Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes LEGION #2 (Preview and spoilers)

I've gotten so bored with this series and the constant reboots, I can hardly be bothered to pick up my books anymore, let alone read them. It's just sad.

I'm still buying and reading the Legion books that are coming out, but I do find it telling that the Legion World threads that are getting the most posts are about the action figures rather than the books themselves.

Interesting that Res-Vir has a Kryptonian name, like 'Mon-El', and not a Daxamite name like Lar Gand or Sodam Yat.

or Ol-Vir?

I like it actually when you get a sense that not every single person from the same planet has the same naming convention...I don't know if it's a deliberate thing or just a writer not putting thought into making the names match up, but it's little things like that which give the sense that the planet has different cultures/races like Earth IMO...

And yet, Ol-Vir is also a Paul Levitz creation, just from a different era. Eltro and Laurel Gand use the same convention as Lar and Sodam, of having a non-hyphenated non-'Kryptonian-looking' name.

I *could* be impressed that Paul was trying to mix things up and have different Daxamites from different regions have different naming conventions, but Res-Vir isn't darker skinned or fairer in complexion or otherwise distinctive from Lar Gand, Sodam Yat, etc.

I'd love to be able to give credit to Paul for this sort of thing, but he's the same Paul who 'thought RJ Brande always talked that way' and thought Saturn Girl was an orphan and thought Lightning Lad's parents were still alive.

It's Occam's Razor, at this point, to think that he just kinda spaced that 'Mon-El' isn't Lar's Daxamite name, and that all Daxamites shouldn't have Kryptonian names. (And, if he wanted to differentiate Daxamites, culturally, he could have picked a naming convention quite different from 'Lar Gand' without making the name sound Kryptonian. A non-hyphenated singular name, like Resvir, or an even longer construction, like Resviramin, combined with a slightly different physical appearance, would have been a way of suggesting that not all Daxamites look and sound like white dudes.)

I totally would like the idea. Aliens and fantasy races throughout tons of media have been presented as monolithic. Here on Earth, we've got over 250 languages, with about a dozen in heavy rotation, while every Elf speaks 'elvish' and every Klingon speaks 'klingon' and every Kryptonian speaks 'Kryptonese.'

When it comes to colony worlds, like Winath or Braal or Titan, it kind of makes sense that the majority would speak the same language, since they 'came over on the same boat,' so to speak, but for Talokkians or Durlans?

I agree that I don't think there was any real thought behind it, and I can see how it may not be the best idea giving a Daxamite a name that sounds Kryptonian when their powers are already practically identical and Mon-El and Clark both actually look very similar....it doesn't help the casual reader realise there is a difference between the two planets. I still like it myself though...

Durlans I can see getting more of an excuse not to be culturally diverse....we don't really know how much of the planet survived the six minute war (is that even a thing anymore?), so it could just be that most of the remaining population was centred in one geographic area. Though it would be kind of interesting if there are a whole bunch of different Durlans who might be peaceful isolationists rather than aggressive isolationists, and have spent their existence hiding from Cham's tribe this whole time...

I would actually really like the Legion to not be based on Earth for a while to give us a chance to explore some of the other Legionnaires' homeworlds...or failing that, some decent storylines which take place on Bgtzl or Cargg or Daxam or Imsk or wherever so that we can have a little light shed on the non-Earth planets. Some of my favourite things in the old Legion series were when we saw stuff like Lady Memory on Talok VIII, or Tellus or Polar Boy's home planets every now and then. It would be nice to touch on that stuff again.

It also makes a sort of sense that Durlans are terribly close-minded hidebound traditionalists of the most conservative sort.

When your flesh is as changeable as the sea, the only thing solid and stable and permanant about yourself is the ideals and beliefs you choose for yourself. Your body is an ever-changing maelstrom, while, inside, your self is the anchor that keeps it from just spinning away into madness and chaos.

I could see Durlans having a single language and a single monolithic culture, and being *very* strict about enforcing away any sort of deviation or change or 'evolution' of that language or culture.

