Legion of Super Heroes: In the Beginning

This episode of the Legion of Super-Heroes is pretty decent too. My main disappointment is that there's no progress on the Brainiac 1 subplot from Message in a Bottle, though of course, there is merit to having breather episodes after a bombshell like that.

We open with a Senator Tolway giving R.J. Brande and the Legion the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. Cosmic Boy hams it up on the stage when suddenly Grimbor attacks!

In the infirmary, Saturn Girl comes out of her season long "healing trance". She senses the attack and when Lightning Lad cautions here that she needs a doctor's note before she runs off to fight, she holds up her flight ring and says, "Here's my doctor's note", which was pretty cool.

You rule, Saturn Girl!

Meanwhile,  Grimbor and his scavengers are schooling Cam, Superman-X and Cosmic Boy. I'll be generous and assume that the chains are some kind of non-ferromagnetic material, rather than Cosmic Boy forgot about his only super power. I mean, you expect Superman to forget about one of his powers from time to time. He's got a million of them.  Would have been nice to see an acknowledgement of this, though.

"You got me tied down with battleship chains..."

At first, I wasn't sure if it was Grimbor, inexplicably back from the dead, or someone even more inexplicably taking on his identity, but when they were pursuing him, but then they call him by name a couple times, which makes me wonder if this episode aired out of sequence. That would actually make a bit more sense.

Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad are bickering, which prompts an extended flashback where Braniac 5 tells Superman X how the Legion came to be.

We open in a cabin on a spaceship, with Young Garth Ranzz looking at the picture of himself, Mekt and Ayla that we saw in Chained Lightning.

Yong Rokk (Cosmic Boy) in the next bed strikes up a conversation, Garth says he's there for adventure, and asks if Rokk wants to come with him to see the ricest guy in the galaxy, who's supposed to be on the liner with them. They leave the cabin and the pair sees a young Imra Ardeen (Saturn Girl. Garth introduces himself as "Charles Boogerjuice" in a silly accent (and I'm childish enough laugh at that)

She calls the bluff, pointing out the ticket for steerage and the Braalian mud on Rokk's boots, and adding as an afterthought, that she can read their minds.  The two boys show off their powers, with Rokk fashioning a dunce cap for Garth.

Then R.J. Brande shows up. Saturn Girl senses the assassination attempt and the three kids fight off the bad guys. Saturn Girl still senses danger, but Brande's assistant Doyle is dismissive, and offers the trio some lollipops with the most unctuous smile I've ever seen.

Cosmic Boy throws his away in irritation, but Lightning Lad eagerly chows down.

They continue their journey to Earth and on seeing the Superman museum, decide to form a team called Awesome Kids United, Up with Heroes, The Legion of Super Heroes.

They refer to Brande as Cam's father a couple times, which was a nice nod to comics continuity, and they do fuck all to explain it, which I actually think is kind of awesome. "Wondering how this Texas industrialist is the father to a shapechanging Durlan? KEEP WONDERING!"

Brainy narrates a montage of their early investigation and they find that Doyle was behind the assassination attempt. They save Brande and he throws his buckets of money behind the Legion.

Back in the present day, Cos and Lightning Lad are still bickering and Saturn Girl contemplates returning to her healing trance. They find Brand and Grimbor, and learn the Doyle survived and has been disguising himself as the senator in one of those Rube Goldberg revenge plots so common in comics. He has a cool disguise, but he still sucks.

He orders his disposal goons to destroy the Legion, and the Legion smacks the shit out of them. What was he expecting to happen?

Grimbor loops his chain around Lightning Lad, who smiles and sends a charge down it to electrocute him.

Doyle goes to run, but the Legion grabs him and Saturn Girl says, "And to think, you would have gotten away with it if not for us meddling kids." Heh.

Doyle presses the button on his mastermind doodad, and sets the satellites used for compressing nebulae into stars on to a single target, which will form a black hole. The three founders take off to destroy them before the black hole reaches critical mass.

They're successful and they end up as friends again.We close with the swearing in from the early days of the Legion and it's cool to see the young Legionnaires. And Tyroc is there, which always makes me happy.