Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes LEGION #3 (preview & spoilers)

Yay, Cargg! When are you gonna buy my book?

What book?

I think his powers were expanded enough that he could affect elements that were combined with other elements as compounds. Certainly, Postboot Jan could create compounds with his power, although they gave him another limitation - he had difficulty working quickly.

With Umbra, I'm not sure if it was necessarily separate from the cave darkness. I think the cave darkness and the genetic darkness were one and the same - genetics granted the ability to use the darkness, but the "right" to do so was earned by entering the cave and communing with ancestors. That's how I understood it anyway.

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In addition, they gave him some sort of ability to sense the concentration of elements in a given substance. He had to get a "feel" for what elements were there before he could transmute anything.

I certainly like it better than the Threeboot version's two limitations - each change lasting only 60 seconds, and him having to touch the element in order to change it. Good luck changing uranium then...

Yeah, that was a *huge* powerdown for Jan, although Shooter kind of ignored it and had him transmute some stuff at arm's length (and had him make some non-elemental changes, like turning something into water, a simple compound).

I kinda miss him being the 'big gun' who took down thousands of Daxamites with a wave of his hand in the Great Darkness Saga.

I found it odd that he felt it necessary to say that 'if' he could do it, it would kill Res-Vir. Does he have a personal code against killing people? The Legion code against killing hasn't really existed for decades, and Phantom Girl casually offed anywhere from dozens to hundreds of Dominators by blowing up their ships, as did Polar Boy, who, in the preboot, was so anal about the Code Against Killing that he was all up in Saturn Girl's face about it during the trial of Brainy.

There was a day when Mon-El would take out a Khund warcruiser by dismantling it's power systems for weapons and propulsion and leave it just enough for life support, but that day is long over.

I chose to assume that the ships were unmaned drones, other than the command ship, which wasn't touched.
Where have we seen Legionnaires killing people?

And IB - I realize that the Mallor shadow power is genetic and activated in the cave experience, but in dotLEGION, Pulsar Stargrave got hold of the infant Lydea and not only forced her to grow into teenhood, but added a genetic offensive dark power that she had and used to kill her mother, long before she went to the cave and received/activated her ancestrial shadow powers.

Umbra displayed the separate energy power only once, IIRC, during a space battle when she hammered a ship with her power and blew it up.
Lar saw her do it.

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Candle, thanks for the clarification. I wasn't quite clear that it was different, since under DNA, Umbra used her shadows offensively a lot.

In Legion Lost 1, 4, 7 and 12 she was able to floor enemies with her darkfield. When she attacked Monstress, who said, "That hurt...", Umbra's reply was, "Close range darkfield. Used right, it's supposed to." In Legion 2, she also used her shadows to strangle Abyss.

I guess I always assumed it was a tweak DNA did to her powers; and since it wasn't explained, I always assumed she could do it all the time.

I didn't know about Lydea's history, though.

PS, I agree with Candle as well - I choose to believe the Legionnaires wouldn't willingly kill, even in war, unless in self-defense or to prevent the killing of another.

I think this series has gotten off to a MUCH better start than the last one! The writing seems so much tighter already, and I really enjoyed this issue!

It was great to see Shady and Tinya so crucial to the plot after the Legion ladies were so useless throughout most of the last series, and I really enjoyed seeing lots of Legionnaires actually coming across as the effective heroes we know they are.

Some random thoughts after issue #3:

- Dragonwing and Sun Boy is a much more interesting pairing to me than Dragonwing/Chemical Kid or Polar Boy/Comet Queen...I hope this one actually goes somewhere, the possible dynamics between Dirk and Marya intrigue me.

- Chemical Kid, Dragonwing and Comet Queen all seemed to belong on the page this time around; even Marya, who wasn't really shown to contribute to the battle at all, was shown with as much personality and drive as any of the others. Notice the omission here? Yup, I am still not seeing what quality Glorith possesses that has convinced the Legion she should be on the team. I hope this changes.

- Upon first reading I was really disappointed with Shady's random fainting episode at the end of the fight. Since when has it been that physically taxing for her to use her power? I have since read a theory that maybe she is pregnant with Earth-Man's baby though, and as much as I hate Earth-Man and would be happy to never hear his name again, I must admit this idea kind of intrigues me too...

All in all, I think Paul Levitz has finally begun to hit his stride with this team again. And the art is lush! I am enjoying the Legion again, which is a nice thing.

That's because this Legion hasn't existed for decades. The code has existed at least since Projectra killed Nemesis Kid and resigned from the Legion.

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That is not true. The Legion was not rebooted. The only things changed are things affected by the rest of the DCU. For everything else, we're supposed to assume it's still the same unless we're specifically shown it's changed (and with the usual allowance for mistakes and such).

My take:

I don't think we can make strong and definitive statements about what is and what isn't in continuity anymore. Post Flashpoint, DC appears to have officially adopted a policy of "loose continuity". Some things happened, some things didn't, and some happened, but happened a bit differently than originally presented.

Interviews prior to the relaunch said that the Legion would be one of the books least effected. I think that is because Levitz had pretty much adopted a "loose continuity" approach when he took over, essentially ignoring some events even as recent as Legion of Three Worlds. The rolling back of the Legionnaires ages seemed to have already occurred.

The point of this approach is that the essential nature of the characters not be changed, but that we not get so bogged down in decades of history that glitches ruin the story for us. We now have a common point of reference. If something presented in a new story occurs in a manner that contradicts what we remember, instead of saying, "Wait, when did that change?", we can say "Hmm, that must have changed during the Flashpoint event."

