Superman on Television

Legion of Super Heroes: Episode Reviews

Season 2 - Episode 6: "Who Am I?"

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Bridges

3Rating - 3 (out of 5): There was some good in this episode. I like that it went deeper than most Legion episodes seem to, into issues of identity and the nature of good vs. evil and the potential for both within everyone. It was also nice to see how Superman's goodness had a positive impact upon someone else and possibly changed his life for the better. And Superman's closing line, although mildly trite, is still fitting with his belief in goodness and that if someone wants to truly change and be good, they can.

The problems here all came with leaps of plot that are completely unjustified. But before we get into that, an idle question: Why was Imperiex's ship the Death Star? I'm just curious.

So, the leaps of plot. Persuader escapes from the Legion and they say he'll be going after his axe. That's all well and good... but in a show that easily spans an entire galaxy, how would he know where to look? How would he know where it was? Does he have some special power or device that lets him home in on it? It's never said, he just breaks out of the Legion ship and shows up right on Imperiex's ship in Chameleon Boy-as-Persuader's quarters, when he'd have no idea that's where the axe was.

And just how did he break onto Imperiex's ship without Imperiex knowing or any defenses going off? Boy, Imperiex sure does suck at being a good villain.

There's another HUGE leap of logic when it's stated that Imperiex knew all along that it was Chameleon Boy impersonating Persuader. In fact, the entirety of the plot depends on it as it's the basis for him feeding the Legion misinformation and using their tactics against them with Ron-Karr impersonating Superman. So... how did he know it was Chameleon Boy? Even his Dominator allies (who speak for the first time, even though we still know nothing about them or why he's allied with them) say they can discern no difference between the real Persuader and the imitation. Imperiex just somehow *knows* for no reason whatsoever and the entire story hinges on him knowing, but they couldn't give the viewers even a single clue as to how Imperiex made this miracle guess? If it was something smaller I wouldn't be so harsh about it, but when it's the basis of the entire story that's unacceptable in my book, and that's why an episode with good characterization and a strong Superman moment only gets a 3.

I also don't see how Superman, of all people, was quickly subdued and captured on Imperiex's ship, especially when the battle there lasted mere seconds, but that's just more of my idle curiosity.



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