Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion of Super-Heroes #20 Review (SPOILERS!)

As said by just about everyone above I thought this was the best issue so far of the F5 storyline. We learned a bit more about Tharok's plans - destroy nearly everything and take control of everything else isn't the most sophisticated of plans but at least we know what's what, also that Tharok controls the Universal Quark Wave. I do love gobbledeegook science so that worked. And he was most worried by Tinya? Good oh! That means we are likely to see her again when she saves the day (hopefully).

Not quite sure why Mysa and Glorith didn't sent Validus to another universe rather than transport Xerox but I guess Mysa did say she didn't have the power to really affect him.

Oh the art was lovely! Oh Francis please return full time to Justice Legion when it starts.

The fifth member- hmmmm either Brainy or Harmonia are the logical options but I hope it's neither.

Still don't like the panel grid that's being used but at least this time we could fully make out what was happening in each one.It was never shown how Harmonia joined the group at Webers World which was a bit weird, unless it was to show her when Brainy was musing about the possible fifth member of course. I've grown quite fond of her tbh so it would besad to see her turn to the dark side if she was the fifth member.

Overall I found this was a very satisfying issue.

If Harmonia is the 5th member of the F5, I really hope we finally get some kind of reaction from other characters which makes sense (eg: more "I KNEW there was something weird about her!" and less "Harmonia! GASP! We trusted you implicitly despite your complicity in the destruction of a planet and general aloofness to the point of being unfriendly! Your betrayal is such a shock to us all!")

Yanno what I mean?

The one thing that bothers me with this issue is the extent the Legion headquarters has been demolished. I had presumed that when the Legion Lost team visited Legion headquarters in Legion Lost #10 that it was a foreshadow of what was coming down the pike in LSH. If so, then I wish Portela would have taken notes on Pete Woods' depiction of headquarter's wreckage. I loved Portela's artful rendering of the destruction, I just wish the two depictions matched better from a continuity standpoint.

This issue also makes me wish DeFalco had let Dawnstar, Wildfire and Gates explore more of the destruction while they were in the 31st century in #10, instead of pulling them back to the 21st century so fast. Maybe they would have seen the remains of Webers World and such to help give more clues for Levitz's intentions with this storyline.

Wouldn't surprise me at all really. Harmonia is one of the reasons I stopped reading Levitz's current run awhile back. I really didn't like her, the mystery surrounding her and her aloofness became slightly irritating. I find Glorith to be a better mystery than her.

Solid issue. My Legion knowledge is limited so has Validus always been portrayed like this? Because I loved how Tharok basically described him as an unstoppable engine of destruction, how Mysa said she couldn't affect him due to the power behind his creation (gotta love Darksied). You got the sense that he was just going to literally tear Sorcerer's World apart if left unchecked.

Portela's art is terrific. Let's hope he does land another prominent DCU gig.

Persuader looks great. Duo Damsel, not so great. If that is her other duplicate, then is she powerless??

Only real nitpick, that's look more Shadow Lass on the cover than Mysa.

As I understand it, he was supposed to be stronger and tougher than Superboy, right from the get-go, and this was back in the day when Superman could push the moon out of orbit, if he wanted.

So it's totally on the spot to have Validus be portrayed as something able to (eventually) beat a planet to death.

On the other hand, he's never been portrayed as immune to magic before, and his 'mental lightning' has typically been portrayed as a deadly psychic attack (which, even when it killed someone, didn't leave their body all battered or bruised), and not something that can knock down buildings or blast holes in the ground, so it seems that some things may be different about this new portrayal.

His lightning has always had physical effects. Most of the damage to the original Legion clubhouse was caused by Validus's lightning.

I'm not sure if he's ever been confronted with magic before, so I don't think it contradicts anything we've seen before to give him some immunity to it, but I don't think it's been previously established.

Of course, like the most of the Fatal Five, he's suffered from serious Villain Decay at times, but the original concept is that he "force personified" and will "obliterate everything in sight" when in a rage.

I would like to see Mano.

Mano can be a force to be reckoned with if written properly.

Mano destroyed his own home planet!

Let's see Mano.

One of the aspects that I'd read of Validus was his almost child-like personality or simple rage, maybe a by-product left over from being changed by Darkseid as a baby. He always seemed like a simpleton in some ways, like DC's future answer to classic Dumb Hulk.

But in this issue, really didn't get that sense of simplicity. Just focused rage which I think works better for him.

Yeah, Manoo could destroy a planet in his own right before now. Powered up like the rest of the Fiver are currently, Mano might even be more scarier.

