SPOILERS commence after 5 harmless pictures...
Look, you all know how displeased I am that DC is continuing to do nothing with the Legion Of Super-Heroes.
Perhaps the most frustrating part is, they have people wanting to do something with the Legion, but no one is allowed to. There are even rumors that a certain big-name writer was willing to sign an exclusive with DC if he could do a Legion book, but he was told, "no."
Why? Well, again, according to rumor, no one at DC is allowed to use the Legion, or the Justice Society, until Geoff Johns has finished Doomsday Clock. Because his Watchmen/DC Universe crossover is going to have such mindbogglingly important impacts on those franchises, that anything done between now and then would just have to rebooted, apparently.
It's a pretty massive bit of ego and chutzpah, frankly. Especially as Doomsday Clock #5 just came out last week, which means there are 7 more bi-monthly issues left (with more delays not unlikely), so it will be over a year until the series finishes.
Still, this means Johns must have big, exciting plans for the Legion, right? Well, now, it's kind of hard to tell. Saturn Girl has been locked in present-day Arkham Asylum for 2 years now, since Rebirth #1. I mean, that's literally it. Once a year or so, we've gotten a panel or two reprising that concept, with zero advancement of the "plot," and zero on any other Legionnaires. Ditto for the Justice Society, where Rebirth #1 had Johnny Thunder in a retirement home raving about "the lightning," and not much since.
Well, finally, last week we got some progress. In Doomsday Clock #5, 102 year old Johnny Thunder has slipped away from the retirement home to search for something, when he's set upon by a group of druggie droogs looking for a score.
But don't worry, nu-Rorschach and Saturn Girl have escaped Arkham, and they are there to rescue him--and to dole out a little of the old ultra-v:
But let's look at Saturn Girl again:
And wait a minute...how did she know all of them were going to overdose that night? Is Johns confusing her with Dream Girl, giving her prophecy powers? Or are we to believe that, because she's from a future (reminder: according to the nu52, the Legion isn't even from Earth-Prime's future!!), she somehow knows the fate of billions of people? She bothered to look up and memorize how every two-bit mugger and drug addict will die?
So this is Geoff Johns' conception of Saturn Girl: content to watch blasély as her ally beats several men to death in front of her?
At least Johnny Thunder had the sensibility to be shocked by the violence.
Look, the story's not over yet (for quite awhile). And we haven't gotten anything resembling actual story or plot advancement yet. So, maybe it will turn out that it's not really Saturn Girl. Or that being trapped in the past has driven her a bit bonkers, so she's not herself. Or, it's all Doc Manhattan's fault. Or something.
But this is also Geoff Johns, who had Superboy-Prime behead Pantha, who turned the Superman of Earth-2 into a villain for Infinite Crisis, who decided that Barry Allen couldn't be a hero unless his mother was murdered. And you've seen above, where one of the founders of the Legion has become, it seems, a sociopathic monster. This is the guy we're going to trust to establish the new status quo with the Legion?
Please, DC. Please, whomever eventually replaces Diane Nelson. Release the Legion. Geoff Johns is not the man who should be re-establishing the hopeful, optimistic future of the DC Universe.
Thus endeth the rant.