Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes CALLING THE ROLL of Legion of Super-Heroes #1 "Renegade World"... Spoilers

CALLING THE ROLL looks at an issue of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES character-by-character. Spoilers follow...

ON PANOPTES, a U.P. WATCHWORLD...

'Stealth-covered' drop-pods, with a cool light-showing hatch are released from a Legion cruiser (presumably), falling to the surface of Panoptes. They provide a nice visual that's different from the transporter effect that's been used for the last several years. Individual pods certainly could be problematic in terms of targeted landing and a whole myriad of possible limitations. Yet, they're much more interesting than mechanical teleportation. The good ol' space cruiser's still my pick for LSH transport, though.

The purple and burgandy vegetation was quite lovely and provided a real sense of place- something I always appreciate. Alien plants and topography, etc. add *so* much to the visuals.

The idea of Starfleet setting up these watchworlds near "problem spaces" is a good one. Looks like we'll be seeing this one for the next few issues.

ULTRA BOY I always thought Jo's original costume was one that needed minor changes, at most. It's a classic. I like his new uniform, though the boots are sort of clunky. Maybe they're meant to be? I think I like the even longer hair for Jo, though I'm not completely sold.

I loved that 'Samson and the pillars' pose near the issue's end. Very nice artistic work.

Jo vs. the Daxamite should make for pretty exciting stuff. Though I'll bet the Espionage Squad makes more than a bit of a contribution to whatever happens, too.

DRAGONWING Marva doesn't look geisha, kabuki or Asian at all, here. The colors do pop for her, though- particularly in her dragonfire breathing moment. The detail of the bindings of her hair was quite nice, too. The close-up of her slitted eyes while she 'paths (I think) the thought, "I'm goind down burning..." was effectivley tense and creepy. I wonder if her thought's a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy?

Her pursuit of Chemical Kid is kind of funny. Also, a little sad.

CHEMICAL KID "Orders are only guidelines"... why do I think that'll be Hadru's catch-phrase? His status-consciousness could get old pretty quickly, especially since he's always paired with Dragonwing. That's way too much attitude per panel. It seems, even so, that he's not so receptive to Marva's persistant advances.

What exactly does he mean when he says "halt the electrochemical trigger"? Need some more superpower related science speak, here.

I love Espionage Squad missions and found this one hitting the notes of stealth-arrival, disguise and tactical flexibility that I want to see in one, though it would be nice to see the notes sustained. More than difficult to achieve in 20 pages... (Hey, DC! How 'bout an Espionage Squad miniseries after the Origin one and the Star Trek one conclude?)

Gim Allon in space-- What happened to the U.P. Fleet? Is this the same institution? Somewhat unexpected career choice. This does provide a new setting as grist for the story mill. Perhaps his new career will take him to Lallor... or to Takron Galtos... or to wherever Lamprey went... or to wherever new or old Wanderers have wandered...

Space is limited (on pages, not beyond our story atmosphere), but perhaps Gim's role will allow us to learn about the role of a space navy in the 31st century DCU.

ON EARTH AT THE LSH HQ:

BRAINIAC 5 I agree with Brainy about judging a lifetime rather than a death.

I wonder why Brainy's putting himself forward as leader candidate? I don't see why he'd want the drain on his time, frankly. It seems like a regression. Or the influence of his most recent dimensional counterpart on the DC zeitgeist.

DREAM GIRL Looks great. Perfect hair color. Her team gets a couple of pages... but where are they? Star Boy and Glorith seem like they should be at Medicus One. It's always great to see Nura working that Naltorian super-science. More, please.

"But I don't think I would have been given the power to see the future it it wasn't possible... some times... to change it." I like that. Build on that statement as a M.O.

But surely she's done just that more than once in her career? Hasn't she? Example, please...

GLORITH Her sadness is palpable. Her first experience of grief? It's kind of... surprising, yet not at the same time... to see a maternal Dream Girl.

STAR BOY Apparently recuperating, but his mental state seems almost whole. Pessimism, even depression can be a part of the healing process. Wonder if his uniform is still a trans-dimensional map?

