Legion Lost #16

I’m actually curious to see how this all ends.

I’m not curious as to how it begins though! It’ll be a single splash page with seven or eight Narration Boxes on it. It’ll begin by introducing on of the Legion members and giving a short description of their origin and/or powers. My guess is it’ll be Gates because he’s off trying to save everyone with a Time Bubble.

Holy crap! Tom DeFalco changed up his style! I’m flabbergasted!

So the first page was different; it doesn’t mean it was good. I really wish these idiots would stop and think for a moment about how this bullshit doesn’t make any sense. They’re trying to make sure Captain Adym’s timeline continues to exist which means they’ll save the untold quintillions of people that make up the population of the time between now and the 31st century. But by establishing that specific timeline, they’re laying waste to an infinite amount of other timelines. Which means they’re killing infinity times untold quintillions of people just to selfishly save their own timeline. Fuck them.

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Legion Lost #15

I have no idea what is going on in this picture because boobs.

This issue might be Wildfire’s last appearance ever in The New 52 but I have a feeling he’s going to be overshadowed by Dawnstar’s Boobs. Literally! I guess I’m being insensitive since Dawnstar and Wildfire have been in a long, loving relationship. Although Dawnstar has been showing interest in Timber Wolf because penis.

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Legion Lost #14

This issue needed two pencillers and four inkers. And one inker is obviously using a pseudonym. “Von Grawbadger?” Come on!

Legion Lost is another one of those commentaries where I can write whatever the fuck comes to mind since nobody is reading this comic book and nobody even cares what is going on in it. You can tell because it’s crossing over with Superboy (which sucks) and The Ravagers (which is awful). DC seems to think a good strategy for selling comics is to take one of the worst comic books they publish and force that comic book’s fans to read two more shitty series as well. I’ve said it before because I believe it wholeheartedly: DC Comics hates its readership. Do you need more proof than this garbage crossover? Go read Hawkman:Wanted in Green Arrow, Hawkman, and Deathstroke.

I’m probably just asking to have the Superboy fandom jump all over me again by using him as a search tag on this comic. But he’s in it so what the fuck do they expect? And anyway, those idiots can’t tell when I’m on their side? Some people are so fucking touchy that they ignore anything you’re saying and immediately get on the defensive. My whole point about getting Superboy canceled is because the writer sucks. I didn’t say Superboy sucks! You’d think they’d want the comic to be canceled so Superboy can end up being written by somebody that actually cares about him.

At least Legion Lost is cancelled. Although I’m not exactly thrilled to be getting a Vibe monthly comic book. I think he’s replacing Blue Beetle. Unless that’s racist. If it is racist, you should blame DC and not me! Just because I noticed they’re cancelling one title with a Hispanic lead and replacing it with another title with a Hispanic lead, that doesn’t make me racist! It makes me observant! And cynical! Although for all I know, Vibe is going to be a 4th generation Vietnamese-American living with his gay grandfather and fifteen cockatoos. I should probably replace “cockatoo” with “parakeet” since some people might think I just chose that bird because the word “cock” was in it. I assure you that wasn’t my intention. I just type whatever my brain tells me to type. Stupid racist, insensitive brain! It’s not my fault!

Wait a second. I finally was able to tear my eyes away from the name “von Grawbadger” to see that Harvest is fighting alongside Superboy and The Ravagers and Legion Lost. I guess Harvest really does need to save them to make sure Tim Drake becomes a vampire mega-overlord of a future world.

Normally I would guess what Tom DeFalco’s first page would be: splash, narration boxes introducing the character, static image. But I already saw the first page when I was looking for the credits and the first names of the creative team.

At least it didn’t start with, “My name is Superboy.”

The Legion of Super-heroes is so familiar with time travel, why would the discovery that one of them dies in the past be an unbelievable idea? Oh! I know why! Let me answer my own question! It’s not that his dying in the past is unbelievable. It’s that he would die at all is unbelievable! Legion is composed of young people and young people find it impossible to actually believe in their own mortality. It’s simply a vague notion that hangs about in their mind. They know everybody dies and they can easily say that they’ll die someday but they don’t feel it at all. It isn’t an impending possibility that they need to worry about. It’s something on their to-do list but it’s so far in the future, it occupies no space in their mind. So of course Tyroc didn’t believe the prophecy. His own death? Nonsense!

Last issue, I speculated that Daggor was similar to Galactus, at least in the world-destroying aspects. But now I don’t think Daggor is even the Cosmic Butcher!

He’s more like the Silver Surfer. Except he’s the Red Dragon Rider.

