"The Man from the Edge of Tomorrow", Parts One and Two - Legion of Superheroes

Speaking of short-lived superhero cartoons, let’s turn our attention to Legion of Superheroes for a moment, shall we?

As a team, the Legion of Superheroes—a group of crime-fighters from 31^st century (New) Metropolis—doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation.  Usually when I hear about them, it’s because someone is making fun of the perceived lameness of their membership, and with members like Matter-Eater Lad, I can’t really blame them.  (At least they had the sense to reject Arm-Fall-Off Boy.)  But someone somewhere must have thought them capable of turning a profit, because in 2006, a cartoon based on these half-baked heroes debuted on the CW (then called the WB).

Season One started with a young Superman traveling to the future and chillin’ with the Legion, consisting of, among others, Brainiac 5, Bouncing Boy, Triplicate Girl, Timber Wolf, and Lightning Lad, most of whom have pretty self-explanatory powers.  It ended with Superman going back to his own time, and then came Season Two. 

We start several months after the end of Season One, with Brainiac 5 in the holographic training room pretending to fight off evil aliens with Superman.  During the battle, Brainy sacrifices himself to save his teammate.  Then things get… odd.

"You may not be human, but you have the biggest heart I've ever seen."

And in case that was too subtle for you…

"You and your buddy manage to save the day again?"
"Or did you and Superman just catch a movie this time?"

Just as Brainy’s friends are telling him to get over his one-sided crush get used to life without Superman, a portal opens, bringing with it a Superman from one thousand years in the future.  Brainy spends the rest of the episode complaining about how THE REAL Superman is full of hope and heart and optimism and is way better than this stupid darker-and-edgier emo imposter.  (If you’ve seen Man of Steel, insert your own jokes here.)  But when future-Superman (later we learn his name is Superman X) tells them that forty-four trillion lives depend on their help, they agree to go with him to the future.

And, as usual, the future could be better.

 

Maybe that’s just… built in air conditioning…?

Then Superman X’s creators/parents/whatever-robot-thingamawhosit, K3-MT, show up to explain what went so horribly wrong between the Legion’s time and now.  Turns out the Legion made the entire galaxy a totally safe, peaceful place to live—so much so that when a new baddie, Imperiex, and his army showed up to kick butt, no one was strong enough to kick back.  K3-MT cloned Superman with a new anti-Kryptonite feature and had him travel back to the past to pick up reinforcements, a.k.a. the Legion.

Meanwhile, on Imperiex’s spaceship…

"TONIGHT, ONE FINAL BATTLE WILL DETERMINE CONTROL OF THIS GALAXY! 
TONIGHT, WE ERASE THEIR PAST AND BUILD OUR FUTURE!"

TONIGHT, WE ARE YOUNG SO I SET THE WORLD ON FIRE!
 

By the time Imperiex launches his attack on resistance headquarters, Superman X and the Legion already have a plan—to hit our good conqueror in the chest while he’s firing his chest-mounted laser cannon, an action which exposes the critical inner workings of his suit.  Good design work there, buddy.  Clearly he should have kidnapped Tony Stark to build his suit instead.

So big fight scene where Brainy’s plan seems to work, right up until it doesn’t.

 

Imperiex steals Superman X’s time-travel doohickey and flees to the 31^st century.  While he’s there, he does something to change history, which causes the 41^st century to start collapsing in on itself.  Whoopsie-doodle. 

K3-MT has just enough time to instruct Superman X on how to build a wormhole to take him to the past before being erased from existence.  X leads them to Imperiex’s spaceship, as that’s the only place with equipment powerful enough to create the wormhole.  Unfortunately, they first have to battle the robot army Imperiex left behind.  The Legion wins the day, of course, but not without consequences.

 

That would be one-third of Triplicate Girl being yanked into oblivion.  More bad news follows: while the wormhole successfully brings our heroes back to the 31^st century, they arrive to find their headquarters a smoking ruin—a sure sign that Imperiex arrived well before they did and that they will never be able to restore the future as Superman X knew it. 

Maybe. 

