(This review contains spoilers.)
I was disappointed in the first issue of the latest launch of Legion of Super-Heroes. I found the tone to be arch and the attempts to convey the coolness of its premise strenuous. The second installment is much more effective, focusing on character while putting the premise into a specific context.
It opens with a small subset of the Legion preventing an assassination of United Planets Delegates. The beats of the mission are fairly standard, with some slightly shrill tension between teen-of-action Karate Kid and the more contemplative Element Lad. This isn’t a problem, as the sequence is window dressing to establish a much more interesting conflict that drives the rest of the story.
Brainiac 5 is frustrated. He uses his massive intellect to meticulously evaluate cause and effect to identify emergencies and prepare his team-mates for action. It’s his thing, and he does it well. Unfortunately, Dream Girl often does precisely the same thing through seemingly effortless intuition. Brainiac bristles at what he sees as the precognitive’s lack of intellectual rigor and flagrant disrespect for the scientific method.
It’s a funny, believable point of contention between two well-developed characters, and it plays nicely into the comic’s A-plot. On Dream Girl’s home world of Naltor, the authorities are inflicting sleep deprivation on their teen-aged citizens. Dream Girl, Brainiac, Karate Kid, and Shadow Lass travel to Naltor to find out why, and Mark Waid takes the opportunity to explore the practicalities and morality of a race that can see the future.
The rigor-versus-intuition argument runs throughout the issue, and Waid manages to strike a balance that highlights the value of each without being too obvious. He also places the larger issues alongside some smart, smaller demonstrations of the practical applications of precognition. I particularly liked the notion of law enforcers concentrating on short-term predictions to give them a combative edge. It makes for some fun sequences, and it helps paint Dream Girl as a formidable heroine who can make varied use of her specific abilities.
That element is critical to a strong Legion title, I think. It’s nice to see Waid articulate the ways individual members contribute. He really seems to have thought out how they’ve been defined by their abilities and cultures. Given the size of the cast, it’s the kind of story construct that could drive the comic for some time without growing stale.
I’m not as enthusiastic about art by Barry Kitson. It’s lovely, but I find it a bit static. He has a very strong hand for composition, but there isn’t much of a sense of motion. It creates the feeling of a sequence of video stills for me. The panels are attractive and polished, but they don’t flow the way I’d like. I also find a lack of variety to characters’ faces and body types, aside from some differences in height and hairstyle. That said the visuals don’t actively detract from the story. They just don’t tell it with the kind of energy and specificity that would really make it jump off of the page.
Still, this issue makes me extremely optimistic about Waid’s work on the title. It’s smart, funny, and imaginative in ways both big and small. I’ll definitely be sticking around.