Justice League Europe Annual #2 annotations: Armageddon Out of Here!

Annotations for Justice League Europe Annual #2

• On sale 8/27/91, this was published in between LSH v4 #23 (8/20/91) and 24 (9/17/91)
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 597 (March 23, 2020)

During the Quiet Darkness storyline which we have just covered, DC had another event going on, but unlike Millennium which impacted the Legion by making Laurel Kent a Manhunter, this one didn't include the contemporary 5YL Legion at all (fortunately). Armageddon: 2001 was a 2-issue series which bookended 12 of that year's Annuals. To make a long story short, Waverider came back from the future because one of the heroes from 1991 would become, ten years later, a tyrant named Monarch, and Waverider wanted to prevent that from happening. By touching each person, Waverider could see into that person's future, or possible future, and determine if that one was going to be Monarch. So that's what each annual was about, a look at the title hero's possible future. (You can read about the whole story on Wikipedia, including the revelation of who Monarch really was.)

JLE Annual #2 was the last Annual before Armageddon #2. In this issue, rather than seeing what will have been going to have taken place ten years from now, the hero visited a time decades or centuries earlier or later than the present. Thus, the cast of characters from other times on the cover. Hey, isn't that a young-looking Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad in the back row?

I'm not going to go through each of the various Leaguers' adventures in this story, just Blue Jay. You remember him, right? No? OK, he was one of the Champions of Angor (later revealed to have also been called the Assemblers) back in JLA #87 in 1971, created as a pastiche of the Avengers. Blue Jay was the analog of Ant Man and Wasp, able to shrink down to tiny size and grow wings, but that was pretty much it. After being defeated by the Extremists (a pastiche of the Masters of Evil), only Wandjina (Thor), Silver Sorceress (Scarlet Witch), and Blue Jay were left alive, and they came to Earth and hung out with and later joined the JLE.

And now we get to Waverider, who touches Blue Jay to find out if Jay will become Monarch. But instead of going 10 years into the future, we go about 1000 years. This issue was written by Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones, and each chapter was pencilled by a different artist and inked by Randy Elliott.

• Page 37: pencils by Steve Carr. In panel 1, he's wondering why all of the other heroes he touched had their potential futures in the past. Don't worry about that, or those people in panels 4 and 5, they're not relevant to the Legion part of the story. Waverider touches Blue Jay to see if he'll be Monarch.
• Page 38: Art by Curt Swan! Holy moly! He only did 3 more Legion stories after this: LSH v4 #31 coming up soon in 1992, and LSH Annual 5 (the Legion plays Wizard of Oz) and L.E.G.I.O.N. Annual 5 (the L.E.G.I.O.N. in a parody of the Silver Age LSH), both Elseworlds.
• Failed Legion applicants: Beetle Boy, Insulation Lad, and Faucet Girl (who all, actually, sound like they would have been suggested in the old "Bits of Legionnaire Business" column in the Adventure days)
• Page 39 panel 2: Garth has his robot arm, so this takes place sometime after ADV 332.
• Page 39 panel 4: More Silver Agey names - Tele-Kid, Transport Teen, Popping Pete. 
• Page 40 panel 3: "Shrinking Violet with wings". Blue Jay was often seen in the JLE as the weakest member. Not lame, just weak. 
• Page 40 panel 6: At least he gets his consolation flight belt!
• Page 41: Blue Jay gets to join the Subs, who are portrayed here as plucky and spunky but not very useful. 
• Page 41 panel 6: Blue Jay's story ends here. He didn't actually join the Subs, it was a potential future for him.
• Page 42: Waverider has taken his hand off of Blue Jay, ending his tale, though he's surprised that Blue Jay's future was in the 30th century and not the 21st.

