Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Legionnaires 3 & Cosmic Boy

Legionnaires 3 #1 "Future Shock" Keith Giffen & Mindy Newell, art by Ernie Colon & Karl Kesel, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by John Costanza



The Time Trapper plays chess in his lair with Brainiac, surrounded by frightened and servile minions. The game is interrupted to announce a "guest", who turns out to be the Time Trapper (which we had last seen in a Takron-Galtos cell in the Great Darkness Saga). However, that Trapper was also a minion and faces judgement for his failure to destroy the Legion. The Trapper decides he must gain understanding of the Legion before destroying them and considers it all a great game.

He views their beginnings and considers that Garth Ranzz is the weak point, given his character and episode of mental instability. The Trapper also thinks that the child Graym could be the catalyst for his venture and calls for his finest soldiers.

On Earth, Garth and Rokk are shopping for snacks before they watch a moopsball game.

The Trapper gives orders to his commander and shows the nervous man the skeleton of the previous servant who failed. As Garth and Rokk watch the game and Imra waters plants, someone takes Graym from his crib. Imra walks in to check on the baby, but is knocked unconscious. Graym pinches the Commander's nose, causing him to cry out and alert Garth and Rokk. He calls on his troops to fire before Garth and Rokk find out what's happening. Imra communicates telepathically that she and Graym are all right and organizes an attack. She blasts the troops, Rokk snatches Graym with his magnetism and Garth blasts the soldiers. Rokk notices the symbol on a soldier's uniform is that of the Time Trapper. The three are baffled why they were attacked, but are relieved that Graym is okay.

There's a blast which destroys the troops. As Imra and Garth prepare to leave for Legion HQ, Imra sees that she's holding a doll instead of her child, with a message from the Trapper that any Legion interference will result in Graym's death.

Comments:

This was a lot more interesting than I had recalled. It's the origin of the Time Trapper as a much more deadly and hard to grasp foe; we don't know just who or what the Trapper is at this point. The man we thought was the Trapper turns out to be just another expendable minion. The real Trapper kills with little thought and no emotion, as one might discard a paper towel. He has armies at his disposal and an ability to reach through time and space to not only manipulate events, but to displace people. Everyone around him fears him: unlike the Empress, he doesn't have partners or a group of willing subordinates; he's an absolute despot. Much of the first issue develops this Trapper as a character.

With all that power, what else is there but the challenge and amusement of games​? The Trapper finds a worthy companion in Brainiac for a game of chess but has a taste for a greater challenge: to destroy the Legion. Brute force is not his style, he wants to win the game and chooses the three founders as his opponents, judging Garth to be the weak link.

The founders have retired, but they haven't entirely lost their battle skills. They may be a bit naive to think that old foes wouldn't come after them, since they Ranzz household doesn't appear to have any particular level of security. Imra, however, is alert and doesn't walk blindly into the nursery as the Trapper's Commander kidnaps Graym; she fakes unconsciousness. As an active Legionnaire, she might have been quicker and more suspicious, able to immobilize the Commander before he grabs the kid. Nevertheless, the three manage to disrupt the kidnapping enough that the Trapper himself must reach through time to grab the kid as his troops call for help. The reader is as surprised as the former Legionnaires that Graym has been taken; up until the last page, we think they've foiled the attack and the story will simply be about dealing with the threat of the Time Trapper. The kidnapping raises the stakes considerably for the three and the warning that they may not call on the Legion for help makes the game that much more dangerous.

Legionnaires 3 1
I was a little surprised at how early this was published. The final issues of Crisis were coming out, but I had it as being closer to legends. Possibly that some of the plot threads would lead into the Pocket Superboy story or the Cosmic Boy mini.

The opening page = 2001
Page three = Return of the Jedi

A purple robed figure going to meet a purple robed figure seems needlessly confusing. But it makes sense when one of them is revealed to be a Controller. He was one of those revealed to be the Time Trapper in an earlier appearance. This series sets its stall out early by showing us that previous Trappers may not be who they said they were. Like Glorith before him, Controller-Trapper is killed by the real one.

Now Controllers do have significant powers. But I think Darkseid drained away the power of this one. The “real” Trapper mentions saving the Controller during the destruction of Takron Galtos in the Crisis. It’s a shame we didn’t see a hint of that in the regular series.

