Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Let's Talk About LSH #5 (DEFINITE TOTAL SPOILERS!)...

naturally in the above paragraph that should say they are.

wamu2, you can edit your posts by clicking this image - , above your posts.

It's hard to compete with the awesomeness of issue #2, but this issue was so cool it's pretty much my favorite one so far.

And so much happened!

It was great to see what Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl have been up to. I'm very interested in this crisis on the Rimworlds. Elysion mentioned that his group was attacking the Rimworlds just because they could. Was that the actual motivation? What does that mysterious leader have planned?

I loved the little bits with Imra and Garth. "How do you date a telepath?" "Gotta be waaaay honest." That was funny.

Ultra Boy - What's up with his powers? This reminded me that we still don't know the origins of most of these Legionarries. Is Ultra Boy still the survivor of a space whale attack? So far, he still has around the same abilities and he can only use one at a time. Are his powers evolving? I hope he doesn't loose the one-at-a-time thing, because that has always made him a unique super-hero character.

Bizarro Legionnaries - That was a fun story. I wonder if it's true, or if it was made up to entertain the kids like Brin implied. Still, it was a fun story. Bizarro-Sub Boy created a pocket of absolute zero. Heh.

Terror Firma - I enjoyed this team of villains. In thinking about their powers, they seemed to be elemental powers. One had wind powers, another had fire powers and it looked like that telepath guy was shooting blasts of water at Brin (oh, and he also trapped a couple kids in a water bubble). The big orange guy looked like he had strength and was impervious. And the guy with the tail was a teleporter (and I'm assuming he was the one who was interfearing with the Legion's transmatter portals).

Elysion - At first I thought his power was kinda like the Hawkman villain Matter Master. But, in going with the elemental theme, I think he is a geomorph and has control over the ground. Elysion made a good villain. He's wicked and mean and dangerous. He ended up being a good antagonist for these Legionnaires. I hope we see him again (even though he was defeated).

Rimworld kids: It was nice to see a wide variety of species among the kids. The one that caught my attention was the speedster. Is she from a planet of speedsters? That would be cool. With the red shirt and yellow Legion logo, she almost looked like a Flash. I think Mark wrote her as a wink to fans of his Flash run. I hope we see her again.

Brin Londo - Saving the best for last. He's such a great character that I knew it wouldn't be too long before he showed up. I love that he has a past with these characters and his personality kinda conflicts with the Legion.

New Girl: "Are you a Legionnaire too?"
Brin: "Absolutely not."

Super strength. Enhanced senses. Feral personality. Human looks. Super cool.

Yeah, I really like this Brin. And I like that he isn't a full Legionnaire, but he is still their ally. And I loved that he jumped into that transmatter portal after the bad guys. That's totally how I see him acting. Just fearless. To me, Waid did good by Brin. I hope we see more of his past with the Legion.

All-in-all, this was an amazingly great issue.

P.S. Did anyone else notice that Brin flew along side Lightning Lad after they rescued the girl? Does he have a Legion ring even though he isn't a member? And why does he get one but Triplicate Girl can't have two more? Or, does he naturally fly? Anyone else have any ideas?

Well, they did say they were terraformers (hence the punnish name, and incidentally Waid does love Terror/Terra puns, doesn't he?) So it'd make sense that most of them had powers suitable for restructuring the environment.

If Brainy thinks Brin's useful, he'd probably hand off a flight ring to him whether or not Cosmic Boy says they're Legionnaires-only...especially since Triplicate Girl's working for Cos. And that might be part of the "favor" Brin owes him, come to think of it.

I thought Terror Firma was the big orange guy... but after looking at the relevant panel again, I no longer think so. It is a silly name, but whatever.

WhooHoo!!!

I like the look. It could maybe be a bit more angular. All the guys seem to have round faces.

Nice to see that Ayla's the ex-girlfriend. (And blaming Brin for it, typical. She did that firstboot, too.)

Huh, Jeckie....

Great issue with lots of good stuff, but the big event in this issue for me personally was Lightning Lad. Never been a big Garth fan, but I liked him here. Completely unexpected. And I really like the costume.

I also like the representation of the characters' ages - Garth, Imra, and Brin are all visually part of the older crowd in the Legion.

Imra obviously has a repressed desire to be trapped on an asteroid with Brin. She was probably hoping that she and Brin would get seperated from the rest of the group when she took him out for a walk.

Loved Brin's portrayal here - should be interesting to see Brin and Jo interact later on. Brin seems to be what Jo pretends to be (side note: is this the first time we've seen Ultra Boy called Jo?)

