Spider-Man: Photo Finish and Matter of State (1979, Tony Ganz and Larry Stewart)

I’d love to know the logic behind the episode arrangement in Photo Finish and Matter of State. Another “Amazing Spider-Man” compilation movie again puts the later episode first; while the series presumably didn’t have much in the way of season-long character arcs, it’s peculiar to see Nicholas Hammond and Ellen Bry’s relationship rewind in the second half. The movie has one an adjoining scene to tie the two together—they got Hammond and Chip Fields back, though not the sets—but the actual adjoining scene would be one explaining why Hammond and Bry went from near onscreen canoodling to asking their friends if the other one likes them in the second half. Well, practically.

The two episodes do share some similar themes. They’re about Peter Parker, News Man, which is how he describes himself throughout Photo Finish. It gets so gendered Robert F. Simon makes sure to explain—in 1979, mind—he supports “newspaper people,” not just news men. Hammond is covering a boring rare coin purchasing story—Geoffrey Lewis is apparently friends with Simon, which is funny on its own—when someone robs Lewis. Besides being about the freedom of the press, Finish and Matter are about how Hammond—despite his very obvious super-strength and accelerated healing powers—can be knocked unconscious like everyone else. Each episode’s plot depends on it. In the first half, I initially thought he was faking. By the second, I realized he gets the invulnerability from the suit.

Speaking of the suit… Hammond spends much of Finish in jail for contempt of court, yet he’s always changing into Spider-Man to bend the bars and go do adventures. Should we be asking where he keeps the suit?

It turns out Hammond’s passively participating in a frame-up—someone took a picture with his camera when he was unconscious, framing Lewis’s ex-wife Jennifer Billingsley for the robbery. The known villains are Kenneth O'Brien and Milt Kogan, playing a TV version of the Enforcers (Kogan’s the Ox, and I suppose O’Brien’s Fancy Dan, but they’d want to change it to make it more Irish). O’Brien plays his part like he’s auditioning for Lucky the Leprechaun’s evil brother.

Can Hammond unravel the mystery while staying ahead of the bad guys—who learn his secret identity (don’t worry, it goes nowhere)—and copper Charles Haid?

Obviously; there’s a whole other episode after the first one.

The second half has Bry in trouble; she snaps a picture of international bad guy Nicolas Coster while he’s doing espionage at the airport. He sends his goons, Michael Santiago and James Lemp, after her to get the camera. Then the film, then the negatives, then they’ve got to go kill her. Coster has to explain things multiple times, but it also pads out the runtime to a full episode.

Otherwise, it’s mostly just Hammond trying to get Simon (and Fields) to agree Bry deserves not to be murdered even if she does work at the rival newspaper. It’s also another episode where Fields and Hammond have much more potential romantic energy than Hammond and Bry, only for Fields to get dumped for the second half. And, given the events of the first episode, it introduces a strange, almost jealous vibe?

There are some great stunts—the finale has Hammond’s stunt man climbing the Empire State Building for an action scene (based on reused stock footage, both episodes also take place mostly around Times Square, Los Angeles County)—and Ganz’s direction of Photo Finish is downright good. Not so for Stewart’s direction on the second half, which struggles towards middling for a late seventies action show.

Lewis is a good guest star in the first half, something the second is sorely missing. The target demographic can’t pay attention long enough for Coster to explain all his international espionage stuff, so instead, it’s Hammond and Bry charmlessly bickering, which you’d also think the target demographic wouldn’t be interested in. Yet. Though trying to imagine what went so wrong between the two episodes for Hammond and Bry to be so awkward after seeing each other naked does keep the neurons firing while the movie’s not encouraging them.

The first half isn’t good but is fine. The second half isn’t fine. They really needed to finish with the better episodes.

But, again, Ganz. Ganz’s direction is excellent. Oh, and Billingsley is often quite good. Something’s very wrong with the editing on her scenes, or maybe they had to do a lot of takes, but she’s better than the show needs. Well, you’d think, but then the second half shows what happens when the show’s in need.

Anyway.

Ship Fields and Hammond. Always.

