Episode 115 - Superboy's Legion with Jim Fetters
We’re going BACK to the FUTURE! Jim Fetters joins Jmike and Case for a look at Alan Davis and Mark Farmer’s 30th Century followup to JLA: The Nail, Superboy’s Legion!
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Transcription
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00:00
Case
Trying not torture our editor the way we did on some of these.
00:06
Jim
Three hour episode.
00:08
Case
Well, yeah, I feel really bad because, like Matt, who was our previous editor, we subjected to our issue by issue coverage of the death and return of Superman. And then as soon as they were done, it's like, took over and it's like, all right, yeah, we'll keep it to, like, a tight hour if Ken, for all these things.
00:26
Jim
Yeah, that's a hard discussion to contain.
00:29
Case
Yeah, it's eight issues on the first chunk, not counting the annuals, which we don't.
00:35
Jim
Yeah. U.
00:55
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, J. Mike Balson.
01:01
Jmike
Welcome back to the show, everybody. Glad to have you.
01:04
Case
Yeah, glad. Glad to be back. Today, we are returning to the 30th century after doing quite a bit of legion coverage a little over a year ago. And to have that conversation today, we are joined by Jim Fetters.
01:17
Jim
Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
01:21
Case
So, Jim, you and I connected online just because were talking Legion stuff at various points, and you pointed out that you had been writing some reviews of different series that we'd been covering, and it was right around the time that were putting out a bunch of our legion content initially.
01:33
Jim
Right.
01:33
Case
And so we got to talking and found out that we're actually all local to each other.
01:37
Jim
We were able to meet up for.
01:39
Case
A beer recently, which was really cool.
01:40
Jim
Exactly.
01:41
Case
But who are you? What have you got going on?
01:43
Jim
So, name is Jim. I'm just kind of a run of the mill comic fan, right. I've been enjoyer of the medium since the late 80s, since my college days. So that gives you some idea of how long in the tooth I am here. So this is about the time in the era of the Batman 89 movie, right? So middle of college, that's really what got me into reading the medium as kind of an ongoing format, keeping with the storylines and starting to collect and baggage and boarding and all that kind of stuff.
02:10
Jim
And kind of as that evolved, one thing kind of leads to another and you start picking up one book and then another, and then, hey, there's this cool Superman storyline where he gets killed and comes back, and then that involves four separate titles that you have to collect all of to get the whole story. And then, so the next thing you know, you're collecting like, 50 titles. And so that's kind of how I got into that whole aspect of the medium. And then, of course, as part of that. The legion of superheroes comes into that mix as well, for various reasons. But at that time, this is when the end of that five years later period and the beginning of the removal happened.
02:43
Jim
And so that's when I got started in there and then stayed with it for many years until I started having kids. And then when I would only kind of go with fits and spurts and would do that over the years until Covid. And since were all kind of locked in for a long time, that was a good time to reconnect into the community and to the different titles that have been published over the last decade or so.
03:04
Case
Yeah, it's really cool how there's these niches of fandom within fandoms. There's DC fans as a whole, and then specifically Legion fans are like its own subset, and the Legion has had a lot of iterations now. So there's people who have very strong opinions about Legion, which is fascinating. But I got into Legion around the same time because I came in really post zero hour and got into the reboot era, quote unquote, and that was like my gateway to it because you would be passing illusions to it in pre crisis material and see stuff from that period.
03:35
Case
But man, especially coming in reboot era, but not knowing that much about it and picking up random issues of like, legionnaires that came out right before zero hour, where all the characters have the same costumes and similar code names for the most part, but it's a totally different continuity and maybe they're clones.
03:53
Jim
Yeah.
03:53
Case
Weird time to try to figure out what was going on.
03:56
Jim
Absolutely. But at least that reboot zero hour time frame kind of gave you a ground floor entry.
04:01
Case
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I was really glad to get into it because the Legion is such a comic booky concept. Like, let's have superheroes in the far future, let's have it be kind of a utopian future. Let's have legacies of things from a thousand years prior, but it's not really tethered too many story beats. And let's really kind of have its own thing, completely divorced of the rest of comics. And then under the guise of this extremely utopian, silver agey kind of concept, let's have some of the most extreme adult stories that we could possibly sneak in there.
04:32
Jim
Yeah, it's very subversive in that way. I mean, that first year of that reboot pulled some very adult, dark stories. Not adult in the sexy way, of course, but more in the serious themes of life and death and change and things like that. That's serious upper, like a bunch of teenagers to have to be dealing with over and over again. No one has plot armor does not.
04:54
Case
Apply when you're a character in the Legion because the property is the Legion. The property is not cosmic boy or lightning lad or any of these other characters. Like, things can happen to an individual because the story is going to continue and that goes back to Bronze Age material. Like, the characters died, characters were dismembered, characters suffered severe consequences, and that became a running thing about the book. And today we actually haven't said the name of the thing that we're looking at specifically today. Today is sort of a weird sideways view at that. Same kind of like let's have this glossy front but then have some serious stuff going on because today we're talking about Superboy's Legion, which is a collaboration between Mark Farmer and Alan Davis. Fresh off at this point.
05:35
Case
When this book came out doing JLA the nail, which we talked about a year ago, which I would say that JLA the nail is like a more complex. There's more of a thing going on there than this one. This one's sort of like, let's just revel in weirdness of the Legion and just do askew stuff because we have an elseworld thing and DC's going to let them do it. But I bought this at the time when it came out. I was excited to see it because I was a big fan of the nail. I thought like, hey, that's a really cool book. Let's see what this thing is. And it's weird. It's pretty weird. Jim, were you reading this at the time?
06:07
Jim
So this was a discussion. We were having this and this came out during the time frame where I was in that on again, off again period of picking up books. I would go for like weeks to months to maybe even a year, not collect anything or not read anything. Then I'd go and just buy a bunch of stuff. And I missed this when this first came out because this came out around the early aughts, as I recall, the collected edition has a publication date of 2011.
06:32
Case
Yeah, it was 2001 when this came.
06:33
Jim
Yeah. Which would have been during the time of abnormal landings on Legion. So I missed this. I had actually missed the end of the main run of the reboot where they kind of wrapped up legionnaires in the LSH title and then made that jump. And so I was like going a year or two and trying to catch up on what happened. And in doing that, I totally missed this? Yeah. I'd be curious.
06:56
Case
I'd have to look at the publication dates. It's 2001 when this came out. But I'm wondering if maybe this happened around the time that they wrapped up that run before Legion loss came out or something like that.
07:05
Jim
So the end of the main run was about in the 99 2000 era, the early two thousand s. So Legion lost came on later than that. So we'd have to take a look at what the actual specific publication dates were. But I venture to say it was during either Legion lost or Legion worlds when this was released.
07:23
Case
Yeah, I mean, certainly it matches up pretty close on that timeline. This came out in February of 2001, follow up issue in March. So either way, there were, like, little gaps of Legion publishing. So I wonder if that was also part of the calculus of, like, let's put out something Legion related while there is one of those spaces.
07:40
Jim
Right? No, that's a good point.
07:42
Case
It's curious because it's such a weird book. I was rereading it today, and I remember just being like, why? Because I enjoy it overall, but not to be too negative about it out the gate. But JLA the nail is a really interesting, like, let's start with, like, all right, what if we take Superman out of the equation and look at what the modern state of the DCU looks like? This one. The premise for this is like, well, what if Kalal didn't land on earth in the 20th century? What if, instead, his ship got caught up in the wreckage of Krypton as it's being destroyed? And so he's stuck in suspended animation for 1000 years and they find him and then he exists in the 30th century just as a civilian of the 30th century. Effectively doing, like, the post crisis Monell kind of situation.
08:29
Case
Very much so by the end of this book. And then he just forms the legion because he has powers and he wants to do good and it's kind of its own time. And there's like, a little bit of, like, here's a conspiracy going on and all that, but it's very much. Here's like the Silver Age Legion jumbled all over the place. There's all these weird changes that. I don't know why they necessarily did them. I don't mind most of them, but cosmic boy loses his arm instead of lightning lads is, like, literally light powers instead of light. As in making things lighter.
09:02
Jim
Absolutely. That I thought was a really cool take.
09:06
Case
I like that idea. I just don't know why they did it. Yeah.
09:11
Jim
It was just to be different. Certainly.
09:12
Case
Yeah, exactly.
09:13
Jim
And there were some good pieces of this that I thought kind of this retelling or this alternate universe version was good for. As part of my reintegration into the comics community in 2020, I set out to essentially read the entire Legion run as much as I could track down. Right. And one of the things that I got kind of really tired of over all of those stories was seeing yet another origin story where the kids save RJ, which we don't get here because it's totally different. And the other thing being the rayon's origin, that's the other trope that you see over and over again. Some of these origins were kind of neat and kind of the way they compared and contrasted more the personalities of some of these characters gave it a very fresh take in a lot of ways. Yeah.
10:00
Case
There's a lot to like in this book. There's a reason I wanted to bring it. I just keep on looking at it.
10:04
Jim
And be like, a lot of it's.
10:05
Case
Just different for the sake of being different. And that is cool. But I'm just so curious what the starting point was. What was the impetus for it? Because aside from saying, like, well, what if Superboy isn't actually from the 30th century instead of time traveling to the 30th century for fun, it's just like, so weird.
