Saturday, January 31, 2009

Annotated "Legion of Three Worlds" #3 preview

Looks like a new issue of L3W is coming out this week. At the rate we're going, we should see issue 5 cover-dated October. I'll do just the previewed pages on Newsarama here, then on Wednesday I'll copy this and finish up the rest of the issue.

Keeping my Annotations notations, the three Legions as L1 (Pre-Crisis + Lightning Saga), L2 (Post-Zero Hour), and L3 (Post-Infinite Crisis). The "Glorithverse" Legion I'll call L1.5 should we need it.

The solicitation:

Written by Geoff Johns; Art by George Pérez and Scott Koblish; Covers by George Pérez
The Legion of Super-Heroes call in the reinforcements against Superboy Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains as the Crisis of the 31st Century continues. While Superboy Prime comes face-to-face with the last of the Green Lanterns, Brainiac 5 and XS attempt to ignite an electrical storm using the lightning rod, which is destined to turn the tide of the war. And what are Polar Boy, Dawnstar and Wildfire up to in the 20th Century? DC Universe | 40pg. | Color | $3.99 US On Sale February 4, 2009

Cover A (full): L1 Cosmic Boy, with images of L2 in his right hand at top and L3 in his left hand at bottom
Cover B (sliver): looks like a closeup of Universo's eye, reflecting L1 Shadow Lass, L1 Mon-El, and a Green Lantern symbol

Page 1:
Panels 4-8: Looks like the body of Rond Vidar is dead. Beyond that observation I can't say anything else for certain. The guy with the mohawk is Sodam Yat, a Daxamite from the 21st century who was a major player in the Sinestro Corps Wars.
Panel 16: Obviously we've missed a lot between the Sinestro Corps Wars and now.

Page 2:
Panels 1-2: more references to the Sinestro Corps War. Brainy also cured Mon-El's lead poisoning, though it did wear off in a post-Crisis story that may or may not still be canonical (Legion v3 #23).
Panel 4: Mon-El was in the Phantom Zone for 1000 years... oh wait, he just said all that.

Page 3:
Panels 4-9: that's a new version of the Green Lantern Oath, reflecting the wars with the other colored Lanterns.
If only the first 3 pages had more Legion stuff and not as much GL stuff...

Page 4-5:
Ah, that's better. I'll try to take it left to right, top to bottom. All are L1 versions. None of the civilians are recognizable. (thanks to Shadow Kid for some updates)
* Beauty Blaze; Lightning Lord; Universo; Neutrax; Black Mace; Silver Slasher, Timber Wolf, and Terrus; Hunter II (legs only)
* Superboy-Prime; Storm Boy; Zymyr; Saturn Queen, Saturn Girl, and Esper Lass; Lazon; Marella Tao (on screen)
* Grimbor, Titania, and Night Girl; Spider Girl; Lightning Lad
* Chameleon Chief; Colossal Boy; Validus (wrapped up by Spider-Girl?); Earth-Man; Ultra Boy; Mordru; Echo; Shrinking Violet and Micro Lad
* Ol-Vir; Mist Master and Cosmic Boy; Magno Lad
* Dr. Regulus; Blok and Tusker; Sun Emperor; Radiation Roy; Golden Boy's leg; Lightning Lass; Cosmic King

Interlac:
* top right: "daily pl[anet]"
* between Shrinking Violet and Magno Lad: "bismol stock exchange dome 69"
* below Cosmic King: "prison breakou[t] takron galt[os] / galtos mi**ng fr- / wanderers"

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mike,

Just a couple of additions/corrections to the great annotations for pages 4-5:

* Neutrax is just under Universo's cape (to Universo's right)
* The legs directly under Timber Wolf are Hunter II's (note the zebra-striped fur)
* That's definitely Saturn Queen next to Saturn Girl and Esper Lass
* Isn't that reporter Marella Tao on the monitor to Lazon's left?
* With Saturn Queen & Esper Lass both seemingly overpowered by Saturn Girl, it looks like Imra is the one who's causing Spider Girl's locks to entwine Validus (unless Validus is still actually Garridan and he's realized that Mommy is in trouble?)
* That's Mordru, not Sensor Girl, under Ultra Boy
* That's definitely Ol-Vir
* Those legs that Ayla is zapping belong to Golden Boy

Nikki said...

If you look at the bystanders at the bottom of 5 you'll see a man looking a lot like the one from the cover of action #1 in a similar pose

Hal Shipman said...

"that's a new version of the Green Lantern Oath, reflecting the wars with the other colored Lanterns."

Yes, and this one seems more petty and turf-warrish than about justice than the current one.

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing that's Cham doing his Validus impersonation again.

I'm guessing that's Sodam Yat on the sliver cover, not Universo.

I'm guessing that's actually the White Witch taking down Echo.

Anonymous said...

I agree that it's Sodam Yat on the sliver cover, given that Mon-el and Shadow Lass are reflected with the Ion symbol in his eye, which appears to be the right one, and that's where Universo wears his monocle.

Anonymous said...

OK, so I just finished reading L3W #3...and boy, was it worth the wait! Johns and Perez obviously know their Legion lore, and damn, do they deliver! Just like the other two issues, this one gave me chills the whole time I was reading it. Bittersweet at times and exciting as hell at others, it had me crying (almost) and cheering (often)!

DC should wise up and realize that Crisis = Perez (or at the very least Jiminez). One has to wonder how much better Final Crisis, 52, etc. would have been with George (or Phil) & Geoff had been on board. They truly know how to craft an epic! Congrats to all involved!