Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Reboot Re-read: DnA Legion

The Legion #24

Released September 24, 2003
DC Comics, Color
23 Pages

After Dark
Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Steve Lightle - Art
Jason Wright - Colors
Stephen Wacker - Editor

Synopsis

A threshold opens in pitch blackness and Tasmia Mallor steps forward into the shadow, suddenly broken by the lights of a vehicle coming right at her. She quickly latches on to the passing craft and holds on as it lands in a garage; it is a Science Police craft and everyone is spooked about the shadows outside. The Talokians are kicking out the UP and cast shadow across their world in order to hide; this is why Umbra's shadow power has disappeared. A giant shadow appears to attack the SP station and Tasmia challenges it as the rightful champion of the world, but it overcomes her.

Tasmia wakes up naked in the house of the Shadow Maven, her former teacher, and she gets the breakdown from him as she gets dressed. Essentially, Talok VIII freaked out when Tasmia was taken by the rift a year earlier and decided that it safer not being part of the UP. They chose a new champion and used the shadow to wrap the planet completely. Tasmia notes that the reason she left to join the Legion was because she needed enlightenment, but now the planet has slid backwards in the same subject. Her cousin Grev was selected as the new champion, but they had to augment his abilities with technology. Tasmia decides to confront Grev.

Using some kind of VR glasses, she is able to see shadow shapes coming at her. She fights off the shadows easily until some of the shadows cling on to Tasmia, remembering her. It begins to slowly come back to her when Grev redoubles his attack. Tasmia, now able to see easily in the dark, finds Grev in his suit. Wrecking his suit, she finds that Grev has been dead for some time and the shadow technology has been running amok. She absorbs all the shadow into herself and sunlight casts itself across Talok VIII.

Back on Legion World, Tasmia briefs Kid Quantum now that her power is back. It turned out that Grev's suit was pre-programmed to act as it did. A permanent Threshold will be set up to Talok from Legion World. A number of animated shadows appear around Umbra. Jazmin hugs Tasmia, telling her she's glad that she lightened up.

Commentary

This is a very strange issue. It's combination one-off filler that also addresses a character point from early in the run, namely Tasmia's loss of her shadow powers, so the story is basically one of her getting them back. The challenge here is that there was no real sense of jeopardy. Tasmia gets knocked out, her old teacher somehow finds her, takes her back to his place and undresses her (THAT's not creepy), then she just starts getting her mojo back naturally and blows up the bad tech that's taken over.

We're told that her cousin is the new champion, albeit with technology to augment the capability. But we are told that the tech is just there to assist him, not that it would have a programming of its own. So the whole revelation that Grev is dead and everything has been like this because of the suit seemed like a cheap out to me. Why not have an actual confrontation? How did the technology of the suit recognize Tasmia? Does the technology possess intelligence without a living brain to guide its actions?

The art while good was very disorienting. I enjoy Steve Lightle's work, but here it was hard to see what's going on a lot of the time due to the darkness everywhere, and I didn't get a good sense of what was happening a lot of the time. Yes, we needed to get Tasmia her powers back, but it could have been more interesting with a confrontation between the cousins.

A few other thoughts.

Sure are amping up the sexy, almost to the point of distraction here. I don't have THAT much of a problem with her new costume, as I've said before it does harken back to the classic Shadow Lass costume, but here, especially like the Ayla changing scene, the addition of her being naked for no real reason is just titillation and thus was a distraction (especially in the context given).

Tasmia notes that she was sent away to join the Legion. She joined the Legion as part of a tryout. It wasn't a fait accompli that she would be a member.

The end scene with her explaining everything to Kid Quantum bothered me on a couple levels. First, its a repeat of the now annoying DnA habit of wrapping things up in a page. This harkens back to some of the silver age stories, and not in the good way. Second, they are reaching critical mass on the Kid Quantum usage. Couldn't she have briefed someone else on what had happened? It does make sense since she's leader. But its a LEGION of Superheroes. Stop focusing on the same handful.

I'm going to grade this one a C-. Not a lot of meat on the bone on this one.