Spider-Man: Wolfpack and the Kirkwood Haunting (1979, Joseph Manduke and Don McDougall)

Wolfpack and the Kirkwood Haunting once again proves me very wrong in thinking these two-episode compilation movies were the way to watch the old “Amazing Spider-Man” show. However, that revision is less about the narrative packaging this time and more about the show itself. Independently or consecutively, Wolfpack and Kirkwood are stinkers. But the Wolfpack half is at least a fun stinker, whereas Kirkwood is mind-numbingly dull. Except when Spider-Man (Nicholas Hammond or his stunt man) fights a lion, and a bear; oh, my.

Wolfpack also has the much better guest stars. While Gavin O’Herlihy and Will Seltzer are fairly dull as Hammond’s grad school buddies, Allan Arbus plays the villain. He’s a shitty scientist turned middling middle manager who has been overseeing O’Herlihy’s grant from Dolph Sweet’s chemical company. When O’Herlihy accidentally discovers mind control mist, Arbus sees his chance to finally get rich. However, instead of robbing a bank or anything simple, he does things like getting O’Herlihy and his sidekicks to steal a Gutenberg Bible or brainwashing the local military base into helping him pull a heist.

Arbus is phoning it in, but with enough energy it’s fun to watch him seventies camp it in a Spider-Man. Chip Fields has been helping out O’Herlihy and Seltzer—in their unregulated human experimentation trials they’re all obviously doing—so she gets to be in the main plot, and she’s delightful. Even when the scenes are dull exposition full of fake science words for eight-year-old boys who talked their parents into letting them watch prime time, Fields is a delight. Other series regulars Robert F. Simon and Ellen Bry are around a bit—Simon’s a gruff old grandpa in this half, much different than his “We blue bloods need to stick together (with international arms dealers)” in the second. But Wolfpack treats Bry like garbage, as though her agent demanded they shoehorn her in, so her scenes are usually just Hammond telling her to go away because she’s not part of the main cast.

Bry does a little better in the second half (Wolfpack and Kirkwood are compiled in reverse order, presumably because there’s never any character development, so what does it matter). Simon has Hammond go check on his arms dealer friend’s widow, a suffering (the role) but earnest Marlyn Mason, who’s getting shaken down by psychic huckster Peter MacLean. Hammond’s supposed to suss out whether Mason is actually haunted or if it’s fake. Given the first scene with Mason seemingly unintentionally reveals it’s fake—MacLean’s sidekick, Paul Carr, starts the episode (sorry, half) as the medium but then becomes the sound van guy. It’s like no one can see him except MacLean. Wait a second… he’s just walking around like a regular person….

Anyway. Much like there being wild animals all around the mansion who terrorize Bry and Mason at various times but are never a danger to the actual villains, so there are no good comeuppance scenes, Kirkwood misses any opportunities it might (accidentally) have.

Manduke's Wolfpack direction is nothing spectacular, but it’s much better than McDougall’s attempts at sophisticated suspense. Though MacLean’s such a hack, Kirkwood never has a chance. Maybe if he’d brought some Arbus-level scorn to it, but no. Kirkwood tasks MacLean with more than he can handle.

Also, Fields is barely in Kirkwood, which is a bummer. While Bry’s better when she’s not just around for Hammond to clown on, Fields’s the closest thing to a breakout in Spider-Man. She’s at least got a personality.

There are some decent stunts, occasionally solid music from Dana Kaproff (and occasionally not), but Wolfpack and Kirkwood is bland and blah.

The Jericho Mile (1979, Michael Mann)

The Jericho Mile plays a little like a truncated mini-series. The first hour of the film introduces the characters, the ground situation, and does an entire arc for six characters. There’s a minimal subplot about prison psychologist Geoffrey Lewis trying to convince seemingly super-fast-running inmate Peter Strauss to open up in therapy. Lewis then gets the idea to have Strauss run against some college runners; the subplot involves warden Billy Green Bush and track coach Ed Lauter, but it’s all just set up for the second half.

The first hour is all about Strauss and best friend Richard Lawson. Strauss is the quiet, obsessively working out white guy, Lawson’s the affable Black guy. They stay away from the Nazis (Brian Dennehy, Burton Gilliam, and Richard Moll), and they stay away from the Black Liberation Army guys (Roger E. Mosley and Ji-Tu Cumbuka). They’re just friends, and it’s a beautiful arc. Both Lawson and Strauss get epic monologues, with director Mann showcasing the performances. Mile’s technically uneven for a TV movie—there’s clearly different film stock, and the sound’s terrible—but Mann, Strauss, and Lawson were definitely approaching the film as an acting showcase. It’s almost stagy, but never in a bad way, just Mann spotlighting the acting well.

