Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion Of Super-Heroes #3 (2020) - SPOILERS

It looks as though issue three's release date has been pushed to a week later now, January 15, 2020.

*groan*


https://www.dccomics.com/comics/legion-of-super-heroes-2019/legion-of-super-heroes-3

Not unexpected with the last issue delayed.

Hopefully they'll be able to get #4 out on time.

Ugh.

Worth the wait for me. Not too much Damien, lots of action and a visual delight. Tasmia has a new love interest (!). A bit of insight into Planet Gotham.

This issue kept the story going. It will be interesting next issue to see what the real reason was for recruiting Superboy to join the Legion. I felt bad along with Jon that Robin was not allowed to stay or remember his time with the Legion. Why is Superboy ok to be in the future but Robin is not.

Interesting twist with Shady and Cosmic Boy being a couple.

As a long-time Legion fan, I like seeing the exposition and world-building.


If I were a new reader who picked up this issue because I liked Robin, I would feel kind of misled. It's sort of like back when Marvel would put Wolverine on covers just to increase sales.

Finally, the orientation presentation next issue. I cheered when Garth told Jon, "We've been BEGGING you to see it."

Jon's reaction to the Legion's reaction to Damian was realistic. If I were his age, I would feel that way too. Heck, even now sometimes I feel that way.

The most well done part, IMO, was the dialogue on Rimbor with Shady telling Cos to just tell them what to do. And finding out they are a couple. Why not? No Lydda, instead Tasmia. Sure. This Tasmia has shades (heh) of her predecessors, the directness of the Threeboot version especially.

Still annoyed at everyone constantly interrupting each other. Sometimes it seems like they aren't having one conversation. I hate that in real life, I especially hate it in written work.

Those annoying interruptions cut off things like Mon-El's relationship to Superboy.

Also didn't like that Shadow Lass and Triplicate Girl didn't get to do anything, nor did we get to see their powers in action. Dawnstar and Cham also didn't, but at least we learned a bit more about them. Well, Dawny mostly. With Cham we just know he's a shapeshifter and has some Earth-history knowledge and a bit of a sense of humor, apparently. The whole fight on Rimbor was ended by Mon and Mysa!

So Element Lad. Was told not to transmute anything... was he gonna transmute Daddy Nah into helium or something? Does this Legion not have a no-kill code? Doomsday Clock implied they do...

More crowd scenes, more Legionnaires piling on top of one another and not really doing anything. Fine, I will be patient.

Damian felt more like a plot device, though at least he got in a few good lines. Like commenting on how the 30th century could reform its justice system...

Also, Mordru seeing through Imra's telepathic trickery was good. Made him more formidable.

Lastly - yeah, this Imra has almost no telepathic scruples at all. Not much anyway. Neither does this Legion, apparently. Will be interesting to see where this goes. Sometimes I forget Bendis has extensive experience writing telepaths (the X-Men are full of them!) so it's not hard to see why he's got a handle on Imra's powers so well.

Oh, and Cos is elected leader. But Imra and especially Garth seem to take charge a lot.

I REALLY REALLY WANT TO SEE THAT ORIENTATION PRESENTATION ALREADY.

So, random thoughts.

I got the cover without the batarang on it, with just the Legion (and Jon) flying at the camera, and that lovely Cheung art.

The cover artist(s) drew Imra a bit more traditionally busty than Sook does inside the book, and thanks to her asymmetrical costume which accentuates her left breast and slims her right breast, she looks a bit lopsided.

Page 1; Dawnstar has a last name, it's B O L O G N A! No? Gr'ell, in a really strange homage to her creator? Kay. Krypton beat you to it by naming Superman's grandpa 'Seg-El' after Jerry Siegel, which actually sounds way more appropriate for the character in question..

Someone on CBR translated the Interlac, so I don't have to;


Page 2; Jo and his 'father one' are definitely browner than expected. That's kind of cool.

Page 5; Dawnstar 'Gr'ell' says 'Holy !@#!@!" at the same time Damien does. I guess that swear word remains the same, 1000 years later, since it's bleeped out and not grife or sprock. Also indicative of how very different she is in this new continuity. That's hardly anything Dawnstar would say in her previous haughty-formal speech patterns.

