The Legion Forever

In mid-November, when we heard about the passing of Carlos Pacheco, who drew, among many other cool things, the Avengers Forever miniseries with Kurt Busiek. As a sort of tribute, I proposed on the Subs podcast that we come up with our own version of a Legion Forever team. The only ground rules were that it includes members or Legion-related characters from any timeline or any continuity, and the pitch had to include a rationale as to why they were together. Here's what I came up with: 

THE SETUP

Back in LSHv2 Annual 1, Computo discovered alternate realities via the tesseract storage portals when it possessed the entire Legion Clubhouse. When it realized it was going to be defeated, it uploaded a copy of itself in an unused tesseract that was later activated. It has been leaping through realities, setting wrong what once went right and trying to destroy the Legions of other universes. Enter Dr. Mayavale, who has gone straight and has chosen the following heroes to help him atone. We don’t learn until much later why he chose these particular people (I never figured out the reason, I'm leaving that as a problem for Future Me to get to). Mayavale recruited the team's leader, Threeboot Cosmic Boy, to his team via the Knights Tempus (and thus closing that plot point that got dropped).

THE TEAM

It's confusing who knows who. We have four females, four males, and two robots (one female-presenting and one male-presenting).

1. Silver Age: Hate Face
• Never met anyone else on the list
2. Bronze Age: Brainiac 5’s Supergirl sex robot
• Might have met Wildfire or M-E Lad
3. Bronze Age: Wildfire, in his original ERG-1 containment suit which allowed him to mimick the powers of various Legionnaires
• May have met the Supergirl robot but didn't know at the time she was a robot, although he would surely have heard about after she was destroyed
4. 5YL: BION (after it had been reprogrammed by Brainy)
• Would have fought M-E Lad as BION, fought and killed Duplicate Girl as Computo, had their powers as well as Wildfire's when it emerged and took over Danielle Foccart
5. 5YL: Matter-Eater Lad, with the innate power of the Miracle Machine
• Would have known about Hate Face but never met him, may have met the Supergirl robot when she was impersonating Supergirl, worked with Wildfire briefly, worked with Duplicate Girl (although she is a different version of the one he worked with in the 5YL timeline)
6. Reboot: XS (prior to the first L3W meeting)
• Doesn't know anyone else
7. Animated: Jordana Gardner, the Teen Lantern
• Doesn't know anyone else
8. Retroboot: Duplicate Girl
• Would have heard of Hate Face, maybe met the Supergirl robot, worked a bit with Wildfire but she got married and left the Legion at the same time as he joined (he would barely know her, but she worked with him periodically), hates BION because it's a version of Computo which killed one of her bodies, worked with M-E Lad in the Silver Age and with XS in L3W
9. Threeboot: Cosmic Boy
• Post-L3W, would have met and worked with an older Wildfire, probably didn't work too closely with M-E Lad in L3W, would have met XS and Duplicate Girl in L3W
10. Rebirth: X-Ray Girl
• Doesn't know anyone and nobody knows a thing about her so she's a blank slate to do whatever the writer wants with her

The Legion Forever team:

top row - Hate Face, Supergirl Robot, ERG-1, BION, Tenzil Kem

bottom row - XS, Jordana Gardner, Duplicate Girl, Cosmic Boy with the Knights Tempus, X-Ray Girl

Computo, the antagonist, vs Dr Mayavale, the savior of the universes

Let me know in the comments who your Legion Forever team might be, and why they have gotten together?

New Animated Movie Trailer

The trailer for next year's (sometime in 2023) animated movie in the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU), aka The Tomorrowverse - not to be confused with the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), home of the TV series "Superman: The Animated Series" and "Justice League Unlimited" - came out today and I screencapped the video to see what I could see.

Here’s the exclusive first look from Legion of Super-Heroes! pic.twitter.com/RFw8HuOVjL

— Warner Bros. (@WBHomeEnt) November 16, 2022

Here's what we already knew, from the 10/13/22 Hollywood Reporter:

Kara, devastated by the loss of Krypton, struggles to adjust to her new life on Earth. Her cousin, Superman, mentors her and suggests she leave their space-time to attend the Legion Academy in the 31st century, where she makes new friends and a new enemy: Brainiac 5. Meanwhile, she must contend with a mysterious group called the Dark Circle as it searches for a powerful weapon held in the Academy’s vault.

It seems certain to me that the powerful weapon must be the Miracle Machine.

The cast, as listed in the article (with some spelling mistakes corrected):

• Meg Donnelly voice stars as Supergirl/Kara
• Harry Shum Jr. stars as Brainaic 5
• Darren Criss as Superman
• Matt Bomer as The Flash
• Jensen Ackles as Batman
• Cynthia Hamidi as Dawnstar
• Gideon Adlon as Phantom Girl
• Ely Henry as Bouncing Boy
• Robbie Daymond as Timber Wolf & Brainiac 4
• Yuri Lowenthal as Mon El
• Eric Lopez as Cosmic Boy & Chemical King
• Darin De Paul as Brainiac & Solomon Grundy
• Ben Diskin as Arm Fall Off Boy & Brainiac 2
• Victoria Grace as Shadow Lass
• Jennifer Hale as Alura
• Daisy Lightfoot as Triplicate Girl
• Zeno Robinson as Invisible Kid & Brainiac 3

Screencapping the video, and not worrying about images of Superman, Batman, or Solomon Grundy, I noticed that none of the following with voice actors appear in this trailer: Flash, Chemical King, Alura, and Brainiacs 1, 2, 3, and 4.

This is a new version of the Legion HQ we've never seen before. Note the tilted "L" with the comet, that's the Bendis/Sook version. Their influence comes up a lot in this trailer. Zooming in, we can see Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad at the center - none of whom have listed voice actors, by the way - along with Ferro Lad and Sensor Girl in a purple glow above them. Below them, it could possibly be Tyroc, Lightning Lass, and Karate Kid. At the bottom of the screen is Wildfire in an orange glow. (Maybe XS and not Ayla? Or even the Jazmin version of Kid Quantum?)

Then we have a shot at characters in the Legion Academy. From left to right: Quislet, Dream Girl, Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, Monster Boy, Invisible Kid (Jacques), Bouncing Boy, and Arm-Fall-Off Boy, with Timber Wolf as the instructor. Interestingly, Quislet and Dream Girl don't show up elsewhere in the trailer, while Monster Boy makes an appearance, but none of those three have listed voice actors. So either they don't make it, they get killed off, or they are just background extras with non-speaking roles. (Or maybe it's the Retroboot costume on Stone Boy and not Monster Boy?)

