The Legion #21 - Where's Sensor's Waldo?

Released June 25, 2003
DC Comics, Color
23 Pages

Dream Crime Part Three

Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Chris Batista - Pencils
Mark Farmer - Inks
Jason Wright - Colors
Comicraft - Letters
Stephen Wacker - Editor

Synopsis

Issue 21's "scroll" intro features Shikari and Sensor in her new form and a description of why Dreamer is on Titan.  The story jumps right into the matter of Darkseid. Nura is communicating her vision of Darkseid back to the Legion.  Rokk, always mister history, recognizes the name from his studies. Dreamer communicates that the UP is in immediate threat.  Triad and Gear get to work researching and as soon as he finds data about a Boom Tube, one pops open on the command deck with parademons pouring out chanting "Darkseid is."

Over on the medical deck, Jo and Tinya start to tangle over the subject of Imra when Apocalypse pops out of space next to Legion World and all hell breaks loose and the Legion jumps into action fighting against the parademons. We see a voiceover of "I am more" that only Shikari apparently hears.  

We visit Jeka in darkness in her quarters lamenting the loss of her beauty until she realizes something unusual is going on.  Darkseid appears on the command deck.  Star Boy charges on Darkseid only to have his powers malfunction and a he generates a singularity on the bridge.  Kid Quantum attempts to contain it, draining her power.  The fight continues on the Medical Bay, where Jo and Tinya battle their own parademons.  Kid Quantum's efforts are causing Cub's statis bubble to malfunction and burst.

In battle, Shikari keeps hearing the mysterious voice and wills herself out of an illusion.  The battle disappears and she finds herself in Legion World with all the Legionnaires and other forces standing around in a trance chanting, "I am more."  Shikari flies away and runs into Sensor, also on a quest to figure out what's going on.  Turns out Jeka's powers make her immune to the illusion.  She's also heard the odd voice, but in reality, not as a projection.  The pair heads to the command deck. 

There, we see Universo on every comm screen intoning his hypnotic mantra.  Sensor gives us the background deets on Universo, and Sensor tells Shikari that they need to get to Earth to sound the REAL alert, but power to the Thresholds is shut down.  An entranced Spark, Wildfire and Brainiac 5 appear and see Shikari and Sensor as parademons and attack their teammates.  The pair runs away and encounter M'Onel, whom Sensor is able to trip up.  Unable to get to the hangars, they go to Brainy's lab which contains the last remaining active Threshold, which is open to attempt access to Steeple. Its a risky transit due to Steeple's black hole, but they have to risk it as Ultra Boy, M'Onel and Cosmic Boy blast open the wall.  Shikari and Sensor jump in the portal just before they destroy the portal.

Commentary

Another really solid issue here between the twists and the art combo of Batista/Farmer/Wright.  The story goes back an issue with Dreamer contacting the Legion about her Darkseid encounter in #19, but we all know that it's Universo, so we know there is something up, but the reveal of how worked very well and was subtly done.  The coincidence of a boom tube showing up just as Gear researches it was hint 1, then when Sensor hears everything outside go quiet is hint 2.  Then we get the big reveal with Shikari willing herself to hear the voice.  So having that not-so-obvious breadcrumb trail was a good element. Universo linking to the screens in Legion World via Nura was pretty cool, and enabled his mass hypnosis to succeed.  Its unclear yet if Titanet is able to broadcast his telepathy across all of the UP, but I'm sure we'll get there.  The hypnotized Legionnaires were creepy as all hell, especially when M'Onel enters the scene given his power set, and it leaves a great setup for the next issue.  I definitely wanted to read more after this issue was done.  This storyline is showing a lot more consistency, in art and storytelling, so far than the initial DnA stories.

Other comments:

It was a great nod to Cosmic Boy's legacy that he is shown here being a history buff.  Of course, he also spent weeks with the heroes of that time, so it would have been nice of the writers to mention something about that.

Good to see Triad unified, then splitting to get to work with Gear on researching Darkseid. 

The portrayal of Jeka mourning her 'beautiful' old self was great - she was used to the beauty of her species, so it makes sense in its own way.  Hey, Jeka, you may no longer be a pretty snake, but you don't need to use that lame waldo anymore!

Chuck holding Triad neutral was a nice touch.  Still no relationship from before, but its all an illusion anyway, so what the heck?

Interesting that Sensor knows all about Universo.  It would have been great to get more background on him at some point earlier, as the only reference we have to him is in the Titans special from a few years prior.  I'm guessing that is what she's referring to here, but that was also mostly a dream sequence.  So its a great use of the Titanet as a plot device, but the "surprise" of Universo and his origin does kind of come out of left field. 

The only other thing that's kind of a ding is that Jeka's language and voice also has changed with her character.  She's much more aggressive and casual in her speech, which is unlike a former princess, even having undergone such a change, IMO.

Overall Grade: A.