This has been DC's main non-Green Lantern 21st-century space series, actually a revival a couple of years ago of an old 1990s series that started as L.E.G.I.O.N., then continued as the first series of R.E.B.E.L.S. (The worst thing about either was trying to type those names!). In either case, they were present-day series trying to capture something of the magic in the current DC Universe of the thousand-years-hence Legion of Super-Heroes, even to having various analogues of Legion characters. Most notably, they centered around Vril Dox, "Brainiac 2," the "son" of the Superman villain Brainiac and ancestor of the Legion of Super-Heroes resident unstable genius Brainiac 5. Basically, L.E.G.I.O.N. was a private, for-profit space-borne law enforcement association selling its services to those who could pay. Both L.E.G.I.O.N. and R.E.B.E.L.S. were, as the form suggests, acronyms that I never could remember what they stood for without looking it up. Cancellation of this series was announced months ago, a victim of perennially low sales. Even the addition of popular characters such as the scantily-clad orange-skinned Tamaranian space-babe and former Teen Titan Starfire, the classic DC sci-fi hero Adam Strange, and DC's weird rip-off of Wolverine Lobo, couldn't save it in the end. It was always much better than its sales would indicate, however. It was cleverly written from beginning to end, a mixture of political intrigue and space opera. Vril Dox once again as he did twenty years ago made a delightfully unlikeable good guy. I will miss this series, but we knew the end was coming. So did the creators, who were consequently able to wrap the story up in a satisfying manner. The last page is perfect. Word comes of another crisis to be dealt with: "*Tt* [not sure what sound that's meant to represent - maybe a tongue-click?] It's one damn thing after another in the Vega Sector," sighs one character wearily; Dox closes out the book, "Good thing L.E.G.I.O.N. is here to stay ...." Would that it were so.
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