Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion #30 - SPOILERS

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If you take the entire arc for what it was, NOT comparing it to the Great Darkness Saga, the main story worked quite well. It came full circle with Rokk and Imra dropping Clark off, and with the glimmer of light on the last page (I won't say anymore.) Darkseid was great in this story, and that's hard to pull off... making Darkseid worthy of himself.

Still, as satisfying as the gist of the story was, there were TREMENDOUS problems in the details. Where did the Servants come from in the first place? Wasn't Darkseid completely inert through the first half of the arc? Can an inert Darkseid invest the tremendous power necessary to pull Servants from throughout time?

Doubtful. And what of the three who impersonated Rokk, Imra, and Garth? Where'd they go?

CHRONAL PROBLEM #1... uh, I thought Kid Q and company were going back in time 10 years? Or was that where Darkseid(s) were all along, and that was where the Legion was? If so, I guess the Legion went back in time 10 years? Through a boom tube? And it was such a big huge hairy deal moving the younger Darkseid through time? And if the older Darkseid could just siphon off power from his Servants, he needed his younger body... why? Oh, okay, Darkseid wanted to destroy the past, leaving the future intact so... no one from the past could come to the future and stop him? And Kid Q can make little Kid-Q sized boom tubes (because they moved in time as WELL as space...) that are safe to travel through as long as they are encased in Tromium?

My head hurts.

And where was the rest of the Legion in the first few pages of this ish? I guess they had already been ground to a pulp off-panel in the space between books. I would have liked to have seen at least their smoking carcasses. Would have made quite a huge emotional impact for Kid Q's team, but DnA really aren't about emotional impact these days, are they?

Couple of other things. If Garth is Garth, he should have been there on the second-to-last page with Imra and Rokk. I absolutely loathe every single thing DnA have done with our quissential hard-luck hero since his "return." I was willing to give the appearance of Jarth the benefit of the doubt in the beginning, but I'm over it. Retcon, please. And wasn't it interesting that none of the Legion were surprised to see him in the battle? I guess it's because in DnA's Legion, people don't have spontaneous emotional reactions, only manufactured ones.

(I'm still really confused about where in space and time the last 3 issues took place.)

It was good to see Vi looming largely in the background of every panel. This is how we're going to use more of her? Yeah, right.

The story was a good idea. Good concept. It's a shame that in practically every little detail, it fell flat.

Oh, and the art was simply beautiful.

I liked it. It was a climactic ending, which touched bases with a lot of the great/fundamental Legion stories of the past. As for some of your questions:

From their "home" time-periods.

There was certain residual energy in Apokolips which Darkseid, with the help of his followers, could make use of.

Joined the crowd of Darkseid-followers that were guiding the servants and implementing Darkseid's plan.

No, my understanding was that they were going to prevent the retroactive abduction of the young Darkseid. I was pretty cross-eyed about that plan, considering that that time period had been long since wiped out, but its implementation in this issue made sense to me - going back in time 20 minutes and forcing young Darkseid back to his home time through the still-open cross-time boom tube.

Because siphoning power from the servants a) was a limited resource, and b) returned them to their home times. If he could put his mind in the younger body, he'd have a LOT more power, and the servants in addition.

He didn't want to destroy the past. That was merely a side-effect of getting his younger self's body, which is what he was truly after.

That part is the only sticking point for me. Is Kid Q now capable of time travel? Is that true under normal circumstances, or only if the fabric of space-time is collapsing? Or did they actually use Brainy's time machine, with, say, Chuck operating it on their orders from Legion World for the actual travel?

It wasn't between books. On the third-to-last-page of the previous issue we see that the rest of the Legion had been effectively restrained by Darkseid's minions. Not dead, but out of action.

Boy, you're impatient. "Jarth" just came back a few issues ago. Give his subplot a little time to develop, will you?

I was very dissapointed....it's really time that DNA move on. I'm tired of quick read/large panel with no dialogue! There is nooooooooo character depth at all. The art is great but when I compare this with Legion Lost and the first six issues of the relauch, it's very clear that DNA need to move on. And I am soooooooooo sick of Kid Q I could vomit... we need a serious break from Jazmin!

