RIP Neal Adams

Neal Adams needs no introduction, and many people will write elsewhere lots of good things about him and what he did for the industry over the years. So instead, I'm just going to recap his Legion work.

In the late 1960s, Adams drew a lot of covers for DC, including Adventure Comics, for which he pencilled and/or inked 13 covers towards the end of the Legion's run.

His first cover was #365, introducing Shadow Lass. It’s not that the previous covers by Curt Swan were not good, it’s just that Adams’ covers were that much better. He then did #366 (Validus blasting Superboy in a boxing ring, a precursor to his later Superman vs Muhammad Ali tabloid), #367 (surrounded by shadowy members of the Dark Circle), #368 (the mutiny of the super-heroines), #369 (intro Mordru), #371 (Superboy leaves the Legion), #372 (Superboy is smashed as a glass statue), #373 (the Tornado Twins), #375 (Bouncing Boy is the most powerful Legionnaire), #376 (the execution of Chameleon Boy; inks over Swan pencils), #377 (the Legionnaires are for hire; inks over Swan pencils), #378 (the Legionnaires are dying; inks over Swan pencils), and #379 (the dead Superboy is ejected into space; inks over Infantino pencils).

Jim Shooter recalled working with Adams in this 2008 interview:

JS:  By the way, it was great working with Neal, although I only worked with him on covers.  In the old days with Mort, with every story Mort required a cover sketch or a detailed cover idea if the writer in question could not sketch.  As a matter of fact, he required two cover sketches for each story.  What he would do is he would take the better one and make it the cover and make the other one the splash page because he used to do the symbolic splashes, rather than splash panels that started the story.  He’d call it the second cover.  So, I did two cover sketches. 

When I did the interior stuff I just did it in pencil, but with the cover sketch, I colored it, because they taught me how to color, so I did a whole color comp of this cover.  I put the logo and everything.  And usually they’d pick one of my designs and follow it.  I can’t think of an instance where they didn’t pick one of them.  What was really, really cool was the first time the book comes out and I see the cover and it was Neal Adams.  It was like, “Whoa!”  It was amazing.  Because more than any other guy, Neal would look at my crude little drawing and he would know what I meant.  And he would say, “All right.  I’ve got it.”  And then he would do this brilliant thing that was like he was reading my mind.  (Chuckle.)  And I would look at it and say, “Yeah, I meant that.”  (Mutual laughter.)  “That’s what I meant.  Yeah, good work, man.”

Stroud:  Just knocked it out of the park.

JS:  Oh, unbelievable.  Doing those covers with him…I just couldn’t wait to see what he did.

Stroud:  Sure.  You and the rest of the world.  He’s a formidable talent. 

Adams also did a wraparound cover for Batman #238, which inexplicably contained a Legion reprint story (from Adventure 324, the Legion of Super-Outlaws aka the Heroes of Lallor) and featured on the cover all of the characters inside the book.

Adams pencilled a famous group shot of the Legion for the 1976 DC Calendar, inked by the late great Dick Giordano, and this was later reused (with some cropping and rearranging of characters) as the cover to the 1978 Tempo paperback book with Legion reprints.

Finally, a few decades later, Adams provided what would turn out to be his final Legion cover, a variant for issue #44 of Jim Shooter's Threeboot run (LSH v5) cover-dated Sept. 2008. In the above interview, Shooter continued:

JS:  He’s doing a cover for the new series, by the way. 

Stroud:  Oh, is he?  I hadn’t heard that.

JS:  Yeah for issue #44.  Yeah, he asked to do it.  He actually sent an e-mail to Levitz and Didio saying, “Hey, good move hiring Shooter and I want to do a cover.”  And they asked me, “Would that be okay with you?”  I said, “Oh, sure, let’s give the kid a break.” 

Stroud: (Laughter.)  Yeah, I guess we could do that.

JS: “We could see our way clear.”  So anyway, he insisted I give him a sketch, and so I did, and now I’m sitting here and can’t wait to see it.  I can’t wait to see it.  It’s going to be cool.  I’m not going to get many covers from him, he’s a busy guy, but it’s a very, very cool that he wanted to do one. 

Stroud:  Absolutely.  I can feel the chills down your spine from here. 

JS:  It’s going to be good.

Continuity in Valor #11-21 and Legionnaires #16

Starting with issue #11 of Valor, Mark Waid came on board and course-corrected the series from being a science-fiction outer-space super-hero book into one more closely tied to the Legion. Issue #11 wrapped up most of the plot threads from the first 10 issues, then ended it with an ominous warning that Valor was going to die at the end of the next story arc.

They actually went and did it - by the end of #17, the hero we had been following since issue #1 was indeed dead (as dead as you can be in the comics - and this death lasted!). That six-issue storyline was called "D.O.A.". If you read the series as it came out, you noticed that some of the SW6 Legionnaires (from the Legionnaires series) appeared, but it had nothing to do with what was going on in their own series at the time, which was easy enough to tell because both the Valor and Legionnaires series came out the same week.

It wasn't until Legionnaires #16, which came out the same time as Valor #21, that we saw the events of issues #11-20 from the perspective of when they happened to the Legionnaires. So now, in retrospect, we can see how that whole timeline fit together.

• The Legion part of Valor #11 takes place somewhere in between Legionnaires #15-16
• 11: Triad reviews Valor’s history with Catspaw
• The Legion parts of Valor #12-14 are the same as Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10
• 12: DOA 1 – Is that the Time Trapper? Or maybe Glorith?
• 13: DOA 2 – Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history
• Valor #13 pages 21-22 take place during the last couple panels of Legionnaires #16 page 8, as Cosmic Boy is finishing up his workout and headed to the lab, he sees a white flash. Brainiac 5 and Triad are discussing the legend of Valor, and then a time blip happens and the computer says there’s no record of Valor.
• 14: DOA 3 – Brainy, Triad, Saturn Girl, Dragonmage, and Cosmic Boy leave to go back in time to find out what happened
• Valor #14 pages 1-2 and page 3 panels 1-6 are an expanded version of Legionnaires #16 page 9
• Valor #14 page 3 panels 7-8 are an expanded version of Legionnaires #16 page 10 panels 1-2
• The Legion appearances in Valor #15-19 take place outside of time, in between Legionnaires #16 pages 10 and 11
• 15: DOA 4 – The Legionnaires are in the time stream and crash their Time Bubble
• 16: DOA 5 – The Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Valor's companion Lori is Glorith
• 17: DOA 6 – The Legionnaires fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; SW6 Valor appears
• 18: DOA Aftermath 1 – SW6 Valor is told that he will have to spend another 1000 years in the Phantom Zone in order to save time, and he does not take it well
• 19: DOA Aftermath 2 – a talk with Waverider and seeing his fellow Legionnaires vanish convinces Valor that he must relive his life in the Phantom Zone, and the timeline is reset.
• Valor #19 pages 19-20 are are an expanded version of Legionnaires #16 page 11: the Legionnaires return to their present with no Valor-related problems and unaware of the journey they took, but there are other time shenanigans going on...
• There are no more Legionnaires in Valor #20-21, but Valor's story continued with Sudden Death Overtime, back in his present of summer 1994.
• #20: Sudden Death Overtime part 1 – Valor tries to recreate his historical events, but there are Timequakes as seen by the Linear Men, which result in Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Bouncing Boy appearing in Legionnaires #16.
• #21: Sudden Death Overtime part 2 – 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 (as seen in LSH v4 Annual #2), 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…