Paul has actually touched on that, with the Durlan rending Cham's shirt and talking about sumptuary laws. Perhaps every Durlan dresses exactly alike because they, a race that can look like *anything,* derives a certain amount of comfort and community from dressing the same.

There may also be an element of guilt, as well. They destroyed most of their world, and the greater majority of their species, in the six-minute war. Perhaps they feel it is only appropriate that they dress in rags, to never forget that they are the raggedy survivors of a disaster they brought upon themselves. Perhaps they don't think they *deserve* 'nice things,' and blame a past focus on material possessions and territorial claims and petty 'racial' differences for the war that killed all who came before them (who, due to the genetic changes, are effectively an entirely different species, with the Durlans of the current age being the mutant outcast survivors of the great war, and not the race they were before...).

I so agree. Even the cosmetic stuff, like the introduction of methane-snow-covered Triton and it's natives, in the beginning of the Shooterboot, was awesome.

We know, literally, bupkiss about Bgtzl, or Cargg, or Imsk, really.

Was Imsk a 'bottle-planet' left over from Brainiac? Do they instead ride on the event horizon of a black hole, where spacetime is distorted by gravitational eddies, and their world floats serenely atop a seething cauldron of oblivion, crushed to the size of a golfball, and yet, inexplicably, thriving and populated by billions of Imskians, who, when removed from the event horizon, expand in all directions to normal human size?

Is Bgtzl an entire other universe, with it's own United Planes and maybe it's own Legion of Super-Heroes, or is it just another 'Earth' floating in a void, all alone? Does it have a sun? An entire solar system? An entire galaxy? An entire *universe?*

Did the humanoid residents of the three inhabited Talokkian worlds used to have space faring technology, or did they use magic to jump across the dark spaces between their worlds, or did some other race seed Talokkians from their homeworld to the other two planets (perhaps to save them from a predicted catastrophe that was about to strike the homeworld, or perhaps for use as slaves to mine the resources of the other two worlds?)? Who knows!

Which colonies are older and more established? How much, if any, terraforming occured?

In theory, Titan, so close to earth, would have been colonized long before Braal or Winath, and, also, in theory, this could give them more 'pull' in an Earth-centric United Planets, as they have been members longer, and would have a more stable economy, stronger voice, etc. Then again, perhaps Titan, being an ice-moon with very limited resources to exploit, would have less influence than Braal, source of lots of useful minerals, and Winath, source of lots of food?

And there are tons of UP worlds we know little about, that have no Legion representation.

I felt some of the old Levitz magic this issue, not on the par of his greatest issues, but at least more than I have felt since he returned.

One thing I *hated*: the scene of Tinya going fetal hiding from the Daxamite. Detested that scene, glad she made up for it later, or tried to.

Very nice art.

My initial reaction was an eye rolling 'not another WIMMINS IS WEAK' moment to Tinya hiding as well, but upon further reflection I think it was the right thing to do.

I think Tinya would know herself well enough to know that Jo could be used quite effectively against her as an emotional lever (and the others to a lesser extent), and while she probably could have freed them before the bad guy could stop her, what would their next move be? They already showed that they could neither stand up to him or run away from him.

I think it would have been nice if she looked more cunning and less scared, but I do think she did the right thing hiding till backup arrived.

I can buy that... I wish the more cunning/less fetal route had been taken.

You know, Set, that was one thing I liked about the old Levitz runs. There were scenes on planets like Durla, Naltor, Orando, and Xanthu that gave a deeper insight into what each homeworld is like.

It's a challenge to integrate politics into comic book writing, but it can be done.

The Postboot Dark Circle story dropped the ball on that one by not fully exploring the interesting premise they had set up.

Again: A good issue, in my eyes the best Legion book of the four (!!!) we did get this month. Levitz returns to his classic way of storytelling, one major focus story with lots of tidbits next to it. Liked the pacing and, again, the artwork.

I'm glad to see that the book seems to have survived the ill-advised LSV storyline unblemished.

Since I bought/read both #1 and #2 this week, I'll review them both together.

