Legionnaires #17 annotations: End of an Era, part 1

Annotations for Legionnaires #17:

• On sale 6/14/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 714 (June 20, 2022)
• Timeline: 9/29-30/2995

Notes:

• Cover: Legionnaire statues, take a drink! The lineup of living and dead Legionnaires doesn’t match what’s in the story, but it probably doesn’t matter. Ferro Lad should be dead and Livewire/Lightning Lad should be alive. Cham does appear briefly as a statue in this story, swapped with Chemical King, who's visible next to Invisible Kid, who does not appear in this issue in this costume.
• Incorrectly listed as the conclusion to “End of an Era” rather than part 1
• Page 1: Roll call – read “Who’s Who in the Legion”, that’s not far from the truth! Some of the SW6 Legionnaires meet Polestar at New Earth, as seen earlier (Legionnaires #16, LSHv4 #59).
• Page 5 panel 2: it’s not the full LSH or SW6 Legionnaires gathering on Shanghalla.
• Representing the adults: Dawnstar, Garth, Imra, Rokk, NRG/Wildfire, Furball/Timber Wolf, Jewel/Mysa, Cham, Wave, Rond Vidar, Vi, Valor, Shady
• Representing the SW6: Ultra Boy, Apparition, Matter-Eater Lad, Inferno, Star Boy, Andromeda, Violet
• Also, Dev-Em is still a Daxamite as of now (originally a Kryptonian prior to the Mordruverse)
• Page 6 panel 5: Who could command Valor’s attention that quickly? I haven’t read ahead but maybe Brande?
• Page 7 panel 1: Off go Valor, Dev-Em, Andromeda, and Shady to either Valor #22 (EoE 2) or LSHv4 #60 (EoE 3)
• Page 7 panel 2: Leviathan is here but wasn’t in the group shot earlier
• Page 10 panel 1: Superboy has been un-retconned (or de-retconned?)! How could the Superman office allow this?
• Page 11 panel 2:
• The Legion has never met this version of Superboy (Kon-El)
• Saturn Girl shooting lightning from her eyes is from the cover of ADV 267
• The original costumes of the Legionnaires (ADV 247)
• The Brain-Globes of Rambat tried to conquer Earth by controlling the heroes, but they couldn’t control animals so the Legion of Super-Pets was formed to save the day (ADV 293)
• Scene from the Mordruverse (LSHv4 4)
• Page 13 panels 1-3: As Brainy talks about how things are changing and nobody notices, Cham is briefly replaced by Chemical King and nobody notices
• Page 14: Villains, some more anachronistic than others
• Cosmic King, Lightning Lord, Saturn Queen – as in their original appearance (SMAN 147)
• Urthlo – originally a robot built by Lex Luthor, powered by Hate tapes (ADV 300)
• Beauty Blaze – only seen in the alternate future of the Adult Legion (ADV 355)
• Satan Girl – a red kryptonite-created evil version of Supergirl (ADV 313)
• Page 16 panel 2: As Urthlo gets blasted, you can see one of his HATE tapes flying out
• Page 17 panel 1: Why isn’t Inferno taking on Beauty Blaze instead of Furball, the guy with burnable fur?
• Page 17 panel 3: Kid Quantum is suddenly here
• Page 18 panel 1: Mekt is suddenly here
• Page 21: Mordru and Glorith have taken Rokk to his destiny
• Page 22 panel 3: fade out for Dawnstar, pour one out for her

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Cutting down the timeline to just the last few days of story as we get close to Zero Hour. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow), it's a confirmed date that was given in the comic (green), or an estimated date based on keeping track of events and days (cyan). Bold text is something new added this issue. Italics are unknown dates. 

Due to the timelines in the stories bouncing between 2995 and 1994 and things happening "simultaneously" 1001 years apart, I'm keeping the events in the order that they happen to the people involved, not strictly chronological by day and year. To make it easier to follow, the non-30th century dates will be in red text.

• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).
• Fri 9/29/95: Arriving at Weber’s World, the team tries to stop the Khunds’ bombs from destroying the planet; Dawnstar arrives and meets Wildfire; Firefist kills Veilmist; and after studying at the Infinite Library, Glorith travels to Tharn where she restores Mordru’s powers to help her conquer the universe (LSHv4 #58). Meanwhile, SW6 Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10), so a team of Legionnaires goes back in time to find out what happened (Valor #14, Legionnaires #16 page 10).
• Outside of time: the Legionnaires enter the time stream and crash their Time Bubble (Valor #15); the Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Lori is Glorith (Valor #16), and then fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; SW6 Valor appears (Valor #17); Brainiac 5 tells SW6 Valor that he will have to spend another 1000 years in the Phantom Zone in order to save time, and Valor does not take it well (Valor #18), but the presence of Waverider and seeing his fellow Legionnaires vanish changes his mind. Once he accepts his fate, the Legionnaires appear back in their own time and the legend of Valor is restored (Valor #19, Legionnaires #16 page 11). From Vanishing Point, the Linear Men see a timequake affect the 30th century (Valor #20), which causes Dream Girl and Star Boy to appear (Legionnaires #16).
• Fri 9/29/95: The Legionnaires instantly return to their present, unaware of their meeting with Glorith and the Valors (Valor #15-19, Legionnaires #16 page 11); Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Bouncing Boy appear with the Legionnaires and Ferro Lad is long dead, leading Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad – who seem to be the only ones aware that something funny is going on – to take a Time Bubble to figure it out (even though Invisible Kid and Rond Vidar are secretly aware that something’s happening); Polestar appears at New Earth (Legionnaires #16, LSHv4 #59); Rond, SW6 Brainiac 5, and SW6 Invisible Kid arrive on Weber’s World in a time bubble at the same time as with Mon-El, Shadow Lass, and Dev-Em, but they're all too late to prevent the death of Laurel Gand from the Khund bomb; Jo leaves for 1994 to find Tinya (LSHv4 #59). The SW6 Legionnaires confront Polestar at New Earth (Legionnaires #17).
• Sat 8/6/1994: Valor tries to re-create the feats he did before he went into the Phantom Zone, but fails; the Linear Men watch Valor from Vanishing Point (Valor #20). As a result of the timeline issues, Valor splits into multiple copies of himself and manages to do all the things that legend said he did over the years, in just a few hours, then resigns himself to having Glorith send him back to the Bgztl Twilight dimension. But the Linear Men realize it’s too late, the future is doomed (Valor #21).
• Sun 8/7/1994: Jo Nah arrives from the future in the time bubble (L.E.G.I.O.N. #68). He meets who he thinks is Tinya, but it turns out to have been her cousin Enya all along. He wants to bring her back to the 30th century (L.E.G.I.O.N. #69). 
• Sat 9/30/95: Laurel Gand is laid to rest on Shanghalla in a ceremony attended by a number of adult and SW6 Legionnaires, after which Glorith and Mordru attack the group with replicas of some of their old foes and kidnap Rokk (Legionnaires #17).

L.E.G.I.O.N. #68-69 annotations: Enter the Dragon

In the main 30th century series (LSH, Legionnaires, and now Valor), we're rapidly approaching Zero Hour, but in the 20th century we still have to wrap up the loose end of "who is Phase?" Up until now, Tinya Wazzo was apparently killed (her body never found), but we know that Glorith sent her back in time to the 20th century in retaliation for how Jo Nah upset her plans (all as seen in LSH v4 Annual 2) and then pulled The Durlan out of that time and stuck him in the 30th century to become R. J. Brande, who would found and fund the Legion which would put a check against Mordru, which is what Glorith wanted all along.

But behind the scenes, with Zero Hour coming up and the creative teams knowing that the LSH was going to be rebooted while the L.E.G.I.O.N. was not, they had to come up with a way to keep Phase in the 20th century after Zero Hour.

Meet Enya, Tinya's never-before-revealed cousin.

In the first two parts of this 3-issue sequence, Jo (aka Emerald Dragon) and Phase have a few pages in each issue: Jo arrives, talks to Phase, and then leaves (but you'll have to wait for issue #70 for that).

Annotations for L.E.G.I.O.N. #68:

• On sale 5/31/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 712 (June 6, 2022) (at the end of the episode)
• Timeline: 8/7/1994

Notes:

• Recall in our last 30th century issue (LSHv4 #59, which came out 5/24/94, the week before this issue), Valor said "you know, I forgot to mention it earlier, but like 1000 years ago when I was in the 20th century, there was this girl who just now reminds me of Tinya, though of course I didn't know her as Tinya back then."