More new things are that the Trapper operates from a supervillain HQ in the future. His underlings come from all eras and he uses some of his spare time to play chess with Brainiac. I wonder if these things turn up in the Pocket Superboy story.

Having dispatched the Controller, the Trapper decides to continue his game against the Legion. Mainly because they don’t fear him.

We’re just over six pages into the story. If you follow the Legion you might recognise the main characters so far. If not, then I guess they hope the mystery will be worth the wait. When it came to v4, editor Mark Waid insisted that an introductory page was added. He probably read this and decided a bit more accessibility was required. The Trapper is a lot closer to his Silver and Bronze Age roots than the abstract force shown later in v3. He’s more a meddling villain than a force at the end of time.

Yet he does wonder why he’s obsessed with the Legion. The Trapper reveals that the Legion have an “ultimate destiny” even if the Events leading up to it are lost. That’s just the sort of thing that gave the JLA the Weapons Master as a foe. There’s the obsession with the Legion, and his review of the founders. Just the sort of gap that could allow Cosmic Boy to become the Trapper.

Except the Trapper here is quite self-aware, and is much more of a standard villain schemer. There doesn’t seem to be room in his dialogue, or more importantly shown thought bubbles, that suggest a dark secret behind the cowl.

The Trapper plays by rules that he seems to have made up himself. I suppose it’s a way of not killing the Legion off before they were born and that kind of thing. The Authority touched on this briefly, although even it back away quickly.

The Trappers’ review of the Legion’s origins (Mindy Newell’s text piece pulls together all the retcons and adds some detail to it) leads him to the conclusion that Lightning Lad is their weak link. Further, that he can be broken by targeting his child. Garth did struggle under the strain of leadership. He did have to go through the Moby Dick of Space story. If anyone’s listing unlucky Legionnaires, his name comes up.

But this story takes this a lot further, in a leap that reminds me of the Proty/Garth plot (that Giffen was also involved in). There’s a very strong suggestion that Garth effectively committed suicide, when he was blasted by the freeze ray. That his heroism masked a deeply troubled young man.

There are parallels with various Luck Lords stories and with Darkseid’s curse here. The Trapper is quite direct. He hires a group of thugs to kidnap the child in the presence of the three Legion founders, who are oddly always in costume. I can only guess that the Trapper wants them to know who’s behind it.

The thugs teleport in, but they aren’t permitted an escape route. They seem to knock out Imra (who didn't detect their very villainous minds in the room) leading to Garth threatening to violate the legion code (twice so the writers can illustrate how fragile he is). Except Imra isn’t knocked out at all, having sensed a trap. So why didn’t she just contact the guys immediately. It only takes a thought. She could have taken out the thugs herself for that matter.

One of the thugs called out the Trapper’s name during the battle, in front of the not-unconscious Imra. If that wasn’t clear enough, they all wear an hourglass patch on their outfits. And not because they’re with the Challengers of the Unknown. If you look closely, each of them has a “If incinerated, please return to the End of Time” label sewn into their outfit.

And incinerated the minions are, in a blast of temporal energy. As Garth reacts angrily to this (his emotions will make him easier to break, the writers are telling us) that energy has had another effect. Imra and Garth’s baby has been replaced by Combat Cheeks!

It’s an oddly shaped issue. The Trapper disposes of his impersonator, although the book doesn’t really bother to link why the Trapper should be a foe to the Legion. Yes, it tidies up a bit of continuity. The reader is pretty much dropped in, expecting to know lots of Legion lore. Without that, the details of the impostor aren’t really important. Yes, it acts as a hook into the Trapper’s next plot. But the story would have been better served with a Time Bubble or an iron curtain of Time in there.

The Trapper doesn’t appear to be much different than the minions he’s had impersonate him down the years. Levitz/ Giffen would offer something different towards the end of v3. Perhaps this series will go towards that. But nothing hints at this from the Trapper’s old school villainy for the sake of it.

With his powers, The Trappers use of thugs seems odd. If they had succeeded in escaping, then the heroes would have had to go on one of them shouting out the Trapper’s name. They were set up to fail, so that the Trapper could replace Graym with Cheeks. So, why not just do that right from the start? How does Darkseid feel about another Ranzz Kidnapping? How will Ambush Bug feel about his sidekick being kidnapped? Why does Lydda dislike Moopsball? Does she dislike Magnoball? Surely not.