On some forum arenas, characters like Validus are the reason Pre-Crisis feats are often banned. His original power-level cannot be measured. I am personally confused as to whether or not these characters retain Pre-Crisis power levels, if indeed this is the Legion from the Pre-Crisis era. In theory they should not be at Pre-Crisis levels.

This Fatal Five might have a different origin than the Pre-Crisis ones. It wouldn't be much of a stretch if they were all from the Fourth World. Perhaps Apokolips has fallen under new management?

This title is so up and down....I didn't mind this issue. Tharok's mastery of the quark wave or wtf it is should have been explained previously so it didn't feel like it came out of nowhere so much.

Validus was as undefeatable as I imagine he always should be. I liked this. I also liked Cham's brains, though I am much more a fan of the subtly clever Jo Nah we got 5YL than the dumbass jock we see in this title.

Glorith and Mysa are both outside our universe now....I could care less about Glorith but I hope we get Mysa back some day!

I hope Tinya is the recipient of the "this makes no sense but it completes the story" baton next issue which Paul Levitz is so fond of, just because I would like for her to portray why she has been in existence for over half a century and why she got elected leader in the first place.

I am kind of relieved this title is being cancelled tbh....I get MUCH more enjoyment reading Legion fanfic on this very site than I do reading the title people are paid to create (having said that, I will miss Portela's art a lot!!)

Phantom Girl now takes the prize of most disastrous run as leader away from Polar Boy. Although I guess Kid Quantum from Legion-247 did lose an entire universe, but she saved her Legion.

The more I read of this Legion, the more I miss the 247/Reboot/Zero-Hour Legion.

Well at least THAT's a problem you won't have to put up with much longer.

Re: Validus, long before the Darkseid connection was conceived, he was childlike and peaceful whenever he wasn't being controlled by Tharok. I remember once when Tharok was somehow subdued or knocked out Validus just stopped fighting and casually flew off into space, and whoever present was relieved rather than following him to stop destruction elsewhere.

So is it established yet where this Validus is from? Or if there's a connection to Apokolips at all?

Well, yes and no. He was childlike, but subject to fits of inexplicable destructive rage. Hence the fact that he was considered one of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy and was going to be destroyed in his first appearance.

Well if he were randomly capable of landing on another planet in a brand-new rage, then I guess those Legionnaires who just breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone were being pretty self-centered about it.

But it's not as if they couldn't be dicks in those days.

Was it mentioned where everyone else on Sorcerer's World was? One would think some of the other inhabitants might have helped against Validus.

did Mordru eat everyone else?

Maybe they are all encased in walls like Alan Scott and friends?

It is odd that there aren't a few more sorcerers on Sorcerer's World. There might not be any capable of stopping Validus, but summoning elemental forces to distract him, or creating illusions to mislead him, or just putting up magical barriers that he'll waste time beating down could be enough to buy Mysa time to do something more permanent, like open a portal to DC's equivalent of Hell beneath his feet.

Whatever mysterious means he has of getting from planet to planet might not be as capable of zapping him out of a supernatural dimension (particularly if Tharok and technology are involved).

On the other hand, once alternate dimensions are brought into the mix, we run the risk of another Fatal 500 storyline, and the last time we saw them, it was just in time for a continuity reboot...

Fatal 500? Geez, glad I missed that. Why do they have to overdo things?

Was there at least a Fatal Fifty intermediate step?

You didn't miss much. It was the transitional story between the reboot and threeboot. The Persuader of the reboot universe learned to use his atomic axe to cut through the barrier into parallel earths, and started recruiting duplicates of the Fatal Five from various alternate universes. The Legion recruited the Teen Titans, of all people, to help them. And... er... somehow the whole thing ends with Superboy punching reality and the replacement of the reboot by the threeboot.

I love a good punch to reality.

Yeah, the Fatal 500 storyline made the strange assumption that a random Fatal 5 from another universe would just automatically follow the directions of the Fatal 5 that summoned them to this one, as if they wouldn't be as much colossal ego-maniacs as the originals. (Or, depending on the universe, perhaps even *heroes!*)

Plus the existence of at least dozens of alternate universes which their own almost identical Fatal 5s implies that they each have their own Legions to worry about, and the comic certainly didn't want to open that can of worms and have 500 different Legions show up, as 499 Brainy's figured out how to follow their own Fatal 5s to this one universe...

Still, there was an image of dozens of Emerald Empresses ordering dozens of Emerald Eyes to search for the vanished team that was awesome.

It ended with the 'conga line' and Shikari getting separated and finding her way to the Threeboot and its Legion which was never mentioned again, in the entire Threeboot. Sigh.