I laughed all the way through this one! It incorporates so many old story elements of past comics, especially on the Marvel side, that I found the references hilarious!
This is one frantic paced comic! It romps from city back alleys to the far future (twice!), through limbo, and back to the present, and wraps the with the Legion saving Spider-boy from being un-amalgamed (horrors!), then back to meeting the Legion in the present!
The strength of this comic is that it's a joke, and it KNOWS that it's a joke.
The weakness is that it tries to incorporate such a HUGE number of old, old stories elments, that the comic tends to bog down the story, and lose the it's own style in the puns.
A prime example of this lunacy is the pictorial (cameo) introduction of amalgated legionaires - and just to make sure you get the joke, it does this twice! My favorite is what appears to be an amalgamation of Owen Reece, Molecule Man (Marvel) with the Legionaire Chemical King (DC).
Okay, take a deep breath. These are SOME of the amalgated story elemets I saw in this one book!
On the Marvel side, there are story elements from Marvel Team-Ups, a few the Fantastic Four time travel issues where Reed is very concerned about changing the future and the FF or Dr. Doom's time machine appears, vists to Ancient Egypt by the FF, Dr. Strange's and West Coast Avengers,a few Marvel-Two-In-Ones or Defenders dealing with the cosmic cube, and throw in at least one Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-man 2099! (Whew!)
On the DC side, you need to have read at least half a dozen Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes comics from the 1970's and early 1980's and the 90's Superboy story in Reign of the Supermen and throw in at least one Starman (Sorry, present day fans, I mean the failed 1980's Starman series by Stern and Lyle!)
Okay, time for an overall rating! *** out of ***** (Average) Throughly enjoyable to us 'old timers", however, too many amalgamations, and 1970's references, make this a middle of the pack comic.
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Iron Lantern
Two top characters, one way cool cover picture, a suit of iron powered by an alien battery source! All the elements of an excellent comic magazine are there....
Sorry, this comic disappointed, big time!
What happened??? Remember I said in Spider-boy Team Up that the comic was a joke and everyone in the comic KNEW it was a joke! In this comic, everyone is deadly serious. Something very important was left out - the laughs!
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