DC's NEW 52-The LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES franchise

I'm a long time fan of the Legion of Super-Heroes, going back to the days when a 14 year old kid by the name of Jim Shooter crafted their stories. I moved through the days of Cary Bates, Gerry Conway and the now legendary run of Paul Levitz. During those days, artists like Dave Cockrum, Mike Grell and James Sherman became known to me and I followed their respective careers after they left the title. I suffered through the numerous reboots, following ZERO HOUR, the "threeboot" in 2004 and the 2007 Post Crisis reboot. I even suffered through the sometimes confusing FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF 3 WORLDS series. 

But now the team is back in two distictively different books, one of which is crafted by longtime scribe Paul Levitz.
 

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES picks up its' continuity from the series that began in 2010, with Levitz again at the helm, this time with Francis Portela handling the art chores. The story begins with some of the team on the planet Panoptes, where they're involved on a mission on the planet Panoptes. High above the planet, Colossal Boy is bumming that he's not in action and that his wife  and some of the others are in another book(he doesn't know that, but we do). Chameleon Boy becomes a fly and infiltrates the military installation on Panoptes.
 

At Legion Headquarters, Brainac 5 and Mon-El are conferencing with some of the other Legion embers and this is where we learn that the "Flashpoint effect has definitely closed off time travel to the past". Well...at least SOMEONE recognizes that Flashpoint happened. On the planet, Chemical Kid and Dragonwing swap some bodily fluids and get captured. And we learn that the Watchworld is sending out messages to the Dominators, which is not what it was designed to do.

Things go from bad to worse when a pretty pissed of Daxamite appears. Okay, when I first read this I thought it was awful! I'll be honest, I haven't read that much of the Legion books in the last few years because of the convoluted and changed continuity. So I came into this kind of in the dark. On second read, it's a typical Levitz script and I'm cool with that. While I don't know ALL of the characters, I know enough to get by. Portella's art is great and hearkens to images of some of the great who have had their pencils on the Legion over the years.
 

So here's my advice: if you're a fan of the the Legion, you will probably like this book. If you have never read the Legion, then you probably will be confused but have no history to get tripped up on. Either way, give it a shot. I may actually do the same.
 

BTW: the mysterious hooded woman, who may or may NOT be Legion member Glorith, is on the catwalk in the Panoptes control room, first panel on page 7.
 

The sister book to LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES is LEGION LOST. In it, a group of Legionaires have travelled in their time bubble from the 31st century chasing future terrorist Alastor. Unfortunately, the Flashpoint Effect has screwed things up and they all land in 21st Century Earth. Alastor trashes Red Lakes Falls, Minnesota before the stranded Legion members capture him. But not before he releases a pathogen which guarantees they can't go back to their present. Alastor detonates and apparently takes two of the Legion with him. So the team is still stuck in the present and now missing two more members.

Fabian Nicieza is a great writer and this is not one of his better works. I can't say it's his story or just what he's been given to work with. Not the most exciting of Legion members here and the whole lost in space and time story was boring to me. I don't care about the characters or if they ever go back. Sorry Fabian: don't think it's your fault but you're stuck with it. On the plus side, Pete Woods art is dynamite, as always!
 

Can't recommend the book just because I found the story boring. If you like the Legion and need to read the WHOLE story, then grab it. Otherwise, save your pennies for the core book.
 

BTW: the mysterious hooded woman is in the background of the first panel on page 10, where Alastor is rampaging.