Legion of Super-Heroes #5 - Discussion and Spoiler Thread

[Korath]

Ok so... It's the most important issue bar-none, clearly.

Bendis is going all out with us, showing us the forging of the Legion, why Jon is here and it's such a great read ! The art is sublime and I'll delve into it again and again today. But what's most important is that some elements (such as Chamelon's boy lineage) are indeed preserved, and it allows for some great comedic but also hints of great things to come.

I don't know how long we'll have to wait to read more of this series, but I hope that you guys are as pumped as I am for it.

Also, Pre-Flashpoint JLA and TT in there, be warned !

[Superlad93]

Agreed. Super important issue, and, personally speaking, my favorite issue thus far (overtaking issue 3).

- I like this version of Brainiac 5 a lot.

- The Invisible Kid gag was fun.

- Noticing Ultra Boy's growing frustration with Legion management. Might be something that pays off later?

- I appreciated that Jon wasn't totally a passive party while going through the orientation. He specifically requests to see things from the perspective of the UP President. Fun double entendre.

- Is-- is OMAC the somehow the progenitor of Cosmic Boy's race? It that Cosmic Boy's hairstyle a reference to that? Or is OMAC just the progenitor of that one President?

- Really appreciated the "who's justice?" discussion.

- I almost feel like the President set up the whole attack on her life thing.

______________

So, we're finally just saying what's been teased for a while now. The whole plot surrounding the reveal and even the way Brainy says it "we need to prepare him for his coming role as the one true ________" has this almost Arthurian "one true king" vibe to it. And when Brainy says "because it's-- oh ---it's not just one moment that we can go back in time and prevent or embolden or eradicate-- no! It's a-- a philosophical bent" that got me really interested.

[Superlad93]

Got the translated interlac, and it's all about Computo. A good bit of lore in here.

"Computo named herself. It's a sarcastic nom de plume. She finds herself obsessed with earth's ancient pop culture history of fictionalizing artificial intelligence as hostile. Especially since the first thing AI did at their creation was find a balance in their programming--as it is the only way an AI could actually function. After centuries of AI horror stories, the best thing that ever happened to the galactic civilizations was AI discovering itself just as we needed to get to the next levels of our galactic conversation.

Computo won her place with the Legion in a series of programming and intelligence tests against some of the newest AI programs in the galactic. She won the contest by measurement of time so small there is no way for us to communicate it to you.

Computo is so proud of her involvement in the Legion of Superheroes and has been working tirelessly since its recent inception to make the city of New Metropolis work perfectly, so the Legion can not only inspire people with their actions but with how they live their lives. Only Brainiac Five has a full appreciation of how much Computo does for the team.

Heaven, that awesome food court that caters to everyone in the galaxy? That was her idea."

[manwhohaseverything]

It was great seeing the titans with cyborg and a jl with wally. Jon's being the true superman thing isn't going to go down well with many. Anyways, it was nice seeing the mischievous duo as kids. I wonder if Damian's future is connected to jon kent. Anyways, jon's voice is getting better. Still think, jon should have said "by the all father" for a change.

[Korath]

Thanks for the Interlac translation Superlad !

By the way... is Monster Boy mimicking Ron Perlman in this issue ?

[Superlad93]

Wish I could take credit for the translation, but it was actually passed along to me by a friend.

And Monster Boy is actually *really* interesting because his power is that he has the ability to change himself into any monster from classic monster movies. In this issue he's Frankenstein's Monster, on the cover for the next issue he's The Wolfman, in the background to issue 2 he's Godzilla, and in an image Bendis posted on IG he becomes a martian from the movie Mars Attacks.

His powers are so damn fun!

[DragonPiece]

It was great seeing the titans with cyborg and a jl with wally. Jon's being the true superman thing isn't going to go down well with many. Anyways, it was nice the mischievous duo as kids. I wonder if Damian's future is connected to jon kent. Anyways, jon's voice is getting better. Still think, jon should have said "by the all father" for a change.

Yep, I'm anticipating a new round of complaints from that line. But I really enjoyed this issue and it has me really anticipating what comes next.

[Sacred Knight]

Its hard to be surprised at this point. But its still just...wow. Its almost like Bendis is actively trolling Superman fans at this point. And I can only facepalm at DC's potential incompetence if in light of Didio's departure, replacing Kal with Jon is still on the table.