HARMONIA: Her ID box bears the 'L' log, yet we never see her hand to see if there's a ring on it. Her home planet and abilities are itemized. Is she or isn't she?

"Natural elemental". Like Marvel's Crystal? Having control over air, water, earth, fire and possibly wood, reflecting her heritage? Her back story should be-- had better be-- interesting to balance breaking the 'youth' rule. I haven't been particularly intrigued by Ms. Li, but that power description ups my interest substantially. Her Marvel counterpart's one of my favorite comic book characters... it'll be fun to see how Harmonia compares.

Earth as a homeworld is kind of boring.

Harmonia, Jan and Hadru can be their own little Element Squad.

I'm looking forward to Harmonia's story. What led her to Utopia? And away from it? Is she a member- I think yes. Or just a foil for Brainiac 5?

Her inclusion, though, is a slap in Nightwind's face. Which makes me curious about Saturn Girl's telepathic evaluations of the two wind-wielders.

Guess we don't really know if that particular bit of Johnsian LSH lore has made it intact to this new #1.

Speaking of the new #1-- I find the stories begun here much more to my taste than the ones in the previous #1.

Jo: facing the Daxamite, Renegade, is what we see Mon do on an upcoming cover, #2 or #3, IIRC.
And I certainly doubt that Cham would have taken the 'kids' on a mission with a killer Daxamite in it.
sigh
Is Renegade the code name for Dev-em, I still wonder?

Brainy: I hate it when Levitz tries to make the retroboot characters into their threeboot versions.
He did that with Shady, as well.
We've seen the cold controlfreak in Vril, too.
Talk about been there and done that.


Lightning Lass: she and Brin were an item for a long time, wheither she's moved on or not, she's going to feel his loss, imo.

Nice summary, ML!

Nice summary, Mystery Lad. I agree re: Harmonia and Nightwind. Still, her powers haven't been revealed yet, and they're quite vague. In Chinese tradition, the 5th element is metal, not air - though in a comics medium, I'd expect the more common air-water-earth-fire control will be used.

Sun Boy's powers would seem redundant here, though, if those are indeed Harmonia's powers.

Did anyone else notice that while Ayla's costume features lightning bolts, her MMB symbol is back to being a feather.

Harmonia would be the redundant one, actually, since Sun Boy joined first.

If Harmonia Li has powers why didn't she stop those boobs at the Time Institute on Titan before they viewed the beginning of time?

Good point, although she has extra powers that Sun Boy doesn't have. Luckily, since he joined first, there's no danger of him being booted out.

And good question. In the issue, she used wind powers to cool Glorith off. She's certainly powerful enough to have stopped them.

Was she trying to keep her powers hidden to go unnoticed? I think that earlier situation was more important.

I wonder if Paul had always planned for her to have powers, or did he (or an editor) think of it later on?

I did notice that! I kinda hope she sticks with lightning powers, since it's a nice dynamic powerset.

For how recent the loss presumably is, Gim sure has moved through the grief process fast. Leaving the Legion is an understandable thing - transitioning into another career already? Guess he likes to bury himself in work to cope. Must inherit that diligence from his parents.

Of the others, Ayla's grief makes sense for Brin, as well as Jacques for his friendship with Wildfire. Who else? Polar Boy was buddies with Tellus. Huh. It's weird to think that outside their own circle and some already deceased Legionnaires like Val and Pol, I can't think of too many pals for the other Lost Legionnaires.

The symbol randomly reminds me: I always thought it'd be interesting if Ayla had both of her power sets at the same time. Not permanently, but in an elseworld or a one-off story. Dang that Naltorian science and its whimsy. It'd be interesting to see the dynamic with her brothers when she becomes the more powerful one.

I agree with you, Future. I agree with you there, Future. In fact, when we were speculating over which Legionnaires would resign over the "deaths" of the seven Lost, I only really thought of Colossal Boy and maybe Lightning Lass. Yet I never thought Ayla would really resign over it, since she and Brin seemed to have ended their relationship before this Retroboot Legion was introduced.



