Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion of Super-Heroes # 6 - SPOILER Discussion

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# 6

Stop now as there will be some spoiler info ahead if you are trying to go spoiler free! (Along with unsolicited opinions!)

Well, if you've read the preview pages you know that this issue formally reintroduces another Legionnaire into the mix, previously seen only in cameo: Princess Projectra. I don't have time for a full recap but figured I'd get the ball rolling.

Suffice to say that as was previously spoiled in the preview thread, Orando is the new Trom. Oh, and as Orando was the economic hub of the UP we are in for a big financial catastrophe it seems.

There's a short story with Brainiac 5 and none other than Lemnos himself. Lemnos reveals his backstory (assuming he's being truthful) which would seem to render all our anagram-based guesses incorrect. I can't remember if he has any past analogues in Legion lore, though if he is the real "villain" then I would suppose not based on the "no reboot" villain policy.

Lastly, as has mentioned there are 3 pages reintroducing the Letter Column, which includes one tasty tidbit - it was indeed Brin Londo seated by Projectra way back in issue 1.

Overall feelings - mixed. This issue seems like more endless setup for the approaching war. I hate to see yet another planet destroyed in a Legion tale, honestly. I sure hope that we get a little good news in this book soon. We do see some interesting teamwork, and the subplot about Jo's powers is further explored. There's some good interplay between the members, which is one of the strengths of Waid's work thus far. My favorite scene is another meeting of Brainiac 5 & Dream Girl... Good to see her comment to him earlier wasn't just a one-off joke.

The art by Kitson and Thibert is better than ever. I think the inks are becoming more suited to Barry's style. The backup story has a guest artist (sorry, forgot the name) whose style somewhat resembles that of former cover artist Tony Harris.

You're not supposed to though are you?? mwah-ha-ha!

He's got an interesting power and his motivation is an interesting parallel/counterpoint to the Legion's missoin. I almost thought he was some interesting Time Trapper/RJ Brande mix since he's an older guy who has been manipulating (or just helping) the Legion all along. I'm not sure how he's able to get into all those places he claims to get into in the first place (unless he's able to make people forget him the instant they see him, making him virtually invisible - which still doesn't explain surveillance cameras to me).

random thoughts:
- the Cham/Invisible Kid game was cute, but they're really stretching this notion of the Legion as fanboys. We're getting that a lot in "Young Avengers" lately, but it's getting used up a lot more here.
- Jo's subplot has given us some interesting group interactions, but it doesn't seem to really be going anywhere.
- I hope Rokk is proven wrong and Projectra is able to prove herself a worthy member of the team (I also hope we don't have a lot of "the spoiled princess has to adjust to life as a commoner" jokes for the next several months - I've already seen "The Simple Life" thank you).
- "Aakkk-kkkk!" Honestly, I don't understand why Brainy is so obsessed with Lemnos' identity if he doesn't have much faith in Dream Girl's ability in the first place. I guess he secretly does trust her...
- Awesome visuals and details on the Princess' room. It appears Barry tweaked the Princess' costume so that the "crest" behind her head is softer somehow rather than the stadium shell thing that it appeared to be before.

I thought it was overall a good issue. Waid's characterization IS the strong point of the series. I loved the scene between Jo, Tasmia and Val and the Brainy/Nura scene was cool too.

Jo's "focus" issues make sense for someone who has multiple powers and can only use one at a time. Maybe his training will bring about a friendship with Val. I just wonder what the freak accident that gave him his powers was?

I also like the "spoiled rich girl among the common people" approach to Projectra. Hopefully her need to prove herself as a Legionnaire will give her more depth as the series continues.

Lemnos and Terror Firma are pretty interesting villians and Lemnos power is truly original.

I look forward to the final showdown when the Legion finds out that Lemnos has been manipulating them.

Lemnos actually reminds me of Universo more than anyone.

Any thoughts on how Luornu fits into all of this? Apparently we have the explanation for the planetwide catastrophe on Cargg, plus her lack of memory of anythng before it.

How many Legionnaires are going to end up as survivors of Lemnos-engineered tragedies? We already have Luornu (probably), Projectra, maybe Brainy (with Colu the next on the list), and Nura (we know from her visions that her generation of Naltorians will be the first to fall in the coming war).

Overall good issue, finally the threat is fleshed out. Excellent character moments. Villain's Plan revealed to be: Create chaos (use terroformers), save day(use legion), take credit(Lemnos)

Lemnos - Like Darth Sidious of Star Wars is hidden but his hand in every event. Even origin of individual legionnaires and the legion itself? What happens if/when Terrorformers find out he's playing both sides?

