Legionnaires #31 (1995)
written by Tom Peyer & Tom McCraw
pencils and cover by Jeff Moy
The conclusion to the brief Future Tense crossover with Superboy.
The Legion is trying to break Mon-El free from the Stasis Zone, with no success.
Obviously R.J.Brande has no doubts about what needs to be done.
All hope lies in recovering the key component currently in the hands of Scavenger.
Easier said than done when he has the Philosopher Stone.
Thankfully Scavenger is dangerous but not the brightest, since he didn’t take into consideration that Chameleon’s powers would make transmuting him harder.
He then uses the Atom’s size-changing belt to shrink down to subatomic size…
…where Shrinking Violet can take care of him.
He’s lucky she did: the Atom’s belt is harmless against the Atom, but anyone else will explode after being shrunk for long. I’m willing to bet Scavenger is careless enough to never have thought about that.
Despite being on the cover, the fight with Scavenger only takes up 4 pages.
The biggest menace the Legion has to deal with… is the religious upheaval caused by Superboy leaking the purpose of their mission.
Don’t feel bad for Superboy, because Triad-Purple is still so horny for him that I can’t even show what she tells him.
Well I can, but it’s just not readable.
It’s entirely possible that’s gibberish, although some letters kind of look like Interlac.
It was scandalous enough to embarrass her other two selves. Not shocking for the prudish Triad-Orange, but to shock Triad-Neutral it had to be hardcore.
Superboy goes to see Brainiac 5, and according to the dialogue this is when Brainy first develops his trademark force field belt!!!
Superboy gets the attention of Brainiac 5 by the trick that always works on any super-genius.
I’m pretty sure Brainy would have volunteered a plan to save Mon-El anyway, if only for the connection to both Andromeda AND his L.E.G.I.O.N. ancestor… but this is a quintessentially Brainiac 5 moment.
Superboy hits on Triad again, making the mistake of confusing the merged version with Triad-Purple and giving credence to my suspect that the earlier dirty speech bubble was gibberish.
Then again, Triad’s priorities are elsewhere right now.
And if you’re thinking that I’m going to joke about her being more interested in the World-Seeder than in any other seeder… you’re absolutely correct.
Time to free Mon-El in front of the entire adoring crowd.
I did chuckle at the President’s joke. It’s even questionable if it IS a joke this early in the Reboot!
A nice character interaction between Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy… notice he hasn’t been in jerkass mode for a while… and the highlight of what a big deal this is for a lot of 30th century people.
Things aren’t completely fine with Cosmic Boy yet, considering Saturn Girl’s icy “as usual” reply.
Time for the big show: the Legion is going to resurrect the World-Seeder!!!
Aaaand it doesn’t work: Superboy isn’t able to use his Tactile Telekinesis to keep the device active for the necessary time.
Not the best publicity for the Legion, and the President isn’t going to be happy about this either!
Good, because the Legion does succeed IN SECRET, recovering Mon-El on the other side of the planet later!!!
I just love the way Jeff Moy conveys the “I’m the smartest person in the universe and I don’t need to prove it to anyone else” facial expression that only Brainiac 5 could give.
Take a moment to appreciate how it was done.
Brainiac 5 managed to activate the projector in a way that would extract Mon-El on a delay, at the other side of the world, AFTER the projector had been destroyed! Despite spending so many pages complaining how impossible it was to deal with such antiquated technology.
Because of this, MOST of the Valor worshippers don’t even know he’s back!!!
And the secrecy will have to be kept for the ENTIRE Reboot from this point forward!!!
Up to this point I’ve used Mon-El to identify the character, for consistency.
From this moment forward, there IS a distinction between Mon-El and Valor.
Valor is the mythological figure worshipped by a lot of the United Planet worlds, and he’s considered dead.
Mon-El is the Legionnaire. Who won’t operate under this name, but I’ll switch to using his actual codename once he’s given it.
He’s a bit harsh on Triad perhaps, but I think this is 100% understandable from Mon-El’s point of view.
In fact, take a moment to appreciate what he’s going through.
Everyone he’s ever known is dead, he suffered a thousand years of being a ghost, and now that he’s finally back… he can’t even use his real name or have a normal life because he’s worshipped as a god as part of a religion he knows nothing about.
Before taking Superboy back home, Brainiac 5 confirms that he has not forgotten about the XS subplot.
Moments like this are what sold me Superboy in his own series.
Yes he’s a showboating horndog in his worst days, but his heart is in the right place.
Love all the Jeff Moy reaction shots, from Violet’s embarrassment to Saturn Girl’s amusement.
Only one thing left with Superboy: making him the very first honorary Legionnaire of this continuity.
Superboy is going to meet the Reboot Legion again.
Chameleon is surprisingly sad about it, while Leviathan is definitely the one who doesn’t look forward to him… and because of various reasons I’m not going to spoil right now, he’ll get his wish: this is the last time HE meets Superboy.