The Science Police guy, Captain Adym, continues to proclaim that he came from the future, drawn to this place and time due to some Break Point that “threatens the very fabric of reality.” That’s some story, sir. But I’m not buying it because The New 52 is based on Flash Point which put a stop to time travel and I won’t allow DC to just start slipping in moments where people are suddenly time traveling again. Like this. Or like over in the Justice League International Annual #1 where a future time traveling Booster Gold appears to the present time traveling Booster Gold. And I’m really trying not to remember Superman suddenly appearing on Krypton while watching his parents and believing he’s going to somehow save it. I really don’t give a shit about some kind of overarching continuity since it seems to stifle more creativity than it helps create. But if you’re going to proclaim something to be so, DC, I expect you to stick to it and be consistent.

Captain Adym puts out a priority alert because he doesn’t trust that Legion can defeat the Red Dragon Rider. Jocelyn Lure gets the alert which confirms that she’s a member of the Science Police’s Echo Team. Harvest also gets the alert which confirms that he’s stolen a Science Police Scanner and other 31st Century Technology (because he’s future Vampire Tim Drake!). The Ravagers don’t get an alert even though they’re on the cover. But that’s because Superboy is with them and Jocelyn is going to tell Superboy to get his ass to Arizona and The Ravagers will feel compelled to help him out.

This is the first panel on page seven. In the previous six pages, nobody says anything about being thankful or any other thing that sets up why Captain Adym would suddenly say this.

Legion has no chance against Daggor and his pet dragon, so they’re suddenly in real trouble when Daggor produces thousands of robots that are “impervious to pain and heal from all injuries.” I guess overwhelming numbers just wasn’t going to do the trick for Tom DeFalco’s story. He also had to set the robots up as fucking immortal. But don’t worry, Legion! Back-up is coming!

It’s all just part of his plan.

Harvest begins reaping robots but Legion needs to have a bit of a discussion if they should allow Harvest to help them. Because they have the luxury of not allowing him to help? How do they stop him simply to keep themselves feeling morally superior? Do they turn their attention to fighting him just so they can feel better about themselves? Let Daggor and his dragon and his thousands of robots destroy the world while they can sleep easier because they didn’t fight alongside Harvest? Yeah, great discussion. Tyroc, being the leader, declares that Harvest has a deal! They will call a truce and fight side by side.

I wonder if they’ll have to go through this whole fucking rigamarole when Superboy and The Ravagers show up? Remember how badly The Ravagers were traumatized by Harvest. They aren’t going to suddenly show up and be convinced that he’s their buddy for a few issues.

Chameleon Girl will have no part of saving the world if it means they have to not punch Harvest in the face to do so!

Superboy finally appears in this comic and he’s no longer in California because DC Comics loves publishing comic books that spoil their own comic books.

Oh yay. I can look forward to The Ravagers and Superboy beating up Rose Wilson and Warblade again in the next two issues of The Ravagers.

Jocelyn Lure teleports Superboy to Arizona to help battle Daggor because Superboy promised to help her if she helped him. He doesn’t want to go though because now that her part of the deal worked out, fuck her! He is only about a year old though. So he can’t really be held responsible for any contracts he’s forced to sign. He just doesn’t have the mental ability to understand what he’s getting into.

The Ravagers and Superboy seem to be getting along just great so they can’t allow Superboy to be kidnapped! They follow him to Arizona so I can enjoy another few pages of people arguing with Harvest while Daggor and his Dragon are ignored.

I know I probably could have looked online for a key to the Kryptonian language, but I already know the letters for the phrase, “H’el on Earth,” so I used the cover of Supergirl #14 as my Rosetta Stone. Harvest is saying, “isn’t that right, Superboy?”

Now if we’ve all read Superboy #14, we know what’s going to happen! This phrase turns Superboy into Harvester’s Manchurian Candidate. Harvest will now use Superboy to attack Legion. I don’t know if this counts as Harvest breaking the truce since nobody said he couldn’t used brainwashed soldiers against Legion. Or maybe the truce was already broken when Chameleon Girl attacked Harvest after Tyroc said they had a deal.

Harvest uses Superboy to attack the robot threat and not Legion. At least in this issue! I guess Harvest had to trigger Superboy with his subliminal implant to avoid more pages being taken up by everyone bitching about siding with Harvest. I don’t blame them though. After what Harvest did to them and the supposed threat he is to the world, Legion, Superboy and The Ravagers could just as easily team up with Daggor to take out Harvest.

