Review: Legion Lost Vol. 2- The Culling
Quick Summary
Pros: The story surrounding the members of the Legion is compelling, especially when it comes to their secrets. The finale is epic and full of excitement. The volume does a great job in wrapping up the series as a whole.
Cons: The volume opens with a poor and disjointed crossover. Small aspects of the story are uninteresting.
Overall: As the final volume in the Legion Lost series, this book gets a lot right and very little wrong. It tells a consistently interesting story filled with great characters and plenty of excitement. In addition, it gives a worthwhile farewell to the series and wraps everything up in a satisfactory manner. There are still a few problems here and there, but these are outweighed by a host of positives. Anyone who enjoyed the previous volume should definitely think about picking this one up.
Story
Legion Lost Vol. 2: The Culling, by Tom DeFalco, is a solid volume that constantly gives readers reason to keep reading. It starts by telling a few entertaining stories, weaves in a couple of tantalizing mysteries, and then wraps things up with a conclusion that is full of epic action. In addition, the conclusion does a great job in finishing the series in a way that gives the characters the ending they deserve. Though The Culling starts with a terribly messy crossover and contains a few small flaws, the story and the characters are compelling enough to make up for this and make the volume a worthwhile experience overall.
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The lowest point of this volume is at the very beginning. The opening chapters here are tie-in issues to The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers (Review), a crossover event that disappointing when viewed in its entirety. However, it is even worse when viewed in the fragmented form presented here. Large segments of information are missing and the story’s conclusion is left out entirely. Fans are not likely to understand this event, and are even less likely to enjoy it, just by reading this volume.
Luckily, once this crossover is finished, the book improves significantly and ends up being a mostly positive reading experience from here on out. At first, this is accomplished by constantly keeping the reader interested in the overall story surrounding the members of the Legion Lost. It becomes immediately clear that multiple members of the Legion are hiding secrets from one another, some of which have the potential to significantly alter the course of their lives. Finding out these secrets becomes a compelling reason to keep reading and was one of the aspects about the book that I found most endearing.
The other is the volume’s conclusion, which is a simply epic way to end a series. It sees multiple secrets revealed, has numerous characters converge in a large battle, and has a threat with the potential to destroy the entire world. All of this makes for an incredibly exciting conclusion that sufficiently wrapped up the storylines related to each individual character and the team in general. I doubt many fans of this series would have problems with the way this series was wrapped up.
My only real complaints about the volume, outside of the crossover, are rather small. For example, the book’s final villain is pretty lackluster and the love triangle surrounding Dawnstar is completely uninteresting. However, these problems have little effect on the book as a whole and definitely don’t take much away from the greater story.
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Art
Once again, Pete Woods does a good job in filling the Legion Lost series with some nice looking visuals. Both characters and backgrounds have a nice level of detail that makes the world feel realistic and full of life. In fact, this volume looks even better than its predecessor, especially when it comes to well-drawn splash pages. There are a few larger scale conflicts which look great here, which helps make the more action-packed and epic moments look even more meaningful. This still isn’t a series that will be specifically known for its artwork, but it certainly doesn’t disappoint when it comes to visuals.
Continuity
Legion Lost Vol. 2: The Culling continues the story started in Legion Lost Vol. 1: Run From Tomorrow (Review). In addition, this volume contains a piece of The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers (Review), a crossover event through three comic series.
The Legion Lost series ends with this volume. The Legion Lost’s next appearance is in Justice League United Vol. 2: The Infinitus Saga (Review), where they have a small role.
- The beginning of this volume references the origins of the Teen Titans and Superboy. The Teen Titan’s origin is detailed in Teen Titans Vol. 1: It’s Our Right to Fight (Review) and Superboy’s origin is detailed in Superboy Vol. 1: Incubation (Review).
- Captain Adym’s appearance here is a direct continuation of his story from Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #15, which is collected in The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men Vol. 3: Takeover (Review).
- Superboy’s appearance here follows his short tenure on the Ravagers, which is detailed in the second half of The Ravagers Vol. 1: The Kids From N.O.W.H.E.R.E.