Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion of Super-Heroes #22 Preview

Here is a preview for the next issue, that picks-up right from #21's ending : http://www.comicosity.com/exclusive-preview-legion-of-super-heroes-22/

Hmm...no hints in these pages about the mysterious number 5...

Thanks Dox.


not much really in that preview ...

heh. at this point they don't really seem to need a 5th member.

the Fatal Four is doing pretty well!

Yes, but there's definitely someone else pulling the strings. Someone smuggled the "Tharok chip" from where it was held in order to re-activate him and assemble the Fatal Five. Something else else's missing from the story if that individual is not revealed. (Apart from the fact that they're constantly referred to as the Fatal Five, though we've only seen four members.)

Is it me or does Duplicate Damsel look a lot less seriously injured this issue than she did two issues ago? Perhaps all those who moaned over her death did so a bit premature.

So far, nobody but Sun Boy seems to have been shown to be dead, by comic book standards (i.e. we saw a body).

Indeed, given how over the top the confirmations of Sun Boy's death were, I'm not sure the writers want us to believe that anybody else is anything other than unconscious or missing in action.

Sun Boy got multiple issues worth of confirmation of death, and Mon-El got pretty much half an issue devoted to merely being hurt real bad. I seriously doubt that Star Boy or Duplicate Damsel or anybody else is going to be actually killed off-panel or in a single blink-and-you-missed-it scene, given how in-your-face and confirmed-after-the-fact-multiple-times the actual death of Sun Boy was.

On the other hand, while we saw Star Boy's possible 'death' on panel, both Star Boy and Duplicate Damsel were already lying there when we first saw them. In a future setting with alternate universe dopplegangers, shapeshifting imposters, clones, android duplicates and illusions so real that people monitoring a dude in a cell can feel the earth shaking from him hitting the walls, despite him not actually being present, it's *entirely* possible that someone could whisk away a Legionnaire and leave a fake body behind, so that their teammates (and the readers) believe that the character is dead, when they are off in a lab somewhere having their powers resequenced (and / or their brains washed) so that the mastermind villain can field an army of minions with self-duplication, gravity control and / or the heat and light of a star...

Hopefully it was premature. It's also a good sign that she's lying in the middle of the other Legionnaires.

Things look good for Garth, but not for Imra...

Remember LSH #0, when the Legionnaires went to Colu? The original Brainiac was locked up there, Tharok broke in to steal some stuff, the Legionnaires rescued a baby Coluan girl,...

and Brainiac 5 (5!) broke into a vault, then buried the memory deep so Saturn Girl wouldn't discover it.

Uh oh...

Great idea! but if Brainy's the traitor/5th Fatal member, it's going to leave an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.

Brainy's been the bad before so I suppose it wouldn't be so far fetched I'd object from characterization POV but from story POV it doesn't seem interesting.

Everyone posting "we haven't seen the fifth" keeps leaving an obvious person (or two) not mentioned as possibility doesn't it?

Haven't the Persauder and Lightning Lad met before? The whole "has anyone told you about my ax" thing was weird.

They are really going to have to wrap things up fast. There's only one more issue after this one, right?

That felt like Silver Age exposition to me, where the heroes and villains explain their powers the first time they use them in every issue, for anyone who has just picked this up as their first issue.

Given that it's near the last issue of the run, it felt particularly out of place...

Brainy was responsible for the vault being open/accessible, but not directly, intentionally responsible for Tharok's theft/cyberneticism/Fatal Five attack now.

hmmmm,my first Legion story was the Sun Eater classic and I was totally blown away...the 2nd FF story introducing Shady was in classic story telling...Cockrum and Grell threw in one or 2 nice stories in their time...and the Jeckie/Empress storyline was just sheer genius to all concerned....but this new fatal five... i am sorry its just awful...i do not care who the 5th member is...and do not get me started on the new Empress...bloody awful.

Well that's it... The end of the Fatal Five story. I'm not sure what to think after this first read other than it appears that Levitz learned of the Legion's cancellation after he started plotting this story. Some plot threads that he was developing simply didn't pan out. We have one confirmd new dead legionnaire and a surprise return of another. In the end, some legionnaires showed their awesome abilities, and some brought a sudden closure that was way too abrupt.

I think I would have enjoyed this issue more if Portela had drawn it instead of Johnson. Art left me wanting as much as story did, and story might have been better had Levitz been given a better artist.

I guess after all of this build up, the Legion defeated the Fatal Five too easily. Yet, the set up for next issue wets my appetite to want more. So, 30 days to wait for the END. At long last my Legion collection will be completed!

That was quite a fun issue.

I agree with Leather Wolf the Five were defeated a little too easily in the end but it wasn't too bad.

There were some completely unexpected returns that should make the next issue interesting explaining what they were up to and how their powers work the way they do here.

A few months ago the cancellation was a mercy killing and whilst disappointing you could understand it; but after the last few issues I am going to miss this series.

Can you spoiler the fifth member for me? I'm not going to be able to see the issue until the end of August.

WOW! That was just...bad! This arc obviously got changed A LOT after it was first planned but....

Justin Tyme couldn't have written a worse ending.

Sad that the man who took the Legion to the top of the sales charts is also going to be known as the one who killed the Legion for at least the next 5 years

The most disappointing thing was that Levitz didn't have the ghosts of Ferro Lad, Earth-Man and Invisible Kid help take down the Fatal Five. That seemed to be where he was going with things. I'm not sure why he changed gears to have Sensor Girl and Karate Kid come in to save the day unless it was a quick way to wrap things up without dangling plot threads. It would have been fun to watch the Fatal Five trying to kill the dead!

Kudos to Polar Boy for getting his take down!!

Horrible issue. Cancellation is welcome.

Have to agree. This wasn't good. The revelation of the 5th member of the fatal five was really bad. There were some big moments...sorry, I take that back. There were things that *should have been* big moments that were handled with so little fanfare that they became "so what" moments - like the aforementioned return of a character.

Perfect example of what was wrong with this issue and perhaps the series was Saturn Girl taking down the Emerald Empress. Compare this take down to the Baxter series Universo Project (32-35) and you get 2 very different experiences of Imra using her powers.

Guys despite everything, I'm just really happy Garth and Imra made it through. Because out of everything I've been worrying about, fearing that one of them was going to die, or that their kids might've died, wasn't helping at all.

This issue was a relief for me. Though I still wish we weren't getting Justice League 3000 in place of the Legion.

I have to wonder if the fifth member was a last minute fill-in to hasten completion of the story, or if that was intended all along.

Agree with the others above who say it wrapped up too easily, although Levitz didn't really have much room to maneuver at this point.

At least it wasn't a Legion bloodbath.

I would say that the fifth member of the Fatal Five was indeed a last minute fill-in, and if it wasn't, it's intended purpose was to provide some awesome destruction before being stopped.

Many plot threads just didn't happen because of the cancellation. Remember, according to both Levitz and Giffen, this arc was to be an in story reboot of the Legion, mandated by DC I'm sure to give the title new life and a different direction. In mid-stream the series got cancelled, Giffen left, they were supposed to put Portela back on the title, then it appears that he too was yanked. Levitz was left with sub par artists. Many of the things groaned about above would have been perceived differently under Portela's masterful pencils. This whole arc would have ended with a clear different feel had the in story reboot unfolded as planned. In the end, I think Levitz simply decided to return the Legion to status quo. Yes there are dead legionnaires, and their world will look different, but Levitz will not reboot the Legion to drastically as the series ends.

Like I've said before, now is the time to put criticisms aside and just enjoy the ride, because these may be our last moments with the Legion for a very long time.