Generations Forged #1

Generations Forged #1 (April 2021)

writers: Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt, & Robert Venditti
artists: Mike Perkins; Marco Santucci; Paul Pelletier & Norm Rapmund; Bernard Chang; Joe Prado; Colleen Doran; Bryan Hitch & Andrew Currie; Dan Jurgens & Kevin Nowlan
colorist: Hi-Fi
letterer: Tom Napolitano
editors: Andrea Shea & Brian Cunningham
cover: Liam Sharp; variant by Rafael Albuquerque & Brad Anderson

reviewer: Russell "Bilingual Boy" Burbage

Overall Summary: 
The Time Champions from Generations Shattered #1 have been scattered all over various eras, hopeless to face off against the Big Bad to try to rectify his messing with the time stream. Fortunately for them, Dominus is too impatient to just let them die off, and sends minions against them. That eventually allows the heroes to regroup and find a way to restore the time stream. What, you thought DC would leave it broken? 

One of the Time Champions, you may recall, is the Superboy from the Bronze Age Legion of Super-Heroes, and one of Dominus' lackeys is former Legionnaire Nemesis Kid!  

If you haven't gotten a copy of Generations Shattered #1, you can read my review of it here. 

Spoiler Alert! 

You may recall that I kinda liked Generations Shattered. It's a simplified CRISIS story, where heroes from various ages are brought together to battle a Big Bad, written and drawn like one of those Bronze Age Very Special Issues. At the end of that story the super-heroes are scattered into the time stream like so many leaves blown about on an Autumnal wind. This issue picks up with the Big Bad, a guy named Dominus, manipulating a black-and-white family life as the heroes seem doomed. 

Is it just me or is Dominus supposed to look like Brian Michael Bendis? 

We check in on Our Heroes on Krypton, Prehistoric Thanagar, and Future Earth (I guess?). A few things happen, such as Starfire and Dr. Light meet Superman's parents, but basically these scenes are just for what Steel says they are doing: waiting. Nothing terribly interesting happens, and the art is different per each chapter, Your mileage may vary on whether you enjoy these time interludes or not. 

I did like Superboy's impatience while stuck on Thanagar, though, and Steel's insistence that all they can do is wait. This has a huge pay-off, and I smiled in spite of myself when Steel is proven wise. 

On the other hand, the whole bit on Krypton was awful. I didn't like how Kamandi suddenly got scared, or how Dr. Light helped postpone the planetary explosion, or how Starfire doubted Kamandi. It seemed like just a total waste of....er....time. It doesn't help that I don't recognize the bad guys who show up (except OMAC, of course). 

Speaking of the bad guys, this is a Legion site, so I am happy to mention that Nemesis Kid returns. He gets a great fight scene with Superboy. I'm not going to post it here because I don't want to spoil it in case you want to pick up the issue. I'm not sure I agree with how the writers presented Nemesis Kid's powers,  but I have to admit it was well done, and it DOES make sense. So I guess I'll let it go. 

Unfortunately, Nemesis Kid being used well is the exception. I don't know who the women fighters are and never cared. I hate hate hate Major Force. Ultra-Humanite is not the type of character to go along with being used by Dominus, so his inclusion here seemed wrong. On the other hand, playing around with the time stream doesn't get the attention of the Time Trapper!? I was very sad that he did not make any appearance. 

And as for Dominus himself, I had no idea who or what he was at the beginning of the story. By the end of the story, I still didn't. I figured he was DC's version of Kang? Or another version of The Lord of Time? It would have been nice to have gotten a page or two of historical background on him. Does that not happen in comics any more? 

Anyway, the heroes confront him in his Pleasantville pseudo-reality, and then....send him into a pocket universe? (warning: that shit never works!) Along the way their time-lines are restored. No specific changes or alterations, according to Wave Rider and Adult Booster Gold. That just calls into question: what was the point of this story? I guess it's telling us that the Bronze Age Legion of Super-Heroes IS still out there, no matter what DC has been publishing for the past 30 plus years? 

As a Legion fan, I have to admit to being more than a bit disappointed as to how this story played out. I really hoped that the Legion or pre-Legion or post-Legion related characters would show up somewhere, some-when. Then when the story is over and Superboy returns to the 31st Century we don't even get a huge Legion scene. And the art in that chapter was by Jurgens & Nowlan, so the Legion would have looked awesome if it had happened! Just look at what we DID get, below. Oh, well. 

To sum up: although there are only two panels worth of "true" Legion appearances in this book, if you are a fan of Superboy from that era, and you want to feel some genuine Bronze Age DC Multi-Earth goodness, you will enjoy this story. There definitely wasn't enough Legion content to make me glad that I bought it, but your mileage may vary.