Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes LEGION OF SUPER-VILLAINS #1-Preview/Spoilers

from CBR:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=8008

Looks interesting. I notice though that there seems to be a bit of padding on those pages in my opinion.

sexy!

Is that Urk's big brother??

Not loving the designs of any of the new characters (and I say that as a BIG Portela fan) but the writing seems OK (agree about the padding though) and am looking forward to reading this one. I wonder if we'll see cameos by any LSHers or if it's just gonna be LSVers all the way?

I just glanced at it since I prefer to read the actual book, but it seemed to be a fair enough amount of panels to me. Looking forward to it!

That was my first thought as well!

I like the look of this so far!

Hey, its got Mekt, so I'm happy. I can't wait!

It was a great start to the storyline. Maybe a little long, but we definitely got a good sense of the "team" dynmaics ("Do what Saturn Queen says"). I'll be curious to see how long before Mekt slips his leash. The new villains are decent additions to the rogues gallery and I've always had a soft spot for Zymyr (and 'porting battle between he and gates would be interesting).

Can't wait to see who Mekt recruits now that he's free of the Queen's influence for a bit.

I didn't buy the issue, mostly because I'm trying to distance myself a bit from "villain-oriented" books, but I did look through it.

I really like the way Francis Portella draws Ultra Boy.

Interesting read.

Like:
The Hunter
Zymyr
Lighting Lord
Saturn Queen
Questor

Dis-Like:
Sun Killer
Immortus

Luke-Warm:
Akka

Like:
Micro Lad knifed in the back and left dead as a door nail. Never liked him, although I did like his new costume.

Dis-Liked:
The destruction of the Rock of Eternity.

The main thing I disliked about this book is that the main characters are unsympathetic enough that there's no reason to care about them.

huh? Questor and Immortus are now bad guys?!?! oh not a good sign. and where is Sun Emperor? that Timber Wolf was supposed to fight? and Cosmic King?

so spoil it please!

Sun Emperor is in it from the beginning. Didn't see Cosmic King, though.

Questor & Immortus are new characters so they've never been good guys.
Are you confusing them with someone else?

That's Sun Killer.
Sun Emperor has yet to appear.

Questor was the old character I believe the one with teleporting power....wore blue uniform and red cape...blonde hair...chicken out most of time...movie star...

Immortus --- one of the Wanderers....or....Taurus Gang? cn't remember. heh.

Questar was the blond guy with the tassles & Immorto was the guy from the Wanderers.
Different from the two that appear in this issue.

ah....those spellings almost look familar to me. thanks for the correction. I have to wait til the first week of April to get that book. sigh.

I must say the coloring by Javier Mena is a vast improvement over Hi-Fi's ham-fisted pallete in the regular book, IMO.
The hues were subtle when called for and vivid when called for.

How many can Saturn Queen control at one time?
The more she controls, the less complete her control or what?
She's gotta hit a wall of some sort, sooner or later.

I think there's a few hints at the rock that Immortus is actually General Immortus transplanted into a robot body.

I didn't much care for the issue, art or story. Probably wouldn't have bought it, except my CBS owner pulled it for me. Agreed that the characters are unsympathetic. And since when is the Hunter's tracking skill a spaceworthy super power? Why didn't they just kidnap Dawnstar and use her? She's zooming around out there in space on her own somewhere.

I don't care for teleporting characters either. Too deus ex machina. And why would SQ recruit Micro Lad anyway? He's pretty useless as villains go.

While his powers were potentially deadly (since he could zip into someone's body and give them a fatal stroke, which would wipe out big guns like Ultra Boy or Element Lad pretty easily), I don't really get why Micro Lad was ever hanging around with the LSV anyway.

He's not a bank robber or a world-conquerer, he's an Imskian separatist. Any group that doesn't have 'free Imsk from the evil clutches of the United Planets' really has nothing to offer him, by way of advancing his agenda.

It felt like his only reason to be a part of the LSV is so that they could have an evil Shrinking Violet to hang with the evil Saturn Girl, the evil Chameleon Boy, the evil Sun Boy, the evil Cosmic Boy, the evil Lightning Lad, etc, etc.

