Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 – Brian Michael Bendis, Writer; Riley Rossmo, Artist; Ivan Plascencia, Colorist
Ray – 7/10
Ray: I’m still not sure if this is the actual finale of Brian Michael Bendis’ Legion run, but if it is—well, a Future State tie-in isn’t exactly the best place to tie up dozens of plots involving countless Legion members. All the minis have some heavy lifting to do in terms of introducing us to a new status quo, but few are as busy as this one. When we last left off, the Legion was in ruins after a betrayal by one of their own—revealed as Element Lad—devastated several planets and turned the former Legionnaires against each other. As this issue opens, the Legion is in hot pursuit of their fugitive former member, and it’s clear most of them have embraced a more ruthless version of justice. The chase segments are nicely tense, but I’m not sure Rossmo’s art—as good as it is—is the right fit for a Legion story. His stylized approach is better for a gritty or surreal story than a futuristic one most times.
With only forty pages to wrap up a cosmic story, things happen fast and furious with Saturn Girl being the mechanism of plot shifts for the most part. This makes sense—as a psychic, her abilities make her an easy deus ex machina. She’s able to quickly reveal the truth about Element Lad’s involvement, but that leads to another shocking reveal. Cosmic Boy’s role mainly seems to be to be angry—and that’s one of the problems with this story. Major characters are given just a few panels to develop a story arc in the future and only a few get any sort of spotlight. Saturn Girl’s eventual showdown with the actual villain in the psychic plane is the best scene of the issue, although you can see those pages ticking down and she ultimately has to describe what she’s done in some quick dialogue to bring things to a close. Some good points here, but too compressed—the opposite of what we usually get with a Bendis story.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
