Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes New R.E.B.E.L.S. Comic Discussion Thread.

Just a quick pipe-up to say the cliffhanger for issue 10 was FANfreakingTASTIC.

I can see this cliffhanger happening back in the early days of LEGION '89-90 etc.

Very deja-vu. Good stuff.

My only complaint about the series is--who is on the team? Strata looks very different now and I have no clue as to who these people are..

okay its almost 4 in the morning as i type this but its bugging me and i cant sleep, if you have a Yellow lantern ring does that mean you are evil? has there ever been some one with the ring that isn't bad?

I believe the yellow ring is related to fear, or the power to instill fear - and that's what was said to Vril Dox as he was given the ring.

A yellow ring once sought out Batman for his ability to cause great fear.

Also, in the Annual, Smite declares that "Vril Dox occupies a moral middle ground" - so, not evil. Not good either, which makes him the ultimate opponent for Starro, who is portrayed as beyond good and evil. But will he be beyond fear?

Perhaps there will be an eventual stalemate between Starro and Dox, although I suspect Dox will win, possibly with some behind-the-lines help from Lyrl.

Vril's reaction to Lyrl being taken by Starro was:
"Now the whole galaxy is SPROCKED!"
and
"BELIEVE me...the next time we see Lyrl, the KINDEST thing we can do is blow his head off."

Good ole Vril.
He's perfect as a Yellow Lantern.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but my first impressions is that yet ANOTHER DC crossover event is bringing down a quality title. I thought REBELS #10 read totally as a distraction to its current story by the Blackest Night events. The whole Starro storyline was already running risk of being drawn out too long, and this interruption isn't helping. Seeing Stealth as a walking corpse did not help - I always liked the character and her Black Lantern persona seems like the final insult to her death.

I can only surmise that in the end Blackest Night will be the excuse for ALL those Black Lanterns (good and bad) to be brought back to life, and DC will swear it to be the Last Time character resurrection will ever be used (until the next Main Event). So I expect we will see Stealth back to normal by next year (which is good).

Vril Dox as a Yellow Lantern? I dunno. I'll have to see more. My first impressions is that B2 is a strong enough character without the ring (like Batman). I would have preferred Xylon or Ciji to get it instead.

^^^ I don't think ALL the Black Lanterns will be brought back to life since a bunch seem to have been destroyed completely already (Ralph and Sue Dibny, a bunch of Titans like Lilith, Pantha, Baby Wildebeest and so on), but there's a good chance that at least some of them will come back.

I'd say Stealth has good odds of being in the 'brought-back' camp since she was a fairly big character back in the day and her off-panel death was so WTF.

One of the particularly interesting aspects of R.E.B.E.L.S. for me is the presentation of religions.

There is an undercurrent of Christian references throughout, from the opening scene of two people talking about the Second Coming, and Dox appearing, walking on water; Dox's reference to rebirth on Starhaven; Astrild citing a Christian gravestone epitaph, et cetera.

There are more general religion references, such as the repeated reference to Starro as a god to be served, description by the Omega Men of the communal mind of Starro as akin to prayer and a comment by one of the bounty hunters chasing Dox that he won't attack a place of worship.

Bedard also gives us a few interesting religion-driven planets. Pathon is a world united by its church and defended by four superhuman monks (also described as warrior-priests), the Sodality of Virtue. Astrild Stormdaughter was her planet Varidian's living god, who controlled life forces and created a utopia, free of religious strife, because all could see their god.

In the 3boot arc that Bedard wrote, he presented Winath as a planet with old gods and cults.

I don't know if religions are a common aspect of his stories generally, and I'm still thinking about how/if these religions tie into the underlying theme of beyond good and evil which is playing out between Starro and Vril Dox. Starro has taken out religion-driven planets, but he has also conquered the tyrannies and the structured political systems.

(A side note: of all the planets we've seen so far, the only reference to any voting has been for Khundia, which I find rather amusing.)