Sure, maybe he hung out with them to get money, to then channel to the Imskian underground, but he still kinda feels like he was just thrown in there as another warm body...

I don't know, the Levitz depictions of him always showed him with a cruel streak. I remember a lot of gleeful sneering at Violet's condition. While he may have hid behind his cause, I think he was in it because he was rotten and it gave him an excuse. The first time he was recruited by Zymyr he certainly didn't hesitate to take the LSV up on their offer.

If BouncingBear is to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt him, Micro Lad was included so that there could be someone killed without too many fans having a fit.

I think Micro Lad generally hung around the LSV because their agenda was killing Legionnaires, and he wanted to get Shrinking Violet.

I thought the new LSV seemed very bad-assed, and look forward to seeing upcoming developments in this story. I liked the nods to prior continuity (e.g., the off-handed mention of Zuun as a source for the robot, the inclusion of a Sklarian raider).

It took me a while to remember why Saturn Queen's imprisonment wasn't really holding. They should have led off the issue with a panel or two reminding us of the blue creature's passage affecting her.

Yes, because Gods forbid we should have an issue without a major disastor or the gratutitous death of a secondary (or even tertiary) character. But if ssome one had to go it might as well be him. At least he died with a halfway decent costume.

Questor reminded me somewhat of the Coluan villain from the ReBoot days called Big Brain (at least I think that was his name). Y'know, leader of a small gang that tried to take over Winath just prior to Ayla being designated her world's Legion representative?

Anybody else agree?

So it's funny, after making my comment about Micro Lad having been used oddly in the past, I just got this special and the first (and only) words out of his mouth are about how he's all about Imskian liberation!

I laughed to see that, since it was like Paul had read my mind.

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Oh.
She's augmented by the blue baby.
As are the rest, when they need to be.
sigh

I thought it was funny that SQ does all this computer erasing and stuff to hide her and the others involvement and escape from GT, and the first conclusion Jo makes when he gets there is that that things started where SQ was held.
Paul has decided not to hide Jo's intelligence any longer, I guess.

The Rock of Eternity has been blown up before, hasn't it?
Won't it's magical field pull it back together?
If not, since all of the pieces are right there, won't someone just put them back together, like before?
Where's Thunder in all this?
There's one Rock for all the realities, right?
gads

And, I bet Li is one of those immortal 'wisdom' people.
The blue baby is Darkseid using the High Father idea from Saga?

I liked the art but the story is kind of flat but it could get better.
I'm hoping.

My shop didn't put this issue in my bag for me and then it sold out before I could buy it off the shelf!

You'd think that since I've got LSH and Adventure on my pull, they'd put this one in there too. But nooooo.

Now I just have to hope they get some more copies in in the next few weeks. Very annoyed!

I could mail you one, Blacula, but if you're in Australia maybe that could take weeks too?

Thanks for the offer Jim but you're right - mailing things to the most isolated capital city in the world (Perth) does tend to take a while. Don't worry - they'll hopefully get the issue in next week or the one after. If not - I may come begging.

You'd be welcome to my copy. I wasn't too crazy about it.


I thought Canberra was the capital of Australia.

I have liked very much the super-villains special.
Francis Portela's art is very good.
With Sarya dead (for now..) Saturn Queen has turned into my favorite villain.
I suppose that with so many people super villains, all the possible legionnaires were needed, to attack them.
Back to action.....Duplicate Girl, Night Girl, Bouncing Boy, Chamaleon Girl, XS, Black Witch, Blok, Matter Eater Lad, Mon-El, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad.
And probably new legionnarios of the academy.

Jim, Perth is the capital of its state (Western Australia), not of its nation.

^

In agreement with this aids many former villains will join the team soon....

Hmmm ... most of the characters in that ad/pinup didn't appear in LSV # 1 ... I wonder how many will show up over the course of the storyline in LSH? (and will Adventure tie in to this story at all?)

I notice, at the lower-right of the pinup (to the right of Tyr) a figure that looks (at least to me) like Terrus. IIRC, Terrus only ever appeared in the LSV story that launched the LSH Baxter title back in the 1980s (the story in which the LSV took over Orando, and Karate Kid and Nemesis Kid died). IIRC, Terrus was never shown doing much of anything; we never found out if he even had any super-powers. Anybody know anything more about him?

