Written by Paul Levitz
Illustrated by Daniel HDR and Wayne FaucherA jam-packed extravaganza! Star Boy returns from the 21st century! Sensor Girl searches for Karate Kid! The team trails the escaped Legion of Super-Villains! And Saturn Girl seeks Harmonia Li’s blood–and the reason why will shock you!
Take a look behind the cut for some thoughts on the issue.
When the Legion got their new ongoing last year, it spun directly out of the fantastic groundwork laid by Geoff Johns, who was writing literally at the top of his game. In it, he managed to not only restore the Legion to the DCU but also bring them to a place of prominence with one of the best Final Crisis tie-ins available. While Johns quickly exited Adventure Comics in favor of the Flash, it was assumed that putting the Legion in the hands of someone who had an incredibly defining role in their history since the 80’s would be just what the doctor ordered. However, almost a full year into the storyline now, and Levitz’s slowburn storytelling is beginning to wear a little thin.
To be quite frank, the Legion has never been a series that had huge explosions and “universe altering events!” contained with every five issues. The Legion has always been about gradual storytelling that leads to bigger pay-offs, and you’ll find that most people familiar with the Legion will often agree to that principle. The fact that Levitz’s run is only just now getting to it’s first major/memorable villain isn’t inherently a surprise, but what is unfortunate about the title is the way that it’s getting there. When the Legion began, Levitz initially had interwoven several smaller stories that would assumedly have a pay-off, including the one we’re seeing dealt with in part of this issue and will definitely see more of in the next. The problem here though is that despite these different storylines, many seem to be ostensibly forgotten. Mon-El became the new Green Lantern and leader of the Legion, yet he’s only in this issue for one deprecating page to let the reader know he’s not up for the job (despite the overwhelming vote of confidence from the fans and characters). Meanwhile Earth Man is nowhere to be found, and we spend our issue focused on Timber Wolf in what seems to be recurring issue idea of the series: pick a Legion character, put him against a villain, rinse, repeat. And in all honesty, in a title that promised something similar to the Great Darkness Saga is coming back in earlier issues, it’s getting a tad boring.
Levitz doesn’t have an easy task here. The Legion has a huge cast, and he’s writing them between two titles (although the second is really about new characters). The inherent issue here, though, is that where other books with large casts attempt to boil it down to a core team that includes characters that hop in for arcs, Levitz has refused to really pick any core group and tell a story with just them. While initially the idea of scattered storytelling worked, almost a year into the tale and it’s beginning to get too scattered for comfort. While the Legion hasn’t ostensibly had a core team for quite some time, it would be nice to see at least Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl working together again. This is the Legion of Super Heroes after all, and the further and further we get into the title the less the group seems to be a group at all, but rather a disjointed cluster of heroes who have a Durlan problem.
Continued belowI’d also feel a little off if I didn’t at least mention that the changed cover and the inherent differences in plot from the solicit don’t bother me as a reader (although not strictly as a reviewer). To be perfectly honest, #11 was going to be the make or break issue for me, because I’ve been patiently waiting for Starman to return since the title launched. He was last seen in Adventure comics in a back-up, but to a) see him just randomly appear knocked out and in trouble in this issue and b) have his cover taken away is fairly disappointing. This pretty much ties into the previously stated reasons of annoyance at this title, in that it can not pick a central focal point of a story to tell with characters. We initially buy a title for varied reasons, but we ultimately always stay because we find the characters endearing and their plight enduring. If I can’t even get a single story that gives more than three pages to my favorite character, what am I doing here?
Despite all this, Daniel HDR did a pretty great job with the art. HDR has a difficult task illustrating the title due to it’s wide cast and visual scope, but he manages to handle it rather well as we hop between plot points. The story becomes a little bit muddy during the big fight at the end, but even then HDR manages to draw in some powerful moments for Timber, such as his triumphant “I’m human!” cry in the middle of an inferno. HDR manages to work well with Levitz’s madness of plot, and despite any issues with the writing that there may be, there’s no way that anyone could say this is a bad book visually. Even paired against a talent like Phil Jimenez over in Adventure Comics, HDR still manages to show he can hold his own artistically in the main Legion talent, and for that we’re thankful.
While Levitz has introduced a focal point with the Legion of Super Villains, it almost feels a tad too little to late, and while on the one hand I’m certainly interested to see what comes next as a fan of the Legion, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to create rationale for buying what is admittedly a low tier book in my buy pile. There is something to be said for character and writer loyalty, and as someone who has enjoyed past Legion stories well after their time, it’s a tad disheartening to see that with Levitz back in comics he can’t deliver the same kind of story that he once could. As far as my pull goes, the Legion is definitely on tenuous grounds, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t crossing my fingers fairly hard in hopes that title is good soon.
Final Verdict: 6.4 – Browse