Coming up next: 

Here's the whole Legion-centric Zero Hour/End of an Era reading order:

• End of an Era Part 1: Legionnaires #17
• End of an Era Part 2: Valor #22
• End of an Era Part 3: LSH v4 #60
• Showcase '94 #8 (These two Showcase issues aren't Legion-related, but they set up Zero Hour - )
• Showcase '94 #9 (so they're included here for completeness)
• Zero Hour #4
• L.E.G.I.O.N. #68 (last couple of pages only)
• L.E.G.I.O.N. #69
• L.E.G.I.O.N. #70
• End of an Era Part 4: Legionnaires #18
• End of an Era Part 5: Valor #23
• Superboy v3 #8
• Zero Hour #3
• Zero Hour #2
• Zero Hour #1
• End of an Era Part 6: LSH v4 #61
• Zero Hour #0

Valor #21 annotations: Sudden Death Overtime part 2

Annotations for Valor #21:

• On sale 5/17/94 (same day as last week’s Legionnaires #16)
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 706 (April 25, 2022)
• Timeline: Sometime in 1994

Notes:

• Cover: Just a neat little touch how the costumes of the Legion of Super-Valors are each slightly different and not just copied and pasted.
• Page 1: Shareth is a new planet which we’ve never heard of before
• Page 6 panel 1: as a reminder of which of the Linear Men is which - the white-haired guy with the cyborg eye is a future Rip Hunter, the blond man is Matthew Ryder, the woman is Liri Lee, and of course Waverider who is Matthew Ryder from the alternate future ruled by Monarch.
• Page 8: The Legion of Super-Valors?
• Page 17-18: Revisiting the events of LSHv4 Annual 2, only earlier than they had been going to have happened
• Page 22 panel 5: It's too late... for the entire continuum! Coming up....
  
  
  

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I'm not tracking the dates in the Valor timeline prior to issue 11, other than they occur in 1994, just the Legionnaires stuff (and where they fit into Valor's continuity). Boldface indicates something new learned this issue about the timeline. 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.

• Date unknown, Sept 2995: Triad reviews Valor’s history with Catspaw (Valor #11, in between Legionnaires #15-16)
• 9/29/95: Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, which is the same as Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10); Brainy, Triad, Saturn Girl, Dragonmage, Ultra Boy, and Cosmic Boy leave to go back in time to find out what happened (Valor #14, which is the same as 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 Valor's companion Lori is Glorith (Valor #16) and then fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; another 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, which is the same as 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).
• 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).

Legionnaires #16 annotations: Guess Who's Back!

Annotations for Legionnaires #16:

• On sale 5/17/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 705 (April 18, 2022)
• Timeline: Sept 29, 2995

Notes:

• Cover: Adam Hughes and Karl Story. Also recalls the cover to LSHv4 #40 with someone who looks like Wildfire, “Guess Who’s Back!” While a great cover, it spoils the appearance of Dream Girl, Star Boy, and Bouncing Boy in this issue. Also, I couldn’t help singing to myself Eminem’s “Guess who’s back / Back again / Shady’s back / Tell a friend / ….”
• Page 1: The title of this issue, “Saved by Zero”, is the title of a 1983 hit song by The Fixx.
• Page 3 panel 1: that’s not how physics works, if something is held down and then gravity is removed, it’s going to stay there until something makes it move, just turning off the gravity won’t make things float away
• Page 4 panel 2: the timequake from Valor #20 hits the 30th century, and Star Boy appears.
• Under the old clone storyline rules, only those who were Legionnaires immediately after ADV 349 were cloned; Star Boy and Dream Girl didn’t return until issue 351.
• Page 6 panel 4: recall in LSH #57 that Polestar left the adult Legion team to go back to New Earth, assume it took him a day to get there. This issue thus takes place at the same time as LSH #58, with the fight on Weber’s World and Glorith teaming up with Mordru. I estimate this to be 9/29/2995.
• Now that the two series are synched up, I can retroactively place the Legionnaires appearances in the last several issues of Valor properly (see the timeline below for the synched version)
• Page 8 panel 2: Catspaw asks how Cosmic Boy is doing since his injury. That was on 9/18, or 11 days ago.
• Page 8: Valor #13 p 21-22 take place while Cos is walking to the lab, when he sees a flash. Brainiac 5 and Triad are discussing the legend of Valor, and then a time blip happens and the computer says there’s no record of Valor.
• Pages 9-11: covering events previously seen in Valor #13-19
• Page 9: Valor #14 p 1-2 and p 3 panels 1-6 are an expanded version
• Page 10 panels 1-2: Valor #14 p 3 panels 7-8 are an expanded version
• After page 10: The Legion’s appearance in Valor #15-19 takes place between pages 10-11
• Page 11 panel 1: The timeline is reset after Valor agrees to go back into the Phantom Zone in Valor #19. The Legionnaires return to the 30th century unaware of the journey they took.
• Page 12 panel 3: Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl realize that Dream Girl isn’t supposed to be there.
• Page 15 panel 2: Another timequake, goodbye Ferro and hello Bouncing Boy!
• Page 16: Invisible Kid is in cahoots with Rond Vidar
• In LSH #53, the adult Rond sees something in the time stream and runs off in a Time Bubble. He next appears in issue #57 when he has grabbed the deceased Circadia Senius (from before he died) to check out the black void in the time stream. In this issue, Senius is gone and Rond is now teamed with the SW6 Invisible Kid.
• Page 18 panel 4: gone, never to return? To the 30th century, maybe, but we readers will see them again in 9 weeks (publishing time) in the pages of Zero Hour #3.