Best Line: "And by the way, for a bunch of diplomats, you're handling me remarkably poorly." The "Gotta be waaay honest." exchange was a really close second, but probably too close to home for me personally to win the day.

Thinking about Garth being part of the 'older' crowd makes me start having visions of Logan's Run. What age do the Legion consider as 'adult' and do older Legionnaires eventually have to leave? What happens when this age-ism movement ages?

Older crowd? I like it. To tell the truth when I came to the Legion Garth was part of the older crowd. That daredevil hot head metallic arm Garth in the reboot did nothing for me. Much like Cyclops and Angel I see Cos and Garth. Used to be at each other's throats now agree with most things but still do things differently.

Fantastic issue. The surprises and twists kept coming.

Okay, so LL's from Trom. And he's still got a sister. And it could be Projectra. Very interesting. It indeed looks like the background for this boot is more than just a skewed vision of the previous boots.

So the SPs have a Lemnos that's after Lyle's serum and this other team has a Lemnos going after slaughter. Same guy?

Brin's very much what the prototypical Brin should be.

So is Imra--she's a telepath being a telepath.

How is it that Cos and Brainy are so agreeable regarding unity here, but supposed to split the team in an issue or two? Subterfuge?

Jo set Shady's bed on fire? I'll presume that was due to flash vision and not ultra-speed friction.

Could comment on more, but I think the best part of the issue was the sense of a history that it gave the team (already having ties with Brin) and the added clarity it brought the whole Legion v. adults conflict.

It was a real treat!

first, thanks to nightcrawler about how to edit.

that whole bizzaro tale that Lighting Lad was reciting. is that an homage to something that happened in previous versions?


Ultra Boy: his heat/flash vision activated after being aroused by the billboard. perhaps he was in a state of arousal when he burned Shadow Lass' bed. so, is arousal the common cause? time will tell.

Yeah it is. It's hard to tell because he looks different due to having a different artist from last issue. At least I think so. Barry draws him a lot younger and the diamond shapes on his head weren't as pronounced last issue.

About the whole Lemnos' identity thing: I know that an "s" has been added, but for some reason I couldn't get the idea out of my head that it was some warped version of Mon-El. I guess that I must have the old silver-age story stuck in my head where Mon-El disguised his appearance and "anagrammed" his name into Legionairre "Lemon." To add further fuel to my fire of delusion, Lemnos not only wore a cape like Mon-El, but the blurb for next issue promised that we (the readers) wouldn't know who to root for.

Anyway, I know that I'm wrong, but this is how the matter struck me for some reason.

Other than this, I loved Brin's human appearance and the new group of youthful supervillians. (I'm not 100% sure, but isn't this the first group of youthful supervillians that the Legion has ever faced?)

I didn't take the time to go back and look last night, but have they indicated Light Lass is from Trom as well? I thought there was mention of Winath earlier but I could be mistaken. I've been reading the Best of Legion Outpost so my brain is in two different time periods.

Gary

No mention of Winath yet, or Light Lass's origins.

Mediocre Boy, there are yet other clues that point to the same conclusion about Lemnos. The red light Lemnos is bathed in reminds us of Daxam's red sun. Perhaps Otherspace is a stand-in for the Phantom Zone. Evil Daxamites used to wear triangles; Lemnos wears diamond-shaped symbols.

wamu2, you beat me to it with the Ultra Boy theory. That's exactly what I was thinking, i.e., his powers go out of control when he's aroused. Now THAT would be funny, considering what a horndog Jo is. I suspect Val's grudge against Jo has something to do with Phantom Girl. I thought Shady had better taste in men.

Re. your question about the Bizarro tales, there have been Bizarro versions of the Legion in the past, but nothing quite like the version Garth was relating to the kids.

Come to think of it, if Garth could weave such tall tales for the kiddies and fake out Elysion as he did, I have to wonder if he really is the "waay honest" fellow he claims to be. He could very well be lying about his homeworld, for example.

I don't see how people can reasonably connect Brin and Garth's conversation about Garth's "sister" with Brin's reference to Projectra pages 15-20 pages later. He could easily have dated one and is now interested in the other.

I must admit I'm a little disappointed by Brin's physical appearance. It isn't distinctive enough, nor rough-and-tumble enough for this character, imo. I don't want werewolf-boy either, but I would have liked some subtle feral quality about him to match his feral powers. I didn't even notice the wolf-head insignia on his costume until the second reading. Nevertheless, I'm glad he's back.

