By: Tom DeFalco (writer), Pete Woods (artist), Brad Anderson (colorist)
The Story: He’s the amphibious, humanoid telepath of your dreams.
The Review: Chalk this up to my wishy-washy nature, but I’ve always found it difficult to step away from a comic book series, even one that’s not performing so well. Part of me wants to believe the title’s only going through a rough patch, one that may be hurdled over by the next issue. Another part of me sees dropping the series as a kind of betrayal, especially after some significant investment—like the six months I put into Legion Lost.
Sad to say, that investment hasn’t really paid off. This book has been crawling along for a while now, even some time before DeFalco took over writing duties, so you can’t really attribute its low performance to creative changes. Even from a generous perspective, the title simply hasn’t done a remarkable job of establishing appealing, lovable characters nor a tight, gripping plot.
Aside from the aggressive Gates and Timber Wolf, none of the other Legionnaires have asserted much in the way of personality, at least none that you can really resonate with. DeFalco might be trying to light a fire under these characters by injecting some drama into their interactions, but he does so at the cost of ignoring context and disrespecting Legion history. I’m talking, of course, about Wildfire’s unexpectedly craven power play for control of the team. It’s one thing to state, not inaccurately, that Tyroc hasn’t been very proactive in directing their mission; it’s another to take the leap to, “For the team’s welfare, you should step down as mission leader.”
What’s particularly problematic about this scene is it essentially disregards the years of friendship and experience these teammates have shared together. It just doesn’t make sense for Wildfire to be so insensitive and callous in critiquing Tyroc, nor does it feel natural for Tyroc (especially since we’ve established him as “a diplomat,” in Wildfire’s own words) to shoot back, perhaps a bit too defensively, “That’s exactly what we need—another hothead in charge!” To top it off, Wildfire reacts with a rather silly, antiquated, “Why, you—” I’m surprised he doesn’t shake his fist under Tyroc’s nose just to complete the effect.
Other problems arise in the mere construction of the issue. Had DeFalco spent the whole of it working out the problems and dynamics among the various characters (especially necessary since we just re-added Chameleon Girl and Gates to the roster), he’d at least have been doing something productive. Instead, he splits the team yet again, and introduces two guests to the mix, neither of whom do much except create pointless distractions for the team.The comatose car accident victim serves as a very shortlived semi-romantic foil for Tellus (and a means to reveal that he holds a—dun dun dun—“secret,” one that concerns his friends). The petty thief (Osman bin Affadi, but call him “Oz,” for “obvious” reasons) basically leads Timber Wolf down a path of looting the looters, apparently to keep the team from working min-wage jobs to support themselves in our era.
Rest assured, this title’s lack of enjoyment has nothing to do with Woods’ art, which is really as much of a stellar waste here as it has been for a while. At times the issue looks so slick, glossy, and well-drawn that you can almost fool yourself into thinking there’s a compelling story here, but lines like, “Don’t you dare s-word [referring to ‘sidekick,’ we assume] me, man. I ain’t nobody’s wonder boy.” Kudos also to Anderson’s lovely colors, which make for some very pretty mindscape sequences, courtesy of Tellus.
Conclusion: While the art has been a huge plus on this title, the story just hasn’t kept up in quality, and story, my friends, is what we’re after here. Dropped.
Grade: C+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – And the award for Most Inappropriate Use of Slang in a Scene goes to Katia, who crashed her car while texting, and who describes the consequences this way: “Two of my BFFs died that night. And it was my fault!”
Grade
Conclusion