Teen Titans/Legion Special

Superboy and the Legion Part Two

Writers: Mark Waid & Geoff Johns
Pencillers: Ivan Reis & Joe Prado
Inker: Marc Campos
Colors: Sno-Cone
Lettering: Rob Leigh
Assistant Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Editors: Bouncing Berganza & Wonder Wacker

When you want to draw a cover with 50 different characters on it, there's only a handful of artists you can confidently turn to. Phil Jimenez is one of those artists. He gave us a great action scene, showing almost all the Legionnaires and almost all the Teen Titans (I can't find Kid Flash for some reason) battling dozens of versions of the Fatal Five. And in the middle of all this is Superboy, torn between his identity on these two teams. This cover seems to imply there is an actual, physical force splitting Superboy into two separate people, but the "trauma" he's experiencing is completely psychological. And, quite frankly, probably a bit overblown.

Our story begins with all our heroes on the ground, battling the Fatal Five Hundred. Cosmic Boy tells Robin to order the Teen Titans to fall back, saying they can't possibly win in a direct fight. Robin's hopeful they can work together to save the day, but four versions of the Persuader open up more rifts in reality to bring in even more version of the Fatal Five. So Saturn Girl coordinates and evacuation with Umbra, who gives them a cloak of darkness, and Raven, who teleports all the heroes to the Legion's old headquarters in Metropolis.

Beast Boy initially mocks the Legion for hiding in a building shaped like a giant letter L, but then he's reminded that the Titans work in a giant T. The Legionnaires refer to the Teen Titans as Superboy's old, or previous, group, telling them that Superboy has become a valued member of their team over the past five months. Bart tells Conner he likes his longer hair, saying it looks just like his. Apparition asks what "Conner" means, and Superboy says it's nothing, just a name. Cassie is worried by this and asks if Superboy wants to stay with the Legion. Superboy stammers for a bit, and can't find a good way to answer the question, so he excuses himself to change out of his torn Superman costume.

Bart thinks "Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes" sounds familiar, and as he's wondering this, Brainiac 5 injects Bart with a shot in his shoulder. Bart yelps in pain and tells "Brainy" not to shoot him, reminding him that he's Bart Allen. Brainiac says he drinks to forget Bart, and he only gave Bart the same nanite injection he gave XS. Right on cue, Bart's cousin, Jenni, appears and gives him a big hug. She compliments his new "fibers," and Bart corrects her, calling them "threads."

Jenni hints that she knows Bart wants to visit his mom, but she urges him to be patient. Brainiac 5 then presents his plan to everybody. Basically, they're going to bounce vibrational signals from this building off what's left of Legion World to reset all the villains' vibrational frequencies and send them back to their respective parallel worlds. According to Brainiac, the only people capable of generating those vibrations are XS and Koko. Bart corrects Brainiac, saying he's Kid Flash and Koko was the name of his pet monkey. Brainiac assures Bart the insult was intentional, and explains that the nannies he injected into the two speedsters will harness their kinetic energy through a treadmill he's building with Gear and Invisible Kid. Raven calls Brainiac 5 an ass, and Beast Boy hopes he's not related to him.

Meanwhile, Superboy continues to struggle to decide which team he wants to be on, and Wonder Girl struggles with his inability to decide. Suddenly, the headquarters is invaded by the Fatal Five Hundred, so everybody has to fight off the villains and protect XS and Kid Flash on the treadmill. After a bit of running (and a lot of fighting surrounding them), Bart tells Jenni he needs to see his mom. She tells him they can't stop yet, but Bart insists he'll only be gone for a second. He then references his Uncle Jeven (for the first time ever), asking Jenni if she's still close to her dad. Jenni says she hasn't seen him in months, and admits she misses him. Bart says this may be his only chance to tell his mom he misses her. So Jenni relents, saying she'll speed up so Brainiac doesn't notice the momentary drop in vibration. She tells Bart to not abandon her, he asks if she really thinks he would, and she says she knows he won't.

