Analysis Notes
| Cover |
During the story, Saturn Girl is not involved in the
melee; it only occurs after she, Brainy, Lyle, and Evolvo leave the
courtyard. |
| General |
All the scenes taking place on Planet Hell have washed
out colors and very little in terms of shadows, an intentional decision
to emphasize the pervasive ambient light from being in the center of
a sun. When it emerges from the sun, standard coloring resumes. |
| 1 |
Roll call images do no count as panel appearances. |
| Chameleon’s roll call panel here would seem to indicate
that Durlan’s are not topologically consistent, able to create
and remove holes from their bodies at will. |
| Invisible Kid is presumably present, but invisible. |
| The majority of the races these convicts are from have
not been seen outside this story. The primary exception are the
Brain Globes (from Gil’D rather than the preboot Rambat). |
| The creature in the upper-left, which
looks like a gorilla with a “Tusken Raider” head, is based
on < >. |
| 2:1 |
Live Wire is behind Bur Rac. |
| 2:3 |
The skull patterning of the second character in the panel
echoes that of the characters on Alien Nation, so we’ll
call this race “Alien Nationer” (although the facial structure
is definitely non-human). |
| 2:4-5 |
Coloring error: Ultra Boy’s shirt is orange. |
| 2:5 |
Coloring error between Brainy’s balloons. |
| 3:2-3 |
Since Brainiac 5’s “quiz” turns out to
be gibberish, it isn’t quite clear what the point of this was.
Perhaps merely Brainy’s way of demonstrating that he is in control
of the situation, wanting Lyle to have to suck up to him a little. |
| 3:4 |
Brainiac 5’s past experience, and especially as
it comes to his age peers, is that people neither understand him nor
have the desire to understand him, preferring to treat him a a child.
His reactions are thus geared to counter such attitudes. |
| 4:3 |
Invisible Kid has displayed signs of
a fear of heights in < > and < >. |
| 4:4 |
Evolvo comes across in the same class as too many fans:
very focused and almost unaware that they go on and on. |
| 5:5 |
Or perhaps so Saturn Girl could then do a broadband broadcast
that Brainy has stopped working, in order to get the convicts to behave. |
| 7:2 |
Possibly Garth feels it inside him differently from how
Ayla does? |
| 8:3-4 |
The convict guarding Jenni and Val hears the “tzzk”
from Val touching the field, but Val has tucked his arms behind his
back by the time the guard turns around. |
| 8:3 |
Coloring error at the top of the panel, between the word
balloons. |
| Note that Karate Kid’s comments here are not quite
in conflict with his later statements when he joins the Legion: he is
using McCauley’s services for travel and training, but not spending
any of the money he is actually paid. |
| 8:4 |
Karate Kid’s ability to find and use weak spots
in structures was established in the preboot, but here it comes across
almost as a super power. |
| 9 |
Mere coincidence that the Legionnaire with the biggest
problem with Durlans is also the one who got confined with one?
Maybe not: when the convicts were pairing the heroes up, if Gim showed
reluctance to be with Cham, they may have forced the issue out of cruelty. |
| 9:2 |
Chameleon is probably well on his way to learning Interlac
at this point (if not already there). In the event that the Legionnaires
do get out of this, he can’t blow his cover; if they don’t
get out of it, nothing would be gained by revealing things to Gim. |
| 9:4 |
Gim’s power may result in a fast energy drain for
him, not unlike Wally West had for a while with his powers as the Flash
(but less severe). |
| Coloring error: the edges of Gim’s goggles should
be white. |
| 9:6 |
“Polymorphic”? Perhaps this indicates
that it is viable for a wide range of digestive systems? |
| 10:2-3 |
Rokk isn’t concerned about her invading the privacy
of others, but that the convicts may notice her absence — or her
freedom — and take reprisals. |
| 11:1 |
The top row of this page counts as a single panel. |
| 11:5 |
Note Boba Fett in the upper-right corner. |
| 12:1 |
R2-D2 is in the background of the panel. |
| 12:5 |
Coloring error: the edges of Lyle’s goggles should
be white. |
| 13:1-4 |
Inferno does have a point here: split up, Triad takes
three time the space, breathes three times the air, and taxes the cooling
system three times as much. |
| 14:3 |
Coloring error: the shadowed portions of Saturn Girl’s
outfit are far too dark. |
| 16:5 |
The third telepathy balloon is from Saturn Girl; the
others are from Bur Rac. |
| 16:6 |
Um, down what tunnel? Bur Rac said there
was no access to the Coluan power grid controls; the Legionnaires had
to fly to a location and blast through the cavern wall to get to it
in Legionnaires #21. They used jetpacks to get to it again
this issue, and even Bur Rac had one on in 12:3. The convicts
must know where the Coluan power grid cavern is and intend to smash
through the wall to get to Bur Rac; the Legion couldn’t take that
route initially due to the damage it would have caused to the sensitive
equipment beyond, but the convicts don’t care about that. |
| 17:2 |
Off-panel dialogue is from Saturn Girl. |
| 17:3 |
Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5 have both since developed
such abilities. |
| 18 |
The insets of the power gauge count as panels. |
| 18:7 |
Note Brainiac 5’s observational body language, versus
the more worried poses of the other characters. |
| 20:3 |
Wonderful dialogue from Bur Rac in this panel. |
| 20:5 |
This is early in Saturn Girl’s career. As
she gets more experienced, she will be able to affect multiple
targets at once. |
| 21:1 |
Note what occurs here: Invisible Kid has adapted the
Coluan force shield technology into a localized force field. After
Invisible Kid takes Brainy’s Valorium experiment castoff and creates
the Legion flight rings, Brainiac 5 will proceed to further refine Lyle’s
work here into his force-field belt. The two make a good pair,
prompting each other to greater feats via competition. |
| 21:3 |
Ultra Boy is fighting a “Gigerian”; the one
seen in Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #0 was black rather than green,
however. |
| 22:5 |
Ultra Boy is still trying to get Spider Girl to talk
to him again after Apparition’s interruption. |
| Tongue Count |
Triad (1), Spark (6:5), XS (21:3 [twice]) |
| General |
This issue was reprinted in the Legion of Super-Heroes:
The Beginning of Tomorrow trade paperback collection. |