Actually, I think that’s a better plan! At one point, Timber Wolf drops the whole “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” cliche in support of teaming up with Harvest idea. But that great piece of wisdom holds true in supporting Daggor as well! Legion is stupid. Take out Harvest while you have the chance! The Justice League can stop The Cosmic Butcher when it arrives. Stop trying to take on more than your little New 52 title can handle.

For a time expert, Captain Adym sure has a poor understanding of time. One timeline can’t be threatened, you stupid fuck. It just diverges into a new timeline. The old timeline would still exist so you’ve just come back in time to fix nothing. All you’ve done is created another timeline where you come back in time. The one where you don’t come back in time and everything falls apart still exists. Hey, you’re the asshole who brought up timelines! At least know how they fucking work if you’re going to try to “fix” them.

This whole “fixing timelines” issue is why I was never interested in watching the television show “Sliders.” The whole premise of the show was that they had to save any number of alternate timelines where a catastrophe threatens to destroy them or change them. The only problem with that is, according to the theory of multiple timelines, all possibilities exist. Therefore the timelines where they fail to save the timelines also exist. And the timeline where they never even realize the timeline needs help and never show up also exists. And the timeline where they show up and cause the timeline to be destroyed through their manipulation of changing timelines also exists. See? It’s all masturbation at that point. If you can suddenly slide across all timelines, you’re not actually affecting any timelines. You’re just opening up more possible timelines with your technology. Hell, you’re not even doing that! All those possible timelines already exist!

Captain Adym learns about Superboy as Tellus mentally uploads everything to Adym’s brain. This just gives Captain Adym more to worry about! Then Harvest calls Captain Adym by name, Nathaniel Adym. Is this guy Legion’s Captain Atom? What the hell?

Do you mean you’re going to tell him why you created Superboy now and the answer will, over time, sink in and eventually shock the Captain? Or do you mean eventually when you finally decide to tell him the answer, he’ll be shocked? Being familiar with Tom DeFalco’s use of secrets, I think we all know the answer to this. Harvest will never answer the question.

After all of the sideline chaos going on and everyone pretty much just ignoring Lord Daggor, his plan finally comes to fruition. He grows some giant city-machine out of the desert. Gates freaks out and says he recognizes it and it’s why he’s covered in burns and scars. Oh, I didn’t realize Gates was covered in burns and scars. I thought that was how he was supposed to look. Gates ends the issue declaring, “We’re all destined to die!” and a mighty cheer erupted from my office.

Legion Lost #14 Rating: -1 Ranking. Once again, I feel compelled to penalize any comic that goes against the strict “no time travel” mandate set up by Flashpoint. Not to mention all of the Timeline-saving nonsense going on in this thing. Such a shame it’s being cancelled.

Legion Lost #13

Who is The Cosmic Butcher? Galactus’s chef? Darkseid’s meat cutter? A piece of shit new villain thought up by Tom DeFalco?

Great. Another book by Tom DeFalco. I keep forgetting how many books this guy writes. I especially hate that every time Scott Lobdell leaves a title, I feel a rush of exhilaration and hope! And then I learn that Tom DeFalco has taken over the title and it’s like nothing has even changed. These two “writers” are completely interchangeable in my book. This month, DeFalco is writing Legion Lost, Superboy, and…shit…Nightwing. He’s been on Superboy and Legion Lost for awhile now and they both suck. But Nightwing was chugging along really well! Why does DC want to tank that comic book? What does Dan Didio have against Dick Grayson?

That’s 3 comics out of 52 that I have little hope for. Let’s take a brief look at the others. And since I don’t actually look at solicits or spoilers, I’m just going to assume whoever wrote a book’s Zero Issue is going to become the main writer on a book.

Next up, Scott Lobdell. He’s been ruining Teen Titans and Red Hood and the Outlaws since the beginning. But now he’s pulled down Superman’s pants and is having his way with him. Right in front of me, too! That makes 6 out of 52 comics with no hope of ever being enjoyable.

Even though the internet is the wild west and mostly uncensored, I can’t even begin to describe what Howard Mackie is doing to The Ravagers and the English language without the average citizen calling for my head on a chopping block. The acts I would have to describe could hardly be tolerated by even the most bohemian of souls. That makes 7 out of 52 stroke-inducing medical horrors.

Next to him, the nasty Ann Nocenti. Her horrid writing causes creeping ulcerations of the skin. She’s currently in charge of Green Arrow and Catwoman. Poor, poor Catwoman. Another title that I felt was doing real justice to the character. But now, Selina Kyle isn’t even Selina Kyle anymore! This takes the total of New 52 shit to 9 out of 52 comic books.