Triplicate Girl has a different skin color than we've seen before. Arm-Fall-Off Boy, Bouncing Boy, Monster Boy, and Phantom Girl are behind her. (Although now I'm leaning towards Stone Boy and not Monster Boy.)

Mon-El is introduced to Supergirl by Superman. Since he's not in the Academy class, he must be an experienced Legionnaire....

As is Dawnstar, who lands before Mon-El and Supergirl

Bouncing Boy shows off his powers. Only Invisible Kid and AFO Boy join Chuck from the Academy class, wonder where the others are?

Triplicate Girl uses tri-jitsu against a Dark Circle member...

... While Arm-Fall-Off Boy uses his powers. Rather than using them as clubs to swing, he controls his arms at a distance (similar to TDK in "The Suicide Squad").

Shadow Lass talks to the Academy kids, she must be a veteran as well.

The trailer shows everyone in a fighting stance, including the newly-introduced Brainiac 5 (with no hair). 

Brainiac 5 looks a lot more like his ancestor than any of the other versions over the years. Note that this movie has voice actors doing roles for Brainiacs 1, 2, 3, and 4 as well.

Brainy and Supergirl's meet-cute.

This is a call-back to the holo-statues outside the clubhouse, as seen in the first image. This is Cosmic Boy (who does have a voice actor), Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad in front, with Sensor Girl and Ferro Lad flying overhead (none of whom have voice actors).

Closeup of Supergirl, revealing the details of her costume.

Supergirl mentions that she has met the Dark Circle before. 

Three rookies: Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, and Invisible Kid.

Dawnstar drops off Phantom Girl... 

...who plummets and pummels a Dark Circle guy.

Timber Wolf Wolverines his way through the Dark Circle.

Chuck flattens a Dark Circle guy in his own method.

An angry looking Supergirl flies out of LSH HQ.

Note that this is the name of the movie, it's not "Supergirl and the Legion". This is reminiscent of the 2006-08 animated series which also had the Super-S but didn't have Superman's name in the title.

Coming sometime in 2023. I notice that it does not say that it comes on DVD, and it doesn't say that it's streaming. I'd expect it to come out on physical media first, and then some short time later it will appear on HBO Max.

On the team (characters with voice actors known so far are in bold):

• Veterans: Cosmic Boy, Dawnstar, Ferro Lad, Karate Kid(?), Lightning Lad, Lightning Lass(?), Mon-El, Saturn Girl, Sensor Girl, Shadow Lass, Timber Wolf, Tyroc(?), Wildfire
• Rookies: Arm-Fall-Off Boy, Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, Dream Girl, Invisible Kid, Monster Boy, Phantom Girl, Quislet, Supergirl, Triplicate Girl
• Unknown: Chemical King

Zero Hour #0 annotations: All the Way to the End of Today

Annotations forZero Hour #0:

• On sale 8/9/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcastersepisode 731 (October 17, 2022)
• Timeline: Dawn of time, End of time, Outside of time

Notes:

• Cover: I wonder who got paid for the original art?
• The Legionnaires, having ceased to exist, do not appear in this issue.
• Page 4: Hal Jordan, now Parallax, wants to remake the universe and fix what he thinks is wrong with it
• Page 6 panel 4: Parallax talks about the end of time where entropy exists, that is effectively the incarnation of the Time Trapper. But time being an infinite loop is the incarnation of the Infinite Man.
• Page 7: everyone here supposedly has a purpose for being here
• Page 9 panel 2: Parallax considers bringing back an Earth where the JSA can exist, the re-creation of Earth-2 for the JSA was seriously considered as part of the ending to Zero Hour, but ultimately rejected
• Page 11 panel 2: Alpha Centurion and Batgirl decide to take Parallax’s side because if he loses, their worlds won’t exist
• Page 13: It’s the Spectre! I guess Jay Garrick’s words to him last issue finally got through
• Page 20: Damage has collected all the energy of Parallax’s new universe and explodes
• Page 21: The post-ZH universe is reborn, but without the guidance from Parallax
• Page 23: Batgirl and Alpha Centurion vanish as their worlds never came into being, this earth is has “slight differences” in the timeline from before and “all alternate timelines” have ceased to exist
• Page 25 panel 1: Extant escapes
• What happened to Extant after this? Not seen again for 5 years, until the 1999 one-shot Impluse: Bart Saves the Universe, when Extant tricks the Linear Men into saving the life of an innocent bystander who was supposed to die, which through a chain of events would have prevented Hal Jordan from becoming Green Lantern and so Parallax never would have stopped Extant. Impulse helps stop that. After a later battle against the JSA (#11-15, 2000), Extant is teleported by Hourman and Metron into being on the plane that Atom-Smasher’s mother was on when it crashed, taking her place and killing him instead. He later appeared as a zombie in Darkest Night (but as a time traveler he’s not really dead, right?). Hank Hall was then resurrected as Hawk as part of Brightest Day, and he and Dove were recruited to join the Birds of Prey.
• Page 26 panel 4: back in the present, all of Parallax’s deeds are undone and anyone who died in the chronal fissures is fixed, but those who died by other means are still dead
• Page 26 panel 6: But at least Power Girl’s son was born, that’s got to be good news for everyone, right?
• Page 28 panels 3-4: in the forward to the 2018 re-release, Jurgens said that he intended Batgirl to be the new Time Trapper
  
  
• In the afterward to the collected edition, editor KC Carlson discusses what new stories were going to be coming out of Zero Hour, from a new beginning of the Legion to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Justice League teams, plus new series with Dr Fate, Manhunter, Starman, Damage, Primal Force, and more.
   
• New sliding timeline introduced in this issue in a 4-page foldout
  
  
• Reprint collections:
• A trade paperback collecting Showcase '94 #8–9 (1994) and Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! #4–0 (1994), titled Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, was released in 1994
• A trade paperback collecting the Batman tie-in issues, titled Batman: Zero Hour, was released on June 7, 2017.
• A trade paperback collecting the Superman tie-in issues, titled Superman: Zero Hour, was released on June 20, 2018.
• A hardcover collection collecting Showcase '94 #8–9 (1994), Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4–0 (1994), the Zero Hour Sampler and including a new foreword by Dan Jurgens, was released on May 8, 2018.
• A 25th Anniversary DC Omnibus edition collecting Showcase '94 #8–9 (1994), Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4–0 (1994), all of the tie-in issues, and including a foreword by Dan Jurgens, an afterword by series editor KC Carlson, and promotional and behind-the-scenes material, was released on October 23, 2019.
• As mentioned earlier, Parallax considers bringing back an Earth where the JSA can exist, the re-creation of Earth-2 for the JSA was seriously considered as part of the ending to Zero Hour, but ultimately rejected by DC Editorial.

