Legion of Superheroes: Week Twenty Four

 

It's gonna take you over...

 

So, here we are again: another week gone and another set of comic-reviews to run through. This is getting to be like clock-work anymore. Hopefully it’s never dull, though. Perish the thought. If this year-long challenge ever gets to be a chore, I will pack up my laptop and toss it into the drink. I’m not going to be like: “uuh-uhhg, Legion of Super-dweebs week forty-nine…eww. Uhhh. So boring. Can’t wait for all this to be over. Never want to read another stupid Legion book ever again. Blaahhhhhggg.” No, I love the Legion of Superheroes in all their iterations. Sitting down once a week to hammer out my impressions of their varied exploits is a passion project. Writing every single week for a whole year is a challenge that I’ve never attempted before. Yah, it’s a daunting prospect at times. It’s summertime and I would rather be outside playing tennis or running down the beach like Hasselhoff, instead of gluing my eyeballs to a computer. Sometimes it’s hard to get the motivation up…but then I just go back to the source material: the comics themselves. I read a few more issues and get re-invigorated once more. I get inspired. Loopy-headed, even. ShnozzleI-farbed. Then, I just let my fingers do the walking.

After reading a really-good comic, I tend to get all glassy-eyed and tingle-headed. Sort of like what Peter Parker goes through when danger is approaching, except there’s not some imminent threat for me to worry about. Rather, it’s every other person around me that should get concerned. Yes, after reading a really-really-good comic, I just want to jump to my feet and stat singing its praises to anyone in earshot. I want to climb the highest mountaintop and holler out the infinite details of the final splash-page and how the scene so profoundly affected my soul. Did you…did you know? Oh, did you know that even an an-droid can cry-ie-eye? …Did you?! Oh, yes…yes he can. Yeah, yeah, yeah! That an-droid can cry. yes…even an android can cry! He can…cri-eeeeeee! Here, let me show you. See, on page sixteen the Vision does this and that and then Cap goes blah blah-uuumm: yep, nope. Nobody wants to hear that. 

Like I said: that tingly sensation in my brain is a clear warning for me to shut the up and just enjoy the comics to myself. I can laze around with a goofy grin on my face, for sure. But, the lips have got to stay zipped. Muphh-a-gummph. I can smile wryly at another fan who has read all the good stuff too, but you don’t have to talk about it. You just know. You can see the devotion in the other person’s eyes. It’s a religion. Shhh…just shut up and read. You know the deal. But the fire is still inside. I need to let my feelings flow somehow. I can’t stand being so excited about something, and yet be unable to express. So, to avoid any noise ordinance or peace disturbance citation: I sit down, and I write. I write to exorcise the fuzzy feels I get after reading the good stuff and the fugly disdain I feel after reading the bad stuff. I lay it all down in the most unobtrusive form possible: in type. Here, there is no affront to the senses. The viewer can skip or skim or peruse at their leisure. Here, in type: no weary mountain climber need ever be assaulted by my incoherent bellowing from on high. 

So, next time you’ve got a brain-itch to express some inconsequential opinion, don’t be a street-corner embarrassment. Instead, be like me and write your garbley-shnozzle-farbing words down in the foaming murky depths of the internet. It’s the only decent thing to do.

Yo-de-lay-hee-hoooo…

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES: WEEK TWENTY-FOUR

After escaping the prison ship, Starlag, Vril Dox liberated his home Colu and then set off for the crime-ridden planet, Cairn. There, with a few of his good friends, Vril established the galactic police force, now known as: the L.E.G.I.O.N. (Licensed Extra-Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network).

After meeting new R.E.C.R.U.I.T. Ig’nea, Vril abandoned his galactic police enforcement dreams and ran off with the girl to join her father’s criminal empire. What a maroon.

L.E.G.I.O.N. ROLL CALL:

Vril Dox: Previous Team Leader. Green-skinned, native of Colu. Ancestor to Brainiac 5. Cold hearted .

Garryn Bek: Former police officer on the planet Cairn. Wimpy wedge-head turned Grok-bokkin’ badass. 

Stealth: Orange-skinned, native of Gryx. Mutant with some indeterminant abilities. 

Strata: Female crystalline creature from the planet Dryad. Strong and invulnerable.

Phase: Amnesiac with dis-corporal abilities. De facto team-leader.

Lobo: Czarian bastich.

