Trivia #20 answers

The answers to the all-singing, all-dancing, all-Karate Kid edition of the trivia quiz....

1. When Karate Kid originally joined the Legion in "Adventure Comics" #346, it was the first time he met them but it was not the first time they met him. Explain.

Karate Kid was in the 20th century battling the Lord of Time (long story), and he brought some Legionnaires back to fight him (issues 12-13 of his own series). Unfortunately for him, it was the Legion from before he joined. As Duke noted, they were wearing flight rings but Lightning Lad still had both arms, which places the Legion between Adventure 329 and 332.

2. On his way back from having spent time in the 20th century, traveling to his home timeline in the 30th, where did Karate Kid stop over? What revelation was made that ties in with "Countdown" and "Final Crisis" as a result of that stopover? And for what event did he come back to the 30th century just in time?

He stopped off in Kamandi's time, where it was revealed that the Great Disaster timeline was an alternate future than the one the Legion was in; previously, it had been speculated that they were both from the same timeline. In Kamandi's timeline, the Great Disaster happened; in the Legion's timeline, it didn't. (See Kamandi #58-59 and Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2). He got back to his own 30th century just in time to help Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy take on Mordru at the end of Earthwar after the rest of the Legion had been defeated.

3. Who stayed behind to watch the HQ during the wedding of Karate Kid and Queen Projectra?

Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy, in LSH v2 Annual #2.

4. Why did Karate Kid leave the Work Force?

As Reboot said, "He thought McCauley was defiling the Anomaly, destroyed Evolvo's machine, knocked out Evolvo and ran & claimed asylum with the Legion." Duke put it slightly differently: "KK lost his reserved demeanor when Leland McCauley tried to explot a poor, helpless space anomoly." I think it was this issue:

5. Where, with whom, and why was Karate Kid stranded during the "Legion Worlds" storyline?

He was stranded on Steeple with the comatose Ferro. He chose to stay when a black hole cut the planet off from traffic, supposedly for a decade but it was actually a lot less.

6. How many different versions of Karate Kid has Batman met?

By my count, three: the pre-Crisis version, the current post-Infinite Crisis version, and the Lightning Saga version.

7. When Karate Kid was unmasked as Trident in the "Lightning Saga" storyline, what was significant about the name he gave as his identity?

He gave the name Wes Holloway, which was the name of the protagonist of writer Brad Meltzer's novel "Book of Fate".

Bonus question: How does Karate Kid (the Legionnaire) tie in with the movie of the same name?

The producers of the movie paid a fee to DC for use of the name. But recently in "Countdown", Karate Kid was asked if he was inspired to take his name from the movie.