Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Let's talk about LSH #11 (potential spoilers aplenty)...

I've got my review up at Legion Abstract .

The thing about Dream Girl. Well it's interesting cause IS Brainy going to save her? Is this a never give up moment? Or is she dead and he is trying to cheat death...which always turns out bad for the character.

I think it's going to turn bad personally. Very mythological and all of that. I mean even IK told him to move on...they had to save other people.

The back up? I don't know I was worried it was going to be preachy. I'm a vocal fan who doesn't agree with everything about this new series. But I guess everyone can take it differently. The kid dropped the comics...it's about the future not the past, etc. Hopefully this mean no more retro comic book stuff. The bad thing about the back up is it reminded too much of the ZH Legion. A bunch of young aliens...look a bit generic. Kinda like the X-Men these days.

Also nice to see Cos maturing. If they destroy the center of public monitoring over underagers (ugh) they alienate the planet. Some things are more important.

Perhaps he also thought about unknown consequences of vast numbers of people coming off the public service - as we saw, there were certainly issues on Naltor. There could be other races or individuals who might suffer ill effects, mental or physical. So best to not throw another variable into the situation.

Dormir could be outside the UP and still sell their communications service. Here they are supposedly leaving because they think it will avoid getting them involved in a war - but (as in our contemporary world) the threat of leaving and bringing down the UP communications system would be one hell of a bargaining chip for whatever they might want. It certainly shows a great vulnerability that the UP has all this equipment on one world.

Same with the public service - it wasn't a shocker to find it on Dormir, but I had sort of envisioned it in some sub-cellar of the Science Police headquarters. (Or maybe Dormir is the central HQ for the SPs - here I am assuming that Earth is their central base.)

Something else else I haven't seen anyone else mention:

Yet another reference to Rokyn this issue, and a clear connection to Krypton alluded to...

Exactly my point - the whole plot wasn't suddenly put on hold because Nura popped her clogs - we saw ramifications, most noticeable Brainy apparently approaching another breakdown as he acts very irrationally (Putting 'out thinking death' ahead of the population of Metropolis!!!) and Invisible Kid showing confidence and foresight enough to get the li'l 'l' legionnaires organised.

Also we were treated to seeing the other teams for a few - very informative- pages each, all of whom had their stories forwarded.

The plot was jam packed - Inklings and Sentient Cloud Lad and the Public Service Mainframe, Lemnos' army waitting to jump through the transmatter gates, Saturn Girl being mute and lost, Ttrxl being an intradimensional source of improbability, nice character moments (IK, Sun Boy, Star Boy etc), Metropolis being smashed by a rampaging thug and more! And all in 22 pages! Wow!

It worked for me rj, worked just fine!

Perhaps he also thought about unknown consequences of vast numbers of people coming off the public service - as we saw, there were certainly issues on Naltor. There could be other races or individuals who might suffer ill effects, mental or physical. So best to not throw another variable into the situation. [/QB][/QUOTE]

actually, on Naltor, the powers that be were preventing the teens from dreaming by sending a signal through the public service. when Brainy put his flight ring on a Naltorian youth(, the kid drifted off into sleep.

if the public service were destroyed other than lots of parents going wtf, there probably wouldn't be any ill effects for the monitored people.

I've always thought it was pretty simpleminded to paint an entire planet with one brush. Talok VIII is entirely desert because the Legion was shown crossing A desert in its first appearance (even though mountains and jungles were also mentioned) Everyone on Thar is short because Polar Boy is short, etc.

I'm fairly certain the UP would not put ALL of its communications tech on one planet or get ALL of its transmatter energy from another. Or that Colu would be known ONLY for force shields and miniaturization. What's Earth known for? Chocolate chip cookies? Come on, this is a highly advanced futuristic multi-species multi-cultural society.

Last month I read the first 10 issues back to back non-stop. It does read better that way.

