BOOSTER GOLD #8 (6/08)
"Blue & Gold Chapter 3: Freedom Fighters"
ROLL CALL: Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Superboy/Clark Kent
In one panel at the Vanishing Point, several monitors display key scenes from DC history. One of them shows the Legion's founders meeting with Clark Kent. Variations of this scene are becoming DC's iconic image of the LSH...I suppose that's a sign that the Legion is being welcomed back into mainstream DC continuity. Who'd'a thunk it, back when DC's insistence on eliminating Superboy drove the Legion into spasms of advanced retconning?Incidentally, people keep talking about how Crisis on Infinite Earths was responsible for eliminating Superboy and doing irreparable damage to the Legion's history. In fact, the Legion survived the Crisis in fine shape. What damaged Legion history was John Byrne's usake that Sueprboy had never existed, and the insistence of the DC higher-ups in enforcing that interpretation. (The loss of Supergirl also hurt, to a lesser degree.)
Just think...if DC had only ignored the Legion, allowing the LSH to keep its history intact, then in only two decades the rest of the DC Universe would have caught up to the Legion again, and all would be well. (Of course, nitpicking fans like me would have spent those two decades trying to reconcile the existence of the Legion's Superboy with the non-existence of Superboy in the rest of the DC Universe.)
I've said it before -- consistency between the LSH and the rest of the DC Universe is a two-edged sword. On one hand, we love it when the Legion interacts with the rest of the DCU, whether it's the question of Green Lanterns in the 30th century, Khunds and Dominators and Daxamites invading Earth in the 20th, or the Legion traveling back in time to pre-explosion Krypton. Crossovers also draw potential new readers to the Legion.
On the other hand, tying the two eras together means that the Legion's creators cede some of their creative control to the creators of other books -- changes in Sperman or JLA, or events in huge crossover series, impact the Legion -- often in ways that make the Legion's life more difficult.
I would rather see the Legion have minimal interaction with the present-day DC Universe. And I'd like to see the Legion officially immune to big changes in DC continuity. Let the thousand years between eras serve as both insulation and excuse...we can always invoke the twin excuses "records of the 21st century are imperfect" and "time travel causes strange things to happen."
And, of course, allowing a Multiverse (in some fashion) is an ultimate excuse for letting the Legion go its own way. If the Legion's continuity problems and multiple retcons can be traced to anything, it's probably DC's insane notion that there was only one consistent universe....
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COUNTDOWN #3 (4/9/08)
"Owned"
No Legion appearances in this issue, although Jimmy Olsen does become Giant Turtle-Olsen at the end. Colossal Boy once impersonated Giant Turtle-Olsen, so there's kinda a Legion connection there....
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JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #14 (5/08)
"Gog"
ROLL CALL: Starman/Star Boy (Lightning Source Legion)
Starman is being mysterious again. In talking to Cyclone, he says, "I was on Superman's Earth, Cyclone. I met Magog. If a Magog is born here...you'll all die in a war between heroes. Just like the history books of Xanthu say you will."
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