• Jo Nah leaves Weber’s World in the 30th century in a time bubble to go to the past to find Tinya. He ends up on Cairn in the 20th century, in the pages of L.E.G.I.O.N. #68-70. That's pretty much all there is to #68, Jo's appearance is on pages 22-24.

Annotations for L.E.G.I.O.N. #69:

• On sale 6/28/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 713 (June 13, 2022) & L.E.G.I.O.N.P.O.D.C.A.S.T. episode 103 (June 17, 2022) in a 2-part crossover podcast!
• Timeline: 8/7/1994

Notes:

• The Jo/Phase part only takes up about 6 pages of the issue (p. 4-6 and 14-16), with the rest of it being about regular L.E.G.I.O.N. stuff that this blog doesn't cover.
• So the new retcon is that Phase is not and never was Tinya, she's been Enya all along. Blame everything on the Zero Hour time shenanigans. From issue 2's text piece, for example, we know that Tinya was alone on her trip from Bgztl to Earth. But now Tinya's cousin Enya was retconned in to being with her.
  
  
  
  
  
• Having Enya being Tinya's identical twin cousin leaves the character free to stay in the 20th century (as we'll see next issue) with the L.E.G.I.O.N. But it also leaves Tinya as being actually dead. That still satisfies Glorith's motivation to punish Jo, but undoes a plot point that had been in place for years working just fine.
• In this issue, we get an info dump of backstory for Enya: she was an interplanetary trader, operating just inside the law. Jo speculates that Glorith might have wanted to send Tinya back in time but got Enya by accident, as Glorith isn't the most competent foe they've faced (which is the first time he's described her like that).
• This issue came out the week after LSHv4 #60, which is "End of an Era" part 3, and takes place the same day as issue #68.
• Because of the decision to have Jo be here for three consecutive issues with Phase, that messes up his availability to the 30th century books. Even though he's only here in the 20th century for a couple of days, he's out of the 30th century books (LSHv4, Legionnaires, and Valor) until L.E.G.I.O.N. #70 is done, and that means he skips all of the "End of an Era" parts 1-5. He will return in the Zero Hour series and then for the Legion finale.
• I'm working out the timeline for the Legion's participation in Zero Hour, and given that issue #0 comes out on 8/9/1994, I'm counting that as the day the universe reboots. Backing up from there, it appears that all of the stuff Valor did in one day in Valor #20-21 took place on 8/6/1994, and L.E.G.I.O.N. #68-69 take place on 8/7/1994.
• After looking at the podcast schedules, it turned out that the Subs only had to stall for 2 episodes to get the LEGIONPODCAST to sync up. Given when each team released their new episodes, the Subs took the first half of the issue while the LEGION gang took the second half. It worked out well!

Best as I've been able to keep track, Jo left the 30th century on 9/29/2995, while he arrived on 8/7/1994.

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Cutting down the timeline to just the last few days of story as we get close to Zero Hour. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow), it's a confirmed date that was given in the comic (green), or an estimated date based on keeping track of events and days (cyan). Bold text is something new added this issue. Italics are unknown dates. 

Due to the timelines in the stories bouncing between 2995 and 1994 and things happening "simultaneously" 1001 years apart, I'm keeping the events in the order that they happen to the people involved, not strictly chronological by day and year. To make it easier to follow, the non-30th century dates will be in red text.

• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).
• Fri 9/29/95: Arriving at Weber’s World, the team tries to stop the Khunds’ bombs from destroying the planet; Dawnstar arrives and meets Wildfire; Firefist kills Veilmist; and after studying at the Infinite Library, Glorith travels to Tharn where she restores Mordru’s powers to help her conquer the universe (LSHv4 #58). Meanwhile, SW6 Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10), so a team of Legionnaires goes back in time to find out what happened (Valor #14, Legionnaires #16 page 10).
• Outside of time: the Legionnaires enter the time stream and crash their Time Bubble (Valor #15); the Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Lori is Glorith (Valor #16), and then fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; SW6 Valor appears (Valor #17); Brainiac 5 tells SW6 Valor that he will have to spend another 1000 years in the Phantom Zone in order to save time, and Valor does not take it well (Valor #18), but the presence of Waverider and seeing his fellow Legionnaires vanish changes his mind. Once he accepts his fate, the Legionnaires appear back in their own time and the legend of Valor is restored (Valor #19, Legionnaires #16 page 11). From Vanishing Point, the Linear Men see a timequake affect the 30th century (Valor #20), which causes Dream Girl and Star Boy to appear (Legionnaires #16).
• Fri 9/29/95: The Legionnaires instantly return to their present, unaware of their meeting with Glorith and the Valors (Valor #15-19, Legionnaires #16 page 11); Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Bouncing Boy appear with the Legionnaires and Ferro Lad is long dead, leading Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad – who seem to be the only ones aware that something funny is going on – to take a Time Bubble to figure it out (even though Invisible Kid and Rond Vidar are secretly aware that something’s happening); Polestar appears at New Earth (Legionnaires #16, LSHv4 #59); Rond, SW6 Brainiac 5, and SW6 Invisible Kid arrive on Weber’s World in a time bubble at the same time as with Mon-El, Shadow Lass, and Dev-Em, but they're all too late to prevent the death of Laurel Gand from the Khund bomb; Jo leaves for 1994 to find Tinya (LSHv4 #59).
• Sat 8/6/1994: Valor tries to re-create the feats he did before he went into the Phantom Zone, but fails; the Linear Men watch Valor from Vanishing Point (Valor #20). As a result of the timeline issues, Valor splits into multiple copies of himself and manages to do all the things that legend said he did over the years, in just a few hours, then resigns himself to having Glorith send him back to the Bgztl Twilight dimension. But the Linear Men realize it’s too late, the future is doomed (Valor #21).
• Sun 8/7/1994: Jo Nah arrives from the future in the time bubble (L.E.G.I.O.N. #68). He meets who he thinks is Tinya, but it turns out to have been her cousin Enya all along. He wants to bring her back to the 30th century (L.E.G.I.O.N. #69). 

Legionnaires #1 Annotations: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!

Annotations for Legionnaires Annual #1:

• On sale 5/13/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 709 (May 16, 2022)
• Timeline: N/A

Notes:

• Part of the 1994 Elseworlds annuals theme, typically unrelated to the main book. This one is completely standalone, and maps the Legion roughly onto Arthurian legend.
• Page 1: we’ve been to Thanagar twice before in the pre-Zero Hour universe: some Hawk-people were killed by Professor Ivo (LSHv3 Annual 1), and it was attacked by Daxamites under control of Darkseid (LSHv2 294). It was also mentioned as the site of a Science Police convention (SBOY 217) but we didn’t go there.
• Page 2: Rokk pulling the Nth metal out of Thanagar with Brande seems to parallel Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone with Merlin. 
• Page 4 panel 3: Avalon was the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was made and later where Arthur was taken to recover from being gravely wounded at the Battle of Camlann. Since then, the island has become a symbol of Arthurian mythology, similar to Arthur's castle Camelot. In regular continuity, we saw Avalon where Mordru temporarily made a home (in Lord Romdur’s Castle) and then a bit later when Darkseid dug him up and stole his powers.
• Page 9 panel 2: In the Threeboot, the Legion flight ring was retconned to being made of Nth metal. 
• Page 11: take a drink for a Legion traitor!
• Page 13: even though he was a traitor, do we still take a drink for a dead Legionnaire?
• Page 15: take a drink for a golden statue
• Page 17 panel 2: is Tenzil eating Thor’s hammer Mjolnir?
• Page 22: take 3 drinks for 3 dead Legionnaires (Dox, Lyle, Brek)
• Page 25 panel 5: “either we hang together or we hang separately” is a paraphrase of a saying attributed to Ben Franklin at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
• Page 26 panel 2: Jeckie’s “spell of making” is from the movie “Excalibur”  
• Page 27: I found the page of original art on Heritage, it sold for only $74 in 2018
• Page 28 panel 1: Imra is in subcircle 9; in Dante’s Inferno, the 9th circle of Hell was “dedicated to those people who betrayed their loved ones, friends, best friends, countries, cities, guests and even their masters”, and of course Imra has betrayed Rokk by having an affair with Garth
• Page 42: Garth rescuing Imra is reminiscent of Lancelot rescuing Guinevere from being burned at the stake after being found out regarding their affair
• Rough analogs for the Arthurian legend in this story:
• Rokk = Arthur
• Imra = Guinevere
• Garth = Lancelot
• Mekt = Mordred
• Brande = Merlin
• Nth Metal = Excalibur
• Avalon = Camelot
• Miracle Machine = Holy Grail
• Dark Circle = Morgaine le Fey (or maybe the Saxon hordes)

RIP George Perez

Coming so soon on the heels of the loss of the great Neal Adams, is the loss of the great George Perez. This was not unexpected, but even though after his December diagnosis he said he had a few months left, just because you know it's coming doesn't make it easier.

