Wednesday, April 02, 2008

The Legion of Three Worlds

Holy crap. I'm glad they released this info today and not yesterday, otherwise I might have thought it was an April Fool's joke. I think I might spontaneously combust. Newarama has the previews and interview with Geoff Johns his upcoming Legion miniseries with George Perez: "Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds". Part 2 of the interview is tomorrow. Coming in August: the first of five oversized issues. After reading this, I am stunned at the scope of this project. I'm in awe at what can be accomplished here and I'm amazed at the A-list talent that's on it. A top writer and top artist? The Legion, a tentpole book? Be still my heart. (I do feel sorry for those who are big fans of the v4-era, though. It looks like they'll get the shaft in how "their" Legion history is treated.) Preview image 1: Superman and the Lightning Saga Legion vs Superman-Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains. Not just the classic LSV, this one includes Mordru, Grimbor, Dr. Regulus, and the Fatal Five. Preview image 2: The same two groups as above... plus Luthor, the Time Trapper, and XS!

One of the two promised DC mini-series that will tie directly into Final Crisis, the Legion of 3 Worlds story will pull together the characters from three teams that have called themselves Legion of Super-Heroes during DC’s publishing history. And if we go by the teaser image, a slew of Perez-drawn Legion members will be fighting alongside Superman against a villainous threat in the future that will include a couple threats from the present as well – Superman-Prime and... is that Lex Luthor?

But three Legions? All together and all part of the DCU? What happened to the reboots where one Legion replaced the other? And for those readers who’ve never read any Legion stories, what do they have to know to understand this series? And what is Lex Luthor doing in that picture? Newsarama talked to Geoff Johns in a two-part interview to find out the answers to these questions and more...

NRAMA: Can you tell us the idea behind the story?

GJ: Again, it's Superboy-Prime teamed up with the Legion of Super-Villains, and he sets out to destroy Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes. But this is not just a Legion of Super-Heroes story. This is the DC Universe in the 31st century. This is the Crisis of the 31st Century. George and I are doing a huge DC epic from the point of view of the 31st century. All the main heroes throughout the DC Universe in the 31st century are there.

NRAMA: [laughs] So let's go back to the beginning of this idea of three Legions together. Has this been in the works for awhile? Even before you did The Lightning Saga, was the eventual goal for you to write a story about all three Legions?

GJ: The project came out of that. I really love Legion and I had planned to do something with them in Action Comics after The Lightning Saga to get them back into Superman's lore, because I think that's where they're strongest. And from that, Legion of 3 Worlds sparked. The story grew out of that, and at the same time, George was telling Dan that he wanted to do a Legion story, so it all just came together. And with what Grant was doing in Final Crisis, it all just clicked.

NRAMA: So, nothing's been wiped away by any crisis or time-altering event?

GJ: We find out really where all those "wiping aways" and the various plans throughout the universe and history were orchestrated – like when Superboy was found to be an imposter right after the first Crisis, and then when they were wiped away in Zero Hour – there’s a connection to all that stuff. Someone's been screwing with the Legion for a very long time.

This story is epic in its scope. It goes across the universe, all across Earth, across time and space. This is definitely one of the hardest stories I've tackled yet, but I'm ready for it.

NRAMA: Why hard? Do you think it's even harder than writing Infinite Crisis?

GJ: In a different way. With Crisis there was so much coordination and things that you had to set up for other books and carry through from other books, so it was difficult.

But this is difficult because it's the Legion. It's not Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. It's the Legion of Super-Heroes. So my goal is to have people cheering for these characters. Some people don't know the Legion yet. Some people don't see the value in the Legion yet. My goal is to have them cheering for them by the end of this. And if you already do know the Legion, you're going to cheer louder.

Go read it now, including the comments at the bottom. As wrong as the Newsarama posters got it on the Superman copyright lawsuit, they love this.

13 comments:

kenaustin said...

