I found Legion of Nothing a few months ago and blew through the backlog in under a week. It was so engaging I had to stop myself from staying up late to reading the entire thing in one night. I look forward to the biweekly updates and can firmly plant this as my favorite online serial. It’s nice to have adult themes and relationships addressed without allowing them to monopolize the story. The action sequences are perfectly written, the character development is well paced, and every chapter leaves you wanting to hear more.
Even the characters I end up not liking are executed flawlessly and with a strong eye to keeping their flaws realistic and believable. None of them are pure evil or angelic crusaders. They all have things they struggle with to a lesser or greater extent, and that makes them much more interesting to read about.
With regards to the conversation and the actual character interactions, they’re some of the most clever and intelligent spots of dialogue I’ve ever seen on a web serial. They convey emotions and excitement in a way usually reserved for the best of the audio/visual medium. The pace is perfect, the lines are well thought out and the personality of the individual character is maintained despite the use of ‘snippets’ instead of whole sentences. And with regards to the snippets, they’re used intelligently and appropriately, like when a character doesn’t have time to give a monologue because he or she is in the middle of a fight. Or when he or she is emotionally tied up with the repercussions of a recent event.
I can’t recommend this story enough, and despite not reaping any monetary rewards for his work, Jim always delivers literature of the highest caliber. Hopefully he’ll get a link set up soon for donations, as I would willingly give to a writer this good in hopes that eventually he finds an illustrator capable of matching his brilliant use of the written word.
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I’ve been following Legion of Nothing since Nick first went out on patrol in his power armor and decided to be a superhero like his granddad after all. This is one of the few superhero stories I really enjoy regularly, perhaps because I’m such a big Batman fan – I adore heroes that use gadgets and brainpower and training when other heroes are running around with super-strength. Nick is a very realistic character in a very realistic sort of world, which is hard to pull off with superheroes that I’ve seen. I adore his family life, his tendency to ramble on about cold resistence and all the rest.
Also, (non-nuclear) attack guitar. Dude.
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I have to admit, I have a bias. I grew up with comic books because of my father, and have a deep appreciation for the medium. I had access to forty years of X-Men comics, and samplings of Spidey, the FF, Avengers and Daredevil . . .
"The Legion of Nothing" has the high level of excitement that these works carried in the early days. The anticipation of new characters and their origin stories, discovering their powers, working out code-names, and making the mistakes of youth.
The characters are in high school at the onset of the serial, and manage their superheroics with all the angst of puberty, amidst homework and worrying about their parents. Their ideals that lead them to heroism ring true, as do the mistakes along the way.
As the story progresses over time, it grows in complexity. The young heroes experience the growth of their powers and more success as a team, but that garners more attention from enemies and super-villains. Just like those early 60s comics, the stakes get higher and higher over time.
From facing small-time crooks and then minor league supervillains, the young heroes go on to fight crime syndicates and super-powered assassins, and end up the target of immortals while the big-league heroes fight aliens in space. This series spans the small-scale to the big picture, all with clear writing that keeps you on the edge of your seat from cliff-hanger to cliff-hanger.
The narrative is driven by Nick, the Rocket, and his scientific, no-nonsense style helps the story stay rooted in interesting details. However, sometimes the small nuances give hints at the larger emotional stakes. One recent example features his sister, Rachel. Her powers of invisibility and intangibility gain her the secret identity the Ghost, and she learns that her powers allow her to phase through their more invulnerable enemies and hurt them from the inside—leaving her with the emotional burden of being able to kill if she has to, but the moral dilemma of whether it’s the right thing to do. Her reactions to danger and responsibility show very human courage in the face of fear, and give depth to the writing.
I upgraded my rating from 4.5 stars to 5 stars recently because of Robert Rodgers guest writing on Jim’s story—he somehow highlighted the best thematic elements of the characters and Jim’s talents, while using his own. To see the story from a fresh perspective, crystallizing its thematic elements of youth versus experience, the maturing process, and what makes a hero—well, it made me see the story afresh, and realize it’s one of the best out there.
I always wanted to be a superhero in high school, and "The Legion of Nothing" is like a vicarious taste of that adventure. Sometimes it’s clear that it’s not all fun and games, but that’s what’s so amazing about this story—the realistic consequences to every kid’s fantasy.
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