Gates didn't become close to anyone on the team, not even Brainy (who admittedly is quite different from Postboot Brainy).

Yera never really bonded with anyone else.

Dawnstar was always aloof with everyone.

Timber Wolf only really had Blok (now resigned) and Lightning Lass. And apparently Karate Kid (deceased).

Wildfire? Maybe he forged a battle-hardened friendship with Ultra Boy and Mon-el, but they didn't hang out outside of battle.

This version of Tyroc never got to really bond with anyone either.

And Tellus was really only close with Polar Boy and Magnetic Kid (deceased). Not close enough to warrant a resignation.


The Superboy's Legion version of Ayla was always my favorite. I always found it silly that she was called Light Lass because she could make things... light. What?? The Legion's never really had a light-manipulator (the closest being Sun Boy, whose powers were more like fire manipulation); and Superboy's Legion Ayla was awesomely powerful. Dang that Naltorian science for not turning Ayla into a heavy hitter! Light Lass' null-grav powers had their moments, though.

The 'Lost' team is heavily slanted towards those who 'don't play well with others' or have some distance from the rest of the team.

As recently as Legion of Three Worlds, Yera's conflicts with Violet were brought up, and she's never really been shown interacting with Legionnaires other than Gim.

Gates comes from a completely different universe, and has no real ties to any of this new teammates.

Tellus has always been a 'fish out of water,' and any friendship he had developed with Polar Boy and Magnetic Kid has been sidelined by Pol's death and Brek's mancrush on Sun Boy.

Timber Wolf's ties to Ayla, Blok and Val are over, one way or another.

Wildfire and Dawny haven't had much meaningful interaction with anyone other than each other in decades...

Tyroc's come a long way from the 'angry black man' who actively distrusts his teammates, but he's still been effectively in stasis for years.

Yes!

I never really cared for either Star Boy or Light Lass having, effectively, half of a powerset. I'd rather that one of them, I don't much care which, had the whole gravity control enchilada, and the other developed some other ability (such as Ayla's current lightning powers, or the Superboy's Legion light/laser powers, or tweaking Star Boy to have personal mass manipulation to restore him to a mini-Superman sort of figure, able to make himself super-strong and invulnerable, and perhaps able to teleport via increasing his mass sufficient to form a personal wormhole or something).

Technically, Sun Boy already has some light-generating powers, but he quit using them years ago, in favor of throwing fire at people, and he never showed the ability to focus his light into lasers, or to use it in other creative ways (strobes to induce seizures, hypnotic patterns, three-dimensional holograms, camouflage, etc.), which a 'Light Lass' with light-control could perhaps do (which, with Sensor in retirement, could also make her a lesser illusionist, via holograms).

Good point, Set! I wonder, all along I hypothesized that the Lost team were chosen because they would least fit in with 20th century Earth - Dawnstar, Wildfire, Tellus, Gates and Yera are all noticeably alien; T-Wolf has animalistic features. Tyroc is the only one who could really blend in. But another factor may have been their distance from their teammates!

Re Light Lass, I'd have to reread Superboy's Legion. But you're right, a Light Lass could be a lesser Sensor Girl and a Color Kid as well. Perhaps even throw in some defensive uses via hard-light shields.

It's also better for the team to have a light-manipulator on board, instead of having two lightning wielders.

Did I miss something?

How / where did Harmonia get these new powers from?

Was this shown before? I honestly haven't missed an issue but I thought she had more otherworldly "I can make anything happen" type powers. Not Crystal from the Inhumans.

Other than that I found this to be more boring plod-a-long stuff. And I really don't like Chemical Kid.

Although I do like Ultra Boy's new costume - so that's a bonus!

Exactly! This seems very much made-up-at-the-last-minute

I haven't seen the issue yet but I really hope that Ayla is back to nullifying gravity. I thought 3 boot light lass rocked and the power is much more interesting than generic zapping. Ok. it may not be so visually arresting as searing lightning coruscating across the page but we still have Garth available for that and I think the options for creative use of anti gravity outweigh the opportunity for the occasional splash page.