10:22
Jim
To your point about the nail, my thought was, if they did the nail, maybe they saw, hey, this was a kind of cool experience. We're making money off of it, of what we're seeing. Let's do it for the legion. Right. Because that's another team that you can go a lot of different directions with. Maybe it was just as simple as that. Yeah.
10:38
Case
And then they were just like, well, yeah. Now that we have the opportunity, let's get weird.
10:42
Jim
Yeah. And you get really weird in the future.
10:46
Case
Yeah. So, j Mike, you have been subjected to a bunch of legion material, but you typically were not that familiar going into our coverage of the legion.
10:55
Jmike
I only heard about it in passing. I was like, that sounds like a cool idea.
10:58
Case
But we read Legion lost. We read the great darkness saga. We watched both seasons of the cartoon. Yeah. We looked at a bunch of legion stuff. So coming in, what did you think you were reading? And then what was your reaction to having read it?
11:14
Jim
No.
11:15
Jmike
So I thought were going to get the Legion tv series where he gets brought to the future. I was like, all right, cool. The reboot of the league story again, cool. I'm here for it. It's still fun to read it. I still have a good time. But then I got to reading this and I was like, oh, interesting. I was kind of confused, like you said about the different switching around of the power sets and things and ultra boy being a jerk.
11:40
Case
Not weird by itself.
11:45
Jmike
It was more of it this time.
11:46
Jim
It was a little bit ahead of its time, too, given the time frames of everything.
11:50
Jmike
Wow, there's laid out heavy. He's really being a jerk here.
11:54
Jim
That's a really good point that you're raising. And I was wondering this, when I was going through this myself, was there's a lot of really cool beats in here that really resonate if you're a fan of the original stuff.
12:05
Jmike
Because for what, the tryouts and things, you see people that you see before, like a lot of the other materials, but they're just like throw ins here and there. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. That's what's her face, multi girl chick from the series. Like, I know that person. I can hope there's feral ad. Oh, man, he's not dead. They're going to break my heart again.
12:28
Jim
Well, that was my take, is if somebody's going to pick this up cold, right? How would they look at this? How would they react to it? Right?
12:36
Case
While on the one hand everything is laid out for you, there's so much that's like comics on comics going on here. And that's the thing. The nail also had this weird space where it is clear that Davis wants to draw the Silver and Bronze Age stuff and really the Silver Age here. But also it's still late 90s, early 2000s DC. And they have all these elements that are taken from post crisis that they're putting in there too. Like Superboy's ship is the birthing matrix from the man of Steel miniseries, which is cool. And then at the end of it, when they're set up their headquarters and it's a giant version of the birthing Matrix, the same way it was like, here's a giant rocket ship in adventure comics era, legion of superheroes.
13:20
Case
Instead of it being like just a big generic red rocket, it's like, oh, here's a giant kryptonian rocket. It's like very interesting juxtapositions of very modern design or modern at the time designs, I should say. Not modern like current, but within the Silver Age.
13:36
Jim
Exactly. I made the same note. There is a scene, I think, about midway, I guess, or the beginning of the third act, where the Empress creates a bunch of child legionnaires to attack, which is a complete homage to those adventure stories. From, like, back in the. Took a note of these. It's adventures 317, 338, and 356, where you have these three different stories, but they're all involving versions of child legionnaires that are interacting with the world around them. And it's a very silver agey concept. Right. And so I think he definitely is blending a lot of these concepts as much as he can. And I'm a big fan of Alan Davis. I love his art, so I enjoyed every bit of the drawing and illustrations.
14:20
Case
Yeah, that was the thing going back for this reread that I knew was going to at least hit very well because Alan Davis is such just a beautiful artist. All the stuff he's worked on is always so gorgeous. And honestly, this late 90s era, I think, really suited his art very well because they had figured out how to do, like, computer coloring, but they hadn't gone quite into the 2000s overboard stage yet. It still plays nice with his type of paperwork, but it's not like the early 90s, Malibu comics, where it's a little too new, and it's not like the early 2000s, like new avengers or something, where it's a little too far. It still looks like a comic book. They're not trying to remove the need for an ink.
15:02
Case
Remove all those things and you get Alan Davis, who is just this gorgeous linesmith, just making everyone look so beautiful, so cool, just fun characters and draws young people really well. Like, they all have this youthful energy to them that a lot of comic artists make teenagers look like just slightly smaller adults. And it doesn't really quite feel young. They just feel like it's adults for a different perspective.
15:25
Jim
And that was one of the wonderful things about the reboot time frame rate. The artist then did that. But the cool thing is, and I'm not sure if you all remember this, but Alan Davis, he was pretty much the COVID artist for the LSH title throughout the 90s. Right? And he creates great covers. Yeah.
15:40
Case
I mean, his style had become very associated with the Legion at this point, so that also kind of added to it. And I guess that also contributes to why he would want to do the silver age stuff, because he had been doing all of the stuff at that point for several years.
15:52
Jim
Absolutely. It was funny. It didn't hit me until I was reading those flashbacks at the end when they're kind of telling the story about Lexin and his plan. And I saw Batman and I said, oh, my God, this is the dude that drew Batman year two.
16:05
Case
Yeah, the infamous book where Batman takes the gun of Joe chill to fight the Grim Reaper.
16:10
Jim
Exactly. Love it.
16:15
Case
For people not familiar with it, Batman year two is the story that was the inspiration for Batman. Mask of the phantasm.
16:21
Jim
That's right.
16:22
Case
I would say phantasm is better, but.
16:24
Jim
I would agree with that. I would actually agree with that.
16:26
Case
There's certainly a reason to love it. But, yeah, usually here once, usually the.
16:30
Jim
One people like more, we never get to hear him say, eat lead, punk. I kind of just want to keep.
16:36
Case
Fixating on the weird little changes that they make in it. I feel like the legion is so established and there's so many things that they love to reference in every iteration of the legion, that it's so cool that they've got totally fresh takes on some of the ideas here. One thing I really love in this is brainiac five. I think that it is so cool that instead of it just being Kaluans, look like humans, but they're green and they're super fucking smart. Here. It's like, oh, no, this is a hybrid. It's a spock style situation, and it's based on the dna of Lyle Norg, the invisible kid, who is always his partner, especially in the reboot era, because they're the smart ones on the team.
17:13
Jim
Yeah. When they're first introduced, the note that I made when I was going through this was, oh, here's one for all the Lyle and brainy shippers, because they're always kind of tied together. Yeah.
17:22
Case
Especially era.
17:23
Jim
Yeah, exactly. But then, of course, when they actually give the revelation of what the truth is, I thought that was pretty freaking cool. Again, nice, fresh take on these characters.
17:34
Case
Yeah, it's kind of Spock like, let's be honest here. But it's such a cool take on that it has caused my headcanon for vulcans in Star Trek to be modified by it, which is to say that it has made me want Spock to be the way he is and to have more pure vulcans be more extreme in terms of the differences from humanity. Like, have them look more romulan in my head. Maybe not full on the head ridges from the TNG era of Star Trek, but I love this idea of the characters who are always barely different from human, but they're supposed to be alien. I love the idea of it being like, well, they're genetically modified so that they can interact with people in some way.
18:13
Jim
To your exact point there, chameleon. Right. I mean, the way that he was drawn by Davis, he finally looks like an alien. Right. One of the other really neat things about this. That was a different take that was definitely for the better here. And in fact, I wish I would have seen more of it in other iterations of the real book, quote unquote.
18:29
Case
Yeah, I mean, like, he's obviously changes his design overall when we get to three boot era where it's much more lacking features than the antenna pop out when he's trying to scan people. But, yeah, it's nice that they accentuate some of those details. Alan Davis is very good at having unique faces for characters often represented by different chin structures. Some artists can really make the nose and eyes really work distinctly. And Davis has a way of making the whole facial structure itself be how you tell everyone apart. So it was really nice to have sunboy be so distinctly different in that, I mean, shadow ass is quite powerful in this one. That's a character who has vacillated between, I can make things dark and I can fill your minds with eldritch horrors and does pretty well against Superboy when she's, like, trying out.
19:17
Jim
You have the story structure here. Some of these panels are presented with this kind of frame around them, right, to indicate that they're part of a news broadcast or something like that. I noted that, hey, they broadcast Superboy's power over live tv for anybody to see.
19:49
Case
Actually, when I got to that spot, and that's because I just recently did a video on the Kristen Wells superwoman on our YouTube channel, who is a character from Superman comics who is actually the descendant of Jimmy Olsen. But in the 29th century, I was thinking like, oh, that's a missed opportunity. That would have been really fun to have that character here.
20:06
Jim
Yeah.
20:07
Case
But instead, it's clear that at some point, Jimmy and Lois got together. And then many generations down, we get this paramore for Superboy.
20:17
Jim
Circling back, though, to Sunboy for a second.
20:19
Case
Sunboy and element lad especially, I noticed, are characters who have effectively, their Silver Age designs, but they are updated in some interesting ways. Like, Sunboy has more of like, kind of a roby kind of tunic kind of design. And element lab likewise, actually has very bonisterial kind of robes going for him. And those are, like, interesting updates where it's like, okay, it's a different trajectory from the original point as opposed to, here's some of the later design elements that have been brought in.
20:46
Jim
Yeah, that element plaid design very much evoked for me. If you remember the first legionnaires annual, that was the elsewhere else year they did the King Arthur concept for the Legion. And he was this kind of this priestly character and had those kind of vestments on. So it was really kind of cool. Yeah.
