Week of 30 May 2007

(SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers. Don't read it before you've read the comics.)

ACTION #850 (7/07)
"Superman: Family"
ROLL CALL: Brainiac 5, Chameleon, Invisible Kid, Shadow Lass, Supergirl, Ultra Boy


BITS OF LEGIONNAIRE BUSINESS:

Clark Kent has a Legion flight ring, and he speaks of the "Legion gang" coming to visit him in Smallville.


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COUNTDOWN #48 (5/07)
"Death From Above"
ROLL CALL: Karate Kid, Star Boy







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JSA #6 (7/07)
"The Ligtning Saga Chapter 4: Three Worlds"

NOTE: This comic was released with two covers. The regular one has Damage on a black background; the variant cover shows Superman, Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle, Dr. Mid-Nite, Stargirl, and (most importantly) Wildfire.

ROLL CALL: Blok (cameo), Chameleon Boy (cameo), Cosmic Boy (cameo), Dawnstar, Dream Girl, Element Lad (cameo), Karate Kid, Lightning Lad (cameo), Lighting Lass (cameo), Mon-El (cameo), Saturn Girl (cameo), Sensor Girl, Star Boy/Starman, Sun Boy (cameo), Superboy/Superman, Timber Wolf, Triplicate Girl (illusion), Wildfire

Temporal confusion continues, but is partially explained by Superman's musings on time travel: "Once in a while, memories would be altered or even erased." He mentions an untold case called "The Legion of Three Worlds."

And they're not out to resurrect Lightning Lad...but I have no idea what they're up to. I guess All Will Be Revealed in the conclusion.

BITS OF LEGIONNAIRE BUSINESS:

Superman says that he last saw the Legion "after the first Crisis. They never came back. And I never understood why." Uh...because John Byrne screwed up Legion chronology, and eventually forced Superboy's heroic death? Bah!

The news that Thom is schizophrenic comes as a surprise, but the assertion that he "spent years in a hospital after his gravity powers popped up" has some basis in previous continuity. And it's a rare Legionnaire who hasn't suffered from mental illness at some time or another.

And Thom may have always called himself "the unlickiest Legionnaire" (although I don't remember him ever doing so), but traditionally the "unluckiest Legionnaire" was Lightning Lad.

The Legion (or at least Dawnstar) knows about the Multiverse -- and Starboy/Starman's presence in the KINGDOM COME series is retconned as a sojourn on Earth-22. Come to think of it, the entire KINGDOM COME universe is retconned as Earth-22. (If you haven't been following things, now there are 52 different universes in the Multiverse -- but no one is supposed to know except the Monitors.)

I suspect that the LSH we're seeing here -- the classic Legion -- is from one of the "three worlds" in the title. Obviously, there are at least two other versions of the Legion in other universes. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that the other two are the current ("Teenage Revolution") version, and the post-Zero Hour version. (Or possibly the animated version from the TV show and LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES IN THE 31st CENTURY.)

The whole Triplicate Girl/Computo thing had me fooled, how about you?

Liberty Belle tracks Jeckie's flight ring signal -- but later, Jeckie says, "All I kept thinking was I had to hide..." Surely her Sensor Girl powers would easily have concealed her flight ring signal? (I'm more willing to accept that she couldn't hide from Dawnstar...after all, tracking is Dawny's super-power.)

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Week of 23 May 2007

(SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers. Don't read it before you've read the comics.)

SUPERGIRL & LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #30 (7/07)
"The End is Only the Beginning"

ROLL CALL: Atom Girl, Brainiac 5, Chameleon, Colossal Boy, Cosmic Boy, Dream Boy, Element Lad, Karate Kid, Light Lass, Lightning Lad, Mon-El, Phantom Girl, Princess Projectra, Saturn Girl, Shadow Lass, Star Boy, Sun Boy, Supergirl, Triplicate Girl, Ultra Boy, Wanderers


This issue has a really great surprise, which I'm not going to spoil despite the spoiler warning above.



BITS OF LEGIONNAIRE BUSINESS:

As Mon-El departs, notice all the Legionnaires holding up their flight rings in tribute. Nice touch.

In the panel where Atom Girl says, "What about it, Shady?" -- Shadow Lass's skin is not blue. Oops.

The White Witch, a member of the Wanderers, was a Legionnaire in previous continuity.

Brainiac 5's little Coluan assistant is way cute.

Three members of the Knights Tempus appear from a thousand years in the future, inviting Rokk to join their club. This echoes the way Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl once appeared to invite Superboy to join the Legion.

Although Rokk is gone at the end of this issue, the Knights Tempus mentioned that they were inspired by his deeds "as a boy and a man." This suggests that he will return to the 31st century. Note that he appears on the advertised cover of #31 in the "next" box.

The outcome of the election is left unrevealed. Cliffhanger!



Two comics are shown in the last panel. One of them is ADVENTURE 372; an astute reader points out the the other one is LSH 296.



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COUNTDOWN #49 (5/23/07)
"Stretching the Truth"

ROLL CALL: Karate Kid

BITS OF LEGIONNAIRE BUSINESS:

Red Arrow taunts Karate Kid by saying "Wax off!" This is a reference to the movie "Karate Kid," which had nothing to do with the Legion -- but which licensed the name from DC Comics.



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Week of 16 May 2007

(SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers. Don't read it before you've read the comics.)


LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #2 (7/07)
"First Flight"
ROLL CALL: Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Superman, Timber Wolf


BITS OF LEGIONNAIRE BUSINESS:

In the classic LSH, Timber Wolf's home planet was Zoon; in the animated series, it is Raal.

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COUNTDOWN #50 (5/16/07)
"Last Laugh"
ROLL CALL: Karate Kid

This story seems to tie in with events in the JLA/JSA crossover "Lightning Saga"

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JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #9 (7/07)
"The Lightning Saga Part 3: Suicide"
ROLL CALL: Dawnstar, Dream Girl, Karate Kid, Star Boy, Wildfire

The mystery continues: what are members of the classic Legion doing in the present of the current DC universe? Each of the amnesiac Legionnaires has had their memory restored with the Interlac phrase "Lightning Lad." The last page reveals that the Legionnaires are equipped with lightning rods, and Dawnstar says, "We're here to save him, aren't we? I know where we have to go."

Is Lightning Lad dead again? Are we headed off to the planetoid of eternal lightning, to raise Garth from the dead?

Only time will tell....

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Apologies

Sorry, it's been way too long since I updated this blog. Unfortunately, Get-a-Life Boy has too much going on in his life. :(

Nevertheless, there is a lot going on in the Legion universe(s) right now, and I am loathe to give this up. So I'm going to try a slightly different format, perhaps not going into quite so much detail. We'll see if that helps.

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Visit Get-a-Life Boy's LSH page at http://www.readersadvice.com/lsh/lsh.html