Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion #16 Review (Includes Election SPOILERS!)

Tinya's improved in the current series, as far as I'm concerned. She has something of 3boot Tinya about her - capable, people-person, good at managing situations and taking charge. I really liked her portrayal in Secret Origins; she was bright and mischievous, and didn't have Jo attached to her. So I'm pretty upbeat about her leadership.

This was a good issue, good set-up for the Fatal Five. I liked to see Cham suspicious and second-guessing; that's what an Espionage leader should do. Also interesting is the Harmonia-Brainy relationship, although I got the impression last issue that she was making some sarcastic observation about his deductive abilities.

And Tasmia! Get a grip, girl!

See, that's what makes her unique and attractive to me as a character. The Legion is *loaded* with people who are confrontational, headstrong and 'don't play well with others' (Drake, Dawny, Brainy, some interpretations of Garth, Brin, Shady and Violet), so a character that's actually *nice* and *is* a team player and *doesn't* act like a jerk much of the time is a breath of fresh air.

Plus there's the versimilitude factor. In the last election, there was a huge voter turnout for *Earth-man,* a candidate that few, if any, of the actual Legionnaires wanted even as a teammate, let alone as leader! (I think he was second or third place, in total votes, beating out 20 or so far more beloved Legionnaires!) Tinya at least makes a lick of sense, as she's someone that gets along with everyone, has been a Legionnaire right from the start (being, with Lu, in the '
second wave', right after the Founders), and is also a 'founding' member of the Espionage Squad.

I know that I'm a hopeless dinosaur, but I remember a comic book era in which a jerk like Wolverine wouldn't have been considered a hero, and a standup nice guy like Captain Marvel / Shazam wouldn't have been mockingly called 'Captain Whitebread' by the likes of Guy Gardner.

I love a snarky attitude as much as the next guy, and the sort of behavior you'd see in the movie Heathers, or from Cordelia, in Buffy, amuses me greatly, but these sorts of characters aren't usually the heroes of the tales they appear in, or held up as icons to be respected. They are snarky sidekicks, at best (or, more commonly, rivals to the protagonist). The Legion (and comics in general) has enough slightly bitter 'snark,' and could use a little more old-fashioned earnestness, IMO.

Save the diviseness and the infighting and the snippy comments for the super-villains, whom we would *expect* to have low opinions of even their allies, and to give them voice. Sarya, Tharok and the Persuader would all be great vehicles for this sort of personality, rather than turning once likable Brainic 5 into Vril Dox 2.0, and once 'looking for a home / kinda clingy' Brin Londo into Wolverine 2.0.

Well, all of the current team like her anyway. Back in the Baxter era Dominator story she and Dawnstar had some differences. I loved Dawny, but thought it was great that Tinya called her on her BS attitude.

OK, am I the only one who has NO IDEA what the heck happened in the main action of this issue? In the broad strokes, I get that Validus has somehow been removed from his prison cell. I even why Cham has a hunch that he's gone, given what happened with the Persuader's axe. But when Cham and Vi are in the cell with an apparently extant Validus, just what does Cham do to make the illusion disappear? What made him think that becoming a duplicate Validus would have that effect? If this was one of those times that Cham's "antennae-scanning" abilities revealed a fake, why would he have needed to change himself to break the illusion?

Shouldn't we readers be clued in to what Cham realized that no one else did?

I don't think he needed to be a copy of Validus, that was him being dramatic (and if he were wrong, hopefully confusing the real deal - a la LSH #300). The important part was that he moved through the illusion breaking it up. Theoretically anyone else who was sane wouldn't put themselves in a situation to be seen/crushed by the big guy, so the illusion worked. I would like to know what the illusion was though since it fooled Mon. Was it Tech? Sorcery? The Eye?

I think the point was to provoke "Validus" into attacking him, which the illusory Validus couldn't do. Why discovering that the illusion is an illusion causes it to dissipate, I'm not sure, though....

There was also some tension between her and Vi. The fact that she was sort of the ultimate team player/insider seems to have created tension between her and some of the more confrontational/"outsider" Legionnaires.

"Choose Wisely" -- Hmm. Interesting name for the story. I enjoyed this issue. Kolins best work of his current run. Lots of good character moments, Cham acting recklessly while Vi and Ayla play along. Glad to see Tinya's win. Exactly the result I was hoping for.

So who's the deputy/runner-up?

It doesn't say. No vote counts either, either of reader votes or Legion member votes.

Hm. That's unlike Paul. He usually shows votes as they come in and gives an overall tally. Makes a big deal out of who's deputy, too.

I asked him on Facebook and he could only say it's not possible to publish the totals. I suspect with the readership as low as it is, the overall number of votes may have been a little embarrassing for DC.

Well, that's still no reason to omit who was deputy and/or show the votes in his classic fashion.

As I recall, he didn't show the member votes in the Magic Wars either, so perhaps he intentionally moved away from the style of handling elections.

I suspect that the last election had far more votes than readership so they decided to go to old fashioned snail mail election this time to cut down on perceived ballot box stuffing. I wonder how many votes were cast? Was Tinya the winner of the Legionworld Poll? IIRC she was one of the top vote getters last time.

Phantom Girl easily won the poll here. As opposed to last time, when the election results didn't sync up with the poll here at all.

I wonder if Dirk, Nura, Jan, Brainy, and Lar were actual runners-up in the vote, and that's why they were mentioned as potential candidates in the story. Or maybe not.

Re the poll figures, I think Paul could have circumvented low vote numbers by showing percentages instead of raw totals. We would have had no way of knowing the aboslute number of votes. Also wish he'd shown the Deputy; a lot of the best character moments have been between the Leader and the Deputy.



Even better was Tinya (IIRC) calling out Violet for constantly ragging on Dawny, with something like "I'm not her biggest fan either, but we should work together".



IIRC this was when Violet asked Tinya why she'd invited her over to Tinya's quarters when they'd never been particularly close friends, but I don't recall any more tension after that.

Heh--considering they were both longtime members of the Espionage Squad and how potentially stressful such missions probably were, there could exist a multitude of "classified" personal conflicts between the two.

Legion memorial statues are bronze? Weren't they always gold? Even Proty got a gold statue...

I want to know how PG won when she implied early in the story she didn't want the job. Why would she even run?

Write-in votes are apparently fairly common. Didn't Element Lad win the first time without running?

I remember Saturn Girl winning without anybody actually voting (at least not of their own free will!)

The second time she won a contest devised by Chameleon Boy's pet!

Regarding Validus, haven't we seen instances in the past of him being calmed by an image of himself, or a giant rattle, or somesuch? I agree the clue for Reep was seeing how Validus continued to rage even after faced with something that should have given him pause. The image faded simply because Reep no longer believed in the illusion. That also helps explain how Mon was fooled. He saw Validus because he believed that's what he saw.

It seems likely that faux Validus was an illusion created by the Eye. What's more, if my leading WTF cover theory of Brainy being the new Tharok does not hold, it's also possible Jekkie could be the new Emperess.

Yes, Element Lad won as a write-in candidate in LSH #306 and thought it was a joke when he was told in the next issue.

I enjoy the way Levitz has plotted out the Election stories over the years. It will be interesting to see how Phantom Girl reacts to the news. Even more interesting is finding out how it impacts her relationship with Ultra Boy.