Good eye on the Christian references! I spotted a few, but not nearly as many as you have, Ms. Cramer.
(Visualize Strata and Rocky and Garv visited last issue by the Vanguard 'Kings').

Thank-you for your insights, FC.

I just read the latest issue and I have to reread it and pour over it but my first impressions were that it was a little confusing but the Lyle/Vril interchanges were so wonderful that I didn't care.

I hope Lyle remains a major personality in the future of .REBELS/LEGION.
I'm growing to love him as much as a teenager as I hated him as a baby!

He is a MAJOR new character for DC and I hope they see him as the treasure and future treasure that he is.

The problem is that now that I've begun to care so much about him I'm starting to get scared for him.
sigh

Lots of conflicting emotions in the last issue. Vril seems to be very proud of and concerned for his son, while feigning indifference. Lyrl's accusations of his fathering abilities in earlier issues sounded a bit like any grumpy teenager at odds with his parents (not that Vril is Dad of the Year by any means).

The game's still afoot, and I'm still expecting Lyrl to join the good guys' fight, since I suspect that starro doesn't have so much power over his big brain. He could just be serving Starro to annoy his old man.

Vril must have been confident of Lyrl's survival abilities if he sent him back to Starro with the Stealth creature.

I know we had to be shown how brilliant the kid is, but now that he's invented transmatter portals, that's pretty much the last of the 31st century tech to fall into the present. There's just nothing left for Brainiac 5 to do except the flight ring, and that can't be far out of Vril and Lyrl's reach.

The Legion of Substitute Podcasters were discussing the likelihood of Smite or Astrild Stormdaughter switching allegiance. I hadn't thought of that and it would certainly be an interesting moral tale. What would cause them to change sides? Simply realigning with a new power base, or some emergence of free will?

Comet and Adam Strange don't seem to have much character here; not really part of the team, just hired hands.

I think that if the Starro queen on the leader's chest is injured or killed, his power over the rest of the Starro creatures will end.

A number of things could happen then, I guess.

They were a completely murderous species BEFORE he took them over and he controls their killing pretty firmly.

If the leader is killed, will the queen choose another to join with or can she be forced to join with someone else.

The person would have to be a telepath or empath, someone capable of communicating on the Starro's level, imo.

Stormdaughter might be strong enough for that.
SHE might use her power to heal the galaxies damaged by the Starros.
By absorbing the life of her 'people', the Starros, she could free those 9 galaxies from Starro control, destroying most of them.

That's just a theory, for fun.

I wasn't crazy about the ending to the BLACKEST NIGHT tie-in.

I just don't know what to do about this book. One month I enjoy it and the next I don't.

The two BN issues were almost like an interlude. Lyrl appeared and disappeared, Wildstar caught up to the group, the ship got broken and repaired, Dox got a ring and lost it - so we're more or less back to where we started, with a little more information.

Did Dox learn something from his brief time
with the Sinestro Corps, something he'll use to defeat Starro?

I'd like to see Stormdaughter break free and go back to being a healer.

It took me over a month to get around to reading the last issue.

I can't be bothered with this series but the art's nice and I really want to like it.

Does anyone else have a problem with the pacing?

14 issues and an annual seems like a really LONG time to take to tell the first story of a new ongoing series.

I'm still enjoying the series but agree it could use a little push to conclude this storyline and move to the next phase. BCoK is absolutely right--14 issues and an annual is asking for a heck of a lot for one full story, let alone the *first* story of the series.

No wonder young readers don't collect REBELS--most of them haven't had relationship half as long as this storyline has been running!

I seem to be in the minority here, but I absolutely LOVED the two part BN tie-in in REBELS! In fact I'd rank it as the best non-GL/GLC BN crossover to this point.

Why? Well, in my opinion it just seemed to fit in within the framework of the series very well. While the plot may not have moved forward by leaps and bounds, it DID move forward. We got to see Lyrl emerging as the threat Dox anticipated once on Starro's side. His invention will bring the series out of the holding pattern its been in for a while. We got to see the REBELS coming together more as a team.