Captain Comet: Human mutant with enhanced mental and physical abilities.

Garv: Male pink rock creature from the planet Dryad. 

Marij’n Bek: Garryn Bek’s ex-wife.

Lady Quark: Energy being and lone survivor of Earth-6.

Telepath (real name too long to print): Grub-like creature with telepathic abilities.

R.E.C.R.U.I.T.S. HEROES HOTLINE:

Lydia Mallor: Lyrissa Mallor’s artificially aged daughter. Darkness powers.

Bertron: Impervious brown lumpy thing. 

Darius: Cyborg.

Amon Haak: Khund.

Borb Borbb: Green-skinned teleporter. 

Zena Moonstruck: Transforms darkness to light.

Davroth Catto: Flying mullet.

The story so far…

Under the leadership of Vril Dox, the L.E.G.I.O.N. gained success as a legitimate galactic policing network. With organized crime in remission, the premier crime-lord, Max G’odd sent his daughter, Ig’nea, to Cairn to seduce Vril. With the team-leader distracted by Ig’nea, L.E.G.I.O.N. fell into undisciplined disarray. G’odd also sent a divine entity named “Ice Man” to kill the L.E.G.I.O.N. members, starting with Lobo. When the main man returned home for some personal time, he discovered the decapitated head of one of his beloved dolphins stuffed in his fridge. Lobo went berserk. He tracked the murderous Ice Man down to some trap-filled world but was buried under a mile of boulders before he could exact his revenge. Vril Dox disbanded the L.E.G.I.O.N. and left Cairn to be with Ig’nea on her home-world. Phase and Garryn Bek tried to keep the program together, despite various affronts and indignities.

Lobo finally escaped his rocky prison and fought a few rounds with Ice Man. Captain Comet began to experience some killer head-aches. Vril arrived on Ig’nea’s planet and met her father; who is none other than the notorious G’odd. Once discovering ig’nea’s duplicitous nature, the team rushed to G’odd’s planet in a full-frontal attack; hoping Vril will finally snap out of his delusions about ig’nea once they got there. Vril snapped out of his delusions about Ig’nea when he witnessed her forcing a gardener slit his own throat. 

And now…

L.E.G.I.O.N. #39-45 (1992)

Written by Alan Grant & Barry Kitson.

Drawn by Barry Kitson & Rodney Ramos.

The L.E.G.I.O.N. arrives on G’odd’s planet, only to be met by an abundant assault from the crime-lord’s armed forces. Strata leads the charge through a sea of Go’dd’s soldiers while Vril Dox finds his way to the crime-lord himself. Vril ties G’odd up in a chair and then releases his hungry dragon-pet out of his pen. I’m sure it was a very satisfying meal for the dragon. Captain Comet, Lady Quark and the rest of the gang blast their way through G’odd’s troops until they are all beaten into submission. Even Garryn Bek and Phase get some good pounding in. After all the bickering, complaining and hap-hazard missions the team has been on; this is the first time they all work well as a team. Vril finally confronts Ig’nea when she finds her dead father’s carcass. He threatens to shoot her in the head. She calls his bluff. She tries another mind-trick on Vril but it doesn’t work. Vril has evolved beyond her slight charms. He trains his side-arm at her skull..and that’s it. No bang. No splat. He lets her go. 

Stupid Vril Dox. Something tells me this will not be the last we see of that . But, you know: I think Vril likes having some enemies floating around his orbit. G’odd wasn’t really an enemy per say: he was simply an impediment to his plans. Vril took out the main obstacles and proved to himself that he could handle the girl. She will try to get back at him for allowing her father to be killed, and he’s fine with the challenge. This is a part of Vril’s character that is so infuriating, and yet intriguing at the same time. As for Ig’nea…after reading this last issue in the story arc, I realized what her name is referenced to. Ig’nea is Max G’odd’s beloved daughter. That would make her full name: Ig’nea G’odd. It’s Iron Butterfly, right? Ig’nea G’odd a davita, honey. Don’t you know that I’m lovin’ you? Brilliant.