Grifter and Deathstroke are going through some changes but I’m pretty sure at least one of those books will continue to suck the life from my fragile psyche. I’ll stand by 10 of the New 52 as being unreadable. And that’s because I’m letting Duane’s Birds of Prey off the hook for now! Basically my comic book store (Excalibur on Hawthorne in Portland, Oregon as seen in the movie The Comedians of Comedy) can just shove 10 pieces of dog shit in my pull box every month and I wouldn’t fucking notice the difference.

Now that everyone who was interested in hearing about Legion Lost have just stared into my bias as if they were trying to catch a fly ball coming out of the sun (sue me! It was the last metaphor left on the shops and the owner was closing), let’s enjoy Legion Lost #13!

Let’s begin with an experiment! I have yet to look at the first page so let me guess, in general, what it will be. A full page splash of a static image with five different narration boxes! Come on, DeFalco! Don’t fail me now!

Ugh! Even on this far off world, people play soccer.

Okay, okay! I can admit when I’m wrong! And I can’t even complain about those Narration Boxes! Those are full glory comic book omniscient narrator box perfection! And look at Pete Woods bulldog four armed ant aliens. Those guys are really nice mix of cute and grotesque. Speaking of Pete Woods, I wonder if he’ll draw one for me since he’ll be at Excalibur Comics on Sunday for Women of Wonder Day!

Oh look! My step-uncle, the Mayor of Portland (and assistant to the mayor of Portlandia!), declared this day official! The previous six years of this event were unofficial and underground. It was totally punk rock. Nobody needed your affirmation, Sam!

So that’s probably the Cosmic Butcher falling from the sky in the last panel. He must be a lot like Galactus but instead of eating planets, he filets them. I bet Earth is next on his list.

But how is Legion Lost going to know what to do in this comic book if the threat hasn’t gotten to them yet? They can’t just decide on their own actions and act like interesting people? I’m confused!

Oh wait. Psychic vision to the rescue.

Tellus feels millions of voices cry out in terror and then are suddenly silenced. And he smells pepperoni and corned beef. Tyroc orders Wildfire to investigate even though Tellus says whatever he just felt happened too far away for him to pinpoint. But at least Legion now has a reason to act! Although I was kind of curious as to why they were hiding out in a warehouse full of Mardi Gras floats. I guess it’s their new hideout.

Wildfire does as he’s told without starting another fist fight. Maybe this group is maturing.

Tyroc and Chameleon Girl argue (making it the second argument between members in four pages) causing Chameleon Girl to have a flashback revealing her secret. Finally! She is a member of the Science Police and working for Echo Team to find a rogue science agent operating in the past. So none of that is really new. But her secret is confirmed! And then Tyroc’s secret gets hinted at just like in every other issue.

I think Tellus is singing Simon and Garfunkel lyrics.

Here are the clues to Tyroc’s secret: He knows a prophecy and he’s visited a tombstone. They still have tombstones like that in the 31st Century? Maybe he time traveled when he was a young boy and saw his own name on a tombstone in the 21st century. That’s the prophecy! Ka-ching! I just guessed another plot point!

Meanwhile, Wildfire flies through space pitying himself and how he’s losing Dawnstar and he’s going to dissipate when his containment suit finally finishes cracking (hurry up already!) when he runs into The Cosmic Butcher! Too bad Tellus didn’t know where the thing was because it was so far away but he could tell the direction it was traveling which could have extrapolated where the thing was coming from but might have involved some higher math which is hard.

“Light years in milliseconds”? Let’s say one light year per millisecond since he’s just estimating. That means The Cosmic Butcher is 31,558,464,000 times faster than light. Holy shit! And also, how the fuck did Wildfire see it coming? If he’s seeing it coming here and now at that speed, that means it’s already destroyed Earth, right?

Wildfire is confronted by a man that moves through space without protection. The man’s thoughts project into Wildfire’s head in a language which Wildfire can understand. He travels 31,558,464,000 times faster than the speed of light. He swings a whip through the vacuum and his left hand is a pulse laser. He’s riding a dragon through space at incredible speeds and needs a saddle to do it. But what is Tyroc most amazed by? What really freaks him out?

Because that’s just plain goofy.

Meanwhile back in the present which is Legion’s past, Timber Wolf tells Gates that the Echo team sends back witnesses to crimes that need protecting. Okay, that makes more sense than what I believed by bad reading comprehension due to boredom from an earlier issue. I thought they were sending criminals back in time just to free up some room in the prisons. And Timber Wolf has a memory of something called The Dark Star Syndicate threatening him.

And then my amazing comic plot guessing powers are once again confirmed!

I should feel really, really bad that I think like Tom DeFalco.