LSH v4 Annual 2 annotations

Annotations for Legion of Super-Heroes v4 Annual #2

• On sale 10/1/91, this was published in between issues 24 (9/17/91) and 25 (11/19/91), so it was effectively a skip month for the regular series
• It's OK, I'm a Senator: https://itsokimasenator.livejournal.com/16601.html and https://itsokimasenator.livejournal.com/33155.html
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 594 (March 2, 2020)
• Timeline: late April, 2995 

Notes:

• Cover: first appearance of the Valor logo, which will later be used on Valor’s own series in a few months
• Page 2: there's a guy in a bubble here who looks like he's probably important, but don't worry about that since he won't reappear or be identified.
• Page 4 panel 1:
• Elia was invented for the 5YL run
• Ardemo was a world on which Triplicate Girl was studying stone reliefs of a forgotten alien people when a voice from one called her and covered her in a metallic spray, in an attempt by the Time Trapper to trap her and force her to reveal the location of Legion super-weapon, the Concentrator. (ADV 321)
• Apokalips is home of Darkseid; interesting to see a reference to converts to the Dark Circle on Darkseid’s homeworld
• Page 4 panel 4: Dolminuss is also a newly named world for the 5YL
• Page 5 panel 7: the Dark Circle has lost Carggg, which makes this part of the story contemporary. Recall that Carggg was freed back in issue 18, which was late March or early April 2995 (we’re in late April in the main book).
• Page 8 panel 6-7: in the post-Mordruverse continuity, Lar Gand and his family came to Earth during the Invasion! crossover. He later became an associate of the L.E.G.I.O.N.
• Page 9 panel 2: After leaving Dox and the L.E.G.I.O.N., he had adventures and settled for a time on an adopted world (i.e., Earth). Note that Valor’s own book didn’t start until after LSH #34, but he guest-starred in a lot of Superman books during that time.
• Page 10: Crossover with the story of Ultra Boy from Annual 1. This is where the legend started.
• Page 14: The Dominators were harvesting humans and experimenting on them to activate their meta-genes.
• Page 18: Shamarra looks like a progenitor of Tharr
• Page 43 panel 4: Impromptu Stump the Subs! What are the powers of the people who live on these planets?
• Bismoll – able to eat and digest anything
• Carggg – able to triplicate
• Geequo – powers unknown; home planet of Apollo of the Devil's Dozen (ADV 350)
• Janus – home planet of Double Header (ADV 323)
• Lallor – no native powers (or they died out)
• Mlain – powers unknown. A war-wrecked world to which Shrinking Violet fled when Heroes of Lallor tried to capture the team, having been tricked by Dr. Marden King into thinking they were super-villains. (ADV 324)
• Myrnah – powers unknown. World on which no crime of misdeed has occurred since Braino, one of the noblest beings of all time, used his mind-power to funnel into himself all evil that existed on the world, killing himself in the process (ADV 320)
• Somahtur – Inhabitants are carriers of a wide variety of diseases that do not affect them, and are able to direct individual diseases to others (SBOY 201)
• Thanar – Asteroid orbiting a blue star, inhabited by a race of mineral-fleshed people. Superboy and Colossal Boy confronted the Super-Moby Dick of Space there (ADV 332)
• Tharr – inhabitants learned to use their mental force to neutralize heat vibrations and create cold (ADV 306)
• Winath – no native powers (or they died out)
• Zwen – inhabitants evolved the power to turn to stone as a form of suspended animation (ADV 306)
• Page 45 panel 4: the armies of the renegade Grykk emperor Gennesaret.
• Grykk is a planet where Colossal Boy was seen on a monitor screen fighting a giant who had terrorized a town of normal-size beings. (ADV 301)
• Gennesaret is the Greek version of the Hebrew name of an important Bronze and Iron Age city situated on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, mentioned in the Old Testament and New Testament, and in the Aqhat Epic of Ugarit.
• Page 48: in this continuity, it’s Glorith that puts him in the Bgztl Buffer Zone (not Superboy who put him in the Phantom Zone).
• Page 50: the new retelling of ADV 300 when he temporarily makes it out of the Buffer Zone (which took place on 12/11/2974 per the Sourcebook)
• Page 51: the murderous android from the past keeps the same color scheme as the robot Urthlo, but probably does not have HATE tapes inside of him
• Page 52: new retelling of ADV 305 when he is permanently freed from the Buffer Zone (which took place on 1/23/75 per the Sourcebook)

Legion sales data: February 2020

Sales are still leveling off, with an 11% drop from issue 3 to issue 4. That may sound like a lot, but it's only about 4000 copies. We're starting to get into the region where retailers were able to see what the books were actually selling before ordering new issues, so I'd expect steadier sales in the next few months as retailers get a handle on how much to order. Still, it's DC's 18th highest selling book, 10 of which were Batman, Joker, and/or Harley Quinn; and it's ahead of Flash, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Shazam, Justice League Dark, Suicide Squad, Young Justice, Aquaman, Nightwing, and all the rest.

