LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #2

Review by: JimBilly4

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Avg Rating: 3.7
 
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Written by PAUL LEVITZ
Art and cover by YILDIRAY CINAR & WAYNE FAUCHER
Variant cover by JIM LEE

Size: 40 pages
Price: 3.99

Except for the Adventure comics and the JLA Lightning Saga/LSoNK tidbits, I am a complete Legion newbie. I never read any of Levitz’ original stuff. But there is something about an entirely formed world with 600 characters that I find compelling. I have been a X-whore for decades, so I certainly am not intimidated by this sort of thing. As with the Adventure tales, they make sure to give you a mini-intro to every character, but otherwise you are tossed right into this gigantic soap opera. Characters could be scorned lovers, mortal enemies, long lost sisters, grieving family members and I have no idea going in. I have to piece it all together from the ample hints that Levitz drops. Two issues in and there are at least four sub plots going.

If that sounds like the sort of thing that would drive you batty, then you probably want to stay away. It starts confusing with too many characters and it does not let up. However, by the end of the issue I wasn’t left feeling lost. There are a lot (a lotta lot) of missing pieces of the puzzle, but you definitely feel like you are catching up and learning about a whole new, fully-formed world. To me that’s fun.

Yes, the Legionaires have goofy names that sound like something a five year came up with (Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Sunboy, etc.). Yes, the majority of their costumes are about as generic superhero as you can find (I imagine there is a one piece supersuit Gap they all shop at). But the wide variety of powers provide that nice, interesting problem solving mix that the mutant books have run so successfully with over the years. Levitz’ writing definitely has an old school vibe, but it didn’t come across as painfully dated. He obviously knows these characters and has a lot of ideas of what to do with them.

Right now they are pumping out something like 60 pages of Legion art a month, between this and Adventure comics. The 30 pages of art in this book is split between Cinar and Faucher, two artists I know nothing about and therefore I have no way to tell which did which. They are both solid, but one of them is producing some really nice line work, especially the last 8 pages of this issue.

Story: 4 - Very Good
Art: 4 - Very Good

Comments

  1. Cinar pencilled and Faucher inked pages 1-19 and 27-30. Pages 20-26 (the riot scene at Painted Desert and Phantom Girl and Shadow Lass in the Medilab) were penciled and inked by Francis Portela.

  2. Then I think it was Portela that I really liked.

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