What would have happened if the Hal Jordan/ Parallax character create[d] other Earths, I wanted one Earth to survive to put the JSA on, and give them back Earth-2. If you had that separation, they would always have a place to be where time could exist on its own, and they could exist with the DC Universe.

More than anything, it was an editorial decision that DC did not want to go through with it.

• Thanks to Gary atCrisis on Earth Primefor some of the annotations!

This is the end of the recaps of the 5YL timeline, which we started with episode 549 on April 15, 2019. So it’s taken exactly 3-1/2 years.

---

So here we have the last few days of story as ending with 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 1994 dates will be inred textand anything outside of time (like at the beginning or end of time) will be inblue text.

• 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).
• 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, and then Dawnstar fades out (Legionnaires #17). Valor and others go to New Earth to help RJ Brande bring Pocket Earth into this universe, but while the Subs and several Legionnaires blink out of existence, Pocket Earth turns out to be unstable and will explode in 72 hours (Valor #22). Rokk tries but can’t escape Mordru and Glorith (LSHv4 #60).
• Sun 10/1/95: Rokk escapes Mordru and Glorith by going into the Infinite Library; the surviving members of the adult and SW6 Legions meet on Winath to help look for Rokk, but when Glorith and Mordru show up on Talus seeking the Time Beacon, the Legions go there. The magicians call forth the Infinite Man, and then they take his powers. Gim Allon disappears when his SW6 counterpart Leviathan is killed (LSH v4 #60).Mordru and Glorith begin to remake the universe, and the Legion teams fight them and their evil dopplegangers. But one by one, more Legionnaires fade out. Mysa manages to break Mordru and Glorith apart which causes their spell to fail, at least temporarily, before she fades out (Legionnaires #18). Valor and Shadow Lass meet Pre-Crisis Superboy, who helps the Legions fight Glorith and Mordru. The team beats Glorith, and her Infinite Man powers flow to Valor. He then dumps it all on Mordru, who is unprepared to have his mind merge with the universe. Mordru teleports away into the core of Pocket Earth, which is ready to explode in a couple of days. Valor and Shady vanish, and after Superboy makes a rousing speech, he too vanishes (Valor #23).
• End of Time: Time Trapper is blasted by someone unknown, who starts to destroy time from the end going backwards and from the dawn of time going forwards (Zero Hour #4).
• 8/8/1994: Jo tries to go back to the future with Enya/Phase, but at the last second she leaves him and returns to her L.E.G.I.O.N. team (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70). His time bubble is blocked from going to the future moments later. SW6 Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Livewire fall out of the timestream in 1994, where they are met by Jo (Legionnaires #18). Meanwhile, the pre-Crisis Earth-1 Kal-El Superboy appears after helping the Legion and meets Kon-El Superboy in Smallville. Kal-El quickly realizes that this is a mix of his town and the post-Crisis Byrne version, and after a fight with Kon-El he realizes that he is the time anomaly here. Kon-El tells Kal-El that he will carry on the job as Superboy, and Kal-El vanishes (Superboy v3 #8). Batman, Superman, Metron, and GL Kyle Rayner contact heroes, including Emerald Dragon and the SW6 founders (Legionnaires #18) and Kon-El (Superboy v3 #8), to join up in New York City (Zero Hour #4).Metron notices that Impulse is from the 30th century (Zero Hour #3).
• End of Time: Rokk spends an infinite amount of time in the Infinite Library and meets the Time Trapper when he finally escapes (Legionnaires #18).The Time Trapper explains his history and reveals that the SW6 Legionnaires were taken from time by him, not cloned by the Dominators. But their continued existence warped time and caused the Trapper to go insane trying to “fix” things to actually protect the Legion from the Zero Hour energy wave (Valor #23). He then reveals himself to Rokk that the two of them are really temporal duplicates (Valor #23, also shown in Zero Hour #3).
• 8/8/1994: In the middle of the night, SW6 Saturn Girl, Livewire, and Cosmic Boy and Emerald Dragon join the gathering of heroes, including Superboy and Impulse (Zero Hour #3). Vril Dox launches a probe into the time stream to try to figure out what’s going on; it will reappear in ZH #1 (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70, Zero Hour #3).While trying to save NYC, Emerald Dragon reminds Booster Gold that they’ve met before. Afterwards, Waverider tells the heroes that they must try to stop time from eating itself in the past and in the future; the Legionnaires choose to go on the future mission, as this is their only way home. (Zero Hour #2)
• Beginning of Time: Waverider leads a team to the distant past. They are attacked by Extant, and Waverider sends the heroes back to their own time (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: Meanwhile, Superman leads a team to New Earth in the 30th century where they see “the end of time and space”. Metron devises a plan to stop the future from collapsing; Captain Atom blasts Metron’s Mobius Chair inside a boom tube which apparently saves the day in the future. Polestar arrives with Time Trapper, who sends the 20th century heroes back to their home while the Legionnaires remain in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 8/8/1994: Extant says that he was not supposed to lose in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: A little while later later, someone appears in the 30th century and reopens the rift in time to make sure things happen correctly (Zero Hour #2).The remaining Legionnaires (adult and SW6) arrive on Pocket Earth from Talus, only to find that they can’t stop the imminent destruction of the planet. The Time Trapper brings Rokk and the Legionnaires who just helped out at New Earth to Talus, and tells them that they are temporal duplicates and the only way to save the universe is by combining all of the counterparts (LSH v4 #61). The Time Trapper leaves the Legionnaires on Pocket Earth, saying the future is in their hands. It’s now a group of both adult and SW6 Garth, Imra, and Rokk, and the Trapper’s Iron Curtain of Time is the only thing protecting them. The Legionnaires and the universe fade to white (LSH v4 #61, Zero Hour #1).Then the Time Trapper confronts someone, who blasts him again and apparently destroys him. The 30th century fades to white (Zero Hour #1).
• 8/9/1994: Heroes from the future start disappearing – first Impulse, then Booster Gold. Metron theorizes that the time entropy wave is coming back through time and that their times are now gone. At Vanishing Point. Superman and Kyle retrieve Vril Dox’s time probe (from Zero Hour #3 and L.E.G.I.O.N. #70) for Atom to use its components in creating a new Waverider. Later, on Earth, the one behind it all reveals himself: it’s Hal Jordan, aka Parallax, who says he knows how to fix the universe, even if it means destroying it. Hal was the one who stripped the Time Trapper of his powers and killed him, and Hal has decided that the universe needs him as a protector and he wants to reboot the universe (Zero Hour #1).
• Dawn of Time: Hal Jordan, now Parallax, wants to remake the universe and fix what he thinks is wrong with it. The Spectre joins the fight and the heroes funnel the energy of Parallax’s new universe into Damage, who explodes, re-creating the universe but without the guiding hand of Parallax. Waverider says there will be slight differences from what they knew before. Power Girl’s son is born (Zero Hour #0).
• End of Time: The new Time Trapper is glimpsed at the end of time (Zero Hour #0).