Sales data via Comichron.

Legion of Super-Heroes (volume 8) #4 - April 2020
Issue 4 had two variants on 2/19/20 (originally scheduled for 2/4 but delayed by two weeks).

LSH volume 8 #4 Standard cover Art by Ryan Sook and Travis Moore	LSH volume 8 #4 Cardstock variant Art by Alex Garner

TL;DR version: LSH #3 sold 30,675 copies (down from 34,732 the previous month) and was the #51 book for the month and the #18 DC book. 

Context:

• Combining both covers, LSH #4 was the #51 book for the month, with total sales of 30,675 (down from 34,732 the previous month). It was the #18 book for DC (behind 10 Batman, Joker, or Harley Quinn books, 3 Superman books, 2 JLAs, and 1 Green Lantern, plus DC's #1 book DCeased). The #1 book of the month was Wolverine #1 with sales of 190,568 (no other book broke 100k sales).
• The $3.99 regular cover was the #77 book for January 2020, with sales of 23,075 (down from 26,933 the previous month). It was the #27 DC book.
• The $4.99 cardstock cover variant was the #86 DC book and the #220 overall book for January, with sales of 7,600 (down from 7,799 the previous month). 
• Still too early to say the point where sales will level off, where the book has found its base, but after the trelatively small drop from #2 to #4 (about 14%) I'm going to guesstimate it'll level off around 27,000 or so.
• Digital sales of issues are generally not known to the public, but anecdotally the digital market as a whole is about 10% of the traditional market. This does not necessarily apply to any particular comic from any particular company. Diamond does not report digital sales, and it's the Diamond data going to Comichron.

Color key for tables below:

• Brown = 5 Years Later
• Orange = Reboot
• Green = Threeboot
• Yellow = Retroboot/New 52
• White = Rebirth
• Blue = none of the above

LSH v8 sales and rank 

Issue	Total sales (all covers)	overall #	DC #	#1 book
1	75,611	10	3	138,434
2	35,653	50	17	117,926
3	34,732	44	15	167,377
4	30,675	51	18	190,568

Sales drop historical comparison: ongoing series *

Date	Title	#1 to #2	#2 to #3	#3 to #4
Dec 1989	LSH v4 (5 Years Later)	-33.5%	-10.2%	+2.5%
Dec 2001	The Legion	-14.0%	+0.0%	+0.2%
March 2005	LSH Vol 5 (Threeboot)	-19.0%	-7.7%	-7.0%
Nov 2009	Adventure Comics v3	-16.6%	-6.1%	** +91.6%
Aug 2010	LSH v6 (Retroboot)	-22.0%	-7.0%	-5.8%
Dec 2011	LSH v7 (New 52)	-20.2%	-25.9%	-20.4%
Dec 2011	Legion Lost v2	-23.2%	-26.8%	-23.1%
Oct 2019	LSH: Millennium	-18.4%	n/a	n/a
Dec 2019	LSH v8	-52.8%	-2.6%	-11.7%

* Note: sales data from April 1993 to October 1994 is not publicly available, which coincidentally covers the entirety of the "Legionnaires" title in the Reboot era, so that title is not included in this chart. Also not counting "Valor" or any miniseries except for "Millennium".
** Adventure Comics #4 included a Blackest Night ring promotion

What is the bottom of the sales curve?

Year	Series	Sales at series end	Notes
2000	LSH v4 (Reboot)	17,500	Series cancelled for new Abnett/Lanning Legion Lost v1
2000	Legionnaires (Reboot)	17,200	Series cancelled for new Abnett/Lanning Legion Lost v1
2004	The Legion (Reboot)	23,300	Series cancelled for Threeboot
2009	LSH v5 (Threeboot)	22,300	Series cancelled for Retroboot
2011	LSH v6 (Retroboot)	21,400	Series cancelled for New 52
2011	Adventure Comics (Retroboot)	19,200	Series cancelled for New 52
2013	LSH v7 (New 52)	15,500	Series cancelled due to sales
2013	Legion Lost v2 (New 52)	13,500	Series cancelled due to sales

Not counting miniseries, which are known to have a finite end.

