GRAEME: Here’s my complete comic continuity nerdiness about Steve and Iron Man: Hasn’t Tony Stark just been rebooted to pre-Civil War consciousness in his own book? If so, then why does he keep talking about how he and Steve can’t get along and want to punch each other? Pre-Civil War, they were the best of friends, weren’t they? Did they fall out again between comics, in order to create some more tension?
DOUGLAS: Well, he does know what happened, and Steve remembers it all. Tony’s also been going on about how he really thinks he was in the right and would do it all again. (There’s a great scene in this week’s Iron Man where he explains that to Maria Hill, who just walks out on him.)
MIKE: I do not like time travel. It ranks just behind characters that can perfectly mimic others to cause confusion as my least favorite plot device. I couldn’t agree with Bucky more when he said that this isn’t our problem. We have this fresh new Marvel landscape that is post H.A.M.M.E.R. and we’re not even going to get into it? Sorry, America, going to the future. Bye.
(More on Techland: A Brief, Selective Timeline of 3 1/2 Or So Legions of Super-Heroes)
I never really got down with the Young Avengers, and apparently they have all been tapped to be Avengers now by Steve. Now I have to read about younger Young Avengers. From the future, ugh.
I am enjoying watching these characters interact. Spidey, especially, is giving great color commentary so far. Steve Rogers looks like an Austin Powers villain’s henchmen in that turtleneck get-up. Can’t we just put him in a slightly altered S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform?
GRAEME: As far as Legion #1, I have to ask: am I the only one underwhelmed? Maybe it’s because I have such love of the 1980s Levitz run that I had unrealistic expectations of this, but this really struck me as scattered in terms of writing and with art that was serviceable at best. Am I judging it too harshly?
MIKE: I was excited about this book because I have just about no Legion experience to speak of. I know a handful of the characters in this book (Brainy, Saturn), but that’s about it. Having said that, I really had no idea what was going on for most of these pages. I realized that I had perhaps bit off a bit more DC canon than I could chew. Still, the pacing seemed nice and quick, especially with all the Bendis I’ve been reading lately.
The art, on the other hand, turned me off. If we weren’t reviewing this book for the club this week I would have left it on the rack because of the art. As far as the book’s rendition of 31st century cities, I think it’s just another Coruscant clone. Flying car skylanes, every scene takes place on the 145th floor of a building, etc.