Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 (Preview & Spoilers)

Unless the eyes have a group mind/memory . . .

It goes without saying that we love the Legion artwork of Yiliray Cinar and Phil Jimenez, but I must say that the Keith Giffin tribute to Jack King Kirby, which was LoSH Annual #1, totally blew me away. Pg.18 splash panel of the Empress on the throne was a total Kirby homage. The magnificant cover owed much to Ingres' Napoleon Enthroned, but was complete Kirby worship.

BTW does anybody think that Mekt's twin might be the next Validus?

Haha. See, this is the problem with being a Transformers fan AND a Legion fan. I've never been able to spell deception right on the first go my whole life.

As for the last panel of Vi, I assumed the object on her chest was a medi-device that simply was glowing green. The effect on here Eye, though, opens a lot of possibilities. Is she possessed by the Emerald Eye now? That would be probably too much of a re-hashing of the reboot. Perhaps now she simply has that 'insight' into the Emerald Eye and its history or could track it herself? Or maybe the former Empress now has some connection to Vi? Her final words of "I see you, lady" to Jeckie could have meant their her original version was restored or she was now somehow linked to Violet's sight.

I'd forgotten all about Mekt's twin. I wish they'd get back to that.

With Mekt looking likely to return in the LSV storyline, I'm sure there will be a follow-up, even if a mention that it was a wild goose chase to get under Garth's skin..

I'm snowed in here in Oklahoma! I can't get to my local comic shop! Can you feel my pain??! I'm so ready to read this!

Did the wind come sweeping down the plain and bury you in a snowdrift?

Finally got the Annual.

Also picked up the Nextwave trade.

The Nextwave art was not at all to my taste, but it suited the totally irreverant storyline. The Annual art? Also not to my taste, and not particularly well-suited to the Legion, IMO.

I was distracted by the art the first read. I'll have to read it again and see if I like the story, at least.

Loved the story... despised the art...

Personally, I'd probably love that idea if it happened.

Ahhh, well, I'd hate it if that's what happens.
So, it probably will.
sigh
I enjoyed the reboot Emerald Vi, but only because it made sense.
The current Vi just doesn't seem to be that unsure of herself or that needy or that gullible.

Yes, it was. And in that series, it was intentionally annoying and played for laughs.

Well, hmmm....

I'm no fan of Giffen's art style. I didn't care for it much during 5YL, although it had a suitability for that dystopian backdrop, as I suppose it does for this dirty medieval setting.

Ayla and Vi look like wide-bottomed linebackers. And I haven't figured out the reason for the strange outfits they wore through most of the story. They're nothing like anything the other females of Orando are wearing.

The story was a letdown from DC's solicit: "She possesses entire planets! And she devastates the Legion so completely, one Legionnaire will never be the same!" Quite an overwrought, if not incorrect, description of what actually happens in this story.

I do like how Levitz takes time to create and explore exotic landscapes like the one inside the Eye in this story and Tellus' recent glimpse inside Dawnstar's tracking framework.

Overall, it didn't live up to my hopes.

Liked the story, loved the art, hated the colors!!
The neon green used throughout made my eyes bleed!!
The artwork on the full page explosion done in that color was indiscernable to me.(but I suppose most other fans were happy about that LOL)
The happy pastels used for Orando didn't match the narration at all.
All the characters kept complaining about the mold & the fungus & all the wretched, rotting, decaying, stinky & smelly ruins- yet every thing was colored in pinks & sky blues & seafoam greens!! Even the greys & browns were from the lighter side of the spectrum!!
And to top it off, Nura's hair is STILL miscolored!!! Grrr!!
I thought the board game was cute but I swear, while I was reading it, I kept thinking about how poor Ken Arromdee was gonna pitch a fit when he saw it!!

I enjoyed story and art a lot, but agree with Rhino that the COLORS were working against the story. Everything was WAY too neon and bright in places it would have been better to go darker. But that's a small nitpick. My bigger nitpick would be Jeckie's status at the end.

Of all the storylines and plot points that the 10+ years of the Reboot gave us... Emerald Vi is probably dead last on my list of ones I'd like to see brought back! RUN, GIM! RUN!

