The opening story, Prologue to Earthwar, is an all-time Legion banger, despite a bit of weaponized misogyny and classism. And Wildfire being okay with manslaughter on his conscience. Oh, and weird racism against the bad guys. They’re green and slimy, so the Legionnaires call them slime-related slurs. Is it speciesism?
Finally, lots of it is definitely fascism. Fascism is okay as long as you were right in the end, says Brainiac 5 with the most disconcerting grin. Penciller James Sherman has these big, expressive eyes on these careful faces, and so when every hero is grinning in their action panel, it feels like a victory lap of a comic book. But it’s unclear for what, because writer Paul Levitz doesn’t just punt the reveal into the next issue; he punts two reveals into the next issue. Probably not three, but possibly three.
It’s a wild story and wildly successful. The political and military business comes in rapid fire, but never with too much exposition. The story is mostly an action story. Superboy shows up and kicks ass; the Legion zooms out on a mission against the green space pirates in an extended sequence, which includes those sexism and classism subplots. Plot points. Plot details. Whatever they are.
With Sherman’s pencils (ably inked by Bob McLeod), Levitz basically has primetime TV teenagers as the Legion to play with. They’re able to do a bunch of character work, like Levitz is flexing because he knows he’s got Sherman doing the art. So, again, it has that victory lap feeling, like the creators know what they’ve got going here, they know how well it’s going to land, so they’re enjoying the stroll.
That attitude is infectious–the story’s fun. Superheroes show up and do really well-rendered superhero action things. They’re usually not being creepy to the girls. They’re often not being crappy about how other carbon-based life forms look. And there’s time for missions and side missions. Levitz has a full twenty-two pages, and Sherman only takes one of them for a big splash page. Sherman draws this book as if he wants to read it; Levitz writes it as if he wants to see Sherman draw it. The synergy’s out of sight.
The buildup towards the finish, where Levitz recalls various details from the story to that point, letting the reader in on some of the connections, is fantastic. Great cliffhangers. Just an outstanding Legion comic book.
There are the bad vibes, of course–the fascism, racism, sexism. Again, as long as you never get caught being wrong, you’re doing the right thing. I also just realized Superboy is never around for Brainiac 5 manipulating his teammates.
Still, great comic.
The backup has Paul Kupperberg writing a Timber Wolf extended backup (it’s 12 pages, meaning we get a full-page retelling of Light Lass’s origin). They’re on mission together, but the planet police guy doesn’t want Light Lass on the case because it’s about her evil brother, Lightning Lord.
Kupperberg’s scripting from a Levitz plot, with Arvell Jones and Danny Bulanadi on art. Jones likes doing some seventies fight scenes. The attitude and particulars remind a lot of Wolverine (oh, and Timber Wolf’s hair). But Kupperberg’s got a bunch of exposition to get out, like they were supposed to have more pages, not less.
It’s okay. It’s kind of roughly done; Kupperberg’s most engaged when it’s Timber Wolf interrogating the locals and playing rogue superhero. Then, most of the story ends up being Lightning Lord’s whinging.
But it doesn’t need to be on par with Prologue, just smooth enough to get through. And it does.