After all that fun stuff with G’odd and his devilish daughter, the L.E.G.I.O.N. returned to Cairn to re-establish themselves and get back to some good old police work. Strata, Amon Hack, Borb and Telepath travel to the planet Enballinn to investigate a murder. A teen-aged girl was found dead in a barren part of the planet, apparently suffering from a drug overdose. Although there is no drug trade among the indigenous peoples, some asteroid miners from Kyaltec were known to often visit and carouse. Strata’s team travel to a Kyaltec mining ship but are warned off by it’s crew. Strata devises a plan to covertly enter the structure, and joined by Stealth and Zena Moonstruck, make it inside. There, the team is discovered but they successfully fight their way to find audience with the mining ship’s leader. Once confronted with the details of the young woman’s overdose, the Kyaltec willfully releases the responsible member of the mining operation, into L.E.G.I.O.N. custody. Book ‘em, Borb!

While Strata’s team is off bringing the Kyaltec pusher to justice, Garv and Lady Quark are off investigating an anomalous object in space, heading toward Cairn. As they near the strange organic structure, their signal is lost to Vril’s sensors. They exit their spacecraft to investigate, but the living organic glob swallows them up into itself. Try as he might, Vril Dox cannot get a read on the two absent team-members. Against his will, Stealth takes Strata and Captain Comet out toward their team-mate’s last known coordinates. Once at the goopy blob, they find easy passage to it’s interior and rescue Quark and Garv from being fully consumed. Stealth then leads the team to an inner chamber of the body where they find a group of youngling creatures playing about. There, she reveals to her friends: the location where she has left her own child. A day care center in the bowels of some ball of space-goop? Ew, Stealth.

Over on Arga-Prime, there’s a different kind of messy business going on. It’s a full-on revolution. Rebels fighting L.E.G.I.O.N. troopers on the streets. Snipers taking pot-shots from above. It’s a -storm. Amon Hack, Zena Moonstruck, Bertron, and Darius attempt to contain the revolting masses while Vril discusses this dire situation with the planet’s leadership. The high-council of Arga-Prime conscript the L.E.G.I.O.N. to help restore order on their world and stamp out any further insurgence. Vril is suspicious that something more sinister is afoot. On the streets, Amon Hack is captured by Argite rebels and Davroth is shot down by sniper-fire. As the rebellious forces increase their attack, they manage to push the L.E.G.I.O.N. into retreat; but not before a prisoner of their own is secured. After much grilling of his prisoner, Vril surmises the conflict is not really about a bunch on malcontents trying to overthrow the government because they are bad people: it’s about racial hatred. The ruling class just happens to have no pigmentation in their eyes, while the oppressed masses have colored eyes. For generations, those born with hued goggles have been shoved aside and treated like dogs, but now they have had enough. Yes, it’s that petty. Looks like planet Earth is not the only place people of colored whatevers get a raw deal.

So, I want to talk about Garryn Bek for a second. Garryn who? You know: that regular joe who got swept up into Vril’s designs when they broke out of Starlag together? Yah, that wedge-head. Now, I know Garryn is not the most popular character in the universe. He talks a lot of big bluster until some big bad comes around, then folds up like a cheap tent. Yah, he’s just another regular guy. If he was on Earth, Garryn would probably be on twitter or have some blog about all the social injustices of the world: blasting away from the comfort of his own heated toilet seat. He might even have the chance to be elected President of the United States…nahhh, that could never happen. Anyway, I like Garryn a lot. I can relate to him quite a bit, you see. I was also a blow-hard, wimp -hole once upon a time. I too believe in justice and the peaceful end to most conflict. I too have issues with those who resort to intimidation tactics. But Garryn has grown quite a bit over the course of this title. He became a little crazy when endowed with the power of the Emerald Eye and has since gained a lot of self-confidence. He no longer complains over anything that gets under his skin. Now, when something rubs him the wrong way, he takes-action. I too have gained some stature in the world over time. I have struggled with the responsibility of having greater influence over others, and am no longer averse to taking on conflicts directly. Yah, this Garryn Bek chap is alright. Too bad he can’t ever get any luck in the sack. That I can relate to as well.

Captain Comet, however, is a real head-ache...I mean he has a great pain in his head. His migraines have increased in frequency and in force since blowing his mind at G’odd’s assassins, back in issue #36. On the way back to Cairn from the space-faring spoopy-nursery organism, CC has yet another brain-wrecking episode. Lady Quark is also afflicted by some mysterious effects: hallucinating friends and family of her long passed home-world. What in heck is going on? And where’s Lobo been for so long? Out running after the Ice Man some more? Give it up, cetacean-lover. That bronzed is adios muchachos. Maybe take your frustrations out on something a little less slippery…like maybe: Vril Dox, perhaps. Absolutely. Giving up on the Ice Man, Lobo returns to Cairn for a re-match with Vril and a chance to taste Coluan entrails. Vril accepts Lobo’s challenge. The catch is, according to Lobo’s twisted code of honor: Vril has the choice at the combat form and venue. And Vril chooses…Zelorian Pan-dimensional Chess. Aww, frag me! I was so hoping for another knuckle-buster with the main man! Bwa-ha-ha. Vril you are a fraggin’ card. Check-mate!

