The Legion #12 - Review!

 

Released October 9, 2002
DC Comics, Color
22 Pages

Choose Your Weapons

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

Synopsis

Picking up exactly from issue 11, the Legion away team is matched up against the JLA.  In one corner, we have Superman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Batman, Atom.  In the other, M'Onel, Chameleon, XS, Ultra Boy, Gear, Shikari and Leviathan.  Seven for seven. They pair off and start fighting.  M'Onel and Superman fight to a draw. Cham gets suckered by J'Onn pretending to be Brande. Diana and Jo, admiring Diana's... assets... duke it out. Shikari and Batman fight to a draw, as she can see his moves.  Lantern is trying to disassemble Gear. Atom tries the old inner ear disruption trick, but she goes smaller and takes him out, discovering that they are constructs in the process. Wally takes out Jenni, and Wally has no idea who she is.

At Legion World, help is coming from all quarters.  Most recently the Khunds bearing Dreamer. Clearly Nura expected Thom to be dead at this point, so she's confused about her vision being wrong.  They also know about the COMPUTO situation, although Jazmin is one step ahead there. 

RJ shows Tinya to Jo's quarters.  RJ definitively clears up the kids parentage for anyone who didn't read Legion Worlds 6.  Oh, and Tinya discovers the note that Jo was writing to Imra about them kissing! 

Back on Warworld, reinforcements have been called to fight the Legionnaires that have won their initial fights like Vi.  Gear works to connect into the Warworld computer and shut down the JLAers.  Gear communicates with the planet and convinces it to help in the defense of Earth and deploys some big ass guns. 

On LW, Nura and Thom reunite, but Nura is more than a little cold.  The Khunds reveal that all the Robotican tech is effectively enslaved to COMPUTO.   We shift to Earth where Brainy and the villain have a chat. COMPUTO clearly has daddy issues.  COMPUTO clearly states here that his design is to hijack the hypertaxis to enable him to evolve.

Back on LW, the team readies for the attack on the shield and getting down to the planet to take out COMPUTO.  Orin Fex from Colu communicates privately with Sharn Nux that her mission is to terminate any machine intelligence at any cost. 

Commentary

Another really solid issue here. While its yet another world bender, the Robotica story seems to hold together a good bit better than Legion of the Damned or the Hypertaxis plot.  I think it also helps that the fake JLA is a fun slug-it-out brawl.  Warworld is working for me for some reason, and pretty much have the Legion back together.  So all the Legion elements, the Sci-fi and classic superheroes make this a fun read. 

Solid artwork this issue as well, although it seems as if we are stuck with Jason Wright on colors.  He's OK but is no McCraw.

RJ has about the subtlety of a baseball bat talking with Tinya.  Still I think that had to be there for the folks who didn't read Legion Worlds.  

Am I a horrible person for feeling good about Tinya crying?  Dump Jo and shack up with Brin!

Coipel has this weird thing about drawing Vi on her knees.

WHOA - we get a LEGIT reference to pre-DnA continuity here on page 18!

Keep your eyes on this Sharn girl!

Overall Grade - A-. Not quite as smooth or straightforward as last issue's plot, but still fun and nicely drawn overall.