So like with Adams, I'm not going to eulogize Perez, you can read the many tributes around the internet, all of which say he was a genuinely nice guy. Instead, I'll present a gallery of his Legion work from 1980-2013.

I just wanted to post this picture up top as one of the great "FUCK YEAH!" moments in Legion history, which was drawn by George.

In general, while doing my research, I'm breaking this down into three categories, though only showing the covers to the first set:

1. Covers of Legion books
2. Covers of books that a Legionnaire or two may be on, but it's not a Legion story
3. Interior art

In 1980-81, shortly after arriving at DC from Marvel, Perez did a great number of covers across all titles, among which were six issues of LSH v2 (268, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281). He also drew Colossal Boy on the jam cover to LSH v2 300.

In 2007, Perez joined with writer Mark Waid for a six-issue story arc called "The Lords of Luck", featuring Batman, Green Lantern, Supergirl, Blue Beetle III, Lobo, and the Threeboot Legion versus the Luck Lords and the Fatal Five. The Legion cover-starred in issue 5 but the Luck Lords and the Fatal Five were throughout the whole arc. There was a new cover for the reprint collection.

In 2008-09, while the rest of the DC Universe was going through a Final Crisis, the Legion was involved in a side-story that involved the Retroboot, Reboot, and Threeboot versions of 3 worlds. The DC Universe #0 issue was a prelude that had a tease of "Legion of 3 Worlds" that didn't otherwise appear in the miniseries. The first printing had the Retroboot Legion in the center, while the second printing had the Threeboot Legion. An unused version of the cover of DC Universe #0 became the cover to the collected edition of the series, which had all three Legions.

Each of the issues of the miniseries had a variant cover (one full cover and one "sliver" cover). Issue #1 had a couple other versions, the first being a pencils-only version of the full cover (as the RRP variant) and one with that image as a sliver, as the second printing. 

After it was all over, Perez was at the Baltimore Con in 2009 and had this to say about working on L3W:

First, when asked about his "wish list" for future projects, Perez discussed the creators with who he wanted to work rather than characters. Basically, L3W fulfilled his last wish from his fandom days. For him, working with creators is what is interesting when considering new projects. He volunteered that having known Paul Levitz since their days in fandom, he would enjoy drawing a Legion project for him.

Perez did an interview in 2019 saying that this miniseries was basically the last thing on his bucket list that he wanted to draw.

Well, the irony is that the Legion, when I was growing up, was one of my favorite comics. I mean even over The Avengers because I loved all of the characters, all of the costumes, all the color.

I thought, one of the first comics I would ever do if I got the chance — other than well, I knew I wanted JLA, I knew I wanted The Avengers — but I really wanted the Legion of Super-Heroes. And then it took so long in my career to finally do a Legion of Super-Heroes story. I did a few covers, I did a few little pinups… but I’d never worked on a Legion story. They appeared in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but then again, who didn’t?

Finally, Perez drew the cover to LSH v7 #20 in 2013 - and although I own the issue, I have no recollection of ever seeing it before today when I discovered it while researching this blog post. One final "new" (to me) cover on Free Comic Book Day and the day it was announced that he had passed away.

He also drew a number of covers that had a Legionnaire on the cover, though it wasn't a Legion book:

• Crisis on Infinite Earths 1-10
• Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe 3-5, 13-18
• DC Universe: Legacies 5, 6

And finally, issues that had interior art featuring (or at least guest-starring) the Legion:

• DC Comics Presents 38
• Best of DC Digest 24
• Superman v1 423
• History of the DC Universe 2

LSH v4 #59 annotations: Let's Start Wrapping Up All the Subplots Before It's Too Late!