21:02
Case
Because you have to have some reason for why element lad isn't, like, all powerful.
21:05
Jim
Yeah.
21:06
Case
And if this is coming out around the same time as Legion lost, we can see what happens if you don't.
21:10
Jim
Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. One of the other really interesting kind of reversals, if you want to call it that, were the Rand's twins, where I guess in the traditional, original version of their origins, they're farmers. Right. And here there's some kind of rich knobs we don't.
21:30
Case
Yeah, very aristocratic.
21:31
Jim
Yeah, exactly. So, nice take. So we talked about how Ayla has a slightly different take on her powers. A little bit more focused. Neat change. Still not sure how I feel about it. Exactly, because projector has always been kind of the aristocratic one, but here it's a little bit different. Yeah.
21:47
Case
Well, in that scenario, it's like our rich snob friends. It's like Paris Hilton's crew back in the 2000.
21:53
Jim
Yeah.
21:53
Case
I keep coming back to the light lasting because that's one where it makes so much sense. But it is like a weird thing to just throw in this random else world story of laser beam powers.
22:04
Jim
Right.
22:05
Case
It makes sense. It's like, oh, yeah, okay, cool. Your powers have refined so that you're manipulating photons instead of electrons now.
22:11
Jim
Cool. Cool stuff.
22:12
Case
I'm digging all of this, but still, it's just so strange.
22:15
Jim
But does she make pew. Noises?
22:19
Case
We get a very powerful starboy in this book.
22:22
Jmike
Yeah.
22:23
Case
That he's competing with Superman. And in this scenario, he's totally at that level, but like a freedom fighter on the outskirts.
22:32
Jim
My take on him was that he was kind of like a mentor because he comes in as kind of rebellious and cocky as Kal El is here. Tom is super serious, which is not quite his type for pretty much every other iteration of his character. And I was just struck by how stoic the guy is. And then he almost gets his head burned off. I thought he was a goner. Yeah.
22:53
Jmike
I thought he was dead.
22:55
Jim
Yeah, totally. And this is one of the things that I think was another good piece of this book and a good part of being able to do else worlds, right, is the fact that you don't know what's going to happen. Anything could literally happen. No pot armor. Exactly.
23:09
Jmike
Everything's on the table here.
23:12
Jim
Yeah.
23:12
Case
I mean, colossal boy is taken out pretty early on in the story, and that's a big moment there where like, oh, okay.
23:18
Jim
Yeah, okay.
23:18
Case
Anything can happen. All right. I see.
23:21
Jim
Yeah. Although I was a little bit disappointed, right. Because this being in the reboot time frame, of course, he was off a few years in, but still, I was like, they could have made a little bit of a different choice.
23:31
Case
That's true. I mean, the bigger one in terms of just, like, flipping around was like, cosmic boy who loses his arm instead of lightning lad. And that's cool. It works just fine. It's like, all right, yeah, I guess the guy with magnet powers can have a magnetic arm that works fine.
23:46
Jim
Right. I mean, one of the things that they also did as part of that, instead of the traditional emerald coupling with Garth, it's with rock instead. Right. And it's been done several times and, I don't know, it never seems to really work for me anyway. And so this came out fine. Right. It was no big deal with regards to how the story ended or anything around that. It was just when I first saw it, I kind of did a little bit of an internal eye roll and said, okay, here we go again. Yeah.
24:14
Case
As with all the weird twists in this one, it's sort of like, it's fine. It's not really super explored deeply because it's just a two issue miniseries. It's not even like the nails, three issues. It's a lot of surface, and it's a lot of excuses for great art from Davis and showing off cool nods to a lot of stuff. Like the auditions, for example, having superboy sitting instead of lightning lads for the classic cover of the legion's introduction. We get all these homages to it all, but it's just very pretty and everything's just like 15 degrees off. We're not even doing, like, a full change, but it's all just slightly tweaked.
24:49
Jim
Yes. It was also kind of interesting, that audition scene where you see the people that are going to become the substitutes. Right. Right. We see pretty much all the rest of the folks that we know that we eventually see again in the last page. Eventually, a lot of these folks make it, which is kind of a neat idea in a way. It's going happily ever after and all that good stuff.
25:10
Case
Yeah. It's certainly an optimistic book, even if there's, like, darker moments in there, which I think is what the Legion should be.
25:16
Jim
Right? Absolutely.
25:18
Case
So why don't we actually talk about the story? Because there's a lot of fun set dressings, which is the stuff that I really remembered from when this came out, but then actually talking about, well, what is the actual plot? All right, so the opening setup is that superboy gets stuck in debris from Krypton. And so he's awoken in the 30th century instead of the 20th century. He's found by RG brand. So he's just a rich kid who's able to fly around and kind of have fun. The science police, which seem much more fashy in this setting than the directed by computer, which is, like, always a danger thing to see where it's like, oh, yeah, computer tells us this stuff. Like, are you sure you want to.
25:53
Jim
Do that red flag?
25:55
Case
Yeah, that's probably not good. Computer says something. Are you sure you trust it? Because I don't. So he's like a rich kid kind of running around. The science police think that he's a juvenile delinquent, which is so funny for Kal El. And I get it. Like, if you're in a time of space travel and he's, like, flying off into space with no radio or whatever way of communicating with ships, they might be just flying somewhere, and he might just crash right through them and be invulnerable and destroy something. So I get it accidentally.
26:23
Jim
Cause a know.
26:24
Case
Yeah, who can say? But it also looks like things are getting really bad on the outer edge of up space because we do see a Green Lantern. It's interesting that we see a Green Lantern for a few reasons at this point when this comes out. For one thing, Green Lanterns are typically a thing that they try to avoid dealing with too much in legion stuff because, man, that is hard to balance the need for the Legion when you also have the Green Lantern corps out there.
26:48
Jim
Oh, yeah.
26:49
Case
And so they have different reasons all the time. Like, are they exiled from Earth? Reboot era was in the wake of Emerald Twilight, and with Hal Jordan going crazy and just becoming Kyle Rayner. So when they did a Green Lantern tie in during the reboot era, it was specifically characters emulating the Green Lanterns illegitimately. And so in this comic, it's that era. Kyle Rayner is the only Green Lantern at the point when this book comes out. So it's interesting that we're acknowledging, like, the status quo. DC is not what we care about at this point, even though we're seeing some of the trappings of it, even though the rocket style is the John Byrne style rocket. Like, we're not in that DCU. We're in whatever the fuck they want to put in there.
27:25
Jim
They're just borrowing the toys, right? They're just borrowing the toys and then putting them back.
27:29
Case
Well, yeah, it's like in a sandbox. We can put it all over here. They don't have to make sense. It could be whatever. It's fun.
27:35
Jim
Yes, exactly. It was kind of interesting. And the story is littered with a million beats that feel like they should have more meat behind them. And one of them was this friction between the sps and the lanterns. Right. There seemed to be something about that, because the lantern is like, yeah, we don't deal with anybody in SPace, so. Which is what inspires Cal to actually create his legion at the end of the day. But it's just this interesting question of, like, okay, what's this about? And I was kind of curious about that, but never gets really addressed again.
28:05
Jmike
Well, they kind of talk about it where the Sp. You have to pay for SP protection. And I was like, that's okay, right? Like, some of the plants just can't afford the. So, like, that's where the Green Lanterns and those guys usually try to intervene at. But like you said, the Green Lantern says, I forget his name, but this is right when the Daxon has been destroyed. Cough, cough. And there was Sinestro wars had just taken place. So I was, that's interesting. So he was saying that's why there aren't a lot of Green Lanterns anywhere.
28:43
Jim
Yeah.
28:44
Case
The Daxim one especially is like, oh, shit. Moment, right?
28:49
Jim
In classic legion backstory, right? The Daximites destroyed Trump, and in this scenario, Daxium is wiped off the face of the universe, whereas the tromites are living large and doing their thing. Yeah.
29:03
Case
Two very powerful races can only have one.
29:07
Jim
That's right. Very highlander. Exactly.
29:10
Case
And then there's the Sinestra war, which I took to be, like, earlier in the timeline, just like a reference to why they were so weak. But who can really say on that one? It certainly predates any of the sinestra core concepts or anything like that. And I think it's just, like, fun buzwords to throw out there being like, oh, yeah, I guess that would make sense why we wouldn't have so many green lanterns. So Superboy rallies people. Like, he ends up saving a ship that happens to have cosmic boy and Saturn girl, and it's like, all right, cool, let's do something like the 20th century. Let's have heroes again.
29:38
Case
Even if it's kind of a weird concept, and even if big brother, that is, the science police, say that we shouldn't do this kind of things, and he's rich, so he's able to make it all work.
29:48
Jim
Right. It just happens.
29:51
Case
I wonder how much is in his trust fund, because he's able to set up auditions he's able to set up all this stuff, and it doesn't seem like his dad's really giving him money to do it. It's just like all of a sudden it's like, yeah, oh, yeah. The son of the richest man in the world is like, I want to form a special club of special you.
30:05
Jim
This is what happens. So the rich live in a totally different world. Yeah.
30:11
Case
And then RJ is just like kind of watching, being, well, let him make his own mistakes.
30:16
Jim
Exactly. Don't screw up.
30:18
Case
And concedo is like, continue to monitor the boy science police.
