Paul Levitz wraps up his Dominator incursion in Legion of Super Heroes 4. The Legion has managed to defeat Res-Vir the Renegade Daxamite, drive the Dominators out of United Planet space, and find out how Res-Vir is surviving off Daxam. The vast majority of the issue was that fight, the investigation, and a few other small scenes I’ll touch on shortly.

One of the best bits, to my view, was Element Lad coaching Chemical Kid on the use of his powers. They are fighting a hugely powerful foe, and Element Lad calmly shows the young hero ways to use his abilities to stop the raging powerhouse. It’s a great teaching moment, which shows the Legion at its best– veteran heroes helping new ones get better. It also works for Jan’s personality, Element Lad has long been one of the calmest Legionnaires.

There were a few scenes of Chameleon Boy undercover amid the Dominators, and a great bit of Mon-El telling off the whole fleet. Mon-El’s strength, of will not just physical might, comes across great here. Another absolutely great scene was between Brainy and Dream Girl. Well… they were both there, anyway, which was part of the fun. Dreamy was semi-flirting with Brainiac 5, as she tends to do, and he was characteristically oblivious, wrapped up in his study of Glorith’s powers, particularly her shielding powers.

Many people have theorized that the “mystery woman” who showed up in all the New 52 books might have been Glorith, and that she was in some way responsible for the shift to the DCNU. To me, this theory took a step closer to being proven, as Brainy here determines that her shields, at the very least, are tied to time manipulation.

One odd bit was at the end, when Shadow Lass was complimenting Mon-El on handling the Dominators. She was saying it was good to see him acting like himself again. The two of them are almost flirting. Since Levitz went to such pains to break them up off panel in the last series ,and many were unhappy with that, I almost wonder if he’s undoing it now.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

There was a lot of good here. The characterizations were fantastic, everyone right on target. I particularly liked Element Lad’s teaching, and the Brainy/Dreamy scene. Those were great, the first combining action and characterization, and the second was just plain fun. The Legion is acting like the skilled and dedicated heroes they are, and I’m thrilled they seem to have survived the DCNU transition mostly, if not wholly, unscathed.

About all I didn’t like here was the odd Shady/Mon-El scene. Yes, I was among those who really disliked the breakup, but this seemed to just come out of nowhere. I wouldn’t mind if they end up back together again, but I hope it’s handled better than this somewhat jarring bit.