EDE'S REVIEW OF LSH #1 and #2

I'll just begin by saying this is definitely a much stronger start than the first issue of the last series. The focus on the small task force of Legionnaires investigating is a nice move. It would have been nice to have at least one reference to the "Espionage Squad" and Cham's role as leader of that, though it definitely came across that he was functioning as the "leader" on this mission. I also thought it was a nice touch that Cham identifies the opponent as a Daxamite, which I assume is the result of his antennae-scanning abilities allowing him to identify lifeforms. I found it odd that Tinya seems to have forgotten the identification by the next issue, however.

Anyway, I spent awhile thinking about ways that Tinya might actually have been able to fight a Daxamite, but at the end of the day, hiding and calling for aid was probably the best use of her abilities. Overall, I thought she came off as the highly competent Legionnaire she is supposed to be. Jo seemed to get less characterization, but seemed to be well-written.

I liked the two new kids, Chemical <strike>King</strike> Kid and Fire-Breather Lass, who I hadn't been exposed to before. Their eagerness to prove themselves was actually appealing, and they were 1000% more appealing as new members than Earth Man was at the beginning of the last book. As far as the other newbies, Glorith seemed like pretty much a less-interesting Mysa (it looks like Brainy is finally going to investigate the workings of magic, as he was always saying he needed to around Mysa). Harmonia Li seems pretty much a non-entity thus far. I'd much rather have Nightwind, personally.

I'm a bit surprised how much I actually like seeing Comet Queen as a member. Though Brek's hitting on her pretty much creeped me out. I knew he'd been retrobooted as a total mack, but, man, hitting on the frosh in the middle of a graveyard? Ick. Oddly enough, I actually would think old school Legion superfan Brek would actually hit it off quite well with CQ.

Anyway, Gim as a Starfleet officer is actually kind of appealing (though was the term "Starfleet" commonly used prior to this version of the Legion? I don't remember.) I was kind of wondering why he didn't do something to rescue the Legionnaires in trouble, but I don't suppose there was really much he could do.

Anyway, this is definitely solid pacing and much more of an "old school" Levitz feel than what I was expecting from reviews I've read of the previous series. I can't say I'm all that excited by the overall plotline. Dominators have pretty much been done to death, and the "Daxamites gone wild" thing is hardly new, either. But I've been complaining about wanting something other than invasions/galactic politics stories for something like the last decade, and apparently no one's listening to me.

SUMMARY

Well, I'm actually liking the new series, but I'm not exactly wowed by it or anything. I'm definitely not getting the "Man, I can't wait to run out and buy the next issue!" feeling from it, and, honestly, if it wasn't for already having a predilection towards the Legion, I don't know if it would be holding my interest at all. But I definitely liked it a lot more than the Secret Origins issue.

I like the Durlan ideas, especially the personality idea of needing to have something that's unchanging in order to hold onto yourself.

I just don't know if it holds with the retroboot version of Brande and Durla.
He seemed to be not only someone who stepped way past the others on a shapeshifting scale but also on a personality scale.
He was also unique, even from Cham, in that he seemed to be able to form shapes from his imagination, experimenting until he found a form that could withstand unprotected space travel.
That would mean that he could take on abilities of the shapes, as well, since Durlan's can't, in their own shapes, survive in space.

And we didn't see that most of the Durlan's had much of a range in shifting, perhaps because of lack of species to imprint or perhaps, because Brande and Cham and Yera and the aunt are actually exceptional at their shifting.

I'm not sure that the Durlan's actually 'wear' clothing, either.
The hooded robes might just be a default mode for that they use for a type of protection or modesty or because they hate the sight of what they've become.

And back to the idea of everything being dogmatically the same, if that were true, why would the Durlan's have practically worshipped Brande, both for his differences and for the changes he was bringing to Durla?

Just thoughts.

I much preferred Preboot Polar Boy, myself. His enthusiasm for the team's purpose was amazing, and I liked that it didn't turn into hero worship.

Brek as a mack doesn't sit well with me, though I guess having him be a less-successful Sun Boy in that regard could make for some interesting stories.

There are traces of the old Levitz magic in the current series, but I'm still waiting for him to hit his stride with Legionnaire interactions.