Levitz & Giffen, together again for Legion Annual #1

The DC Blog reported today that Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen will reunite for the Legion Annual #1, coming this December, starring the new Emerald Empress.

Newsarama has an interview with the two.

Paul Levitz: As soon as Keith heard I was doing some Legion work again, he was an immediate and energetic volunteer. And knowing his fondness for the Emerald Empress, I said, "I'll put her aside for you, and when I'm ready to get to that story, I'll give you a yell."

Newsarama will have part 2 with Levitz tomorrow where they talk about the current series and upcoming changes with Adventure Comics.

Trivia Quiz #51

Here's a quiz to start off the second half-century of monthly trivia quizzes. These questions were submitted by Omnicom readers.

1. From Tom Galloway:
Many Legionnaires come from planets where everyone shares a particular ability, and people from those planets have also fought the Legion. Name the planets/races/Legionnaires for whom the Legion has never fought someone from that common-powered world. (To simplify, we'll look at the pre-Zero Hour/current retroboot Legion only)

2. From Michael X. MacArthur:
In Adventure 373, the creators inserted a clue in the center of the book to the identity of the Tornado Twins. What was the clue?

3. From Don Sakers:
Legionnaires have had code names that start with almost every letter of the alphabet, but which five letters have started no Legionnaire code names?

4. Another from Don Sakers:
Which Legionnaire’s parents were the very first ones we saw, and when? For extra credit, what were their names? (update: not including Superboy or Supergirl)

5. From Darrell Lawrence:
When was "Lar Gand" revealed as Mon-El's real name?

6. From Matthew at the Legion Abstract:
Name all the superhero names Ayla Ranzz has gone by, in all three-and-a-half Legion continuities (that's L1, L2, L3, and v4).

7. Another from Matthew:
Name both parties in each marriage involving Legionnaires. (Not including dreams, hoaxes, imaginary stories, or alternate futures outside of the 3.5 main continuities)

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2010: Roxxas

Ahoy, mateys! Sept. 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Silverale!

For this year's pirate spotlight, we go to the dread pirate Roxxas, the scourge of Trom. Here's his pre-V4 bio from "Who's Who in the Legion" #5. That series embellished a lot from what had been seen in the comics, but for the most part it has been accepted as canon, so you might find out a little that you didn't know. Roxxas... you don't have to put on the red light....


KIVUN ROXXAS of MURGADOR

Roxxas, a surly but intelligent young man, was accepted into the naval academy on Amadus only to desert after killing his commanding officer and raiding the compu-vault for credits. As a fugitive, he spent many years fighting and running before he joined a group of techno-pirates. Roxxas pushed the men toward more and more illegal acts until he had become by authority and combat, the leader of a band of space-pirates. Roxxas led them on raids to many worlds. When he heard rumors of a valley of transmuters on Trom, he sent spies to visit the world and report back to him. They told tales of wonder, children turning their toys to gold, young men clearing new ground by evaporating boulders, all in a largely pacifistic civlilation. Roxxas immediately ordered the kidnapping of several Tromians to hold hostrage for their cooperation of the rest of the world. When Roxxas' men tried to take hostages, some were accidentally killed in self defense by the peaceful Tromians, at which point the pirates began slaughtering the Tromians in cold blood. One young boy, Jan Arrah, escaped in a small ship and was subsequently picked up by investigating Science Police. Roxxas, furious that his men had lost control and maddened by the failure of his plan, led his men in search of the one remaining transmuter, who had fled to Earth and joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. When they met again, Jan was willing to sacrifice himself to stop Roxxas, but he was saved by Invisible Kid. [Adventure 307]





Roxxas was captured and taken to Takron-Galtos. Escaping years later, he ran to Trom, assuming no one would think to look for him there. Alone, he gradually became insane. Later, when the Legionnaires raided a prisoner refuge world called Haven, they got a lead on Roxxas, and Element Lad tracked him to Trom. Element Lad, in a vengeful rage, tried to kill Roxxas but was stopped b other arriving Legionnaires. Roxxas, who believed himself to be haunted b the "ghosts" of the Tromians, surrendered and begged to die. Element Lad decided the best revenge was to let Roxxas live. He is currently undergoing intensive psychotherapy on Labyrinth. [Superboy 211]