It's beginning to look a lot like Zero Hour....

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Cutting down the timeline to just the last couple months since it was getting so long. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow; text in yellow is as written in the Sourcebook), 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.

• Wed 7/29/95: Jacques and Drura join the team; Mysa is possessed, and goes to Tharn to confront Mordru (LSH v4 #43), but she is defeated and is absorbed into Mordru. Using this power, he raises armies of the dead in a number of worlds in both UP and Khund space. The Legion agrees to help the Khunds, but they insist that the Legion take on four new Khundish members (LSH v4 #44).
• Sun 8/2/95: The Legion fights Mordru’s zombies on Sklar, Talus, Trom, and in space (LSH v4 #45). On Talus, the Legionnaires fight their own dead, and new Khund Legionnaire Bloodclaw is killed before the team halts Mordru’s magics on the planet. Jan fights the dead Trommites on Pasnic (LSH v4 #46). The Legionnaires bring the fight to Mordru on Tharn, losing the Khund Firefist in the process (LSH v4 #47). The dead on Talus are defeated, but during the fight Timber Wolf returns to the 30th century with Jamm (LSH v4 Ann #4). With the help of Devlin O’Ryan and the spirit of Amethyst, Mordru and Mysa are separated and Mordru is defeated (LSH v4 #48). 
• Mon 8/3/95: Jamm takes the Legionnaires on a prodigious trip before being returned to his own time (LSH v4 Ann #4).
• Tues 8/4/95: The Legion leaves Tharn for Khundish space, where Flederweb and Veilmist are forced to rejoin the Khundish forces. Jan recovers on Pasnic, while Amethyst and Mysa ponder the future (LSH v4 #48).
• Wed 8/5/95: Tenzil travels to Tartarus and with the help of Polar Boy and friends, they rescue Eve and defeat Evillo (LSH v4 #49). 
• Thu 8/6/95: Tenzil and Eve depart Tartarus for Titan (LSH v4 #49); the Legion rebury their dead on Shanghalla, and Wildfire is resurrected there (LSH v4 #50).
• Fri 8/7/95: the SW6 Legionnaires spend the weekend at the Atlantis Dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve arrive on Titan; the rest of the group arrives on Talus from Shanghalla (LSH v4 #50).
• Sat 8/8/95: the SW6 Legionnaires encounter the race of Devil-Fish in the Atlantis Dome (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve get married; Jan almost dies; Kono leaves; Sean arrives on Talus (LSH v4 #50).
• Sun 8/9/95: the SW6 Legionnaires leave the Atlantis dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil sends out holos of his wedding from the day before (LSH v4 #50).
• Mon 8/10/95: Several Legionnaires leave New Earth for Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Tues 8/11/95: Brainiac 5 thinks of leaving the Legion and remaining on Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 8/12/95: Brainiac 5 returns to New Earth with the rest of his team (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 9/13/95 (estimated): “Several weeks later” after Tenzil’s wedding, Dawnstar returns to Starhaven; three BIONs attack the Legion on Talus; Universo convinces Relnic and King Jonn that the Legion is helping the Khunds attack UP space (LSH v4 #50). 
• Thu 9/14/95: Cocheta Drisden fails to escape from Takron Galtos, and is moved to Quarantine; Grimbor attacks the team and Ivy’s Li’l Legion on Quarantine trying to grab her (LSH v4 #51).
• Sat 9/16/95: Kent and Celeste arrive on Talus from Quarantine, as Ayla and Brin reminisce and Vi monitors the Khund situation; Mysa tells the crew that since they just defeated Mordru, they have to take on Glorith to keep the balance (LSH v4 #52).
• Sun 9/17/95: Relnic shows Jacques that the Legion is working with the Khunds; Rond rushes off in a Time Bubble; the Legion lands on Baaldur and confronts Glorith, with disastrous consequences to the team; in her mind, Glorith is confronted by the Time Trapper; the UP calls for the Legion’s disbandment (LSH v4 #53). Recovering from the fight with Glorith, several Legionnaires find themselves older or younger, and head for Quarantine to see if Brainiac 5 can reverse the effects (LSH v4 #54).
• Mon 9/18/95: Brainy tests the Legion on Quarantine; Kent and Devlin, who have both been de-aged, stay behind while the others go to Talus (LSH v4 #54).
• ME-Lad, Violet, Dragonmage, Catspaw shot down over Antares II by Khunds (Legionnaires #9). The Proteans want the Legionnaires to go inside a crashed ship, where after defeating more Khunds they find Kid Quantum (Legionnaires #10). Dragonmage helps restore the Soul of Antares, and Andromeda calls HQ to say she’s found them and bringing them all back (Legionnaires #11).
• Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy find a freighter that’s been attacked by Sklarians (Legionnaires #9). Kono arrives to help out (Legionnaires #10).
• Legion tryouts at Metropolis (Legionnaires #9). Inferno helps out in Essen (Legionnaires #10), then goes to Paris where he finds someone has chained a tunnel shut (Legionnaires #11).
• Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Livewire go to Acapulco to quell food riots, and Cosmic Boy is injured by Livewire (Legionnaires #9). More Legionnaires arrive to help (Legionnaires #10). Cos is taken to the medi-center, while Spark, Brainy, Phantom Girl, and Ferro tend to a wounded child with odd powers (Legionnaires #11).
• Tue 9/19/95: The Legion gets captured at Talus and taken to Weber’s World (LSH v4 #54). 
• In Metropolis, Kid Quantum is sworn in, and Computo sends M-E Lad to help Kono with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #12). Kono uses the Grandin Gender-Reversal Disease to turn Tenzil into Tenzi, where they go undercover, but he quickly blows his cover (Legionnaires #13). They manage to signal the rest of the Legionnaires (Legionnaires #14).
• In Acapulco, Invisible Kid arrives to help, but he’s zapped unconscious, while in the Acapulco medi-center , Cosmic Boy nearly dies but Saturn Girl’s telepathy stabilizes him while a jealous Livewire watches (Legionnaires #12). Invisible Kid manages to break free of the mental-energy vortex as Andromeda and Ultra Boy arrive, while Cosmic Boy recovers (Legionnaires #13). Rokk is released, and Saturn Girl links the minds of the team to try to rescue their downed teammates (Legionnaires #14). The team manages to calm the mind of a young boy who was creating the dangerous hallucinations and everyone survives. (Legionnaires #15).
• In Paris, anti-alien hysteria picks up, so a team goes there, where they are blasted by a Dominator child who thinks they are attacking her (Legionnaires #12). She teleports them to a prison, but they escape. They find the girl in the sewers, and she sends them to the Archduke's palace to stop the xenophobia, only to find Grimbor instead (Legionnaires #13). They escape Grimbor’s traps and discover that the mayor of the Paris dome has been working with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #14).
• Wed 9/20/95: The Legion is briefly detained on Weber’s World but escape, while the UP officially disbands the Legion; Universo tells Cham and Computo that the Legionnaires aren’t needed to help (LSH v4 #54).
• Date unknown: Triad reviews Valor’s history with Catspaw (Valor #11, in between Legionnaires #15 on 9/19 and #16 on 9/29)
• Sun 9/23/95: The team arrives on Rimbor, and Jo brings a team to an old warehouse but he and Sussa are captured by a rival gang. (LSH v4 #55)
• Wed 9/27/95: Legionnaires start the process of going undercover while hiding out on Rimbor, and Sussa escapes (LSH v4 #54). Universo is looking for the Legion on Rimbor; Jo recruits other gangs to go against the government, while Mysa and Vi sneak into government HQ to find out what’s going on; on Starhaven, Dawnstar undergoes a vision quest (LSH v4 #55); the Legion exposes Khundish interference on Rimbor and escape (LSHv4 #56).
• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).
• 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). SW6 Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10); Brainy, Triad, Saturn Girl, Dragonmage, Ultra Boy, and Cosmic Boy leave to go 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). 
• Date unknown, 1995: Valor tries to re-create the feats he did before he went into the Phantom Zone, but fails; the Linear Men follow Valor from Vanishing Point, and 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).

