The Legion #2

The Legion #2

Released 11/28/01

DC Comics, Color
23 Pages

Fight or Flight

Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Oliver Coipel - Pencils
Andy Lanning - Inks
Tom McCraw - Colors
Comicraft - Letters
Mike McAvennie - Editor

Synopsis

McCauley's Oversight Watch team trudges through the tunnel where the Legion's rail car exploded.  Repulse, Twine, Abyss and Brainstorm are there to confirm the demise of the Legionnaires.  To their complete surprise, the Legion survived, and are pissed! The fight that had been telegraphed in the last issue happens.  Saturn Girl had read, just before the bomb went off, that McCauley wants them dead.  Brainstorm neutralizes Ultra Boy before himself being neutralized by Saturn Girl.  Abyss takes out Wildfire with his void, and Umbra tries to eliminate Abyss before her powers fade. Repulse makes a foolhardy charge at Brainy, Twine attacks Kid Quantum and starts to drain her power as Wildfire reappears acting spent.  The Legion vanishes.  End round 1.

Back at UP HQ, McCauley in one room is wondering why Venge's lackeys aren't finished with killing him off, and we are given confirmation that yes, Leland did in fact order the Legion's death.  In the next room he goes to meet with M'Onel, who is acting as McCauley's personal bodyguard, which keeps him occupied from meeting with the rest of the team.

Rejoining the Legion, lost in an underground maze. Jo wants to talk to Imra about Garth, but its not the right time. The Legion wanders into a "Genome Vault" and trips an alarm, alerting Sci-Cops, the Oversight Watch, and Mr. Venge.  Round 2 begins.  

We rejoin Shikari being escorted to Virology by a nurse, an orderly and a Sci-Cop.  In the elevator, they are revealed to be Triad! She converges into one person again and Shikari realizes she must be Legion.  On a balcony, they wait until a figure appears in a doorway in midair.

Back to the conflict, Jo charges Venge directly and is met with a solid fist to Jo's Ultra-strength. Venge tosses Jo into a pipe. Imra tries to get into Venge's head and is unable to do so.  Wildfire blasts Venge and does nothing but ruin Venge's suit.  Jazmin casts a slowing quantum field at Venge and the Legionnaires escape out the hole in the waste pipe that Jo made.  Venge comes out of the quantum field and orders the reactor the pipe attaches to to flush out irradiated coolant waste, and theoretically, the Legionnaires. The fluid is released, and the Legionnaires wals to the escape grate, finding lots of bones.  Tasmia somehow recognizes the wisps of hair and glasses on one skeleton to look like McCauley.  Brainy does a quick gene scan and confirms that this is a now-deceased Leland McCauley, whom we last saw with M'Onel.  Cham urges the folks to get out in the open and Jo opens the grate revealing a huge wase vat.  Only the fliers would make it out.  But then - Shikari and the Bouncing Boy are there to give them a lift.

Commentary

Another solidly decent book, but its not as good as issue #1.  Coipel's art I think on this issue is a bit better than in #1, which is a good thing.  I think the "Dungeon Crawl" nature of the story fit his style pretty well.  The pace of the book clipped along, but peeling back the layers I think that was because DnA did a bit of a cheat, which I'll get to shortly. I was glad to see that we didn't dawdle into the level of nastiness that is the Oversight Watch (Good lord, I keep wanting to type Workforce!).  But Venge is revealed to DEFINITELY be more than he appears, and, with the last minute reveal, so is McCauley.  But the rest of that team is horrible.  Honestly I'm surprised that M'Onel was able to deal with the company of these creeps for a full year.

Specific comments - Imra comes to at the end of #1 and we are told that she "saw it all" that McCauley wanted them dead.  She's telepathic.  From whom did she read this?  The bomb?  

Brainstorm is a telekinetic, which is effectively in the umbrella of Zoe's powers.  I've NEVER heard of a telekinetic mentally attacking a person as that is the realm of telepaths, ala Imra.  TKs usually toss objects about, and the powerful evil ones do that to murderous effect.

It was good to see that the OW was able to stand toe-to-toe with the Legion in the first battle, but it was very unclear to me how the Legion escaped.

So, we get the reveal that McCauley and Venge are evil, then Leland goes into the next room.  Sonic-Lined?  This is a new thing for me for Lar Gand.  I thought a lead-lined room would do the trick. Seems like a swing and a miss for Legion continuity there.  

I enjoyed the Shikari break out scene, and at first wondered why the orderly had a Power-Girl type outfit on, then revealing she was Orange Triad.  It was a great reveal, but never remembered Lu being so well endowed. 

Second battle - Didn't Imra put Brainstorm out of commission?

A couple other points here that speak to how fast the issue went.  Venge comes in like a shark and gives the team an inadvertent escape route, but when Jazmin casts her field at him, there's no real rush on the part of the Legionnaires to get out. There is the rest of the OW that is coming at them - we even see Repulse and Cham fighting in the background, but none of the OW, nor the SPs are chasing after the Legion.  There is no sense of urgency.  I thought for a moment that maybe her field was cast larger, but Abyss is shown talking to Venge as he comes out of the field. This same lack of urgency is seen when Venge opens the drains and we see the release, but it never reaches the output grates.  The whole effect reminded me of the castle siege from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot keeps coming at the castle.  I'm sitting there waiting for the rush of water like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!  

Also, I remember that the Legionnaires still had their flight rings by the end of Lost.  Were they fried forever?  I didn't remember them addressing that point since they've arrived.  Regardless, they should at least be able for the "fliers" to get the others to the top of the drain outside before the waste gets there, whenever that is.  They didn't seem to have much urgency about that point. 

I have to give this one a solid B-. The story was snappy, but it seemed to me because there were a lot of shortcuts taken.