Annotations for LSH v4 #59:

• On sale 5/24/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 707 (May 2, 2022)
• Timeline: Sept 29, 2995

Notes:

• The overarching theme of this issue is: “we need to wrap up all of the subplots this issue because we’re up to End of an Era”
• Page 1: The Khund bomb exploded at the end of the previous issue.
• Page 3 panel 6: notice that in this issue, when we have a transition to a flashback within the story, we are led to the next page (or panel) by someone’s hair. 
• Transition out by Jewel’s hair, transition back with Furball’s hair on page 7 panel 1
• Transition out by Jacques’ hair in page 7 panel 5, back in with Infectious Lass’s hair on page 10 panel 1
• Transition out by Shadow Lass’s hair on page 11 panel 2 and back in on page 12 panel 2
• Transition out by Ayla’s hair on page 16 panel 4, back in on page 17 panel 5
• Page 7 panel 2: Flederweb joined the Heroes of Lallor, who took off so that we don’t have to concern ourselves with them any more.
• Page 7 panels 4-5: Oh, and no need to worry about that Universo subplot anymore, either
• Page 9 panel 5: Oomar is a planet in the Tenth Galaxy, it’s where the addictive Lotus Fruit grows wild (ACT 378)
• Page 12 panel 4: Celeste, formerly made of Green Lantern energy, is now a Darkstar. The Controllers created the Darkstars just like the Oans created the GLs.
• Page 13 panel 4: this flashback follows the end of Legionnaires #16, which came out last week (real publishing time) – recall this issue of LSHv4 came out the same week as last week’s feature Valor #21
• Page 15 panel 2: have to wrap up the “who is Phase from L.E.G.I.O.N.” subplot before Zero Hour renders the answer moot. Recall that in the LSH v4 Annual #1 it was Glorith who sent Tinya back in time and swapped her for the Durlan who later became RJ Brande.
• Page 16 panel 1: Jo leaves for 1994, where he will appear next in L.E.G.I.O.N. #68 – but we’ll get to that later. We will see him – and the SW6 Livewire, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy, who left in a time bubble in Legionnaires #16 a couple weeks ago – in the pages of Zero Hour before they return to “End of an Era”.
• Page 19 panel 4: Tyroc has dispatched the Legionnaires to take care of Polestar, which we’ll see in Legionnaires #17 in a little while

It's beginning to look a lot like Zero Hour....

---

Cutting down the timeline to just the last few days of story as we get close to Zero Hour. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow), it's a confirmed date that was given in the comic (green), or an estimated date based on keeping track of events and days (cyan). Bold text is something new added this issue. Italics are unknown dates. 

Due to the timelines in the stories bouncing between 2995 and 1994 and things happening "simultaneously" 1001 years apart, I'm keeping the events in the order that they happen to the people involved, not strictly chronological by day and year. To make it easier to follow, the non-30th century dates will be in red text.

• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).
• Fri 9/29/95: Arriving at Weber’s World, the team tries to stop the Khunds’ bombs from destroying the planet; Dawnstar arrives and meets Wildfire; Firefist kills Veilmist; and after studying at the Infinite Library, Glorith travels to Tharn where she restores Mordru’s powers to help her conquer the universe (LSHv4 #58). Meanwhile, SW6 Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10), so a team of Legionnaires goes back in time to find out what happened (Valor #14, Legionnaires #16 page 10).
• Outside of time: the Legionnaires enter the time stream and crash their Time Bubble (Valor #15); the Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Lori is Glorith (Valor #16), and then fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; SW6 Valor appears (Valor #17); Brainiac 5 tells SW6 Valor that he will have to spend another 1000 years in the Phantom Zone in order to save time, and Valor does not take it well (Valor #18), but the presence of Waverider and seeing his fellow Legionnaires vanish changes his mind. Once he accepts his fate, the Legionnaires appear back in their own time and the legend of Valor is restored (Valor #19, Legionnaires #16 page 11). From Vanishing Point, the Linear Men see a timequake affect the 30th century (Valor #20), which causes Dream Girl and Star Boy to appear (Legionnaires #16).
• Fri 9/29/95: The Legionnaires instantly return to their present, unaware of their meeting with Glorith and the Valors (Valor #15-19, Legionnaires #16 page 11); Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Bouncing Boy appear with the Legionnaires and Ferro Lad is long dead, leading Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad – who seem to be the only ones aware that something funny is going on – to take a Time Bubble to figure it out (even though Invisible Kid and Rond Vidar are secretly aware that something’s happening); Polestar appears at New Earth (Legionnaires #16, LSHv4 #59); Rond, SW6 Brainiac 5, and SW6 Invisible Kid arrive on Weber’s World in a time bubble at the same time as with Mon-El, Shadow Lass, and Dev-Em, but they're all too late to prevent the death of Laurel Gand from the Khund bomb; Jo leaves for 1994 to find Tinya (LSHv4 #59).