LSH v4 #58 annotations: Down to the Wire!

Annotations for LSH v4 #58:

• On sale 4/12/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 704 (April 11, 2022)
• Timeline: Sept 29, 2995

Notes:

• Page 6 panel 1: first appearance of the Infinite Library, found by Glorith, which she used to restore her powers.
• The Infinite Library was "built outside of time by unknown hands. This fabled library's volumes store the history of everyone and everything in every timeline. Scholars have spent lifetimes searching for it, always in vain."
• Could it have been part of Lucien's library (from "Sandman")? Here's the description of part of that library, as in this quote from "Season of Mists":
• Lucien: "Oh, it's a very unusual library, Matthew. Somewhere in here is every story that has every been dreamed. "
  Matthew: "They're just books."
  Lucien: "Oh yes. But unusual books. You'll find none of them on Earth. In this section, for example, are novels their authors never wrote, or never finished, except in dreams.”
• Page 9 panel 4: Cupid and the Lallorians all appeared last issue, and it’s “Garak” of the Glow, not “Garax”.
• Page 24 panel 4: Mordru reverts to his younger self, as seen in the Amethyst miniseries

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Cutting down the timeline to just the last couple months since it was getting so long. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow; text in yellow is as written in the Sourcebook), 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.

• Wed 7/29/95: Jacques and Drura join the team; Mysa is possessed, and goes to Tharn to confront Mordru (LSH v4 #43), but she is defeated and is absorbed into Mordru. Using this power, he raises armies of the dead in a number of worlds in both UP and Khund space. The Legion agrees to help the Khunds, but they insist that the Legion take on four new Khundish members (LSH v4 #44).
• Sun 8/2/95: The Legion fights Mordru’s zombies on Sklar, Talus, Trom, and in space (LSH v4 #45). On Talus, the Legionnaires fight their own dead, and new Khund Legionnaire Bloodclaw is killed before the team halts Mordru’s magics on the planet. Jan fights the dead Trommites on Pasnic (LSH v4 #46). The Legionnaires bring the fight to Mordru on Tharn, losing the Khund Firefist in the process (LSH v4 #47). The dead on Talus are defeated, but during the fight Timber Wolf returns to the 30th century with Jamm (LSH v4 Ann #4). With the help of Devlin O’Ryan and the spirit of Amethyst, Mordru and Mysa are separated and Mordru is defeated (LSH v4 #48). 
• Mon 8/3/95: Jamm takes the Legionnaires on a prodigious trip before being returned to his own time (LSH v4 Ann #4).
• Tues 8/4/95: The Legion leaves Tharn for Khundish space, where Flederweb and Veilmist are forced to rejoin the Khundish forces. Jan recovers on Pasnic, while Amethyst and Mysa ponder the future (LSH v4 #48).
• Wed 8/5/95: Tenzil travels to Tartarus and with the help of Polar Boy and friends, they rescue Eve and defeat Evillo (LSH v4 #49). 
• Thu 8/6/95: Tenzil and Eve depart Tartarus for Titan (LSH v4 #49); the Legion rebury their dead on Shanghalla, and Wildfire is resurrected there (LSH v4 #50).
• Fri 8/7/95: the SW6 Legionnaires spend the weekend at the Atlantis Dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve arrive on Titan; the rest of the group arrives on Talus from Shanghalla (LSH v4 #50).
• Sat 8/8/95: the SW6 Legionnaires encounter the race of Devil-Fish in the Atlantis Dome (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve get married; Jan almost dies; Kono leaves; Sean arrives on Talus (LSH v4 #50).
• Sun 8/9/95: the SW6 Legionnaires leave the Atlantis dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil sends out holos of his wedding from the day before (LSH v4 #50).
• Mon 8/10/95: Several Legionnaires leave New Earth for Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Tues 8/11/95: Brainiac 5 thinks of leaving the Legion and remaining on Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 8/12/95: Brainiac 5 returns to New Earth with the rest of his team (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 9/13/95 (estimated): “Several weeks later” after Tenzil’s wedding, Dawnstar returns to Starhaven; three BIONs attack the Legion on Talus; Universo convinces Relnic and King Jonn that the Legion is helping the Khunds attack UP space (LSH v4 #50). 
• Thu 9/14/95: Cocheta Drisden fails to escape from Takron Galtos, and is moved to Quarantine; Grimbor attacks the team and Ivy’s Li’l Legion on Quarantine trying to grab her (LSH v4 #51).
• Sat 9/16/95: Kent and Celeste arrive on Talus from Quarantine, as Ayla and Brin reminisce and Vi monitors the Khund situation; Mysa tells the crew that since they just defeated Mordru, they have to take on Glorith to keep the balance (LSH v4 #52).
• Sun 9/17/95: Relnic shows Jacques that the Legion is working with the Khunds; Rond rushes off in a Time Bubble; the Legion lands on Baaldur and confronts Glorith, with disastrous consequences to the team; in her mind, Glorith is confronted by the Time Trapper; the UP calls for the Legion’s disbandment (LSH v4 #53). Recovering from the fight with Glorith, several Legionnaires find themselves older or younger, and head for Quarantine to see if Brainiac 5 can reverse the effects (LSH v4 #54).
• Mon 9/18/95: Brainy tests the Legion on Quarantine; Kent and Devlin, who have both been de-aged, stay behind while the others go to Talus (LSH v4 #54).