I've stated in other places how I believe v5LSH #15 wasn't exactly just a throw away issue. I need to go back and read it again, but that "as the greatest heroes of the 31st century become the greatest heroes of the Multiverse" tagline has been on my mind ever since. In looking on your blog, you have a few prophetic quotes from Stuart Moore regarding issue #15 in a post from 11/18/05. Very interesting times for Legion fans!

Anonymous said...

Mike reviews Mordru's history in vaudville. The next day, Mordru reaapears in DCU continuity, wearing once more the groovy which inspired the need to research his past. Coincidence? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Mark and Tom created, like Gates, XS and Kinetix. They created a lot of new characters in that run. And so a lot of those characters will be used.
Woo, Gates!

Anonymous said...

groovy HAT. I meant to say groovy hat.

Bryan-Mitchell said...

Got to say I'm sick to death of Superman Prime and after all the usage that Time Trapper got in the TMK Legion and End of an Era I got to say I'm also sick to death of him.

There better be some TMK era Legion stuff going on because if not I'll be mad that they are doing all this continuity fanboyism and totally ignoring a big part of it.

Having read the last issue of Action, and ignoring some of the stuff from Lightning Saga (they were confused from the time travel so they said some things that don't make sense!) there is still room to fit that in before the 5 years later era with minimal continuity problems. (Polar Poy's arm being just about the only real one I can think of.)

wmeisel said...

This is news that makes me very excited in a "i'm 12 years old again" way.

Gus Casals said...

As much as a fan of 5-Years-Later as I am, and as much a voice against the inconcistencies of the Lighting Saga/Action Comics "gospel Levitz legion" as I am too, I'm really pumped about this.

Glad the Legion anniversary won't get lost in the middle of Supes 70th birthday hoopla.

I'm really curious as to what we are going to be reading in the master Legion book when the dust settles, though.

Greybird said...

I seriously doubt that "the master Legion book" will be anything like what it is now. If a combined Legion results from this, that's where it will go.

In any event, is this fabulous stuff to debut dated in August, thus available in June, or is it not going to be available until August?

The TPB of the current Action series is to be made available in June (isn't it?), and I'd think they'd want to be prompt in making the most of the sales assist ... oh, wait. This is the clueless DC we're talking about.

Terence Chua said...

Okay, I have to admit, those preview images have got me stoked.

Cautious "squee". :)

Anonymous said...

I tend to agree, this is VERY happy news for me. This seems to be the project Perez left B&B to work on, so it sounds like there's several months lead time to get it out, at least.

I do wonder how this will hit the ongoing title, though. As cool as it sounds, I don't want Shooter left twisting in the wind as they change the rules yet again. Hopefully he's on board.

Eric Gimlin

Michael said...

Bryan-Mitchell wrote:
after all the usage that Time Trapper got in the TMK Legion and End of an Era I got to say I'm also sick to death of him

"End of an Era" was in 1994. That's almost 14 years ago. He only made a few appearances in the post-Zero Hour reboot, so you can't say he's been overexposed since then.

Eric:
When Shooter was brought in, he said he had planned for something like a 16-24 issue arc, which suggests to me that he's on for at least another year.

Gustavo:
If they had said the Legion of 4 Worlds, then I think everyone would have been happy. The v4-era Glorithverse Legion was obviously a different timeline than the v3-era Legion (Andromeda/Valor vs Superboy/Supergirl/Mon-El, etc.).

Anonymous said...

Probably, the three Legions will get their hats handed to them by the LSV, leaving the grim 'n gritty TMK Legion to ride in and save the day by being willing to fight to the death, resulting in many deaths and a heroic burnout for the team, leaving the other three Legions to survive for future appearances.

Jim Drew said...

Having read the last issue of Action, and ignoring some of the stuff from Lightning Saga (they were confused from the time travel so they said some things that don't make sense!) there is still room to fit that in before the 5 years later era with minimal continuity problems.

I suppose if they can resurrect Karate Kid and one or more of Luornu's bodies and you call that a "minimal continuity problem", then un-blowing up both the moon and Earth are probably also, um, "minimal". (They'd have to un-blow up Blok, too, since he shows in the sample pages, and restore Dawny's wings, but those are easier than decrisping Val.)