Legion of Super Heroes v5 #48 - Enemy Manifest Part 3 - The Edge of Doom, featuring Legion try-outs! Also, Shooter is apparently is a boob man.

Released November 26, 2008
DC Comics, Color
22 Pages

The Edge of Doom: Enemy Manifest Part 3 - The Edge Of Doom!

Jim Shooter - Writer
Francis Manapul - Penciller
Livesay - Inker
Nathan Eyring - Colorist
Mike Marts - Editor

Synopsis

As the UP prepares to receive a delegation from the intruder planet, alarms go off in Legion HQ to be on alert.  M'Rissey suggests tryouts, and candidates are already arranged and waiting: Turtle, Sizzle, Night Girl and Gazelle. Gazelle is up first and demonstrates her powers.  Night Girl is next and she thrashes Ultra Boy as a demonstration, at the cost of falling out of her uniform.  Sizzle and Turtle begin a joint demonstration, but are interrupted by the return of Sun Boy, who joins in.

The Legion debates the new candidates, with the exception of Projectra who left when Sun Boy arrived. He leads Terror Firma, who destroyed Orando prior to his tenure. Sun Boy is able to sit in on this discussion. He explains that he couldn't make Terror Firma better and threw all the kids in jail. 

The Legion pics Gazelle and Sun Boy. The rest are the Legion Reserves. Imra asks Gizelle about her record and her statement of hating the Legion and the UP.  It looks like she's changed her mind. Later, Tinya and Imra talk about what's up with Projectra, and they agree to keep an eye on her.

The Minister of State takes the IP aliens on a tour. One of them uses a data gatherer on a stellar display of the 57 UP Worlds. They are shown all the sensitive locations of the UP HQ offices, including Legion HQ. The scan the building with their data rippers, which apparently can also be used to copy people, including their spirit, draining the original body. He used Meander to get close to the delegates on tour and discovered they are just empty shells; avatars of the true people from virtual space, effectively evolved versions of the brute force smashers that originally invaded. They need to fight the invaders on their own turf. In UP plaza, the tour being completed, the alien data gatherers point the ripper at the secretary and she falls dead.

Commentary

As I was writing this, I realized that Shooter basically lifted the premise of this arc from Star Trek The Motion Picture.  With the exception that V'Ger comes from Earth originally, its very similar - aliens from outside come in an digitize everything to save it as a study.  The "crew" are effectively machine avatars like Lt. Ilia from the film. We will see if it ends anywhere close to that.  

Okay, now with that out of the way, the issue wasn't too bad, but it was an odd time to do a Legion Tryout. Shooter seems to continue his weird treatment of women by having Lydda fall out of her costume and have that repeatedly referenced. That being said, it was great to have her kick Jo's ass all over the place and to FINALLY have someone acknowledge the powerhouse that could be if she teamed up with Shadow Lass. Still, I found the Legion's reasoning a bit flawed around Lydda's powers. I guess their reasoning is that if ANY light turns on, she is done, but whatever. It was good of them to create the reserves. 

But I really enjoyed Jo getting his ass kicked. 

Lots of little bits that were good here as well. Ayla & Brainy trading barbs (even as infantile as it was), Lyle's shyness, the subtle fist slam of Projectra when Dirk walks in the room. I did have a bit of a problem with Terror Firma getting just waved away to jail over the course of a couple panels. Surely that deserved an issue given the amount of trouble and damage they caused? I mean TERROR is literally in their brand name! What did anyone expect? That whole thing was poorly handled. 

But again I REALLY enjoyed Jo getting his ass kicked. 

Grade: B-. I really, REALLY enjoyed Jo getting his ass kicked.