Legion of Super-Heroes #48

Overall- I like this comic book so much... I really like all of the characters, from the condescending Braniac 5 to the spiritual Element Lad. Each and every character(and there are alot!)have been explored just enough to cause me to care about them over the past 48 issues. From Mark Waid's relaunching of this series, to Tony Bedard, to Jim Shooter, each writer of this series has added some great stories. I am really dreading the end of this series, which has been confirmed to come at issue #50. I will really miss this comic book and these great multi-faceted characters. The end of the Legion comic book probably bothers me even more than the impending end of the Flash series/Wally West or the cancellation of She-Hulk. Well, I might as well get to reviewing this comic.

Visitors from the Intruder Planet, which nearly destroyed our solar system, arrive on Earth to meet with one of the bigwigs of the United Planets. The Visitors seem unable to speak Interlac, the official language of the United Planets. On top of that, the U.P. hasn't been able to decode the language of the Visitors, so the meeting is somewhat awkward. The U.P. Secretary of Diplomacy decides to take the Visitors on a tour of the Earth since communication is impossible. One of the Visitors has a small device which she occasionally fires at objects. The U.P. figures the device is akin to a camera, so they don't worry about it too much.

However, Brainiac 5 discovers that the device the Visitor is using is a miniature version of the data-rippers the Destroyers have been using throughout the galaxy as of late. Brainiac 5 also deducts that the Visitors are not actually real, but are some kind of virtual reality constructs. Even more vexing is the fact that Brainiac 5 is unable to determine exactly where these "avatars" are being beamed to Earth from. So, according to Brainiac 5, these beings don't actually exist in the physical universe, but come from some kind of virtual universe(for those of us more familiar with Marvel Comics, I guess this is most comparable to our universe and the Negative Zone universe.).

Brainiac 5 has also figured out that the data-rippers capture the essence of a person or thing, basically killing anything shot by the data-ripper. The data-ripper seems to capture a duplicate of a person, which the Visitors can use to study something/someone to their heart's content. While Brainiac 5 is trying to explain all of this to Lightning Lad, the Visitors fire the mini data-ripper at the U.P. Secretary, killing her, before fading away.

Also in this issue, the Legion holds try-outs to bolster their roster, and wind up welcoming aboard the girl from Triton, Gazelle, whom Invisible Kid has a pretty obvious crush on. The recruits who don't make the Legion are welcomed onto a new reserve team of Legionnaires. Sun Boy also returns to the team after realizing that he would never be able to reform the members of Terror Firma. The return of Sun Boy seems to put Princess Projectra in a rage, since it was Terror Firma who destroyed her homeworld many issues ago.

What can I say? I love this comic book. Brainiac 5 is easily one of my favorite characters in all of comic books. I love his know-it-all attitude, as well as the way he looks down on practically all of his teammates. Even though Brainiac 5 seems to be very nasty, deep down it is obvious that he cares deeply for the Legion and especially Dream Girl.

There's really nothing left to say... As much as I'm looking forward to the next issue of this comic to see what happens, I'm also dreading it, since the next issue is nearly the end of the series. Jim Shooter did his usual great job writing this comic, and cut out alot of the future speak that was driving me crazy! As for this comic, I'll give it a score of 8 1/2 out of 10. LONG LIVE THE LEGION!!!!