Broken Frontier

A mysterious figure brings Superboy Prime to the future. His goal is the destruction of the Legion, but it seems that the United Planets Council may be in the midst of doing that themselves.

Geoff Johns wrote one of the best Legion stories ever in Action Comics. It was exciting and reestablished the connection between Superman and the men who trained him. That story continues here as the after effects of that story line have thrown xenophobic ranting to an all time high. This eventually leads to the Legion recalling Superman and the idea to get two other Legions to help as Prime enlists his own Legion of Super Villains.

This is all well and good, but we’ve seen it all before. Star Wars is on full display here, from the farmers who parallel not only the Kent’s but Skywalker’s Uncle and Aunt. Maybe there is some play back and forth between the two mythos. I have no problem with that, but the direct opposition being a dark version of the good guys, the set of the Council being the same as the Senate, the mission to redeem Prime or the lack of subtlety in its socio-political commentary. It’s all just a little too familiar in its broad strokes.

What is here, as always with Johns, are the details. The museum to Superman having every detail right and then the guide being an interactive hologram of Jimmy Olsen is brilliant. Johns skillfully relates the origin of not only Kal-El but gives a brief history of the Legion, so that later events will make sense to new readers.

Johns also handles a load of characters here and manages to give them distinct voices that seem right. That is a complicated task to handle and one of the faults with most renditions of the Legion is that lesser writers are incapable of the task. Most of the voicing seems right here, but Superboy Prime comes off childish and whiny as he did in Sinestro Corps. While the voicing is still strange to me, at least it is consistent and that characterization leads to the most fun of the book as he is lead through the museum by a clueless hologram. Of course, when he finds that he has been reduced to a footnote in the history of Superman, he goes off the deep end and decides to escalate things. There are also nice moments with Superman and the return of R.J. Brande.

Can one even attempt to criticize George Perez? He is a brilliant artist with an iconic style. His story telling is superb. He’s a living legend and a really nice guy to boot. It will be fun to watch him play three Legions off of each other and just like he did with Crisis on the Infinite Earths, he makes it look easy to juggle and impossibly large cast. If I can’t have him drawing for Marv Wolfman, I guess a Johns script will do.

This comic is a lot of fun and shows a heck of a lot of potential. I just wish its influences weren’t so out in the open. It is skillfully written but horribly derivative. Fortunately, Johns has given himself enough room to move away from what has been told and to brave a new path going forward. I hope the destination is better than this historical exposition.