Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #2 (of 5)

I have friends who don't care for George Perez's artwork. "It's too busy," they say. "Too much detail."

They're good people, my friends, but they obviously have no taste in comic artwork. In my opinion, Perez is one of the best in the business. The sheer joy he has for the characters and the stories just drips off the page.

If he squeezes too much detail into each panel, it's only because he's having the time of his life, working on a comic populated with an army of characters from decades of Legion of Super-heroes stories, living any fanboy's dream.

And that's exactly what this mini-series is: a Legion fan's dream come true. What more could you ask than to have DC's best writer, Geoff Johns, the industry's best artist, George Perez, the excellent inking of Scott Koblish, dozens of Legion heroes and and an army of the team's greatest villains, along with Superman and Superboy-Prime? (Well, I could care less about Prime, but the rest is choice!)

The issue is almost worth buying just for the double-page spread on pages 26 and 27 of three world's worth of Legionnaires. And for the meeting between three Brainiacs. And the line, "We'll need to split into groups," which give me nostalgic tingles. And on and on.

Is it a bit confusing? Heck yeah. The Legion continuity has become so tangled over the years that I have no idea which Legion team is the "real" one, and which ones are from alternate Earths. I have to admit that I haven't followed the Legion in a while for that reason. But it doesn't really matter - this is the kind of rollercoaster-of-a-story where you just hang on and enjoy the ride.

The creative team has set up a huge event here, and I can't wait to see what they do next.

Grade: A-

2 comments:

-> Ray said...

I agree with your sentiments with one exception: Unlike you, I'm pretty sure that I could not care less about Superboy-Prime.
You're spot-on with the rest, though.

Chuck said...

Ray, good point! We'll have to agree to agree on Superboy-Prime.