There are plot holes big enough to drive a monster truck through. It did not fulfill the promise of issue #25. But I went along for the ride and enjoyed it anyway, particularly the way Jazmin's team relentlessly drove Young Darkseid back through time. That Clark was the one to defeat Old Darkseid was predictable perhaps, but ultimately satisfying. I also liked the "cool" conversation between Clark and Kon, and the promise of more Darkseid in the final panels.

QUESTION: Was that one of his own discs Cos was deploying as a shield? I don't remember seeing him do that before. Pretty neat.

KP: If Garth is Garth, he should have been there on the second-to-last page with Imra and Rokk.

That really bothered me, too. It just ain't right. It ain't Legion. Maybe he was off completing his Ph.D in chronal physics. How else could he know that "this locality has a shred of protected past attached to it", a fact that eluded even Jazmin? IIRC, Jan's powers never included a temporal component, even as the Progenitor. In any event, it was good to see him kick nass again, hideous as he may be.

KP: It was good to see Vi looming largely in the background of every panel. This is how we're going to use more of her? Yeah, right.

Vi had her moment of glory. It was she who gave Young Darkseid the final push into the boom tube. Nice panel, actually.

CHAIM: That part is the only sticking point for me. Is Kid Q now capable of time travel? Is that true under normal circumstances, or only if the fabric of space-time is collapsing?

Based on Jazmin's comments in the last issue, I'd guess the latter, i.e., she was able to travel through time only because her powers were responding on a quantum level to the temporal collapse. She's obviously never attempted it before or she would've known the team couldn't survive the stress without protection. (It still begs the question how Garth knew.) Your comments above were very lucid.

IMSKIAN78: And I am soooooooooo sick of Kid Q I could vomit... we need a serious break from Jazmin!

Truer words were never spoken. It's time for Jazmin, Rokk and Imra to go on an extended vacation -- not necessarily together.

*sigh* I wish I hadn't read these posts. I'm going to buy my comics tomorrow, and for the first time in a long time I actually feel no anticipation at all for a Legion comic. I think DnA stuck around a year too long.

I thought the arc was kind of fun, but the first few pages of this issue confused me immensely. It was my impression at the end of 29 that Kid Q was taking the team back in time. If that's the case, that would explain why none of the other Legionnaires were there. But it wouldn't explain how Superboy knew what the old Darkseid's plan was and how the young Darkseid killed him since they weren't there when that plan was revealed!

It appears, though, that they did join the rest of the team just after young Darkseid killed old Darkseid, then went back in time, then went even further back in time. But still, how did they know what the plan was if they weren't there to see it?!?!

"Temporal mechanics gives me a headache."

Scrolled right down, didn't look at the spoilers for once. Damn! I knew there was a reason to stop at the cb on the way home but of course I didn't. I hate February. The short month always screws me up.

Boy, you're impatient. "Jarth" just came back a few issues ago. Give his subplot a little time to develop, will you?

Let's keep in mind we're talking LIGHTNING LAD here. The person, who, more than anyone else, embodies everything the Legion is all about. 6 months is not too long to wait when you consider the person who's been "Jarthed" is, for me, the single most integral Legionnaire of all time.

The answer is that the writing team is sloppy. They have great ideas for overall arcs, but they are very plot-hole-ridden in the execution.

But what I was getting at in my question is, who brought them forward through time and changed them into Servants, if not Darkseid? We're talking about someone who can yank, oh, Big Barda, J'onn J'onzz, Lobo, Firestorm, Orion, and a Green Lantern out of the timestream and warp them to their wills. This is some fairly serious power level, and I'm assuming it was the three nameless servants who brought Clark forward, but where did they go??? I want to know who they freakin' are, and if we'll see them again. Remember, Darkseid was completely inert when all this presumably happened.

What a huge disappointment. It took me about 5 minutes to read this issue. 22 pages worth of story that could've been told in 2. Kid Q et al show up, shove young Darkseid back down his boom tube and old Darkseid burns out his power. The end.

