Legion of Damned: Review

Legion of the Damned

DC COMICS

Written by DAN ABNETT and ANDY LANNING; Art and cover by OLIVIER COIPEL and ANDY LANNING
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Back in 1999 writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (DNA) were bringing the Legion of Superheroes into the 31 Century. And they did with a bang.

Last week DC Comic re released DNA’s Legion of the Damned story in a 100 page soft-cover trade.

I can’t express how much I was looking forward to this buy.

In 2001 DC Comics re tooled the Legion of Superheroes in a new titled called LEGION. Prior to this DNA ended the previous vol. with the Legion of the Damned story and then did a 12 part max series called Legion Lost. Once that ended, LEGION followed and for me, it was one of the best titles to come out of DC Comics.

I never read Legion of the Damned or Legion Lost, so DC is doing fans a great service by republishing these stories.

Legion of the Damned follows just a handful of Legionnaires as they try to rescue the world from The Blight.

Simply put The Blight is DC Comics version of the Borg from Star Trek; they are techno-organic race composed of flesh and technology. They take over the Earth and instead of assimilating those they come in contact with, they blight.

Almost all of the Legion are blighted, save for Apparition, Cosmic Boy, Brainiac 5, Monstress, Chameleon, XS and Saturn Girl. (Fun Note, M’Onel is too powerful to be blighted but instead is used as fuel because of how much solar power he processes).

The story is pretty simple in texture, those that are not blighted work together to save the world and their friends.

In the end it's teamwork that saves the day. It’s the team work aspect that always made The Legion of Superheroes such a fun book. Also DNA do their best work when they showcase the odd ball characters and really push the story towards a character driven narrative.

I should note the art work by Olivier Coipel is downright awesome.  It’s not nearly as clean as it currently is in Thor or by the time he got to the art chores in LEGION, but it fits the story. Earth is a mess thanks to the Blight, so the scratchy style he put into these stories fits the environment.

I loved this story and I am super eager for the Legion Lost TPB that comes out in June.

I wish I loved the current Legion of Superheroes title but I really only found them enjoyable under DNA’s care.

So thank you DC for putting out these stories.

By Jerry Ahern

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