30:21
Jim
We need to know more. So let me ask you guys this, because one of the things that's interesting and the motif about the whole computer universal thing, right, is that they have this red color tone, right? Where they go into those scenes and obviously on their helmets, right, the SP helmets, right. There's this red crystal of some kind. Once that whole thing started to get explored a little bit about probably halfway through the book, I was like, are those guys being mind controlled by the computer? Which I thought would have been kind of a cool twist there, but at the end it appears that they're not. They just have a dickhead as a commissioner that is very zealous in his job.
30:56
Jim
But the way they were kind of teasing it, I kind of felt like they were going to take it to the point of all of the police force being kind of just these drones that were under control of universal.
31:04
Case
So obviously the red circles that they wear look like a how, 9000 type situation. Yeah, I think that they did the way that I would prefer to do, just generally where they are effectively drones for it all, but they still think they have free will. I think that's a more elegant and more realistic kind of take on it all, where they have just given up their autonomy in order to place their faith in this computer that is running everything. And that is, I think, more insidious, generally speaking, than even just like, hey, we've taken over your brain. That's more comic book villain.
31:40
Case
If what is happening here controlled the way you even think in the first place, let alone, like, controlling your thoughts, instead of it being I've taken over your body, it's that I have filled you with all this information and you trust me, and so you believe the things I tell you and you have the power to act, but you're going to act in my way because I've already done all the things I need to make you believe it.
31:59
Jim
That would never happen in reality.
32:03
Case
We hope, right?
32:05
Jim
Yeah, exactly. I think that's a much better way of approaching it. Right. It's also more sinister in a lot of ways, too. It's a lot more chilling to think that you're being just nudged in these directions in the ways that somebody wants you to behave versus somebody just kind of taking over at that point, you could say, well, it's not me. Right? Yeah.
32:24
Case
The blood is on their hands for everything they do. It also is self reinforcing, because then if they do a thing that is theoretically against whatever moral code that whatever science police officer has, but they did it because they thought that they were doing their greater good, then they have to then convince themselves that they were doing good. And it's the system, the machine.
32:46
Jim
That's right.
32:49
Case
Looking at Ferrolad, I love how Alan Davis draws his eyes. The scar tissue around there is so good. Also gets a really good balance in terms of the karate kid design, where it doesn't look like just a regular white guy, and it also doesn't look too far in any direction. Like, it doesn't fully look like ganeshian stereotype. It still looks like a superhero. Good balance is there.
33:08
Jim
Again, this speaks to his ability to have very unique faces.
33:12
Case
Yeah. I love when we get to Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl. Ultra Boy's costume is so fascinating to me because it is incredibly garish, and yet it works always for me. Like, almost every version of his costume.
33:23
Jim
We'Re all used to it right now. I think it's probably one that's also partially true.
33:28
Case
I'm a huge fan of his reboot era costume. Like, having the black stripe on the pants, I think looks just fantastic. And also his three boot era costume also really nails it without it looking, like, too different. But it has all these dumb design points. But they work. It works so well. It's like he's a Christmas tree, but at the same time, he looks cool.
33:46
Jim
Exactly. He also kicked your ass at maybe given moments, but you never know.
33:51
Case
And Alan Davis just draws him so beautifully, and we get the cool chameleon design that has this classic costume to it. But then his features are really different. And if you really look at his head in most panels, the proportions are different from panel to panel because he's always shapeshifting a little bit at any given time.
34:08
Jim
Exactly. That's exactly what I thought was just awesome about this version.
34:13
Case
So they go to stop a meteor initially that's going to destroy Rimbor. And I do love this team power up here with Starboy and Superboy. Starboy, like, increasing the mass of Superboy and then him doing the slingshot around the planet. So he gave him extra momentum so he can crash into it and destroy. Like, that's, I think, amazing.
34:31
Jim
And then once that happens, right, it smashes into a million bits and you get that whole, oh, my gosh. Well, they created another problem, right? Because now there's a million different pieces of asteroid raining down on the planet. And then, of course, then he turns around, he and Joe kind of get into it because Joe's full of ego, right? That's part of his thing. And Cal says, hey, look, we got this, right? We're handling this. We kind of know what we're doing, even though they don't. This is their rookie mission, basically, right? But that whole moment was really neat because you say, oh, yeah, this is what these characters do. Yeah.
35:02
Case
I really like the characterization of Ultra Boy in this because he's a character that I've often said it would be really cool to see him in a setting that didn't have Superboy or didn't have characters like Superboy because his powers are so cool. But the fact that he's getting one of them at a time means that he's always going to feel like he's the b lister compared to the ones who have all of them at the same time. And you feel like, man, he was set up to be like, the best at this timeline. And then all of a sudden, Superboy's on the scene.
35:28
Jim
Right. And I wonder if this was kind of a thing for Mark way, given the timing. But the characterization here definitely is evocative of three week version of this character just being all Rashid, being kind of a dick to pretty much everybody around him.
35:44
Case
So they save the day and there's news coverage and it's great. But then, what the fuck? There's a Kaluan with them. This changes everything. I like this idea that the Kaluans are, like, kind of reclusive in this whole thing. It is weird that they are totally pacifist, considering what we know about them.
35:59
Jim
Yeah.
36:03
Case
I mean, that's not usually what we associate with them. So it is sort of an inferred cultural type here. Their most famous member is like one of the great villains of all time. So it's like, oh, okay, I guess so.
36:15
Jim
I don't know if I love the.
36:16
Case
Brainiac five thing being, because brainiac is a slur for Kaluan, and then he's a fifth level intelligence.
36:22
Jmike
That was a little weird.
36:23
Jim
Yeah.
36:24
Case
A little forced right there for how we get to that name.
36:27
Jim
Well, they're just using a different standard in this timeline is all it is.
36:32
Case
That's the one thing that we do lose with it. You couldn't possibly do the thing that I really love about brainiac five being the actual descendant of Brainiac. I think that's such a cool element of the character baseline wise, like descendant or next in the line of brainiacs or whatever. But it's also one that you just can't, because there's no superman for Brainiac to have been a supervillain for, unless they wanted to do additional backstory. And this story is too lean to do that. But the appearance of brainiac v is sufficient for things to be different, and so they let loose whomever, the power that behind it all, the fatal five on them.
37:07
Jmike
We don't know who that is. Dun dun.
37:10
Case
This is a pretty straightforward fatal five right here. There's not, like, any big twist to them unless you're, like, a really diehard. Like, no, Validus is the child of lightning lad and Saturn girl as manipulated by Darkseid. But you don't really require that to understand the character. It's just sort of like a fun background detail.
37:26
Jim
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. These are probably the least changed of anybody that we see from any other version or iteration that they draw from here. These guys are pretty much straight up troublemakers and folks that destroy the universe. Yeah.
37:40
Case
Actually, Jim, I do have one question. Do you remember if mono had this left hand, right hand thing before in comics? Because I just remember him as, like, having destructive touches. Yes, but they do have this, like, it's a slow burn versus a fast burn thing.
37:52
Jim
All I remember ever seeing is, want to say it's his right hand. He pulls the glove off and he touches something and know, kaboom. Right? So that may be the one neat little touch. The other thing that I thought was kind of interesting around Farrock's behavior here, at one moment, he's like, stop it. These are kids. What are you doing? Endangering kids? It's like, why the hell do you guys care? You're, like, blowing up half the planet. You're worried about these guys being kids. I mean, come on.
38:19
Case
Well, that's one way to read it. The other way is like, he's derisively saying, they're only kids. They shouldn't be this much trouble.
38:25
Jim
Oh, yeah, there you go. That's a good point. I guess when I was reading it, I was like, I just took that as him just being a little bit more. Not paternalistic. That's probably not the right word here, but I think I like your take on that a little bit better. Yeah.
38:38
Case
Because I think he reads as more of a straightforward villain for the rest of it. And I think that line is just in that whole fight, they're very surprised that legion is putting up as good a fight as they.
38:47
Jim
Right, right. For sure.
38:48
Case
That makes more sense throughout that whole thing.
38:50
Jmike
This is their first adventure.
38:51
Case
Yeah, man, in that fight, starboy looks like such. Like a meathead thug. Like the fact that they give him, like, a crew cut and then just draw him super ripped. He looks like Flash Thompson or something.
39:04
Jim
Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. But this is much more closer to in silver age look. Right. Have that kind of. That astronaut buzz cut thing going on there. Yeah.
39:12
Case
It's just that he seems to have no neck, which is just, like, kind of funny. But it's revealed that the main thing that they were trying to do is that they were trying to kidnap brainiac v. And in the process, there's a lot of shit that happens. Like, element lad is forced to act violently to protect everyone, and that's kind of a bad deal. Colossalad is destroyed by Validus because he should never be able to compete with Valadus. Colossal lad is a big dude. Validus is a lightning shooting monster. Just two different tiers there.
39:43
Jim
This is where cosmic point needs somebody to give him a hand too. That's when he loses it. Yeah, I'll be here all week.
39:52
Case
I love the crater of colossal boy. The fact that he shrinks, but his dead body and is burned into the ground because he was blasted with psychic lightning as he falls down dead and then shrinks is really cool. There was something in here, too.
40:07
Jim
That phantom girl says that she's going to be affected by electricity when she's in her phantom state. That's something I don't ever remember seeing before, but it's just kind of a one liner thing that's kind of there and thrown away. So I just didn't know if that was something that any of you had seen. I certainly don't remember seeing it in anything that I've read previously.