I'm pretty sure that in his Who's Who entry, Terrus' power was described kinda like Terra's- able to move & manipulate rock and earth.
IIRC, he also appeared in Legion of 3 Worlds, where he was punched by Blok and turned into a swarm of insects.

Actually Terrus didn't have a Who's Who entry!

Hmmm... now I'm wondering where I read about his powers??

Possibly cmk's help file? As I recall Chaim made up a backstory for him to go in it.

The only thing I remember Terrus doing was making a small asteroid / bit of space debris explode near a Legionnaire (Dawnstar?), stunning them, but he did this by pushing a button, suggesting that he planted an explosive there, and wasn't using any sort of super-power.

He really is such a bizarrely enigmatic character. While the other original character in the LSV War story (Zymyr) plays a major role, Terrus is just sort of there, and never really does anything. I always figured Levitz must have some additional plan for him that never materialized, but...

It was a group of Wildfire, Dawnstar, Mon-El. They were in an asteroid belt. Terrus pushes a button and a group of asteroids explode.

He might have some form of control over earth matter because the debris forms a stream and start streaking directly towards the Legion's ship, an action that didn't look all that natural given the art depiction.

When I interviewed Paul Levitz way back when for The Legion Companion, he had this to say about Terrus:

"Terrus might've been a modernization of a later generation of Scarecrow. If I was naming him Terrus, maybe it had something to do with terror."

This was after I reminded him that his costume looked like that of Scarecrow.

On an unrelated note, that ad has Cosmic King using magnetic powers, which as everyone here should know, is inaccurate. It was established way back in the LSVs first appearance in Superman # 147 (Aug. 1961) that he has transmutation abilities similar to those of Element Lad, although he comes from Venus. Why that was the case instead of the obvious alternative is something that you'd have to ask either Jerry Siegel or Mort Weisinger about. Myself, I think that they just made a mistake, and then stuck with it.

I do vaguely remember that, but I was never sure at the time whether that was forced perspective (us just seeing the asteroids headed towards the ship, and not the ones heading in various other directions) or some sort of gravity manipulating / magnetic bomb (causing the debris to be attracted to the ship).

It never occured to me, at the time, that he was supposed to have super-powers, but it totally makes sense, in retrospect, that he'd use explosives to blast rocks into smaller chunks that he could manipulate with his powers...

Was Ol-Vir seen in this? Or is he even still around?

Been reading the last story arc with the LSV, with Orando and Karate Kid, coupled with his initial appearance in Great Darkness, I seem to like this brat kid. Although by now, he may not be a kid anymore.......

Ol-Vir was turned to dust in the Validus-origin annual.

Wasn't Ol-Vir active in Lo3W?

Then again, so were Validus Ranzz, Emerald Sarya, reformed Mordru and blowed-up Tharok, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything...

I always thought Terrus was a non-powered take on a 30th century Scarecrow-type baddie, with the "Terrus" being synonymous with "Terror" not "Terra", but I can't for the life of me figure out if I read that somewhere or just came up with it on my own.

Since he's never been seen without his freaky scarecrow mask, it would be amusing to have 'Terrus' not always be the same person, but a small group of low-powered villains with different powers. One 'Terrus' might be seen with earth-manipulation powers (clearly limited, compared to other characters, since he had to blow up that asteroid to move the fragments, and couldn't just move the entire thing as someone like Cosmic Boy or Ultra Boy would have), another with fear-generating emotion control, another with a bunch of remote-controlled machines / traps / robots, etc.

That could be a fun way to give oneself a reputation as having all sorts of powers...

Oy vey, Ol-Vir. That figures. Get to like him and they just kill him off.

Although like Set mentioned, I seem to recall him in 3 Worlds, but there was so much temporal machinations going on, Lightning Lord knows if that was the real one or not....

So much for drawing the line at $2.99. This $4.99 issue was pretty light on content. I'm not a big fan of specials that are just designed to set up or preview upcoming stories. That said, the LSV lineup is a good one, Saturn Queen is being taken to a whole new level of crazy and evil, and Portela's art was solid.

Great art, and I enjoyed the new characters, but Saturn Queen was a bit too "Emerald Empress crazy" for my taste.

