The Legion #8 - Review!

Released June 5, 2002

DC Comics, Color
24 Pages

Terror Incognita 3: Hypersapiens

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

Synopsis

Issue 8 starts in the ICU.  M'Onel is in bad shape in the OR, as the doctor's can't match his blood, nor cut into him to remove the bullet.  Triad debates with herself about telling them the truth about his Daxamite background and about him being Valor. The debate is useless, however, as Kinetix walks into the OR and shoots green energy over him - one assumes to heal him.

Cosmic Boy becomes Exposition Lad, explaining the current Hypertaxis situation to their strike force and anyone who hasn't yet read the series as the moon is pushed closer to the Earth. We then get another page of exposition about the history of Ra's al Ghul and his current involvement with the Legion.  Cos finishis his speech with a nice touch. Ra's has been listenting in and mocks Rokk's speech.  Venge inexplicably freezes and disappears by apparent de-pixelization.

The Legion attacks and the fight begins with the Oversight Watch surrendering immediately.  Ra's takes out Shikari with ease, then Cham by some super sonic whistle.  Rokk tells the team to combine powers, but he still has the upper hand,  taking out Rokk, Brainy, Gates, Vi and Jo in short order.  Kid Quantum confronts Ra's, who considers her the most formidable in the team, and deploys some kind of a quantum mirror to refect the multiverse back at Jazmin, nullifying her and he prepares to kill Jazmin. Gates takes action and ports Kid Quantum out of harm, but not before severing Ra's hand via his portal. Ra's' hand oozes a gold liquid.

Ra's comments that the fires of the Lazarus Pit burn inside him and he reforms a hand with this energy.  He accellerates the terraforming process then disappears using a personal footstep. The Earth is toast in 2 hours.  Vi urges that they need to do something, but Brainy is at a loss. 

Ra's reappears just to have a healed up M'Onel confront him and explain his healed state thanks to Kinetix.  They fall into a chamber full of Ra's clones, to literally everyone's surprise; Ra's is confused and thinks he is the one and only.  Ra's freaks out and blinds M'Onel with his Lazarus arm, but Triad splits and confronts Ra's herself, knocking him in the stasis clone chamber.  

Kinetix controls the other Terrorforms to act as a buffer between the moon and the Earth, but are only delaying the destruction of Earth, not preventing it.  Ultra Boy, Kid Quantum and M'Onel go out to help by taking out the terraforming engine.  Suddenly the Legion World pops out of a portal in orbit around the earth.  The rest of the Legionnaires pop out, including the team who went to the Kwai galaxy.  It turns out Legion World's destruction was just an illusion by Sensor.  Imra's team was successfully able to get the Kwai's help and their navigators, and Gear and Lyle were able to create a Threshold large enough for Legion World.  Apparently at some point Imra and Zoe communicated using Winema's telepath Eidoor via Titanet.  Legion World is now in permanent Earth orbit as it is helping to keep the balance of gravity in place.

Triad and M'Onel end with the question of "What about the Terrorforms?"

Commentary

While overall a well paced story with lots of action, the premise of the story still has lots of problems, opens more questions than it answers and ends with a Deux ex Machina.  Another issue in itself could have been added to fill in a lot of the action going on here without it being explained away in one page. That said, there were a TON of great character moments, mainly from Gates and Triad here.  I think the action, mainly the overall fight with Ra's, was really well done.  But the story started to fall apart for me (outside of the premise, that is) when Legion World shows up because a ton of action is told to us that happens to save the day.  So in the span of about a day, the Kwai bring back Imra's team, Gear and Lyle create a huge Threshold device, and Zoe calls Imra on the telepathy phone to tell her what to do. And Imra still hasn't talked to Rokk about Garth.  At least they ended the issue with the same question I've had, so I have hopes this will be dealt with next issue.

Art-wise, I think this is probably the best Legion issue to date. Very good job from Coipel in this issue with Lanning's inks.  Tom McCraw can color the Legion like no other.  He's mister automatic when it comes to this team.  My only criticism to Coipel's art is one of the first fight panels (right after Repulse surrenders) where it looks like Vi is punching Cham.  Other than that, it was a great job.

Specific comments:

Can't Triad just say he's a Daxamite w/o giving away the Valor goods? Hasn't it been reported pre-DnA that M'Onel was Daxamite?

The recap on Ra's reinforces my thinking that he is the wrong villain for this story.

What gives with Venge?  I'm assuming this has something to do with Robotica.  Ra's tells him to come back like the way I talk to my dog when she's misbehaving.

OW's surrender seemed like a bit of a cheat, but we'd seen them get their asses kicked before, so I guess no sense in having that replay take the spotlight off Ra's.  

Ra's has a flight ring?  I'm assuming that's what the Oversight Watch had as well?  But that was never shown to us in seven issues of The Legion, nor Legion Worlds.

Has that Durlan whistle frequency deal been ever used before?  They could have just brought out some cancelite.

Funny to hear Ra's refer to Vi as "the muscle" but that was just some bad planning there to let Jo knock her out like that.

The quantum mirror reflecting the multiverse was kind of cool, actually.

Ra's personal footstep confused me based on what had been told before. Don't footsteps have beings that guide them as their engine?  Does he have an Imskian doing this?

Not sure I was good with the Brainy math scene.  We know he can figure it out.

Her name WAS Zoe?  Okay, M'Onel.  I know you're the other big downer on the team other than Vi, but DAMN...

I was confused about Triad's ability to follow M'Onel so closely, but it was way cool to see her kick Ra's ass.

Didn't the terrorforms already have gravity powers?  We saw them flying earlier. 

Hmmm, if the "science" behind the plot premise is too complex for Brainiac 5, do ya think it should be used as a plot premise in the first place?

Ok, so the Legion pops back - Why is Chuck with them?

Overall Grade - C+.  Great action story with lots of cool events undermined by a Deus ex Machina.