The Legion of Super-Heroes #12 – Review

By: Paul Levitz (writer), Yildiray Cinar & Jonathan Glapion (artists), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: An egomaniacal, power-hungry diva gets a massive boost in telepathy and decides she’s queen of the universe—what are the odds?

The Review: The Legion is such a sprawling team with such a wide scope of influence—basically the entire galaxy and perhaps beyond—that their potential mission load can be quite infinite.  On the same count, it’s very easy to spread them too thin without ever giving them anything worth following.  Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with Levitz’s current run on this title.

Remember in my review of last issue when I thought Levitz was finally on the verge of following up on Harmonia Li’s nigh-forgotten storyline?  Remember how she suddenly appeared in Brainiac’s lab out of nowhere and delivered a particularly foreboding cliffhanger: “This is all my fault”?  Well, it turns out Brainy’s going to let that one pass and we get to wait until the next issue—if we’re lucky—to see if that plot goes anywhere, or at least wraps up gracefully.

Levitz chooses to bring us back to Saturn Queen’s quest for three planets of cosmic influence, which honestly still doesn’t quite feel very high-stakes.  No case has been made on how integral these planets are to the universe’s well-being (considering the Rock of Eternity was reduced to rubble and no seems to have noticed).  You’re also not inclined to take the whole deal very seriously since you have no idea what S-Queen’s after—or what will happen if/when she gets it.

This issue features more of the same stuff we’ve been getting for a while: a duo or trio of Legionnaires duking it out with the baddie du jour.  These fights would be more exciting if there weren’t so many of them squeezed into one issue, limiting each battle to a couple pages each.  Levitz doesn’t make the most of them either, as the team hardly ever uses their powers very creatively (Colossal Boy especially—this is the second time in a row he’s been KO’d within four panels of the fight just starting).

It’s getting to the point where pointing out Levitz’s weaknesses in character development, dialogue, and plotting just seems like beating the issues to death, so I’ll refrain.  For what it’s worth, the series isn’t dreadful; it’s just formulaic and dull, a brand of grimness all its own.

The art is fine—colorful and lively, if nothing else, thanks to Hi-Fi—and Glapion’s contribution to Cinar’s usual work definitely calls to mind Alan Grant’s focus on straightforward, posed figures.  Perhaps if the art team could take the incentive to spice up the script, this issue would be somewhat stronger, but there are limits to what you can do in that department.

Conclusion: An incredibly slow crawl to a storyline that just won’t buckle down and figure itself out.

Grade: C-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – Just because their teammate’s bleeding on the ground doesn’t mean Phantom Girl and Ultra Boy can’t get in some foreplay before seeing to his wounds.

– Anyone care to explain how Element Lad can use his powers to apparently block Sun Killer’s solar blast?

– I was disheartened to see the black Star Boy from the Three-boot Legion—man, I miss them more and more every day.