I guess I'm just missing her as Mrs. Tenzil Kem... no hope of that now. She's a grade-A nutjob spouting utter psychobabble.

I got this, surprise surprise.

I like Saturn Queen, why I picked this up. Prefer has a calm intellect type, passionate psycho not so much.

But overall, I enjoyed it.

Saturn Queen was always one of my favourite villains but I’m not so sure I like this uber cold killer so much. Maybe it’s because I always remember her as capable of being reformed (ie influenced by the rings of Saturn, a Kiss from Superman etc)
Still have to admit I liked this issue.

^Yeah, Far, that's about where I am with this too! I don't really want Saturn Queen to take the place of Levitz' badass (and CRAZYass) Sarya.

Still, it was a good read and nice setup for stuff to come, with some HOT art!

When did a kiss from Superman cure SQ?

I think a kiss from Superman cures all

In retrospect, Saturn Queen as devoted flunky of the blue flame thingie makes her seem less 'scary' and more 'pathetic.'

She might be 'leading' the team, but since she's clearly taking orders herself, in a wide-eyed worshipful way, she's less the Bond Villain, and more the Bond Villain's duped girlfriend.

Boring.

Not what I want to see in the leader of the LSV, a weak-willed simpering servant of someone else. Even when Sarya let Tharok call the shots, she was never a sycophant or a flunky.

I guess it's in-character with her Lo3W appearance, where she was such a squeeing Superboy-Prime fangirl that she was constantly staring at him like she was a groupie.

But I think the implication is that the Blue Phantom altered her in some way and made her subservient. Ironically, she's not a willing servant to it any more than the LSV are to her. I expect she'll be extremely POed come the end of this arc.

From your lips (keyboard) to Pauls ears (eyes)!

That would be kind of hot, the LSH fighting the blue whateveritis, and it having to bend all of it's energies to fighting them, and Saturn Queen breaking free and saying, "WTH? Nobody makes *me* a puppet!" and directing the remaining LSV to *also* attack the blue dude...

Not because she's pro-Legion, but because she's anti-being-used-like-a-sock.

Kinda reminiscent of that scene in Walt Simonson's Thor run, where Loki teams up with Odin and Thor against Surtr, not because he likes Odin or Thor, but because he's not gonna let *someone else* beat them and destroy Asgard. I loved that scene (and that Loki sure as heck didn't turn into a 'good guy' because of it!), and would love to see that sort of thing done well with the LSV here.

I like the artwork as well Lash. And I think you’ve put your finger on what’s been bugging me about this version of SQ, her characterisation is coming across as the same as Crazy Emerald Empress. I for one think they are and should be different.

Jim I could be making that up I’m posting without referring to the comics.

Just put it down to my old age.

If it didn't actually happen, it should have!

I am picturing Superman seated at a booth labeled "Super-Kissing Booth"... Lana and Lois stand to the side, snarking away at the lineup of beauties waiting for their Kryptonian kiss.

In that line-up are Saturn Queen, Saturn Woman, Lori Lemaris, lots of other LL-initial chicks, and Bizarro Supergirl!

And me! Don't forget me! I'd stand in line all day to kiss the Christopher Reeve version of Superman. Or Kirk Allyn for that matter.

I see my thread-killing abilities are as potent as ever. Super-sigh.

Finally had a chance to pick this up late last week and give it a thorough read.

I really wish every comic could have this page count. Then there'd be time for both character insight and exploding eye-candy. Everyone could be happy.

And, no, I don't expect villains to be sympathetic, at least not all the time. Especially not in a comic that showcases villains and leaves the heroes as supporting cast.

I was unaware until some other comments in this thread that SQ's current personality and power-boost is supposed to come entirely from the blue flame. I must have missed something in previous issues that made that clear. Time to re-read, I guess.

P.S.- I have now killed more threads than jimgallagher.

Go me.

I super-kiss life back into this thread!

So, Immortus. Is he General Immortus?

Darkseid being pulled from the 20th century made for an amazing big bad revival.

R'as al-Ghul was a terrible disappointment, by comparison.

