The Legion #28 - Darkseid, it's never polite to point.

Released December 24, 2003
DC Comics, Color
22 Pages

Foundations Part Four

Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writers
Chris Batista - Pencils
Chip Wallace - Inks
Sno Cone - Colors
Ken Lopez - Letters
Stephen Wacker - Editor

Synopsis

On a farm in Smallville, Kansas, a man plummets into the ground claiming to be Clark Kent and holding the S shield from Connor's t-shirt ripped off in issue 26. Dark Orion arrives to dispatch "Clark" for leaving his post when Superboy and a few Legionnaires come to intervene; the farm was in a biodome in Smallville of the 31st century. 

At the Legion world command deck, Saturn Girl, XS, Triad, Chuck and Gear monitor the situation in Smallville when Garth comes to join them.  XS shuffles Garth off to Imra, and Imra shuffles him out of the command deck.  He and Imra were supposed to visit Gym'll but Imra's busy due to the situation and Garth leaves to visit the doctor on his own. Umbra, Shikari, Cosmic Boy and Wildfire join the fight in progress. Cos goes to end the fight with Orion while the rest of the Legionnaires help "Clark".  Cos wraps Orion in metal to restrain him, but lets him retreat out of the boom tube.  

Trudy Trusoe tries to figure out what to lead with in the news, and is told to go with the catastrophists - they are disappearing all over the UP - even though temporal anomalies are happening all over the place. The Legion determines that the man they picked up in Smallville is in fact a fifteen year old Clark Kent, who has no knowledge of Superman.  We get the quick recap - this is the Clark that we encountered in the bumper for issue 25, picked up after Darkseid's servants accidentally grabbed the wrong Superboy - Connor.  He was taken to Apokalips and turned into a servant of Darkness.  After ripping off Connor's symbol he ordered his mother box to take him to Smallville. Brainy surmises that Apokalips is building a defense against something coming from the past into the future.  Clark offers to take the Legion to Apokalips via his Mother Box.

Jazmin backs out of the mission and stands down as leader due to her fluctuation powers, and asks Rokk to take over.  They have a tender moment which inspires Rokk to cut Superboy from the mission.  Superboy sulks away and encounters Garth and they begin to commiserate.  

The rest of the Legion (minus Vi, presumably still recovering), arrives at Apokalips to find hundreds of catastrophists throwing themselves into the fires of Apokalips, which is beginning to reactivate. A swarm of Apokaliptian forces arrive to engage the Legion in combat as Brainy and Saturn Girl notice the dormant Darkseid on his throne, his eyes beginning to glow. The stony figure stands up from the throne as a boom tube opens and a much younger Darkseid emerges.

Commentary

Foundations Part 4 definitely is a much needed entry in the overall story, as a lot happens and it finally moves the plot forward a decent amount.  We finally get the explanation of what the servants of darkness are doing and why they had kidnapped young Clark.  We get resolution as to the role of the catastrophists.  Darkseid actually returns this time.  We leave on an interesting cliffhanger.  But somehow it feels like there's something missing from this issue.  I'm not sure if the problem is Rokk acting like a complete jerk (unless he's cuddling with Jazmin) or how the Legion is handling Garth, or the sudden rush of exposition happening in part four. Maybe its Brainiac's overly complicated, yet too simple explanation for what's happening. It may be the pacing, as we are in part four of an unknown number of issues.  With two of the last four issues of this storyline being void of a lot of substantial content, having characters act differently from what we've seen in the past plus a ton of exposition concentrated in a few pages, this pattern, which we've seen before, may be rubbing me the wrong way.

The art was fantastic, and by far the best thing about this issue.

There are a few scenes in comics that I'm kind of done with seeing repeated.  The murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.  The Legion's founding.  The Ranzz family accident.  The other is the alternate takes of Superman's arrival on Earth that are designed to be a big reveal to the reader.  To be fair, the one in the Superman and the Legion story that I most associate with that trope comes AFTER this, but I'm still tired of seeing it.

Why did Imra have to be involved with the monitoring of the Smallville fight? Kid Quantum hadn't yet relieved herself of duty. They have a full LEGION of Super Heroes.  Why not Spark, Apparition or Dreamer?

Cos doesn't even seem to care about the Minion.  What's up with that?  And he's really pouring on the a-hole act. I mean, the stink eye on page 13...

The Trudy scene was kind of weird - why would you NOT lead with the sudden disappearance of millions?? Seems like an unnecessary scene.

Grade: C+.  We finally understand what's going on in a 4+ issue storyline, but its all revealed in 2-3 pages.  Saved by the art.