Analysis Notes
| Cover |
The glowing grid lines here evoke the movie Tron. |
| General |
The Legion: Science Police series
occurs during < >. |
| 1 |
Dialogue is from Klen. |
| 2/3:2 |
Klen’s ring is based on a faulty copy of Gates’
powers. Gates always makes two portals, but Klen’s ring only
makes one. Gates presumably moves through a subspace of some sort;
the dimensions (if that is an appropriate term) of such are unknown,
and the indiscriminate use of Klen’s ring could impair Gates powers,
or perhaps cause them to have unintentional effects (such as dropping
things out of subspace which Klen dropped in). |
| 2/3:5-6 |
Note that here you have the strength of the Legion put
into sharp detail: they are not a strike force like the Ringers, who
are intended primarily to cause damage. The Legion (and other
well put together teams) include a combination of offensive and defensive
skills, enabling them to deal with a broad class of threats. |
| 4:1 |
Vincel’s ring may be based on Coluan force-field
technology. Whether the ring is truly limited to force cylinders
like this or if the limitation is on Vincel’s end is not known.
It is entirely possible that the Global Grace Foundation has only trained
him in limited uses of the ring. |
| 4:4 |
“Vincel” is remarkably close to “Vincent,”
the leonine hero of the television show Beauty and the Beast,
and Vincel bears a certain resemblance, too. |
| 4:4-5 |
Sigh. The old “Everybody else has such fabulous
powers, but mine are so small and weak. I don’t belong here”
schtick. Expect Shallee to either die brutally or blossom fabulously. |
| 5:5 |
That is Vincel’s chest. |
| 5:6 |
The person summoning Driana is presumably just a random
administrative assistant. |
| 6:3 |
Of course, the corporation didn’t hire and train
them to be “friends”; it wanted a strike force. It’s
not atypical of corporations to expect to mold a team without any connections
being allowed to form between the members of the team. Sure, the
Global Grace Foundation claims to be non-corporate, but the evidence
doesn’t bear that out. |
| 6:4 |
No idea what the object Director Vyke is holding is supposed
to be. It could be the control to some sort of display device
which Vyke was going to use to outline the mission, but we never see
such a device. (Perhaps this indicates a page of the story —
maybe including actual artwork — which was cut?) |
| 7:6 |
Semantics it is. And how would those semantics
work out if the Ringers were caught during an “assignment”?
“Hindering” quickly becomes “acting on their own initiative”
and a total lack of any electronic “paper trail” to Director
Vyke, much less proof of a payment from any corporation. |
| 8:1 |
Omar Magz is the elder brother of Dyrk Magz, depowered
former Legionnaire Magno. |
| 8:2 |
Saturn Girl may be using the Science Police resources
to do some research on the current Durlan situation at the time, which
had Chameleon recalled to the planet to serve as the race’s religious
leader. |
| That would appear to be J’Onn J’Onzz in the
background. In the preboot, J’Onzz was known to have survived
the intervening millennium. In Martian Manhunter #1,000,000
(published a few months after this story), we were told that at some
point, J’Onzz “revealed” himself to the Legion, and in
Martian Manhunter #11, the Legionnaires had already met him,
so such “revelation” may have already occurred, in an as-yet
untold story. Thus, despite this appearance probably being intended
as an in-joke, we will consider it to be valid. |
| 9:1 |
Since they refer to each other by first names, Imra and
Omar are probably of the same rank. |
| 9:2 |
The alien in the lower-right is apparently a “Breather”
(seen in several early postboot issues), but miscolored and without
the cranial markings seen on others of the race. |
| 9:5 |
Imra doesn’t usually pry like this. This may
imply that her stint with the Science Police here is not merely intended
as a holding position to maintain Invisible Kid’s fallacy of a
breakup in the Legion, but was a request by Commander Hagbard to help
ferret out problems with inter-officer relations. |
| 10:1 |
Centennial Park might date from the year 2900, but is
likely to be more recent, commemorating the hundred year anniversary
of some other event — perhaps the end of the World War VI? |
| 10:2 |
Since J’Onn J’Onzz is the last Martian, the
green-skinned child is probably from Shaar T’gari’s race,
which we’ll call “T’garii”. |
| Also seen in this panel are an “Alien Nationer”
child and a child of Shallee’s race (“Shalleean”). |
| Action figures (and “collectible” variants)
of superheroes were produced throughout the 1990s, with more esoteric
ones added for the fan market. |
| This creation of action figures and the seeking of autographs
has all the hallmarks of a “created” phenomenon. Bet McCauley
wishes he had thought of doing it with the WorkForce. (Then again,
maybe he has. |
| 10:4 |
Note that this force-field bridge would minimize the
construction impact on the environment. |
| 11:1 |
This collage is a single panel. |
| Leviathan’s flight ring should be visible on his
upraised fist. |
| 11:2 |
Sounds like Driana has some definite personality problems
here, having to try to equal her brother’s achievements.
(That’s probably why she was chosen by the Global Grace Foundation,
in fact: they are using her, manipulating her via this weakness.) |
| 11:4-5 |
The people in the foreground are from Vincel’s race.
It seems a bit heavy handed that the examples of the general populace
we are being shown are primarily only the races of the characters in
the series. |
| 12:2 |
The ship’s pilot can be seen here. He (or
she) is mentioned again in 21:3. |
| Klen is fastening the back of Shallee’s suit —
“Zip me up, would you?” — taking care to avoid the delicate
wings. |
| 12:4-13:2 |
But we’re not concerned enough about this to make
a stink and jeopardize our jobs. |
| 13:5 |
Left to right: Shallee, Klen, Driana, and Vincel. |
| 14:1 |
We’ll assume this is the Pacific Ocean, perhaps
over the Marianas Trench. |
| The energy beam may be tractoring mined materials to
a storage ship in orbit. |
| 15:1 |
Control boards courtesy of Star Trek. |
| 15:4 |
As will be revealed in later issues, the rings’
manufacture involved super-powered criminals, and the anti-social traits
of those criminals are being passed to the current ring bearers.
Whether this is a beyond-the-grave possession or the projection of a
philosophy that some powers truly are evil is never made clear. |
| 16:3 |
Klen must have been out of view of the guards initially. |
| “Shock ’em an’ lock ’em!”: the
guards are carrying stun guns. Knock them out and put them in
the brig. |
| 16:4 |
“Teens”? The Ringers all appear to be
adults, probably in their 20s. (On the other hand, Driana did
call herself “Leviathan’s kid sister” in 11:1.)
This does help explain why the four are so willing to so along with
the sabotage, not having the life experience to make sound judgements
in the matter. |
| 16:7 |
Why would there be security bars inside the walls unless
Shiroki was prepared against threats which could move through or destroy
the walls? Perhaps they have had problems with Bgztlian corporate
espionage in the past? |
| 17:2, 17:5 |
Klen and Driana’s speech patterns changed when the
other personalities took over. |
| 18:2 |
Klen’s ring source was a Vyrgan, so a spineworm
maybe be a Vyrgan creature. |
| 18:5-19:1 |
The black character who thinks he doesn’t need to
follow the directions of the team leader rebels, his device-assisted
power fails, and he is killed. It’s Kid Quantum redux! |
| 19:1 |
To quote from the Forrest Gump piece from Gerard
Alessandrini’s Forbidden Hollywood, “Black sidekicks
die first!” |