Lawson needs to bump up a visit from his wife and newborn baby, and only Dennehy can get it done, which pisses off Mosley. It feels like a short story, but immediately after, there’s this sports movie about Strauss’s Olympic possibilities uniting the prison behind him. The first hour directly informs the second half—Strauss’s reasons for trying to compete, for example—but there’s also all the ground situation to build on. Mann opens the film with a five-minute montage of life on the prison yard. Mosley’s pumping iron, Dennehy’s holding court, Miguel Pinero and the Mexican gang are playing handball, Lawson and Strauss are running. There’s this great prison newspaper sports page narrative device to kick off Lewis’s interest in Strauss (only not really because Strauss was on his radar already). It goes nowhere in the second half, which is weird, but Mile runs out of track in the third act, so it’s not a surprise….

Anyway.

The wide-reaching character development arcs in the second half all build off material Mann subtly baked into the film. Mile’s exceptionally well-directed. It’s a shame Rexford L. Metz’s photography and, especially, Michael Hilkene and James E. Webb’s sound isn’t better because it ought to be a sublime viewing experience. Mann directs it; budget and circumstance don’t allow it.

The problems all come as the big race approaches. It’s a sports movie, after all, there’s got to be a big race. There are some existing problems, like Bush busting ass as the warden and never being good enough. The part’s written like a reformer with political ambitions, but Bush plays it without motivation and then makes some bombastic choices like he ought to be wearing a novelty hat. In one shot, Lauter appears just as confused by Bush’s behavior as I am.

And some of the performances aren’t as good as the best performances—Strauss and Lawson—but the movie’s all about showcasing those performances. Mosley, Dennehy, and Lewis are all solid as the main supporting players, but their parts are limited. They exist to react to Strauss and other events, to provide fisticuffs to delay the race.

Everything’s going along just fine until they need to resolve Strauss’s therapy arc, which they create right at the end of the second—it’s running and then, wham, great Strauss monologue—and then resolve two or three scenes later after the race. It’s so fast, and there’s none of the promised character development for lifer Strauss going outside the prison. Instead, it’s just the second part of his therapy breakthrough monologue.

It feels like they had three one-hour episodes; they kept the first one, then cut the second two hours down to one. The second act’s bumpy at times too, but Mann nails the sports movie, so it’s okay. But the finale’s just too messy.

Excellent performance from Strauss, a really good one from Lawson. Strauss gets better writing (script credit to Mann and Patrick J. Nolan).

Jimmie Haskell’s music is interesting. About a quarter is great, a quarter is bad, another quarter is just there, and then the rest is Sympathy for the Devil but in a non-copyright violation-y way. The movie’s theme music is Sympathy for the Devil, which is on the nose considering it’s about a sympathetic prison inmate.

Still. Jericho Mile’s beautifully directed, with some phenomenal performances and strong writing.

This post is part of the World Television Day Blogathon hosted by Sally of 18 Cinema Lane.

Dracula (1979, John Badham)

This Dracula adaptation takes place in 1913, which is only important so leading lady Kate Nelligan (battling and sometimes winning her English accent) can be a suffragette, and her beau, Trevor Eve, can drive a motorcar. So there can be a car chase. Or three.

The film begins already in England. A ship is having trouble at sea; the crew is trying to get a wooden crate overboard, but they’re too late, and a wolf attacks them. On land, Nelligan lives with her father, Donald Pleasence, who runs a mental institution. Her sickly friend Jan Francis is staying with them. Nelligan helps out in the institution, where the patients aren’t so much violent as profoundly tragic.

After the boat crashes, Francis goes down to the shore and discovers a lone survivor and apparently the ship’s only passenger, a Transylvanian count. We don’t get to see him for a while; Dracula, down to the John Williams score, is a late seventies studio blockbuster. The height of pre-ILM special effects, many smartly executed composite shots, exquisite matte paintings, and Superman: The Movie moments. Down to Laurence Olivier’s stunt cast as Van Helsing, who isn’t a vampire hunter, just a grieving father. Francis is his daughter, and she’s not long for the world. Or movie.

The film’s first hour is moving the pieces around so Langella and Nelligan can have a romance. They need to overcome hurdles, like her presumed engagement to Eve (apparently, they both were just fooling around) and Langella’s desire to create a vampire army to destroy the humans. Starting with Francis.