·T

RIP Neal Adams

Neal Adams needs no introduction, and many people will write elsewhere lots of good things about him and what he did for the industry over the years. So instead, I'm just going to recap his Legion work.

In the late 1960s, Adams drew a lot of covers for DC, including Adventure Comics, for which he pencilled and/or inked 13 covers towards the end of the Legion's run.

His first cover was #365, introducing Shadow Lass. It’s not that the previous covers by Curt Swan were not good, it’s just that Adams’ covers were that much better. He then did #366 (Validus blasting Superboy in a boxing ring, a precursor to his later Superman vs Muhammad Ali tabloid), #367 (surrounded by shadowy members of the Dark Circle), #368 (the mutiny of the super-heroines), #369 (intro Mordru), #371 (Superboy leaves the Legion), #372 (Superboy is smashed as a glass statue), #373 (the Tornado Twins), #375 (Bouncing Boy is the most powerful Legionnaire), #376 (the execution of Chameleon Boy; inks over Swan pencils), #377 (the Legionnaires are for hire; inks over Swan pencils), #378 (the Legionnaires are dying; inks over Swan pencils), and #379 (the dead Superboy is ejected into space; inks over Infantino pencils).

Jim Shooter recalled working with Adams in this 2008 interview:

JS:  By the way, it was great working with Neal, although I only worked with him on covers.  In the old days with Mort, with every story Mort required a cover sketch or a detailed cover idea if the writer in question could not sketch.  As a matter of fact, he required two cover sketches for each story.  What he would do is he would take the better one and make it the cover and make the other one the splash page because he used to do the symbolic splashes, rather than splash panels that started the story.  He’d call it the second cover.  So, I did two cover sketches. 

When I did the interior stuff I just did it in pencil, but with the cover sketch, I colored it, because they taught me how to color, so I did a whole color comp of this cover.  I put the logo and everything.  And usually they’d pick one of my designs and follow it.  I can’t think of an instance where they didn’t pick one of them.  What was really, really cool was the first time the book comes out and I see the cover and it was Neal Adams.  It was like, “Whoa!”  It was amazing.  Because more than any other guy, Neal would look at my crude little drawing and he would know what I meant.  And he would say, “All right.  I’ve got it.”  And then he would do this brilliant thing that was like he was reading my mind.  (Chuckle.)  And I would look at it and say, “Yeah, I meant that.”  (Mutual laughter.)  “That’s what I meant.  Yeah, good work, man.”

Stroud:  Just knocked it out of the park.

JS:  Oh, unbelievable.  Doing those covers with him…I just couldn’t wait to see what he did.

Stroud:  Sure.  You and the rest of the world.  He’s a formidable talent. 

Adams also did a wraparound cover for Batman #238, which inexplicably contained a Legion reprint story (from Adventure 324, the Legion of Super-Outlaws aka the Heroes of Lallor) and featured on the cover all of the characters inside the book.

Adams pencilled a famous group shot of the Legion for the 1976 DC Calendar, inked by the late great Dick Giordano, and this was later reused (with some cropping and rearranging of characters) as the cover to the 1978 Tempo paperback book with Legion reprints.

Finally, a few decades later, Adams provided what would turn out to be his final Legion cover, a variant for issue #44 of Jim Shooter's Threeboot run (LSH v5) cover-dated Sept. 2008. In the above interview, Shooter continued:

JS:  He’s doing a cover for the new series, by the way. 

Stroud:  Oh, is he?  I hadn’t heard that.

JS:  Yeah for issue #44.  Yeah, he asked to do it.  He actually sent an e-mail to Levitz and Didio saying, “Hey, good move hiring Shooter and I want to do a cover.”  And they asked me, “Would that be okay with you?”  I said, “Oh, sure, let’s give the kid a break.” 

Stroud: (Laughter.)  Yeah, I guess we could do that.

JS: “We could see our way clear.”  So anyway, he insisted I give him a sketch, and so I did, and now I’m sitting here and can’t wait to see it.  I can’t wait to see it.  It’s going to be cool.  I’m not going to get many covers from him, he’s a busy guy, but it’s a very, very cool that he wanted to do one. 

Stroud:  Absolutely.  I can feel the chills down your spine from here. 

JS:  It’s going to be good.