Legion of Super-Heroes #7 “Follow the Leader!” (August 2005)



Creative Team: Mark Waid writing. Barry Kitson pencils. Art Thibert and James Pascoe ink.

The Story: A mysterious message appears on Braniac 5’s computer: “Colu is Next.” He doesn’t know how it got there, but we do. He left it for himself last issue while interacting with Praetor Lemnos, though his knowledge about Lemnos himself has been erased. Sure enough, the citizens of Colu are falling victim to a computer virus that has leaves them drooling idiots. Clever use of Light Lass’ powers forces Lemnos to reveal himself, leading to a confrontation on Colu. Brainy promises to remember Lemnos this time.



In Braniac 5’s absence, Cosmic Boy gets Phantom Girl to help him break into Brainy’s lab.



My Two Cents: Again Waid mixes character moments with the big conspiracy plot. Chameleon annoys Light Lass by sampling her apple for future transformation reference data. Sun Boy castigates Triplicate Girl for spying on her teammates for Cosmic Boy.



As he is with Dream Girl, Braniac 5 is grumpy toward Light Lass because of what he sees as her flippancy in the manipulation of fundamental forces of the cosmos. But really Brainy is just grumpy and rationalizes a different reason why for each person. He's very "rational" like that.



Waid has a touch of inspiration in depicting Colu as a planet containing 16.3 trillion miniaturized citizens. Makes sense; the original Braniac was miniaturizing cities 1000 years prior. Do they follow Moore's Law, getting exponentially smaller?

The Legion is really becoming pretty unsympathetic to me about now. I find it tough to root for them, to root for almost anybody on the team.

Do you think Waid's characterization here is more in line with teenagers though?

The infighting, the forming of cliques within the team, romantic tension, do you like me?? this here seems more representative of being a teenager, your fears and concerns. Granted, I've read a small sampling of Silver Age LSH but those characters acted far from what I would consider to be teenagers and during the height of Levitz/Giffen, I think it was rather easy to forget or overlook the fact that they are supposed to teenagers (or shortly into their early 20s).

Their squabbling and concerns here as depicted by Waid seems more modern to me. Whether that makes them more sympathetic or less is, of course, dependent on your POV.

Legion of Super-Heroes #10 “Traitor!” (November 2005)



Creative Team: Mark Waid writing, Barry Kitson pencils, Drew Geraci inks.

The Story: The battle squad returns from Helegyn with Terra Firma’s chief strategist Elysion captive. Dream Girl is disturbed that her precognition doesn’t go more than an hour into the future. What is blocking her?



In the face of Terra Firma’s threat, Cosmic Boy and Braniac 5 agree to bury the hatchet and work together. They give a joint pep talk to all the Legion fans waiting in the plaza outside their HQ. Then Cosmic Boy divides the Legion into three task forces to protect three critical planets.



Invisible Kid stays home to guard Elysion, who has a surprise of his own. Several Terra Firma suicide bombers attack the crowded Legion plaza, and one somehow gets into the prison area of Legion HQ, detonating a bomb that frees Elysion while demolishing the HQ. Dream Girl is crushed by the falling debris.



My Two Cents: It’s a chillingly effective issue tied together with Dream Girl’s foreboding about her limited precognition. One would expect she knows the implications of this; surely her people know the phenomenon well. But for the first time reader, it’s quite a shocker. The Invisible Kid focus on the cover of this issue is pretty cool, but it doesn’t really reflect the major story within.



I mentioned earlier that this series doesn’t use the Interlac alphabet, but a couple of random teens in the plaza do. One is a girl whom Invisible Kid mistakes for Dream Girl. She says, “who?” when he calls her “Dreamy.”



And some random alien shouts, “HOLY seven HELLs. THIS IS THE END.”



Shrinking Violet gets mentioned finally, though she’s known as Atom Girl now, and there’s some question of whether she exists at all, like The Rumor in Alan Moore’s series Top 10.

Legion of Super-Heroes #12 “vs Terra Firma!” (January 2006)



Creative Team: Mark Waid writing. Barry Kitson and Ken Lashey pencils. Drew Geraci and Mick Gray inks. The backup story is written by Stuart Moore, drawn by Ken Lashey, and inked by Greg Parkin.

The Story: The fall of Legion HQ leaves the away teams without communication or teleport ability. Cosmic Boy prevails upon Dormir’s information-based beings to act as a commlink to the other two teams. Then he communicates with teens across the galaxy, urging them to rise up against the armies of Lemnos which have begun streaming through the warp gates.



Cosmic Boy instructs the team on Ttrxl to shut down the power to Lemnos’ warp portals. First, they have to get past the enforcer. Chameleon surrounds Lightning Lad to make him look like Saturn Girl, drawing the enforcer close enough to get a big shock in more ways than one.




On Earth, a replica of Robin the Boy Wonder’s sling proves useful for Branic Five. He uses it to lob a fragile rock at Elysion, who mockingly inhales the dust. But the dust turns out to have contained Atom Girl, who returns to normal size, erupting out of Elysion’s chest cavity. That’s going to leave a mark.



To prevent more troops from passing through the warp gates, Ultra Boy and Karate Kid take on Lemnos’ army while Triplicate Girl, Princess Projectra (now revealing her illusion power), and Phantom Girl rescue Timber Wolf from Lemnos’ dungeon. I love Phantom Girl’s nonchalant confidence here.



Backup story “A Decent Interval”: In a tale concurrent with issue #1, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl flirt during a successful mission to recruit a planet full of fast-aging teenagers to their cause. Apparently their romance is still in its early stages in this iteration of the Legion.



Covers That Lie: The Legion does not fight the super-villains of Terra Firma, though Ultra Boy and Karate Kid do wade into a pile of regular goons in Lemnos’ army.



My Two Cents: Modern decompression means that a story split among four different locales doesn’t get a ton of forward movement on any one of them, but the essence of the story is clear enough as the Legion recovers from Elysion’s strike while striking back effectively at Lemnos. The idea of antagonistic United Planet adults has taken a back-burner to this invasion, but it’s not clear where Lemnos gets his resources and army. His home base is apparently a planet all its own.
Finally we meet Atom Girl, much more interesting than the Shrinking Violet of the Silver or Bronze Age. She’s a natural assassin with fright wig hair and a Black Widow attitude.

Yes this was dragging its feet. By this point the interesting parts were becoming fewer and farther apart and I will admit I was already done with the story long before it wrapped up. What kept me coming back was my LOSH love and seeing the character changes and world building Waid was attempting. Sadly those parts felt somewhat disconnected from the major story and were much more interesting. I strongly agree with dbutler69 that if this had been shorter in a 4-6 (at most) issues it might have played out stronger. 

I've read this a few times over the years, and I couldn't tell you anything about Terra Firma either, except for Elysion and Lemnos. We need some scenes where they're hanging out together discussing their plans and such so that they can have names and personalities outside of the fighting, just like the Legion. But it's also possible Waid left them ciphers on purpose in view of what happens a few issues from now. Still, whether it was a master plan or not, it still weakens the current drama when we don't understand the villains' motives, personalities, names, or powers.