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"Gee!!" That's what Streaky the Super-cat says when Saturn Girl informs him that he, Super-Monkey, Krypto, and Supergirl's future Super-Horse are now the Legion of Super-pets. "Gee!!"
"DC Showcase presents: The Legion of Super-Heroes" is the closest reading has come to a sexual experience for me. If the Levitz/Giffen years were the Legion as "90210" ("Footballers' Wives" for you Brits), and if Giffen's "5 Years Later" was the Legion as "Lost" then these early-day Legion are what Waid and Kitson have returned to: the Legion as completely deranged After School Special.
In the "Showcase presents: Shazam!" the stories consist of Captain Marvel flying around and using his powers to do nice things or solve crimes. The Legion stories I've read so far consist of the Legion flying around and being dicks. Just like real teenagers! Sometimes it's revealed that they're really aliens in warm winter coats and disguise projectors pretending to be the Legion and sometimes it's revealed that they're being mind controlled, but tell that to Night Girl ("Because I loved and trusted Cosmic Boy, my comrade is DEAD!")
And there's a lot of mind control in these stories. I've only read three of them and already there's been enough mental manipulation, hypnosis and telepathic domination to fill a dozen erotic fantasy websites. But no one seems to mind much. When it's revealed that aliens (aliens who are giant brains in glass globes descended from humanoid ancestors who were so embarrassed by their skulls that look like warty, hairy penises that they preferred to survive as disembodied brains) have caused Superboy to try to kill all the passengers on an airplane, then have caused the Legion to try to kill Superboy and then have knocked the Earth out of its orbit, no one's really that upset. Their sense of self has been compromised, they have been mentally violated, turned into murderers, and had their free will erased as if it never existed in the first place. If Brian Michael Bendis was writing this it would be a 12 issue arc that ends with Lightning Lad traveling to the Marvel Universe so he could get Luke Cage to treat him to a night of rough sex. Here, the Legion just shrugs it off.
When an understandably dazed and shaky Superboy asks what happened, Saturn Girl smilingly informs him, "Sorry. I can't tell you...yet." Then thinks to herself, "Otherwise Superboy will learn about Super-Horse being Supergirl's pet." Sorry, Superboy, but we can't let you know why your mind just got completely cleaned out or you might learn that your cousin will one day own a pony. Man, does the human race evolve into jerks or what?
The aliens encountered by the Legion are inevitably weaker, uglier and far more fragile than the robust, attractive humanoids who make up the Legion. In fact, they never seem to run into opponents who are that much stronger than themselves unless they are a) dinosaurs, or b) robots. And the aliens are horrifying to look at, like hideous warts have mated with insects and their offspring fill the cosmos.
My only wish is that by the time I finish Volume 1, Volume 2 will be out. |
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