Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Legion of Super-Heroes - Season 4 recap!

 Season 4 recap


What happened in Season 4 of Legion Academy so many years ago? I’m glad you asked! Old plot points were settled, new information was revealed, and a new hero joined the team. We’ll hit all of these points thematically in rough chronological order. If you need to refresh your memory further back, or just have a handy reference guide to search, consult the Season 2 and 3 recaps.



The Introduction of Hunter (kinda)


We actually first met Hunter a couple of seasons ago, when he popped in next to the heroes as they were drifting in space and rescued them. He was hunting for his father’s murderer and based on information from our team, he concluded the murderer was Vandal Savage. Whenever he and Dynasty touched, there were chronal ripples that changed things briefly. He disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived.


This season we met him properly. Ian Wayne was the son of Thomas Wayne, who had indeed been murdered. Ian was also a Science Police cadet at their Academy on Mars but had just been assigned to the SP outpost in Africa. However, our Ian was actually from another timeline and had been slipped into this timeline by a figure in purple that looked like Dynasty’s mother, replacing the Ian that belonged in this timeline. Our Ian’s history and life were mostly identity to this timeline’s, with a few differences in skills and attitude.


Responding to a call for help from the jungle, Ian encountered our heroes and helped them foil a plot by Grodd to cybernetically enhance animals and attack humans. In the course of the adventure, the group met Danielle Foccart, Invisible Kid’s sister, who has the ability to talk with electronic equipment.


Ian was reassigned to SP Academy Earth (see below) to keep an eye on the students there. Other cadets from the Mars Academy were also reassigned, including Javi Olafsson, who apparently had carried on a torrid romance with the original Hunter of this timeline. Kyle Ramirez (formerly Shade!, now Obsidian) also put the moves on Hunter.



Magic Rises and Mordru Awakens


Previously, friends and foes of the Legion had been possessed by the elements Fire (Sun Emperor), Air (Nightwind), Water (Lamprey), Earth (Crystal Kid), and Aether (Dynasty). During the fight with Aether, she teleported Miss Momentum away. Following the team-up with the 20th-century team the Myrmidons, Aether gathered a number of powerful magic artifacts from the teams.


This great confluence of magic caused the area of Metropolis surrounding the Tower of Fate and its forest to start transforming into a magical fairyland under Aether’s control. The team battled her, and a clone version of Dynasty killed her, causing the landscape to return to normal. Both the Tower and the forest disappeared as well. Dynasty used a bracelet that her mother had given to Hunter to make her cloned body real again.


The rise of magic also empowered a 5th Dimensional imp named Zyx, who was trapped in the body of a young boy, giving him a persistent cough. Zyx brought the team into an episode of Legion Academy Babies where they fought the Fetal Five, until they convinced Zyx to go home and return them to normal.


There have also been various portents that have signaled that the great sorcerer Mordru is awakening and the Temporal-Magic War will begin anew.



Banished!


Due to various catastrophes blamed on the Legion, EarthGov has banished the team from Earth. Brainiac 5, warned by a premonition from Dream Girl, had made Legion HQ spaceworthy and so launched it toward Deimos, moon of Mars. Legionnaires are forbidden to operate on Earth, and the Academy is now under SP Control. Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel were removed as headmasters. Commandant Belka Sorb and 2nd in command Lt. Roger Stephens now oversee the Academy.


Dream Girl and Chameleon Boy sent our heroes back to the Academy in disguise to ferret out what might be going on there, with the heroes taking on new identities:

Dynasty becomes Majestrix

Reflecti-Kid becomes Split Sight

Katrina becomes Camo Kid (but is commonly called Kif Kroker)

Skid becomes Graviton Guy

Quatro becomes Dr. Q

Hunter, as mentioned previously, is reassigned to SP Academy Earth

Ultra Boy is also there in the guise of Omni Lad as back-up

The other Academy heroes are still there as well as new cadets reassigned from Mars.


Various events focused on Laurel Kent happen. Hunter discovered that Laurel seemed to be an advanced android and told Kid Skid. Comet Queen departed the Academy, having been told by Laurel that her true love, Bouncing Boy, was waiting for her offplanet, but Laurel denied ever telling her that. Double Header was driven out of the Academy by mocking from other cadets, supposedly instigated by Laurel. Porcupine Pete and Infectious Lass quit the Academy after the former said he was stalked and threatened by Laurel, though no security footage showed this. Ron-Karr was also supposedly threatened by Laurel but there was no evidence. 



Prison Break!