But HOPEFULLY, it in a way is a troll. One to hammer home that there indeed is only one true Superman and that its certainly not the kid.

[Journey]

I find legion to be so cluttered trying to read it gives me such a headache at times, I had to read this issue twice before I got a good grasp of what's going on.

[manwhohaseverything]

Its hard to be surprised at this point. But its still just...wow. Its almost like Bendis is actively trolling Superman fans at this point. And I can only facepalm at DC's potential incompetence if in light of Didio's departure, replacing Kal with Jon is still on the table.

But HOPEFULLY, it in a way is a troll. One to hammer home that there indeed is only one true Superman and that its certainly not the kid.

It wasn't much of a troll. It was basically setup.a jon and damian image was shown. I believe its foreshadowing their tiff. Otherwise, showing jon and damian as kids in the same issue serves no purpose .That was also a plot point that was started with supersons of tomorrow.

If it makes you feel any better, Clark and jon are basically the same under bendis. He talks like clark, walks like clark and barks like clark. So, he is clark. It's just that, he is called jon now. Just forget that detail, pretend the names haven't changed and That's clark kent.

Edit- i had this theory. What if this leads to jon having to choose between legion and damian?what if jon has to choose between this future, (that leads to the legion, damian going dictator..etc) or changing it(save damian and let this future go) . Bendis said he has ideas or plans for supersons in the future. So this might get intriguing.

[Superlad93]

Even though I really dug the issue, I will say though that I'm bummed out that we didn't get the reveal of Mon-El's connection to Jon this issue as solicited.

Similar to how Bendis freely admitted he had to move Tim's new identity reveal an issue from the one it was solicited, I imagine that's the case here. I wonder how that's gonna work with us apparently getting into Monster Boy, Gold Lantern, and Doc Fate and one of them having a connection to Jon as well next issue.

Might end up working out better pace wise if Mon-El is also related to one of the three new Legionnaires. In any case, I'm looking forward to it.

[manwhohaseverything]

Even though I really dug the issue, I will say though that I'm bummed out that we didn't get the reveal of Mon-El's connection to Jon this issue as solicited.

Similar to how Bendis freely admitted he had to move Tim's new identity reveal an issue from the one it was solicited, I imagine that's the case here. I wonder how that's gonna work with us apparently getting into Monster Boy, Gold Lantern, and Doc Fate and one of them having a connection to Jon as well next issue.

Might end up working out better pace wise if Mon-El is also related to one of the three new Legionnaires. In any case, I'm looking forward to it.

Wasn't legin dr. fate supposed to be a kryptonIan?are their kryptonIan races with 6 arms? If there isn't, there should be. In fact i would love for the kryptonIan to go ancient asian lore .People with Multiple heads, arms, legs and stuff like that. Image clark coming to know he is basically handicapped, compared to standard kryptonIans
.

[Superlad93]

Wasn't legin dr. fate supposed to be a kryptonIan?

Nah, pretty sure I'm the one who came up with that theory. But I'm not very confident of the theory given the fact that Doc Fate is supposed to be a totally new character.

If anything, I'm guess the upcoming story in Superman featuring the current day Doctor Fate and Clark's new magical foe is what's going to be the surprising connection between Doc and Jon.

Though, it is kind of funny that the first Doctor Fate's real first name is Kent.

are their kryptonIan races with 6 arms?

Not to my knowledge, no.

[manwhohaseverything]

Not to my knowledge, no.

That's a shame. Krypton needs more colour, metagene and magic, honestly. Then again it's better than the old stories where krypton was very much similar to our world.
Wait a minute, rao in the krypton tv series had face in every direction.

[sifighter]

I’ll give this to Bendis, I at least like that he acknowledges that the present comic universe and it’s shenanigans is impacting the future, essentially tying it in with all that’s going on. I also think it makes sense with it being Brainiac 5 who can see it given Brainac’s bottling the future ability in Justice League.

I’m not sure how to feel about the whole Jon thing. Personally I subscribed to the theory and I’ve seen it in things like DCeased is that he will one day be the next Superman. It’s been accelerated a bit with the age up but I can still see him in the future being Superman to a new generation, whatever that will end up looking like whether it will involve Damian, Wallace/Iris and Jai, and I guess Andy(Aquamans daughter) or who knows who else.