---

I found this Annual to be just OK. I liked it well enough, but something about the story just left me a little bored.

GOODS -

* Giffen's art was interesting/sufficient at times, but it was very much depending on the inker (and I'd much rather have Portela on this book full time than him again - the occasional back-up or Annual would be fine though).
* The new EE's costume was great.
* I liked that the prologue was set a year ago - which means this new EE could have been the one shown in Legion of 3 Worlds (albeit wearing the old EE's outfit for some kinky reason) and thus prevents all the continuity nit-pickers in the world from crying themselves to sleep over this issue.
* I like that Ayla and Salu are so clearly a couple now. More diversity in the Legion is good! (And this doesn't negate anything Geoff Johns did with Ayla and Brin in Lo3W IMO since their interactions there could so easily be those of friends/former lovers.)
* Nice to see Gates get such a major role.
* Really liked the quick panel showing Dawnstar too busy to join the mission. That was such an Adventure-era thing to do!
* Vi's plan to shrink into the Eye and then blow it up from the inside was clever and yet so obvious I'm surprised it's never been done before.
* I was glad to see Jeckie quit the Legion and decide to stay on Orando at the end there. I'd much rather have her on the team - but I'd much MORE rather never having to see that fugly costume and outdated and unnecessary codename again.
* Unlike, rhino - I really liked the colours this issue. I agree that they didn't really match the story but colours any murkier/grimmer would have made Giffen's pencils a bit of an eyesore IMO.

BADS -

* The story didn't have enough meat to it. Page 6 to page 38 was all set over the course of a few hours and nearly all of that was taken up with one long, not-that-interesting fight scene (Legion fans seem to love their 'blast' powered characters but they make for boring fight visuals IMO).
* Falyce was completely unmemorable. Oh, for a Cera Kesh!
* EYE hate the way EYE speaks! Something else else else from the Reboot that would have been better left forgotten!
* I agree with Jim re: dis-liking Salu and Ayla's boring jammies. Lock them up with their costumes on next time please, Mr. or Mrs. Super-Villain!
* Gates is suddenly way too powerful. I liked him better when he was limited to short-range teleports. He's going to be as deus ex-machina as those annoying Kwai from the DnA era of the Reboot soon if Paul keeps him at this strength.
* Dirk and Jeckie (especially)'s costumes still suck. Changing Dirk's classic costume strikes me as done for no other reason than for Cinar (or whoever it was) to leave their mark on this team. It may not be as hideous as others (like Jeckie or Tyroc's) but it certainly isn't an improvement on the old one either.
* Nura's hair-colour. A slight improvement but still not there yet. Keep trying please Hi-Fi.
* "Bitch". I don't know. Paul's used language like that a few times now. I'm no prude but it just seems out of place in this book. This isn't 100 Bullets. I don't need gritty realism here, thanks Paul. The scene would have worked just as well without it IMO.
* More background for the Eye. I preferred it when it was unknowable and mysterious. I'm not keen on all these Green Lantern and what-not connections.

---

The Board Game and Interlac A-Z were fab though. Probably my favourite parts of the book. I almost cannot believe that some fans could get up in arms about how something that is SO obviously just meant as a bit of light-hearted fun might not mesh 100% with the established Legion history - but then I remembered that this is Legion fandom I'm talking about, and complaints about the most miniscule continuity variations are as constant as Brainiac 5's panel-hogging.

I thought they were a hoot though and that's good enough for me. Plus - the advert for the LSV issue has me salivating for that book too! 38 pages of Portela art on some of my favourite villains?!? Yes! Hope Ron-Karr makes an appearance too!

Not sure when I will read this, given the blizzard, but for the continuity-minded...please move your hand away from the universal obliterator. Levitz made clear in his first ish that the Legion's continuity is in flux and always will be. Johns and Levitz have different objectives. Johns wanted to reintroduce the Legion he liked the best, with pretty straight-ahead, "classic" takes on most of the characters, which is a way of saying that he wasn't too interested in delving into most of the characters' complex back stories. Even his use of Yera may have been motivated solely by the Legion in the 21C plot and his need for a shapeshifter in the 31C. AND he wanted to emphasize the Legion connection to SuperMAN, because he was writing SuperMAN at the time and the legal status of SuperBOY was all over the place. And who knows what he REALLY had in mind, because he wrote very few stories post FC:LO3W.