Projectra - she'll get her chance before the story's done. If she's just a spoiled brat, no way she'd attract Brin. I'll trust his judgement of her character and trust her motives.

Brainiac - This made the book for me. He seriously thinks she came to his dank, creepy, poorly lit lab to do homework?


I was kinda like this B5 as a teenager, now at myself in hindsight.

My first thought was that Lemnos was Mnemonic Kid; maybe Fortress Lad is on the way to save the day!

Wholly unfounded random predictions:

- Nura's unreliable, intuitive power will ultimately reveal Lemnos to the Legion.

- Lyle, the physically Invisible Kid will have some significant role in his downfall. Then again, Jeckie's illusions might not be a bad counter-power either. Hopefully it won't be Imra taking him down. Now that I think about it, Nura's "I'm not really here right now" mentality might be an effective counter as well. A lot of options there.

- "Daddy, I might finally get to do something important!" Jeckie's not just a spoiled rich kid on holiday.

I was going to list the character interactions I liked, but frankly I liked all of them. I especially liked the fanboy stuff with Lyle and Cham. I'm not sure exactly why it clicked with me this issue. Maybe because after I left the comic shop, I rolled up my copy of Legion, stuck it in my back pocket, and went home to let our new puppy out over lunch. Sitting in the back yard with a creased copy of a favorite comic, playing with a new dog on a spring day - yeah. That works. And I always confused the Silent Knight and the Shining Knight too. But Captain Comet didn't look like that in SA #9

Other major point - the letters column. When I realized what they were doing, I was a little irritated. 3 pages for 6 letters? But I found myself enjoying it by the end, so I guess it was a good idea after all. What's your Legion number if Cos responds to your letter personally?

I think I echo matlock on this one.

Despite the "no old villains" rule, I was really hoping for a re-imagined Universo or Time Trapper or Mordru or someone to be behind Lemnos. I guess things can't be perfect.

I can't wait for Projectra to shine and get her revenge.

It had projectra. Granted, she is now apparantly the Paris Hilton Lite of the legion, but still, she ain't a snake, lol.

Um. Okay.

I gotta say, I am missing some genuine, full-tilt boogie Legion Action. They may be cliched, but the legion needs to take down a Villain.

Mordru.

Fatal Five.

Porcupine Pete.

I know, we have had some, not limited to Terra Firma, but i have to say that as fun as this is, it's not feeling like the legion to me.

Barry's art is goin' great guns, and i hear the book is selling well, and i'm happy for that.

But i have to admit, i keep waiting for Superboy to show up, and a five man crew do and actually DO something.

Things are happening, people are talking...but it doesn't feel like things are...doing. You know what I mean?

Anyway, nice issue.

Well, just some random impressions.

Ultra boy- if you look closely, one of his powers appears to be having and than not having a 5 o'clock shadow.

Karate Kid- awesome! I can't wait to see him go up against some arrogant super powered villain and hand him his a*& on a silver platter.

Projectra-wow. It will be interesting to see how she develops.

Australia- wasn't there something on the news a few months back regarding the shift of the magnetic poles? Apparently climatic shifts like in the story would occur.

Letter's page- I really enjoyed the format. The visual gag of Micro Lad's hand pushing Cham. Good stuff. And perhaps Querl has a brother or sister.

Good to see Karate Kid finally demonstrating his skill after the beatdown in #2. I guess we're meant to assume he was playing possum then.

Nura's forgetting about Lemnos was neatly done...we assume it's due to her temporally-destabilized ditziness, but by the end we know that the real reason was quite different. I was also tickled to see her continuing to needle/flirt with Brainy.

And I loved the letter pages. Make it permanent, please!

I notice that the Lemnos in the backup story looks rather different--in particular, no tattoos. Simply artistic difference, or does his "standard" costume, including tattoos, have some particular functional or ceremonial purpose?

Oh, and did anyone notice Brainy discreetly hitting a couple of buttons at the end of his confrontation with Lemnos? Hopefully he left himself a clue to work on post-amnesia.

Additional thoughts as they come: Loved the coloring and inking on this one. The lighting and atmospheric effects were simply beautiful.

And I like Cos' new power level. He can be a powerhouse when he needs to, but at a price--one which means his leadership is still more important than his raw power in the field.

Oh yeah, another thing I liked about the issue was that Nura had silver hair again. Let's keep it that way!