I'm hoping that the discovery of the home of the public service eventually leads to its demise as well as the demise of the whole "under-agers" plot device. I'd like to think that these legionnaires will age, and that, separated from the rest of the DC universe continuity, they can grow and change relatively naturally -- another reason, IMHO, to have no 20 th century, time-traveling Kryptonians in the Legion. If the public-service/underagers theme is the whole basis for the legion, they're sort of handicapped by their irrelevance as the turn 18.

Waid hinted recently (in the Newsarama interview) that age 18 was not necessarily a firm cut-off point.

"At 18, Earth Standard Measurement, you’re ostensibly an adult under United Planets law and have the option of being taken off the Public Service at that point - or so you’re told." (emphasis mine)

There's probably nothing to stop the U.P. from upping the age of majority whenever it suited their purposes.

Perhaps the legion future is just an example of comparative advantage taken to its logical and/or absurd conclusion. the idea behind comparative advantage is that overall trade is increased if countries specialize in the one or so products that they make best(high quality and low production cost) and then trade for other goods.(more or less, more complete explanations can be found online). anyway the point is that's probably why you have Colu with forcefields, Dormir with communications, etc. Sure the talented beings on those worlds undoable have other skills, but for purposes of trade that's what they are know for.

That's cool - I'm not trying to convince anyone it's a bad story. Just saying that it's not completely unreasonable to say the story's moving a little slowly.

I'm compelled to add that I don't think there's anything here that points to Brainy heading toward a breakdown. Someone he cared about, quite possibly the first person he's cared about other than his mother, is dead. Well, dead-ish anyway. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have handled it that well.

So with respect to the death of a Legionnaire, the major cliffhanger from last issue, the topic that dominated discussion of the last issue, the topic of the cover of this issue, the only plot advancement we saw in 30 pages was "Brainy is sad." Not exactly a breakneck pace there.

With respect to the rest, Cos's team did accomplish their mission (and that sub-plot contained the sentient abstractions and Public Service Central), in 7 1/2 pages. I noted that in my post as well. Lemnos' army has been poised for invasion ever since Brin went through the gate months ago - no advancement there. Metropolis was being smashed last issue - no change there. Saturn Girl did get seperated from the group, but I'm not sure she's lost exactly. Most of that was the team being disoriented and fighting the local guardian. We passed some time, but I'm not sure the plot (a causal series of events) was advanced much in relation to the frame count.

I'm tempted to scan the book, edit out the stuff that I think is filler, and see how much of the content is actually missing from the story. Might make a fun weekend project.

Anyway, defense of my post aside, I do like the book. I'm certainly not saying otherwise. Just that it does feel like we're just getting dribs and drabs every 30 days. This arc, for whatever reason, doesn't have nearly the pace of what I consider classic Waid - his Flash arc (one of my all time favorites), his first Legion re-boot (it was good early on), that JLA mini-comic he did that was distributed in the Cinnamon Mini-Buns cereal box several years ago (a complete and enjoyable story in what - 8 2-inch x 3-inch pages?). It's not even moving as quickly as Hunter-Killer is.

In closing, your honor, I like the book, I just want it to move a little faster.

Then those rumours are true - Dream Girl is definitely no more?

Perhaps it's the Appletinis talking, *hic* but those 3 kids with "Elastic Lad" in the last page of the back up looked suspiciously like Sugar & Spike and Prez! Anybody else see it?

Oh, and Hate Face is on p5 panel 3! *hic*

Harbinger,

One of my favorite post about the issue so far. It is a totally new Legion, but can be plan on Brainy going Zany again? Come on, most genius type people are a bit looney anyways! And the final page (1st story) was one of my favorite from the book!

LLD (Long Live Dreamer!)

LLLater!