As for the residents of Arga-Prime: they are all fraggin’ doomed. Once the uppity hueless greaseball priests were exposed as being biased against their own pigmented peoples, they released a deadly virus into the planet’s atmosphere. This promises to be a Prometheus-style extinction event if those buggers get into the cumulous clouds. The entire population knows their fate as well. Mere hours away from death from above, the citizens begin to tear each other apart. Vril works tirelessly to find a cure but is incapable of finding an antigen. Phase calls upon all their clients for rescue boats to ship the Agra-Prime population off-world. The L.E.G.I.O.N. forces are on the ground, attempting to diffuse any desperate outbreak of violence when the rains begin to fall. It’s too late for escape. This is the end. Oh, : an entire planet will be consumed by a horrible disgusting microbe. The humanity of it all! Who can stop this? Anyone? Anyone…? Oh yah, no problem. Garryn just dials up the Green Lanterns for assistance. He orchestrates the thousand-ship rescue effort and gets Hal Jordan to run down to the planet to scoop up the rest. And presto: crisis averted. Well done, Garryn Bek. Very well done.

What can I say? L.E.G.I.O.N. is one of the most consistently readable titles from the early 1990’s. This title continues to be a fun, exciting, sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing adventure tale about some very flawed but enduring characters. In an era where multi-pouch-adorned mutants and maximumly cloned arachnids were kings of the pull-lists, the L.E.G.I.O.N. gang quietly carved out a nice little template for other team books to successfully follow. It still has that melodrama that we all enjoy in superhero fare, but it also doesn’t shy away from some tough subjects and does so with just the right amount of levity. A consistently well-rounded title that rarely disappoints. It may not have that one landmark issue of social commentary (the drug-addiction or the domestic violence spotlight issue), but things get very real around issue #34. Some of the interactions between Argites while escaping their planet really hit home for me. The scene where a mother was not allowed on a boat that her child had gained passage on was gut wrenching. Plus, the dynamics between each of the core team members is always pure gold. When Hal asks Garryn if the team is always prone to squabbling, his reply is most glib: “of course not…we’re normally at each other’s throats.”

The final chapter in the G’odd saga, Issue #39, was Alan Grant’s swan song, and a magnificent conclusion it was. The depiction of the ravenous dragon picking away at G’odd’s post-humus body is a perfect representation of Alan’s approach to this title. Destroy all perceptions of what a hero can be. Wreck the idea of good vs evil. Tear down every figure of all the gods and G’odd himself on the way out. Middle finger in the air. Fraggin’ right! From there, Barry Kitson performed double-duty as writer and penciler. What a great writing debut! The very first issue where Strata and company investigate the poor girl’s drug overdose is a more nuanced and sobering tale than Alan ever managed to reach. The result of this one-off is not heart-wrenching as much as cold commentary on the heartlessness of men, great and small. From there, Barry explores the plague and senselessness of racism in the Arga-Prime saga. Barry’s pencils are as sharp as ever as he weaves each character through the complexities of what a real galactic enforcement organization might face. Super impressive. My only disappointment is: his term as writer/penciler ended way too soon. By issue #44, Barry as artist is replaced by Rodney Ramos. If I had my choice between writer Kitson and artist Kitson, I might have to draw straws. He is that good at both here. Rodney does an admirable job filling in…but…but it’s not the same!!! Wahhh. I want my Buh-buh-Barry Ka-Kitson b-a-a-ack. Ahh-hwaaah-ha-waah…

Just kidding. Rodney Ramos is just fine. Dan Brereton’s cover for #42 is one of my very favorites of all time. Masterful composition and incredible energy flying off that image. Amon Hack and Zena Moonstruck never looked so amazing as this. This is a great comic and it just gets better as it goes along. 

Grade A.

Next: Captain Comet gets everybody pregnant.

Long Live the L.E.G.I.O.N.!!