Page 6; I'm torn on the wings. A) They look neat, and I love energy wings (ever since Firehawk at DC or Songbird at Marvel), and they promise to look *way* better on the big screen, if ever this were to be adapted to live-action, since feathers CGI sucks bigtime, even when you're Peter Jackson and have dumptrucks full of money to make CGI giant eagles, B) but, but, BUT! those angelic white feathered wings are so iconic and majestic and awe-inspiring! Wah!

Page 8; Colossal Boy hasn't settled on 'that' name? Reminds me of the Threeboot, when he was Micro Lad...
Mysa's speech is also very casual, compared to her other incarnation.
Tasmia is take charge and has no patience for this !@!#@! I like!
Mon-El's 'this is the first I've heard of it' is amusingly pointed for readers used to him being the one dating Tasmia (even if that may never have happened in this continuity, making it a kind of meta joke).

Page 12; Colossal Boy has freckles! What, I said they were 'random thoughts!'
Two separate panels it seems really clear that *Jo* was the one who erected the greenish force bubble around the team, holding the Rimborians back. That's certainly a new application of ultra-energy we haven't seen before. Nor was 'ultra-shields' mentioned in his Frizzy Tag thingie last issue (or on page 8), that I recall... Weird. Maybe an artist / writer miscommunication, and it was supposed to be Mysa putting up the shield? Maybe a writer / letterer miscommunication and Bendis having the (admittedly cool) notion that Jo can shift his ultra-energy into stunts other than 'stuff Superboy can already do', but then forgot to tell his letterer to put 'And does other stuff with ultra-energy' in his Frizzy Tag on page 8 (and yesterissue)?

Page 14; Mon-El takes out the trash, like the man of the house he is! Actually, no, he just takes out the one big dude. *Mysa* is the man of the house, and cleans up *everyone else.*
Qrot is the new sprock, apparently, which is new slang and doesn't need to be !@#!@!
Mysa again with the weird speech. 'Settle down, you're just knocking yourselves about.' What a strange phrasing. Is she an elderly Canadian? It sounds archaic *to me!*
Rokk kinda sucks at this leader thing. "What do we do! Wah!" Tasmia needs to take charge! Or Mon-El. Or Mysa!

Page 26; Brainy is making big handcuff things out of force fields and using them to restrain General Nah. Neat. And yet, if both Brainy *and* Jo, at the minimum, can make stuff out of solid force energy, what's Gold Lantern gonna do? They drank his milkshake, and he just got here!
And Brainy's force-constructs blink out when he goes nappy. That's a design flaw, Querl!

Page 27; And now I can't not see a very faint resemblance between this Mon-El and the actor who plays Mon-El on Supergirl... Argh!
"He's actually your..." What? Clone? Descendant forty generations removed? Father's brother's cousin's friend's ex-college roommate? Double argh, and no smiley this time!

Page 30; Enh. Damian had a bad rep in the future. Big whoop. He's got a bad rep *in the present* too, and he hasn't even taken his grand-dad's role as the Demon's Head, master of the League, yet! Much ado about nothing I care about.

Thoughts:

--Not a fan of giving Dawnstar a cheesy last name. Also, not a fan of the modern Starhaven origin either. I did like the line "from somewhat close to that era" though.
--I thought at first Crav was supposed to be wearing a version of Ultra Boy's symbol on his belt, but later panels look less like it.
--I wish the other Rimborian characters had been given names.
--The main gist of the Damien's appearnce seems to be the revelation that the Legion intends to change the past somehow.
--"Loveball" was slightly amusing.
--Gim's freckles deserve their own thread.
--Dini City is a cool homage.
--The whole Imra-Mordru sequence was fantastic!
--Wildfire being put to sleep still seems *very* wrong, no matter how many times they do it.
--So it's strongly implied that Mon-El is Superboy's descendant. Also, he apparently looks like a 21st century actor?
--"Qrot" is apparently our new 31st century slang word.

Overall, this issue was a step up from the previous issue, which was a step up from the first issue, which was a step up from the Millennium issues. I'm not exactly loving the new series, and I'm definitely not a fan of the dialogue, but I'm still onboard.

Not a bad 3rd issue I must say! Yes the story is a bit "all over the place", but this is typical Bendis story-telling style, so I'm willing to wait and see how he pulls it all together.