Despite Jenni's efforts, however, Gear and Brainiac 5 do notice a slowdown in the kinetic energy. But there's not much they can really do about it, as villains keep pouring into their base. Bart eventually does find his mom in Central City, leading a team of officers protecting the Flash Museum. Oddly, her troops refer to her as "Miss Thawne." One would think she'd want to go by Mrs. Allen to strengthen her connection to the Flash family and distance herself from her dictator father. Anyway, Bart tells her he's helping the Legion right now and doesn't have long. He gives his mom a big hug, and she's thrilled to see he's Kid Flash now, saying Bart's father would have loved to see this. Bart takes off, telling his mom not to forget him, and she says, "No one will ever forget ... the Flash."

The fight at the Legion headquarters grows more intense. At one point, Wonder Girl is pinned down and about to be sliced in half by one of the Persuaders. But Superboy, dressed in his black T-shirt and jeans, saves her at the last second. Invisible Kid notes the speedsters' kinetic energy has only charged their machine to 99 percent, so he urges Kid Flash and XS to pick it up. Bart says they can't go any faster, so Jenni starts calling him Koko. This surge in anger is enough to push Bart over the top and charge the resonator cells to maximum capacity.

All the villains begin disappearing instantly, but there is a side effect. Destroying the Persuaders' axes is unleashing an energy that's severing our heroes' connection to the space-time continuum. Bart is shocked that Brainiac got something wrong. Invisible Kid defends him, saying that some other force is pounding against reality. He spots the last remaining Persuader from this reality, still battling Superboy, and tells Bart that his axe is the only thing now that send the Teen Titans back to the 21st century.

Superboy grabs the axe before Bart can, and holds it in a telekinetic shield as reality unravels around our heroes, placing them in a swirling rainbow vortex. Cosmic Boy explains that the Persuader is already caught in a temporal loop and is destined to return to the 21st century, but if they keep the loop open long enough to return to the 31st century, the impact on the time stream will be catastrophic. But Cyborg notes that if they do take the axe back to the 21st century and close the loop, then the Legion will be trapped in this space between dimensions. Cosmic Boy agrees, saying the decision will be made the instant Superboy drops his telekinetic shield, meaning he must decide if he's a Legionnaire or a Titan.

After considering this for a moment, Superboy realizes there's only one choice before him and Cosmic Boy was just testing him (which Cosmic Boy admits to). Superboy says the safest course is to take everybody back to the 21st century, where they can later find a way to get the Legion back to their time. Unfortunately, Superboy took too long to make this decision, as the Persuader was able to escape Starfire's grasp and fight Superboy for control of his axe. And this ruins everything.

The Teen Titans are sent in one direction, the Legionnaires in the other. The Titans quickly fly past some images of their near future before crash-landing in front of Titans Tower. However, they're pretty sure they're not quite home. The Legionnaires, meanwhile, all link hands to endure the rainbow storm together. But one of them isn't able to hold on, and she actually does make it back to the 31st century, only to find a completely different world with a completely different Legion of Super-Heroes. And this issue ends with a backup story by Mark Waid, setting up the new comic series for this new Legion.



This was a pretty fun issue with an epic, smash-em-up feel. We got some more of that explosive Ivan Reis art, plus the writing of Impulse creator Mark Waid. There was plenty of fun action for all the characters, and our little Bart Allen actually had a critical role to play. Yeah, the bit with him being called Koko was pretty cheesy, but it was better than Bart's usual role this year of merely pulling bystanders out of the way. It was a little odd that Brainiac 5 called Bart that, since Brainiac actually liked Bart the last time they met. Perhaps this was just Brainiac's way of playfully teasing an old friend in a stressful situation. And speaking of Koko, what happened to that monkey? Did it die?

A story like this really could have benefitted from a couple of mores issues. For example, Superboy's conflict of choosing between the two teams really fell flat because we didn't see any of the time he spent with the Legion. That could have been shown in an issue of Legion or Superboy (if that series was still going). And in Bart's case, I wish he had his own series to spend an issue to tell us more about his mom and even how his despotic grandfather fell from power. Regardless, I was thrilled to see Bart reunited with his cousin and his mom in the middle of a sprawling adventure.

Next time, we're going to review our first TV episode, "Run" from Smallville.