So after all of the events of the preceding weeks - Blight invasion, section of the cast hurled across the universe, Legion disbanded - Abnett, Lanning, Coipel and McCraw bring it back together in another ongoing series, starting with the rough arrival of the survivors of Legion Lost on an Earth different from the one they last saw.
Abnett and Lanning use the familiar play of bringing a 20th Century threat into the 31st Century, although Ra's al Ghul was a clever choice. His goals had shifted somewhat - not so concerned with preserving Earth, but with countless inhabited worlds know, it probably seemed less of a priority - but he's played as having all the advantages of years to prepare.
A little curiously, Ra's being traditionally a Batman foe, M'onel is set as his opposite. There's a whole thing that's only referenced about M'onel having been responsible for seeding life over the course of some amount of time on many of the worlds that made up the United Planets. So I guess that's the point of contrast: M'onel spent his time trying to help life to grow, but on its own terms, while Ra's wants to push life forward, but at a pace he determines, with little regard for cost.
After that, the book shifts to paying off at least a few plots that had been running in the background. The odd robot attack that was so fixated on Brainiac 5.1 in their first issue of Legionnaires, comes to a head with an artificial intelligence based invasion of Earth. It feels a bit like a reprise of the Blight invasion, although with most of the cast locked out of Earth, rather than trapped or turned to the other side. Shadow Lass, who had been written as withdrawn and hostile since being taken over by the Blight, gets a spotlight issue where she returns home to try and address some issues. Timber Wolf, who escorted Phantom Girl and her exceedingly powerful baby to Earth, joins the team. Though nothing ever comes of his apparent attraction to her, or whatever started to brew between Ultra Boy and Saturn Girl in Legion Lost.
(Nor is there any payoff to Phantom Girl's mother having her declared incompetent in Legion Worlds as part of a scheme to steal her grandchild. I would have at least liked to see the lady get punched in the jaw for that shit.)
Coipel remains as the primary penciler for the first year and change, still inked by Lanning, but with a smoother hand. There are still a lot of shadows and heavy inks, but the characters don't look as weary and battered. They're mostly back together, mostly feeling good, things are looking up.
Kev Walker starts to take the reins during the Robotican invasion story, and then Chris Batista handles the arc about a villain seizing the control of the vast telepathic communication network the UP were using. Those two artist don't have a lot in common stylistically, but much of the Universo story is an illusory world he tries to use to keep Saturn Girl occupied, so it looking much cleaner and smooth adds to the artificiality of it. Comparatively, Walker's art evokes the roughness of Coipel's during the Blight story. Characters even look a little wilder, if not quite as dark. Tom McCraw keeps the shades and tones a bit less washed out here than in some of the other books.
The third year of the book is more of a mixed bag, as Superboy (Conner Kent, Kon-El, '90s Superboy) is brought there from the past, but also Abnett and Lanning bust out a Darkseid story. Superboy is somewhat interesting, as he laps up the adulation of the public, no longer being compared to Superman and found wanting, probably because these people all figure he's just young Superman. But he also catches a lot of flack from Cosmic Boy in particular about being reckless and careless. Part of the problem of people thinking you grow up to be Superman, is they also expect you to behave like Superman.
This could theoretically have been used as some form of character development, but back in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans, we got the whole thing about Luthor being the human half of his DNA, and then Superboy-Prime killed him.
Abnett and Lanning left the book around issue 30 or so, and so ends our time in the Year 3000. It's back to the rapidly approaching dystopian hellscape of the 21st Century for us.
2 comments:
That point about Ra's being a Batman villain made me think: is there any sort of Batman legacy in the Legion's future? You see versions of various other DC heroes, and obviously there's a famous Superman link, but I don't remember any nods to the Batman family in the handful of issues I've read.
Is he just forgotten in the 31st century?
I'm no Legion expert, but I've never seen one. It's a little odd, since there's usually nods to other heroic legacies. The books had both a Captain Thunder and a H-Dial hero when DnA came on, Bendis added a Lantern of some type, XS and Impulse are both connected to the Flash, Star Boy got yoked into the Starman legacy by James Robinson.
Brainiac 5 seems the closest analog to Batman - relies on brains and gadgets - but he's a play off Superman's foe, so that doesn't work. I wonder if it's because the Legion are inspired by Superman specifically, rather than the Justice League or the "Age of Heroes" more generally?
It would almost be nice if he was forgotten because humanity had largely established the world of no crime he wanted at some point, and so there was no need for his legacy. Nobody getting killed for walking down the wrong alley, but I think the United Planets just offloaded that to Ultra Boy's homeworld.
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