But since Nelligan disappears in the second half of the film—she’s the vampire’s victim, the fair maiden the men must protect—the film loses its romance angle. Langella hangs out to menace the good guys, but he also vanishes for a stretch. The third act misses them, particularly Nelligan, who never gets to sit with her burgeoning vampiric attributes.

Instead, it’s all about Olivier, Pleasence, and Eve teaming up, though in stages. Olivier and Pleasence get one set piece, then Olivier gets another, then Eve finally gets to team up for the car chases. Despite the good guy plot being Olivier’s movie, he makes room for his costars. He and Pleasence have a delightful rapport; before Olivier arrives to check on Francis, Pleasence is an absent-minded dad-type. He relies on Nelligan for a lot of the institution work, and he’s settled into fine country living when he’s off the clock. He doesn’t even remember how to help someone choking; it’s been so long since he’s practiced real medicine.

When Olivier arrives, Pleasence becomes his Watson. At least until the third act, when there’s not enough room for Pleasence anymore.

Director Badham is often ostentatious; despite the English shooting locations, Dracula’s very American—just listen to Langella’s accent (or lack thereof). Or, really, Nelligan’s English one. Olivier does a heavy accent, which is fine; his performance just doesn’t have any nuance. He doesn’t need it, I suppose. Francis’s accent’s terrible, though. It always sounds like she’s mumbling.

The film wraps up with a conflicted statement about Nelligan’s agency under the patriarchy—Langella’s offering her real power; she just has to eat people—but it’s a reasonably successful adaptation. Langella’s mesmerizing as a dashing Dracula, and he and Nelligan’s chemistry is good. Pleasence and Olivier are fun. Eve’s fine. Tony Haygarth’s a relatively harmless but still terrifying Renfield.

Lovely photography from Gilbert Taylor and good editing from John Bloom. The Williams score is just okay; he doesn’t have a good “Dracula theme,” which he needs.

Great costumes from Julie Harris and production design from Peter Murton. Dracula’s often sumptuous. It’s a little slow, but it’s all right.

This post is part of the Devilishly Delightful Donald Pleasence Blogathon hosted by Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry of Cinematic Catharsis.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #258

Superboy the Legion of Super Heroes 258

Is Legion supposed to be camp? I’m not sure what else makes sense, given writer Gerry Conway’s actually quite good plot and his reliably insipid exposition. Quite good plotting after tricking me in the opening—I thought the splash page said the issue was jumping away from R.J. Brande’s bankruptcy plot, but I just hadn’t reread the exposition enough to understand what Conway was saying.

The Legion has finally met up with Brande, and finally discovered who took his fortune. Then these rogue science police officers attack them, and we get a reasonably good “Legionnaire’s powers are perfect for this situation” action sequence before cutting away to Brainiac 5’s prison island.

Brainiac 5 is not in this issue. Not unless he turns out to have stayed evil and just gotten worse because now the comic’s about a mystery villain. The cover says his name is “The Psycho-Warrior,” but one of the Legionnaires refers to him that way. It’s not his villain name. I mean, it’ll be his villain name, but it doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure there’s anyone worse at naming villains than late seventies, early eighties Gerry Conway. It’s like he saved all the okay ones for Firestorm and everything else is like… “Psycho-Warrior.”

Conway toggles between the stories, the Legion and the missing fortune, and Psycho-Warrior breaking out of his and Brainy’s prison. Is he Brainy? Probably not; it’s too obviously logical and can’t be drug out.

Because there’s barely a confrontation between the heroes and this new villain (who already hates the Legion, making him just like all their other villains, who hate them for being shitty white kids). He does his escape thing; they go to the Federation Council to have a showdown.

The showdown’s bad but a good idea. If Conway had built to it over a few issues instead of just having a reason for the twist… might’ve been good.

There’s a good narrative device setting up the cliffhanger and then some otherwise lousy writing.

Maybe slightly better than usual art from Joe Staton and Dave Hunt.

This issue’s the last Superboy and the Legion. I wonder if dropping the Boy of Steel’s going to help Conway at all.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #257

Superboy the Legion of Super Heroes 257

If it weren’t for the backup, which pairs writer Gerry Conway with Steve Ditko (penciling, with Dan Adkins inking), this issue would give the impression Conway doesn’t like the Legion. Or, if he does, he thinks their positive traits are being smug asswipes.

