Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Supergirl and the Legion #26 - Spoilers

The design of the Lightning beasts has varied a lot over the years. The original depiction always reminded a lot of this guy from Star Wars.

Count me as a fan of the notion that there is actually unique wildlife on other planets, and that some of this wildlife may have what we might consider "super-powers". It's bad enough changing them from being animals to just being "energy creatures", but then to go and make them basically humanoid or ape-like just seems really goofy.

Jeyra's work for the robot rebellion was as an independent contractor. Then she got tossed in the clink, and Mekt busted her out and recruited her.

I have to admit that I wasn't blown away by this issue. It wasn't any one thing that was bad-- the dialogue worked just fine, the art was beautiful as usual and the characters were all themselves-- but rather the overarching story or lack thereof. I like hearing the origin thing, and I like the fighting but nothing happened this issue! The overarching storyline was barely progressed and it was just kinda... there.

So, despite all the good things like Mekt being less rabidly crazy and Brainy's final remarks, I was really disappointed with this issue. Made me cling to The Spirit and its story-in-one style like whoa...

And how would Mr-been-locked-away-for-a-1000-years have any idea what a banyo fruit is, anyway?

That's just suspicious, right there, 'cause I'm pretty sure the Rokyn Kryptonians didn't import banyo fruit, being all rabidly anti-tourism and militantly self-sufficient.

Hmm. The 'red mist' turning everyone into Dominators (or just putting a red disk on their foreheads and putting them under Dominator control) sounds ominous and appropriate. Some sort of proteanic retrovirus was my first thought, but, given what we've seen of Dominators, they'd be more likely to control and / or exterminate humanity than create an entire new planet full of Dominators to compete with...

It's an Easter egg for Silver Age fans. It refers to a heroine, Leeta 87, referred to only on her grave. She died slipping on a banyo-fruit peel.

I'm sure someone else here can tell you exactly where the reference comes from.

The plot just seems to me to be really convoluted. So we're now told that Mekt planned for the Legion to get the Phantom Zone projector all along? So the Wanderers were just faking a couple issues back when they basically seemed to have kicked the Legionnaires' tails before Supergirl showed up? And wasn't it a nice coincidence that the Legion happened to be going to Kandor for completely independent reasons when they wanted them to get the Phantom Zone projector?

Why exactly was Plant Kid left inside Legion Headquarters rather than being extracted with the others by White Witch?

And I have no idea at this point whose side Jeyra is on or why.

Oh, and while some part of me enjoyed seeing the three "powerhouses" in action, another part is just reminded that it ought to be Superboy who is the third member of that group rather than Supergirl.

The one thing I really did like about the issue, however, is the tease about Theena being a Legion member. She may go down as the one really great contribution of this era of the Legion to the mythos.

Yes.

Not necessarily; see next answer.

Yes. My theory is that the Wanderers had some other kind of script in mind for how they were going to fob off the projector on the Legion, but the Legion happened to be on Rokyn and forced them to ad-lib.

That's an excellent question.

I couldn't care less which side she's on. She's a freaking vicious murderer, and I just hope she's locked up or dead at the end of all this.

hmmm. i like how the Dominators ended up giving Earth a big red caste mark like their own. maybe it just means the planet is marked as Dominion territory, ready for invasion. wait didn't Sun Boy and Terra Limpa cliffhang in a big red circle of energy?
just how does Mon-El know what time Supergirl is visiting from to the extent that he can tell she "returns" and meets him in the past. Mon's dialogue seems a bit too at home and casual. Banyo fruit indeed.
i'm glad they didn't mess with the classic Ranzz origin much although i miss my Lightning Beasts. why anthropomorphize them. would energy beings really have two arms, two legs, etc?
i could feel Garth's caring and frustration with Mekt. well-written i thought.
i'm surprised Mekt has a superhero suit. i thought the whole point was that superheroes are a forgotten trend that the LSH is reviving. first Lemnos had a suit and cape and now Mekt. also the army of meta-teens called the Wanderers are pretty much indistinguishable from Terra Firma or the Legion themselves. the result is the LSH is really not so unique after all.
it'll be nice to hear the White Witch's story. Is she related to Dream Girl? i'm surprised that Grev Mallor doesn't reappear this issue to join the Wanderers. why was he introduced last ish? Why is the female with the green uniform and energy blasts called "Inferno"? Why does Projectra have no known powers in the roll call? can i be hired as a DC editor? sigh. i'm tired of caring about the details seemingly more than the powers in charge.

oh yeah i forgot. the silhouette of Theena in the roll call? she'll be one of the legionnaires that dies in #28, probably along with Dream Boy. thus the "surviving Legionnaires" comment in the solicitations for #29. bet'cha!
weren't we told of a leader election? and weren't we told that Bouncin' Boy would be joining? and wasn't there a mention of a bald legionnaire? was that all Barry pulling our leg?

in the roll call, it says Projectra doesn't have any recorded powers. so technically, it's correct. the legion members know but the general public doesn't.

as for Mekt. I don't get a super-hero costume vibe from what he's wearing. it seems more like a retro chic for lack of a better term.

lastly, as far as being an editor for DC, would you really want that Gorilla Nebula, 'cause it seems like they can never satisfy the fans.