# 24 . . .

Overall, I thought it was a very good spotlight on Tasmia. However, I agree that the ending was too easy. It's convenient that Grev is already dead, thereby removing any conflict or battle. However, I did like the larger theme the story addressed: with the Shadow Champion supposedly deceased, the Talokians rely on an ill-suited (literally and figuratively) substitute and turn their backs on the UP. Tasmia is right to call her people on their hypocrisy, and I found it ironic that she led them to the light at the end. Given what has happened in the US in recent years, with certain segments of the population turning towards regressive, isolationist, and authoritarian points of view, I thought the story was even more timely than it was in 2003.

DnA continue to display their world-building skills as this version of Talok preserves some aspects of previous incarnations but emerges as a unique world. The shadow culture is greatly emphasized as is the ancestor worship. These factors are so prevalent in their culture that they turn to the shadow force--literally to the darkness--to find answers. This is the problem of relying on one person to serve as champion or king or leader. When that person goes away, there is a void left to fill, and those who seek to fill the void prove inferior.

The shadow force is apparently a living entity--perhaps similar to the Force in Star Wars. But it is given to one person to serve as a conduit of that force, to hone her skills, and to become sort of a companion to or master of the force. Tasmia remarks how the shadow force recognizes her and wants to be with her, not with Grev. The shadow force is equated to a lover or a pet, perhaps--something that is extremely powerful but does not possess intelligence of its own.


I took it that it was the shadow force that recognized Tasmia, not the technology. The tech was there to assist Grev in using the shadow force because he was not adequate to the task. Incidentally, did you notice that the suit was manufactured by McCauley Industries? Perhaps that explains why it failed. Leland was known for cutting corners, wasn't he? In any case, Grev needed something artificial in order to accomplish what Tasmia did naturally.


True. I also saw it as a story of Tasmia learning to grow a bit, just as Imra grew a bit by coming to terms with Garth's loss. When Jaz says it would be good for Tasmia if the latter "lightened up," there is a wonderful irony there. Tasmia literally does lighten up when she dispels the darkness and leads her people into the light. But she has also grown as a person through her interactions with the Legion and others outside her culture--something her isolated people have yet to embrace.

I do agree that the ending was too easy. Once Grev is revealed to be dead, the darkforce immediately returns to her and the story's over. If only combatting fear and ignorance were so easy.

Thank you for mentioning this - I had made a mental note to comment on this, but like most mental notes, they vanish. This aspect is easily the most interesting part of the story to me.


Yes, there is clearly a bond, as Tasmia's mentor intimated there would be.


I missed the McCauley connection, good catch! I clearly needed more coffee today I'll take that as a good explanation!


Yes, I do like the growth of Tasmia from where she started in DnA.

Count me in as someone who liked the attempt to address Tasmia's character growth, realizing that she has learned and changed and grown by being with the Legion and being exposed to the world beyond Talok VIII. I liked that she showed the Talokians that they shouldn't turn inward in fear.

Count me in also as someone who thought the actual struggle was too easy.

This issue was released the day before my 40th birthday. There's no real significance to this. I just think it's fascinating to know.


I loved Lightle's return to the Legion for the last (?) time. He drew an exquisite and elf-like Tasmia.

And although the dark scenes may be disorienting (on purpose?), I loved many of the art innovations, such as the light patterns on the night-robes and visors. The few scenes of the Talokian city are claustrophobic and eerie, like a perpetual Halloween.

Gotta admit, I'm biased toward Lightle. He was from Kansas City, where I live. He passed away at the beginning of this year from cardiac arrest due to COVID. I met him once or twice, and I admire his Legion art. This issue reinforces that opinion.

I've often wondered if the shadow 'power' of Talokk VIII is in any way related to the shadow powers wielded by characters like the Shade, Shadow Thief or Nightshade.

More recently, I've wondered what happens to the light that Tasmia negates when she calls up her darkfields. It would be neat to find out that the light is actually transferred mystically to the heart of Talokk VIII, where it serves some purpose, such as to feed something, or reinforce the bonds holding something, or just keep the core of the ancient planet warm?\

Starman 50 (not sure which series) has the Shade and Umbra comparing notes, during a time-traveling adventure!

