adventure Comics #521 – Review

Lead Story By: Paul Levitz (writer), Geraldo Borges and Marlo Alquiza (artists)
Back Up Story By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Mahmud Asrar (penciller), John Dell (inker), Pete Pantazis (colorist)

The Lead Story: Some sort of Oan intelligence is looking for someone strong enough and fearless enough to carry a green lantern ring. In the meantime, a bunch of legionnaires are off in Uganda, trying to fix up after an earthquake that, after a little bit of investigating, doesn’t look very earthquaky, especially when it wallops a couple of them at better than the speed of light.

Lead Story What’s Good: Borges and Alquiza have an attractive, arresting art style that works really well on expressive faces (check out Shadow Lass or her racist boyfriend on pages 2 and 3) and interesting aliens (the Oan on page 2 or the close up on Tellus on page 6). That’s half the battle right there.

Story-wise, I was intrigued by the vanished Green Lantern corps and its last representative trying to revive the venerable force. That was interesting, although the Legion’s reactions seemed a bit odd and unexpectedly submissive. “Everyone come here so I can pick a new Green Lantern.” “No problem. Here we are.” Huh? Oh, well. The dialogue and writing worked for me as well, especially Dawnstar and Shadow Lass.

Lead Story What’s Not So Good: While Borges and Alquiza have some strengths, I think they’re still working on a few weaknesses as well. On weird camera angles or even just people looking up (splash page with the Oan on page 13 or Lar Gand on page 15), the proportions go all funny. The women are attractive, but obviously every one has had a cheap boob job leaving their mommy parts sticking out at odd angles in defiance of gravity and good taste. As well, in terms of composition, panel-wise and page-wise, the approach is very middle of the road. (Instructions: Put camera in standard position A. Pan right to standard position B. Repeat.) This left the panels themselves rarely dynamic, and the panels on the page didn’t feel like they were flowing from one to another. Some artists have tried some interesting things with diagonal layouts and odd-sized panels, but nothing innovative was tried here.

Writing-wise, I was surprised (negatively) that Levitz had picked such classical background action. The old legion stories were filled with the Legionnaires leaping into natural disasters (as only do-gooders can) and saving humans and endangered wildlife. I think that worked in the sixties, but comics have matured a lot since then and I didn’t feel this mood was quite up to what comics are capable of doing. I wasn’t invested in the disaster, so the action didn’t really pull me in.

Back Up Story: The Atom is in one dilly of a pickle. Dad is in the clutches of bad guys. The Atom’s belt is fried.

Back Up Story What’s Good: I bought the story in this feature, the conflict between hero and uncle, the redemption arc that was going on and the stakes (Dad’s in trouble). The art on this story was rougher, but more dynamic than the lead story, while remaining emotive and expressive.

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.