A guy in a tunic karate chopping a robot to death, with the accompanying sound effect "SQUEEEE", in a comic book written by Jim Shooter. How many people caught that one?
You know, there's a lot of water under the bridge, and Jim Shooter certainly ain't the same man who premiered on the Legion way back in 1966. But I've always liked his writing. My love for early Valiant is well-documented, and you'd have to look pretty hard for someone who didn't love the Korvac saga, or, even, the first Secret Wars. (Yeah, it's cheesy as fuck but don't you wish more superhero comics these days at least made the effort?) Star Brand was pretty good, too, in a totally-weird-subconscious-roman a clef way. Shooter may have been an arrogant prick in a lot of ways - now isn't the time to rehash that - but his instincts as a writer of science-fiction-based superhero stories has rarely strayed him wrong. (I still can't explain Plasm.)
And sure enough - with one issue back, the Legion actually feels like The Legion again. No offense to the folks in charge of the book these past years, but there's something to be said for trying to write kids that actually act like kids, and not thirty-five-year-olds in teen drag. Mark Waid's Legion read, honestly, more like a spec script for a Star Trek spin-off, and it was all pretty damn staid for a book explicitly about teenage rebellion. It's not rocket science, people - a book about teenagers with godlike powers who live in Outer Space and want to fuck each other's brains out should not read like the minutes of a UN subcommittee meeting.
(Edit: I should probably point out that the Legion itself was never traditionally about teenage rebellion, but that was the tag line for Waid's reboot.)
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