Smallville Season 11 #15 (2013)
by Bryan Q. Miller & Daniel HDR
cover by Pete Woods
Continuing the surprisingly good appearance of the Legion in the Smallville spin-off.
Booster Gold is going to sit out most of the action, since he’s been captured by Earth’s government and is being tortured for information.
His robot buddy Skeets has it worse.
But more importantly for the scope of this retrospective, this is when Cosmic Boy recruits ALL the available Legionnaires!
Left to right we have *deep breath* Princess Projectra, Timber Wolf, Shrinking Violet, Star Boy, Ferro Lad, Dream Girl, Wildfire, Lightning Lad, Dawnstar, Invisible Kid II, Sun Boy, Bouncing Boy, Triplicate Girl, Element Lad, Phantom Girl, Ultra Boy and Chameleon Boy.
There’s an interesting variation of designs here, integrating a mixture of costumes from the Threeboot, the Retroboot, and a few nods to earlier incarnations for good measure.
Considering that MOST of the Legionnaires don’t get a single line or anything to do, this is 100% fanservice for the Legion fans.
Honestly, it’s kind of working for me!
But this is still a Superman book, so the focus goes back to him when he has to confront Supergirl.
Who is understandably upset that humans have desecrated the tomb of one of the founders of New Krypton.
The argument between the two cousins is that Clark sent the Kryptonians back into space Earth wasn’t ready for them yet… and Supergirl has to point out that a thousand years later they are STILL not ready.
I understand Superman’s point, but honestly I’m kind of siding with Supergirl on the issue.
She does eventually calm down.
This also gets us a good view of her costume, and I have to say that it’s not bad. I prefer to have a skirt, but out of all the Supergirl costumes with pants (there’s been a couple) this might be my favorite.
My only complaint is the lack of yellow on the symbol.
Both are interrupted by their respective teams…
…because Earth has sent Doomsday to New Krypton.
If you forgot that Doomsday showed up in Smallville… good, because it sucked.
Technically speaking, Earth didn’t send Doomsday… it was all the work of its insane Prime Minister. Understandably, New Krypton is not buying it and is retaliating.
Superman is going to deal with Doomsday… again… and Supergirl with the Legion will handle Krypton’s weapons.
The closest thing this continuity gets to a Brainiac 5 who has a crush on Supergirl.
In the confusion, Booster Gold escapes and even repairs Skeets.
Out of the entire Legion, Superman just took Saturn Girl with him.
Because in any continuity, Saturn Girl is the best.
Smallville sure went to unexpected places, like having Doomsday being Zod’s child.
Superman explains to the New Kryptonians how he failed to stop the original Doomsday.
This time is going to be different, considering Superman now RECRUITS THE KRYPTONIANS.
So now we have Doomsday fighting an entire army of Supermen!!!
And it’s STILL NOT ENOUGH.
Well that’s a bummer. How’s the Legion doing?
EVEN WORSE.
Those are some seriously old cars for the 31st century.
Fortunately this is when Booster Gold provides assistance; the Kryptonian bomb was an anti-gravity thing sending humans into space, so he uses a ship to rescue them.
I feel like having STAR BOY around might have been more useful to negate the effects of an anti-gravity bomb, but sure.
Even Earth’s government is proving useful. That’s not something you see every day.
Despite the understandable mistrust, the Legion accepts the help.
I was a bit confused by the costume of the girl on the left, but I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be Phantom Girl and they miscolored her costume.
With that being dealt with, there’s still the issue with Doomsday… who is being through into the Sun by Superman.
Unfortunately, this version of Superman is not strong enough to overcome the Sun’s gravity, so this is a suicide mission.
But he’s luckily saved by the Legion.
Yeah they are DEFINITLY trying to get a nostalgic reaction from the Legion fans.
In the end, the Prime Minister is removed from office (OFF-SCREEN) and a new era of cooperation between Earth and New Krypton begins.
Superman also gets his Flight Ring back… sort of.
That ring has quite a complicated timeline at this point.
If I got this right… big “if”… the timeline is this:
Legion time -> Clark receives it in the TV show -> Supergirl takes it to the Legion future -> Clark has it now -> At a later date, Clark leaves the ring in a museum -> Booster steals it in HIS time -> Booster brings it to the past -> Booster brings it to the Legion future -> Superman has it.
Unlike Supes, I love time travel!
Superman invites his cousin to return to the 21st century, but she’ll hang around in the future for a while.
She will eventually get back in other Smallville comics, without mentioning the Legion.
Does any of this show up in any regular continuity?
A time-lost Supergirl hangs around for a while with the Threeboot Legion (the series is even retitled “Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes”).
And having Kryptonians around Earth causes trouble a few times in the 21st century as well.
SHOULD any of this have happened in regular continuity?
I really like the idea of the Flight Ring being tossed around throughout multiple eras, not always linearly.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
I can 100% see this moment in a Silver Age story. 
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Like the previous chapters, much better than it has any rights to be… but it’s still clunky.
The entire subplot with the Prime Minister should have been cut, since it doesn’t go anywhere.
Nor does the fact that New Krypton worships Faora, despite the previous issue making such a huge deal out of it.
And of course, while I understand that this is a Superman book… they really could’ve given the Legion more to do, because besides Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl nobody else truly contributes to the plot. Watching Doomsday be attacked by an entire city of Kryptonians was quite satisfying; too bad it barely lasts a page before we switch to a more traditional plan.
On the plus side, Supergirl’s development was nicely handled and you see some of the love the writer and artist have for the Legion manages to shine through.
We are Legion
22 active members
-Cosmic Boy
-Saturn Girl
-Lightning Lad
-Brainiac 5
-Wildfire
-Dawnstar
-Karate Kid (the only one from the previous issue who does NOT show up here!)
-Ferro Lad
-Star Boy
-Sun Boy
-Princess Projectra
-Timber Wolf
-Shrinking Violet
-Dream Girl
-Invisible Kid II
-Bouncing Boy
-Triplicate Girl
-Element Lad
-Phantom Girl
-Ultra Boy
-Chameleon Boy
-Supergirl (I’m assuming the ending means she re-joins)
1 reserve member
-Superman
This is not the last Legion story set in the Smallville universe; I will cover that one next time.
Before that they do have a one-page cameo in 2014’s “Smallville: Lantern” #1 that acknowledges this story. It’s not enough to warrant a whole review so I’m just going to mention it here.
