Week of 26 December 2012

I didn't see any LSH conten t in DC comics this week. Of course, the local comic store wasn't open, so that may have something to do with it.

In the spirit of the season, here's a shot of Supergirl reminding the adult Legionnaires of their identities. Supergirl was a little brat sometimes.

Week of 19 December 2012

Legion comics this week:

Legion of Super-Heroes #15 (2013/02)

The coolest part of this issue, from a drooling fanboy perspective, was getting to see the monitor board symbols for three of the four newest Legionnaires (albeit backwards). Chemical Kid's is a chemistry beaker. Dragonwing's is a...dragon's wing. And Harmonia's is the Chinese characters for "Harmony." Pretty cool, eh? (See addendum below.)

Oh, and the story is pretty good too. Some being of great power has an interest in Glorith, and there's a time storm...and some purplish-pinkish radiance...looks awfully Time Trapper-ish to me. (but maybe that's what we're supposed to think).

Salu seems to be rather bitchy to Reep -- maybe she still has a bug up her butt about Durlans.

(There's an interesting bit of reverse parallelism that I never really caught before. Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet have powers that are opposite one another. And Gim loves Yera, while Vi hates her.) (Or did Vi and Yera have a tearful reconciliation? That was in the Giffbaum Legion, wasn't it? I must be getting old...)

ADDENDUM:

Once I looked back, I saw that we've been shown the symbols for the four newbies before. In addition to the ones mentions, Glorith's symbol is a tree.

There's also been a change in Comet Queen's symbol -- or maybe this is Chronicler's Error. In the old days, her symbol was a swooping comet; now it's an Interlac capital C. The Interlac letter also appears as a a chest emblem on her costume. I'm going to choose to interpret this as a function of her psychological rebirth, a deliberate choice to recognize that she's not exactly the person she was before.

(Of course, Chemical Kid is a completely different person from Chemical King, but the same symbol is used for both. I don't think there are hard-and-fast rules about these symbols.)

Week of 12 December 2012

Legion comics this week:

 Legion Lost 15 (2013/02)

Wow. This comic wasn't half bad. The author actually made the effort to tell readers who all these people are and what's going on...which improved the story tremendously.

All this time, I've been thinking of Legion Lost as a comic about the Legion, and I've been disappointed with the title. This issue makes clear, in a way I hadn't caught before, that Legion Lost is really about this group called the Ravagers, who I assume have their own book. There's all kinds of backstory going on with these characters and their relationship to Superboy and to this Harvest dude.

All very well and good, except I don't care about the Ravegers or Superboy or Harvest. And in the process of following their story, the writers have made a hash of the Legion characters and their backstories. Suddenly there's this secret Science Police organization devoted to keeping the time stream safe (whatever that means), and they have their own time bubbles, and various Legionnaires are supposed to be agents of this organization. Suddenly, time travel works with no problem, Legionnaires are keeping deadly secrets from one another and behaving in all kinds of uncharacteristic ways.

Oh, and Wildfire died. Don't worry, he'll get better. After all, Gates and Chameleon Girl died, and they got better. Death isn't the handicap it used to be in the olden days.

On the cover, this is touted as "Wildfire's Last Stand?" and next month we're promised the lost Legionnaires' "Last Stand!" I'm hoping that soon after, we'll see "Last Issue on the Stands!!" (indeed, rumor has it that Legion Lost is on DC's chopping block).

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On a completely different topic, I've started working non a new Legion site. It's very incomplete and not ready for prime time at the moment, but come on over and take a look if you want.