There’s a small hint that something drives the Trapper to confront the Legion. If this isn’t picked up on during the story, this will have been a forgettable issue. On the plus side, the dialogue is a strong point, although it reveals too much of what’s going on in the Trapper’s head. Colon’s art gets better with each reread too.

Legionnaires 3 #2 "" Keith Giffen & Mindy Newell, art by Ernie Colon & Karl Kesel, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by John Costanza



Imra stares at Graym's empty crib and contemplates the situation, while Garth puts off a visit from sister Ayla, making her suspicious.

At Metropolis U, Rokk announces that he has to delay his new coaching job for personal reasons.

Imra's Aunt Imra has arrived for a surprise visit, so Garth and Imra escape through a ventilation shaft (?) to meet up with Rokk. They just manage to avoid an encounter with Gim and Yera.

The Trapper, waiting for Garth, Rokk and Imra to arrive, orders his servant Otok to take good care of Graym and keep him quiet. Meanwhile, the three break into Rond Vidar's quarters at the Time Institute and spin him a story about why they need a time bubble. Rond resists, so theyImra knocks him out with a mental blast and Rokk uses a device to impersonate him. The three find Rond's original time cube but are stopped by an SP Officer, who says they must have the Chronarch's approval. Rokk disables the officer and the three steal the time cube.

They find their way to the Trapper's location with his aid to open a gap in the time stream. There, they see the ruins of their Legion HQ, which they understand to be Trapper baiting them. They encounter some troops, fight them but are eventually brought down by nerve gas. The three are transported, unconscious, to the Trapper's lair, where he waits with Graym.

Comments:

It's a caper, so we spend much of the issue getting the players together. And it's Giffen, so there's comedy mixed in with the serious mission to reclaim the stolen child.

I did find the comedy undermined the sense of threat from the Time Trapper. This is more like a kidnapping in a comedy movie - the parents are worried, but the kidnappers and the cops are bumbling and the baby is entirely undisturbed. We've got the goofy assistant Otek, the baby who annoys the Trapper, nosy and overbearing relatives, clueless cops. It wouldn't have been surprising to see a panel with Time Trapper slipping on a banyo peel that Graym dropped.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the issue, keeping in mind that these lighter bits are trademark Giffen. (One of my favourite one-issue characters appeared, Imra's Aunt Imra - a chubby non-stop talker.) As the Trapper prepares to focus his game on Garth alone, the play may take on a deadlier air.

Never had those. I'll have to try to find them.

Agree that this series isn't for the casual Legion reader - that scene with the Controller-Trapper and others with Ayla, Gim & Yera, Rond, the SPs probably wouldn't have much impact.



The costumes were a detail which jarred, since we've seen them in civilian clothes often enough. Maybe it was put in as a silver-age joke?



Angrily, of course. There goes the security deposit on the apartment.



Too boring without minions? Need pawns for chess? If Trapper is into games, I figure he's playing a Minions game within the larger Founders game. (And possibly a separate game with Ambush Bug.)




Worth a read if you find them at a reasonable price.

Legionnaires 3 #3 "And Then There Were Two" by Keith Giffen & Mindy Newell, art by Ernie Colon & Karl Kesel, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by John Costanza



Rokk paces in a cell and talks to himself while Imra sits in silence, unresponsive. He figures out a way to escape and she comes to life.

The Trapper is annoyed by Graym's crying and asks the nanny what happened, then exterminates her.
Rokk pulls a large pile of rock from the cell floor using his magnetic powers. h noise attracts a guard, who Imra blasts mentally. The two escape, but find themselves in a disorienting room, pursued by guards. Rokk pulls the roof down on them.

In Metropolis, Ayla listens to Aunt Imra blather and worries silently about Garth.

Rokk and Imra use an image distorter to hide among the guards, then slip away. Otok runs into them.

The Trapper kills the guard who let Rokk and Imra escape.

Rokk and Imra interrogate a frightened Otok, who offers to serve them. Otok is particularly scared of Imra, who's very much on edge at this point. Rokk thinks about his friendship with Garth and Imra. They come to a door behind which are more guards, so Rokk fashions a metallic beast to attack. The Trapper observes the battle, considering it simply a delay and thinking that Rokk and Imra don't realize it's Garth who's in danger, not Graym.