Most importantly, we got glimpses into what's beneath Dox's cold exterior. None of his teammates called him on it, but Dox admitted he had feelings for Stealth aloud by stating that the BL Stealth exploited the will it took to suppress his feelings for her. And that scream after what he did to Lyrl--very telling. A classic Dox moment followed by a very revealing and unusual one that was very character-defining.

And it just made sense for a space series like this one to interact with a crisis of an interstellar nature. Going with that nature (and aginst what Cobalt said), I'm perfectly fine with the storyline not ending to soon. The scope of it works very well for longform storytelling. Starro wouldn't be much of a threat if he were dispatched very easily. And then REBELS wouldn't be "REBELS" anymore, would it?

Yeah, Dox's Sinestro Corps membership was brief and contrived, but it was still kinda fun while it lasted. Kinda reminiscent of Spidey being captain Universe for a day or Doc Doom stealing the Surfer's surfboard in a way. He and the ring's kiss-off to each other was actually quite hilarious!

In any case the teasers (LOVED 'em!) showed me that there is progress in store for the series. Bedard is definitely getting better as he goes along, so this title is sitting pretty with me. I'm much more worried it'll be cancelled by DC than by me.

Yeah, Lardi.
I enjoyed them, the second book, especially.

Of the books I'm getting, .REBELS is my first read.
I'd love to see a .LEGION even in the 31st century, working outside of the UP and at odds with &/or working with, the LSH.

While I do stand by what I said about the larger storyline coming to a conclusion (and going somewhere else thereafter), I do want to reiterate that I'm enjoying the hell out of REBELS right now. I certainly have no plans to stop buying it and hope cancellation is nowhere in sight.

Bedard really seems to have Dox nailed down and he's just so enthralling to see on the page. The rest of the cast is just the perfect mix of people, from LEGION characters, to old DCU favorites Adam Strange and Captain Comet, to all kinds of psychos and villains. I'm loving the inclusion of the Dominator General.

I thought the Blackest Night crossover was the best BN crossover that DC did for the entire event. It was fun and was just plain awesome to see Vril with a Sinestro Corps ring. It just fit--moreso than any other DC character with any of the various rings.

I want more than anything Stealth to be an ongoing part of the series. Other than her, I'm pretty comfortable with Bedard adding in whoever he wants (and taking them out too) at his whim.

And the art is simply fantastic.

Post-Crossgen, Bedard stumbled a little in places but here it feels like he's recaptured the magic from Negation, the much-missed series that makes my top 10 of the decade.

I'm behind a few issues on this series, but I'm on my way to catching up!

I think fun is the keyword here with what's working and what's not working in BN crossovers. Even when there is serious subject matter, this should be a fun event! I'm feeling the fun in the core BN series (I had fun being shocked by the end of BN #5!), in GL, in GLC and definitely in the REBELS tie-in. Those titles and some others get it. JLA, BN: Batman and some of the others simply don't.

I had tons of fun reading the REBELS tie-in, and that's why I'd recommend it to anyone. Comics can still be fun, right?

I never would've thought I'd like Lyrl from his days as infant tyrant. But I do! I hope he survives and antagonizes Vril for years to come. Wonder if they'll meet up with Lyrl's straight-from-the-tube aunt any time soon?

I second the idea that Stormdaughter should join with Dox, post Starro (assuming she survives).

I want to see the rest of the blueprinted ones from Brainiac 5 Prime's file, sooner than later.

I think the title could benefit from a few one or two issue storylines for a period, as this Starro tale seems to be going on forever.

Does anyone else want a bit of resolution?

It's been 12 issues and it just feels as if we're getting nowhere!!!

I really enjoyed the first few issues but it would be nice to see the team interacting with each other or just getting things done.

One issue just seems to slump into the other.

Strata's just been written out but what did she bring to the book / team in the first place? It'd be nice just to see something happening every now and again.

http://bottlecityofkanga.blogspot.com/2010/01/rebels-12-still-no-end-in-sight-sob.html