I should point out that immediately after returning to the 20th century, he gives his Flight Ring to his not-quite-love-interest Roxy.
It doesn’t seem that Superboy initially TOLD her that it was a Flight Ring: he gives the ring in Superboy #22 and she doesn’t acknowledge it until Superboy #34.
Legion significance: 10/10
The Superboy connection will be a footnote for nearly the entire Reboot, only becoming important at the very very end.
But this issue also has an impact on every future of Mon-El in this continuity: while his attitude towards Triad will soften up quickly, as I anticipated he WILL keep his identity as Valor a secret from the public from the whole Reboot.
To complete the significance, this is technically the first appearance of the Brainiac 5 force field in this continuity. It was somewhat foreshadowed by the Planet Hell storyline that hyped Coluan force field technology. And turns out that the only thing Brainy needed to invent the damn thing was just being annoyed by Superboy!
Take a moment to appreciate that Brainiac 5 invented the Time Platform™ and his signature technology to keep his mind off the whole Andromeda situation.
Maybe when he complains that he could accomplish so much more if only the Legion stopped bothering him he’s onto something…
Silver Age-ness: 1/10
Brainiac 5 invents his force field just to stop Superboy from bothering him.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
I really like the whole Valor situation, and this time Superboy is integrated with the Legion WAY better than last time.
What brings the story down a bit is the whole Scavenger part… it really feels like the story is stalling for time. I also find it hard to believe that Brainiac 5 REALLY needed that component to fix the projector, if he’s smart enough to modify it on the fly to do at least three things it was never supposed to do.
Perhaps he just sent the team to fetch those parts to get some time away from Superboy?
Moy Tongues: 14
A borderline case, but I’m counting it.
“By damn!”: 7
Who did it better?
While Adventure Comics #300 is a classic, the way it revives Mon-El in the 30th century only works because of tradition. Despite lacking a true connection to Superboy, the Reboot adds several layers on Mon-El’s return.
Even if the Reboot lacks the gloriously stupid Urthlo, I consider it the superior version of Mon-El’s cure.
For the introduction of the force field belt, however, Brainiac 5’s first appearance from Action Comics #276 is the superior version. On the strength that Brainy shouldn’t even NEED a specific reason to create that technology, considering it was the signature of the original Brainiac.
And finally we have the first honorary Legionnaire, which I’m giving wholeheartedly to the Reboot.
Not only Superboy being a honorary member makes WAY more sense than Pete Ross… at least this time it’s a real and uncomplicated ON-PANEL acknowledgment of his membership, whereas for Pete it so vague that the first on-panel confirmation he was a honorary member came from a caption (which I entirely missed and had to be pointed out to me in the comments; see the Questions page for that whole thing).
We are legion
Superboy becomes the first honorary Legionnaire.
- 11 active Legionnaires (3 volunteers, 8 drafted)
- 1 expelled member (Live Wire)
- 1 resigned member (Andromeda)
- 1 honorary member (Superboy)
- 2 deceased members (Kid Quantum, Apparition
- 16 people have been members
- 2 Legion leaders (Leviathan, Cosmic Boy)
- 2 members have been rejected
Interesting letters: I’m very pleased to report that Jeff Moy was already beloved by the fandom.
The reboot might lack Urthlo, but the Urthlo call-backs in this story were great Easter Eggs, as were the many familiar items in Scavenger’s lair, one of which proves to be of very great Legion significance, though you didn’t mention that in your “Legion significance” score, which is already at the maximum.
The panel in which the aliens argue over Valor’s appearance is a subtle nod to how religious figures become proprietary and even distorted over time. The aliens are about to come to blows insisting that Valor looks like them. They would no doubt be disappointed or even in denial if they saw Valor’s true appearance. It was wise of the Legion to keep his re-emergence a secret.
Lar’s reaction to Triad is deeply moving and honest. Encountering one’s heroes often leads to disappointment, and Valor is not the sanctified object of veneration she imagined. He’s just a young man, not much older than she is, who resents having his life stolen, first by the illness that caused him to lose a thousand years and then by people who see only what he represents to them. Valor’s loneliness is perfectly captured in the panel with the hovering furniture. All the wonders of the future cannot replace what he has lost.
This story line not only wins the “who did it better” award, but it also transcends much of anything mainstream comics have attempted to do with religion. Interestingly, something similar was done with Kosh on Babylon 5, which aired around the same time.
I respect Moy so much. I struggle with drawing faces most and he not only does them so well but make me excited at the possibilities you can draw. Provided you don’t mind a bit of tongue of course.
Out of curiosity, I tried running the panel of Triad Purple’s whisper through Google. Naturally, it couldn’t come up with anything, since her proposition was never intended for anyone but Connor. I was impressed that Google correctly identified the panel as being from an issue of Legionnaires with art by Jeff Moy…. But then it identified the “blue-haired character” as Rokk Krin! So close, but still so far to go.