In addition to the charming, sexy (really) backup story about Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel’s misadventures trying to be regular people colonists, Conway writes the feature. Joe Staton and Dave Hunt are on the art. Maybe if the story weren’t so lackluster, something about their lackluster art would’ve stood out more (I mean, there are some weird Cosmic Boy panels thanks to that outfit, but otherwise).

The feature story is all about how important it is to lie.

The Legion is in trouble with the science police for hijacking the amusement park hovering over the Grand Canyon last issue. They needed to holographic something something to make Brainiac 5 sane again. Except now, no one knows if it works, so they’re just supposed to trust Brainy as the cops and the amusement park owner yell at them.

The issue basically takes place over fifteen minutes, with the morale of the story—for Superboy, no less—being sometimes it’s better to lie to escape accountability. Did the Superboy from Superboy and the Legion go on to be the bad guy in Final Crisis or whatever? It would make sense. They’re all a bunch of assholes.

The subplot involves the rich guy who funds them being out of money—for like the sixth straight issue—but now the Legion knows about it, so Chameleon Boy’s going to get it resolved. At least there’s some momentum on that story, though it’s also a little obnoxious. Especially since it turns out the Legion does have most of their base left, just not the ostentatious part.

This book’s a trip.

The backup’s wonderful, though. Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel are a cute couple; Ditko’s layouts and Conway’s script have a lovely retro but not condescending thing going on.

I wish they’d take over the feature slot.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #256

Superboy the Legion of Super Heroes 256

It’s one of those Legion of Super-Heroes issues where they’re asshole teenagers (actually much older people pretending to be teenagers to deceive their time-traveling friend Superboy), and it seems more like the Legion of Super-Delinquents.

This issue, they assault some theme park owner and terrorize innocent people out of the place so they can create a trip through Brainiac 5’s memories. He’s still “insane,” and they’re desperate to cure him. That cure involves one person programming his trip down memory lane while someone else reads his mind to figure out how to manipulate his feelings. When they do find a traumatic event, they change it instead of contextualizing it.

Oops, spoilers. Whatever. They want to brainwash their friend better. Is the Legion a cult?

Anyway.

While one team is trying to cure Brainy, Superboy and Cosmic Boy are destroying space police cruisers. Good thing they’re experts at saving falling ships since now they’re the ones causing the falling. Since I’ve started reading this book, I don’t think the Legion has ever been wrong. I also don’t think the government squares have ever acknowledged their infinite wisdom. Why wouldn’t they tell the government what they needed for Brainy?

Why ask when you can take, I guess? They’re not not little fascists.

And sometimes they’re scantily clad. I’m pretty sure you can find whatever nudie magazine was in the DC offices based on one of the girls, but Cosmic Boy’s got lots of lewd shots in this issue.

Gerry Conway’s still writing. He’s got a few good pages, mostly not. He drops the names too much in conversation, presumably for new readers. Given the arc is a sequel to an arc, which was a sequel to another arc, accessibility is not the series’s strong point.

No matter how often characters refer to each other by names and cool monikers.

The art’s Joe Staton and Dave Hunt. Not their worst, but not any good either.

Legion is wearing me down. Who wants to read about these asswipes.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #255

Superboy the Legion of Super Heroes 255

In a genuinely startling event, it turns out when it comes to Joe Staton, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire—this issue features Staton’s most successful work. His inker? Vince Colletta. It’s not good art by any stretch, but it’s far more competent and consistent than Staton’s been on the book. Will Colletta be back to save the world from Staton’s pencils? Who knows, the issue feels like a fill-in.

The end of the last issue promised a Brainiac 5 resolution. This issue also promises a Brainiac 5 resolution… for the next issue. Instead, it’s a very Superboy story for Superboy and the Legion. He’s back home in Smallville, trying to be a regular kid in the fifties or sixties or teens, except he’s just too darn super. Lana Lang is on to him, so he’s got to do hijinks while helping out at Pa Kent’s store.

The Smallville sojourn doesn’t last long, with the Legionnaires coming back in time on a mission. Someone robbed the Superman Museum in the future, and they need Superboy’s glasses, except the future villain already came back in time and stole the glasses while he was distracted at work. They go back to the future, fight, fail, then go back to Krypton before it explodes to swipe some more Kryptonian glass, which is renowned around the galaxy.

