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Mild Mannered Reviews - Supergirl Comics

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #30

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #30

Scheduled to arrive in stores: May 23, 2007

Cover date: July 2007

Writer: Mark Waid
Penciller: Barry Kitson
Inker: Mick Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Bridges

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The Legion is standing around a statue made in memorial to Mon-El, and then we cut to seven days earlier. The Legion has won the war with the Dominators, leaving their planet in ruins. But Sun Boy tells Cosmic Boy of the Dominator plan to spread their super-soldiers throughout the galaxy, spreading their genetic code and guaranteeing a future galactic conquest.

The Legion tries to decide what to do about this when Dream Boy mentions Cos has a plan for a bomb to destroy the entire Dominator homeworld, even though genocide doesn't sit well with anyone but Mekt. Mon-El's lead poisoning worsens, but Supergirl carries him along.

Brainy creates the bomb to destroy the planet but has no time to construct a delivery system. Someone has to take the bomb into the planet's core, which is a suicide mission. Supergirl volunteers, but Cos shuts her down and says Mon-El will be making the trip. Mekt tries to talk Mon-El out of it, because he "owns" him since he's the one who freed him from the Phantom Zone. But Mon-El agrees to the plan.

The Legion returns home as Mon-El flies into the planet's core... and the planet simply vanishes from space.

Back on earth, the Legion are recovering from their recent battles and are voting in the election for a new leader. It's revealed Cosmic Boy, Phantom Girl, Dream Boy and Brainiac 5 were all in on a hidden plan... the "bomb" was actually a Phantom Zone projector, and the entire planet (and Mon-El) were sent into the zone. Thus there was no genocide and Mon-El would again be safe in there until Brainy can concoct a more permanent cure for him.

But Cos doesn't tell the Legion at large about this, saying he'd rather wait until Mekt and the Wanderers left and were far away. He fears that if Mekt knows Mon-El is still alive, and considering him property of a sort, he'd do anything to get him back and they can't risk the Dominators getting back out of the zone. Phantom Girl thinks Cos wants the Legion to believe that he committed genocide and sent a wounded man to his death so that he won't be reelected, but Cos doesn't seem to know what he wants.

He takes a trip through the rubble of Legion HQ and finds a small statue of him, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl as Legion founders and ponders his future as a portal opens up and three members of the Knights Tempus step through. They tell Cos they're from the 41st century and they want him on their team. Other Legion members are admired, but Cosmic Boy was the one that inspired them and prompted them to create the team.

The election results come in and are surprising, but aren't revealed. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad go looking for Cosmic Boy to fill him in, but just find the statue and Cosmic Boy's Legion ring lying on the floor.

5Story - 5: What a way to go.

The tension over genocide and the resulting ploy to actually just imprison an entire planet while at the same time saving Mon-El's life was incredibly clever and well played. And the Knights Tempus arriving to invite Cosmic Boy to their team, as the boy he is and the man he becomes inspires them so, very nicely mirrors the old Superboy getting invited to the Legion story.

To top it off, Supergirl is brave, cheerful, helpful and spunky, in stark contrast to her portrayal in her own title. It's been a pleasure reading this book, thanks for a great run, Mr. Waid, and I can't wait to see what the future holds from here on out. He's certainly given his successor plenty to play with.

5Art - 5: Once again, Kitson at his finest. Nothing else to say. It's brilliant stuff.

4Cover Art - 4: The Legion and the Wanderers... just sort of standing around. The art is very nice, but there's just nothing going on and it's not particularly evocative or tied into the issue at hand, but it's still nice to look at.


Mild Mannered Reviews

2007

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

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