I like Gim's (I'm assuming that's his real name in this version of the book) comment about not settling on the name ….. Leviathan anybody??

The thing that stands out to me is how young and slightly inexperienced Bendis' writing of the Legion is. Was this his intention? Either way I think I like it, in that it suits this iteration of the Legion. They seem not quite sure of themselves sometimes, opinionated, passionate … reckless even. And I don't think they have mastered the art of working in unison yet. All of this gives the reader the sense that they are "new" in their roles as representatives of their planets that have come together in this group to try and work together for a greater good. Hey and who knows, it might make sense that not all of them will have the ability to function in a group setting after all, as these new Legion stories unfold.

Anyways, I'm enjoying it so far, and I cannot wait for the next issue! " ... The end of the Legion..." , hmmmm, sounds exciting!

Black Lightning, oops I mean "Lightning Lad" still looks wrong to me, sorry. And that different colour eye thing he has going on is just plain weird.

Seriously, of all the random cool details to bring back:

I had forgotten that he had the freckles in his first appearance! Good catch!

Very true. This exciting thing was happening to him and he wanted to share it with his best friend and introduce him to all his new friends, and they reject his best friend? Not a good way to start a relationship.
Well written, and it is good to see that all the emphasis on the Presentation seems to actually have some important reasoning behind it.

Yeah I got that vibe as well. It seems that there is more to bringing Superboy to the future than just being fans.

Yes they do not seem to be the accomplished and capable heroes we have come to expect, at least not yet. It seems in movies and TV and any kind of retelling/reboot these days the creators like to tell the story of the journey their characters went on to become the heroes we know them as, and when some fans complain of them being different they miss that the writers mean them to be different because they haven't reached that mark yet. I'm enjoying seeing how this plays out.

Kidnapping a planetary leader who is apparently a member of the United Planets does not seem to be a good way to establish yourselves as the heroes of the galaxy. Is Bendis setting us up for a Legion that seems to start where we expected it only to have it fall apart and then tell how it comes together?

D'oh! I never noticed that about Seg-El! I feel like a dummy now...

Too bad the most interesting thing about Dawnstar was in that interlac text block and we weren't actually shown that about her in the actual story.

I literally just noticed it when writing that post about the hokiness of Dawnstar Gr'ell, and thinking about how dumb it would have been to name a Super-character after Siegel when it hit me, and I slapped myself.

My brilliant insight back in the day was that Seg-El was a lame name, and sounded too much like 'segway' to me.

I wish there was an 'orientation' just for us, even if Jon can't be arsed to view it. *I* want to know more about this era and these people, even if he just wants to flit about the place interrupting people like his adderal wore off and his newest power is 'being a super-spaz'.

Yeah, the "hokey" homages paid to Grell and Dini were a surprise …. but really it is quite endearing if you think about it. I don't mind. It doesn't really affect the character or the story for that matter.
It reminds us that Bendis is as much a fan of the Legion mythology as any of us.

The name homages have been around for years. No different than Christopher Reeve playing a character named Dr. Virgil Swann on Smallville.

That said, I would like to see the orientation, too. Just cut down the story by two pages for a few months and use that space for the orientation.

I'm all for Tuckerization, I'm just not sure why they suddenly decided after more than forty years that Dawnstar needed a surname. Does Blok get one too?

Dini City worked, but Gr'ell... y-yeah

Hehd.

Blok is her surname. Her full name is C'Ndr Blok. She's the daughter of T'Wr and L'Go.

Well this comic picked up the pace. I'm starting to like the shape of this.

Yes, they are clearly young. And learning. I like the tentativeness of them. Imra is, as usual, a step ahead of everyone else.

Is it my imagination or is one of those Rimborians Soultaker? From Doomsday Clock?
I would have loved if the Rimborians had a moment in the issue - or at least names.

I did enjoy Mordru and Father-One.

Considering the homages in this issue, I assume Port Doran is a reference to Colleen Doran.

More please.

No, that's not Soultaker. Not the same costume.

Blok's son will be named Chip. Because he's a Chip off the old Blok.

Obviously

In a bizarre twist, it's actually the Green Lantern Ch'p.