Why couldn’t the bad guy go back in time to Krypton himself, maybe even head to a glass factory? Don’t ask.

There’s a funny moment when the Legionnaires ask Superboy to suit up–they wouldn’t want anyone seeing Clark Kent with some scantily clad exhibitionist time travelers. It’s unfortunately not self-aware; writer Gerry Conway keeps the plot moving, but there’s nothing to it. Clark’s bored in Smallville because it’s dull, and he’s not wrong; Conway writes a dull Superboy solo story.

It’s a mediocre narrative, but the not-horrendous art gets it through. Staton and Collettta. I’d never have guessed it.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #254

Slsh254

One of the disappointing but reliable experiences of reading Joe Staton’s Legion of Super-Heroes has been the panels where his art seems to be improving but then doesn’t. In this issue, the same thing happened, and I reminded myself of the phenomenon. First, the art would seem reasonable, then go disastrously wrong.

Even with Dave Hunt inking Staton, the art doesn’t go disastrously wrong in this issue. There are some problem panels, to be sure, but there’s consistently better Staton and Hunt art on this issue than I’d have thought possible.

I wouldn’t bet on much more improvement, but I also wouldn’t have bet on the art getting this reasonable.

The story’s also surprisingly okay, with writer Gerry Conway exhibiting a knack for writing Brainiac 5. The story doesn’t cure or redeem Brainiac 5, which adds a layer to his participation—Superboy goes to him for help; no one can save the seemingly dead Legionnaires but Brainy.

Only Superboy then gets killed with Kryptonite lasers, which seem like such an obvious idea Richard Pryor should’ve used them. Or did he?

Anyway.

Brainiac 5 will figure it all out and save the day with the help of some familiar but irregular guest stars, which allows Conway one of those enthusiastically belabored Legion fights where everyone’s powers are essential. Conway keeps the reader in the dark about Brainy’s plans, so the big battle specifics come as surprises. It’s perfectly decent superhero stuff.

Besides the Brainiac 5 as bad guy stuff, the only other subplot involves the Legion finally tracking down their financier R.J. Brande. He doesn’t tell them how he escaped the shit monsters a few issues ago, but he does finally tell them he’s broke and they’re up a creek.

It’s not a great scene, especially not for the art, but it’s brief and doesn’t drag the rest down.

I’m not optimistic about the book with the current team; maybe someday, though, which is a long way from the norm.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #253

Slsh253

With the not insignificant caveat of art by Joe Staton and Frank Chiaramonte, which never fails to disappoint–even for that duet–it’s a fairly good issue of Superboy and the Legion. Gerry Conway scripts, and it’s a full enough, compelling enough issue.

Even if it does start with the Legion being a bunch of little pricks.

They’ve gone to the President of the Federation or Earth or whatever and pleaded for funds to rebuild their clubhouse. When the President tells them Earth has just survived an invasion and needs to focus on rebuilding infrastructure for the common people, the Legion tells him off. Why would they risk their lives if it weren’t for perks?

Superboy tries to talk his teammates down—got to stay loyal to the state, no matter what, and all—but they’re pissed off. The Legion’s going to split up; some are going to ask RJ Brande for money, forgetting they were supposed to save him from a shit monster a few issues ago and never located him. Had they found him, of course, he would’ve told them he was bankrupt and couldn’t help them. It’s not much of a C plot, but it’s something.

The Legionnaires staying on Earth are going to go out clubbing. There are six of them, including Superboy. He and Colossal Boy are the odd men out; the other four are romantic couples. Conway does a strangely good job with the mopey superheroes. They seem immature and impertinent, which probably isn’t intentional, but it’s inevitable, given the content.

Of course, the Legionnaires don’t know it, but a group of intergalactic assassins is out to get them. The six who just happened to stay on Earth and go clubbing. Those six destroyed these assassins’ planet, and these six “cousins” got lethal Fantastic Four powers. They’ve been on their way to Earth the whole issue to take out their targets.

Their thorough, vengeful attacks are pretty good when they get there, considering the art. Some of Staton’s compositions are fine, though Chiaramonte doesn’t improve the detail.

Every time I think I’m ready to give up on the book, there’s a story capable of overcoming Staton and Chiaramonte, so I cannot. Not when the story keeps such horrors at bay.