40:26
Case
I don't remember really seeing that with her specifically, because usually her abilities, that she's, like, fading into a different dimension and thus kind of visible. This feels like a kitty pride style weakness. The intangibility isn't necessarily still affected by energy attacks kind of thing. And maybe there have been times where she was more vulnerable to energy attacks up until a point. How intangible she is always kind of a question, because then you have to get into the physics of, like, well, is she freezing because she can't feel the heat of the world around her? Can she breathe right?
40:57
Jim
Or can she just do parts of her body, just do a quick punch? Those kinds of weird things too, right?
41:02
Case
Yeah, I'm not sure. But then the first issue concludes with the fatal five bringing brainiac five to their master, which is revealed to be Lex Luthor, who has the eyes of computo. And then the next issue picks up with them all in mourning because colossal boy is dead. And it's like, oh, shit, brainiac five is gone. We have to figure this out. And they're all fighting. And Superboy is, like, very defeated because he thought this was going to be a game. He thought this was going to be fun. Like, he's Superboy.
41:31
Jim
And I'll tell you what, this is probably the most enjoyable part of the story for me because I love it when Legion doesn't get along. I love it when the clicks start to kind of form and people start to get really kind of pissed off at each other. And you really see that here. You see those two camps kind of forming of which way to go and three actually, right? Because yet some folks are going Earth, some folks that want to go get revenge. And then Cal is just kind of there skulking, right?
42:01
Case
Yeah. The fact that he doesn't go with them actually surprised me because at first I thought he just was going on the Earth group, and then he's just not with them later. And I was like, oh, okay, I guess he's doing his own thing, which makes as much sense as anything, I guess. So we find out that Luther, when he saw Kaluan, was like, oh, well, this is way better than whatever I thought I was going to get into. Let me hack his brain.
42:22
Jim
Love it.
42:22
Case
And we get a little bit of backstory for what happened in the 20th century. In the absence of Superman, there was.
42:27
Jim
A great war in the Matrix, too. Looks like he's plugged into the Matrix.
42:31
Case
Yeah. And this is like, perfect time for that in terms of pop culture.
42:35
Jim
Yeah, exactly. Surprise. Luther doesn't have the Pinsnez glasses on there being all Morpheus and stuff. Yeah.
42:42
Case
So they get reinforcements. Lightning lad, light lass and projector show up and join up with him. Starboy reveals that he is okay, but he got better. Yeah, he's very badly burned.
42:58
Jmike
When we last saw him during the fight, he looked like he got burned to a crisp.
43:02
Jim
Yeah. His eyes are like rolling back and everything.
43:06
Case
Yeah. The guy with the fucking death touch who can touch planets and blow them up, like, touched him in the face, and it's like, okay. He does say, my left hand is the slower, more painful kind of agonizing process. So it does set up that it's okay. It's just I knew that mono could have different range of strength. I always just thought it was like he had to build up a charge.
43:22
Jim
Yeah, that's typically how it's been in the past. Exactly. Right.
43:25
Case
So maybe it's a silver age thing that I just haven't seen. Because the problem with mono having such a deadly power in a comic book, especially one that had the comics code officially monitoring it, is like, well, what are you doing with that character? He can literally destroy worlds by touching them. So is he just going to kill everyone? It's dragon Ball Z problem. So he kind of becomes kind of a background MOOC because they can't risk him just, like, killing everybody just by touching them. All he has to do is just not wear a glove.
43:51
Jim
Yeah, exactly.
43:52
Case
And he just goes around slapping people, and they're all dead.
43:57
Jim
The hand of fate, literally.
43:59
Case
Usually there's an intro story for mono, and then he joins up with the fatal five, and he's still dangerous. And there's always a panel being like, oh, Mano's about touch something, and then the last minute, someone gets pulled away or whatever. But he can never be the main focus of the fight because he's just going to kill someone by touching.
44:13
Jim
Yeah. One of those guys that has to get taken out early because otherwise it's a huge plot problem. Right. And to make it even more interesting, in other iterations of the legion. Right. They've shown him where he doesn't have his helmet, which also introduces lots of problems. So I guess, why does he have the helmet in the first place if he doesn't have to wear it half the time? And it's obviously his power is only relegated to his hand, so it shouldn't be a problem otherwise. But it's still kind of an OD thing.
44:39
Case
Yeah.
44:40
Jim
And thinking about this left versus right concept, I don't ever remember seeing this anywhere else. I think this might be unique to this particular story because back when the character was first introduced, it was pretty straightforward. Right. Evil guy has very specific power. Let's not get too nuanced about it. Right. Because you have four others in the gang that you have to deal with. I don't think they had anything more specific, but it's an interesting question, for sure. Yeah.
45:03
Case
It's also interesting that it's death and slow death. There have been lots of characters who have, like, my right hand does one power, my left hand does another. Lots of characters, like fire and ice powers. Or, like, Christian from X Men 2099 has a death hand one hand, but a healing hand on the other.
45:19
Jmike
Can he do the wonder twins thing where he touches both and something else happens?
45:26
Case
He can touch himself? I don't think that there's anything that really occurs. Yes. He can lay on hands. Yeah, we've seen characters like that. It's just weird that it's like, here's two settings, depending on which hand I've.
45:41
Jmike
Got death and super death.
45:43
Jim
Yeah. Really? You want to go fast or slow?
45:46
Case
Yeah, and, like, it's fine. It's just like, well, why is it your left hand versus right hand?
45:53
Jim
Yeah.
45:53
Case
So it moves on, and we get cosmic boy now gets a robot arm, which, again, just works fine. So we've got Farrowad here, and I'm just like, every time Farrellad and cosmic boy are in a story together, I'm like, why aren't we using a fastball? Special situation.
46:06
Jim
Thank you. Thank you. Right.
46:11
Case
They do a really creative thing with Farrellat in this shortly from here, which I fucking love that he's an iron face character. And what can you do with iron? That's some cool stuff. But also, you have a magnet guy and an iron guy. Like, fucking use those together.
46:25
Jim
It's like night girl with shadow Lash. Right? Those are two figures would work. They would be joined at the hip, doing everything together. Right. Absolutely. I agree 1000% with this. I also want to know what's in that box. That. What's in the box? They never explain it, right?
46:43
Case
Yeah, that's a good question. Because you would think it'd be like a super suit or something, or the robot arm or something like that. But no. Anyway, the legionnaires who are going for vengeance confront the fatal five. This is where we get the Muppet babies, legionnaires. And they're doing okay. Like, the fights start to go the other way. The science police kind of reveal that they're being manipulated, and that's when Emra picks up that it's actually a human intellect inside of there, which we knew about because we knew it was Lex Luthor at this point. So none of that is a surprise just yet.
47:15
Jim
What spoilers, right?
47:17
Case
I really like the use of projecta against the Emerald Empress. I think that's a really cool way to neutralize a person with will based powers by putting them in a fantasy of their worst fears.
47:28
Jim
Yeah. She's always been a character that you don't think about how powerful that she can actually be. But if somebody can really alter your perception of the reality around you.
47:38
Jmike
Can do all kinds of stuff automatically taking out.
47:42
Jim
Yeah.
47:43
Case
So the science police are being commanded by computo to resist, and they follow orders because, fuck it, that's what fascists do.
47:53
Jim
Yeah.
47:54
Case
So we got a two tier fight going on, and that allows for computo to be disrupted, and as a result, Luther is revealed to be a hologram. And so they're like, oh, shit, he's always been a hologram. I'm like, didn't you kind of notice that he had, like, clearly robot eyes? Who cares if it's a hologram or a robot at that point? He's definitely not a person. We get a badass moment with Chuck catching a ship and inflating to be an airbag to stop it. I fucking love that moment because, like, reboot legion.
48:20
Jim
Yeah.
48:21
Case
Ultimately, admin and Lanning used him a bit, but bouncing boy is just not a character of the reboot era the same way he is of the previous.
48:27
Jim
Sure. For sure. Yeah. They definitely leaned in on the no goofy powers characters of that era. Right. So same thing with battery. Your lad, he was the cook. Yeah.
48:41
Jmike
I didn't know he was invulnerable, so I was like, oh, that's cool.
48:45
Case
Well, he's not so much invulnerable so much as he's an airbag.
48:48
Jmike
Well, he says it earlier on in the story that he's invulnerable. That's always like, that's cool. I didn't know that. So I was like, him doing this makes kind of sense. It makes a lot of sense for this part.
48:58
Jim
I kind of had a fist pump moment when he did this. Right. Because the whole time he's been shown as being kind of down on himself and kind of that whole thing. Yeah.
49:06
Case
He was the friend who joined the master of martial arts and the guy who can turn into living metal, and it's like, yeah, we'll take the guy who turns into a beach ball. So Luther's plan, having hacked the brainiac brain system, whatever he creates the robot body from the George Perez design for brainiac, is what happens here. And with the upgrade of it being made out of Innerton so that it is effectively ultron with the adamantium, it's like, here's our completely indestructible robot thing to fight. Which is appreciated to see. I always love that George Perez design.
49:38
Jim
This predates it by a few years. But this very much reminded me, this whole sequence with the robot reminded me of the last few episodes of the cartoon from eight or seven or whatever that was.
49:48
Case
Yeah, with, like, brainiac starting to override brainiac five.
49:50
Jim
Yeah, exactly.
