LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #22 – 26 Sensor Girl Mystery Unravels! Weekly Reader 2nd Year / 3rd reading
Welcome back to another [Legion Fan Club] reading, with the story line once again being published during the time of the Deluxe Format / No Ads extra pages (29 in total per issue) 1986 era of Legion glossy bright color wonder! We’ll read the annual #2 another time.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #22LoSH 22 Meet the Restorer—the first deadly creature in Universo’s evil plan! Packed with action, this issue is the spawning ground of things to come!
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #23LoSH 23 Mon-El, immune to his serum, is back in the Phantom Zone! But can the Legion find a cure?
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #24LoSH 24 Last chance to guess who Sensor Girl really is!
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #25LoSH 25 Finally! Sensor Girl’s identity is revealed
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (1984-) #26LoSH 26 It’s all-out battle with the brand-new and deadlier-than-ever Fatal Five!
Questions:
How is the solo writing of Paul Levitz holding up in this run?
We have the same artist for this whole batch this time around, which is rare to find – what do you like or not like about Greg LaRocque’s version of the Legion?
Alright. It’s been a long weekend but here are my thoughts on this run…
Paul Levitz did well. He held up as a writer, although I thought Sensor Girl was wayyyyyyyyy drawn out to the point that I didn’t really care about that plot point, and it made me look for the action of the plot over the internal drama of the plot. I mean the explanation makes sense, but man it felt like a slog to read through all of the “I can’t trust her” drama.
I felt like the non-traditional Fatal Five members didn’t get a real chance to shine here. I’d like to learn more about them, but they kind of felt like one-off characters, at least in this story. I did enjoy their designs and the art of this storyline (and consistency of the art) very much.
Tellus has to be one of my favorite Legion characters. From a design standpoint he is just so much further out there than most other Legion members. It’s a very unique character and I’m hard pressed to see any other comic book characters that look like him.
Man… I used to love reading Magnus Robot Fighter. I’m most familiar with the Valiant era version of the character, but the generic robot designs and them falling apart from kicks and punches is fantastic.
As I think about it, maybe it’s not a coincidence that Jim Shooter went from writing the Legion of Superheroes as a lad to then 20 years or later launching Valiant Comics with Magnus Robot Fighter one of the first characters. Both fictional worlds are very similar futuristic Utopias.
How is the solo writing of Paul Levitz holding up in this run?
I think it works – I don’t recall if there’s anything as big as Great Darkness or something after this, but it definitely doesn’t plunge down. At this point, at it’s worst it’s an engaging opera of the space and soap variety, and that works quite well with me.
We have the same artist for this whole batch this time around, which is rare to find – what do you like or not like about Greg LaRocque’s version of the Legion?
I like a lot of it, for the most part, he’s great at presenting the Legion as these strong, expressive and, frankly, gorgeous figures, he does a lot of cool sci-fi tech/space stuff, and just has a strong eye for composition.
It should also be noted that the other artists involved here were great. Steve Lightle is always a welcome sight, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Norm Breyfogle do a back-up story. I associate him so much with Batman that it was kinda weird, but also really cool. This had to be one of his early works, and while it wasn’t as wild and cartoony as he would get later, you can see it starting. There’s a frame with Timber Wolf that really looks like a proto-type to his Batman.
Who was the most intriguing villain this time around with the Fatal Five?
Flare kinda looked like Starfire if you ordered her from Temu, but I kinda liked the idea of them getting someone who wasn’t trying to be a conqueror or anything – it seemed like she just wanted to steal stuff and she was just powerful enough to get Emerald Empress’ attention.
Mentalla was also interesting if only just because she was someone from the Legion Academy. You don’t really see a lot of Legionnaires go bad outside of technically Nemesis Kid, but I think it worked, even though she felt more like a pawn there just to hurt the Legion more than anything.
Did the Sensor Girl reveal / explanation work for you?
Compared to most twists/reveals in the Legion’s past, certainly, though that may not be the highest bar to jump. I think they do a good job of explaining the “how” of it all, but not necessarily the “why.” Dreamy cattily suggests that Projectra did it so that she can become a Legionnaire again despite murdering Nemesis Kid, but I feel like that can’t be the only reason.
I think they do a good job of explaining the “how” of it all, but not necessarily the “why.” Dreamy cattily suggests that Projectra did it so that she can become a Legionnaire again despite murdering Nemesis Kid, but I feel like that can’t be the only reason.