The Stop Button

What a strange comic book. Cary Bates and Mike Grell contribute both parts, feature and backup, though “feature” is a bit of a stretch.

The lead story is a retcon. In the farther-flung future than the Legion of Superheroes, future Earthlings are obsessed with watching the past through time travel television or something. Except then the kid’s time TV is broken and is changing history instead of just observing it. The device has somehow changed Superboy’s trials for Legion membership, and now he’s not a member anymore, and the fate of reality is at stake.

Oddly, however, the story doesn’t show how Superboy failed the trials. Neither is the future kid’s resolution—Anti-Lad is his only moniker, the one he takes when he travels back in time to join the Legion to get history back on track. Bates also doesn’t do anything with the future repercussions of Superboy not joining the Legion. It’s easier to identify all the things Bates doesn’t do with the story than the things he does.

So the comic promises the secret story of Anti-Lad, the Legionnaire no one remembers (because he wiped their memories). It delivers some time travel banter, lots of talking about Superboy but no real Superboy in his own book, Anti-Lad besting the Legionnaires during his membership trial, and Brainiac-5 deducing something’s off about the new prospect.

Not much of a story. Grell’s art also leaves a lot to be desired.

The backup, however, is incredible. Incredibly creepy and bad but still incredible.

It’s all about Brainiac-5 being really tired, and, wouldn’t you know it, he’s really tired because he’s made himself a fully functioning Supergirl android. He misses his 20th-century gal, you see, so he makes a new version of her.

Except he doesn’t know he’s made the android version, so there’s a bunch of bait and switch to get to the big reveal. It’s utter nonsense in terms of plotting—it’s hard to tell if Bates is trying to be inventive and not clearing the bar or if the comic thinks so little of its readership—and then Grell’s art… doesn’t help. There are even panels where Grell’s art goes from hot to cold as they’re read, drawing attention to the deficiencies.

The first story’s pointless and bad, and the second story’s pointless, bad, and icky.

Though I did just realize Bates doesn’t address whether Brainiac-5 admits to his teammates he’s using Legion resources for his sex toys.