Coincidentally enough, I just read TotLSH 318 and 319, which deals with someone stealing shadow power on Talok VIII and cousin Grev attempting to make things right, but Tasmia coming in and saving the day against the Persuader and the Talokian usurper, Lady Memory.

It was night and day difference from a story perspective (pardon the pun). We actually got to see Grev in action a bit, he wasn't dead by the end of the issue and there was genuine conflict between characters that got resolved. It was so much better from a storytelling perspective.

Totally agree. Grev was one of those "add on" characters who could do whatever the writers needed him to do. He was introduced before Tasmia (in Adv. 344-345), but somehow became her younger cousin or subordinate to her, spending quite some time in the Legion Academy. I'm okay with DnA killing him off. He served the needs of the story and drove home the point of how a substitute for a "champion" isn't always equal to the task.

Poor Grev, he was usually a bumbler in every version except 5YL - and there he was saddled with an unhappy political marriage.

The depiction of Talok VIII was enchanting - love the Lightle art, the costumes, the Shadow Maven (who I thought was an old woman), the sense of dread that lay over the planet, Tasmia herself. There was something about Talok in the sunlight that just felt wrong, however, although I get the symbolism. It was in keeping with the original version of Talok as a dry desert planet, but I liked the noir aspect of Talok subsumed in shadow.

The concept of the shadow force is fascinating; just strange enough to be not quite understood. Tasmia behaves like a real champion here, far from the grumpy Umbra of her early Legion days. It's as if this is her true initiation to the position of Shadow Champion.

I also missed the McCauley connection - nice touch!

The Legion #25

Released October 29, 2003
DC Comics, Color
39 Pages

Foundations - Celebrating 45 Years of the Legion
Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Chris Batista - Pencils
Robin Riggs, Chip Wallace, Doug Hazelwood - Inks
Sno Cone - Colors
Stephen Wacker - Editor

Additional Art:
Eric Wight (Art & Color Pages 1-3, 37, 38)
Tony Harris & Tom Feister (Art & Color - Pages 10-12,20-21,30-33)
Dave Cockrum & Al Milgrom (Pages 14-18)
Paul Rivoche (Art & Color - Pages 23-28)

Synopsis

Lana Lang and Pete Ross flag down a young Clark Kent in 20th century Smallville to work on a book report. He declines and continues on to his parents' shop. On the way he meets the Legion founders looking very similar to their Adventure #247 costumes and take him to the future.

In the 31st century, Spark is on Trom, speaking to the memorial of Element Lad as she works through her guilt about feeling bad about him while also depositing some other crystals she found in the Kwai galaxy. Triad interrupts her to say that the celebrations are starting on Legion World. As they fly away, the crystals start to interact with each other.

Kid Quantum kicks off the Foundation Day celebration to a packed arena, a day to celebrate the founding of the Legion, a UP wide event. More specifically, she welcomes a group of new Legion candidates. Jazmin hands them over to Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl who begin a guided tour of Legion World starting with the Winath habitat. The recruits begin to talk to one another, and we meet Amp Girl, Retro and Babbage, who is from Robotica. Cos begins to pull Babbage into a welcoming conversation when he is called away to a "dimension storm" emergency on Braal.

Cosmic Boy emerges into Braal space with Shikari, Kid Quantum, Brainiac 5.1 and Apparition (and apparently Wildfire). The storm erupted as part of the old stargate dismantling process as president Wazzo's yacht was nearby on a secret mission. Rokk and Jazmin flirt while Brainy looks for the solution - destroy the old stargate.

Back at Legion World, we see that Spark's special guest is her brother Mekt at a wake of sorts for their dead brother Garth. Ayla asks if he'd like to say something, and we get a three page montage of Mekt-as-solo, yet another retelling of the Ranzz origin, and the clash between the siblings that led to Garth losing an arm, ending with Garth's sacrifice in Legion Lost. As Ayla gives Mekt a personal tour, he recalls the last time he saw Garth when Mekt was still in jail. In the retelling, an inmate breaks out and attacks Garth. The inmate is struck through the bars my Mekt and subdued. Mekt only wanted to be like Garth, but he can't bring himself to say it, and uses his stammer to get out of it. In the restroom, he is shown to be wearing a LiveWire costume beneath his clothes.