Zero Hour #1 annotations: 80% of the Way Towards the End

 Annotations for Zero Hour #1:

• On sale 8/2/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 728 (September 26, 2022)
• Timeline: 8/9/1994, 10/2/2995

Notes:

• Page 1: In the present, Supergirl/Matrix, Steel, Batgirl, and Guy Gardner escape Coast City (as seen in Guy Gardner: Warrior #24)
• Page 5 panel 3: Extant still doesn’t understand that he has been used this whole time and is blasted by a stranger
• Page 5 panel 5: the green stranger says that the fissures are being caused by a destruction in the time stream so he goes to remove the blockage.
• Page 6: a very condensed version of what we just saw last week at the end of LSH #61
• Page 7 panel 6: the Trapper is revealed to have survived the chronal blast we saw in ZH #4 by the same person
• Page 7 panel 7: looks like the Trapper was the time obstruction that the green stranger mentioned
• Page 8 panel 5: with the loss of the 30th century, Impulse fades away (and recall that Metron earlier noted that’s where he was from)
• Page 9 panel 2: and now the 25th century is gone too so goodbye Booster Gold
• Page 11: apparently the Spectre was OK with this happening if it was a natural event, but now that he realizes that Extant is behind it, NOW he decides it’s time to take action
• Page 13 panel 6: the only way to stop Extant is to create another Waverider out of Matthew Ryder, the Linear Man
• Page 14 panel 1: this is the time probe that Vril Dox sent (see ZH #3 and LEGION #70)
• Page 15 panel 2: I think this is the first appearance of Jack Knight
• Page 15 panel 5: Jack wouldn’t want to be Starman, but the universe thinks otherwise
• Page 17 panel 5: Well, sucks for Batman, I guess this is the last we’ll ever see of him.
• Page 20 panel 5: Atom has been de-aged back to a teenager
• Page 21: Oh no! The big bad green stranger has been revealed as Hal Jordan, aka Parallax, who says he knows how to fix the universe, even if it means destroying it. Hal was the one who stripped the Time Trapper of his powers and killed him.
• This takes place 60 seconds ago, so the counting down that started in issue #4 reaches zero at the beginning of Zero Hour #0 next issue
• Page 22 panel 2: Look, it’s Alpha Centurion!
• Page 23: Hal has decided that the universe needs him as a protector and he wants to reboot the universe.
• Thanks to Gary at Crisis on Earth Prime for some of the annotations!

The Legion may be gone, but there's still one more issues of Zero Hour to wrap things up.

---

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 1994 dates will be in red text and anything outside of time (like at the beginning or end of time) will be in blue text.