• ME-Lad, Violet, Dragonmage, Catspaw shot down over Antares II by Khunds (Legionnaires #9). The Proteans want the Legionnaires to go inside a crashed ship, where after defeating more Khunds they find Kid Quantum (Legionnaires #10). Dragonmage helps restore the Soul of Antares, and Andromeda calls HQ to say she’s found them and bringing them all back (Legionnaires #11).
• Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy find a freighter that’s been attacked by Sklarians (Legionnaires #9). Kono arrives to help out (Legionnaires #10).
• Legion tryouts at Metropolis (Legionnaires #9). Inferno helps out in Essen (Legionnaires #10), then goes to Paris where he finds someone has chained a tunnel shut (Legionnaires #11).
• Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Livewire go to Acapulco to quell food riots, and Cosmic Boy is injured by Livewire (Legionnaires #9). More Legionnaires arrive to help (Legionnaires #10). Cos is taken to the medi-center, while Spark, Brainy, Phantom Girl, and Ferro tend to a wounded child with odd powers (Legionnaires #11).
• Tue 9/19/95: The Legion gets captured at Talus and taken to Weber’s World (LSH v4 #54). 
• In Metropolis, Kid Quantum is sworn in, and Computo sends M-E Lad to help Kono with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #12). Kono uses the Grandin Gender-Reversal Disease to turn Tenzil into Tenzi, where they go undercover, but he quickly blows his cover (Legionnaires #13). They manage to signal the rest of the Legionnaires (Legionnaires #14).
• In Acapulco, Invisible Kid arrives to help, but he’s zapped unconscious, while in the Acapulco medi-center , Cosmic Boy nearly dies but Saturn Girl’s telepathy stabilizes him while a jealous Livewire watches (Legionnaires #12). Invisible Kid manages to break free of the mental-energy vortex as Andromeda and Ultra Boy arrive, while Cosmic Boy recovers (Legionnaires #13). Rokk is released, and Saturn Girl links the minds of the team to try to rescue their downed teammates (Legionnaires #14). The team manages to calm the mind of a young boy who was creating the dangerous hallucinations and everyone survives. (Legionnaires #15).
• In Paris, anti-alien hysteria picks up, so a team goes there, where they are blasted by a Dominator child who thinks they are attacking her (Legionnaires #12). She teleports them to a prison, but they escape. They find the girl in the sewers, and she sends them to the Archduke's palace to stop the xenophobia, only to find Grimbor instead (Legionnaires #13). They escape Grimbor’s traps and discover that the mayor of the Paris dome has been working with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #14).
• Wed 9/20/95: The Legion is briefly detained on Weber’s World but escape, while the UP officially disbands the Legion; Universo tells Cham and Computo that the Legionnaires aren’t needed to help (LSH v4 #54).
• Sun 9/23/95: The team arrives on Rimbor, and Jo brings a team to an old warehouse but he and Sussa are captured by a rival gang. (LSH v4 #55)
• Wed 9/27/95: Legionnaires start the process of going undercover while hiding out on Rimbor, and Sussa escapes (LSH v4 #54). Universo is looking for the Legion on Rimbor; Jo recruits other gangs to go against the government, while Mysa and Vi sneak into government HQ to find out what’s going on; on Starhaven, Dawnstar undergoes a vision quest (LSH v4 #55); the Legion exposes Khundish interference on Rimbor and escape (LSHv4 #56).
• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).
• 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).

Valor #20 annotations: Sudden Death Overtime part 1

Annotations for Valor #20:

• On sale 4/12/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 703 (April 4, 2022)
• Timeline: Date TBD [will be determined when the events synch up in Legionnaires #16]

Notes:

• Kurt Busiek picks up the title to the end of the series from here (with help from Mark Waid)
• Page 5: amazingly, Kurt and Mark manage to recap issues 11-19
• Page 9 panel 1: a time-spasm hits the 30th century and will make its effects felt in Legionnaires #16, which we’ll cover in a couple weeks
• Page 11: the full-page splash was inked by Doran, her only inking this issue

---

I'm not tracking the dates in the Valor timeline, other than they occur in 1994, just the Legionnaires stuff. Once we get into Legionnaires #16 everything will retroactively fit into place but for the moment they're still TBD. Boldface indicates something new learned this issue about the timeline.

• Date unknown: Triad reviews Valor’s history with Catspaw (Valor #11, in between Legionnaires #15-16)
• Date TBD (but will be established in Legionnaires #16): Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, which is the same as Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10); Brainy, Triad, Saturn Girl, Dragonmage, Ultra Boy, and Cosmic Boy leave to go back in time to find out what happened (Valor #14, which is the same as Legionnaires #16 page 10).
• Outside of time: the Legionnaires are in the time stream and crash their Time Bubble (Valor #15); The Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Valor's companion Lori is Glorith (Valor #16) and then fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; another 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, which will also be seen in Legionnaires #16 page 11.)
• 1994: Valor tries to re-create the feats he did before he went into the Phantom Zone, but fails; the Linear Men follow Valor from Vanishing Point, and see timequakes affect the 30th century (Valor #20, which will be seen in Legionnaires #16).

Legionnaires #15 annotations: All Choked Up!