Back in space, Wildfire and Lord Daggor (with Thraxx, his mount!) continue to battle although most of the battle is covered up by thought bubbles and intergalactic telepathic speech balloons. Thraxx uses the term “warrior born.” Where the fuck did that term come from? I’m going to consult Lord Google!

Lord Google is a blathering idiot. “Methinks you would like to discuss Xena? Or perhaps this Yugi-oh card I found interesting? Maybe this information on The Ultimate Warrior will interest you? No? Well then what you want apparently doesn’t exist. Good day.”

The Cosmic Butcher’s cosmic rays are much more powerful than Wildfire’s cosmic rays. Maybe if Wildfire makes friends with this guy, he can learn how Lord Daggor encases his rays safely and maybe build a better suit! Then he can discard his cracked facemask in the Arizona desert and return to the future. After they fix Flashpoint, of course.

Would you rather we called it Xerxe’s Triumphant Den of Innuendo and Laser Tag?

Back on Earth (specifically Mongolia), Harvest is busy watching his plan come to fruition. Most of his plan seems to consist of waiting. And what he was waiting for was either The Cosmic Butcher or a Time Bubble which appeared in the Arizona desert. Uh oh! That can’t be good! Tellus feels the bubble arrive and Legion heads off to investigate. Once again, good thing for visions and psychic impressions!

The Time Bubble seems to be an actual Time Bubble because who the fuck cares about the Flashpoint rule when you have a shitty story to tell? Besides, doesn’t Flashpoint only affect the one dimension? So this can take place in another timeline! Except it can’t so maybe this is all just a trick by Harvest. That’s why he has extra time bubbles. For tricks like this. But then how to explain when Legion Lost used Harvest’s time bubble to go to the dead future?

Anyway, the guy in the time bubble is Captain Adym of the Science Police. He’s the one that sent back Chameleon Girl and recommended Timber Wolf to Legion. He says he came back to save all time and space from a rip in reality that was about to occur. And then Wildfire crashes near them and The Cosmic Butcher appears to kill them all. Oh Legion Lost! Always getting into such crazy scrapes.

And then the Next Issue Blurb seems to be actively warning you to not pick up the next comic.

Umm…no thank you.

Legion Lost #13 Rating: -1 Ranking. This comic book continues to be a room temperature mess. It’s not exciting. It’s not intriguing. Legion Lost is the most passive group of boring dirtbags I’ve ever read about, relying completely on outside stimulus before they do anything at all. I hope it’s 201X so I can watch Tyroc die.

Legion Lost #0

This is the first cover to create their own original tear in the comic book cover.

Is it possible Tom DeFalco was waiting for the Zero Issue before revealing each of the team member’s secrets? My guess is no. Well, maybe he’ll reveal Chameleon Girl’s secret that they were all sent back in time by The Echo Police. But that’ll be it.

The introduction to the comic book sounds like it won’t even reveal that much. It looks like it’s going to focus on the origin of Timber Wolf. I guess it could have seven short three story pages detailing each character’s origin.

Here’s a new favorite character of mine: Don’t Go Fish Guy.

Timber Wolf’s father created another variant on the super soldier serum. But this one was invented in the 31st Century so it’s probably better than any of the others that were invented in the past. Timber Wolf’s father’s patron wants the serum for himself and his family but the serum isn’t quite ready to be used on humans. So the patron, Lord Vykor, decides to provide some incentive for Timber Wolf’s dad to work faster. The incentive isn’t more money or a time dependent bonus or a nice firm pat on the back. The incentive is killing Timber Wolf’s mom. I think the process of mourning is supposed to get the scientist to concentrate better or something.

Timber Wolf’s dad is given one more month to have the product ready. When it is ready, he injects it into himself and his son so that they’ll be super powered and can destroy Lord Vykor when he arrives for the finished product. The results of this meeting show that even Lord Vykor realized that his “motivation” probably wasn’t the best way to get what he wanted.

And nobody lived happily ever after.

Timber Wolf drops from the ceiling and bites Lord Vykor’s ear off. Then Timber Wolf jumps out of a window as the lab explodes. But Lord Vykor and his men get away, of course. And now the only way Lord Vykor can get his hands on the super soldier serum is by getting a sample of Timber Wolf’s blood.

This origin story is boring the fuck out of me. Wait, what does that mean? Does that mean I’m so bored that I’ve lost all desire to copulate? I don’t think I got quite that bored. But it did get boring enough that I asked Doom Bunny for advice.