And I looked up last issue to make sure I was right about this: Kid Q and the others WERE planning on travelling through time at the end of last issue. They planned to go to a time before the time stream got all screwed up. That's why Jarth said they'd never make it without the tromium shields to protect them from the stresses of time travel. Hello? At the end of the issue Rokk and Imra return Clark to his own time with a time machine with no tromium or Jarth in sight. Why didn't they just use that? And they didn't go back in time at all initially. Kid Q apparently just telelported them all to Apokolips at the point where the battle with Darkseid left off--after young Darkseid had already killed old Darkseid and the rest of the Legion were getting stomped by the parademons. What? She can teleport now? Why not just use a threshold thingy? And if she can teleport along with all her other deus ex machine gifts, who needs Gates? I want a list of 3 or 4 specific things she can do with her powers. Enough of this pulling whatever power she needs out of her butt every other issue.

Yet Superboy (or Jarth?) says "time for ANOTHER slide through time" or something like that when they go 21 minutes into the past to where young Darkseid showed up. If Kid Q has never time travelled before HTF did she know how to go back exactly 21 minutes? Even if she did have that much control, how did she even know how long ago the boom tube appeared?

And even after Darkseid burned out himself and all his servants' power (very convenient that they were all instantly transported to their own times with no memory of what happened) there were still about a bazillion and one parademons around who had already stomped the entire rest of the Legion. What about them? What? 4 more Legionnaires is gonna make them turn tail and flee without a fight after they've already stomped about 20 of them?

And Superboy knowing that old Darkseid summoned young Darkseid from the past only to be killed by him immediately upon his arrival is a HUGE mistake and incredibly sloppy writing and editing. He and the others on his team had no way of knowing this.

Instead of dragging this story into 5 issues, they could've told it in 2 or 3 easily. Or they could have kept it to 5 issues and fleshed out the incredibly stretched out story by explaining how these servants were abducted through time and why among other things.


I can't wait for Abnett and Lanning to leave. There's no excuse for writing this sloppy.

And if time travel is so difficult why didn't Darkseid's goons just snatch some super powered beings from the present to use as servants instead of going 1,000 years into the past to do it?

And why was Superboy discarded when they found out he wasn't Superman? He still would've made a very powerful servant. What? Is Darkseid too much of a snob to use a clone as a lackey? And why not snatch Superman instead of the pre-Superman Clark?


The only thing consistent about Abnett and Lanning's writing has been the plotholes IMO.

I really liked Legion Lost. The first nine or so issues of the current ongoing were very good too, and I even enjoyed the anti-climatic ending for the Robotican/Computo story.

But I gotta agree with previous sentiments. Dream Crime was not very good and Foundations seems more like Floundations.

I'm starting to struggle with the golden rules now (if you can't say anything nice and so on...), so I'm going to leave it at that.

I'm definitely looking forward to other writers coming on board.

I'm beginning to think someone else wrote Legion Lost.

Well, it doesn't look like I need to add another negative reaction to the pile. So let me say instead that I did rather enjoy the first three issues of the Foundations Arc. We got to see lots of the team broken into manageable groups and going to different places. Plus there was the mystery of the buildup, and I thought it was handled quite well, exciting even.

Maybe all of that added to the disappointment I felt with the last two issues. But to offer an excuse for that, my reaction could in part be due to the composition of the team that saved the universe. I wasn't impressed with Kon to begin with. Jarth is simply repulsive. And Jasmin irritates me more and more, even though I did have great regard for her up to the point when she was elected to be leader. I think I may have physically sighed in relief when the focus shifted momentarily and I got to see Wildfire and Brainy and the rest actively going after Darkseid.

Okay, okay... I'll leave off the rest of my nitpicking, and just say that I have hope for the future, if only because this arc is finished.

Oh, and Batista/Wallace were fabulous.

It's really too bad that both Dream Crime and Foundations were the big deal promoted storylines, because they're the worst ones DnA did on their run on the title. Legion #30 makes no sense if you actually read it. Luckily for me, Batista's clean art allowed me to enjoy it on a surface level.

