Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #6 (2012)
by Chris Roberson & Jeff Moy
cover by Phil Jimenez
Let’s finish the miniseries. Spoiler alert: despite the cover the complete Legion does NOT show up.
The alternative cover by Jeff Moy at least shows only characters that DO appear in the story.
And it does kind of make sense to have all women on the cover, given a particular scene that happens (although Saturn Girl is not in that scene).
If we go by looks alone, my favorite is the Jeff Moy one.
If you want a cover that is both good AND only shows characters that show up, the second alternative by J.K. Woodward has the right balance.
We begin with Future Vandal Savage torturing Chameleon Boy, Captain Kirk and Lightning Lad.
The others (Shadow Lass, Uhura and Sulu) have to wait their turn.
Presumably because Savage just wants them to watch first.
Not exactly surprised to see Vandal Savage wanting to force women into his own personal harem.
He’s done stuff like this plenty of times.
This is the scene I was referring to earlier; it makes SOME sense to give Shadow Lass and Uhura the cover, but it’s not a very important scene for the plot AND Saturn Girl isn’t there.
Kirk is taken away, presumably to be murdered… but then he drops a classic Kirk maneuver.
Kirk does have a point: we learned last time that Vandal Savage has access to the powers of the basically omnipotent Q.
And he really hasn’t done a lot with it.
We’ll get back to Future Vandal Savage soon: let’s go back to Past Vandal Savage to catch up.
The two plots alternate between pages, but I have to do this otherwise the review would be confusing.
Back in the past, Dr. McCoy is more than a little skeptical of Q’s supposed omnipotence.
Okay first of all: in the original Star Trek series, the crew has already met SEVERAL characters with godlike powers (and one of them will even show up later).
I know McCoy’s deal is being a contrarian, but would it REALLY be weird for him to accept the idea of an alien being with such powers?
Second: I sure hope this is set before the semi-canon animated series, because that one is COMPLETELY BONKERS.
Especially the terrible The Magicks of Megas-tu where Spock does magic himself.
The story requires Past Vandal Savage to be able to trap and control an all-powerful being.
I wouldn’t put it past Present Vandal Savage since he knows a bit of magic, which MIGHT help with Q… but it’s absolutely ridiculous that a caveman manages to pull this off.
And no, we don’t get ANY explanation for HOW he does it.
With Q involved, this is going to be a battle of semantics and logic. So of course Spock is in his element here, reasoning that Q must follow Savage’s orders to the letter.
So they’re looking for loopholes.
This setup is perfect for Spock and Brainiac 5, but it leaves the others with little to do.
Thankfully the caveman controlled by Past Vandal Savage are used as a distraction.
Too bad it’s not an entertaining fight.
This is where the two plots converge; we’ll get back to Past Vandal Savage in a moment.
Because “meanwhile in the future”, Captain Kirk give Future Vandal Savage a speech that is easily the best part of the story.
According to Kirk, the reason why he completely wasted Q’s powers is that since he’s still basically a caveman he can’t even imagine a future where progress exists.
It’s an interesting perspective, and it’s not coming out of nowhere: there IS genuine debate on when the concept of the future being a better place than the present originated, but it’s undeniable that for the VAST part of humanity’s history that wasn’t the case.
The fact that Vandal Savage is a psychopath probably plays a role.
Back to the past they do find a loophole, which unfortunately is dependent on Past Vandal Savage being really dumb.
Because not only he wished Q to give him the means to control the other nearby tribes, but he also wished Q to take orders “from no one living on the face of the Earth”.
It only works because of a VERY specific wording from Past Vandal Savage, which is kind of lame.
And also since Q was somehow able to influence the arrival of time travelers, the whole thing leads to a time paradox…
…which ends up removing the entire story from history.
I HATE WHEN WRITERS TO THAT!!!
And so we have reached the epilogue, where Vandal Savage eventually becomes Flint in the Star Trek universe.
There’s only one character that remembers the events of the whole miniseries, and it’s Q.
Or if you’ve watched the original series episode The Squire of Gothos (which you should, it’s one of the greats), you know him as Trelane.
The idea that Trelane is a member of the Q Continuum is not a new one.
It was an important point in the 1994 book “Q-Squared” by Peter David, which I highly recommend.
But I’m sure the idea is much older than that in the fandom.
Flint DOES remember having met Q/Trelane and imprisoned him, but I’m guessing he doesn’t remember meeting the Legion or the Enterprise crew.
Flint then repeats his origin story from Requiem for Methuselah. I’m guessing this scene is set BEFORE that episode, since it looks like his android lover Rayna isn’t complete yet.
Q/Trelane wonders if there are other realities where Vandal Savage stops being evil, and that’s how the story ends.
This issue flies by like it was just five pages long. It’s a standard 22 pages, but almost nothing happens.
Does any of this show up in any regular continuity?
Only in the sense that it’s not the only Legion time travel story that completely erases itself in the end. Which, as mentioned, I always hate.
SHOULD any of this have happened in regular continuity?
Have we ever seen a version of Vandal Savage where he turns good, or at least not completely evil?
I can only think of the Justice League episode “Hereafter”, but not in comics.
That’s one of the best Vandal Savage stories ever, by the way, highly recommended.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Once again, how the heck did Past Vandal Savage manage to trap Q/Trelane???
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
What a letdown of a finale. This one has BARELY any interaction between the two casts, and the solution to the whole mystery is disappointing.
The idea of Flint being an alternate future version of Vandal Savage doesn’t really work for either character; I don’t buy that a world-conquering tyrant like Savage becomes the philosophical and artistic Flint over a couple of centuries (in the Justice League episode, for example, it took him spending 30,000 years in isolation after causing the end of the world). Not to mention they have different kinds of immortality.
I don’t have a huge problem with connecting Trelane with Q; it’s not my favorite use of the character, but it has precedent. And Jeff Moy does a good enough job selling his face as being the Q from Next Generation one moment and Trelane from the original series later.
But it comes at the very end, after the entire thing has been removed from history… which is yet another reason why this is a disappointing finale.