Otok leads them to the nursery, where Imra disables the guards by having one attack the other. They find Graym safe and sound, watched over by a new nanny. Imra realizes that Garth was the target.

Garth angrily confronts the Trapper, who tells him the game is over and dispatches him into a void.

Comments:
The story is like a video game: there's a quest and our two players overcome various obstacles to advance to their goal. They reach this goal, but it turns out to be a diversion:. They should have suspected that Garth is the Trapper's target, not Graym, or at least considered that something was up with Garth's absence. It's not entirely clear from the dialogue but there's an indication they think that Garth and Graym are together, asking Otok, "Where are they?".

It's not a terribly difficult quest; Rokk and Imra easily overcome guards and diversions. The two work together seamlessly, evidence of their long association. When Imra acts, she acts with considerable force. Her desperation doesn't have to be stated out loud; we feel it from her actions. She's in control, but very much on edge.

Rokk reflects on how important Garth and Imra's friendship is to him, yet oddly never spares a thought for Lydda. My feeling was that nobody knows him as well as Imra (and Garth); this internal dialogue, as well as his exchanges with Imra, make the story much more than just a long fight through assorted guards.

There's less comedy in this issue, but it's not entirely absent: the Scottish nanny, Otok's fear of Imra, Aunt Imra's babbling, the cute little Time Trapper symbol on Graym's crib.

The Trapper's sole form of discipline appears to be death (and fear of death). Minions are easily replaced. We're left wondering just what he has in store for Garth, as Garth falls into that void at the end. Rokk and Imra must wonder as well; the reader knows that Graym was safe and well cared for, but it's a shock to the two ex-Legionnaires. Their part of the story ends on the realization that Garth is the one in trouble: a cliffhanger before the final cliffhanger, since we have no idea what they say or do next.

Legionnaires 3 #4 "" Keith Giffen & Mindy Newell, art by Ernie Colon & Karl Kesel, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by John Costanza



Garth falls through a black void then finds himself being interviewed for a job. He's annoyed that the firm only wants his name, not his qualification, then finds himself shown the door because his presence would endanger other employees. In the waiting room, he finds Starfinger and wonders what's wrong with him. He hears Imra asking if he has another headache. She tells him if he's unhapy with civilian life, he should go back to the Legion. He claims he's trying to find a job since they can't live on their pension forever, then she disappears, with all her possessions. Garth realizes that Imra would not leave him and that someone is messing with his mind. He's thrown into another void, as the Trapper considers that Garth is stronger psychologically than he had thought.

Garth comes to being swallowed by a giant space beast. As he prepares to escape, he sees Mekt and Ayla playing a game. Ayla and Mekt reject and insult him, as they continue to play their game. Garth finds himself in a white void, pleading for help.

Rokk and Imra interrogate the nanny, who doesn't know anything. Rokk is stumped and doesn't know how to find Garth.

Garth is helpless and disoriented, but then hears the Trapper's voice and pulls himself together. The Trapper says he wants Garth's knowledge; Garth wants Graym. Trapper produces the child and taunts Garth about secrets he knows about Graym as well as Garth's parenting skills. The Trapper then makes Graym disappear and tells Garth it's best if Graym be erased from existence and Garth be considered dead to his family and friends - but Garth would remember everything and not die until the Trapper permits it.

Garth awakens again, surrounded by Legionnaires who berate and belittle him as insane. He refuses to accept this and shouts to an unseen Time Trapper that he knows none of this is real and will continue to resist. The Trapper brings him to the moment when his parents are killed and implies that he (the Trapper) was involved. Garth explodes in anger, remembering his parents said he had an inner strength, then finds himself back home with Imra, Graym and Rokk. Garth considers that reality is fragile but love isn't and that he fought the insanity. Rokk affirms that Garth has always had an inner strength. The Time Trapper accepts that time ran out on the game and that he lost.

Comments:

This was a powerful and unusual issue: it was Garth versus the Time Trapper, but more importantly, versus his own fears. It made Garth Ranzz interesting. It also changed him, as HWW likes to emphasize; Garth has finally found a source of stability and strength within himself. It will enable him to weather the storms ahead in 5YL: the return of Garridan, running the Lightning Plantation, the Validus Plague and the rehabilitation of Mekt. I see this issue as a basis for that future storyline.