If Immortus is the 1000 year later incarnation of General Immortus (who has been established to have been 3000 ish years old or more in the 20th century, so it's not terribly unlikely that he's managed to make it one more millenium), I think I prefer him not being fluffed up quite as much as al-Ghul (unsuccessfully, IMO) was. So it's probably better for him to be a rank and file member of the LSV, and not some shadowy mastermind (who wouldn't necessarily live up to his hype).

It's as if he's devoted so much of his energies and ambition to simply *surviving* that he's no longer really as world-shaking a threat as a less self-preservation-minded super-villain might be.

I'm alternately intrigued by a possible 20th century tie, and relieved that, if so, it's not a dominant one that detracts from the already rich and well-populated 31st century setting.

The Legion certainly doesn't *need* 20th century elements, but I'm not adverse to subtle ones, that might make sense (as General Immortus, already having possibly lasted 3000 years, without being terribly signficant, banging around 1000 years later, and still not being exactly a Tier-1 threat, does).

For some reason, my mind went to General Immortus as soon as the new Immortus was introduced. It seemed a strange name for a killer robot unless there was a deeper reason behind it.

Count me in as a huge NON-FAN of that development if it comes to pass though. I hate all 21st century elements in my Legion stories (except Superboy, Supergirl and the Brainiac line).

I'm one of those who think that the GDS is hugely over-rated though so take my opinion for what it's worth.

I like it for what it was (although the ending was limp), but don't care for the precedent it set, where later storylines tried to recapture that lightning, and failed horribly.

Same with Crisis on Infinite Earths, really. I loved it at the time, but wow golly, did it totally screw things up for decades, and set off a cavalcade of suck that *still* hasn't ended...

That's a comics thing tho. The Death of Phoenix was hot patooties, and so it's been repeated ad nauseum for decades. The Judas Contract was tres chic, and now it's almost a requirement for someone to be a traitor, and it's even announced before the comic starts (as with Avengers Academy) that someone's gonna be 'the Terra.'

'Oh, this worked once! Let's plough it into the ground and kill it with repetition!'

Hey, I said that back on page 2!

[snip]

So much word to this. I'm really tired of how this hog-ties the writers. Can we please just let the characters and environment stand on their own? Pretty please?

Quote

I'm one of those who think that the GDS is hugely over-rated though so take my opinion for what it's worth.

"The Universo Project" was more to my liking. A tight focus on the less punch-and-hit characters, and a more compelling villain than Darkseid. So I didn't care that it had fewer artsy bells and whistles than GDS. It's been so long since I've read any of this stuff, though. I don't know how it's held up...

[snip]

Yup.

I can never forgive myself for buying Original Crisis. It only encouraged them.

Option 1; That was ages ago! We here at Short Attention Span Theatre have already moved on, Precognition Lad!

Option 2; You were just ahead of your time. You have to wait for the right moment to spring these notions!

I think Immortus could be a compelling villain for the Legion. If he finally found his immortality, I wonder what his goals are now. Power over others is obvious, but he could go about it in a number of ways and there are so many things he could exploit to his benefit.

With the original 'General' appellation, it would make sense that conquering at least a world, if not a chunk of the surrounding systems, would be a goal.

Given their love of cyborging their warriors up, and their warlike proclivities, this guy seems well-suited to taking over Khund space, and, if he's got any tactical acumen (as 'General' would suggest), perhaps forging them into a far more effective threat than ever before...

The Legion of Super Villains have just destroyed the Rock of Eternity. From the debris a ghostly hand is seen...




But whose hand is it?

It has the sleeve of Karate Kid, for example, but what would be the connection there?

Since it was the Rock of Eternity, the most likely candidate is the Wizard Shazam, but I don't think anything came from all of this.

Good idea Dave.

I thought that the hand was a little young looking for a Shazam. "You young whippersnappers leave my gosh darn Rock alone, or I'll set the dogs on ya!"

Perhaps it's Cap Jr in an Elvis jumpsuit?

Perhaps it's Kid Eternity (which is what I first thought), but I think he wore turtlenecks.

We saw one of the three demons from the old JLA in that scene too, so it might not be a Fawcett hero.

I was thinking Karate Kid due to his time travelling and because it would give Jeckie an excuse to have him back.

The long awaited retroboot debut of Lord Pernisius!