The Brave and the Bold #6 - The Lords of Luck Chapter 6: The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Released August 15, 2007
DC Comics, Color
21 Pages

The Lords of Luck Chapter 6: The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Mark Waid & George Perez - Storytellers
Scott Koblish - Inks
Tom Smith - Colors
Rob Leigh - Letters
Stephanie Buscema - Asst. Editor
Joey Cavalieri - Editor

Synopsis

The Luck Lords talk to what’s left of the Legion (Brainiac 5 and Invisible Kid) as they explain that the future died 1000 years ago, with a picture of Hal Jordan, Adam Strange and Supergirl impaled on a green device based on a plan from “a millennium ago and 25 trillion miles away”.  Robo-Thanagarians hold Batman, Lyle and Brainy captive while the Luck Lord monologues over the presumably dead bodies of Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Triplicate Girl, Chameleon, Element Lad, Phantom Girl and Ultra Boy.  Wow, a lot has happened since the last issue!  Anyway, the Luck Lord spills the deets on the plot: In the 21st century Thanagar and Rann are at war with the Thanagarians having an overwhelming edge due to their technology, which would lead to an end to the war with Rann losing.  The Luck Lords wanted to even the odds by having the Book of Destiny fall into the hands of the Rannians, thereby making a stalemate where the arms race advances exponentially over 1000 years leading to devastating weapons to remove Luck from the equation of who would win by rewriting history in reverse. Brainy deduces that the Luck Lords are scared of Batman as he is a variable that can’t be accounted for. The Luck Lord responds by crushing Brainy’s skull.   

Back in the 20th century, GL, Adam Strange and Supergirl work to get the Book of Fate back from Rannian General Mondath.  Things go sideways when an overpowered Supergirl accidentally wrecks open a weapons vault, but is able to rescue them in order to regroup.  Using super x-ray vision, Supergirl reads the Book of Fate to determine what to do next from miles away to try and find Batman.  Supergirl finds him in 3007 and Adam Strange and Hal pull him back to 2007 using a Lantern-ring boosted Zeta Beam.  Unfortunately, Kara is out of it, having seen too much in the book.  Mondath’s forces attack with Bipods from the vault.  Hal snaps Kara out of her funk and the battle rages while Batman works to operate the Zeta Beam to pull in a new variable that absolutely cannot be predicted by the Luck Lords or the Book of Fate - the Challengers of the Unknown!

They join the battle and appear to save the day - until Supergirl is impaled on a kryptonite spike.  Hal rushes her into space to heal under the trinary sun of Rann. Meanwhile the Challengers turn the tide of the battle against Mondath and take the book from him.  The Luck Lords appear, and Adam Strange zaps them and Mondath to Oa.  This transforms the future back to normal and the Legion of Super Heroes are shown in the Book of Fate as back to normal.  Kara’s memories of the potential future that she saw are wiped and the book is entrusted to the Challengers for safekeeping. 

Commentary

WHEW!  That issue had a LOT going on, which makes sense given that it’s an arc conclusion.   I’ll say right off the bat that the Legion is in here barely as a cameo, mainly to get killed.  But the story is pretty cool.  I did have to read it twice to really get the full affect, as the first read through dragged for me in the middle during the Rann battle, but the second reading was much better and much more appreciated. 

Let’s get this out of the way first.  George Perez’s art is fantastic in this issue.  Great lines and the whole art team comes together here.  I think that Koblish makes a better inking pair here   Of note is the splash page of Batman coming back to the present with all kinds of little details of times from comics set from the year 2000-3000, but nothing that drags the story.  You see glimpses of Booster Gold, Kamandi and OMAC, the Strange Adventures characters, but not in any plodding way as we’ve seen recently in the Bendis Millennium two parter or the absolutely horrid Justice League vs the Legion of Super Heroes.  Just enough to give a nod to the reader who can appreciate it, or provide something for a curious new reader to investigate, and then move on with the story.  Final note about the art is that I don’t think I’ve ever been as creeped out by the Luck Lords as I have been here.  Kudos to Perez.

Speaking of the story, having a tale that spans two different time eras is not an easy task, but Waid handles it well here by only focusing on one era at a time - moving from the future to the past.  Once there the story really moves and is very dynamic structurally and visually.  Lots of action going on and that helps with the pace of the book.  Batman pulling in the Challengers of the Unknown was a cool move that I didn’t see coming (in fact I though the Legion would come back in time here based on how the last issue ended), and the callbacks to the old Adam Strange silver age tech (the bipods and the liquefying ray) were nice touches.  I’m not as familiar with a Rann-Thanagar war, so I may check that out once I finish with my Adam Strange Silver Age read. 

Of course, I have a nitpick. I always have nitpicks.  This is why you love me, right?  Anyway, here it is. Is Ventura in the next planetary system over from Earth? The Luck Lord tells us that the plot was hatched 25 trillion miles away.  That's like 4 light years in space.  PEANUTS I tell you!  So I wasn't that impressed.  When you're doing sci-fi, you always use either light years or parsecs if you want that sense of scale.  Anyway, rant over.

To sum up - the pluses here are a LOT of cool action sequences, DC Universe nods, great art.  The main minus is that the Legion is barely in this.  But you should read this storyline anyway.

Grade: B+