The Legion #16 - Timber Wolf vs the Fatal Five!

Released January 29, 2003

DC Comics, Color
23 Pages

Five Reasons to Call in Sick

Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Kev Walker - Pencils
Andy Lanning and Al Milgrom - Inks
Jason Wright - Colors
Stephen Wacker - Editor

Synopsis

This issue picks up right where we left off in #15 with the Fatal Five standing off against the Legion team of Timber Wolf, Ultra Boy, XS, Wildfire and Shikari.  Combat begins as Brin and Jo snipe at each other.  Wildfire goes after the Persuader, who easily spits Drake's energy with the Axe.  XS goes after Mano, who then rips the ground out from under her. Shikari squares off against the Empress, and the bickering duo take on Validus who zaps them both, but doesn't take them out. The Persuader, cuts open Wildfire's suit, distracting Shikari, who is then knocked out by the Empress. 

Empress is just about to terminate Shikari when Validus reminds her that they were to keep all Legionnaires alive for bargaining chips. Jo goes on the offense with Validus and is promptly mentally zapped, leaving Brin to face off against Mano and Validus while Persuader and Empress wake up Tharok using the Eye. Timber Wolf gets tossed into the wall by Validus.  The group schemes on doing one last big score before going back to the shadows now that the Legion is back.  Unfortunately, they can't go anywhere as Brin has sabotaged the drive while the five were scheming. Brin stalls for time while Tharok tries to come up with a plan.  

Empress, Mano and Persuader try to flush out Brin. Empress goes first, and they tussle but Brin ends up getting the best of the Empress. Brin then attacks Persuader and knocks him out with his own axe. Facing off against Mano, Brin leaps up and comes down on Mano's helmet, shattering it and dispatching him easily. Brin, with the Atomic Axe goes to confront Tharok who threatens to order Validus to tear XS apart, quite literally, unless Brin hands over the engine part.  Brin tosses it over to Tharok who then orders Validus to kill Brin. Brin throws the Axe at the Eye, which shatters. Tharok picks up Brin and slams him to the ground. Tharok prepares to execute Brin when the Legion appears. 

Commentary

Love the title of the issue and the framing of this as Brin's mission report.  This was a decent read, but in the end I don't think it lived up to the build up from the prior issue as much as it probably should have.  Typically the five members always devolve into some kind of bickering, but here the re-insertion of Mano into the mix doesn't seem to work well after the build up of a post-Robotican Tharok is released.  There is some good here, with the united five that had the mission of releasing Tharok easily dispatching the Legionnaires, but then it falling apart after Tharok is released; once they are motivated by their own self interests, they fail to work as a team and Timber Wolf is able to pick them apart.  Clever use of the axe to damage the Eye.  I was kind of surprised that the five took out the Legion so quickly, but its a T-Wolf spotlight, so it makes sense to focus on him so quickly.

I'm glad they pulled Mano back in; he was missed in the last encounter just before DnA took over. I was hoping DnA would stop with the Eye talk.  Oh well.

A couple other comments about things that stuck out to me.

They say that Tharok was in statis a long time.  I guess they consider a few weeks a long time, as that's been, at most, the length of time that has elapsed since the Legion's return, and the last time we saw Tharok was the day prior to the Legion's return.

Why would the Emerald Eye be affected by the Blight?

Big Vi coming thru the portal. Again.  Sigh.  Will she ever get some story time again?

Cute misspelling at the end.

Overall grade: B-.  Fun read, but nothing special.