Annotations for Legionnaires #15:

• On sale 4/12/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 702 (March 28, 2022)
• It's OK, I'm a Senator: https://itsokimasenator.livejournal.com/32150.html
• Timeline: Sept 19, 2995

Notes:

• Cover: Hey look, it's Jeff Moy!
• The events of this issue take place about the same time as when the Legion got captured at Talus and taken to Weber's World (LSHv4 #54).
• Page 11 panel 3: Keiki is the mermaid from the Atlantis dome in issue #7. But don’t worry about this subplot, it’s not going anywhere because End of an Era starts next issue. It’s likely that Inferno’s girlfriend with the temper who we saw in Paris is the one who sent this “keep your hands off my man” note, but since the Bierbaums didn’t continue on the book, that subplot (plus Dommie the Dominator girl) didn’t advance past this issue.
• Mayf, the boy from Acapulco, was eventually (if the Bierbaums had continued writing the book) going to be the new Kid Psycho.
• Legionnaires #9-15 took place over two days. I’ve heard of decompressed storytelling, but seven months to cover 2 days?
• This is the final Bierbaum issue. Next: a bold new direction! I can't recommend highly enough going back to read Tom's "It's OK, I'm a Senator" blog for all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of everything from who created which new characters to what DC editorial was doing to the team that week.

---

Cutting down the timeline to just the last couple months since it was getting so long. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow; text in yellow is as written in the Sourcebook), 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.

• Wed 7/29/95: Jacques and Drura join the team; Mysa is possessed, and goes to Tharn to confront Mordru (LSH v4 #43), but she is defeated and is absorbed into Mordru. Using this power, he raises armies of the dead in a number of worlds in both UP and Khund space. The Legion agrees to help the Khunds, but they insist that the Legion take on four new Khundish members (LSH v4 #44).
• Sun 8/2/95: The Legion fights Mordru’s zombies on Sklar, Talus, Trom, and in space (LSH v4 #45). On Talus, the Legionnaires fight their own dead, and new Khund Legionnaire Bloodclaw is killed before the team halts Mordru’s magics on the planet. Jan fights the dead Trommites on Pasnic (LSH v4 #46). The Legionnaires bring the fight to Mordru on Tharn, losing the Khund Firefist in the process (LSH v4 #47). The dead on Talus are defeated, but during the fight Timber Wolf returns to the 30th century with Jamm (LSH v4 Ann #4). With the help of Devlin O’Ryan and the spirit of Amethyst, Mordru and Mysa are separated and Mordru is defeated (LSH v4 #48). 
• Mon 8/3/95: Jamm takes the Legionnaires on a prodigious trip before being returned to his own time (LSH v4 Ann #4).
• Tues 8/4/95: The Legion leaves Tharn for Khundish space, where Flederweb and Veilmist are forced to rejoin the Khundish forces. Jan recovers on Pasnic, while Amethyst and Mysa ponder the future (LSH v4 #48).
• Wed 8/5/95: Tenzil travels to Tartarus and with the help of Polar Boy and friends, they rescue Eve and defeat Evillo (LSH v4 #49). 
• Thu 8/6/95: Tenzil and Eve depart Tartarus for Titan (LSH v4 #49); the Legion rebury their dead on Shanghalla, and Wildfire is resurrected there (LSH v4 #50).
• Fri 8/7/95: the SW6 Legionnaires spend the weekend at the Atlantis Dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve arrive on Titan; the rest of the group arrives on Talus from Shanghalla (LSH v4 #50).
• Sat 8/8/95: the SW6 Legionnaires encounter the race of Devil-Fish in the Atlantis Dome (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve get married; Jan almost dies; Kono leaves; Sean arrives on Talus (LSH v4 #50).
• Sun 8/9/95: the SW6 Legionnaires leave the Atlantis dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil sends out holos of his wedding from the day before (LSH v4 #50).
• Mon 8/10/95: Several Legionnaires leave New Earth for Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Tues 8/11/95: Brainiac 5 thinks of leaving the Legion and remaining on Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 8/12/95: Brainiac 5 returns to New Earth with the rest of his team (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 9/13/95 (estimated): “Several weeks later” after Tenzil’s wedding, Dawnstar returns to Starhaven; three BIONs attack the Legion on Talus; Universo convinces Relnic and King Jonn that the Legion is helping the Khunds attack UP space (LSH v4 #50). 
• Thu 9/14/95: Cocheta Drisden fails to escape from Takron Galtos, and is moved to Quarantine; Grimbor attacks the team and Ivy’s Li’l Legion on Quarantine trying to grab her (LSH v4 #51).
• Sat 9/16/95: Kent and Celeste arrive on Talus from Quarantine, as Ayla and Brin reminisce and Vi monitors the Khund situation; Mysa tells the crew that since they just defeated Mordru, they have to take on Glorith to keep the balance (LSH v4 #52).
• Sun 9/17/95: Relnic shows Jacques that the Legion is working with the Khunds; Rond rushes off in a Time Bubble; the Legion lands on Baaldur and confronts Glorith, with disastrous consequences to the team; in her mind, Glorith is confronted by the Time Trapper; the UP calls for the Legion’s disbandment (LSH v4 #53). Recovering from the fight with Glorith, several Legionnaires find themselves older or younger, and head for Quarantine to see if Brainiac 5 can reverse the effects (LSH v4 #54).
• Mon 9/18/95: Brainy tests the Legion on Quarantine; Kent and Devlin, who have both been de-aged, stay behind while the others go to Talus (LSH v4 #54).
• ME-Lad, Violet, Dragonmage, Catspaw shot down over Antares II by Khunds (Legionnaires #9). The Proteans want the Legionnaires to go inside a crashed ship, where after defeating more Khunds they find Kid Quantum (Legionnaires #10). Dragonmage helps restore the Soul of Antares, and Andromeda calls HQ to say she’s found them and bringing them all back (Legionnaires #11).
• Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy find a freighter that’s been attacked by Sklarians (Legionnaires #9). Kono arrives to help out (Legionnaires #10).
• Legion tryouts at Metropolis (Legionnaires #9). Inferno helps out in Essen (Legionnaires #10), then goes to Paris where he finds someone has chained a tunnel shut (Legionnaires #11).
• Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Livewire go to Acapulco to quell food riots, and Cosmic Boy is injured by Livewire (Legionnaires #9). More Legionnaires arrive to help (Legionnaires #10). Cos is taken to the medi-center, while Spark, Brainy, Phantom Girl, and Ferro tend to a wounded child with odd powers (Legionnaires #11).
• Tue 9/19/95: The Legion gets captured at Talus and taken to Weber’s World (LSH v4 #54). 
• In Metropolis, Kid Quantum is sworn in, and Computo sends M-E Lad to help Kono with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #12). Kono uses the Grandin Gender-Reversal Disease to turn Tenzil into Tenzi, where they go undercover, but he quickly blows his cover (Legionnaires #13). They manage to signal the rest of the Legionnaires (Legionnaires #14).
• In Acapulco, Invisible Kid arrives to help, but he’s zapped unconscious, while in the Acapulco medi-center , Cosmic Boy nearly dies but Saturn Girl’s telepathy stabilizes him while a jealous Livewire watches (Legionnaires #12). Invisible Kid manages to break free of the mental-energy vortex as Andromeda and Ultra Boy arrive, while Cosmic Boy recovers (Legionnaires #13). Rokk is released, and Saturn Girl links the minds of the team to try to rescue their downed teammates (Legionnaires #14). The team manages to calm the mind of a young boy who was creating the dangerous hallucinations and everyone survives. (Legionnaires #15).
• In Paris, anti-alien hysteria picks up, so a team goes there, where they are blasted by a Dominator child who thinks they are attacking her (Legionnaires #12). She teleports them to a prison, but they escape. They find the girl in the sewers, and she sends them to the Archduke's palace to stop the xenophobia, only to find Grimbor instead (Legionnaires #13). They escape Grimbor’s traps and discover that the mayor of the Paris dome has been working with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #14).
• Wed 9/20/95: The Legion is briefly detained on Weber’s World but escape, while the UP officially disbands the Legion; Universo tells Cham and Computo that the Legionnaires aren’t needed to help (LSH v4 #54).
• Sun 9/23/95: The team arrives on Rimbor, and Jo brings a team to an old warehouse but he and Sussa are captured by a rival gang. (LSH v4 #55)
• Wed 9/27/95: Legionnaires start the process of going undercover while hiding out on Rimbor, and Sussa escapes (LSH v4 #54). Universo is looking for the Legion on Rimbor; Jo recruits other gangs to go against the government, while Mysa and Vi sneak into government HQ to find out what’s going on; on Starhaven, Dawnstar undergoes a vision quest (LSH v4 #55); the Legion exposes Khundish interference on Rimbor and escape (LSHv4 #56).
• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).

