Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes CALLING THE ROLL of LSH #4 .... spoilers

CALLING THE ROLL is a character-by-character look at the latest issue featuring the team that calls an upside down rocket 'home'... the Legion of Super-Heroes!

Let the roll be called!


SENSOR GIRL "Perhaps you are becoming overwhelmed..." Condescending compassion... how like a royal. How much better does Jeckie look without that mask? Incalucably... How much better would she look with white hair? Double that.

I guess it's good to see her using the Sensor Girl sensory detection powers, though Shooter's Projectra Prime made such good use of the powers of illusion, I find myself begrudgingly giving praise to the altogether different Sensor Girl abilities.

After that touch to Jeckie's shoulder, everything we see could be true, all of it a lie or bits of each. We know E-M's 'playing'. Is Jeckie, as well? Brainy? Shady? Some combination thereof? I find this little development *very* much the definition of intriguing. It'd be fine with me if it percolated for months and wove into other storylines for a long while. I think that won't be the case, but it'd be OK if it was.

BRAINIAC 5 The Brainy/Shady scene is before 'the touch', so presumably it's the two characters we know and love. T'ain't necessarily so, to paraphrase Gershwin, but it's reasonable to read it as if it were. Should Shady's flirting lead further than her apparent intentions here? Fine with me, if so. I always did want to see her attraction to Brainy come back into play.

Here, she's- what? Seeking to befuddle him into giving away secrets? If that's really E-M, it makes reading this scene a decidedly differnet experience. Or if it's Jeckie. Or Rokk!!

I think that little 'finger under the chin' move might be less of a feminine wile, than a way to connect, or should I say reconnect, with ol' stand-offish Querl. Get him on her side. Or remind him that they're already on the same side.

"Mood ring"... now why am I having a flashback to a robotic Supergirl?

Even if this isn't the two characters I think it is, I hope there are more Shady/Brainy scenes ahead. I enjoy reading their interactions.

COLOSSAL BOY "So we can't take care of our own?" Sounds reasonable, but Gim's way out of his depths, here.

SUN BOY "Doesn't mean I wanna work that hard." We've heard this from Dirk before. I think he's deceiving himself.

TIMBER WOLF Nice touch, him being the one to mention Blok and Mysa.

SHADOW LASS She looks great, leaning against that doorway- teasing Brainy. What is Tasmia up to? Is it personal or professional? I like the way she changes from sultry to business-like as we turn the page.

"I haven't made up my mind... yet." It's going to be a long wait till the last week of September.

QUISLET "Silly flesh creatures." Feeding a line to Shady's mysterious reply.

Y'know- this is an instance where knowledge of the solicitations and of a future cover (yes, *that* cover) add layers to the current storytelling, instead of taking away from it. As they usually do. Masterful, if intentional. Not that I'm that thrilled with the obvious extrapolations here...

DREAM GIRL Yay! A scene on Naltor- world of pastel greens and purples! I like the weird cityscape and the detail of the tile mosaic beneath the characters' feet. Very Romanesque.

Beren's like a father to Nura, isn't he? Maybe he can take up a little of Brande's role as older male adviser to the LSH? His comment about the Titanians lack of future sight made me think of Mysa and leads me to suspect that what does seem a good 'marriage' might not go so smoothly, at all. Mysa had no future sight and was miserable on Naltor.

Beren's attraction (or was that sucking up?) to Harmonia Li was kind of fun.

DAWNSTAR Dawnstar's no diplomat, that seems evident.

GATES I long for the day when Paul Levitz embraces this character and gives him actual dialogue with other characters and explores what it'd be like to switch realities.

AVALON: Wasn't it on Avalon that Sun Emperor incinerated that poor waitress during the opening of the LSH/LSV war? Now there's a villain I'd like to see get a return engagement. He was nasty... Strange, how a name rife with poetic and heroic associations keeps being the site of such unpleasantness.
Zeemith and the Servant to Darkness are pretty forgettable, despite a good alien design for the former and an interesting visual power signature for the latter.

HARMONIA LI: "For I have seen you have gifts of your own." Been dreaming about Prof. Li, have you, Beren? Hmmm. Just *what* did he see?

SODAM YAT/DYOGENE: So much for anything GL/Ozifer connecting... what will the macroscopic sperm cell get up to on Earth? Who or what is about to be done up with shades of green? I hope their skin tones won't clash...

I think Sun Emperor was on Orando wasn't he?

Yeah.

Yanno, I was pondering the same ponder. Generally, the previews of the covers and the first few pages I regard as a distraction, and I know some people refuse to even look at them, considering them spoilers.

But just this once, the cover preview *may* prove to have been a masterful thing, if it isn't Shady in that bed, because the cover has lent all of the Shady / Earth-Man interactions of these last two issues an interesting tenor, that may yet prove to have been entirely a red herring.

On the one hand, I'll be amused by the bait-n-switch. On the other hand, it feels a tad heavy-handed, and I don't feel like we've been offered enough textual setup for it to be anyone *other* than Shady. (For instance, while the xeno woman flirting with him has the right coloration, she seems unlikely to have a Flight Ring...)

Anywho, I don't think that Earth-Man borrowed Sensor Girl's illusion powers, and I feel that the primary reason she's explicitly talking about her super-senses with Cosmic Boy is to remind us that she has them, and set up that Earth-Man has borrowed her super-senses, so that he can track down some people... (Whether to join them or foil them, he perhaps hasn't decided yet.)

I like that Kirt didn't technically lie to Cosmic Boy. He was asked what they were up to. He answered, truthfully, that he didn't know. (Because he didn't stick around to find out what the plan was.) Evasive answers are a sign of uncertainty, and, given how bad his recent choices have been, I'd rather have him being a little uncertain.

You would think that Jeckie could immediately sense if someone borrowed or took her powers, meaning she knows E-Man took what he needed from her and she let him do it.
Maybe she's secretly keeping an eye on his actions? She would certainly be the best one to do this ... mistress of illusion and all that. He wouldn't even have a clue if she, in fact, was his "private investigator" in all this.
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this was what she was up to. Maybe she's the one in bed with him. Why not ... it's all part of the illusion after all. E-Man only THINKS he slept with her.
She could blow this whole thing wide open and expose E-Man, once and for all, for what he truly is.

Oh well ... it's just a theory.

And a great theory at that!

but what if having 'borrowed' Sensor Girl's power, E-M knows the plan and sets up his own illusion. So it's jeckie's illusion having sex with E-Man's illusion!

Hmmmmmm..... the plot thickens!
LOL

So if the illusion of Earth-Man and the illusion of Jeckie knock illusory boots, could they end up producing a sentient illusory baby?

'Cause that could be a neat character... (I think Marvel, and, yanno, Star Trek, already beat us to the sentient hologram concept, but it's still neat!)

Wow! That illusion sleeping with illusion is really strange. I wonder if they could have some mental connection to their respective illusions.

Could something have been done to the twins, or one of them, that she sensed? For example, if the Validus Plague was implanted in Garridan, could Imra pick that up from his memories?

Maybe Rokk is going to have the breakdown, like Garth did as leader. Still, Jeckie should understand being overwhelmed; after losing Val, she retired from the Legion. Agree, lose the mask. And white hair, definitely.


My head hurts to think it wasn't really Shady!

I think of Shady and Brainy on some sort of equal footing, along with Projectra - their planet's power aristocracy. Of course, Brainy has tended to be reviled by Colu, but he's also been something of a planetary champion himself, with special privileges and sought after for help in the devastation of the Magic Wars. None of this may apply in the current reality... but I would expect both Shadow Lass and Projectra to behave more familiarly with him, and he with them.