Chad

IIRC it's been mentioned before (I'm thinking Invasion, plus most Post-Crisis depictions of Krypton and Daxam) that Earth is unusually diverse compared to many other planets, in terms of its environments, societies, superpowers, etc. Plus, if something like Valor's world-seeding is still in effect, then you've got lots of planets developing over a thousand-year stretch from a relatively small number of human colonists. Lastly, many of the Legionverse cultures are currently in a conformist phase, which probably lends itself to specialization on a planetary scale--all the folks on one planet working in a few culturally-approved industries.

So while it's certainly true that such monocultures look weird from our point of view, they may not be that unbelievable within the known DCU.

I do agree that Colu in particular would be an exception, though...they really should be known for practically everything. Trillions of people, each supposedly as smart as Earth, and apparently all interested in R&D? Colu should be the biggest economic juggernaut in the multiverse. Unless, that is, they have insanely restrictive trade laws--which seems likely, don't give the apes tech they can't handle and that sort of thing.

[/qb][/QUOTE]Dormir could be outside the UP and still sell their communications service. Here they are supposedly leaving because they think it will avoid getting them involved in a war - but (as in our contemporary world) the threat of leaving and bringing down the UP communications system would be one hell of a bargaining chip for whatever they might want. It certainly shows a great vulnerability that the UP has all this equipment on one world.

Same with the public service - it wasn't a shocker to find it on Dormir, but I had sort of envisioned it in some sub-cellar of the Science Police headquarters. (Or maybe Dormir is the central HQ for the SPs - here I am assuming that Earth is their central base.) [/QB][/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply! That all makes sense to me. Still, I think Dormir, as the communications hub of the UP, would be a target whether they remained with the UP or not.

It also makes sense that there would be mass turmoil on many worlds if the public service were instantly removed, so Cos did the right thing. I expect the Inklings may become major players in the upcoming (?) battle against Lemnos.

I wonder if Dreamy comes back if Dormir will be involved? Dream Girl/Dormir(sleep)? hmmm? Maybe one of those sentient energy things possess/inhabit her.

Also a nice place for Quislet to be from.

Zombie Nura? Or is Nura the new Jarth/Proty-Garth? Ewww...curious connection, though, Dormir and Dreaming.

Maybe the monoculture portrayal is just the sort of shorthand we tend to use today - like Saudi Arabia is known for its oil, Florida for oranges... if you live there (or think about it), there's a lot more going on, but the place gets branded with its chief or most visible export/economic activity.

Colu has had the consistently most narrow-minded depiction of any world in comics, IMO. It's always been science science science. Even the warrior Khunds had dancing girls for a bit of variety.

That certainly makes sense, and it makes me wonder why Lemnos didn't target Dormir first. Except for the fact that we don't have a Dormirian Legionnaire - maybe he's specifically going after Legionnaires' worlds, which might be a good comic book strategy but seems to be a questionable real war strategy. (We don't know if Colu is still down for the count, or if they're back on their nimble little synapses and ready to help out the defense.)

I don't mind the planets being portrayed in broad strokes. I mean some variety here or there is nice but lets not complicated things.

If we have different factions, multiple races, in each planet...eh. Some planets like Rimbor are known to have multiple races, etc. That's fine.

And ofcourse I wish we would actually have known races versus all the generic aliens in the background.

But I have a hard enough time with Earth cultures, races, etc. (My arab friend had to explain to me just how many factions there are in the middle east. Every kind of combination possible...confusing)

Hopefully we'll see Lyle in a leadership type role, organising the l'il L legionnaires against Elysian next issue. When I think about it all he would have to do is fly at Ely at full speed while invisible, lamp him one across the head and he saves Metropolis - how could the rest of the team deny him his worth after that?

Maybe we should think of Dormir (and Ttrxl) as the Switzerland of the U.P. By seceding from the U.P., they not only declare their neutrality but indicate that their services are available to both sides. Communications and transportation are presumably as critical to Lemnos as they are to the U.P. and it would have been very difficult even for Lemnos to replicate their unique technologies, so he let them be (with the intention of conquering them later).

Just a theory.