Legion of Super-Heroes #4 “Fight the Power!” (May 2005)



Creative Team: Mark Waid, co-plotting with Barry Kitson; Leonard Kirk pencils; Mick Gray Inker. Back-up story: Mark Waid, Dave Gibbons, and Drew Geraci, respectively.

The Story: All over town, Science Police stormtroopers burst in on Legionnaires due to a new regulation outlawing their flight rings. The actual cause of the problem: Lyle Norg’s father is a Science Police chief who is putting pressure on his son to drop out of the Legion. Cosmic Boy doesn’t appreciate being kept in the dark about this detail of Invisible Kid’s family life, which is causing a massive problem for the Legion now.



Norg puts his boy genius brain to work for a solution. He offers his dad a blood sample from which the invisibility serum perhaps might be extracted. And imbedded in the blood sample is a Trojan horse virus that gives Braniac 5 access to the whole Science Police mainframe. This redeems Norg in Cosmic Boy’s eyes, sort of.



The Back-Up Story: It’s a focus on Tinya “Phantom Girl” Wazzo. Turns out that her home of Bgztl is not another planet; it’s another dimension. When she goes intangible, she’s actually crossing back to Bgtzl. She seems quite distracted much of the time as a result of this impossible dual life. It’s a nice conceit that totally falls apart if you try to think about how that would work, how she avoids materializing inside solid objects in one world or the other, etc. I like this variation on her 70s costume, though I am surprised it uses an English letter “P.” The future does not use Keith Giffen’s Interlac alphabet any more.



My Two Cents: This is mainly a spotlight issue for Invisible Kid and Sun Boy. The only parents in the universe who love the Legion belong to Sun Boy. They can recite obscure Legion lore and seem sincere, not just trying to recapture their youth by hanging out with the cool kids. But they inadvertently cramp Sun Boy’s style by being so appealing to his friends that they, um, overshadow him. Maybe this is why he’s planning to quit the Legion.



Issue titles in this series are taken from the covers but do not appear within the interior. Some issues have no cover text at all, and thus no title. This issue’s title “Fight the Power” comes from a song by rap group Public Enemy which was the theme for the Spike Lee film “Do the Right Thing.” Its anti-authoritarian stance fits this series well.

There may well be foes against whom the precommandos' prescience avails them little. Two seconds' advance notice won't help you escape from a nuclear blast. In the hands of a trained fighter, it would be a very useful edge in melee combat, which is what we see them doing here.

I do admit half the fun in this run was seeing Waid's changing up the love life of the LSH. Seeing the different match ups and social interactions was actually one of the more interesting aspects for the series and at times was better than the actual main story lines. 

I thought the 'Clark & Lois' game that they played was cute. And poor Cham!  I also liked the presentation of Triplicate Girl, and he origin was interesting and different. I thought it interesting how her other selves wanted nothing to do with her when she visited her home planet after a year away.

I consider it thinking outside of the box which I applaud Waid for doing within this particular run. The age gap, youth revolt theme may not have been sustainable but at least Waid was approaching the Legion and it's future here from a different perspective, trying to inject something fresh into what had become, frankly, a static staid franchise.

The expansion of their personalities, the change-ups in their relationships, the evolution of their abilities, new takes on their homes and societies, it all made for a very interesting read and change for me. Of course, some aspects were hit and miss and story and character focus fluctuates over time but I consider this series to be a worthwhile experiment. 

Legion of Super-Heroes #6 “Meet The... Legion of Super-Heroes” (July 2005)



Creative Team: Mark Waid writing. Barry Kitson pencils. Art Thibert inks. Back-up story is by Waid as well, with Scott Iwahashi on art.

The Story: Cosmic Boy visits Princess Moneybags (Projectra) in the Legion penthouse suite to beg for cash. He’s stringing her along with empty promises of influencing Legion policy. How long can that last before she cuts bait? Things take a turn for the horrific when Projectra’s home planet of Orando, which is somehow the economic powerhouse of the whole United Planets, explodes at the hands of the mystery super-team from last issue. Bad for Orando, bad for the U.P., and bad for the Legion which just lost its main funding source.



In a side plot, Karate Kid tries to convince Ultra Boy to accept him as sensei to improve his self-control.



Back-up Story: Praetor Lemnos, leader of the villains, sneaks into Legion HQ to give Braniac 5 a mocking expository monologue about his history. His power is to manipulate information; its passive effect is that people can’t remember he exists unless they are looking right at him. Even electronic recordings don’t hold his image long. This is very similar to Doctor Who villains The Silence, who were introduced in 2011. Lemnos threatens that Braniac 5’s home planet of Colu will be his next target. But after Lemnos leaves the room, Braniac can’t remember the conversastion.



Lettercol: Not only are letters printed, but they are read and then responded to by Cosmic Boy and Chameleon, breaking the Fourth Wall.



My Two Cents: Lots of good character development going on, and the destruction of Orando is big news as well. This is the first story I’ve ever read in which Projectra had a clear personality. She’s the poor little rich girl: pampered yet insecure, desperate to parlay her position into friends and respect. Her piteous “I might finally get to do something important!” line was Barry Kitson’s idea.



Braniac 5 and Dream Girl get in some fun screwball repartee. Will her joke about marrying him prove accidentally prescient? Note that her hair has returned to the correct platinum shade. Projectra has the same shade, but without bangs.



Lots of nerdy fanservice here too. Jeckie’s bodyguards read old comic books, while Chameleon quizzes Invisible Kid on vintage superheroes. Waid is a fan writing for fans, so the Legionnaires are fans as well.

It changes, very soon.