Reboot: The Legion #27

The Legion #27 (Late January 2004)
title: "Foundations Part Three"

writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

penciller: Chris Batista
inkers: Chip Wallace and Mark Farmer
lettering: Rob Leigh
colorist: Sno-Cone

editor: Stephen Wacker

cover: Tony Harris and Tom Feister

reviewers: Siskoid & Shotgun

Mission Monitor Board:  
Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy, Ferro, Gear, Invisible Kid, Karate Kid, Kid Quantum I (picture), Kid Quantum II, Sensor, Shikari, Spark, Star Boy, Superboy II, Timber Wolf, Triad, Ultra Boy, Umbra, Violet, XS

Guests: 
Chuck Taine, Science Police, Trudy Trusoe

Opponents: 
Catastrophists, Servants of Darkness (Firestorm, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Orion, one other unidentified)

Recap: 
Superboy has come out of a stargate with no memory of how he got to the future. A Catastrophist cult is calling this a sign of the Apocalypse, or perhaps just of Apokolips, as new Servants of Darkseid have appeared to prepare his return...

Synopsis: 
Brainiac 5 and Invisible Kid are under attack at the Time Institute. Whatever the Servants of Darkness came for, they leave suddenly and Lyle jumps into the Boom Tube after them. Brainy is dismayed to find they left a bomb behind. It levels the Time Institute, even if Brainy has time to save a few lives and priceless pieces of technology with his force field.

Superboy takes part in the rescue effort and the media is all over it. It drives the Catastrophists to clash with the believers of the Spirit of the Last Son, and Cosmic Boy is angry Connor would have chosen to wear that costume in public. Brainiac 5 is soon fast working on a way to find Lyle, and with Gear's help, runs scans on space-time. They find that anomalies echoing from a point 10 years before their time have been cropping up - something Kid Quantum has been perceiving more than most - and that the universe is, impossibly, getting smaller. Further, there's a new galaxy in the night sky!

Then Gear detects a faint signal from Invisible Kid, who is spying on the Servants as they shunt black matter into a reactivated stargate. This could explain the universe's loss of mass. The Legionnaires are soon through a threshold to help their just exposed member. Battle is joined, and eventually, the Servants flee via Boom Tube. Brainiac 5 surmises that stargates have been opened all over United Planets space, but where is the dark matter going? Shikari tracks the destination and the Legion finds that the new galaxy is actually an enormous Boom Tube!

Commentary: 
Shotgun
THERE WE GO!! That Hawk person knows what a good look is! It’s a bummer I can’t name her Hawkgirl since that’s someone else... Hawkface?... Hawkface!

ANYWAY, attacking Brainiac and Invisibile Kid is basically the bad guy’s undoing. You can be sure the team’s brains will now be able to find out what their plan is and how to stop them. Very courageous of Lyle to jump in and trust in his teammate. I fear what would’ve happened to him if Gear had only gotten his message later. Good fight there, with real imposing and powerful villains. I don’t LIKE seeing someone getting injured, but it sure helps the readers believe how intense the fight is. Hope Vi will make a quick recovery. We haven’t seen a lot of her lately and her character development suffered from it to the point where I don’t seem to care for her as much as I used to.

I can’t keep silent about Brainy’s personality. He’s rapidly getting higher and higher on my list of favorites. I enjoy the friendly banter, the witty remarks, and I’m a BIG FAN of "Damn. I hate bombs" panel. He’s become more caring and friendly over time and that’s’ always been something I look forward to in character’s arc. And then, kissing Lyle? Damn, I’m starting to 'ship those two! Ok... Ok I’ve been shipping them for a while now, you got me! I’m a pessimist, so I don’t think this will lead to anything, but it’s fun to pretend.

Siskoid
If they're gonna devote 2-3 pages an issue to Kid Quantum's visions, they really need to hurry up and tell us what's happening. Otherwise, this is a great issue for superhero fights. Brainy and Lyle are far from the most powerful members of the Legion, and seeing them hold their own against two Apokolips warriors was pretty fun. Love the force field tricks. And though yes, Brainiac 5 has gone through a mellowing arc, Reboot Invisible Kid has also changed with time. He used to be so cocky, but in a way that made him compete with Brainy. Now, he acknowledges that his friend will get him out of this mess because thinking of something is his super-power. Great moment.

The second fight is more of a free-for-all, coming on the heels of BIG PHYSICS revelations that give the storyline an epic quality (I mean, Darkseid IS waiting in the wings), but as Shotgun says, what we mostly remember is that when it ends, Brainy embraces Lyle. Now, the previous Reboot writers hinted at making Lyle gay as per LGBTQ+ fans' contention that he was (hinting at dates with the character that in another continuity was Chemical King), but Brainy has been either straight (something between him and Andromeda) or generally asexual. So I see that moment as a friendly one, in a culture where people have evolved beyond the sort of casual homophobia that makes men fear such platonic behavior. Maybe the writers intended to go there, there just isn't enough of the series left to really explore it.

Science Police Notes:  

• There is further confusion as to the placement of The Legion Secret Files 3003 as Superboy is presented to the media for the first in this issue, but had gone public some time before Secret Files, which occurs before the events of the Darkseid story.
• Though corrupted Firestorm seemed to have been destroyed in the previous issue, another corrupted Firestorm appears in this issue.