Well I am one satisfied fan.
It's not thin or convoluted I think all the coincidences will be revealed. I am still under the impression that Dreamboy is a mole and if so perhaps tailored his predictions to guide them to Kandor. Remember Brainy said it was Cos's idea and it seems a little complex for our still twitterpated and conflicted leader to have come up with all on his own.

We've seen on the past how little clues are laid out. I am not going to assume anything is drawn by chance.

I also love how often Kara insults Brainy. They son't need panels and panels to build up a chemistry. It's obvious he irks her and probably more so because he doesn't care. Wouldn't it be great if she ends up being the one with a crush on him and he could care less.

I wouldn't be so sure about that in the 5yl plot it was an ancient weapon and that may be the most terrified we have seen Brainy since Dreamgirl announced her wedding plans.

well, while I enjoyed the issue, Waid has his share of seemingly contradictory elements to resolve, and he'd dang well better do a decent job of it -- this time.

If ever there were an origin that could use some major tweaking... Not that there's anything atrociously bad about it, but how many times does this (essentially unchanged) story need to get panel time? From now on, just put in a footnote telling the reader, "Insert generic Ranzz origin here."

Anyway, the Dominator threat has certainly stepped up a few notches. That's exciting and all. Seems a little 5YL, with the Legion needing to team up with a not-so-savory group. It's a bit bothersome that they would neglect to discover what's going on elsewhere on their HQ planet, but this group seems capable of only stumbling towards success. It almost makes the reboot bunch look competent, or maybe it's just the sort of thing that would get left out of adventure-era tales.

I can see Mekt having costume-y attire as a legacy of that covert group he was with. I can't see the Wanderers being especially impressed with Ayla's revelation. Didn't last issue make clear that they knew they were up against a life-threatening situation? Maybe not; we'll see.

At least we're getting face time for lots of legionnaires, as opposed to all Cosmic Boy narration all the time.

And yet she isn't responsible for the deaths of billions of people on a couple of planets, like the fire-controller, air-controller and water-controller that Sun Boy is chumming around with.

Projectra's dad made it clear that great storms, massive flooding and forest fires were part of the disasters killing everyone on Orando. Sure, Elysion *could* be calling up magma to start the fires, or creating seaquakes to bring up tsunamis, but how exactly is he using earth control to create storms? Occam's razor suggests that, in addition to Zepha being a mass murderer / genocidal killer, Inferna and the water-spewing dude are as well.

The notion that Elysion's crack team *didn't know* that everyone on the planets they ravaged ended up dead (despite everyone else in the UP knowing about it!) is just silly, and not in a Porcupine Pete fun way.

Where in the books does it actually say that Terror Firma were behind the destruction of Orando? Elysion had numerous strike teams and any one of them could have been responsible. Also how do we know that the team SunBoy is with are mass murderers / genocidal killers, we have already been shown numerous characters with similar powers. How many fire-controllers, air-controllers and water-controllers are there.

I'll have a little faith in WaK and wait until we are actually introduced to the team and learn more about them.

Well, one could suspend the belief that certain Terror Firma members were not on Orando...many of those on Sun Boy's team (listed above) were present to watch Elysion kill a kid on Rimworld 19.

I still think that the main Terror Firma members were responsible for Orando's destruction. And I'm a little disappointed on how easily it was ignored.

I'm inclined to believe that they were on Orando and participated. How much responsiblility they should have for their actions is an open question.

The Allies didn't put the entire German nation on trial in 1945. Instead a few that believed to have instigated the long series of crimes that began with the fascist seizure of power were chosen. Perpetrators of the individual acts that when taken as a whole ended up being a genocide were often not held responsible.

In fact the easy breezy way Terra Firma got off may be too true to life as opposed to a comic book where actions are much more black and white with consequences to choices shown in similar terms.

Thinking about things that don't make sense... could Jeyra be responsible for Brainy's "visions" it would be a great way to use his own ego to gain his trust and manipulate the legion.

Every time we see Elysion with a group of people, it's the same group. Zepha, the fire chick, the big rock guy, the pair of telepaths (one controls water, the other makes portals).

Orando was destroyed by floods (which an earth controller *could* have made), forest fires (which an earth controller could have called up from the molten core of the planet) and storms (I got nothin'). But these same people, who stood by smirking as Elysion murdered some kid as an example, turned around and said that they *didn't know* that 'the plan' involved killing people.

