Legion Lost #7

Is Timber Wolf the Legion's answer to Wolverine and Lobo?

Lousy editors: Darren Shan and Brian Cunningham.

Legion teleport into New York City and immediately begin bitching. Dawnstar says, "This is the greatest city of the era?!" First off, that's highly debatable. Where did she get her information? From New York?

Next, Tellus uses his telepathy to make everyone around them think they're wearing appropriate clothing and, for the aliens, look human.

That seems like a really stupid way to pick clothing for the era. Because it occupies a lot of minds? They could easily have ended up looking like characters from Family Guy or The Hunger Games.

Next, they get a new headquarters. This time it's a luxury suite in a fancy hotel instead of a room at a Best Westward Ho. They have tiny discussion about how they're using the 21st Centurians by telepathically forcing them to give them food and lodging. But it's so much easier than doing things like normal people! Who wouldn't exploit it?

Yeah, Chaos forbid you have to take a shitty job in order to live honestly. Fuck that bullshit!

So far, the new writer Tom Defalco is not impressing me. Who the fuck is he? He believes everyone is running around thinking about the Kardashians and that working for an honest dollar is embarrassing? And if it's embarrassing to work for your cash and "would require too much time" (as Tyroc says in the same panel but I cut him out), why not fucking steal from everyone? I know they're desperate and misplaced but Defalco's writing is edging a bit too far into J.T. Krul's judgmental zone.

And then the monthly recap:

Wait what? Why are you here?

I just realized why Alastor escaped via a one page explanation last issue. I don't know why I thought maybe it had something to do with the story that was being told. It was because they changed writers. Nicieza was telling a certain story up until the switch to Tom Defalco. And Defalco didn't want to continue the story where Alastor was captured and Legion began to figure things out. The story he wanted to do was in a new location (so teleport to New York in the first few pages) and a fugitive type story (so set Alastor free at the end of last issue with no explanation except "I fell asleep. Whoops!"). This happened in Green Arrow as well when J.T. Krul left. In Green Arrow #2, J.T. Krul ended with the blurb, "Next Month: Black Canary!" But Black Canary never appeared in Issue #3. I'm pretty sure that's because she would have appeared at the end to begin a new story arc. Instead, Krul left Green Arrow and was replaced by Giffen. So the last page was changed to show a prologue page leading into the story Giffen was going to tell. Same thing here.

I noticed Tom Defalco has also dropped the hourly count since the Hypertaxis Virus was released. What other story elements will he abandon? Will people even still become infected with the Virus? Or is the whole story going to be Legion judging people in the 21st Century and excusing themselves from following any rule of law because they're new and lost and what else can they do? Boo hoo?

Of course it is! Why would Tom Defalco want to continue writing about the original mission parameters?!

Tom Defalco also dropped having the issue narrated by a different member of the team. The narration boxes at the beginning of the comic were by an omniscient narrator. And I wonder if we'll ever find out what happened to Gates after the big Time Bubble explosion.

While they're acting like idiots in their hotel room, Tellus picks up a 'psychic scream' from a woman trapped and tortured somewhere. Dawnstar wants to drop everything and go help. I thought Dawnstar had a problem with thinking things through too much instead of reacting? I guess this moment is just to show how much she darn-diddily-arn cares. But Tyroc thinks they need to concentrate on their mission. And Wildfire thinks the mission needs to be changed. And Gates just wants to go home. And then Timber Wolf disappears. I don't fucking blame him.

Timber Wolf has gone outside to confront that Oz guy from the earlier, badly edited Narration Box. He's been spying on them since he saw them teleport in and change their appearances. Being a con man and a petty thief, Oz is trying to figure out the best way to use this to his advantage. And once Timber Wolf appears, he tempts him with a way to get Legion some cash by stealing from a local gang.

I'm not sure how Oz was spying on them from street level while Legion was in a luxury suite. From an earlier panel, it was apparent that Timber Wolf smelled Oz in the alley. So Timber Wolf knew the guy was continuing to follow them. But how Oz knew they needed cash? I don't know. Probably a lucky guess since that's what Oz wants and he figured that's probably what they want too. Especially since they were so obviously not of Earth. Well, at least not of this Earth time.

While Timber Wolf contemplates robbing some 21st Centurians, Tellus and Dawnstar begin their mission to rescue the screaming woman, Katia. Tellus enters her mind to calm her down and Dawnstar follows Tellus's thoughts (?) to locate Katia. But since she locates the girl in a medical facility and not a torture chamber, she cancels the rescue mission. Time to deal with finding Timber Wolf then!

Timber Wolf is off about to beat the shit out of a gang and take their money because they sell illegal drugs. Judgmental but, you know, probably most of DC's heroes would agree with him on this one. I mean, about stopping them! Not about taking their money because they don't deserve it! So, yeah, judgmental! Timber Wolf isn't even worried about stopping the drug runners. He just wants their money because they didn't earn it in the appropriate way! What a dickfaced dick facer. I wonder if Tom Defalco and J.T. Krul share an office at DC?

But wait! We're not done judging eveyone!

Don't snarky text and drive or your BFFs will die!

While Legion decides that this Katia thing is probably not worth their time even though Dawnstar thinks they should help her because 21st Centurian Medical Technology is barely a step away from "leeches and bleedings", Tellus is still inside her mind speaking with her. He's trying to convince Katia that the car crash was an accident and "sometimes bad things happen to good people". Sure, sometimes bad things do happen to good people! But how does Tellus know she's good? Telepathy? And does that really take away the responsibility this girl feels for the death of her friends? She should feel guilty! Their lives were her responsibility while she was driving the car they were in. That's just how that works! She should have taken proper care! They trusted her and this is how she repaid them! WITH DEATH! Bwa ha ha ha!

Excuse me. Katia's psychic scream was because she feels she's being punished for her friend's deaths and that's why she's in the coma. Tellus is trying to assure her that she isn't being punished and it's not her fault (it is her fault). I think he's just falling in love with her.

Katia is dying but while hanging out in Tellus's psychic dream world, she realizes he has a secret that he's been keeping from Legion. It's supposedly something major but it's not revealed in this issue. And it may be forgotten by the time Legion Lost gets back to its regular story arc because next issue begins a crossover with Teen Titans and Superboy called The Culling.

Also, Timber Wolf steals a bunch of cash and incinerates a bunch of drugs. Now Legion doesn't have to steal from the 21st Centurians because Timber Wolf stole from a bunch of 21st Centurians. No more guilty feelings!

Legion Lost Issue #7 Rating: -1 Ranking. Maybe Tom Defalco's story will pick up and keep me more interested in Fabian Nicieza's original story arc since I was kind of bored of that one anyway. But this first issue really shows some big faults in Defalco's story telling. But mostly what was disconcerting was the way DC handles changes in the lead writer. I mentioned it a little bit when Giffen took over Green Arrow because of the complete change in Green Arrow's attitude and his motives. But I didn't mind it as much because Green Arrow sucked so bad, anything was a step in the right direction. But here it really exposes a weakness of comic book titles that just get shuffled from one writer to the other. There is no real continuity in the story lines. Bad writers just bring in their own story lines and just trample all over the past stories. I'll be surprised if Defalco returns to anything that Nicieza was writing besides the pathogen and Alastor which are the main reasons for Legion being in the past.

But the style of the book has also changed completely. One of the things I found interesting about this title was the way each issue was seen from a different Legion member's perspective. But it doesn't look like that's continuing. But that was the whole "Lost" reference for the title! I wonder if Tom Defalco even understood that?