Roxxas was the primary villain in the initial story arc of the v4 Legion. Sprung from prison by the Earth Government (secretly run by the Dominators) and given advanced weaponry, he was assigned with preventing the reformation of the Legion of Super-Heroes, preferably by killing them. They ignored his irrational behavior, which included hearing voices in his head of his former victims. He set out by murdering ex-Legionnaire Blok. He expected this would cause the remaining Legion members to gather on Shanghalla for the funeral, where he could take them out with one bomb. They instead gathered on Winath, so he attacked them there, critically wounding Chameleon Boy, and injuring several others before being forced to flee. He was eventually tracked down by a team lead by Element Lad and returned to prison. He then provided key evidence that Earthgov was run by the Dominators, which started the next story arc of freeing Earth from their control. In many ways his actions brought about the very thing he was hired to prevent, as the Legion reformed. [via Wikipedia]



Previously:
2009: Captain Frake
2008: Dynamo Boy

Dragon*Con 2010 part 2

Thanks to Brainy for pointing out a whole new trove of photos (all of these are from Shieldwolf52165's Photobucket album). If you're not already a fan on the Omnicom on Facebook, I've got a bunch more pictures there from other Facebook albums so come on over. In addition to the Legionnaires from yesterday's pictures, we also have Insect Queen and Dawnstar.

These appear to be from the group shoot on Sunday afternoon.

Dragon*Con 2010

I'm not sure what else they do at Dragon*Con in Atlanta besides show off their amazing costumes - as I read on someone's Twitter status, "[San Diego] Comic Con is for amateurs" - but thanks to Brainiac 5 there was a gathering of Legionnaires (and a villain or two) at this year's convention. Pictures are slow to come online but I found a few.


@ThatDJSpider showed off her Sensor Girl costume before the con (original source; more of her shortly):

Here's a link to another photo at a DC character gathering. Lightning Lad is on the far left. This one has Brainiac 5 (the one who organized the Legion shoot) and Kid Quantum. (Note that neither of these allows pictures to be hotlinked like the one above).

Here are Brainiac 5 and his wife Supergirl.More photos on the Superhero Costuming Forum (which has its own discussion area just for Legion costumes).

So here's Sensor Girl (not hotlink-able) - and you know, I think that's what Sensor Girl would really look like.

And here are the 15 costumed Legionnaires and villains from this year's photo shoot, via @Gary_TheGreat (original source):

That's the Time Trapper at the top of the middle column, and it looks like Colossal Boy is holding Shrinking Violet.

Gary posted one other picture, taken after Keith Giffen left the area (original source):

Still waiting on others to be posted.

Bits of Legionnaire Business

Stuff.

Michael Deeley's Top 10 Most Wanted Trade Paperbacks include the Abnett/Lanning stories.

LSH v6 #4 reviews from Too Dangerous for a Girl, Major Spoilers, Dave van Domelen, The Miracle Machine, IGN, ComicVine, CBR, and A Comic Book Blog.

Superman/Batman #75 reviews from Stars and Garters, Every Day Is Like Wednesday, and IGN.

CBR's Comics Legends Revealed tells the story behind the creation of Shadow Lass.

The Major Spoilers "TwitterPitch" contest has two weeks remaining.

Comic Book The Blog explains the Subs for those who may have read the the recent Brave & Bold story where they meet the Inferior Five and not known who the Subs were.

Giant-Size Geek displays some of the Alan Davis covers from the 1990s without their logos, and presents the Neal Adams print from the 1976 DC Calendar and where else it appeared.

Eat Feats, the blog for competitive eating, finally noticed Tenzil Kem and Taryn Loy.

As part of its 75th anniversary, DC is putting out a CD with various TV and movie theme songs from the 1940s to today. Unfortunately, the Legion cartoon's theme is not one of them.

A Dispensable List of Comic Book Lists has the "Five Years Later" v4 Legion on a list of "11 Attempts to Reboot, Revamp or Re-Energize a Comic-Book Superhero Franchise That Could Have Gone a Little Bit Better".

Previously, in the Future looks at some teaser pages from the Booster Gold series to see which ones actually happened (like in the JSA book when we saw Dawnstar's arm). Some of them with Booster and Brainiac 5 were promised but never happened.

Weird Worm thinks that Pete Ross wasn't such a great super-hero sidekick (or an honorary Legionnaire).

Did you know that the Legion made an appearance in Tiny Titans #31?

Brave & Bold: The Lost Issues presents a cover for what a Batman/Super-Pets team-up might have looked like.

Action Figure Insider has the August Q&A with the Matty Collector people. Question #2 is about the upcoming Legion 12-pack statue poses.

Toronto & Baltimore convention updates

Totally missed covering the Chicago Comic Con (formerly Wizard World Chicago, two weeks ago) and the Toronto Fan Fest and the Baltimore Comic Con (both last week). Here are some Legiony highlights, with the big news being that the Legion will not appear in Adventure after next summer:

DC Nation at Baltimore, via Newsarama:

[Sterling] Gates: Then there's a Supergirl Annual with Supergirl and the Legion. It's her first teamup with Brianiac 5 from her point of view. (Here's the cover)

Q: Loving Levitz's Legion, anything you can say?
A: Sattler: It's kicking into high gear in a couple issues and doesn't slow down.