As we learn in Part Two, destroying Legion headquarters and the surrounding city isn’t enough to cause the catastrophic damage to the future that they narrowly escaped from.  For some reason.  Apparently they haven’t read A Sound of Thunder lately, but anyway, Brainy concludes that they are still in time to stop Imperiex and save the 41^st century.  Not sure why you’d want to, since it was total rubbish and all, but I’m assuming Superman X wants his parent-bot back.

Anyway, the Legion finds fellow member Phantom Girl in the rubble.  She tells them that it wasn’t Imperiex who’s been wreaking havoc but “all of them.”  Meaning all of the villains.

 

Oh this’ll be fun. 

One fight scene later, half the Legion is in the hospital and the only villain in custody is the Emerald Empress, and she’s willing to tattle to our heroes about how she and the other villains were freed by an unknown party, presumably Imperiex, from their cells on the prison planet Takron Galtos (and I’m sure I’m spelling that wrong).  When the Legion came to stop them, the villains locked them away.

Lightning Lad orders a rescue mission for their colleagues.  Superman X, however, doesn’t give a Kryptonian fig about the Legion and just wants to sink his teeth into Imperiex.  Just as the fight comes to a head, resident nerd Bouncing Boy has the idea to go back to the 21^st century to get help from “the original, classic, golden oldie, one and only Superman!”

 

Any resemblance to Freakazoid’s Fanboy is purely coincidental.  I think.

Brainy, of course, immediately volunteers to retrieve his boyfriend Superman and returns moments later with the real Man of Steel.  Superman X is his usual cheerful self, but when everyone else decides to rescue the team before attacking Imperiex, he doesn’t try to stop them. 

Speaking of Imperiex, he is being a very naughty boy and stealing all the data from the Legion’s computers.  Superman X and Brainy try to stop him, only to end up in a high-speed spaceship chase that leads to their own craft exploding.  Fortunately, the Legion has a member with a rich daddy who let him borrow a spaceship so that they can go save their butts.

 

I’d complain about the beam making noise while in the vacuum of space, but I guess that doesn’t mean much when you’re reading a text review.

Superman X is not impressed by the new ship and flies away to face Imperiex on his own.  For the rest of the team, it’s off to Takron Galtos.  Insert mandatory badass group shot here!

 

Unfortunately, there’s another badass group shot waiting to fight them.

 
The villain group shot turns out to be more badass than the hero group shot, and the Legion ends up locked in the cells with the teammates they were trying to rescue.  Lucky for them, Superman X shows up to save them all with a badass solo shot!

 

And Imperiex remains free to become a recurring villain throughout the rest of the season.

I admit, I chose episodes from Season Two because I remember not liking it as much as Season One and not being terribly disappointed when the show was abruptly cancelled after a mere twenty-six episodes.  I thought I’d have plenty to heckle, but it turns out either a) my memory is overly critical, b) Season Two started off well before sliding into the toilet, or c) not having seen Season One in a while has made Season Two look better.

Long story short, I actually liked this.

Of course, there’s the usual science hiccups to nerd-slam them over, but the thing that still bugs me is how Brainiac 5 knows that Superman X’s future can still be saved.  How is he so sure and so confident that not only is the destruction of their headquarters the only thing Imperiex has done so far, but that it was also not enough to destroy the future?  Especially since whatever he did (or does) will have the chance to snowball over hundreds of years’ worth of future events.  And now that they have time travel technology again in the form of the Legion’s time bubbles, it should be no problem for them to go further back in time to beat Imperiex and stop him from so much as breathing on their century.

Aside from that, yeah, I had a good time.  It never lags or feels rushed, the characters are well-developed and well-rounded (especially Bouncing Boy *dodges tomatoes*), and now I wish Season Three had gone to air, if only to see how they developed Brainy’s little crush on Superman.  My cartoons need more gay people.  Or gay androids.  Gayndroids?

Next Time: Gonzo finally noticed this blog is suffering from a severe Iron deficiency and plans to solve the problem with booze.  That’s how that works, right?

Images from Legion of Superheroes