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.