REVIEW: ‘Legion of Super-Heroes,’ Issue #7

Legion of Super-Heroes #7 is published by DC Comics, written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Ryan Sook, Wade von Grawbadger and Stephen Byrne, colors by Jordie Bellaire and letters by Dave Sharpe. With their confrontation with Rimbor over Aquaman’s Trident behind them, the Legion must look to settle some internal matters that threaten to strain their newly christened organization. And they might want to hurry it up, as the universe doesn’t plan to wait around for them.

Legion of Super-Heroes #7 opens with the Legion getting a hard lesson in statecraft. Intent is often not enough when dealing with political leaders. Presentation and poise are equally important. And always schedule your meetings.

As the Legion, lead by Cosmic Boy, barge into the United Planets assembly to address the gathered dignitaries virtually everything that could go wrong does. Luckily, thanks to a touch of that classic Kent flair for diplomacy, most of the wrinkles get smoothed out. We also get to see Jon Kent’s reaction to someone mislabeling him as Superman. Being referred to by his father’s title is understandably shocking for him.

While the bulk of the damage done seems to be repaired, this incident creates a bit of strain between Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy. Saturn Girl holds Cosmic Boy’s leadership, or lack there of, to be responsible for the near catastrophe with the United Planets. Cosmic Boy, as one might expect, doesn’t take kindly to it. The argument over leadership quickly brings up the fact that, now that the Legion is fully formed they should have a proper vote on who will lead. This forces a meeting of all Legion members for just such a vote to take place.

Although Legion of Super-Heroes #7 takes it’s time getting through it’s various dialogue heavy scenes it nonetheless flows smoothly. Their is a lot of information divulged about the characters in these scenes. Not through exposition, but rather through how they deal with the situations they are confronted with. Bendis’ writing does a stellar job keeping this book both interesting, and full of character.

Legion of Super-Heroes #7 art delivers a solid performance as well. The art team does a great job using a wide range of perspectives to keep the art interesting, even though people are mostly just standing, or floating, around. This coupled with a good effort to keep the emotions and motivations of character clearly displayed helps to deliver the personality of the story’s subjects.

Bellaire’ s continued color work on Legion of Super-Heroes #7 is as strong as ever. It continues to capture the bright vibrancy of the future, replete with all the various sources of light and color from monitors, super powers and such.

Lastly, there’s Sharpe’s letter work. This final aspect of Legion of Super-Heroes #7 utilizes some great font for location changes, and other side information. Couple this with the well handle plethora of dialogue boxes and you have a well handled bit of letter work.

As the issue closes the Legion are presented with a new challenge which hints that next issue might be a bit more exciting for readers. And while I enjoyed this issue thoroughly, I can’t say that a bit of  Legion fueled action wouldn’t be welcome.

Legion of Super-Heroes #7 is available July 28th wherever comics are sold.