Top selling Legion books, 2004-present (since the start of the Threeboot)

Rank	Cover date	Sales	Series	Issue
1	Jan 2010	85,145	Adventure Comics v3	4
2	Nov 2019	75,611	LSH v8	1
3	Oct 2008	73,914	Legion of Three Worlds	1
4	Dec 2008	64,412	Legion of Three Worlds	2
5	Apr 2009	61,358	Legion of Three Worlds	3
6	Oct 2004	61,047	Teen Titans/The Legion Special	1
7	Feb 2005	59,944	LSH v5	1
8	Feb 2010	59,876	Adventure Comics v3	5
9	Jun 2009	56,888	Legion of Three Worlds	4
10	Oct 2009	56,706	Adventure Comics v3	1
11	Sep 2009	55,970	Legion of Three Worlds	5
12	May 2006	54,826	Supergirl & the LSH	16
13	Mar 2010	53,721	Adventure Comics v3	7
14	Nov 2011	53,285	LSH v7	1
15	Jul 2010	50,106	LSH v6	1
16	Nov 2011	49,952	Legion Lost v2	1
17	Mar 2005	48,584	LSH v5	2
18	Sep 2019	48,389	LSH: Millennium	1
19	Sep 2019	47,857	Superman	15
20	Aug 2019	47,777	Superman	14
21	Jun 2006	47,697	Supergirl & the LSH	17
22	Nov 2009	47,296	Adventure Comics v3	2
23	Feb 2008	45,803	Supergirl & the LSH	37
24	Jul 2006	45,520	Supergirl & the LSH	18
25	Apr 2005	44,824	LSH v5	3
26	Dec 2009	44,431	Adventure Comics v3	3
27	Aug 2006	43,918	Supergirl & the LSH	19
28	May 2005	43,408	LSH v5	4
29	Mar 2010	42,514	Adventure Comics v3	6
30	Dec 2011	42,504	LSH v7	2
31	Sep 2006	41,679	Supergirl & the LSH	20
32	Jun 2005	41,664	LSH v5	5
33	Dec 2006	41,554	Supergirl & the LSH	23
34	Jul 2005	40,970	LSH v5	6
35	Oct 2006	39,852	Supergirl & the LSH	21
36	Oct 2019	39,489	LSH: Millennium	2
37	Apr 2010	39,351	Adventure Comics v3	8
38	Aug 2005	39,155	LSH v5	7
39	Aug 2010	39,102	LSH v6	2
40	Dec 2011	38,385	Legion Lost v2	2
41	Dec 2011	38,248	Legion Secret Origin	1
42	Dec 2011	38,248	Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes	1
43	Jun 2010	37,573	Adventure Comics v3	10
44	May 2010	37,515	Adventure Comics v3	9
45	Sep 2005	37,272	LSH v5	8
46	Nov 2006	36,735	Supergirl & the LSH	22
47	Sep 2010	36,360	LSH v6	3
48	Oct 2005	35,834	LSH v5	9
49	Nov 2005	35,800	LSH v5	10
50	Dec 2019	35,653	LSH v8	2
51	Jul 2010	34,794	Adventure Comics v3	11
52	Jan 2020	34,732	LSH v8	3
53	Aug 2010	34,663	Adventure Comics v3	12
54	Oct 2010	34,239	LSH v6	4
55	Dec 2005	34,100	LSH v5	11
56	Jan 2007	33,985	Supergirl & the LSH	24
57	Jan 2006	33,500	LSH v5	12
58	Feb 2007	33,288	Supergirl & the LSH	25
59	Mar 2008	33,045	LSH v5	38
60	Apr 2009	32,851	Adventure Comics v3	0
61	Feb 2006	32,730	LSH v5	13
62	Mar 2006	32,513	LSH v5	14
63	Nov 2010	32,417	LSH v6	5
64	Mar 2007	32,342	Supergirl & the LSH	26
65	Apr 2006	31,649	LSH v5	15
66	May 2007	31,525	Supergirl & the LSH	28
67	Jan 2012	31,481	LSH v7	3
68	Apr 2007	31,381	Supergirl & the LSH	27
69	Apr 2008	31,123	LSH v5	39
70	Jun 2007	30,906	Supergirl & the LSH	29
71	Sep 2010	30,897	Adventure Comics v3	516
72	Jul 2007	30,767	Supergirl & the LSH	30
73	Jan 2020	34,732	LSH v8	4
74	Aug 2007	30,385	Supergirl & the LSH	31
75	May 2008	30,377	LSH v5	40