It's a slippery slope. We won't all agree about what is essential to any given character or team.

From where I sit, the code against killing is an essential part of the Legion's history. Star Boy's killing of Kenz Nuhor, his expulsion, and its impact on his relationship with Nura are major past developments that had ongoing influence on the series. The death of Garth's and Ayla's parents -- well, not so much. As a reader, I'm free to make that interpretation as I read an individual story. What I'm not able to do, is post it on a list of things that happened to the Legion and expect other readers or writers to accept it as definite history. It's my opinion and interpretation. Nothing more and nothing less. It is important for me have that ability to make that interpretation, because it is important for me to view these stories as part of an ongoing narrative. It may not be as important for other readers.

It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

We have come a long, long way from the days when pretty much any superhero, by definition, had a 'code against killing.'

Anywho, random other things that struck me while reading issue 3;

Dominator targetting systems suck! On page 2, Tinya is just floating there, and only one of the ships actually manages to hit her! Granted, ship-based weaponry might not be calibrated to shoot at human-sized targets, but isn't that what computers are for? Then again, if their targetting sensors use something like radar or sonar, and Tinya has no mass for the sensors to bounce off of, they might have trouble 'acquiring' her...

And it would be an ugly visual for all of the energy beams to be intersecting on her torso, I suppose, which is probably an even more important factor.

Love the interlac on the Dominators computer scopes on page 3! They mispelled Phantom Girl as Phamtom Girl 'though. Silly Dominators!

The critter Cham turns into on page 8 is awesome. Very creative and alien-looking. Sort of dragon-y, but not at all.

Brainy taught Chemical Kid how to speed up fuel reactions and Phantom Girl how to blow up Dominator ships? Huh, for a guy who never talks to his teammates on-panel without being brusque and dismissive, he sure does do a lot of one-on-one training off-panel... I wonder if they didn't have Brainy around to tell them how to use their powers, if the Legion would be more or less effective? OTOH, it's exactly the sort of thing a team super-genius *should* be doing, telling his teammates how to get 110% from their powers.

Sun Boy with the Human Torch flame aura on p. 17, p. 20, and, especially, p. 22, looks *awesome.*

I like that, on p. 17, of the Legionnaires whose hands are clearly visible, we can see Flight Rings. It's very common for artists to not bother to draw them in, but Francis is really paying attention to that little detail! It's neat to see a Flight Ring on Comet Queen's three-fingered hand, for instance.

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And yet, NoLongerLegion, on another thread you said:
"...the surest 'sign' that this is a REBOOT is because THEY TOLD US IT WAS BEFORE IT EVEN HAPPENED. If even the jerks at DC who will twist their deffinition of the word around to NOT call the Three-boot a Reboot call THIS a REBOOT, then it IS a REBOOT."

Why would you believe what the "jerks" said until you've actually seen signs of a Reboot on-panel?

This series is really shaping up to be very solid. The art is sooo beautiful, and everyone looks great.

It was nice to see Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass, Polar Boy and Cham being so effective. By the way, I really like how Portella draws Cham's ears! It's details like this that are wonderful.

I also like the variation to Glorith and Mon-El's costumes.

Really looking forward to next issue.

For this Legion (along with Green Lantern & Batman), it's a SOFT reboot though. Meaning that anything which (a) isn't shown on-panel to be changed and (b) doesn't involve a "hard" rebooted character, like Supergirl, should be assumed to be fundamentally unchanged from the LSH v6 version of the team until proven otherwise.

So New Krypton, SG Annual #1, etc can be assumed to be changed or gone. But stuff like the no-kill rule? Assume that's still there until proven otherwise.

I'd been led to understand that mostly what had happened with this latest series (both the main title and Lost) was a kind of chronological compression;that we had fundamentally the same team, but their entire history from the Founders to the present was pretty much supposed to have taken place over about five years.

Does anyone know if this is correct or not?

That's basically it. There are some gaps and tweaks (most explicitly with the Super-characters. Superman's history has changed significantly, and he was lower powered for longer even than the Byrne history - although he was still a Legionnaire in some form - while Superboy/Kon and Supergirl/Kara have both been hard-rebooted. Those areas are vague, and I'd assume that Supergirl will become a Legionnaire in her future all over again, as in the Johnsboot/pre-DCnU, while this Kon's probably never interacted with any version of the team and may never do so), and it's possible some stuff will be shown to have been deleted as part of the compression.

But only assume stuff has changed once shown to be so. Again, the Super-characters have changed and we know it; but other stuff - including the spine of stories Superboy/Kal was in? Assume no massive differences except in the "small print" of the detail until proven otherwise.

Well, I'll certainly be happy to go along with that.
The Secret Origin stories should at least, help with the foundation.
I just hope the Rokk/Imra mess is gone.

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A "hard" reboot is something like the new Supergirl #1, or the Zero Hour & "threeboot" LSH reboots. Nothing prior remains valid or relevant.

Whereas, even as quickly as the preview pages for LSH v7 #1, there are immediate references to stories from v6 (e.g., Mon-El as a Green Lantern). That makes the reboot "soft" - some things may have changed, but big chunks of what went before also remain valid.

What you need to remember that not all reboots are equal. A "true" or "hard" reboot changes EVERYTHING. That isn't the case here. Like the post-Flashpoint Batman & Green Lantern books, which also carry on almost precisely from where they were before (no, Dick's not Batman any more, but all the Bat-stories were he was are still valid - he just quit.)