49:52
Case
And then we get, like, the creepy sequence with the upgraded and kind of controlled therak. I had flashbacks to whatever happened to the man of tomorrow there, because he seems to being controlled by Luthor, which is interesting because there's moments where it's almost like his body is being overridden. And I thought that was kind of cool. It also kind of reminded me of super patriot from Savage Dragon, where he constantly has people taking over his robot arms and legs and is unable to do anything to hold off the fact that he's being controlled. But especially because it's brainiac here, it really felt like the dead corpse of Luther being controlled by the head of boji Brainiac and just being manipulated that way. It's like almost kind of body horror at that point where vocal cords are being manipulated and really fucked with.
50:36
Jim
Shout out to the letterer for this. Right. Because they do have that visual cue from the font that something's messed up. Yeah.
50:43
Case
So Luther sends Emerald empress to go protect the actual computo base where his actual mainframe is located. And this is where we get the really badass moment where pharaoh lad, who is made of iron, is able to deal with the person who has magic. Because, you know, the whole faye thing about, like, magic.
51:00
Jim
Yeah.
51:00
Case
Being good with iron, and that's fucking great.
51:02
Jim
Right?
51:02
Case
I'm so happy that happens.
51:05
Jim
I love that moment. Absolutely. I trying to remember, actually, but that five years later, that glorifurse or mordruverse retcon that they had fairly early on, that brought back for like, for just that issue, I'm wondering if they brought that up at all in there, because this is such a great idea.
51:22
Case
I don't remember it happening, but it is just that one issue. So let me check on that one, because I read that recently. And the big thing was that, oh, pharaoh lads back because he had been the long standing, like, he's dead and he's been dead forever.
51:34
Jim
He's dead.
51:36
Case
He can come back because of time resets and because of time clone things. The SW six batch.
51:43
Jim
Yes, exactly. As you do.
51:44
Case
As you do feral ads. One of those characters where if you bring him back, you better have a damn good reason to bring him back. And this is a damn good reason to have him here, because, yeah, let's have the Iron guy fight the magic person, and it's, like, fucking great. I love it so much. It makes me wonder about having an Iron man versus Doctor Strange fight, if they should ever lean into that kind of thing. But at this point, that's too far.
52:04
Jim
But he has perfect use for it. Yeah, totally, totally.
52:06
Case
Just as a random aside, in one of my DND games right now, we're going up against a Faye sorcerer character in the next session, and so we have purposely outfitted everyone with iron specifically for that purpose. We bought, like, iron bands for our monk to wear on his fists, and I have an iron rod that I'm using instead of my usual sword. The fact that this issue I'm rereading in between that, it's just a lot.
52:29
Jim
Of fun, maybe I need to bring a bunch of iron with me wherever I go, just in case. You never know. You never know what's going to come in handy. So right after, when this stuff starts happening, right, that's when we also see where all of the other legionnaires start to really. Everybody starts to click right, where everybody has their very distinct purpose, and they're kind of really starting to work together as a team as they're also starting to able to learn how to work together.
52:53
Case
Yeah, the team starts to work together, they start switching partners where best used project is really setting up, like, sneak attacks for everyone, which is fantastic from a tactic standpoint. This is perfect. That's the point of team comics, where you have everyone using their powers in creative ways to amplify each other so that the guy who's fucking Superman is not, like, dominating the scene, because you have everyone else contributing in different ways. Like, to use the d d thing again, you've got your fighter, but you also have your controller wizard, who is, like, setting up, like, grease spells.
53:25
Jim
And it also really reinforces the need for the failure on rimbor that happens earlier in the story. Right. Because they have to fuck it up before they can figure out how to do it the right way and then kind of move forward from there.
53:37
Case
And then we get a reveal that I don't really care that much about, the reveal that the computer program of Luther, like, the living body of Luther that's actually inside computo, isn't actually alive still, and that it's just like, his memories that have been uploaded to the, like. I guess if you're a massive narcissist, you might care kind of about it, but his whole plan was to transfer his brain into either the body of Superboy or into this robot body. So I don't know why it's like, here's the big reveal. His body's dead. I didn't think it was alive.
54:05
Jmike
I thought plus years, he's got the.
54:09
Jim
Bigger nails for it. But, yeah, I mean, it's gnarly design.
54:11
Case
And it's got, like, an umbilical cord, kind of. Certainly like some matrix imagery, which is cool to look at. But why is that devastating to Luthor? When brain acts like, don't you see? You're just the memories of Lex Luthor in a computer instead of the actual Luther. What's the difference?
54:27
Jim
Yeah. And this is where we get more.
54:29
Case
Of that body horror with, like, he's even begging them to stop him at one point. Which is, again, very close to the whole Luthor, like, begging Lana to kill him in that story. And they all team up to fight the giant know, which is fine.
54:45
Jim
Gotta wrap it up. You only have a few pages left.
54:47
Case
Yeah, we get some parent moments. I like the Kaluan designs. Like, going back to what I was saying about the Kaluans, like, brainiac being a hybrid. I like having a more extreme design for them. And especially, like, they look like traditional grazed. Which I think actually kind of worked for Kaluans.
55:02
Jim
The other thing that I thought was really badass was the actual design of Kolu itself. That tetrahedron with all the spheres kind of surrounding it. It reminded me both of Legion lost as well as. What was that movie with Tom Cruise that came out with the tet from a few years?
55:18
Case
Yeah.
55:19
Jmike
Yeah.
55:19
Jim
It kind of evoked that in there too. Which was that kind of overseer AI kind of motif. Really, really cool. I just thought they really kind of hit it out of the park with the Colognes here. Yeah.
55:31
Case
And then we get a heartfelt reunion with RJ Brand. So that everyone's dad can be like, I'm proud of you, son. To compensate for him saying, you become a disappointment.
55:41
Jim
Yeah. What's wrong with you?
55:44
Jmike
So were the Kaluans on vacation?
55:47
Case
Well, they pop in and out. So they go to different dimensions. And their planet is shielded with invisibility screens. And then they teleport back into it.
55:56
Jim
It's like brigadoon. Exactly. My head cannon is like vacation.
56:00
Jmike
And their kids were there. The boys were there. And so the boys went on an adventure while the parents went uptown.
56:06
Jim
Back.
56:07
Jmike
To see the house destroyed. They're like, hey, you guys been having lots of fun without us while were gone? Boys will be boys, I guess.
56:15
Jim
Risky business in space, right?
56:19
Case
The riskiest of business.
56:20
Jim
Fighting. Indeed.
56:22
Case
Yeah. We get a shot of RJ Brandon cal hugging. And what I do love is we get this whole spread of everyone, and everyone's so happy in the way that Alan Davis draws, like, big, smiling people. And in the background, we've got the two full blooded Kaluan parents.
56:35
Jmike
This is nice.
56:39
Jim
Yeah.
56:39
Case
And then we get that wild Legion headquarters that's modeled after the kryptonian birthing matrix, which is, like, so.
56:45
Jim
Right, right.
56:46
Case
Like, the rocket ship design has always been kind of a weird sort of look for the Legion headquarters. And to have it be like the kryptonian birthing matrix design is even more insane because I could see how you could make it, like, a really cool space to live in. But it is also, like, here's literally just a rocket strapped into an egg.
57:05
Jim
Yeah. Well, the other thing, too, that, of course, the other difference from traditional legion. Right. Is that this thing is pointed up versus a rock cross jack into the ground.
57:14
Case
Can you imagine how that would even look pointed down? What even would that be?
57:18
Jim
I know. Yeah. It's very od for sure, but I'm sure it's bigger on the inside because these things always are. Yeah.
57:24
Case
I mean, it could be a really cool, like, geodesic dome kind of thing.
57:26
Jim
Yeah.
57:26
Case
I mean, it's fucking Epcot center at.
57:28
Jim
That point, which is exactly.
57:30
Case
It could look like the glass onion in glass onion. I could see that being a really cool space. If it's not opaque. The actual egg at the top, that would be a cool place to just go inside and have a big conference space or something like that. I don't know. It's cool. And I like the colossal boy statue that's sitting out front. And then we get this gorgeous spread of Alan Davis doing this legion team that he has done so many times. Like, he has done versions of this before. I do like them. Giving Superboy the manel costume. It looks really good. And at this point, it had been a while since we'd seen that version of the costume in comics because Manal had been rocking the striped design that would starfield.
58:12
Jim
Yeah.
58:12
Case
Which I overall like. But it is just nice to see the classic one there.
58:16
Jim
Absolutely. The gold buttons are just kind of iconic in their own way. But I love this splash here as well, because this is basically the takeoff of the Legion of superheroes issue 80, which had him doing the COVID but for the reboot Legion at the time, of course, which is all that in itself was a homage for another particular issue. I can't remember which one that was off the top of my head, but another one of those. The legion carrying the tenant and smiling into the distance kind of thing. Yeah.
58:41
Case
And I just noticed that thunder is in the background there. We have thunder and we have block and we have monstrous. And it's, like, really fun having all these different versions again. It's like this hodgepodge of the different continuities. Like, whichever one you fucking want, you can put in there. It's fine.
58:56
Jim
Like, cool.
58:57
Case
Oh, and Gates.
58:57
Jim
Shit. Gates is here. Not only gates. So here's the other fun thing. Right? If you look up in the upper left hand quadrant, you see a character kind of right over cosmic boy's now healed arm. So there's that. But that is a version of Lori borning when she had the h dial, which is slipstream, which is kind of a slash type of variations there. That was just a one off character. She was, like, in one issue, and I think on the poster that they had back in the 90s that they released. So the only one that's really not here in this picture is, as far as I can tell. Unless she's, like, one of the blobs of gray people in the background is kinetics. It's basically the only person that's not in this particular group shot.