Everyone else in the galaxy knew that Orando (and several other worlds) were genocidally massacred, but not the people who followed Elysion around everywhere, and accompanied him on the planetary assault the Legion showed up to fight? Yeah, right.

What, where they going to carefully not hurt anyone, and then be whisked off planet so that Elysion could kill everyone without them knowing about it?

I don't buy it. At least one them has to be able to read and notice that every planet they assaulted ended up dead.

Like I said, Occam's Razor. Elysion, IMO, didn't bring his team to do planetary assaults only to send them home so that he could do everything himself.

What makes more sense?

1) Elysion figured out how to make storms with his earth control powers, and would send his strike team home before anyone got hurt on all of their planetary raids, and then made sure none of them ever noticed that every planet they raided ended up dead.

2) Zepha, who stood by and watched as he killed that kid, and later claimed not to know they were killing folk, and happened to control air, created the storms that killed a bunch of people on Orando, and then lied about it when it looked like she was gonna get in trouble.

As long as we're talking about thousands of people dying and the super types not caring: it seemed to me that the giant and I mean GIANT robot rising out of the ground beneath Tokyo and toppling dozens if not hundreds of huge skyscrapers would've killed thousands if not millions of people. But did the big 3 Legionnaires and Brainy lift a finger to try to save any of them? No. All they seemed to care about was picking apart the robot, one tiny piece at a time, which seemed pretty futile to me.

It also seems ridiculous to me that a robot of that immense size would be created merely for the purpose of delivering a bomb into the atmosphere. First of all, Japan is a relatively small group of islands. Can you imagine the size of the cavern that would be required to build such a monstrously huge robot underneath an island? Wouldn't it have been easier for the robots to just send a missile into the atmosphere and make it go boom?

I also found it odd that both Phantom Girl and Projectra were on the roll call page even though they didn't appear in the story. T Wolf also appears on the roll call page, even though he only gets 2 panel appearances in the story. Meanwhile Saturn Girl, who had a bigger role, is absent from the roll call.

Why does the rescue team ALWAYS have to be the 3 founders, Super_____, and Brainiac 5? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A lot of good things in this issue (mostly the art) but I agree with whoever said the plot didn't really move much.

And why would Mekt have a costume if he's supposed to be so clandestined? Seems counterproductive to me. But then, a big cloak with a hood does too. It's not like it screams "LOOK AT ME I'M A SPY ON A SECRET MISSION" or anything.

The banyo first appeared in Adv. 341 on Leeta 87's tomb on Shanghalla.

And who knew widows were so brittle?

Oh, yeah. What was up with the weird word spacing? It was very distracting.

I'm with you Jim about the Giant Robot delivery system - it didn't seem very practical. But I guess if you consider the Robot movement is based in the underground, than you could stretch that as justification.

To me, it's just another example of mediocre writing. This version has so many discrepancies, contradictions, and spells of vagueness that it just doesn't flow very well. The best stories have been where the action occurs and the details are minimal. After an encouraging two issues in #24 & #25, issue #26 is back to the same blech. This issue has Legion prime and Wanderer Legion all standing around until the Fantastic Four take off to Megatokyo (this would be a good opportunity to document another Legion adventure while the four are out of town, but I doubt we'll ever see that happen). As in most of the issues to date, more questions are raised than answered, and I have the feeling as these questions (or annoyances) keep accumulating, we as readers will not be receiving as many answers.

The type inconsistency looked like the lettering was done by hand, where all the normal text was done in one pen thickness at one time, and open spaces were left for the bold type with a different pen to be done later. This can happen with computer set type as well if a printer font file (the bold type style) doesn't match up exactly with the screen font file. Either way, it was distracting to me too. Do these editorial, coloring, and lettering hiccups only seem to happen on the Legion, or am I just being picky? Quite frankly, I get the feeling that except for the great artwork, this book is often a second thought at DC.

That whole scene, to me, felt entirely like one of those over-the-top 'like the movies!' scenes they toss out in the Ultimates line at Marvel, in the desperate hope that style will win out over substance.

It also reminds me, and not in a good way, of how the last few reboots fell over.

"This new threat is so bad@$$ that they blew up the moon!" "Oh yeah, this *new* threat is really, really bad@$$ and killed off half of the people on earth!" "Oh yeah! This new threat blew up the entire frakkin' planet! Top that monkey boy!" "Fine. The universe explodes. See, we're really serious about telling dramatic stories here, look at all the crap we've blown up! Don't we rock! Oh no! How will the Legion pull out of this one!"

"Wow, we've run out of stuff to blow up. Huh. Does anyone have any ideas for stories, or yanno, character development? Quit laughing! I'm serious! No? Fine, stick to what we know. Reboot! Poof, a whole new continuity of stuff to blow up, so that we can establish how serious our villains are!"

You know... I almost said that this issue had alot of the feel of DnA's run... and for the very same reasons you cite.