We don't see any such change in Imra or Rokk; they have endured a harrowing experience, but it's just another mission, albeit with a greater personal element. This is really Garth's story.

How much of it was true? Did Garth really apply for jobs after leaving the Legion and was treated just as a publicity figure? Or was this a manifestation of his financial concerns? We don't know, but it's clearly upsetting to him. Like a bad dream, traumatic elements from his past appear out of context: Starfinger in the waiting room, the space whale with Ayla and Mekt inside.

These aren't sufficient to break him, so the Trapper conjures up reality-changing scenarios, suggesting that the Ranzz parents' death was arranged and that Graym could be wiped out of existence, but only Garth would remember. What more could the Time Trapper do? Garth beat the clock, resisting until the end - although only the Trapper knew how much time was left in the game.

At the time of this story, there was no hint that Rokk would become the Time Trapper, but it's not difficult to see how he could so easily exploit Garth's fears. In a similar vein, it's easy to imagine Proty-Garth's fear being stretched to the breaking point as he anticipates the Trapper's exposure of Proty's body-snatching, which of course never happens - but curious how well this story fits into that future continuity.

Mindy Newell claimed, in The Legion Companion, that she was especially proud of her work on this series. She not only wrote the dialogue, but contributed to the plot. She has reason to be proud. This issue was a forgotten gem for me.

Hoping to get back on board shortly. Real Life Inc. has taken over.

Cosmic Boy #1 - 4 written by Paul Levitz, art by Keith Giffen, Ernie Colon, Bob Smith (#1-3) & Pablo Marcos (#4), letters by John Costanza, colors by Carl Gafford. Covers by Steve Lightle.



Cosmic Boy and Night Girl were seen in LSH #23, borrowing a time bubble to visit the 20th century on vacation. Cosmic Boy #1 opens with Rokk facing an angry crowd alone, fresh from a battle with Brimstone in the pages of Legends. He's rescued by Lydda and, after recovering, the two pursue a variety of adventures and misadaventures, trying to figure out why this 20th century is different from the one Rokk has read about in history texts. People hate superheroes, nuclear weapons have been used and mankind's expansion to other planets is threatened. This time is different from Rokk's personal experience as well; he encounters an adult Superman who has no memory of Rokk or the Legion and was never Superboy.

He and Lydda try to return to the 30th century but can't get past some time barrier. They eventually succeed, after a sympathetic astronaut named Jason Krinnski helped them repair the bubble, only to overshoot the 30th century and wind up facing the Time Trapper at the end of time.

The Trapper gives them one hour to escape; with one minute to spare, they succeed. As they depart, the Trapper laughs as he embarks on "the grandest game of all", with a statue of Superboy and Krypto beside him.

Comments: I avoided dealing with this series so much that I decided to wash the doors in my house rather than sit down and write this summary. This whole pocket-universe/death of Superboy business, which this series is building into, was a storyline I missed at the time, having a new job that involved a lot of travel. When I got back to comic books, I just didn't bother trying to pick up the threads of this event and it's remained a muddle for me ever since. The Cosmic Boy series is further complicated by spinning off from another series, Legends, of which I have only read the summaries on-line.

It may be for these reasons that I found the story boring and repetitive. There's a lot of action that doesn't really advance the story very far; on the other hand, the story was very wordy in places. Generally, I appreciate more text over action scenes, but the text in this case didn't provide any insight into Rokk's character, nor did it develop any world-building (as it often does in the Legion comic).

There's a summary of this series at amazon which reads:

" A beaten and wounded Cosmic Boy is forced to face his sense of self-worth and power as he fights to recover his health even as he tries to overcome despair. But with the help of Night Girl and remembrance of times past, recovery is possible. With it comes the realization that the 20th century history Cosmic Boy has studied in his own era has been tampered with. Is history being changed? Or has everything Cosmic Boy always believed to be true been a deception perpetrated across ten centuries? Cosmic Boy is the story of one man's journey through his soul, and it is created by some of the people who know him best...."

It's as if that's a whole other story than the one I read; it implies a great journey of soul-searching for Rokk. I didn't see it. Unlike Legionnaires 3, in which Garth is put to the test by the Time Trapper and discovers an inner strength, Rokk just figures things out, then decides, rationally, to go for help. It's a much more straightforward and on-the-surface story.