• 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).
• 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, and then Dawnstar fades out (Legionnaires #17). Valor and others go to New Earth to help RJ Brande bring Pocket Earth into this universe, but while the Subs and several Legionnaires blink out of existence, Pocket Earth turns out to be unstable and will explode in 72 hours (Valor #22). Rokk tries but can’t escape Mordru and Glorith (LSHv4 #60).
• Sun 10/1/95: Rokk escapes Mordru and Glorith by going into the Infinite Library; the surviving members of the adult and SW6 Legions meet on Winath to help look for Rokk, but when Glorith and Mordru show up on Talus seeking the Time Beacon, the Legions go there. The magicians call forth the Infinite Man, and then they take his powers. Gim Allon disappears when his SW6 counterpart Leviathan is killed (LSH v4 #60). Mordru and Glorith begin to remake the universe, and the Legion teams fight them and their evil dopplegangers. But one by one, more Legionnaires fade out. Mysa manages to break Mordru and Glorith apart which causes their spell to fail, at least temporarily, before she fades out (Legionnaires #18). Valor and Shadow Lass meet Pre-Crisis Superboy, who helps the Legions fight Glorith and Mordru. The team beats Glorith, and her Infinite Man powers flow to Valor. He then dumps it all on Mordru, who is unprepared to have his mind merge with the universe. Mordru teleports away into the core of Pocket Earth, which is ready to explode in a couple of days. Valor and Shady vanish, and after Superboy makes a rousing speech, he too vanishes (Valor #23).
• End of Time: Time Trapper is blasted by someone unknown, who starts to destroy time from the end going backwards and from the dawn of time going forwards (Zero Hour #4).
• 8/8/1994: Jo tries to go back to the future with Enya/Phase, but at the last second she leaves him and returns to her L.E.G.I.O.N. team (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70). His time bubble is blocked from going to the future moments later. SW6 Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Livewire fall out of the timestream in 1994, where they are met by Jo (Legionnaires #18). Meanwhile, the pre-Crisis Earth-1 Kal-El Superboy appears after helping the Legion and meets Kon-El Superboy in Smallville. Kal-El quickly realizes that this is a mix of his town and the post-Crisis Byrne version, and after a fight with Kon-El he realizes that he is the time anomaly here. Kon-El tells Kal-El that he will carry on the job as Superboy, and Kal-El vanishes (Superboy v3 #8). Batman, Superman, Metron, and GL Kyle Rayner contact heroes, including Emerald Dragon and the SW6 founders (Legionnaires #18) and Kon-El (Superboy v3 #8), to join up in New York City (Zero Hour #4). Metron notices that Impulse is from the 30th century (Zero Hour #3).
• End of Time: Rokk spends an infinite amount of time in the Infinite Library and meets the Time Trapper when he finally escapes (Legionnaires #18). The Time Trapper explains his history and reveals that the SW6 Legionnaires were taken from time by him, not cloned by the Dominators. But their continued existence warped time and caused the Trapper to go insane trying to “fix” things to actually protect the Legion from the Zero Hour energy wave (Valor #23). He then reveals himself to Rokk that the two of them are really temporal duplicates (Valor #23, also shown in Zero Hour #3).
• 8/8/1994: In the middle of the night, SW6 Saturn Girl, Livewire, and Cosmic Boy and Emerald Dragon join the gathering of heroes, including Superboy and Impulse (Zero Hour #3). Vril Dox launches a probe into the time stream to try to figure out what’s going on; it will reappear in ZH #1 (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70, Zero Hour #3). While trying to save NYC, Emerald Dragon reminds Booster Gold that they’ve met before. Afterwards, Waverider tells the heroes that they must try to stop time from eating itself in the past and in the future; the Legionnaires choose to go on the future mission, as this is their only way home. (Zero Hour #2)
• Beginning of Time: Waverider leads a team to the distant past. They are attacked by Extant, and Waverider sends the heroes back to their own time (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: Meanwhile, Superman leads a team to New Earth in the 30th century where they see “the end of time and space”. Metron devises a plan to stop the future from collapsing; Captain Atom blasts Metron’s Mobius Chair inside a boom tube which apparently saves the day in the future. Polestar arrives with Time Trapper, who sends the 20th century heroes back to their home while the Legionnaires remain in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 8/8/1994: Extant says that he was not supposed to lose in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: A little while later later, someone appears in the 30th century and reopens the rift in time to make sure things happen correctly (Zero Hour #2). The remaining Legionnaires (adult and SW6) arrive on Pocket Earth from Talus, only to find that they can’t stop the imminent destruction of the planet. The Time Trapper brings Rokk and the Legionnaires who just helped out at New Earth to Talus, and tells them that they are temporal duplicates and the only way to save the universe is by combining all of the counterparts (LSH v4 #61). The Time Trapper leaves the Legionnaires on Pocket Earth, saying the future is in their hands. It’s now a group of both adult and SW6 Garth, Imra, and Rokk, and the Trapper’s Iron Curtain of Time is the only thing protecting them. The Legionnaires and the universe fade to white (LSH v4 #61, Zero Hour #1).Then the Time Trapper confronts someone, who blasts him again and apparently destroys him. The 30th century fades to white (Zero Hour #1).
• 8/9/1994: Heroes from the future start disappearing – first Impulse, then Booster Gold. Metron theorizes that the time entropy wave is coming back through time and that their times are now gone. At Vanishing Point. Superman and Kyle retrieve Vril Dox’s time probe (from Zero Hour #3 and L.E.G.I.O.N. #70) for Atom to use its components in creating a new Waverider. Later, on Earth, the one behind it all reveals himself: it’s Hal Jordan, aka Parallax, who says he knows how to fix the universe, even if it means destroying it. Hal was the one who stripped the Time Trapper of his powers and killed him, and Hal has decided that the universe needs him as a protector and he wants to reboot the universe (Zero Hour #1).

Mark Waid on writing "Valor" and the Legion's "End of an Era"

Prior to covering this week's episode of the podcast, which looked at the finale of the 5YL Legion in LSH v4 #61, I asked Mark Waid if he could answer some questions and share some stories about writing the Legion during this period in 1993-94. He was gracious enough to answer, and even told me some things I had never heard before. Thanks, Mark!

Omnicom: The first of the Legion books you started on was Valor with #11, which according to the solicitations was the “Beginning an exciting new direction for VALOR that will ultimately lead to a major shake-up in the DC Universe.” That issue came out when the Bierbaums were still writing both LSH (then on #47) and Legionnaires (then on #7), and was on sale a year before Zero Hour. Your first issue as regular writer wrapped up the plots from the previous team. How much did you know at the time about what DC was planning for the future of the DCU in the form of Zero Hour? How much direction were you given on the title?

Waid: At first, in the Valor days, the outcomes of Zero Hour were held close to the vest, though it helped enormously that Legion editor KC Carlson was also the editor of ZH--so he could at least set up guard rails for me, and I'm sure the solicits were from his keyboard, not mine, so he could say with some authority what I didn't at the time know.

Once we got to End of an Era, we knew the outcome of ZH, so we knew where we were going.

Omnicom: The Bierbaums were off of the LSH book with issue 50 and Tom McCraw took over as writer. Do you recall at what point you started working together to plot out the future of the Legion books?

Waid: I want to say about four months before the first chapter of End of an Era came out? It's hard to remember after all this time, but that would make sense.

Omnicom: The Bierbaums stayed on the Legionnaires book up through #15, and by that time Valor had finished up DOA – the 20th century version of the character was dead, and the SW6 version was now starring – while Tom’s LSH book was wrapping up the Legion on the Run story. It’s clear (in retrospect) that things were moving towards something big, and Kurt Busiek joined the writing team. Can you talk about the writing process bringing together three books which up until that time had not been involved with each other?

Waid: Well, Tom, KC and I were friends as well as workmates, so the process was easy--and bringing Kurt in was to help me out because I couldn't juggle all my pieces of End of an Era and hit my other deadlines. I didn't have a whole lot of personal communication with Kurt in the process (though we, too, were friends)--mostly, he was just springing off the outline that Tom and I had crafted--but it was nonetheless a seamless process as I recall.

Omnicom: Somewhere in there is the infamous “it’s broken and we can’t fix it!” plotting session. Can you go through what you, Tom, Kurt, and KC Carlson & Mike McAvennie (and whoever else) went through in figuring out how to try to fix and then end the series? Were you given any story beats to hit or avoid other than to make sure that things matched up with the Zero Hour title? Was that decision yours (collectively) or was there a mandate from above to end with a Legion reboot?

