Science!
So, for those of you who don’t know, Computo was a creation of Brainiac 5’s that ended up going berserk, killing one of Triplicate Girl’s bodies, and was just an all-around real bummer, man.
Eventually, Brainiac 5 managed to tame the Computo program, making it into an electronic assistant for the Legion. Reaction from other Legionnaires was mixed, leaving Brainiac to explain the situation to Computo like so:
Which, I guess, is all well and good, except in the very next panel Brainiac 5 does this:
Whoa, what? “I have revived my homicidal computer, allegedly ‘tamed’ it as far as any of you know, and now I LAUGH MANIACALLY at what I have wrought! HA HA!” And there the story ends, leaving the Legionnaires wondering why Brainy is laughing like that. I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t had a history of instability and a couple nervous breakdowns resulting in dangerously criminal activity or anything.
As you can see by the giant blue ball growing out of Brainy’s face there, the following issue features the Science Police, which is a wonderfully evocative name. “YOU HAVE BROKEN THERMODYNAMIC LAW…you’re UNDER ARREST!” Well, that’s not really what they get up to, enforcing the laws of science or anything. It’s basically just the equivalent of “Space Police” or “Future Police” or “Mega Nu-Manhattan Police-bots 2984” — it’s just there to make ’em seem different from the mystically-oriented, spellcasting police of our time period, because, you know, those Science Police fight crime with SCIENCE.
Here are a few items from the Science Police activity blotter:
Panel One: “Folk art” = “comic books” in that panel, there. I wonder if those guys made a beeline for the Witchblade comics like our thief/thieves.
Panel Two: I…I don’t know. That’s just weird, frankly. I do like the gratuitous use of the word “lunatic.”
Panel Three: “HULK BUSTED ON TAX FRAUD.” “Hulk not report tips! IRS not find out! Hulk smart, have more money for lottery!”
