The Legion #9 - Review!

Released June 26, 2002
DC Comics, Color
23 Pages

Baby on Board

Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Stephen DeStefano - Guest Artist
Tom McCraw - Colors
Comicraft - Letters
Mike McAvennie - Bad Babysitter makin' 6 creds an hour

Synopsis

In a stark change, we open with a Hanna-Barbera style of illustration with cartoon Jo, Tinya and baby domestically. Jo is watching the Magno Ball Game when Winema arrives with brownies. Suddenly the baby begins to grow when Timber Wolf pops in angrily as he and Jo fight.  Tinya wakes up from the nightmare and sees the baby in a basinet next to herm who suddenly yells "Pain-Hurt!"  Tinya again wakes up from the nightmare.  Brin walks into Tinya's room reacting to her scream.  Apparently the baby IS growing at an accelerated rate. Brin comforts Tinya. 

They are still on board the Footstep liner that they boarded in Legion World 6, and have encountered the Robotican energy wave, damaging their ship and leaving them adrift in space for three days.  Tinya is going to the ship's doctor to find out the results of the tests, while Brin will watch the baby, who conveniently slyes away when he's not looking.  

Tinya heads out and again feels the same pain message from before.  A ship's steward sees her wincing in pain and asks if she's a Carggite as several on board have complained about headaches. Tinya again hears the pain and falls through the floor to main engineering.  She pleads for the message to stop, but the engineers have no idea what she's talking about.  

Brin is on the hunt tracking the baby who phases through a door, which Brin slams into.  He follows the baby into a room and sees him on a pipe above.  Brin lunges after him and the baby zips away at ultra speed, causing Brin to slam into the pipes.

Tinya meets the chief engineer, some kind of a talking terrier who knows she's Apparition from the Legion as he's a fan.  He tells her specifically what's happened, and Tinya asks to open an inner drive chamber that is typically only accessible by McCauley techs.  

In the meantime, the captain's been keeping the passengers drunk for three days. The kid falls into a big bowl of liquid meant for a large robot-looking creature who reminds me of Marvin from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.  Before he drinks the bowls contents, baby included, Brin pounces and knocks the bowl out of his hand. 

The engineers keep trying to open the drive with little success, but Tinya pleads because she thinks something is alive in there.  She gets another Pain-Hurt message and insists they open the drive.

Brin fights the large robot-looking guy.  The waitress finds the baby (now mainly referred to as Cub at this point), gives him back to Brin and the baby then zaps the robot-guy with laser vision, along with most of the bar to the point of burning a hole in the wall.  Brin calls Cub a bad baby, the baby cruys then sneezes and the baby flies out of Brin's arms and phases through the wall.

The baby drops into engineering and phases through the engine, unlocking the chamber. Brin rushes in as the drive chamber opens revealing the three-headed mutant Vyrgan who is the force behind the Footstep drive.  We get a sudden exposition dump - As we learned a few issues ago, the creature is some combination of Vyrgan, Carggite and Winathian that teleports the ship.  They decide to disconnect the creature from the drive, and it dies. Tinya feels its emotions as it fades away.  It feels gratitude and also knew that it was Robotica that hit the ship and told Tinya that Robotica was heading for Earth.

Commentary

And now for something completely different. I can't believe I wrote that synopsis.  Now THIS is filler.  And not great filler at that.  I'm not a fan of the Cub character so I'd rather see a "day in the life" episode around the main Legionnaires versus Brin chasing Cub around most of the issue.  We at least get to the root of the Footstep drive and the abomination that runs it.  It raises a question about what the Legion did, as they cracked their drive open several issues ago and the readers were not shown this - one would think that Cosmic Boy would have shown all this to the media when they had their pre-Hypertaxis fight.  But the main point of this issue is to show the reader what's going on with these drives - that could have been done issues ago as I just noted.  But lots of other weird stuff in here - why didn't Tinya just phase into the drive to begin with?  How did the creature know it was Robotica that knocked them out.  One other item here is that it promises a confrontation between Brin and Jo, so I'm waiting for that payoff.  Also, we saw Ra's use a personal footstep drive - how does THAT work?

I thought the Flintstones intro was actually kind of fun, but the rest of the issue just wasn't my cup of joe.  The art was OK for what it was worth.

I'm confused as to the timeframe.  Tinya says that the baby is weeks old, and they boarded the ship just after she gave birth.  They have been adrift for three days.  Have they been traveling for weeks or days?  

That Chief engineer sure is a pushover.  Tinya could make him do anything.

NOW the Think Fast is bothering me.  I can't unsee it.

The engineers seemed to have some kind of genetics training as they were able to figure out the creature's makeup without the doctor's arrival.  Speaking of - we never got the results of Cub's tests!

Grade - D+.  I'm putting this issue well in my rear view mirror.  We at least get something kind of light hearted from DnA, but its just not good.