On the Presidential Yacht, Tinya floats in to give a status report to her mother.

On Legion World, Retro asks about Element Lad. Saturn Girl goes into a lengthy recap of Legion Lost's Jan storyline.

Back to Braal, the Legion team is able to get the situation under control, and the mystery reason for the presidential yacht's presence is... Superboy!

Rokk and Imra go to Trom to visit Jan's memorial and confess to feeling guilty about forgetting about him. They find the memorial destroyed, then a crystalline Element Lad appears claiming to be Garth.

We finally return to young Clark Kent from the prologue of the issue, apparently taken to the future by the Legion founders. Suddenly they transform and it is revealed they are servants of Darkseid from Apokalips.

Commentary

For a double sized issue, and all the "big events" that happen in this issue, this was extremely light on content, with the only interesting things happening being the discovery of Superboy and the abduction of Clark Kent in the issue bumpers. For a 39 page issue, the synopsis above was very short. Most of the Legion Worlds reviews were about this length and most had much longer of a synopsis. So thanks, DnA, for a mostly-recap story to save my carpal tunnel? But for a 25th issue celebrating the 45th year of Legion publication, as a consumer I'd frankly would not be happy to have paid double the cost of an issue only to mainly get recaps and rehashes. The only other thing that was worth a fig in this issue was the acknowledgement, finally, of Element Lad's sacrifice, which also raised a lot of questions for me that I'll get to later.

The Foundation Day concept is a method to bring Legion recruits back into the universe and give us our second tour of Legion World which springs us into the Element Lad flashback. Spark's pulling Mekt on station serves to retell Mekt's story and give him a rather odd obsession on Garth. I don't remember, but I guess we'll find out in 14 issues if this is ever addressed in the story. In one way the twist is kind of interesting, Mekt is an oddly disturbed and obsessed individual. But on the other end, as foreshadowed by Legion Worlds 2, he's obviously a complete psychotic. I'm not sure which Mekt I prefer, but at the end of the day, this is an action-oriented comic, so I'd prefer Lightning Lord, thank you very much.

Of course, at the end of the issue, both the rewind and focus on Jan as well as Garth, and their sacrifices, are set up to merge Garth into Jan's body at the end. And as far as I'm concerned, the sacrifices that both characters made at the end of Legion Lost are tossed out the window. I guess the precedence of Garth dying and being resurrected exists from before, but this felt a bit cheap to me. Not to mention the weird parallel to the story of Mary Magdalene returning to Jesus' grave on Easter morning. I absolutely hated with every fiber of my being what DnA did to Element Lad and doing this felt like they were rubbing my face in it.

We had a lot of artists here. Batista does his usual amazing job. It was fun to see Cockrum again on the Mekt flashback. I'm just gonna say that I'm not really a fan of the Harris/Feister art combo here. The faces are way to garish in expression in a lot of cases and the coloring seems way off somehow.

Honestly, the thing I wanted more of was the story in the bumper - why is young Clark Kent in the 31st century along with Connor? But even the Connor story was flat for me until the reveal. Why was Wazzo there? Just call the Legion from the get-go. They've dealt with these gates before and they know Connor. Instead we have, again, Kid Quantum and Apparition foisted upon us instead of two other Legionnaires that could use the screen time. This is what I am talking about with DnA's overuse of certain characters. I get that the other function was to set Jazmin and Rokk up romantically, but that could have been done anytime or even off-panel.

A few other comments:

Dedication to Otto Binder and Al Plastino was nice.

Just as a point of order on Jazmin's kickoff to Foundation Day, RJ Brande wasn't the UP president at the time the founders saved him... I'm assuming that this event is taking place on the anniversary of the founding?

Is that Rond Vidar on p8? It sure looks like Rond. And if it is I have a host of questions about Lori Morning.

I enjoyed Cos bringing in Babbage to the fold. Also, I like Babbage (Fun fact - I used to work at the software retailer of the same name around the time I got into the Legion, but I was long gone, and so was the company, by the time this issue came out).