Lydda's along for the ride, although she gripes a lot about how she was going on a vacation and has wound up in a mess. She's capable and helpful, but more of a sidekick than a character of equal standing. She's the main source of the usual comments about how primitive the 20th century is, standard fare for Legion stories taking place in our time.

The two of them looked pretty beat up when we saw them in LSH #36, lying in the Legion medical facility. This story ends with Rokk and Lydda running from the time bubble toward the Legion HQ, apparently nothing more than relieved to be home. Since both stories are written by Levitz and drawn in part by Giffen, I was disappointed that there wasn't more continuity. Well, maybe Rokk and Lydda collapsed once they made it to the front door.

I just realized that Rokk's absence from the Legion went from issue #23 to #36 and I never noticed. Definitely not my favourite character.

I was always kind of interested in chasing down that Cosmic Boy series (mainly for Lydda tbh) but it doesn't sound like I missed much haha...those covers are awesome though! I love the trippy time bubble one

Yes I was a bit disappointed in this one. "Journey through his soul"? Definitely a different story. Not a bad story but not a great one either.

Rokk is certainly confused and disturbed by a past that is so different from what he has studied. He also attempts to act heroically to help "fix" it, at least the space travelling side of it. Much of the 20th Century part revolves around his attempts to help humanity on the path to the stars as he thought they already were. Unfortunately he is in the middle of the Legends event when public opinion had turned against super-heroes so his efforts are met with hostility. He ends up beat up a number of times with Lydda rescuing him and patching him up. The idea of space tech advancement being also attacked is unique to this series. I don't think it was mentioned in any other Legends crossover. It seems the thought behind it was that he was helping his own future come to be. The sympathetic astronaut is implied to be his ancestor.

Although I feel like both Rokk and Lydda act true to their characters the story doesn't really do a lot to explore or deepen them. Challenge them yes especially in the typical super-hero sense. Rokk is shown to be upset that the era he loved so much is "wrong" and it shows him trying to correct it but in character terms there is no change or growth.

In the end the only real point of the series is to let the Legion know that history is different to their understanding and that the Time Trapper is involved, leading directly into the Superman/Superboy crossover.

On a side note I always thought that the Superboy and Krypto "statues" shown at the end were meant to be the actual characters, just appearing very wooden due to the art (not really a fan - the covers are the best part of it) and the limited "screen time" - a single panel with them being subserviant to the Time Trapper and depressed about it. It is certainly not clear and I could well be wrong.

Thanks, Cramey, for, in sports parlance, "taking one for the team." Rokk is not one of my favourites, either. Nor Lydda, quite honestly.

I agree with Raz about those kewl Steve Lightle covers, though.

If there's any one positive that can be taken away from this story, it's the way that it fits so seamlessly with Tom McCraw's notion that Rokk is destined to become the Time Trapper because of his desire to set the past "right."

Should anyone be interested, here's my fan fiction take on the whole Rokk-as-Trapper thing:

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=846711#Post846711

That's possible; the Trapper will put Legionnaires into stasis in the next Legion issue. I just assumed statues because it's sort of a Legion story tradition....




I did find it hard to read this series without thinking that this was Time Trapper Rokk talking to his younger self. I might also have imagined it was Lydda who became the Time Trapper to get back at Rokk for taking her on this crappy vacation.

I always thought it was the actual characters under some sort of hypnotic control/stasis-type thing, but that never really fit the subsequent storyline, so I kind of assumed they changed it. I don't know.

LOL Passive-aggressive much, Lydda dear?

I never thought of that Annfie! Since I bought and read these issues well before buying and reading End of an Era I guess I just dropped back into thinking of him as a separate villain, the embodiment of entropy, more the one who also appeared in Legionnaires 3, will appear in the Superman crossover and the big #50 issue. Thinking about Rokk talking to himself puts a whole different slant on it.

Lydda as the Trapper in revenge for this "vacation"? Ha! Love it.

Cosmic Boy 1-4

When I write reviews, I always try to find something positive to say about the issue or series. A lot of people labored to bring the comic into my hands, so their work should not be treated lightly.

Finding something positive to say about the Cosmic Boy mini-series is a challenge.