So I guess they have regular time travel adventures in the LSH again? Will we see a Time Bubble again? Where is Rond Vidar, anyway?

How was the timeline saved, anyway, if the Legion didn't prevent Darkseid from setting everything in motion (and instead prevented him from completing his work to ensure that the timeline wouldn't be destroyed)?

I can't believe I sort of wish we were back in the pre-DnA days, where the stories were missing something but didn't have big logical holes. Ugh!

I think if some of you would reread some of D&A's earlier stories you'd find just as many plotholes in them. Like the one where Ra's Al Ghul slaps M'Onel around, then blows up his own body so that his acid blood can ooze around for awhile before possessing a new clone body that he didn't even know existed and then decides he doesn't really want to escape after all, meanwhile M'Onel, who supposedly has super speed, floats around doing nothing while Rha's kills 2 SP officers. Yeah, that made perfect sense.

Oh, those stories had their plotholes, too.

But now that you mention it, "Foundations" and much of DnA's writing since the Robotica story has a lot of the facets I didn't like about the Archie Legion. Unneccesary character transformations, for one. The Jarth thing doesn't seem any more necessary than Monstress changing color, and let's not get into Zoe, who was transformed just for fun by both writing teams.

I noticed plotholes in the early DnA stories, too. I just didn't mind so much because we were seeing a much more exciting Legion than we had seen in many a year. The personalities of the characters coming through more than made up for such sillines as Live Wire electrocuting a being that absorbed energy, or Saturn Girl hypnotizing everyone into thinking Apparition was present.

This issue wasn't as bad as I was gearing it up to be. The early negative reaction I saw here helped lower my expectations. It was still pretty weak, though.

I think this issue was written by a room full of Kokos pounding away at typewriters...!

I think some of you raise what I think is an interesting point re: DnA's Legion...

Were we all so burned out by the PMS years that we have been willing to just ignore the multitude of problems that have existed during this run? And I'm talking long before Dream Crime.

I think DnA have gotten quite an easy ride with us fans. If their run had followed pretty much anyone else's I'm sure it would have been exposed for the fairly poor to mediocre series that it has been.

Just read the issue now and it was better than the previous one. The whole time thing/dark matter would make my head hurt, too, if I paused to think about it.

What surprised me was that I actually started to like Superboy & Clark Kent. Clark was pretty likeable before this but the loudmouth Superboy seemed to be toning down a bit and showing some signs of leadership. It's a start anyways, since it appears he's staying with the Legion.

For once, I thought the ending was good - with Darkseid's eye glowing. You can't keep a good god down - or a bad one.

It also made sense for Vi to stay supersized for this battle - gave her the strength and mass to push Darkseid through the boom tube.

I was sorry to see that Jarth didn't play a bigger role; I was hoping for some recognition from the other legionnaires, or redemption, or something... maybe later.

But with a line like this: "We all just saved everything that ever was and ever will be" - what do you do for an encore?

There was at least one scene where Vi and Superboy are hitting Darkseid at the same time. How does that work? With Violet giant sized, wouldn't they block each other?

There was another panel where Darkseid is punching Superboy and his fist is off panel that looked weird to me too. I think maybe Supes was supposed to be dodging Darkseid's right at super speed only to be clocked by Darkseid's left, but the panels didn't convey it very well IMO.

Amongst other mammoth pissholes in this issue I want to know how Jarth, Supes, KQ2 and Vi could go back in time to push Darkseid Junior back through time if it HAD JUST BEEN DESTROYED AS TIME HAD COLLAPSED UP TO THAT POINT !!!

Surely therefore there would not have been a twenty minutes before to travel to?

Awful writing there DnA, truly pathetic... hang your heads in shame and try not to knock anything over on your way out please....

For the time mess, I refer you to my comments on the L28 Calling the Roll thread. THAT just gets worse and worse.

I wasn't fond of this issue. Kon sticks around. And in the Superman outfit *gnashes teeth*. At least we got rid of Kal. And why was he suddenly Recapboy on P2 - for stuff HE COULDN'T POSSIBLY KNOW!?