scans_daily

Ah this issue. I knew I'd reach it sooner or later.

While I love Bloodlines and it's characters there's one that I'm not surprised never made a return appearance. The New Blood known simply as Jamm. I can't say I hate his story or powers themselves but how the character handled said powers and acted was certainly groan inducing not to mention his powers were also a bit too much.

17 pages from a 52 page story

I have to admit a lot of the happenings where distracting in this issue. This story took place during a time in which Mordru had caused the dead to rise around the universe. It also tok place during the odd time that their were two Legions. The adult Legion of Superheroes and the teen Legionnaires with an ongoing question of if the teen Legionnaires were the original or vice versa, that never did get answered supposedly due to Zero Hour which was a shame but it certainly confused the heck out of me when I first read this story.

Our story first opens up in the 30th century showing some of the Legion of Superheroes getting attacked by the undead with them finally clearing them out a bit when Infectious Lass figures out a virus that eats through them. Then we see San Francisco in the late 20th century where both Timberwolf is due to some prior Legion story and so is Jamm. Jamm stops to help a pretty babe who's having car trouble.

A cop stops to help Angon and Jamm skates away in anger and accidentally goes downhill on a freeway on his skateboard until a wheel on it breaks and he lands into a dumpster.

I have to admit stories where Timberwolf thinks he's killed someone do tend to be fun. I liked the Legion of Superheroes cartoon episode that was essentially that. Fun stuff.

A homeless man accidentally awakes Jamm while rummaging through the dumpster and the man then gets attacked by Angon.

The Legion in the future had been working on finding a way to get Timberwolf back for a while and they activate the time porter to bring him back but accidentally grab two more.

Rather outmatched Shadow Lass brings in a big gun getting Night Girl to battle Angon after they've shut all the lights.

Night Girl is badass.

Jamm finally awakens from his bite and in frustration after Angon almost kills Night Girl (the battle causes sparks to form and thus light weakening her) tells Angon she should go back to where she came from. Angon surprisingly listens, going back to where the time portal was.

After some healing and accidental use of his powers on Infectious Lass and Invisible Kid Jamm realizes people listen to him when he talks and decides to go exploring the future alongside Night Girl.

And yes, with great power comes great irresponsibility.

"Redneck skinhead" Jamm has one hell of a though pattern there...

And so the new group of Jamm, Valor, Shadow Lass (or is it Umbra here?) and Night Girl forms. Jamm however has ran out of tunes on his cassette player and they go to find batteries for his ancient player.

Valor tries to give Jamm some talk on responsibility.

Jamms reply on what responsibility is tells so much

"Responsibility? Um, sure, that's like voting and wearing condoms and stuff right?"

A bit annoyed Jamm tells Valor to stay put and walks off with Shadow Lass and questions first how Valor has a girlfriend as hot as her. She points out he seemed to think her power was silly before. Jamm tries to argue back that it is kinda lame. She taunts him about being afraid ofher powers and Jamm tells her he isn't and to give him all she's got.

"OK. As you wish."

Jamm then tells her never to use her power again. Deciding Valor and Shadow Lass just don't have the party spirit Jamm and company go off to where the Legionnaires are. There he finds out about how in the future they have synthesis devices to make certain objects.

After the party the group is flying off and the dead from Daxam attack the ship. Valor and Andromeda fight them off but Jamm has gotten at the wheels and is about to fly the group into the sun and Shadow Lass cinvinces Jamm to let her out of his power since they'll die if they can't fix the ships trajectory themselves.

They then manage to not go into the sun and land on a nearby planet. Shadow Lass explains to Jamm she couldn't save the ship since Jamm told her not to use her powers again when she used them on him earlier. She then says it might be best if they leave him on the planet as it's uninhabited. Jamm pleads to take him back with them and she agrees (her choice here not because of his powers) since she admits abandoning him on the planet might be too harsh.

(I'm assuming since he told her not to listen to him he can't use his powers on her again but it's never really stated)

And thus they doomed the 20th century.

Now while Jamm's pretty awful I think the big problem with him is it's hard to write a hero with a power set like that or anyone really without it devolving into misuse of their powers. I've even heard online that some believe the writers tried to create a very pathetic character since they didn't want to have to tie into the Bloodlines event. Which I think sounds somewhat unlikely but hey, who knows.