THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #34 (7/10)
"Out of Time Part One of Two"
ROLL CALL:
Cosmic Boy, Lightning Ld, Saturn Girl
CUTE BOYS: Garth, Rokk with his shirt off, ooo baby!
When Earth is destroyed by a black hole, the founding Legionnaires go into the past to enlist the help of the early Doom Patrol. The team returns to the future before Earth is destroyed and, working together with lots of witty banter, eliminate the black hole in time to change the future and spare Earth.
Competent art, nice story, good characterization, plenty of appropriate humor: this one was fun. (And did I mention that Rokk strides around with his shirt off?) All in all, this is an excellent example of a Silver Age story, just written by one of the best of today's writers.
Plus, this is just Part One: Part Two comes next month, teams the Subs and the Inferior Five, and dovetails with this issue to tell the flip side of the story. It should be a real hoot.
BITS OF LEGIONNAIRE BUSINESS:
The original Legion clubhouse, classic costumes, and apparent age of the Legionnaires sets this story sometime in the early years of the Silver Age Legion. I'm not up on my Doom Patrol history, but I think this is early in that group's history as well -- Negative Man is there, and there are only four members.
The Legion's time machine is called a "Time Bubble," not the more recent "Time Sphere." We also see some previously-unshown TARDIS-like features of the Time Bubble, including a basement crammed with machinery. Saturn Girl, in a nice nod to her early science background (she did invent Serum XY-4, after all) says, "The power source and control systems exist in their own quantum space alongside the bubble, connected by a fourth-dimensional portal."
I recall at least one Legion story where Brainiac 5 had a lab aboard a time bubble; now we know where he was hiding it.
This story recalls many of the early Silver Age Legion crossovers: the Legionnaires (usually Cos, Garth, and Imra) bop back and forth to the Silver Age present at will, they are familiar with heroes of the present day, and everyone cooperates in a technobabble solution to a world-destroying problem. Imra even says, of time travel, "We do it all the time. We've got it down to a science."
This is the first story I've seen in a long, long time in which two disparate groups of super-heroes meet without immediately fighting with one another. It's refreshing.
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4 comments:
This story was a little gem -- not earth-shattering, but smart, sweet and perfectly executed.
Plus, I think I prefer the use of hotpants/gym shorts on the guys than the standard bikini trunks. Don't Rokk and Garth look hot in those short-shorts???
I loved the scene where Garth and Imra tease Rokk about the pink fluff--I can't wait to see how the Inferior Five play into the follow up!
I haven't picked up my 'on hold' copy yet, but this review didn't 'spoil' much (that's the mark of good reviewing-- it distills the essence of a work instead of listing by rote its elements; thanks).
I picked up on the "not up on DP history" sentence because the whole reason I checked out this blog is because I'm blogging on DP and discovered that I need to know more than I do about LSH. Since they occupied the old JLA cave between DP and Young Justice the histories of the two groups have already dovetailed slightly. Feel free to check out: http://lgc01dp.blogspot.com/2009/10/dp05-ab-wilderness-years.html
...and you'll find their name in boldface very easily.
And you may want to know that there's a potential time bomb in LSH continuity if any writer/editor ever cared to pick up on it. I found it by accident after someone pointed out a Niles Caulder cameo in a Red Tornado story. It's at:
http://pblfsda.livejournal.com/5770.html
I may have to read into your archives. I've got a lot of catching up to do. Thanks.
pblfsda: Fascinating to get the perspective of a Doom Patrol fan.
It's interesting that in the current (Retro) Legion, Wildfire's containment suit is supposed to be made out of Red Tornado's old body. I never saw any sense in that, but...hmmm...your speculations about Red Tornado and DP nanotech are interesting.
Brainy Pirate: I pretty much agree with you. Except: well, the story WAS (literally) "earth-shattering" -- and then "un-earth-shattering" -- no? :)
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