The Legion #6 Review!

Released March 27, 2002
DC Comics, Color
22 Pages

Terra Incognita 1: Terrorform

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

Synopsis

We begin with our go-to reporter Trudy Trusoe reporting from the Metropolis streets where demonstrations are happening against McCauley's terraforming plans. An energy surge hits them and Zoe comes out of nowhere, picking up Trudy and her cameraman (Lizu) and sprinting them out of harm's way.  Zoe is having problems holding on to the two of them while flying and crashes.  Trudy immediately recognizes her as the former Kinetix and tries to get an impromptu interview. Lizu picks up a small purple sphere when the feed goes dead.  

In studio, Vigo gets us up to speed with the Footstep Lab story.  In addition to SP forces, apparently the media was there, as well, as Cos used that to speak out on the horrors of that experimentation and informs everyone that the Legion is again active and is heading for McCauley.

We then cut to a hero shot of the primary team hovering in the sunlight at McCauley's tower.  After a quick confrontation with the SPs, the Legion forces their way in and home in on McCauley, also finding M'Onel's whereabouts.  Gates ports out to get M'Onel, then ports right back for help as M'Onel's been bleeding out for goodness knows how long.  Gates apparently brings the entire Legion.  Triad fears for Valor, Jazmin stabilizes M'Onel with a quantum field.  Jo zaps the Red Solar lamps. M'Onel tells the team the truth about Ra's. 

"McCauley" is ready to leave with the Oversight Watch, and drops that the genetic work he's been harvesting lately is centuries old.  Venge calls to tell that Legion World has been destroyed when the Legion team busts in by giant Vi breaking through the deck. Ra's sics the Oversight Watch on the Legion and Cosmic Boy and Repulse go at it; Rokk looked up to Repulse and we get all the dirt - he basically washed out of every team due to performance enhancers.  Then uses his own metal suit against him. 

Cham takes out Twine, Brainstorm is taken out by a combo of Vi, Ultra Boy and Kid Quantum throwing his drones against him.  Abyss faces off with Brainiac 5 and Shikari, sending the latter into one of his voids - which she promptly finds her way out of and sends Abyss himself into.  

The Legion confronts Ra's directly, who reveals himself, and that the attack in issue 1 was a staged event for the OW. Ra's shows the Legion that he has done SOMETHING in Metropolis that is causing suffering. He challenges them to take him down now or help his victims.  

Back downtown, Zoe seems to be looking for people when someone runs out screaming for help.  The purple spheres start to move towards Zoe when a large menacing figure appears and zaps her in purple light.  

Interlude: Back on Xanthu, Star Boy and XS are still stirring up trouble when all the power goes out. Robotica appears to be transforming somehow and begins to leave Xanthu's orbit.

Back at the tower, the Legion debates.  Rokk wants to take out Ra's, but Vi and Jazmine convince him otherwise, Jazmin making a compelling case. The Legion leaves to help the rest of the world. 

We end with Ra's superimposed over a burning moon.

Commentary

Action packed issue here, but I had an issue with the rhythm of the story.  I was reminded of LSH 125 at the end of Widening rifts, as there is sheer chaos going on, so the reader is kept guessing at things, but I don't think that serves the story very well here, especially after just having a gap issue and pausing the action.  One scene of chaos leads to another scene with a team we had THOUGHT was left in chaos, but is now under control for the moment.  So there are a bunch of things going on that we are not made aware of to get us to the inevitable confrontation with Ra's.  Once the story finally gets going, about when the team finds M'Onel, there is a decent rhythm to the story, but the beginning is a bit jarring.  Ra's is pretty nefarious and does a great job at presenting a devil's choice to the Legion - save the world or capture Ra's.  I'm looking forward to the reveal of Ra's' end goal here.

Graphics were good for Coipel.  Pretty much his standard at this point - not as good as #3, but also not Damned or Lost.  His closeups are good, but the group scenes tend to have sketchy details and aren't always clear on the action here. I'm pretty convinced that the heaviness in Coipel's style is coming from Lanning's inks, as we don't get to see anyone else ink Oliver's work.

Does Zoe have her flight ring or not?  She's carried heavier loads with her powers unless we're to assume that she used her flight ring specifically in those situations. Her flight is highlighted in green, which implies her TK is making her fly.  We've absolutely seen her handle more weight with her powers, so I'm not sure what's going on here.  This scene was great in setting the stage, but very confusing for a long time Reboot Legion reader. I'm chalking this up to lack of homework or just not caring about the past depictions in trying to get her to the plot point where the writers get to alter her, as they easily could have featured her wearing a flight ring in the final panel on that page with her hand in the foreground as they've done elsewhere in the series.  Zoe's second scene seemed very disconnected from what had just come before when she was with Trudy. And then she just stands there in front of the Terrorform?  I get that the writers and editors wanted to transform Zoe into something they had a handle on character-wise (as they clearly didn't with mystical/magical powers), but it would help if they had the character right to begin with - I mean it shows her transmuting debris into flowers, which is absolutely not her power set.  

I'm assuming that the Legion called the media to be at the research facility as well, otherwise the cliffhanger confrontation at the end of issue 4 could have gone very badly for them PR wise. I feel like that's a bit of a cheat, as the cliffhanger has a ton of SPs coming at them - what makes the media charge in without fear to mass interview Cosmic Boy? That whole aspect of the story didn't sit well with me given how the cliffhanger ended - "I'd rather not bore you with the details of our escape..."

Once the Legion breaks in, Who is talking after Shikari says she found McCauley?  Its very unclear but I assume its Jo.  Man, M'Onel is in bad shape here, and we again get the Valor reference, but good sense of panic generated from Gates' frames.  I have to wonder if the Valor importance is going to go farther than this, as the reference in this issue and 4 was probably the reason for it being mentioned in LW1. It's interesting that the writers didn't mention what made M'Onel vulnerable in issue 3, but laid it out in both 4 and 6.  

I had to laugh at the "Really sus" comment from Twine.  This was written in 2001 but I've heard the term more often lately, mainly from my kids.  Still its interesting that just now the Oversight Watch is starting to get a clue about their boss.

Vi bursting up to the landing pad made me wonder if maybe the cover for 4 was supposed to be for this issue?

I loved the whole Rokk/Repulse confrontation - I've been waiting for this since Widening Rifts! But Steroids? I guess they needed to make it relatable, but they could have made something up for the 31st century.  But the confrontation is spot on.  

Didn't like the Cham/Twine fight. Cham could have easily transformed his legs into fists, or do what he did with his bound arms with his unbound legs, so the melee didn't make much sense. 

Brainstorm's comment about Imra's absence made me ask again - why would Saturn Girl's telepathy protect against TK? They are totally different unless he's saying that she would take him out telepathically.

Also, we know that Trudy somehow escapes, but how?  I guess this will be addressed later, as the terrorforms are mowing down everything in their path.

I found the image of the McCauley towers very evocative of the WTC. 

The confrontation between Rokk and Ra's seemed to go on a bit too long for my tastes but was effective.

Overall, I'm gonna give this one a B-.  Solid story once it gets going, but the strange fast forward opening and a ton of little issues that took me out of the moment. The M'Onel rescue and Legion/Overwatch clash was the highlight for me here.