Ultra Boy and Power Boy arranged to get kicked out of the Academy and sent to the prison planet Labyrinth. Meanwhile, the heroes were assigned to investigate a series of suicide bombings happening on Ghoran Prime. Lt. Stephens was assigned to escort the prisoners to Labyrinth and then drop the rest of team off on Ghoran Prime. Hunter’s psych evaluation raised questions, so he was not on the mission. Quantum Cat and Magnetic Kid were assigned to take part in the Ghoran Prime mission, so professional photographer and shapeshifter Proty II took Kif’s place at the Academy.


While dropping off Ultra Boy and Power Boy at Labyrinth, there was a power failure resulting in some of the criminals being released. Lt. Stephens insisted that Universo was the most dangerous prisoner and needed to be secured. Fighting villains along the way, the team got to his cell, and Stephens suggested they evacuate him from the planet. As it turned out, Universo already had control of Stephens and most of the SPs on the planet.


Meanwhile, Ultra Boy and Power Boy had gotten themselves imprisoned to investigate a newly captured Power Fist, who had been Ultra Boy’s villainous persona. It turned out that Ultra Boy had snapped and resumed that persona. The Ultra Boy with the group turned out to be the fancy Ultra Boy sexbot who believed he actually was Ultra Boy.


Among the battles, Lightning Lord also escaped and battled the team. Dynasty got so pissed off at him that she magically carved “Legionnaires’ Bitch” into his forehead after he was recaptured.


Meanwhile, Universo revealed that Phora was the result of implantation in Katrina since even under his hypnosis he couldn’t get her and Quatro Lad to mate. He wanted to see the effect that atmospherium had on a fetus. He also mouthed off to Dynasty, causing her to magically transform him into a goat.


Power Boy, Ultra Boy, and Ultra Bot took Universo back to Earth, while Lt. Stephens was taken into custody. Magnetic Kid, Hunter, and Obsidian joined the group on their way to Ghoran Prime.



Wood Be Good? Flesh Be Best?


Ghoran Prime has been sending ambassadors to other planets in the UP as a cultural exchange and to share agricultural knowledge. Meanwhile, the suicide bomb attacks on Ghoran Prime were being made at shrines of Howard, and the bombers were miniature replicas of Pflx Rambo. SP officer Barb had been investigating but vanished. In her office, there was a map with a valley in the southern hemisphere marked, so the team traveled there, where they were attacked by all sorts of strange creatures.


They discovered a Node that was on the opposite side of the other Node they had previously visited on Ghoran Prime. It seemed to be an incubator for animal life much like the other one had been a greenhouse for plant life. The Red in Skid urged them downward until they found a lab where the miniature Pflx Rambos were being created and infused with explosives, including some with banned Nega-radiation.


Officer Barb, Skid’s brother Catd, and Katrina’s son Phora were all prisoners there, meant for dissection and examination. Officer Barb was already dead, but Skid resurrected her, leading to her conversion to Howardism. Catd was a large hybrid plant-metal creature that had been investigating the bombings and trying to save people. Phora had come to Ghoran Prime to hang with Catd since he had nowhere else to go. They learned about the valley and came to investigate but were captured.


Pflx Rambo himself appeared, with former Legion applicant Crusader and Fatal-Five member the Persuader as bodyguards. Persuader noted that he had a beef with Hunter’s father, who stiffed him on a job. Pflx got Crusader to convert from Howardism to Ramboism, and he oversaw the suicide bombings. Pflx was planning to use the Nega-Rambos to destroy the entire planet. The villains were defeated, and the team discovered that Roon Dvron was also captive there, having been taken by Pflx from Ventura where he had been impersonating Mona Climaxia to try to discover who was above Rambo in the crime syndicate there.


After the battle, three Chuot-ids emerged from the shadows and told how they created Ghoran Prime as a place for the Green and the Red to experiment creating life, each in a hemisphere. But the Green and the Red soon became hostile to one another, one of their battles resulting in severing their galaxy-wide networks. The Red created Pflx Rambo to serve their interests, but he went rogue and thought of himself as a god. The Green used Skid as their avatar to get their essence from Earth to Ghoran Prime and now are using Ghoran ambassadors to recreate their network across the UP. Red then took human Skid as an avatar to expand its own network. But the Red and Green now realize they have to work together as part of Team Magic for the coming Temporal-Magic War.


The team was directed deeper into this Node where they found themselves outside time and saw visions of past and future. Some of them were changed—Quatro became a  hulking Nega-Q; Katrina split off a separate self to act as Phora’s mother—Bhumica Ramachandra; Skid gained the ability to transform himself between human and Ghoran. Magnetic Kid wouldn’t say what happened to him. Obsidian now looked like his 20th century self. Everyone’s Legion flight rings and other tech were all been fried. They exited and found themselves in the plant Node.


Howardism has become rampant on Ghoran Prime, which is now depicting Howard with a black halo. The team is considered Skid’s apostles, and Skid’s home is now a shrine. Catd and Phora remained on Ghoran Prime under the care of Skid’s mother and Bhumica. Since Officer Barb is now considered an apostle as well because of her resurrection by Skid, Roon Dvron stayed on the planet to clean things up until the SPs send a replacement officer.