This was by far the best issue of the series, with great action and authentic characterizations of Garth, Imra and Brin. The Terror Firma supers, especially Elysion with his mass-moving powers, were really a standout.

My only complaint so far is that Barry really needs to get some more distinctive faces into the mix. I had a hard time differentiating Brin, Elys and Lemnos in some of the panels, particularly the close-ups (reading the dialogue makes it obvious, but you still should be able to differentiate a bit better).


Other than that, good issue.

I actually think that has more to do with the inker than with Barry. I remember thinking in the earlier issues that Barry was doing a really good job of making each Legionnaire distinct. This is the first issue that I thought it was a problem.

Seeing a fully human Brin was like a breath of fresh air. I love his new costume and his new attitude. No longer the "poor me" of the original continuity; no longer the refugee from "the Howling" from the reboot. Brin becomes the latest in a long list of characters who seem finally to be coming into their own as fully developed characters. We're only five issues in, but I'm ready to say that Waid is rivalling Levitz as my favorite Legion writer.

I agree, I really don't think that Projectra is LL's sister, certainly not based on what we've seen.

I was unhappy with the introduction of the new speedster. This would have been the perfect oportunity to introduce Xs, and I'm sad they didn't. I suspect that's because of Xs' connections to the 21st century. On the one hand I'm liking this reluctance to connect the Legion to the 21st century. But this is one case where I wouldn't mind seeing the origin of the character tweaked a bit to weaken those connections. Jenni is great, and together with Gates the best new character from the previous Legion. It would be a pity if she was replaced.

Regarding the new origin planets for Gim and Garth, I don't buy it. I think this is just faulty SP intelligence reflected in each issue's roll call. And didn't Waid specifically use Garth and Winath as an example for not making changes for change sake, in one of his early interviews about the series? I really don't buy this.

All right, so Brin is not a Legionnaire. Could he still be brown-boots? He was obviously the figure in the shadows in Brainy's lab, and very possibly Projectra's friend in the couch. But the brown boots in the Legion fly-over? Why would he be there if he is not a Legionnaire?

Great issue!

Juan

Actually I remember the exact opposite. Waid mentioned Garth and Winath but how things change like he may not be from Winath this time around.

Here's Waid's remark from a December 2004 CBR interview .

"Though changing the planet of origin for Live Wire, for example, may seem trivial, Waid knows that it matters to Legion fans and explains, "Our default impulse is 'do no harm' in terms of what longtime fans already expect from the characters, but our secondary creative impulse is always to ask, 'If we were creating this character from scratch, would we be writing him/her this way, or should we be exploring other ideas?'"

Looks like he was giving us a heads-up months ago, but it still smacks of a big, fat plot twist. There are a dozen different ways he could have altered Garth's origin story, but he apparently chose the approach he KNEW would provoke diehards the most. You gotta ask yourself why, other than the perverse delight he seems to get out of yanking readers' chains from time to time.

Juan, Earth was the original Colossal Boy's homeworld, iirc, so I don't see it as a real change. Which makes the supposed Trom origin all the more suspicious, imo.

Thanks for the confirmation Trom. That's the article I was looking for but a search at CBR didn't pull it up for me.

Well, it could always turn out that Garth and sister were born on Trom to parents who weren't from Trom, like the preboot Cosmic Boy was born on Earth to Braalian parents.

I don't really think that Projectra is supposed to be Garth's sister. I hope not anyway. That would seem to me to be the definition of change for change's sake. A deliberate "gotcha" at the old fans' expense. Just like Sneckie was.

You know, it could be that Ayla is still Garth's sister and the reason she & Brin broke up was byecause Brin started seeing Projectra. That was my take on the Projectra comment from Brin

Possible. If so, then perhaps the radiation that gave native Trommites their powers affected the Winathian immigrants in an unexpected way, giving them different powers. In turn, their cultural contribution to Trom might have been to introduce the benefits of being naked.

Still, they must have been relatively recent immigrants, in that Garth and Ayla (what little we've seen of them) don't seem to have been shaped by traditional Trommite spirituality and isolationism. Plus, unlike Element Lad, they both know how to date. Strange then, that Jan would seek advice from Phantom Girl, rather than the obviously experienced Light Lass.

Tromium, those are good points. It's hard to picture a traditional Trommite (and the current Element Lad seems to conform to the prior notions) coining the phrase "eat it, gradpa."

Maybe in this version the anti-singleton prejudice on Winath is so strong that Mekt's birth led the Ranzz family to seek a more open-natured society like Trom?