It'd be great to see Braal again, especially since Cos is nominally still a wanted man at this point.

The addition to Wildfire in the Braal away team isn't well done; he's just there suddenly.

When Brainy says the solution is to destroy the old stargate, I would have thought that Wildfire and Kid Quantum would have reacted with something like, "Why don't we try plan b this time?"

Maybe its just selective memory, but it was actually Ayla's idea to use the Lightning beasts to recharge their car on Korbal.

The Legion Lost recap does bring up a few things - if they were thrown outside of time, then that means that Kid Quantum was also outside the universe when they were thrown out. Wildfire DEFINITELY was as he made the trip first and SOMEHOW made it back to the Kwai galaxy. So he should have been just as insane as Jan. The other thing that still doesn't sit well with me from a universe perspective is that I never took Jan to be smart enough to do interdimensional physics. Long form chemistry? Sure. But theoretical physics would have been a Brainy function. I know, I know, the story needed it...

I had to laugh at Tinya's line: "The Legion never fails" - Except when trying to control a mystical eye, or defending the earth from the blight or....

Final Grade: C-, unfortunately. I would have liked to have graded something as important as a tribute a lot higher.

yeah, some good points here. Jan was apparently smart enough to figure out a way back through the outside of the universe or whatever.

The Mekt bit was a very new twist, I was curious enough to let it play out, but IIRC it was never developed beyond this.

Ah, Lori Morning... I think she was last seen in a flashback Legion Worlds 6, the memorial for the Lost Legionnaires. We lost her only to get another kid, Cub. So, uh,yay?

yeah, Garth-in-Jan's-body was heinous. I did like having Garth back, but felt it was all urgh. a cheapened sacrifice for sure.

Yeah, I mean I guess if they went the Lightning Lord route, it may have added a bit of extra pathos to the whole thing, but they never did. I would have LOVED to have seen an LSV in the Reboot. I actually enjoyed the vamping of Saturn Queen in the retro Legion story that came later.


Good point about swapping out Lori for Cub. And yes, the last we see of her is walking out of frame during the memorial dedication in LW6. I'm assuming this is AFTER Ra's took over from Leland and killed him and Crugg.
The thought of her searching aimlessly for her is kind of cruel, but that's DnA for you. Interestingly enough, I recently found out that the intent at one point was to use Lori as a vehicle to introduce the audience to new worlds in the UP. Then that went totally sideways, obviously, but I'm not sure if that was a post-LSH 100 development or not.

at least DNA didn't have Lori killed together with McCauley and Crugg

As far as we know! The only reason we recognized Leland and Crugg in L2 was because of their non-dissolvable accessories.

I seem to remember some debate about whether her bones were there when the issue came out

I always did want to see a Lori that was a few years older/more mature eventually show up, though.

there WERE some other skeletons there, but maybe even DNA couldn't kill a child

I'm working on that - at least in fanfic text (No one wants to see me draw a stick figure Lori! )

LOL They'll kill teenagers but draw the line at ten year olds!

With the teenagers, they pretended they were young adults lol!

Agreed, sadly. This issue is a mixed bag, as if the creators checked all the boxes for a Legion anniversary issue but forgot to tell a meaningful story. Let's see, we've got Superboy. Check. Pete and Lana. Check. Tryouts and the Legion Academy. Check. A recap of the Legion's origin. Check. Reminders of Garth and Jan. Check. Mekt. Check. Some action with an inconsequential threat. (Stargate wraiths? Who cares if it makes sense so long as it looks cool to 12-year-olds flipping through the issue at Waldenbooks?) Check. Rokk, Imra, and Garth being lionized as founders. Check. We even have a new holiday a la Klordny even though the name "Foundations Day" doesn't make a lot of sense. Wouldn't "Founders Day" be better?" Is the Legion building a foundation to something?

It feels like DnA mined the Legion's history for a lot of things fans would expect to see but the writers don't have a feel for any of it. The story moves along at a plodding pace and when I got to recap of Jan's transformation into the Progenitor, I almost gave up. I flipped through those six pages. I feel cheated.