This #1 craps all over the last #1 we had...the art was incredible, and it was a great setup issue that still felt really dynamic and energetic.

Will have to see how the next few issues pans out, but I'm really thinking at this stage that Levitz works better with a more collaborative artist, and it feels like that's what we have here.

I echo all the confusion about Harmonia though...the LSH's supporting cast has been pretty decimated in recent years, and now that Gim AND Yera are gone, we're a lot less likely to see Marte Allon again for a while either....I would much have preferred to keep Harmonia around purely as supporting cast, and let Nightwind or Night Girl or about a dozen other possible candidates have her place in the team.

That having been said, I'm back to enjoying the Legion again, which is a nice place to be.

Oh, and one more thing...did anyone else get a strong sense of deja vu from Cham's infiltration of the base? I remember a very similar spotlight of him infiltrating Science Police HQ way back when. Nice touch!

Well, they are Legionnaires, now. It makes sense-- have the funerals now, before anyone knows them well enough to really care about them. (I'm kidding...)

I hope not. Though I would like to see Dev-em show up... unless there's some sort of mind control/blackmail/counterintelligence undercover business goin on.

Levitz had Brainy in a pretty emotionally isolated, reckless science kind of place towards the end of his last run... I think that's what the Primeboot built on. That and Vril Dox. So far, I haven't felt like I'm reading a Brainy I can care about. Not really. And haven't since New Wanderer Brainy joined the conga line into whitespace.

As for Shady- gods, I hope he's got a plan that won't be hindered or dropped by the new #1. There's got to be *some* payoff to the crap he's put her through.

Definitely.

Thank you.

Thank you. Is wood the fifth element in Japanese tradition? Or is it Korean? I didn't pull that out of thin air, I don't think.

I don't think redundancy's a standard that's thought about, anymore. Ayla and Garth were on the team simultaneously for quite awhile. Besides, her official entry power would be one that's not shared... like wind or water power. Precedent: Ultra Boy, who joined because he has penetra vision, supposedly not because of the range of one-at-a-time Krypton equaling abilities.

Though if you think a kid named Jo Nah who *only* had penetra vision would've gotten in... I've got a space bridge to Neverland to sell you...

I wish she would go back to the Light Lass powers, but only if they're taken seriously.

I've written about her wielding both. If she did so simultaneously, she'd be pretty much a walking superconductor, wouldn't she?

And when teamed up with Rokk? Whoa.

Maybe the Time Institute had precautions in place that would've handled her powers? Maybe she was trying to use them, but some machinary damped them?

Or she really, really didn't like life on Titan.

I have to admit that I always have a bit of a flashback to Cham's disastrous mission to Khundia whenever I see him leading a team.

I wouldn't call him a hothead, but every once in a while, Cham sure indulges a wild streak.

I'm a bit puzzled over the mention of "flashpoint" both in Legion Lost and Legion of Superheroes #1.
With Dream Girl saying that because of the Flashpoint event, time travel is screwed and they can't call on Superman mirroring what was said in Legion Lost two weeks before.

Does that mean that Legion is still in the old DC continuity and aware that something's changed in the past, or that there was a Flashpoint event in the new continuity and the new Superman is a member of the LSH?

Or was the Legion in the new continuity before the rest of the DCU?

It was hinted that Superman at least knows the legionnaires in ACTION #1. Whether or not he is/was a member is yet to be revealed.

Sorry, wasn't all that clear. The five elements in Chinese tradition are earth, water, fire, metal and wood. Air's left out. And since Li is a Chinese surname...

In Japanese tradition, it's earth, water, fire, air and void. Void is kind of like spirit, or pure energy.

Re: redundancy, I agree. Apparently, this Legion ignores the no-duplication powers role, and even then, Harmonia brings new powers to the table. More than fair enough.

On the other hand, the no-redundant powers rule (and the 25 member limit for taxation purposes) don't make much sense. If the Legion truly wants to be a superhero club, they should be glad to have multiple members with the same, but useful, powersets, right?