It's funny, because I was so irritated when DnA had Venge turn out to be Computo, thinking that they'd ruined the most interesting new villain to face the Legion in years. But this time, I'd rather have someone old instead of this new villain, who seems really like a variation on all the various political manipulators we've seen in the past.

I caught that too but can't figure out what he could have used that wouldn't have been affected by Lemnos' power.

Also, I like the idea of rolling up some old characters like McCauley and Brande into Lemnos. Take a little bit from here and there and make a new villain. And who's to say that when (or if) the Legion defeats him that they really do. He could just appear to be beaten and then use his power to make all evidence and memories disappear so he can start plotting again.

No Vi.

Other than that, I enjoyed this issue. Jeckie's got a lot of potential. I'm looking forward to seeing what her powers are.

I liked the Karate Kid/Ultra Boy scene, too. I was a good demonstration of Val's skill.

Maybe Vi will show up next issue. :7

Not to beat a dead horse to death, but I still think that Projectra looks a lot like Glorith this time around. And now she has a couple of good reasons for being angry with the Legion, or at the very least, for wanting to acquire some time-changing powers.

The only things is, I really, really like her this time around, even though she's only appeared for a few pages plus a couple of undialogued panels, so I hope that I'm dead wrong. (By the way, just to remind everybody, Projectra was shown flying with the legionnaires when they first appeared to pick up Invisible Kid, so she isn't quite as isolated from the core team as she--and everybody else--lets on).

In any event, I agree with the prevailing opinion expressed so far: this issue was excellent (indeed, it was the best one so far, I think). Two things in particular made me especially happy: Projectra's look and characterization, and the letter pages.

The latter thing really reminded me of the old days when the Legion was fun (as opposed to being a bit cartoonish and sophmoric as it was at times during the "Archie" days). Boy, oh, boy, would it ever be nice to see Tenzil Kem join the team sometime down the road!

Keep up the good work Misters Kitson, Thibert, Wade, and Whacker! You're really beginning to hit your stride, and we're only six issues into the book.

Maybe Matter-Eater Lad could be in charge of future letter columns even if he's not on the team.

Weelll, Lemnos mentioned that his auto-amnesia effect is imperfect. Possibly if the info-storage device is far enough from his physical location, or receives its info indirectly enough, he doesn't affect it. We already have an example of that--Dream Girl forgot his existence, but the image constructed from her description has persisted.

So maybe Brainy was beaming a record of the meeting off-world, or projecting it through time, or copying/translating it a billion times, or something like that.

can anyone tell who the mystery legion member is on page 18? he is standing next to Triplicate Girl at the transmatter device. I think he appeared one other time in issue 1...I think. thanks.

I first thought that that was Lyle (Invisible Kid), but now I'm not so sure. Barry, want to comment?

I just got ish #6 today and it is great! Barry has done a great job with the art. Mark is writting a great story line that seems to have everones interest.

I don't think Cos or anyone else that Projectra even has powers. The first 2 shots she takes an arrogant look but after that her whole demeanor changes.
"Oh, please please can I go on a mission. Please?"

Besides the fan boy IK and Cham stuff it sounds very interesting. The comics thing is getting kinda silly already.

But enough of negativo me. The rest sounds awesome. As for new villains? I agree 100% to keep them new. We need a someone to fill a role create a new one using elements of old...different elements of old...or just a brand new one!

For all we know that supervillain team is the Fatal Five or something.

Hmm... kind of whiny and spoiled... really wants to be an active Legionnaire but keeps getting pushed to the sidelines by the Legionnaires... in her first appearance her father is murdered before her eyes...

Could Projectra be... a reimagined Lori Morning?

<just kidding folks...>

Some mixed emotion with this issue.

Mostly, only because the destroy-a-planet concept seems so harsh when it's not one I'd expect like Trom or Krypton. Even so, it was probably the best way to take the medieval/mystic workd out of the mix. It never really fit right back in the olden days, and the constant drama Jeckie had with how her planet couldn't be pushed into modern times got to be grating.

Beyond that, it was nothing but highlights.
I appreciated how Nura's apparent ditziness regarding her vision is explained by Lemnos' nature.
I even appreciated the Karate Kid and Ultra Boy scenes.
So far, I like Projectra's introduction.
The buildup to Orando's destruction was also pretty intense. I hope it doesn't mean that the legion will be in financial distress now. That's not a plot I especially enjoy.
What topped it off were the letter pages. They were fantastic! "Oh. I'm sorry. We'd discuss it, but we're out of space." "How does this letter column fit into continuity?" Priceless.

Oh, and if you want old villains, are those possibly two emerald eyes on the botton left panel of jeckie's door?