Legion of Super-Heroes #49

Overall- I've made my strong feelings for this series known for a long time now, but in case you're new/forgotten/or ignored me, The Legion of Super-Heroes is one of my favorite comics every month, and might possibly be my favorite team book. But none of that matters anymore, because issue #50 is the final issue of this series... Because of that, a lot of the storylines in this issue are kind of rushed, but irregardless, Jim Shooter(writer)is still crafting a great final story here.

The majority of this story dealt with Princess Projectra continuing down her path of insanity, as well as the threat of the Intruder Planet. I'll start with Projectra. Projectra, along with a few survivors of her destroyed homeworld, have been plotting against the United Planets, as well as the Legion, who Projectra(erroneously)blames for allowing her home planet to be destroyed.

Along with becoming more and more unhinged mentally, Projectra has been becoming increasingly violent. Her bad behavior climaxes when she nearly kills Phantom Girl for not reading Projectra a story when she was asked to. Phantom Girl is critically wounded in the attack, but does manage to survive. Saturn Girl, probes Phantom Girl's mind and discovers Projectra was the attacker. Projectra confronts Saturn Girl, and the two wage a telepathic battle of wills, which is ultimately won by Projectra. Projectra forces Saturn Girl to forget what she learned, and after finishing with Saturn Girl, Projectra causes Phantom Girl to believe that she fell down, as opposed to being attacked by Projectra.

While Projectra was acting up, Brainiac 5 decided to sneak onto the Intruder Planet to gain some knowledge about the Intruder Planet and its Destroyer robots. Brainy gains information about the Destroyers, but is unable to gain any useful info about the Intruder Planet itself. While Brainy is trying to figure out what the purpose of the Intruder Planet and the Destroyers is, Lightning Lad, the Legion's leader, is contacted by the President of the United Planets, who tells him that billions of Destroyers were attacking every inhabited United Planet system.

I'll admit right now that my review didn't do this comic justice, mainly because I'm just so bummed that this series is coming to an end. There were so many other storylines going on here as well, but it's actually kind of depressing to even write about them, knowing that in 1 more month, this team will, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist.

I'm guessing/hoping issue #50 will be double sized, and will be able to wrap up most of the dangling storyarcs. The blurb at the end of this issue promises the death of a longtime Legionnaire in the next issue, which seems kind of unnecessary to me. Why kill someone off? It's the last issue. I would have liked the series to end on a happy note, but I guess that's not to be... For a score, I'll give this issue a 8 out of 10. It was a good comic, but thanks to the impending series conclusion, the story seems a little bit too rushed for my liking. If Jim had the chance, I think he could have milked the events in this comic for at least another 5 issues. Well, as always, LONG LIVE THE LEGION!!!