The cover promises the Fatal Five’s return; while they do return, there’s also a mystery villain who starts the issue. He flies off towards Earth in his mystery ship; a ship crash lands on Earth, and the Fatal Five emerge from the ship, attacking Mon-El and Shadow Lass (who ditch Princess Projectra to get busy until superhero duties interfere).
I think the explanation is simply there are two spaceships. Still, it’s unclear if writer Gerry Conway wanted it to be confusing—because then it makes the Fatal Five seem like they might be holograms or something (the mystery villain uses mind projections on someone), and it makes the stakes feel a little tepid. Even for Legion. There’s going to be some battling, and there’s going to be a cliffhanger, but, really, we’re nowhere near Conway getting around to telling the story, so why get excited?
The rest of the issue is about Colossal Boy’s mom running for president of Earth and there being an assassination attempt. The scene where Colossal Boy finds out his mom is running takes Conway three pages. He’s got to get flustered when people ask him why he’s exclaiming. The cover also promised eight more pages, but no one puts them to any good use. Arguably, the double-page spread ought to be good–the Legion hanging out in some plaza on Earth and seeing the presidential announcements–but Jim Janes and Frank Chiaramonte’s art is often bad.
Not always. But often. And when it’s not bad, it’s barely middling.
The worst thing in the comic is how Conway writes Timber Wolf, the Legion’s emo dipshit, but all the character writing is pretty bad.
I hope next issue’s at least a little better. I don’t expect it to improve, but I hope.
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