Superman on Television

Legion of Super Heroes: Episode Reviews

Season 2 - Episode 1: "The Man From the Edge of Tomorrow - Part 1"

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Bridges

3Rating - 3 (out of 5): My initial reaction to seeing this episode was that it was a lot of fun. It had a ton of action, even for a Legion episode, and if you'll forgive the pun it was actually a blast to watch.

There are several problems, though, and they irk me.

Chameleon Boy. He's new to this version of the Legion, but no mention is made of this. I know it's been a couple years since Season One ended, but to people tuning in it's only been four months and it seemed a bit odd to suddenly have this new character there with no explanation as to why.

I actually like Superman X and his origin, but Imperiex is more woeful than Doomsday at this point... he has no motivation, no goal, no anything. He's just an evil robot who destroys things for no reason, and that makes it really hard to dislike him as a villain. They play him up as big and evil, but I don't get that at all. Sure, he's a threat, that's established easily enough. But he's not really evil as he's not really a character. He just... is.

I see no reason why one of the Triplicate Girls was killed off. Now she may not be dead as we didn't actually see her die, just disappear between (but not into, note) one of the universe-realigning bubbles. If she was indeed killed then it was pointless and ridiculous. It served no purpose to the story whatsoever. But they could have easily shown her falling into one of the bubbles and they didn't... she went between them and they closed over the field of view. To me, this means they wanted us to think she's dead but she'll pop up again once Imperiex is defeated and the timeline realigns or something... but in that case it's just manipulative shock tactics, and so either way we could have done without it.

There's also always some story logic with time travel and stories like these. For example, if K3NT (nice name, by the way) and Superman X could travel through time, why not grab the real Superman? Or an adult Legion? Why grab slightly-older-but-still-teens versions? For that matter, why not, I don't know, bring the WHOLE Legion?

So many of these Legion episodes focus on a small handful of the members, and that's the way it has to be on a team with so many people. But when you tell a story that plays up the threat THIS big, how can you not bring the entire team in on it? They wouldn't have even needed lines, but they should have been there, going through the portal and whupping some Imperiex drone behind. It would have been impressive, it would have leant a lot of credence to the threat level of Imperiex and it would have made logical story sense. "We need reinforcements! We need the Legion!" Well, Superman X, why didn't you get them then? Five people does not a "legion" make. They could use many team members for a Sun Eater, but not for this?

I don't buy it.

We also got a more hyper version of the opening theme, which I wouldn't have thought possible. That's not to say I don't enjoy it, however, as I think I like this version even more than I liked the previous one. The new clips during the theme of upcoming scenes from this season look promising, as well.

Off to a decent start, and I'm enjoying the more mature angle to the story (even if Chameleon is full of one-liners... that will at least keep the youngest of watchers amused), but still lacking some story elements that would really take it to the next level.



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