Legion of Super Heroes v5 #45 - Tryouts. Also, Shooter shoots himself in the foot...



Released August 27, 2008
DC Comics, Color
24 Pages

Enemy Manifest Part 1:Monster in our Midst

Jim Shooter - Writer
Francis Manapul - Penciller
Livesay - Inker
Jo Smith - Colorist
Mike Marts - Editor

Synopsis

We pick up immediately from the last panel of issue 44 as the UP President contacts the Legion about a massive planet about the size of Saturn has appeared past Jupiter, which I guess is Saturn's orbit. Hmm. She wants their help and M'Rissey negotiates a full pardon for everything that the Legion has been persecuted with and is granted diplomatic immunity. The away teams return and Garth reassigns members to tasks, rest or diplomacy. Imra angrily rejects her assignment by Garth due to fatigue.

Atom Girl gets out her frustrations from being bested last issue in the gym. Gim checks in and tries to comfort her, but it backfires as he insults her. Brainy, Light Lass and Star Boy head to space command to analyze the situation as an initial tremor hits the planet. Element Lad and Lightning Lad go to meet the president and see a number of kids try out for the Young Heroes. The planetary devastation across the solar system is starting to spread. They discuss military and diplomatic options as a second more powerful tremor hits. 

Back at HQ, Ultra Boy tracks down Saturn Girl busy not sleeping in the kitchen. Naturally he accuses Garth of treating her like crap as he hits on her. Another tremor hits and Jo moves to protect Imra. He starts to leave, but she pulls him back.  

Brainy, Ayla and Thom work to augment the Tractor network, whatever that is, to stabilize the solar system gravity, but something goes wrong. 

Phantom Girl gets Projectra out of jail, and she is typically aloof and condescending. As a riot breaks out outside the UP HQ, Garth signals Jo to help, but his ring is off. Brainy lashes out at Ayla and Thom, blaming them for the failure.  They try again and it succeeds. Garth and Jan take care of the Bludgeon Brothers running amok in the plaza. This provides our action for this issue. 

With the situation stabilized, a message of peace is detected from the new planet and diplomacy is started. At HQ, Lyle finds Jo and Imra having sex in the closet.

Commentary

Well at least we're back to Manapul's pencils, so I don't have to trash that. The visuals are back to good with the main team back for this issue. The story itself is mainly just a lot of people running around, except for Jo and Imra who are busy bumping into each other in the kitchen pantry as they cheat on their partners. The Legion's legal troubles are waved away almost magically by M'Rissey and magic technology saves the day, with some unnecessary drama as Legionnaires blame each other for failing only to try again and succeed for technobabble reasons.  The fight with the Bludgeon Brothers was at least a chance to have Element Lad back in action with his new uniform. And Projectra is still a bitch.

But at the end of the day, the main reason for all this going on, it seems, is to have most of the team out of HQ so that Jo can make his moves on Imra and make both of them out to be horrible people.  Seriously, this is about to the level of bad of the Shady/Earth Man affair in the next volume of the Legion. 

What I did like was the fact that the Legion is tired after all this fighting and we see the affects of it. The best scene to me in this issue is where Atom Girl is beating her frustrations into a punching bag. It has elements of both classic and reboot Vi which is nice, and then hints of a romance wit Gim - also a nice touch, as we haven't seen a whole lot of either of these characters for much of this volume. 

But Shooter full on jumps onto the third rail of Legion relationships here by having Imra cheat on Garth with Jo. Jo is made to be even more horrible than he has already been portrayed in this series (and he was getting slightly less annoying when Shooter took over) by cheating on Shady after saying he doesn't steal girlfriends, and Imra is made to be horrible by not having any empathy for Garth's situation. No one comes out well there, including the writer. 

On the other hand, it was nice to see a Night Girl cameo for the tryouts.  

Grade - D. You never touch the third rail.


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