Legion Worlds #1 Review

 

Legion Worlds #1

Released April 18, 2001
DC Comics, Color
38 Pages

Story 1: You Are Here:Earth
Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Yvel Guichet - Pencils
Dexter Vines - Inks
Tom McCraw - Colors
Comicraft - Letters
Mike McAvennie - Editor

Synopsis

M'Onel plummets to earth over North America fighting an upgraded Tharok.  We go through several pages of Lar struggling against Tharok a lot more than he should, which suggests that Tharok's upgrades are rather dangerous, making the urgency of stopping him that much more important.  They chase through the sky clipping a cargo ship and Lar contacts the Science Police for rescue.  They impact against a building that looks like the Chrysler building by way of Coruscant and eventually land on an elevated roadway.  A drone of some kind launches from Tharok's body, which M'Onel promptly dispatches with freeze breath.

We then switch to a news report hosted by Vigo & Trudy giving us a text synopsis of the prior nine pages, but then transitions into an interview with Leland McCauley, who has now become president of the UP following the impeachment of RJ Brande at the end of the last series.  Leland uses this opportunity to glibly talk about how great his administration is, interspersed with scenes of life in Metropolis, a person at the park, someone skating, people in mass transit just going on about their lives.  Then our exposition turns to the fate of the Legion.  Leland makes a big show of getting emotional about the apparent loss of the missing Legionnaires from the rift crisis, and doubles down on disbanding the Legion on the grounds of endangering children (no discussion of the Age of Majority here).  McCauley refers to M'Onel as if he were a son, much to M'onel's chagrin. 

The next section is an internal exposition that informs the reader what's really going on from M'Onel's perspective.  It's been at least a year since the rift incident, McCauley was elected due to his efforts rebuilding Earth after the Blight, but that he's still suspicious.  Oh yeah, and Mon's working for McCauley.

He zips into SP HQ to discuss Tharok's drone with Shvaughn Erin and encounters Zoe Saugin, the former Kinetix, who is now apparently a Junior SP officer relegated to fetching coffee for her team.  We also find out that Dyrk Magz, the former Magno, has also become a full SP officer on Braal. She parts with a cry of "Let's go Legionnaire," making Mon ruminate about the fact that he's lonely without the Legion, but that's short lived as they investigate the drone.  All hell breaks loose when the drone begins to communicate with the equipment and it comes to life attacking all the SP personnel, infecting several with cybernetic technology, which reveals that the technology originates from, of course, Robotica, which was introduced in the first DnA issue of Legionnaires.  

Mon travels to visit McCauley to talk about the Robotica situation.  McCauley, behaving much more aristocratically than in the earlier interview, brushes off any threat that Robotica provides, but M'Onel urges vigilance.  Venge, a new character and McCauley's right hand man, is introduced and agrees with M'Onel.  

On a grimmer note, M'Onel then goes to the Lost Legionnaires' memorial, where we meet a Cloaked and triplicated Triad, who removes her cloak and promptly re-integrates.  We learn that it is a year to the day of the events of LSH 125, Brande has completely disappeared and Luornu is running his company, keeping it alive.  Lu wants to talk to M'Onel about something more serious, but he has to take care of an emergency, apparently another Robotican incursion.  

A massive, Lovecraftian machine emerges out of nowhere in space and Monel engages in combat.  M'Onel ruminates during the battle about Luornu's intention - should he reveal that he is the legendary hero Valor?  He never answers the question, as the lost Legion Outpost emerges into the solar system.

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Story #2 - The Earth Spins
Dan Abnett - Writer
Oliver Coipel - Pencils
Andy Lanning - Inks
Tom McCraw - Colors
Comicraft - Letters
Mike McAvennie - Editor

A second story revolves around a triplicated Luornu arriving home watching the news.  This section largely serves as exposition interspersed with dialog from Luornu arguing with herself, providing information for the new reader on the subjects introduced in the issue: Tharok, M'Onel, his new organization called the Presidential Oversight Watch, an overview of the Legion and a quick recap of the "Legion of the Damned" and "Widening Rifts" storylines. Quick overviews of McCauley and Robotica are provided along with a mysterious pandemic ravaging Gates' homeworld of Vyrgra.  

Lu continues to argue with herself and Purple decides to go to bed.  Orange expresses her loneliness.  The mini concludes with the news report of the Legion Outpost's return.

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Commentary

The core purpose of this issue, and the series itself, is to give the Legion fans an idea of what's been going on back home, after being in the hell of Legion Lost for the prior year.  My first thought was "WOW, this book is BIG".  Its a huge comic read for 38 story pages.  It's a lot to get through, but I felt that the writing could have been a little tighter.  The opening battle with Tharok, for example, took seven full pages, primarily of three pages.  The mystery of what's going on with Tharok is interestingly presented, although readers from the prior Legionnaires series will likely assume correctly that the thread is from Robotica.  

The "slice of life" exposition sections for both stories are necessary for the new reader, and generally handled in a smooth way, getting us up to speed. To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of the choice of referencing "The Earth Spins" and its contents in the main story, as I felt like I was missing something that may have been presented earlier.  I kept wondering after if they could have just integrated that differently into the body of the story. (The title also reminds me of the Julee Cruise ballad "The World Spins" from Twin Peaks).

The art by Yves Guichet is serviceable, although he seems to be better with the angular needs of the Robotican technology and environment versus the people.  However the action scenes were very dynamic and handled well, especially the fights at the beginning and the end of the story.  Coipel's art is very different, and being completely honest, I was not a fan of early Coipel at the end of LSH, but you can tell here that he's starting to come into his element.  The Legion splash page is really good, although I found I wanted better quality for the rest of his section.  

Zoe's introduction here is really strange to me. It's great that she's finally given dialog for the first time in over a year and a half, but given her dynamic personality, I can't see her in a job that requires a strict uniform where the only thing she can change is her lipstick and fetch coffee, so her taking a SP job just seems like a wrong choice by the writers.  

Triad's introduction is obviously done to show new readers what her power is, but it seemed completely inefficient. Why would you be triplicated, take your jacket off, then reintegrate when you can be integrated the entire time to avoid suspicion?  She also had a kind of bitchy take on Zoe. I mean, I don't see any other Legionnaires there, but presumably they'll be addressed in the rest of the Worlds books. Her appearance in the story seems only to show the new reader her different personalities.

It's really interesting to me that there is such a different style of expression between the interviewed McCauley and the Leland that M'Onel visits, and it makes me wonder if there is anything to that.  I'm also looking forward to how the pursue the Valor angle, as it had been literally dropped for many years at that point.  

Overall, an interesting and much more hopeful Legion story than a reader at the time would have read in over 18 months.  It's not a perfect book, as I feel like the editing could have been slightly tighter.  The switching between 5+ action pages with few frames, followed by very dense pages of exposition was a bit jarring, and did not help the flow of the book.  It also bothered me a bit that most of the recap section only really dwelled on the DnA Legion contributions.  I get why, but c'mon, there was five+ years of history before they came on the scene, so it would have been good to reference some of that.  But overall a good read to tell the story of the reboot Legion beyond the Lost Legionnaires.