Me: “Legion Lost #0 is BORING.”
Me: “The commentary is turning into a synopsis! I need something funny to talk about!”
Doom Bunny: “Not dumb, just boring?”
Me: “Yes.”
Doom Bunny: “What would happen if they’d never been lost?”
Me: “It’s the Origin Story of Timber Wolf.”
Doom Bunny: “Ew. Write something about Judas!”
Me: “Judas was one of Christ’s disciples. He was a man. He wanted to help the poor but Jesus was all, ‘Fuck the poor! Give Caeser whatever Caeser wants because getting into heaven is where it’s at, man!’ And Judas was all, ‘What?! No way! What about our home? What about the hypocritical pharisees? What about driving these fucking Romans out of our land?!’ And Jesus was all, ‘Pshaw! Getting through the eye of a needle is the goal so chill out, baby!’”
Doom Bunny: “lol”
Doom Bunny: “I was trying to find Jennifer’s ridiculous food post from today.”
Doom Bunny: “Timeline sucks. Oh, here it is! ‘Range free eggs’”
Me: “Ha!”
Doom Bunny: “Dumb ass. It’s cage-free eggs and free-range chicken.”
Me: “I like my eggs laid by prison chickens!”
Doom Bunny: “Yeah!”

Doom Bunny also mentions how I called Jennifer a narcissist but I censored that out so he wouldn’t be implicated in it! I also think Doom Bunny wanted me to write something about my cat, Judas. Whoops! Anyway, that didn’t have anything to do with Legion Lost but if Legion Lost were holding my attention better, that interlude never would have happened. So it’s Legion Lost’s fault for being the first really boring comic book of the Zero Issues so far. I won’t go so far as to say Grifter #0 was good but at least it had something to say about the ongoing title. I guess if I were paying closer attention to this comic, I would be gaining some really good insight into Timber Wolf’s character! But why should I have to work so hard when Tom DeFalco spells out all of Timber Wolf’s trials and travails in one page!

Half of Timber Wolf’s training took place in a cardboard box. I’m surprised he’s not Urban Raccoon.

Timber Wolf dedicated his life to hunting down Lord Vykor! But Lord Vykor was hanging out with “the politically elite and legally challenged.” What the fuck? Should writers be held responsible for making art that is understandable? Oh! Oh! Here’s a story about Soy Rakelson, my high school friend whose name has been changed to protect Ann Nocenti.

Soy and I were discussing David Lynch’s Lost Highway one night. And while my friend Upright and I had discussed the movie after seeing it and pretty much figured out what was going on, Soy wondered if Lynch had more of a responsibility to make the point of his movie clearer. I asked him how clear an auteur needs to make their work. Should he blatantly state what his intent is? Should a work be entirely free of ambiguity so that every member of the audience walk away with the same experience so there’s no need to discuss the work? Soy just seemed to think Lynch’s vision was too muddled and thus failed. So we went on to talk about other things.

At one point, Soy picked up my John Barth book, “Lost in the Funhouse.” He flipped through it and said, “Oh man, this first story about the Swimmers is great.” And I said, “Oh, the story about the sperm.” And he looked up quizzically and said, “You know, the swimmers.” And I said, “Yes, the story about the sperm.” And I saw him cock his head to the side and then the light go on in his eyes and his jaw dropped halfway open. And I said, “Do you think John Barth should have been more clear about that? Do you think he failed?”

That’s the end of that story. I apologize that it didn’t contain more explosions and future technology.

So back to Legion Lost, who are the legally challenged that Lord Vykor is hanging out with? Is that a euphemism for bad types? Or is he hanging out with people being sued by other people? Perhaps they’re just people who don’t understand the concept of loitering and jaywalking.

Eventually Timber Wolf makes his way to Lord Vykor.

Just like a typical DeFalco plot. Lord Vykor’s plan was for Timber Wolf to find him. If you wanted to meet with him, why didn’t you just have your thugs pull him off the street?

Since this moment was entirely to be expected, Lord Vykor spent years preparing for it. He probably even had a candy glass window placed in the loft so that Timber Wolf wouldn’t hurt himself when he smashed through it. Because Lord Vykor’s son Tor wouldn’t want any unfair advantages due to severe lacerations from a plate glass window.

Why didn’t he use some of the serum in the vial for his scientists to backwards engineer it? That makes much more sense than waiting years for Timber Wolf to appear and then killing him and then hoping that somehow the formula’s footprints can still be found inside his corpse.

The fight begins with Timber Wolf holding back and still getting the better of Vykor and his son. But Timber Wolf chooses not to kill anybody because that would cause him to lose his humanity. And he can’t do that when they’re calling him an animal! That would prove them right! So he jumps around and nothing much happens.

