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Review: Legion of Super-Heroes #1

By | September 23rd, 2011
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Written by Paul Levitz
Illustrated by Francis Portela

The Legion of Super-Heroes has been decimated by the worst disaster in its history. Now, the students of the Legion Academy must rise to the challenge of helping the team rebuild — but a threat of almost unstoppable power is rising at the edge of Dominator space, and if the new recruits fail, the Legion Espionage Squad may be the first casualties in a war that could split worlds in half!

The other half of the DC Superteam from the future has finally premiered, i.e. the rest of the team that didn’t get thrown to the present day in Legion Lost. Does this book hit all cylinders out of the gate, or does it sputter and fail?

Check behind the cut to find out!

Last week, when David reviewed Legion Lost, he complained about how incomprehensible it was, and quite frankly I agreed. It didn’t come across as new reader friendly, and as a matter of fact, it didn’t particularly come across as veteran reader friendly either. I looked through it about three times trying to figure out who the characters were, which is an annoying feat. And now, in the beginning of this book, we already have the same problem.

This book is exactly the opposite of what was supposed to be a part of the new 52. Instead of ushering in new readers with a new team and a new narrative, this is LITERALLY a continuation of what happened before Flashpoint happened. When David pointed out that it felt like issue #17 of the series and is actually the second issue of a later arc, this book literally IS that, only now there’s an imaginary Doctor Who-style Time Lock that prevents future team ups with Superman (who is a large part of the reason they exist, mind you), and likely only exists to keep the Lost Legionnaires lost.

The fact Levitz is even on this title is confusing. The book wasn’t particularly well-received even by fans before the New 52 relaunch, and to help brining in new readers DC decides to give the same writer a book he wasn’t doing particularly well on anyway. There’s no explanation of why or wherefore, just that it is what it is, and that’s probably the worst part of it all. The plotting of this book just failed on so many levels; the pacing felt off, and it was excessively exposition filled — yet nothing was explained. There wasn’t even a “So hey, this is a recap because we’re continuing the continuity of the series that you most likely didn’t read. Did you want to give it a shot because of the relaunch? WELL TOO DAMN BAD, HAHAHA!” moment. I actually probably would have felt better if they did that, but no, no a recap. That’s what this book needed the most, and it’s a damn shame we didn’t get it.

The saving grace of the book is the art of Francis Portela, but even that wasn’t as good as it should have been. It’s fine in parts, and gorgeous in others, but sometimes the storytelling isn’t up to what it could be. It took two read throughs to realize they had holo-disguises, just because the visuals didn’t accurately portray the change. The designs of the characters seem to be pretty spot on to what they used to be, down to Star Boy’s ever present beard. Everyone looks nice, but this is a comic book. Everyone is supposed to look nice. That’s really nothing special. It’s nice, but not special at all.

In the end, this book is just an impenetrable mess that shouldn’t have happened if DC meant it when they rebooted everything. I don’t see this book continuing for very long without rebooting its continuity entirely. Honestly, I just hope the book lasts long enough to get that Legion ring we were promised a couple months ago. But while we’re waiting for that ring, Levitz just gives us a finger.

Final Verdict: 2.0 – Burn


Gilbert Short

Gilbert Short. The Man. The Myth. The Legend. When he's not reading comic books so you don't have to, he's likely listening to mediocre music or watching excellent television. Passionate about Giants baseball and 49ers football. When he was a kid he wanted to be The Ultimate Warrior. He still kind of does. His favorite character is Superman and he will argue with you about it if you try to convince him otherwise. He also happens to be the head of Social Media Relations, which means you should totally give him a follow onTwitter.

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