Waid: Oh, there was far more than one "how do we fix this?" plotting session. KC, Tom and I spent countless hours across several weekends in Tom's studio throwing ideas around. And as I have said repeatedly, even though hardcore Legion fans don't want to believe me, the amount of energy we spent trying to figure out some way to salvage existing LSH continuity could move the Pyramid at Giza. Remember, all of us were die-hard Legion fans. Tom and I were both long-time members of Interlac, the Legion fan group. I knew more about the Legion at that point than probably anyone else in the world save maybe Paul Levitz--I was the one who created the famous Legion Index covering all of Legion history in excruciating detail. We loved the Legion. We didn't want to bury history. But at the same time, no matter how many plotting paths we went down in order to salvage it, they all became just too Byzantine, and I distinctly recall pointing out late in the game that it felt like we were trying to build a house on shifting sand. The Superman office had already dictated that there were to be none, zero, no ties between the LSH and the Superman mythos, and other DC editorial offices were following suit, stripping us of mention of the Green Lantern Corps and the Thanagarians, both of which had played a role in LSH history. And we had no idea what we'd be stripped of next. Every attempt to simply replace verboten characters with other characters took us to places that would be more confusing than edifying to non-hardcore LSH readers. No one was campaigning for a reboot. It wasn't a goal; it was a necessary evil that we all then tried to make the best of.

Omnicom: I became a member of online fandom on Compuserve during Zero Hour, right before LSH #61 (the finale) came out, and I recall a discussion of that two-page spread at the end where we see vignettes of various points in Legion history. Can you talk about that? If I remember correctly, you had asked fandom what to put there (without telling them what you were going to do).

Waid: I did reach out to my fellow Legion fans, but the obvious choices were obvious--Ferro Lad, the cover of Adventure 312, and so forth. The only image I can take personal credit for is the image of Luornu crawling through Superboy's secret tunnel in Smallville; it resonated (and still resonates) with me in a hugely emotional way, being the perfect condensation in one image of writer Jim Shooter's skill at characterization, the moment that we really got hit hard with the intensity of her crush on Superboy and the tragedy of knowing they'd never be together. I knew that image would resonate with the hardcore fans--a few years earlier, in 1992, I'd been at a Legion fan gathering where someone had put together a slide show commemorating the Legionnaires who'd died in battle, and when that image of Luornu came up, the entire room gasped a melancholy gasp. It was a beautiful and moving moment.

I was surprised to hear Mark say that "other DC editorial offices were following suit, stripping us of mention of the Green Lantern Corps and the Thanagarians", that's something I had never heard before. The Superman office, yes, but not Green Lantern or even the Thanagarians.

LSH v4 #61 annotations: That's all, folks!

 Annotations for LSH v4 #61:

• On sale 7/26/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 727 (September 19, 2022)
• Timeline: 10/2/2995

Notes:

• Recap: At the End of Time, Rokk spends time in the Infinite Library and eventually meets Time Trapper, who reveals to Rokk that (a) he had been trying to help the Legion all along because the temporal duplicates (not clones) were messing up time too much, and (b) he is actually a version of Rokk himself. Meanwhile, in the 30th century, Mordru is defeated by members of the Legion on Talus, but projects himself into the heart of the Pocket Universe Earth, which is soon going to self-destruct. Elsewhere, Superman leads a team from the 20th century into the 30th to stop the wave of destruction. After they are successful, the Time Trapper arrives with Rokk and sends the 20th century heroes back home. But a little while later, someone appears and reopens the rift to restart the end of everything. (See LSH v4 #60, Legionnaires #18, Valor #23, Zero Hour #3, and Zero Hour #2).
• Cover: “End of an Era: The Real Conclusion” because you’ll recall that on the cover of Legionnaires #17, which was EoE part 1, it read “End of an Era: Conclusion” instead. Even the logo is fading to white.
• Page 3 panel 1: The remaining Legionnaires include two Brainys, two Chucks, two Tenzils, two Luornus, two Nuras, two Jans, two Aylas, two Thoms, two Violets, and one each of SW6 Inferno, SW6 Ultra Boy, SW6 Apparition, Night Girl, Wildfire, Imra, and Garth.
• Page 4 panel 2: Now we have two Jos, two Imras, two Garths, and one new SW6 Cosmic Boy, arriving after helping out at New Earth in ZH #2
• Page 6 panel 1: Everyone seems to remember the Time Trapper now, but for most of the series (and since the Mordruverse back in issue 5) he has been gone from continuity, replaced by Glorith
• Page 9 panel 5: So basically, the only ones left are duplicates (with Night Girl gone, everyone has a double except for Apparition, Wildfire, and Inferno), and by merging they will be able to save the universe
• Pages 10-11: Let’s check in with our other supporting cast and watch them vanish – Tellus; Mekt and Loomis; Ivy and Kent; Porcupine Pete and the Subs; and Garridan and Graym.
• Page 13 panel 2: Wildfire’s secret that he’s been hiding for several issues is that his energy is inside Dirk’s body
• Page 15: finally, the return of Tinya, who was actually dead for a while
• Page 19: and after everyone has gone, it’s only the founders left with the Time Trapper
• Pages 23-24: For this page, Mark Waid reached out to Legion fans online for some memories of the Legion. The ones on this page include the new guys who joined in LSH v3 #14; the resurrection of Lightning Lad from Adventure #312; the sacrifice of Ferro Lad from Adventure #355; Luornu crawling through the tunnel from Adventure #369; saving Brande in the origin story from Superboy #147; the death of Karate Kid in LSH v3 #4; and Cham coming to Rokk in LSH v4 #1.
• Page 25: And that’s all she wrote, kids. The Legion fades to white. 
• I've been carefully trying to keep an accurate record of what day things happened. I've had to make some assumptions along the way (like it takes a day to get from one planet to another, or how long is "several weeks later") and as best as I can tell, today is roughly October 2, 2995. Issue 1 took place on October 23, 2994. So not even a full year has passed since Cham came to Rokk and decided to get the band back together.

The Legion may be gone, but there are still two more issues of Zero Hour to wrap things up.

---

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 1994 dates will be in red text and anything outside of time (like at the beginning or end of time) will be in blue text.