DC Sunday Conversation at Baltimore, via CBR:

Will either Superboy or Supergirl be recurring “Legion” characters? Lemire’s “Superboy” is starting soon and you never have any idea who’ll turn up there, the panel teased.

DC Nation at Toronto, via CBR:

DiDio himself revealed that a new character would be headlining “Adventure Comics” after the superstar team of writer Geoff Johns and artist Andy Kubert completed next summer’s “Flashpoint” event miniseries.

Can anyone locate a page on Wizard's website that has news for what happened at their con? CBR and Newsarama didn't cover it and Wizard's page seems to be designed only to sell things.

Trivia Answers #50

Call me Procrastination Lad. Here are the answers to Trivia Quiz #50 from last month:

1. The Alex Ross booth in San Diego had a huge floor-to-ceiling banner of his giant Legion litho that he did for the Warner Bros. Stores. When/where else have we seen Alex Ross draw/paint the Legion as a group or individuals, not counting Superman or Supergirl

With a little help from the Alex Ross Collector website, here's what I came up with:

• Kingdom Come miniseries
• Kingdom Come trading cards
• additional sketches in the Absolute Kingdom Come
• Justice miniseries
• Overstreet Price Guide cover
• Starman cover/poster (from the James Robinson series)
• Starman, on various JSA covers
• "Rough Justice" hardcover
• "Mythology" hardcover
• Crisis on Infinite Earths hardcover cover/poster
• Alex Ross Millennium Edition Special (Wizard magazine)

2. In LA, I went to Venice Beach. When the Legion played the New Teen Titans in volleyball (in a published DC comic!), who was on each team?

From DC Sampler #3, the teams were Ultra Boy and Star Boy vs Jericho and Lilith.

3. In San Diego they announced that a set of 12 action figures would be released next year. Of those 12, which ones have never had any kind of 3-dimensional figure commercially released before? Remember that the Legionnaires of one timeline/continuity are not the same as those of another.

The 12 figures are all from the Pre-Crisis timeline:
• Superboy
• Cosmic Boy
• Lightning Lad
• Saturn Girl
• Brainiac 5
• Chameleon Boy
• Ultra Boy
• Karate Kid
• Wildfire
• Matter-Eater Lad
• Timber Wolf
• Colossal Boy

Superboy, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Brainiac 5, Chameleon Boy, Ultra Boy, Timber Wolf, and Colossal Boy all have had figures from DC Direct (among other places as well). Wildfire had a figure in the Mayfair box set of lead figurines in the mid-1980s. The L3 Karate Kid had a Heroclix figure, but the L1 Karate Kid didn't. So the answer here is Karate Kid and Matter-Eater Lad.

4. Paul Levitz announced that we'll see a Legion election soon. Assuming for the moment that his stories more or less remain canon up through the end of the Magic Wars, which Legionnaire had been elected leader the most number of times to that point?

Element Lad, Mon-El, and Ultra Boy had each been elected Legion leader twice.

5. Vegas is all about money. Name five types of money from different worlds in the 30th/31st century.

Among others: In ADV 309 Monster Master once asked to exchange his Barakian Living Money for liquid money of the world Althar. In ADV 350 we saw the living crystal money of Rojun has 6 legs and eats through metal, gas money from Mercury, and Huopian energy money. In ADV 377, they mention dollars, "ergloks of radium", and a giant mirror coin from Dracksler. Plus, of course, we've seen gold and Galactic Credits.

6. In Canada, they talk funny (at least to me, they do!). Which Legionnaire(s) has/have a distinctive accent or speech pattern different from "standard" (meaning everyone else)?

A number of people had different speech balloons, which is meant to indicate something other than "normal".

From L1: Quislet, Blok, Tellus, Invisible Kid II, Comet Queen, White Witch, and RJ Brande. An anonymous poster reminded me that when she went back to the 20th century to hide from Mordru, Shadow Lass passed as a foreign exchange student. ("My name is Tasmia Conehead, and I am from France.")
From L2: Shikari, Chameleon
From L3: Gazelle, Saturn Girl (who's mute)

7. In Las Vegas you have to be 21 to drink alcohol. Before the Legionnaires grew up to drink Silverale, they drank kono juice. Where did we first see kono juice?

As Tom put it, "I believe that was in Adventure 378, as the Legion toasted Brainy with that Coluan delicacy on his birthday...on to find that the cups had been poisoned."