This whole arc has left me with mixed emotions. At first I hated it due to the continuity mess it presented. Then I just didn't care. Who are the Legion? Do I need to know about them? No. Go away. But finally, a funny thing happened, I started to like it. To hell with continuity, uninteresting characters, and bad penciling... the story was good! Last issue's final pages, showing Earth-Man fighting a powerless Superman (IN SPACE!!), was perfect. Perfect because I knew the sun would be restored in time before Supes ended up pummeled on the Earth below. And perfect because I knew the villain would be exposed. Did it deliver? Yes. In the end I saw how (potentially) cool the Legion could be. The issue's teaser pages could help that.
I have to ask. Just how old are you?
I ask because up until DC rebooted the Legion back in 1986 and tried to divorce their flagship character from anything associating him with everyone else, including The New Gods and The Legion (both who existed either alongside him or because of him from the outset), the Legion was actually one of DC's best and most exciting team books.
The damage done to both Superman and The Legion was pretty extensive and neither books histories were ever as good apart as they were together. Especially The Legion. So if you came into DC after The Crisis, what you were getting was essentially 2 decades of a facsimile Legion with it's heart literally torn out.
Just recently with The Lightning Saga and with Death Of The New Gods, we have the old dynamic back. A confident Superman who is familiar, commanding and releaxed around these cosmic groups of characters. And if this isn't the same Legion from the early 80's, well, they at least finally feel right. And IMO Superman's familiarity and ease around them contribute a lot to that. Just from a historical standpoint that bleeds into the right "feel" in the book itself.
So even though I'm quite familiar with all versions of The Legion, this has by far been my favorite incarnation since The Levitz/Giffen days.