It also feels again like DC was trying to make the Legion appealing to kids who might pick up the trade in a bookstore. Let's see, kids like robots, don't they? Let's give them a Robotica cadet. Alienation and being misjudged play well with pre-teens and teens, and sibling rivalry is always a winner. Who doesn't want to be his older (or younger) brother? As a writer who has self-published, I was advised to do a lot of things that sell even though they didn't seem right for my books. Legion # 25 reads like it was written by DC's marketing department.


Based on your and Ibby's comments, it doesn't look like we ever do find out. That's a shame. As an older brother who frequently felt overshadowed by his younger brother, I was interested in how this angle would develop.

Did you notice that both Ayla and Mekt have now tried to be Garth? Sibling identification seems to be a thing in the Ranzz family. (I do think it's wonderfully ironic that Garth, who was portrayed as immature and an outcast in the early reboot should now be held in such high regard by everybody.)


This is exactly how I felt, and it's how I've felt every time a dead hero has been brought back since Jean Grey in 1984. I get it that comics are an entertainment medium and that decisions such as this are made because 1) fans want it, and 2) they sell comics, but there were times when I thought/hoped comics would rise above pandering. When a beloved character dies, it's tragic. It makes us feel something. All stories should make us feel. They should make us reflect on what it means to be human. Tragic stories, ironically, make happy endings all the more meaningful because those endings have to be earned.

At the time this story was published, we'd just spent two years adjusting to the new "reality" DnA had created for the Legion--a reality without Garth and Jan, two of the most central and stalwart Legionnaires. Yet in one scene DnA have told us, "Don't take any of this seriously. It's just a comic book." I cannot stay invested in a series if the writers show so little respect to the characters and the fans.



Good catch!

And didn't mine very carefully. I've mentioned this a couple times, but it has always irritated me that this run did the bare minimum to reference back to the KC Carlson era. There should be editor boxes calling back to LSH #0 and things like that in all the flashbacks.


As usual, a couple of awesome observations on your part. I hadn't thought about both Ayla and Mekt trying to be like Garth. Ayla twice, even though she wasn't "LiveWire" when she came on originally, her function was Garth's.


And I think it was worse - its honestly fine that some characters come back in comics. But to have your hero come back in the body of his murderer - who also was the last survivor of his own race and originally a very gentle being - that was what felt like rubbing our nose in their mire. After adjusting to the ups and downs of The Legion, it reminded me of how quickly this team went, and then stayed, thematically dark, and then did a resurrection number in the worst possible way.

In my current read through of the original titles, it took them YEARS before the title had some darker, more serious themes. This team turned it on a dime, and this revelation reminded me of how uncomfortable I was with that choice.

good comment re both Ayla and Mekt have tried to be Garth, in a way.

I do wish they had resolved that storyline re Mekt and Garth... nice observation HWW, that Garth was indeed portrayed very differently in the early Reboot (even being kicked off the team by Chu for being a runaway). He was much more impulsive then. He's come a long way . If I think about it, DNA really made him mature - as late as Legionnaires 74 and 75 he still had his moments of immaturity and impulsiveness.

Garth's evolution from an irresponsible, hot-headed kid who believed he was somehow responsible for his brother's descent into crime into a responsible and level-headed leader is one of my favorite aspects of the reboot.

The scene in #25 where Garth visits Mekt in prison is telling of his growth. He affirms that Mekt is still his brother no matter what the latter has done. (In other words, he now recognizes that Mekt alone is responsible for his choices.) Interestingly, Garth's evolution seems to have inspired Mekt, who saves his brother from an escaping convict.

Looking at the scene from a more objective perspective, I can't help wondering if Mekt imagined that experience. Garth is portrayed as a little too perfect in the scene, and, of course, Mekt would want to think of himself as the hero who saved his brother. Given Mekt's mental state, who knows what's real and what isn't to him? That would have been a fascinating angle to explore.

I had a similar thought about Mekt's recollections. If one takes the mistake about Mekt having the idea to use the Lightning Beasts to recharge their cars as deliberate, it could be viewed as such. The Founding Day mistake, however, leads me to believe it was a creative staff error.