59:34
Case
Yeah.
59:35
Jim
Which is ironic because Alan Davis drew her intro story in the annual, where they had the year one stories. Yeah. Just a little bits of trivia there. But I agree. I thought this shot was great because you just kind of pick and choose what you want here. And it's all.
59:49
Case
Yeah. Which legionnaires do you like?
59:51
Jim
Yeah, sure.
59:51
Case
We'll put them all there.
59:52
Jim
Fine. Exactly. While we're here, we're talking here in March of 2023. Right. The animated Supergirl and the Legion movie came out last month. Right. And there's spoilers here, so skip ahead a little bit if you don't want to hear this. There's a shot at the end very kind of similar to this, and it's the same deal. It's like everybody you've ever seen in a Legion comic is there. Right. Which is really slick. Yeah.
01:00:16
Case
I mean, that's such the fun of the Legion. It's such a big team with so many characters. I have made the comparison, especially Bronze Age Legion with Bronze Age X Men. Like, it's just a rich property that can kind of just live on its own. And there's so much to love with all these weird individual versions of all these characters. And Davis is just such a great artist for it. It just looks so good.
01:00:37
Jim
Yeah.
01:00:38
Case
But when you sum up what happens in this two part story, it's the Legion is formed. The fatal fire fights them. They lose. They regroup. They fight them again and they win. There isn't a lot really happening. So it's just funny because it's like, again, what's the point of the story if it's just an excuse for Alan Davis to just do whatever he wants with the Legion? That's cool. I am fine with that. But it is just like, it's just so strange.
01:01:02
Jim
Yeah, I guess all else world stories really are right. It's like, okay, have fun, do your thing. It's not going to matter, but go ahead and have fun.
01:01:11
Case
I am about to say a thing, and I don't mean this derisively. It feels very fanficky and like, modern fanficky. I 100%. I'm not meaning this in any kind of negative way, but it kind of feels like those au stories or things like that where you're kind of just allowed to not worry about any continuity and just bring in whatever characters you want and just have a good time with it. Like I said, that's a cool thing here because it's not bad anywhere. I am aware that there are people who put negative stigmas because of genre stuff and all that. This is an elseworld where the excuse of it being an elseworld is that we can just put whatever elements we want, and the story itself isn't so much the important part as well.
01:01:50
Case
We get to have a lot of fun with the characters we like.
01:01:52
Jim
You know what you mentioned au. That's exactly what this reminds me of. Right. Because every time we see the Legion, whether it's in young justice or the movie that just came out or whatever, they're all slightly different variations. Right. And you see slightly different takes on things, and that's okay. More exposure, I think, is a good thing for a team like this. I would just wish we would see more of it. Yeah.
01:02:15
Case
I'm glad that we looked at this again. It's a beautiful book. Like, the actual art is just amazing.
01:02:19
Jmike
Oh, yeah, it's great.
01:02:20
Case
And while the story is pretty simple, it's a fun romp. The only caution I have is that if you're coming in and you want to learn more about the Legion of superheroes, there's a lot of spots that are like, well, but that's not how it, you know, like the reboot era, for example, retreaded a lot of stories from the original stuff, but it still gave you a pretty good update and primer on legion lore. And this one has a lot of areas where it kind of deviates in ways where if you were using this as your intro to the Legion, you'd be like, I don't understand anything that's coming.
01:02:50
Jim
Sure. Exactly. Yeah. You just have to kind of turn your brain off. And that's where I was wondering about. Kind of have to be an existing panel ready to be able to kind of run with the story and what happens in it, because it's like, okay, good example is when ultra boy and Phantom Girl are introduced, you're like, okay, who are these two kids, and why are they into each other so much? And what's this guy's problem? You know what I mean? But it's stuff like that you kind of understand where the background is if you're a longtime reader, but if you're new to it, you have no idea what's going on.
01:03:19
Case
Yeah, a little information is more dangerous than coming in totally blind. Like, if you knew nothing, that's fine. And if you knew a lot, you can see where they're deviating, and everything's fine. But if you're coming in with, like, I kind of remember a few episodes from the tv show and I want to learn more, that's the worst spot to be at. So, j mike to you in your scenario.
01:03:40
Jim
Exactly.
01:03:41
Case
Actually, that's a good question. Is there any big gap or anything that you were left being like, what the hell is going on?
01:03:47
Jmike
Not really. I was laughing because of the conversation we had the other day about Nightgirl and Matterear lad. And I was like, I wonder if they're going to pop up in here somewhere. But because of all the other things we've gone over, I get the gist of a lot of the characters and things like Pharaoh lad. Always great to see him pop up somewhere. I wasn't too confused, but I could tell what they were doing the entire time. I could follow the main beats of story, but, okay, they just flipped this person around. This person's here now. Oh, that's kind of cool.
01:04:25
Case
Oh, look, it's Lois Olsen.
01:04:31
Jmike
Ultra Boy's costume is still kind of like, it's okay, but it's like the main characters are still there. It's a cool romp in an else row story that I appreciate a lot. It's great to see this all the time. I do have a question, though. Like, say, for instance, if there's, like, a small story, how do they pick which characters or which legionnaires are going to be there? They have, like a big tumbling machine, and they have the balls inside. Okay, we got feral ad for this story, and then we got bouncing Boy and then.
01:05:06
Jim
Light last, whatever we're putting here, too.
01:05:08
Jmike
Okay, these are the characters for this story for this week, and. Go.
01:05:12
Case
There was a fun issue in the three boot era where Lightning lad was acting leader of the team, and he was not really paying attention to who he was sending out on missions. And karate kid came back, and you're like, you're really not fucking paying attention right now. You sent, like, heavy hitters for this nothing mission, and were super undergonened over here, and those are kind of like, fun dynamics there.
01:05:33
Jim
Well, it used to be the old way of doing it back in the silver age is that they had a planetary chance machine is what they called it, and it was basically a model of the solar system that would just flip around. I think the mechanism was whoever got hit in the head by the first planet to fall off the chains or whatever was the leader of the mission or something like that.
01:05:54
Case
Well, and there's, like, the election process, which is always a lot of fun.
01:05:56
Jim
Absolutely.
01:05:57
Case
And I was actually, like, fan voted for a while.
01:05:59
Jim
Right? Yeah, back in the think.
01:06:01
Case
Yeah, that's a cool dynamic right there. And they're currently doing that with xmen. Again, the X Men comparisons. I've heard that the Krakoa era was supposed to be originally a Legion pitch, and you could kind of see how Hickman, being a big fan for either, often makes the books he's working on feel kind of similar to, like, bronze Age Legion stuff. His Avengers run, where Iron man was very actively trying to basically have computer probabilities for what configuration of members were appropriate for any given mission, would be the kind of thing that would make sense with the Legion two, where it's like, all right, well, these powers would interact in a way that would respond well to the cris at hand, and that would be really cool to do.
01:06:39
Jim
That makes sense to me. Of course, the easy answer is whatever the writers say, right? For most of the time. But, yeah, I think the way to analyze from a threat assessment perspective, right. If you're to put yourself in that world, or however you want to put it, right, you do some kind of a threat analysis, and you figure out, here's all these embers. Since everybody has one particular power, how do you mix and match that so that the proper team can be assembled so that you don't have your point case from the three boot of the scenario where you have the wrong people involved, or the wrong mix of powers involved.
01:07:11
Case
Yeah, or the wrong setting. There was an issue when supergirl was on the team in the three boot era, where it was an orange sun, and so her powers were halved as a result.
01:07:19
Jim
Right.
01:07:19
Case
And that gave Ultra boy a chance to shine because his powers didn't have that kind of limitation. So you could look at environmental circumstances, too. That would be really cool if one of the big things was which characters can survive in space without air? And of course, the Legion, they all have the enviro suits and whatnot, so it doesn't really quite matter the same way, but especially if they had more characters who had powers that were atmosphere or environment dependent, you could do some fun stuff with that.
01:07:42
Jim
Yeah.
01:07:43
Case
There are ways you can make these huge teams really work, but you do have to be very controlled in how you plan it out, and that becomes a writing challenge, because otherwise you just have so many characters and either they're not getting any space or the only thing you're doing is, like, you're getting a background shot for them. There was this whole trend with shrinking Violet in the reboot era when she got growth powers and she became Levi Athen, where every shot, she was like a giant, even though it never made sense. But it was because it was the only way to distinguish her in the crowd. Because they had so many fucking legionnaires.
01:08:13
Jim
Exactly. Or that's back when we had the luxury of having two legion books in the 90s. Right. A couple of times, they'd split the team across the two books, so that way each book had a separate or a smaller cast that would allow the writer to be able to focus every couple of issues. That way, you're not the situation that. Well, here we go. Here's another sun boy story again. You know what I mean? Something like that. Yeah.
01:08:35
Case
90S era. There was a period where the Legionnaires book, I believe, was the one that they were stuck in the past. And Legion of superheroes was, like, in the third century.
01:08:45
Jim
Lsh was the one that went back to the 20th and the in reckon with then current DCU. Right.
01:08:50
Case
Like final night era.
01:08:51
Jim
Yeah, exactly. Right.
