C3G Comic Book Club READING Period till 7/21

[Lord Pyre]

Looks like Hoopla has ALL of Invincible!!! Including most of the Spin off titles! (Invincible Universe, Wolf-Man. No Brit though. )

[IAmBatman]

Good to know! Further motivation to get a library card ....

[Xael Raymand]

I may have to look into this, I still haven’t read the 3rd Invincible Compendium

[IAmBatman]

Me too! I've been trying to wait and collect them all, but this might be a better path.

[MrNobody]

I know I'm a few minutes early, but I might be busy tomorrow so I'm going to post now.

So this isn't the most amazing LoSH story of all time, but I think it's pretty solid. You usually can expect that from Geoff Johns. I personally think it serves as a decent intro to the characters (we'll see if anybody else agrees with that) and does a good job at expressing the optimism that is eternally buried at the core of Legion.

I'm not a huge fan of the art that looks like everybody is mid-poop. I also do have to admit I find the idea that Earth would get completely propagandized that quickly to be a bit unbelievable, but a) it's comics, and b) they do a good bit to justify it in story so it's not too big of a deal.

Reading Notes:

Spoiler Alert!

ISSUE #1
-“We kill it.” Yep, this is a Geoff Johns book.
-I always feel pretty bad when Clark Kent is written as a sadsack. He sacrifices so much in his personal life just to keep up the disguise.

ISSUE #2
-Never been a huge fan of this artist. It’s not terrible, but every character’s face looks like they gambled on a fart and lost.
-Cosmic Boy throwing Batarangs, so cool.
-Dawnstar’s powers are constantly malfunctioning anytime the writers need someone to be hard to find. So basically they work until she actually needs them.

ISSUE #3
-A surprising amount of restraint by Johns here, having Polar Boy get his arm ripped off off-screen.
-I love this Brainy costume. Then again, I’m a big fan of superfluous long coats on characters in general.

ISSUE #4
-“I only give my body to Earth Man now.” This is how women talk.

ISSUE #5
-More Geoff Johns-isms with killing off some of the subs

ISSUE #6
-The SP got Zoidberg!

Design Notes:
I did an Earth-Man design a while back. Being able to copy multiple powers at a time is probably busted, so I'd maybe go back and limit it to 1 powerset at a time. That design also doesn't cover his later heroic turn, but if I ever do that Brainiac 5 II he can rope Kirt in.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Spoilers just in case.

Spoiler Alert!

I thought it was ok, certainly nothing special and definitely didn't make me feel the need to read anymore of late 2000s Superman/Legion though. Mostly it was just kinda forgettable. Not anywhere near as bad as Demon Bear, but it also lacked Demon Bear's memorable idiocy like Sunspot: Master of keeping doors shut! Much of the dialogue here felt like it came from an 'intro to comic-book writing' example book or something.

Perhaps if I knew more about this era's take on Superman and the assorted Legionaries maybe I'd actually care about any of these people, but I don't, and the story never did anything to make me care. Felt like it might have been better served by focusing on fewer characters in this department. The nightmarish faces everyone gets at one point or another did not help with me trying to connect with them either.

I would have appreciated a flashback or something showing how Earth-Man managed to get this far, since I just didn't find the whole set-up very convincing.

Visually, the book seemed to flip between either painfully dull or straight up bad (the aforementioned nightmare faces). Doesn't seem like the artist was very inspired by the project (which I can't really blame him for).

I will forever curse the name of Geoff Johns for denying us the Double-Header/Double-Header crossover we deserved.

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by Soundwarp SG-1

Spoilers just in case.

Spoiler Alert!

I thought it was ok, certainly nothing special and definitely didn't make me feel the need to read anymore of late 2000s Superman/Legion though. Mostly it was just kinda forgettable. Not anywhere near as bad as Demon Bear, but it also lacked Demon Bear's memorable idiocy like Sunspot: Master of keeping doors shut! Much of the dialogue here felt like it came from an 'intro to comic-book writing' example book or something.

Perhaps if I knew more about this era's take on Superman and the assorted Legionaries maybe I'd actually care about any of these people, but I don't, and the story never did anything to make me care. Felt like it might have been better served by focusing on fewer characters in this department. The nightmarish faces everyone gets at one point or another did not help with me trying to connect with them either.

I would have appreciated a flashback or something showing how Earth-Man managed to get this far, since I just didn't find the whole set-up very convincing.

Visually, the book seemed to flip between either painfully dull or straight up bad (the aforementioned nightmare faces). Doesn't seem like the artist was very inspired by the project (which I can't really blame him for).

I will forever curse the name of Geoff Johns for denying us the Double-Header/Double-Header crossover we deserved.

Okay yeah spoilers are probably fair.

Spoiler Alert!

I think one of the big problems* of getting into LoSH is that it's a bit like a soap opera. I care about these characters just because I do, because I'm invested in their lives and what goes on in them, and I totally can see how it's hard to get invested in them when there's not really an easy hopping-on point, unless you're willing to start from the beginning of one of the reboots and just read all the way through. I think it's actually a lot like X-Men in many way, but X-Men has the huge benefit of cultural osmosis allowing people to come in with some attachment to the characters.

I kind of agree with the idea that the setup isn't convincing, but I also feel like they did just about the best they could do with the fairly outlandish premise.There are a few lines in there about how there's still a constant debate raging about Earth-Man's ideas, we're just seeing the "bad side" of it. I dunno, maybe I'm just getting defensive over a book I like, but it was enough explanation that I was able to file it under "silly comic book stuff" and move on.

The art is pretty indefensible. And just to add insult to injury, the story that continues on from this has George freakin' Pérez on art.

*There are a lot of big problems.

[japes]

Looks like a new round may start up soon. Hopefully I can join in this time. Cool idea.