Seriously? You had the fucking serum, you stupid sprok!

By the way, it is stupid that Vykor had any of the serum at all. Timber Wolf’s father really would have used the serum on himself and his son and destroyed any that was left. Now that would make sense if Vykor’s last chance was the slight possibility that Timber Wolf’s blood could give them the formula. But having had the formula in his hands and he didn’t have his scientists work with that? He deserves whatever he gets. Probably mindswiped by the Echo Police and sent back to the past to encounter Timber Wolf in a future issue of Legion Lost.

In the end, Timber Wolf calls the Science Police to pick up these yahoos. The Science Police offer to send the Legion of Super-heroes a letter of recommendation if Timber Wolf would like to apply. As this comic ends, he seems to have no interest. Probably because that’s a story that’s already been told somewhere in the Preboot which still holds true for this Reboot.

Legion Lost #0 Rating: What about the origins for the rest of the team? Why is Timber Wolf so special? Is he the really, really, really poor and unhealthy man’s Wolverine?

Legion Lost #12

How come every time Tyroc punched a fellow Legion member it never made the cover? Fucking racist.

Last issue, Dawnstar was possessed by Alastor. That’s probably why she’s causing trouble on the cover. I believe the TSA Avengers had Chameleon Girl and Tyroc in custody but I could be wrong about that. The whole point of this blog was to catalog the happenings of each issue so that I could go back and refresh my memory before reading each new issue. But I keep failing at doing that because I’m busy making Wildfire penis jokes and calling employees of the TSA fat! Now, I might be generalizing a bit there. But every airport I’ve ever been in where I saw a TSA employee running down a concourse, he or she has always been huffing and puffing and turning bright red. I also don’t mind negatively generalizing a group of people who choose to work a job that’s turning travel into an obstacle course of bullshit. Listen up, Americans: I know you probably have a family to feed but every one of you needs to stop accepting jobs where you treat your fellow Americans like shit scraped off your shoe.

Speaking of shit scraped off of your shoe, all you kids who grew up in the nineties probably never really perfected the technique of getting dog shit out of the crevasses in your sneakers! I’m glad society finally shamed dog owners enough that most of them pick up after their snuggly widdle shitting wuv monkeys. But growing up in the seventies, every field was like traversing a battlefield full of land mines. Just about every outing, somebody stepped in dog shit. Usually it was my cousin Jason. It was so common, I’m surprised Atari didn’t make a video game about dodging dog poo for the 2600.

I feel like I haven’t doodled for one of my commentaries in a long while and I think I should start that up again. But not now. My pad and pen are in another room and I’m relaxing in bed with the air conditioner going and my cat, Pelafina, stretched out beside me. So instead I’m just going to read Legion Lost and avoid scanning as much as I can! Ha ha! Read words, loser!

Look! I scanned something immediately after saying I was going to avoid it! But it’s still just words! Ha ha!

This is the introduction to Issue #12. Reading it gave me a feeling that simulated drunkenness. Unless the grapes I just ate had fermented. It made me a little bit dizzy with its switch-up of pronouns in that sentence where it couldn’t decide if the subject was Tellus or Legion of Super-heroes. The picture following this narration box is just a gigantic close-up of Tellus’s fish face as he slams it against a wall. The name of this issue is “A Prophecy of Death!”

When I turn the page, I realize that Tellus wasn’t slamming his face into the wall for kicks. It was Dawnstar possessed by Alastor that was smashing him into the side of the building. That makes more sense!

One good thing about Alastor possessing the members of Legion is his ability to read their minds while inside of them. So he now knows that Dawnstar thinks Alastor was a pawn used to release the Hypertaxis Virus into the past. He doesn’t expound on her reasons for thinking this or who she thinks is using him. Maybe Harvest! But Alastor wants to know more! So he jumps into Tellus. Now maybe he’ll discover the prophecy that Tellus was hiding from everyone else that I think was explained in one issue but I forgot what it was! So tell us, Tellus!

I expected far worse results! I thought at least three members of the TSA Avengers would be killed and Legion Lost would never even have noticed they were being attacked by them!

Tyroc and Chameleon Girl escape their bonds. And by bonds I mean those hockey masks on their faces.