01:08:53
Case
Yeah. So you could split up, like. Okay, so we've got, like, sparks, who is lightning last, but the reboot era version in the past, and lightning lad livewire in the future. You can mix up who's where, or you could do what happened at the tail end of the five years later period where they had the clones of the original team one book and then the adult versions in the other, which meant that not only did you have a giant, sprawling cast that had time gaps and lots of continuity to deal with, you also had to deal with the fact that you had two of all of them.
01:09:22
Jim
Yeah, two mon elf. Actually. I think we lost one of them. One of them got lost because of.
01:09:28
Case
Time travel shit back and replaced himself in the past. Yeah, but at one point there were two monels and two Laurel gans and two ultra boys.
01:09:39
Jim
Yeah, that's right. Oh, my gosh.
01:09:40
Case
All technically on the same team. Fucking crazy period in the book.
01:09:47
Jim
That's what Sony just had to mash the reset button. Can't deal with this anymore.
01:09:51
Case
At least the two invisible kids were, like, different people.
01:09:54
Jim
Yeah, well, yeah. Or went out for the original Lyle.
01:10:01
Case
So this is not the Legion book to be introduced to the Legion through. Unless your only desire is to read this one story and never look at anything else again because it's going to be confusing. But if you already are coming in with a foundation of what the Legion is like, I think it's a really fun kind of romp with really good art and classic designs, but with more modern penciling and coloring techniques, which I think all look visually pleasing. And the story, while not super complicated, has, like, fun twists. Like, you can't necessarily anticipate everything.
01:10:30
Jim
There are a lot of good moments.
01:10:31
Case
That are great homages to older stuff. There's a lot of love in this book, even if there's not. Like, here's our magnum opus of a story to tell, or here's our intricate domino of, like, well, Superman's missing these things happen kind of stuff. It's a fun romp that looks cool and rewards you for being a fan, but definitely come at it knowing your shit. But, yeah, I'm really glad to look at this one. It's been a long time since I've reread this one. Like, I bought it when it was coming out, and I don't think I've read it much more recently than, like, maybe 2004 or five. So it's been a while, and I.
01:11:06
Jim
Hadn'T read it at all. Right, me too. Yeah, that was the funny thing, right? I mean, when case asked me to come on here, I was like, oh, I don't think I've read this. What I thought I had read was something totally other. And it was one of the. I think it might have been one of the Justice League spin off books or something like that had a Legion relation here, that it was Monelle had kind of the s shield on his left breast as part of his costume.
01:11:29
Case
Oh, is that like the Jeff Johns era?
01:11:31
Jim
Maybe. That might be it. That might be it. That's what I thought this was originally. And then, so I picked this up and I'm like, oh, Alan Davis art. This is so, this is really cool. I really enjoyed this. Cool.
01:11:41
Case
So, Jim, thank you again for coming on. I'm so glad were able to connect and share in some legion of superheroes fandom and drink beer. Yeah.
01:11:49
Jim
Also that's even better.
01:11:52
Case
We're able to actually meet up and hang out is even cooler. But thank you again for coming on. Where can people find you, follow you, whatever plugs you want to give?
01:12:01
Jim
Sure. On Twitter, I'm at jimbo Fet 87. But the other thing that I've been doing is I mentioned earlier that I've been back on in the comics fandom world since about 2020 or 2019 or so. And one of the things that I started doing is rereading everything and just to back up a little bit, when I was in those phases of reading and then stopping and then collected a bunch of stuff and then stopping again and doing all that kind of thing, I had stopped collecting, I guess I want to say sometime in 99, like early 99, just before the Legion title kind of flipped its creative staff and they hired admin landing. I picked it up after they had been into the legion. So this is like maybe two years later and everything had changed so much.
01:12:44
Jim
And I was like, how dare they do this to my team and the whole fan nonsense thing without really appreciation of what was actually there. And while I did read Legion lost and that was phenomenal. Such a great story, I was always like, oh, well, they did this to these characters and I don't like this, and blah, blah. And so I was a little bit overly harsh on the run of Legion World and the Legion just because I had this old notion in my head. And so I had this notion to kind of read through the entirety of the legion, the abnant landing run of the reboot, and say, okay, let me step back, go through them and read and review them. And so that's what I did. And so I did that a couple of years ago.
01:13:22
Jim
And I posted those originally on the Legion World website, which is still kicking. But then recently, just a few months ago, I started up a blogger account and started posting those there. Jim's Legion blog is the name of the website, Jimbo's Legion blogspot.com. And I'm actually almost done with the actual reviews of that particular run. I just finished the entire Abnet and landing era right now, and the last one I posted a few days ago was the review of Legion number 34, which is the Keith champagne wildfire story where Steve Weidl did the art, which was kind of a good story. So I'll be almost done with the actual run itself. And then so I have a whole batch of the free booth, so I'm going to do those as soon as I finish with this run.
01:14:06
Jim
So I'll be posting those here as well. So the good news is, you'll be happy to know that I came away with a much better feeling about advent and landing than I did going in.
01:14:16
Case
Yeah, it's been fun reading your reviews, and we got a chance to chat a bit about it because after we did our Legion lost coverage year ish ago, I went through and then finally read from start to finish the entire the Legion run because that came out and I think I went to college. I fell off somewhere in the middle of it all and then tried to pick it up again, and it was like at the end of the great darkness redo that they were doing, and I was like, wait, superboys, what the hell is going on?
01:14:42
Jim
The not so great darkness saga.
01:14:46
Case
So it was a lot of fun to go back and reread it. I encourage people to check that out and then check out your reviews because it's really fun to get that kind of perspective on it all. It's also wild, if you are a Marvel space fan, to look at it, because Abnet and Lanning went on to do the annihilation conquest and then the Guardians of the Galaxy. They're the creators of the Guardians of the Galaxy as we know them for the purposes of the movies in that. And there's a lot of story beats that you can see them kind of trying out in the legion before bringing it over to marvel stuff. So it's really fun to see this. In some cases, it's a beta test. In other cases, it's the more raw, pure form of some of these ideas.
01:15:21
Case
So it's really cool to see that juxtaposition there. Not to say that they're just emulating their own stories, but have ones that this is a good beat in a space setting, and then they use it in another space setting, and it hit really hard. It went really effectively and set the tone for what has become a huge thing in Marvel comics now. In Marvel movies, you should check out the Legion and definitely check out your coverage of it just to see the perspectives on it all. It's a really fun run, and it's really fun to see your thoughts about it.
01:15:46
Jim
Yeah, it's fun to do too. I mean, I try to be as fair as I can. Right. Because there's a lot of good stuff. There's a few stinkers in that bunch in that run, but for the most part, it's really good. It's a fun book to read. It's a little bit dark, but I mean, that's kind of the writers of the kind of genre that they are. They come from that 2080 british, dark, Sci-Fi dystopian kind of background. It's their kind of stuff. And what they do it well. So it's definitely worth it.
01:16:13
Case
And then halfway through that run, friend of the show Chris Batista comes on as artist Chris Batista, who drew logo that I am currently wearing on my shirt.
01:16:21
Jim
Right.
01:16:24
Case
He's a friend of the show who's cool guy, and I want to support him and everything he's doing. So, yeah, so people should check out your blog. We'll definitely have a link on the website when this episode drops.
01:16:34
Jim
Thank you.
01:16:34
Case
And then after that, you should check out what we've got going on. J Mike, where can people find you.
01:16:39
Jmike
And follow you at Jmike 101? You can hit me up, send messages. I respond with fun jokes and gifts.
01:16:48
Case
Yes, your gift game continues to be on point even as the Internet world burns. Every week there's a new thing. You're like, why? They've moved this bookmark button now. And I'm like, why is it here? I don't care.
01:17:05
Jim
What fresh hell do we have to deal with today? Exactly.
01:17:09
Case
But I am also still on the hell site that is Twitter because I can't get away. I'm addicted, man. I can't get away from. But you can find me there at case Aiken. You can find me on most social medias at case Aiken, except for Instagram and on Twitch, where I am hanging on for dear life to my aim screen name from high school, which is Ketzel Coetle five, which is a brainiac five reference. But you can find me all those places. You can find the show on Twitter at Men of Steel Pod, and you can find more episodes of this show. And like all of our friend shows over@certainpov.com where we have tons of great material. There's also a link to our discord server where you can come and interact with us directly. Lots of conversations have gotten very vibrant recently.
01:17:51
Case
It's always been like a great community, but with the addition of some shows that have opened up certain topics of conversation, it's really become a great place to hang out. Jukebox Vertigo, for example, has brought on lots of conversation about music. People are actively posting songs of the day and what song is stuck in their head at any given moment, and that's been just really cool to see that kind of discourse. We've opened up our tabletop rpg chat, so that's become a lot more vibrant. A lot of people are sharing thoughts on what they're doing in DND. Games, movies, tv, books, all those have always been a big thing. We've always got cool stuff going on with a lot of those.
01:18:23
Case
But I have to say the additions of additional parts of just like our nerd culture that we like sharing with each other has really made it a great place to check in on a daily basis. And it's not as crazy as some discord servers that I am on where you post a thing and then you check back 20 minutes later and you have to scroll for ten minutes just to get to the replies to the thing you posted. So it's a good pace and I encourage people to check that out after going to certainpov.com, where you can then listen to the next episode of this show. And, you know, until then, stay super man.
01:18:57
Jmike
Men of steel is a certain PoV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonit, and our logo and episode art is by Case Aiken.