While people labored to bring it to fruition, their reasons for doing so appear suspect. This blatant tie-in to Legends, DC’s concurrent mini-series event of the year, leads into another event, the Legion’s Superboy/Superman crossover, which will explain once and for all Superboy’s disappearance from the post-Crisis world. What gets lost in all of this is Cosmic Boy himself, the hero we’re supposed to care about.

Cos never emerged as one of the most popular or best-loved Legionnaires, even though his founder status ensured he always had a prominent place on the team. Cos was the Legion’s first leader, and his power of magnetism makes him one of the most dynamic Legionnaires in battle. However, his personality has suffered from the short-hand devices used by writers to establish character and drama: slapping women around, acting bossy, and being an overall jerk. One wonders why the Legionnaires put up with him. I was hoping his own mini-series would give him a chance to shine, delve into what makes him tick, and show what the Legion sees in him: a stalwart hero, an upstanding guy, the “rock” of the team.

Unfortunately, none of this happens. Rokk and his girlfriend, Lydda, have taken a vacation to earth’s 20th century, but earth history is nothing like he has learned or experienced during the Legion’s frequent time travels. Even Superman doesn’t recognize him or remember the callous trick Rokk played on him, along with Garth and Imra, when they first visited his era, back when Superman was first Superboy. Superman doesn’t remember how that callous trick led a series of initiation tests, which ended with Superboy joining the Legion and serving alongside Cos for many years. Cos and Superboy may never have been close friends, but they were teammates. And now all of that is lost because, in the new history, Superman was never Superboy.

This could be a brilliant setup for a Cosmic Boy mini-series, but it isn’t. The story is weighted down by too many events happening in Legends and elsewhere. G. Gordon Godrey (a guise for Glorious Godfrey, one of Darkseid’s lackeys) constantly appears in newscasts to remind us he turned people against super-heroes, heroes have been outlawed, and most have gone into hiding. The series opens with Cos emerging from a battle with a character called Brimstone (in Legends) only to be attacked by a mob of people who now fear heroes. Shades of X-Men! Cos collapses as Lydda, a.k.a. Night Girl, swoops in to rescue him.

It’s an inauspicious start that does nothing to establish Cosmic Boy as a hero we care about or root for, and the series never gets any better. Cos spends most of the time whining and moping that history isn’t the way he remembers it. He has a mystery to solve, but he never solves it or even comes close. After three issues of bumbling around the past and fighting civilians whom Godfrey has stirred into violent mobs, Cos and Night Girl abscond in their time bubble back to the future. But the future is blocked until Cos realizes he can use his own power and earth’s magnetic field to push through the barrier. The time bubble overshoots the 30th century and they wind up at the end of the time, where they come face to face with the Time Trapper, the Legion’s perennial and, by this time, most boring villain.

By the final issue, the mystery over earth’s changing history and Rokk’s role in solving it has been abandoned in favor of an all-too-typical encounter with a villain who is far too powerful for either of the heroes. It is only because the villain allows them to get away that they do, so there is no victory—earned or otherwise. Yes, Cos buys time by using his magnetism to twist the neck of the Time Trapper’s hourglass, but, since the villain is toying with them all along, it doesn’t matter. I’m not buying the explanation that the Trapper is bound by the rules of the game he devised. He’s gone to great lengths to do a clandestine rewrite of earth’s history. He’s picked an odd time (pun not intended) to develop a code of ethics.

The series is sloppily executed. At one point, Lydda injures her arm and wears a sling, but the sling is absent when she hoists a mechanical something on Page 13 of Issue 3. The sling returns four pages later. The series is drawn out by full-page exposition delivered in the form of newscasts, but little of this information advances the story. Why do we need to know about Captain Boomerang’s rampage? In the fourth issue, the Time Trapper takes over as narrator, reducing the titular hero even further to a guest in his own comic.

The art also appears sloppy, as well as flat and uninspired. I’ve seen much better from both Keith Giffen and Ernie Colon. Only in Issue 4, when Pablo Marcos arrives as inker (I suppose; none of the three artists on each issue are given credit for individual roles) does the art appear dynamic and fresh.