TSA Hawkeye: “Hey! TSA Captain America! How should we restrain these super heroes?”
TSA Captain America: “Put some fucking hockey masks on them!”
TSA Hulk: “TSA HULK HORNY!”
TSA Thor: “What the fuck are hockey masks going to do?”
TSA Captain America: “Justice is blind!”
TSA Hawkeye: “What the fuck? Is anybody listening to this guy?”
TSA HULK: “TSA HULK SMASHTURBATE!”
TSA Captain America: “Freedom isn’t free, you know. You have to pay the military and Homeland Security to keep everyone free!”
TSA Black Widow: “Bullshevik. The military doesn’t keep Americans free! The American people keep themselves free! Maybe if the military were actually keeping invaders from running amok within our borders, you could thank them for keeping us free. But while they’re just corporate tools running errands for the big wigs with the big bucks, the only thing they’re doing is subjugating innocent people who never wanted to be thrust in the middle of a war zone.”
TSA Captain America: “SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR FUCKING COMMIE MOUTH RIGHT NOW, YOU FOUL TEMPTRESS!”
TSA Hulk: “TSA Hulk sleepy now.”

I bet that dialogue would have been a good time for one of my doodles! Maybe I’ll draw the TSA Avengers later and turn it into wallpaper so that everyone can gaze lovingly at the TSA Avengers every time they start up their laptops.

“These creatures possess amazing abilities!” “But we put the hockey masks on them!”

Alastor as Tellus comes crashing down on the TSA Avengers taking them by surprise. While they run about trying not to get killed, TSA Captain America flip-flops into action! He knocks Alastor out of Tellus with a flying duck kick.

I don’t know what a flying duck kick is either but what would you call it?

Alastor decides that being in a giant telepathic frog beast that was just knocked unconscious is probably a liability so he moves over to TSA Captain America! Now the TSA Avengers are fighting amongst themselves too! While TSA Captain America has them busy, Chameleon Girl and Tyroc escape from the vehicle in which they were being held.

I really hate it when things explode inwards too!

Tellus uses his telepathic mumbo jumbo to call for reinforcements. Gates and Timber Wolf teleport into the battle so that Timber Wolf can be possessed by Alastor too! How is Alastor going to be stopped? Which one of them is willing to take a bullet while Alastor is inside them? And would that even work?

Meanwhile, Alastor has jumped into Chameleon Girl and learned her secret too! Some point during this comic, it would be nice if DeFalco would just fucking tell the reader what reasons each Legion member believes for their being back in the past. But instead, he’s just having Alastor jump from one to the next so that he can say, “Oh ho! This one has a secret too! Remember, dear reader?! TENSION!” Next he’ll need to jump into Tyroc because Tyroc had a secret as well.

I don’t even care what secrets they’re all hiding. At any moment, a new writer can replace DeFalco and they suddenly won’t have any secrets anyway!

Eventually Alastor tries to possess Wildfire but finds that he needs an organic host for his powers to work. Alastor enters Wildfire but is helpless. Wildfire flies him into the sun and dumps him there! One loose thread taken care of that DeFalco doesn’t have to worry about anymore! But as Alastor falls into the sun and (presumably) his death, he cries out that Legion will never be free of Echo.

Echo was explained previously. They were some kind of Internal Affairs for the Science Police or something. They would mindwipe convicts and send them into the past. Oh, that sounds like a safe way to dispose of criminals! Send them into the past to fuck up the timeline and create paradoxes to destroy the universe! At the very least, they’re just dumping their trash in somebody else’s timeline. Jerks.

So all of the secrets Alastor learned are taken with him into the sun. Of course! DeFalco’s going to try to get as much mileage as he can out of these stupid secrets by constantly reminding the readers that Legion is full of secrets but he’ll just never share any of them. A better writer would let the secret be known and cause the tension and drama through the reader’s knowledge of what the Legion member is secretly up to rather than pretending they all have a really important secret that means something to someone and may cause something to happen somewhere.

Afterward, the TSA Avengers try to arrest Legion. But TSA Captain America learned all about them while he was possessed by Alastor. He suggests that they should be left alone because they’re good people composed of different races and social types that generally get along (while not having to be in heaven). And to prove that he really means what he says, he removes his helmet for a single panel.

“Gives a black man entrusted with leading Homeland Security’s super powered team real hope that someday a super team in the future can be led by a black man. I mean, without the rest of the team talking shit behind his back!”

Gates teleports Legion away before the discussion can get violent again. Once they’re all alone and everything is calm, they decide they won’t talk about Alastor and his accusations right now. Oh, of course not! This comic book is the equivalent of the Local News continually teasing a story you won’t believe involving kittens and then waiting until the last thirty seconds of the news to air the story.

Legion Lost #12 Rating: No change. Also no secrets. I don’t even believe DeFalco has any idea what each members’ secret is. “I’ll just think of something eventually. And it’ll be pretty cool probably when I do! Until then, I can ride this thing where they all have secrets for a good six or seven issues!”