• 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).
• 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, and then Dawnstar fades out (Legionnaires #17). Valor and others go to New Earth to help RJ Brande bring Pocket Earth into this universe, but while the Subs and several Legionnaires blink out of existence, Pocket Earth turns out to be unstable and will explode in 72 hours (Valor #22). Rokk tries but can’t escape Mordru and Glorith (LSHv4 #60).
• Sun 10/1/95: Rokk escapes Mordru and Glorith by going into the Infinite Library; the surviving members of the adult and SW6 Legions meet on Winath to help look for Rokk, but when Glorith and Mordru show up on Talus seeking the Time Beacon, the Legions go there. The magicians call forth the Infinite Man, and then they take his powers. Gim Allon disappears when his SW6 counterpart Leviathan is killed (LSH v4 #60). Mordru and Glorith begin to remake the universe, and the Legion teams fight them and their evil dopplegangers. But one by one, more Legionnaires fade out. Mysa manages to break Mordru and Glorith apart which causes their spell to fail, at least temporarily, before she fades out (Legionnaires #18). Valor and Shadow Lass meet Pre-Crisis Superboy, who helps the Legions fight Glorith and Mordru. The team beats Glorith, and her Infinite Man powers flow to Valor. He then dumps it all on Mordru, who is unprepared to have his mind merge with the universe. Mordru teleports away into the core of Pocket Earth, which is ready to explode in a couple of days. Valor and Shady vanish, and after Superboy makes a rousing speech, he too vanishes (Valor #23).
• End of Time: Time Trapper is blasted by someone unknown, who starts to destroy time from the end going backwards and from the dawn of time going forwards (Zero Hour #4).
• 8/8/1994: Jo tries to go back to the future with Enya/Phase, but at the last second she leaves him and returns to her L.E.G.I.O.N. team (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70). His time bubble is blocked from going to the future moments later. SW6 Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Livewire fall out of the timestream in 1994, where they are met by Jo (Legionnaires #18). Meanwhile, the pre-Crisis Earth-1 Kal-El Superboy appears after helping the Legion and meets Kon-El Superboy in Smallville. Kal-El quickly realizes that this is a mix of his town and the post-Crisis Byrne version, and after a fight with Kon-El he realizes that he is the time anomaly here. Kon-El tells Kal-El that he will carry on the job as Superboy, and Kal-El vanishes (Superboy v3 #8). Batman, Superman, Metron, and GL Kyle Rayner contact heroes, including Emerald Dragon and the SW6 founders (Legionnaires #18) and Kon-El (Superboy v3 #8), to join up in New York City (Zero Hour #4). Metron notices that Impulse is from the 30th century (Zero Hour #3).
• End of Time: Rokk spends an infinite amount of time in the Infinite Library and meets the Time Trapper when he finally escapes (Legionnaires #18). The Time Trapper explains his history and reveals that the SW6 Legionnaires were taken from time by him, not cloned by the Dominators. But their continued existence warped time and caused the Trapper to go insane trying to “fix” things to actually protect the Legion from the Zero Hour energy wave (Valor #23). He then reveals himself to Rokk that the two of them are really temporal duplicates (Valor #23, also shown in Zero Hour #3).
• 8/8/1994: In the middle of the night, SW6 Saturn Girl, Livewire, and Cosmic Boy and Emerald Dragon join the gathering of heroes, including Superboy and Impulse (Zero Hour #3). Vril Dox launches a probe into the time stream to try to figure out what’s going on; it will reappear in ZH #1 (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70, Zero Hour #3). While trying to save NYC, Emerald Dragon reminds Booster Gold that they’ve met before. Afterwards, Waverider tells the heroes that they must try to stop time from eating itself in the past and in the future; the Legionnaires choose to go on the future mission, as this is their only way home. (Zero Hour #2)
• Beginning of Time: Waverider leads a team to the distant past. They are attacked by Extant, and Waverider sends the heroes back to their own time (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: Meanwhile, Superman leads a team to New Earth in the 30th century where they see “the end of time and space”. Metron devises a plan to stop the future from collapsing; Captain Atom blasts Metron’s Mobius Chair inside a boom tube which apparently saves the day in the future. Polestar arrives with Time Trapper, who sends the 20th century heroes back to their home while the Legionnaires remain in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 8/8/1994: Extant says that he was not supposed to lose in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: A little while later later, someone appears in the 30th century and reopens the rift in time to make sure things happen correctly (Zero Hour #2). The remaining Legionnaires (adult and SW6) arrive on Pocket Earth from Talus, only to find that they can’t stop the imminent destruction of the planet. The Time Trapper brings Rokk and the Legionnaires who just helped out at New Earth to Talus, and tells them that they are temporal duplicates and the only way to save the universe is by combining all of the counterparts (LSH v4 #61). The Time Trapper leaves the Legionnaires on Pocket Earth, saying the future is in their hands. It’s now a group of both adult and SW6 Garth, Imra, and Rokk, and the Trapper’s Iron Curtain of Time is the only thing protecting them. The Legionnaires and the universe fade to white (LSH v4 #61, Zero Hour #1).

Zero Hour #2 annotations: 60% of the Way Towards the End

 Annotations for Zero Hour #2:

• On sale 7/26/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 726 (September 12, 2022)
• Timeline: 8/8/1994, 10/2/2995, and the Beginning of Time

Notes (boldface is directly LSH-related):

• Cover: Team Titans (remember them?) vs the other heroes we saw in New York last issue
• L.E.G.I.O.N. #70 (that’s when Jo tried to go back to the future with Enya but she bailed and his Time Bubble was blocked) came out the same week as this issue of ZH #2, but the events happened concurrently with ZH #3.
• Page 3: Extant says he knows Waverider is going to try to stop the entropy rifts at the beginning and end of time, so he has to prepare his defenses with his “agents of destruction”
• Page 4 panel 3: Emerald Dragon reminds Booster Gold that they met back in BG #8-9 when the Legion found out about when Booster took the flight ring (Ultra Boy, Brainiac 5, and Chameleon Boy)
• Page 8 panel 4: Alan Scott gives his depowered GL ring to Kyle
• Page 9 panel 4: they have to fight the entropy in both the past and the future, so this is how the stranded Legionnaires (Emerald Dragon and SW6 Livewire, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy) can get back home.
• Page 10: back in the 30th century, 10:06 ago (relative to the start of ZH #0) the future team sees the entropy wave over New Earth. We won’t see this in LSH v4 #61, which takes place entirely on Pocket Earth.
• Page 11 panel 3: Throwing the Team Titans under the bus, everyone on the team has been secretly and unknowingly working for Extant the whole time, including Mirage and Terra
• Page 14: Meanwhile, in the past (also 10:06 ago), it’s more Team Titans against the heroes
• Page 16 panel 4: Kyle drops Alan’s ring
• Page 17 panel 2: I’m not going to bother trying to figure out Extant’s timeline, but this version is before he took Waverider’s power (and in panel 3, the future version of Extant is watching his past self)
• Page 17 panel 5: Waverider conveniently sends the heroes back to the 20th century as he’s attacked by Extant and has his power stolen, just like we saw Extant looking like Waverider at the end of last issue
• Page 18 panel 6: someone who we don’t know yet (Parallax) picks up Alan’s ring before the time period vanishes
• Page 20: the heroes have saved the 30th century, hooray!
• Page 21 panel 4: Time Trapper appears and sends the 20th century heroes back to their home time
• Page 22 panel 3: Extant realizes that the 30th century wave must have been stopped but it wasn’t supposed to have gone that way
• Page 23 panel 4: the stranger (Parallax) returns and reopens the rift in the 30th century (and crushes Alan’s ring), meaning the 30th century is in trouble
• The Legion’s story concludes in the next issue of LSH #61, End of an Era part 6 (of 6), which came out the same week as ZH #1, but there’s still a bit more to be told about what happens after that. Plus, Zero Hour continues.
• Somewhere in this issue, I can’t exactly fit where, the team of Booster Gold and Blue Beetles I, II, and III plus the Blue Beetle of the 27th century encounter Parallax and Extant in the time stream in Booster Gold vol 2 #0 (which was marketed as a Zero Hour tie-in in 2008). We haven’t really seen Parallax yet and don’t know who he is, but Extant seems to be working for Parallax and mentions that the “old men” of the JSA won’t get in their way, and Extant left Alan Scott alone because Hal wanted Alan to see him remaking the universe in his image to show Alan how much Hal had surpassed him. As Booster and the Beetles escape, Parallax says “I don’t want them talking, Extant, I don’t want anyone knowing you’re working with me, not yet.” Extrant tries to blast the time sphere, saying “our rift of draining entropy has already destroyed the 64th century, it will annihilate the 25th soon enough” as Extant pushes Rip Hunter’s time machine back to the 25th century. We saw Wally (as Flash) fall while fighting Abra Kadabra in the 64th century back in ZH #4, and the 25th century will fade out with Booster in ZH #1.
• Thanks to Gary at Crisis on Earth Prime for some help with the annotations