The series really should have been titled Cosmic Boy and Night Girl as Lydda serves as an equal participant. She rescues Cos, gives him someone to talk to, and (in cliché fashion), expresses romantic frustration when he turns his attention away from her and to the mission. I’m all for the underlying message of teamwork; in a series titled after a singular hero, however, I would expect that hero to go it alone at some point, to be challenged on his own, and to rise and meet the occasion. This never happens. It’s not Lydda’s fault. It’s the fault of a writer who can’t be bothered to figure out who his hero really is, what he needs, and what lengths he will go to get it. The event—Legends—is the real star, here.

Cosmic Boy serves as an example of the diminishing returns of franchise expansion. Corporate logic dictates that if fans like something, give them more of it. However, not every hero needs his or her own series. And, if a hero does get his own series, is it too much to ask that the series focus on the hero in question, tell us something new about him, and serve as more than a bridge between events?

Something else else good to say about the series? I could make a quick joke about it lasting only four issues. But I think I’ll just say that it illustrates, in an inverse way, one of the cardinal rules of writing: Less is more.

Blurb writers can put a positive spin on anything! I would like to have read that story.



I saw Lydda as being much more prominent in the story. She's really a mover and shaker, telling Rokk to stop moping, buying plane tickets to Houston, and, when the action shifts to the Time Trapper's lair, she gets more screen time than he does. It almost feels like this should be her series, not his.



Maybe they were in such a hurry that they stumbled into the Legion's security devices.



It bothered me that Rokk never seemed to notice the similarity between Jason Krinnski's name and his own. A wasted opportunity.



Perhaps, but the Trapper remarks that he'd never noticed Night Girl before--an odd comment if she had been his lover for all those years. Even someone as narcissistic as Rokk would not likely forget Lydda.

Priceless.



Gulp.

Weeelllll...he could've been lying when he said he'd never noticed her before, playing one of his typically pointless mind games. Or he's even more of a cad than we readers realized.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

A good review. Your points are well made.

For me I never took much notice of the character until FYL. Whatever else you might think of that period, Rokk really shone. He was an unpowered Braalian, depressed from the war, struggling with PTSD, and yet the way he was written he really did become the rock that the rest of the team formed around. He was no longer an action hero but a strong leader, the type that guides and supports his people but lets them get on with doing the job. Not that he avoided the danger, he was still there at the front with the rest doing what he could, but he knew they were a mature team who didn't need direction so much as deciding what was to be done int eh broad sense. Even when he was kidnapped by Mordru and Glorith it was to remove his influence form the team.

Maybe it was his portrayal there that led to his leadership position in the reboot and threeboot periods. Levitz had made him more an elder statesmen role some issues back when he encouraged Garth and Imra to join him in resigning active membership, but it is really later that he becomes the rock of the team.

All well and good, but I really wish TMK had acknowledged his jerky behavior from the past. Heroes don't have to be perfect, but I think if a creative team is going to emphasize continuity, then they have a responsibility to show them "warts and all," as the saying goes. And Rokk had some hideous warts that no amount of denial could hide.

Fir enough. chrcter cn even be more impressive if their journey from poor to gret is shown. (Sorry suddenly my keybord key for the letter before B hs stopped working. Dmn!)

Thank you.



Well said. I didn't care for Cos's loss of power at the time, but now I understand why Giffen went in that direction. He wanted to emphasize the personalities, not the powers. Rokk was more important to the team for who he was, not what his powers were.



I loved the reboot portrayal of Rokk--the one-time sports champion, who, due to hard times (and being robbed by his manager), must find a new calling. Rokk's sports background made him credible as someone who could lead the Legion. He already knew a lot about teamwork and focusing on a goal. The preboot Rokk never had those qualities, which made his selection as the first leader questionable. (Imra had more impressive credentials.)

Since he was taking to himself at the time, I'll go with the cad explanation.

This portrayal of him was very much emphasized in 5YL and it baffled me. I thought it might be Keith Giffen's personal view of the character.



That's part of what distinguishes this story from Legionnaires 3, that it's tangled with the events of Legends, a bigger story which invades and sometimes sidetracks this one to little purpose.



Hah! True - and also its most confusing villain, now that the Trapper is just entropy... or something. I never understood.



I'll have to revise my evaluation of Lydda's role; I was caught up in the sense that she really didn't sign on for this sort of adventure when she thought they'd be having a vacation, and she seemed a bit gripey about it. But you're quite right that she was the motivator and took many concrete actions to move things along.