Levitz clearly wants to reunite the characters as he wrote them and continue all the things he liked about his last stint on the series--he's said as much, that it's a high school reunion. He has his own take on the characters which is very important to him, so Saturn Girl is unambiguously a mother again, which means the Garridan/Validus thing is back in the mix. The death of Cosmic Boy's mother and it's impact on Pol Krinn happened, so we have the consequences of that back, too. He killed off the Emerald Empress in a memorable series of stories, so that's back. He began the thread of Vi and Ayla as a couple, so we have that. He gave Shadow Lass an...exotic marriage to Mon-El, so we have the fallout from that. All of this makes sense to me. And he has changed his mind on some things, like Tyroc and Quislet, and he's kept Gates. He's going to tell the stories he wants to tell, and choose continuity that works for that, and ignore continuity that doesn't, as every comics writer does. And finally, I think he REALLY enjoys baiting continuity-obsessed Legion fans, perhaps a little more than he should.

Wow!
I really agree with you, doublechinner!
That doesn't happen very often, unfortunately.

Blacula - I always assumed that the Eye had magic type forcefields set up to repell any invasion into it's interior so, I was very surprised when Vi got in AND the inside didn't make a bit of sense to me.
sigh

It's so funny that fans can be so different when it comes to the same book.

Emerald Vi was a fun arc for me, and I really enjoyed the Eye having a voice.

But, I certainly agree that Falyce was no replacement for Cera.

I'm not a big canon follower, but I DO think that the game should have been edited to not ADD to the continuity confusion, i.e., no big glitches.

And I was glad to see Ayla and Salu out of uniform since I dislike both of their costumes.
I don't like ANY of the current costumes, though.

I <3 coming here and seeing the different perspectives and opinions that people have.
Good stuff, Maynard!

Maybe the Eye wanted to let Vi in?

I like Ayla's costume, but I hate Vi's. The inside of the Eye made no sense to me either. I'd think it would be all about energy, not flowers.

Good point, Jorge. I hadn't thought of that. It could've sensed it was losing its current host and saw an opportunity to seduce a new one.

Write U Mais Bee, Think Eye.

Back when Timber Wolf beat up the entire Fatal Five in the reboot, I think, he said the eye wasn't really made of matter, but more coherent energy or something. (Which would explain why Element Lad hasn't turned it into water or something.)

Mordru only knows if that has any bearing on *this* continuity...

This Emerald Eye is beginning to seem like a knock off of Adam Warlock's soul gem, with it's own little world inside of it. That would create the possibility that Sarya's spirit might still be trapped within that world, and she could be reborn someday. Alternately, perhaps the 'world' inside the Eye has something to do with the Guardians and their ancient campaign to remove chaos and magic from the universe, with the world inside the eye being where some of the stuff the Guardians were attempting to purge from the universe was hidden away...

(The Emerald Eye, last resting place of Gemworld!)

The soul of Amethyst is supposed to be in Gemworld, sustaining and ordering it.
Or she was.

Mysa is supposed to be on Gemworld, which became Zerox.
Originally according to TMK and perhaps before during the Magic Wars.

Did it say so in the arc?


jim - you like ayla's costume because it's so similar to her Silver Age one, i think, anyway.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
lol

You're wrong.

I like it because:

It's not overly busy like Saturn Girl's

It doesn't have a boob window like Dawnstar's

It's not composed of spiked heels and dental floss doubling as butt floss like Shadow Lass's

It doesn't have clashing colors like Violet's

It's not downright hideous like Sensor Girl's

It doesn't look matronly like Duplicate Damsel's

It doesn't look like 1977 like Phantom Girl's

It doesn't make her look like a dominatrix like Night Girl's

It's just simple and basic and functional, with her traditional colors.

Really enjoyed this Annual! Loved the art! Solid story with lots of little nuggets.

Found it hilarious someone could really think the Board Game altered continuity.

Yay Ayla & Vi together!

Yay Gates!

heh. Only Legion fans would be so worked up over something fun like a board game!

it's one of their numerous charms!