Mogo


The team dropped off Pflx Rambo and Persuader at Labyrinth and learned that Lightning Lord escaped in the aftermath of the prison break, killing some guards and then going on an SP murder spree.


On the way back to Earth, the heroes were intercepted by a planet that turned out to be Mogo, a Green Lantern where immortals tend to live or at least visit. The shuttlecraft with Power Boy, Ultra Boy, Ultra Bot and Unigoato was there as well. Among the occupants the team met here were Danny the City, Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern and Dynasty’s ancestor), and Shade, who was having episodes where his shadow powers go out of control and release shadow demons, which attacked the heroes.


Power Boy’s group released Unigoato to graze while they were (ahem) otherwise occupied, and Unigoato absorbed some of Mogo’s green energy, become Goat Lantern before attacking the team while they were fighting Shade’s shadow demons. Despite Katrina’s raging attack on him, he survived the encounter but was defeated.


Mogo manifested and talked to Katrina, revealing himself as the source of atmospherium, as well as the strange metal that Phora and Catd have. He offered to help with anger management and also helped return her memories. He noted that he also does memory work with others there, helping Alan Scott with his faulty memory as well as the Girl Who Forgets. He kept Unigoato and began trying to rehabilitate him.



Trouble at the Academy


On the way back to Earth, the team got a warning call from Laurel Kent. They arrived to find Lightning Lord holding the Academy hostage. There was a big fight in which there were two other hidden opponents, a transmuter and a telepath who had Antonio Stefanacci under her control. She escaped with Stefanacci, but Lightning Lord was grounded with copper in his heart.


The battle seemed to reset Laurel’s memory so that she didn’t remember anything since joining the Academy. Kryptonite that the villains had put in her didn’t affect her, and her android nature was clear. Reflecti-Kid hit on her as she headed off to figure out who she is.


The Academy temporarily closed.



X-mas with the Waynes


The team was invited to Wayne Manor for X-mas. Ian tried to maintain the façade that he’s this dimension’s Ian, especially to his twin sister. His younger sister seduced Reflecti-Kid and Quatro and tried with Skid. Ian’s mother seemed to have a relationship with President Wynters. Ian’s mother used her connections to arrange access to Daxam for the team to investigate Laurel Kent.


On X-mas Day, Wayne Manor was attacked by a robotic Santa and elves. Everyone, even the Waynes and their swimming pool, were teleported to the planet Quatros. The Quoncil of Q revealed themselves as the secretly intelligent hidden leaders of the planet. They wanted Dr. Q to travel back 1000 years to introduce an intelligence-boosting serum to Quatros of that time to change time so that the Quatros of today would be intelligent, respected members of the UP. The team initially thought the Quoncil was behind the ongoing disappearance of male Quatros across the UP, but they denied this.


In fighting the Quatros, the team found their time-travel equipment, which was activated, causing Miss Momentum, a little girl who called Skid “Grandpa Ollie,” and baby versions of Cosmic Boy and Night Girl to appear. The team and the Waynes escaped Quatros with these time travelers.


Meanwhile, Invisible Kid and Kid Skid were elected leader and deputy leader respectively. But since Jacques is missing, Skid is in charge. Polar Boy forwarded a distorted message from Jacques, which seemed to show him in Snell Station where there were also a bunch of captured Quatros.



Cross-over


The Wayne daughters got sick on the way home from Quatros and were taken to Brainiac 5’s lab. He called in Harmonia Li to consult. There was a Kryptonian virus affecting them that seemed to have been introduced to them by Ian. From the chronal pattern of the virus, Harmonia theorized that the virus was from a different timeline, which Brainy said theoretically shouldn’t exist but she insisted it does, and that Ian was thus from that timeline. 


To effect a cure, she and Brainy needed the essence of a full-blooded Kryptonian female, which they said the team could get in the 20th century during a period between Crises when the walls between timelines were thin. They constructed rods of an atmospherium/nth metal alloy to gather the essence at certain points where the walls were especially thin and were likely to contain the essence of a Kryptonian supergirl.


To keep the team from being chronally affected they were given bracelets linked to members of the Myrmidons. They were sent off in a time bubble, where another version of Ian appeared en route. In the 20th century, they joined with the Myrmidons and separated into teams to retrieve the essences. After battles with various villains, including the Fatal Five from their own time, the heroes filled the four rods with Supergirl’s essence and captured a half-filled, magic-based rod from a villain team. They also learned that Mordru was behind the villains.


On the way back to the 30th century, Dynasty and Nu-Hunter fell out of the time bubble and disappeared into the time stream.


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