Valor #20-21

Valor #20 (1994)
written by Kurt Busiek
pencils by Colleen Doran
cover by Stuart Immonen
“Special thanks” to Mark Waid

Now that the series stars the SW6 Mon-El instead of the 20th century one, will he get some respect?
Given the cover, I doubt it.

After replacing his younger counterpart, Mon-El is keeping himself busy fighting Dominators.

The premise of this new direction for the series is that, since Mon-El’s actions are instrumental to the eventual creation of the United Planets, the time-displaced Mon-El from the future is doing everything a second time because his 20th century version died before he could do what he was destined to do.

As if THAT wasn’t complicated enough… Mon-El has to do EVERYTHING in 48 hours, while originally it took him years.

The Linear Men, the time-traveling supercops who are trying to fix time, are the ones insisting on Mon-El doing this on an absurd timeline.

The only member of the Linear Men with both powers and a personality, Waverider, is given 10 hours to fix this mess.
Considering the Linear Men are not only time travelers but that they also live at the edge of the end of time… WTF do ten hours even mean to them!?!?

Mon-El is basically speedrunning Annual 2. If you haven’t read that story, the idea that Mon-El can accomplish all he did in that story IN TWO DAYS is beyond ridiculous.

When freeing the human prisoners, Mon-El also frees these weirdos.

These guys are the ancestors of Cosmic Boy’s people…

…which I guess explains his infamous 70s corset.

This guy is even Cosmic Boy’s ancestor, considering his name.

Which, if we consider that Cosmic Boy’s miniseries should still be canon at this point, means we’ve already met TWO of his 20th century ancestors.

Only NOW Mon-El realizes these guys are not from Earth.

They want to go on a rampage across the Galaxy, something Mon-El does not approve.

Apparently Cosmic Boy descends from a race of complete morons, which… okay now I get why he’s fond of 20th century Earth.

The premise of this fight is that Mon-El is going to fight 40 people with Cosmic Boy powers.

He can’t.

There are THREE WHOLE PAGES of Mon-El being punched, and a full page of him being unconscious.

Even the Linear Men have lost faith in him. And really, can you blame them?

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Valor #21 (1994)
written by Kurt Busiek
pencils by Colleen Doran
cover by Stuart Immonen
“Special thanks” to Mark Waid

This series has had two Mon-Els so far. Surely the way to fix it is to add more.

Mark Waid gets a special thanks, but we don’t know for what.

We begin with the Cosmic Bondage people invading a planet with a double splash page.

Even the comic is making fun of its needlessly complicated premise.

Mon-El challenges the Cosmic Bondage leader for leadership…

…and ends up having to fight three people at once, since he never paid enough attention to stories about these idiots.

What’s the plan here, Mon-El? Defeat them and convince them IN TWO DAYS to abandon their warrior culture and settle down!?
Sounds legit.

At the same time (???) the Linear Men are talking to ANOTHER Mon-El (???).

Except the story time has already broken so much that nothing makes sense it created multiple copies of Mon-El.

The Linear Men show up to fix time…

…and as usual with these guys, everyone except Waverider is completely useless.

Waverider then technobabbles his way through… uhm… whatever this is.

This evens out the odds.

Look, I like the Linear Men IN CONCEPT. But it’s frustrating to see they are NEVER useful.

Honestly he didn’t really need to fight the Cosmic Bondage idiots, he could have just said “I can take you to a planet where you can fight dinosaurs”.

And now you know the secret origin of the name of Cosmic Boy’s planet.

We wasted TWO ENTIRE ISSUES with Mon-El fighting some idiots, where we could have explored a potentially interesting idea: the fact that accomplishing all of his original missions in two days, appearing in more places at once, SHOULD reinforce his status as a religious symbol.

And then Glorith shows up, because I must be constantly reminded that I actually chose to review this era.

I mentioned how the Linear Men never accomplish anything, and Glorith is STILL worthless compared to them.

The reason why the Linear Men needed Glorith was because she has to send Mon-El back into the Phantom Zone, fulfilling his destiny. You mean to tell me THEY couldn’t do it!?

Closing the circle, Mon-El is going to endure a thousand years into the Zone… AGAIN, because remember THIS version still remembers doing it the first time!!!
Well at least it was worth it to fix time once and for all.

Except… what did I say about the Linear Men’s usefulness?

SOMEHOW there are still two issues of this series.

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Legion significance: 0/10
Even without the reboot, I highly doubt that the origins of Cosmic Boy’s planet would ever come into play. Except maybe in a Grimbor issue.

Silver Age-ness: 6/10
In addition to how ridiculous the Cosmic Bondage people look, I have a really hard time believing Mon-El has SUCH a hard time fighting people who JUST got powers. Come on dude, you used to be Superman’s big brother!!!
But also: the ancestor from 1,000 years before Cosmic Boy’s birth still happens to have his name.

Depression scale: 10/10
Mon-El sacrifices himself to a thousand years of exile AGAIN, but it’s completely wasted because time still sucks.

Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Ironic given the subject matter, but this was a COMPLETE waste of time.
There might have been something interesting to explore with Mon-El’s second self-sacrifice or with how this impacts his legend.
But apparently watching him fight some space barbarian dudebros was a priority.