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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 1994 dates will be in red text and anything outside of time (like at the beginning or end of time) will be in blue text.

• 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).
• 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, and then Dawnstar fades out (Legionnaires #17). Valor and others go to New Earth to help RJ Brande bring Pocket Earth into this universe, but while the Subs and several Legionnaires blink out of existence, Pocket Earth turns out to be unstable and will explode in 72 hours (Valor #22). Rokk tries but can’t escape Mordru and Glorith (LSHv4 #60).
• Sun 10/1/95: Rokk escapes Mordru and Glorith by going into the Infinite Library; the surviving members of the adult and SW6 Legions meet on Winath to help look for Rokk, but when Glorith and Mordru show up on Talus seeking the Time Beacon, the Legions go there. The magicians call forth the Infinite Man, and then they take his powers. Gim Allon disappears when his SW6 counterpart Leviathan is killed (LSH v4 #60). Mordru and Glorith begin to remake the universe, and the Legion teams fight them and their evil dopplegangers. But one by one, more Legionnaires fade out. Mysa manages to break Mordru and Glorith apart which causes their spell to fail, at least temporarily, before she fades out (Legionnaires #18). Valor and Shadow Lass meet Pre-Crisis Superboy, who helps the Legions fight Glorith and Mordru. The team beats Glorith, and her Infinite Man powers flow to Valor. He then dumps it all on Mordru, who is unprepared to have his mind merge with the universe. Mordru teleports away into the core of Pocket Earth, which is ready to explode in a couple of days. Valor and Shady vanish, and after Superboy makes a rousing speech, he too vanishes (Valor #23).
• End of Time: Time Trapper is blasted by someone unknown, who starts to destroy time from the end going backwards and from the dawn of time going forwards (Zero Hour #4).
• 8/8/1994: Jo tries to go back to the future with Enya/Phase, but at the last second she leaves him and returns to her L.E.G.I.O.N. team (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70). His time bubble is blocked from going to the future moments later. SW6 Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Livewire fall out of the timestream in 1994, where they are met by Jo (Legionnaires #18). Meanwhile, the pre-Crisis Earth-1 Kal-El Superboy appears after helping the Legion and meets Kon-El Superboy in Smallville. Kal-El quickly realizes that this is a mix of his town and the post-Crisis Byrne version, and after a fight with Kon-El he realizes that he is the time anomaly here. Kon-El tells Kal-El that he will carry on the job as Superboy, and Kal-El vanishes (Superboy v3 #8). Batman, Superman, Metron, and GL Kyle Rayner contact heroes, including Emerald Dragon and the SW6 founders (Legionnaires #18) and Kon-El (Superboy v3 #8), to join up in New York City (Zero Hour #4). Metron notices that Impulse is from the 30th century (Zero Hour #3).
• End of Time: Rokk spends an infinite amount of time in the Infinite Library and meets the Time Trapper when he finally escapes (Legionnaires #18). The Time Trapper explains his history and reveals that the SW6 Legionnaires were taken from time by him, not cloned by the Dominators. But their continued existence warped time and caused the Trapper to go insane trying to “fix” things to actually protect the Legion from the Zero Hour energy wave (Valor #23). He then reveals himself to Rokk that the two of them are really temporal duplicates (Valor #23, also shown in Zero Hour #3).
• 8/8/1994: In the middle of the night, SW6 Saturn Girl, Livewire, and Cosmic Boy and Emerald Dragon join the gathering of heroes, including Superboy and Impulse (Zero Hour #3). Vril Dox launches a probe into the time stream to try to figure out what’s going on; it will reappear in ZH #1 (L.E.G.I.O.N. #70, Zero Hour #3). While trying to save NYC, Emerald Dragon reminds Booster Gold that they’ve met before. Afterwards, Waverider tells the heroes that they must try to stop time from eating itself in the past and in the future; the Legionnaires choose to go on the future mission, as this is their only way home. (Zero Hour #2)
• Beginning of Time: Waverider leads a team to the distant past. They are attacked by Extant, and Waverider sends the heroes back to their own time (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: Meanwhile, Superman leads a team to New Earth in the 30th century where they see “the end of time and space”. Metron devises a plan to stop the future from collapsing; Captain Atom blasts Metron’s Mobius Chair inside a boom tube which apparently saves the day in the future. Polestar arrives with Time Trapper, who sends the 20th century heroes back to their home while the Legionnaires remain in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 8/8/1994: Extant says that he was not supposed to lose in the 30th century (Zero Hour #2).
• 10/2/2995: A little while later later, someone appears in the 30th century and reopens the rift in time to make sure things happen correctly (Zero Hour #2).