Legion of 3 Worlds: Prime Evil

For this extra-special podcast episode #700, we thought it would be nice to celebrate the work of George Perez, so we went back to re-review the 5-issue Legion of 3 Worlds series he did with Geoff Johns and Scott Koblish. The Subs covered each issue when it originally came out (episodes 4, 18, 30, and 42 in 2008-09) so now we’re going to look at it with the benefit of hindsight. We will revisit the life and career of George Perez in a future episode, hopefully later than sooner.

Perez did an interview back in 2019 in which he discussed pencilling L3W with Johns as writer.

Well, the irony is that the Legion, when I was growing up, was one of my favorite comics. I mean even over The Avengers because I loved all of the characters, all of the costumes, all the color.

I thought, one of the first comics I would ever do if I got the chance — other than well, I knew I wanted JLA, I knew I wanted The Avengers — but I really wanted the Legion of Super-Heroes. And then it took so long in my career to finally do a Legion of Super-Heroes story. I did a few covers, I did a few little pinups… but I’d never worked on a Legion story. They appeared in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but then again, who didn’t?

So I was working on Brave and the Bold, and (writer) Geoff Johns was saying he wanted to do a Legion of Super-Heroes story. I did not know it was going to be a part of Final Crisis. … I really didn’t like it being part of Final Crisis but that’s the company’s decision.

This page from DC Universe #0, which came out the week after Countdown #1

But it's been so long since the story came out, I needed a Wikipedia-based refresher on what happened leading up to L3W. And boy, did THAT lead me down the rabbit hole of DC continuity! So here's what I came up with. Thanks, Wikipedia editors! (Some of the links below are to Wikipedia, others to my original Omnicom blog posts from the time.)

Some important precursor events:

• Back in 1994, Bart Allen was introduced as Impulse right before Zero Hour (July 1994 cover-date, same month as Legionnaires #16 and LSH v4 #59, just a couple months from the issues we're doing right now. So at the time he would have been considered a pre-Zero Hour character, at least until they brought in XS. 
• Also in 1994, at the conclusion of Zero Hour, we see the new Time Trapper. Dan Jurgens said that it was intended to be the new Batgirl who had been introduced there, but that was never followed up on.
• Meanwhile, in 2005-06, Superboy-Prime has killed Superboy (Conner Kent aka Kon-El) during Infinite Crisis. Prime is imprisoned by the Guardians of the Universe, but freed later during the Sinestro Corps War (now calling himself Superman-Prime).

Wikipedia describes the beginning of the Retroboot era as “DC’s three-year reinvention of the Legion”, starting with the Lightning Saga (2007), then Superman & The Legion (2007-08), and finally Legion of 3 Worlds (2008-09). But Countdown (2007-08) is important, too.

In the Lightning Saga (2007), several Legionnaires from more-or-less the original pre-Zero Hour timeline (soon to be known as the Retroboot) are discovered by the JLA and JSA to be in the 21st century (including Karate Kid, who has somehow returned to life – this was never explained, but we can probably chalk it up to continuity punches in Infinite Crisis). In the end, they manage to retrieve Wally West from the Speed Force, where he was left in Infinite Crisis. The Legionnaires return to the future, leaving behind Karate Kid and Una to go Counting Down, and Starman. Brainy says that the return of Wally was just a side effect, they got what they really wanted (someone trapped inside a lightning rod – and we won’t find out who that is until L3W). During this story arc, Superman used the term “Legion of 3 Worlds” to describe "one of the Legion's greatest adventures". He stated that the full story of this event went undocumented because none of the Legionnaires remembered exactly what had occurred.

After that, in the pages of Countdown (2007-08):

• Karate Kid and one of Luornu’s bodies, calling herself Una, meet various heroes and villains and eventually end up on Apokolips with some other heroes. Val is dying of an alien virus.
• Superman-Prime has survived the Sinestro Corps War and is traveling the multiverse in search of the perfect universe for him. He eventually finds his way to a war on Earth-51, and in a fight he destroys Monarch’s (Captain Atom’s) containment suit which sets off a chain reaction that destroys that universe. He becomes lost in time… and lost in space.
• The Monitor Nix Uotan creates a new Earth-51 in its place, and the Earth-8 Monitor Solomon sends Val and Una from Apokolips to this Earth, but Val finally dies and releases the Morticoccus virus, infecting everyone and creating a new version of Kamandi’s Earth. Una dies saving Buddy Blank and his grandson Tommy from a swarm of rats.
• And in a related miniseries, Bart Allen is killed.

