Legion Lost Volume 1
What They Say:
Seven heroes from the 31st century have traveled back to the present day. Their mission: Save their future from annihilation. But when the future tech they brought with them fails, they find themselves trapped in a nightmarish world that, for them, is the ultimate struggle to survive!
The Legionnaires struggle to find the hulking bio-terrorist Alastor, who released the deadly virus that has nearly wiped out the present day DC Universe, but with teammate losses mounting and new enemies popping up at every turn, the Legionnaires may never be able to return home.
The Review:
While I had been into any number of DC Comics series over the years, the ones I always return to after dropping out of comics at any given time is a Legion book. With the New 52 launch, I was glad to see that in addition to the ongoing main series in the 31st century, we were also getting a 21st century book as well. The whole fish out of water thing is always fun with time travel and bringing back a small group of characters and focusing on them for the run of the book gives them all more time to shine than they normally would in the large ensemble cast of the future. With Legion Lost, initially written by Fabian Nicieza and taken over by Tom DeFalco while drawn by Pete Woods, we get a series that has some big potential to it but plays its cards fairly close to the vest. While it has a bit of an awkward first chapter, things roll well once it gets going and makes for a good and mostly engaging read.
The premise of the series is straightforward and we get a good set of details along the way as each issue is told from a different Legionnaires perspective. Ending up in Red Lakes, Minnesota, a small team from the Legion of Super-Heroes has come to the past, breaking past the Flashpoint Wall, in order to clean up a mess that was caused in the future. The team of seven, made up of Wildfire, Tyroc, Chameleon Girl, Tellus, Dawnstar, Timber Wolf and Gates, is chasing after a man named Alastor who managed to leave an hour before them and arrive nearly thirty hours into the past before them. That’s given him enough time to kick off his plan, which is the kind of thing that does make a twisted sort of sense. His achieved goal is to let loose with a pathogen on Earth that will corrupt human DNA, causing it to bind with untold thousands of different types of alien DNA in order to remove the distinct human genome from existence.
Alastor’s reasons are given over time and it definitely has the right feel to it as we learn a touch about the Xenophobic riots that were going on in the 31st century, a big part of that series, and how a particular incident caused his younger sister at a university to be killed while on Earth. His hatred for humanity took over and through a lot of hard work and a good bit of luck, he ended up with the Hypertaxis virus that allows various combinations to happen once exposed. He ends up traveling back into the past to release it since his attempt in the 31st century failed and he intends to have his vengeance. The Legion can’t let that stand so they headed back in their own time bubble, but the journey did not end well and now both parties are stranded in the past. Though that may be less from the crash itself and more due to the Flashpoint Wall which has cut off the time period from a lot of interference.
The hunt for Alastor is the basis for things here and the team is like most Legion mission teams in that there are personality conflicts, even though they all are focused on the mission itself. Each member has a long, long history behind them but they still come across as very accessible here as their personalities are explored through the narration each of them carries and also their actions in the missions. It’s a good blend of the two methods that leaves us understanding the basics and a bit more of them. It’s less about their histories though and more about the friction between members in approach to the mission as well as the generally growing fear about their inability to get back to their own timeline. This provide for some good tension as you have those like Timber Wolf that just want to get into action and do what they’ve always done, being the hero and good guy, while others are far more laser-like focused on the mission.
The first volume plays well with this overall in terms of familiarizing us with the characters and how they cope with the situation. Getting a good look at Alastor over the course of it helps as well as you understand his motivations, if not the scale of his vengeance he wants to wreck upon others. But the book also gives us a good bit of action as we see normal humans impacted by the pathogen and mutating in different ways, bringing some characteristics of the various alien species into play, from energy beings to Durlan’s and more. It’s not delved into heavily and few people can be save from the whole thing, but the way we get to see just how dangerous the pathogen is works well, even if you do expect it to have a wider impact quickly. I also like that during one exchange with Alastor, Tellus is able to tweak into his mind and show him how his pathogen could end up making humanity a much larger threat earlier on and radically changing the future. That’s not what Tellus wants, but it presents an intriguing idea that could be explored in some form.
In Summary:
Legion Lost is one of those secondary Legion of Super-Heroes books that will have its audience but never be huge. It gives us a different taste of things from what we know but set in the present day, similar to the very fun LEGION series of the 90′s that took place. With Legion Lost, I really liked the overall tone of the book, the quick pacing and the fun of it all even as there’s a threat. Honestly, it may be straightforward and done in a way that some fans may not care for, but if you step back and really look at it, this is easy template stuff for a superhero science fiction movie. It’s only lightly connected to the rest of the DC Universe at this stage, offering up only a Martian Manhunter appearance that makes sense considering his Stormwatch position, but otherwise it plays in its own story line and makes it clear why they don’t go and interact with any of the big name heroes while on their mission. This is a fun book, something that a lot of comics ten to not have, and it hits a lot of good marks while still having a serious storyline and tone to it overall.
Grade: B+
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