While all of this is going on, in the Superman & The Legion story arc (2007-08), Superman goes back to the 31st century for the first time since Crisis on Infinite Earths because the Legion needs his help – Earth-Man (formerly Absorbency Boy) has convinced Earth that Superman was born there and that all aliens are bad. Earth-Man and his Justice League of Earth hunt the Legion down until the good guys win. Hooray!

The epilogue for the S&LSH story is in Action 864, the issue after the S&LSH story concludes, but this issue is NOT collected in the S&LSH collection (though it should be). Lightning Lad brings Superman back to the 21st century and they hang around the Fortress reminiscing until Batman shows up. Batman tells Superman that he remembers meeting three different versions of the Legion (pre-Crisis in JLA 147-148, Reboot in Final Night, and Threeboot in Brave & Bold vol 3 #5), and they've found the bodies of Karate Kid and Luornu (how did they get here from where we know they died on Earth-51?). They find the schizophrenic Starman (who's been hanging out with the JSA) who gives them some cryptic clues, and after Garth gives Superman a new flight ring that contains a one-way shortcut to the 31st century, he leaves with the two bodies. Then we see that the Time Trapper is involved, he’s the one who brought the bodies from Earth-51. On the last page, it says “to be continued in Legion of 3 Worlds”. 

DC Universe #0 also came out that week, and it has a tease for L3W as well as the other Final Crisis tie-ins, as it came the week after Countdown #1 (and was originally going to be Countdown #0). That's where this post's main picture up top came from.

So then Legion of 3 Worlds #1 came out in August 2008 and promptly broke the internet.

(Here's where you pause to go read the miniseries!)

After issue #2: Geoff Johns said this isn't just a Legion story, it contains elements of all the books he's worked on, whether it's just cameos (the Teen Titans in the Superman Museum, the Rip Hunter/Booster Gold images) or major characters (Superman, from Action Comics) or storylines (the Green Lantern legacy and the Sinestro Corps War). At this point, Sodam Yat is over 1000 years old, having been introduced in the Sinestro Corps storyline, where he was destined to be one of the greatest Green Lanterns. He was last known in the 21st century as Ion. He was first mentioned, and shown in a panel or two, as part of a prophecy told to Abin Sur by demons in an Alan Moore written Tale of the Green Lantern Corps back in the '80s.

During L3W, the books were significantly delayed (issues came out at 2-4 month intervals between August 2008 and July 2009 instead of monthly), such that the finale of Final Crisis actually appeared in between issues 2-3 of L3W, with L3W #3-5 still left to go: the finale in L3W #5 was supposed to come out before Final Crisis #6. Of course, what we didn't know at the time was that the delays were caused by problems with Perez's eyesight, which wasn't really something that DC could (or should) tell the public. But to their credit, they did stick with Perez on pencils despite the fact they could have gotten someone else to finish in Perez's stead.

• Dan DiDio in Nov 2008 (between issues 2-3): “...It’s essential for us to have the last issue of Final Crisis come out in the month of January. Therefore, we are moving heaven and earth to make the book come out in the month of January, because so much follows. Legion of 3 Worlds has an impact on our line because of the bits that take place at the conclusion of the series, but that impact does not occur until later in the year. So we are less aggressive to holding that particular book’s schedule than we were the lead book in Final Crisis. So therefore, you’re going to see Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds with months skipping in order to complete the story, but Final Crisis will be pushed to make sure it hits as close to its schedule as possible.”

In Final Crisis #6, we find Superman after coming from the Superman Beyond 3D special, and that this takes place after the conclusion of L3W. Brainiac 5 tells Superman to look at the Miracle Machine (which has somehow returned from being eaten) and to memorize its circuitry. One reviewer wrote that “The point of this highly expository sequence appears to be to (re)introduce the Miracle Machine, exactly the sort of deus-ex-machina device that’s like catnip to Morrison.” Of course, a machine that can rewrite continuity can probably rewrite its own history too.

In Final Crisis #7, we get a couple of panels of Starman and a page or two of the new Miracle Machine (which looks steampunk, and not like any version of the Miracle Machine we had seen before). Grant Morrison, who wrote Final Crisis, put L3W into chronological perspective: 

• GM: The Monitrix Zillo Valla recruits Superman’s help in Final Crisis #3 which leads into Superman Beyond #1 and 2, both of which happen in the space between Lois’ final heartbeats. He returns to save her in Beyond #2, only to be contacted by the Legion of Super-Heroes to deal with an emergency in the 31st Century – as seen in Legion of 3 Worlds #1. Normally, the Legion is able to return him to his own time an instant after he left, so naturally he feels secure quitting Earth after saving Lois. After his encounter with Superboy Prime in L3W, however, he returns late to Final Crisis #6, to find time has crashed, Darkseid rules the world and Batman is dead. Oops. Fortunately, he brings with him the means to save us all.
• Basically, Morrison needed a reason for Superman to be gone for a while so things could fall apart while he was gone, so L3W was that reason. Johns said that Morrison was in charge of the main Final Crisis series, and anything Morrison needed for that, Johns was happy to provide.

After the series:

There are a number of Legionnaires missing in this story. They’re all in the 21st century. Following L3W, we see the aftermath of Superboy (Conner)’s return from the dead in Adventure Comics, leading into the Legion being involved with the Last Stand of New Krypton story. 

Superboy Prime later appears in several story arcs:

• He is recruited by Black Lantern during Blackest Night (Adventure Comics 4-5), but he is apparently redeemed. (2009)
• He is accidentally returned to the DCU in a battle with the Teen Titans and creates his own Legion of Doom, but is defeated and imprisoned in the Source Wall. (2011)
• Somehow during Rebirth he escapes and is found in the Dungeon of Eternity in Shazam 10-14, battling the Shazam Family. (2020)
• Finally, in Dark Knights: Death Metal he defeats the Darkest Knight and is killed, ending up back home where he really wanted to be. (2020)

Just want to end with a really great piece of artwork that eventually became the cover of the collected edition of L3W.

Legion of 3 Worlds (revisited)

With the podcast coming up on episode 700, we thought we'd take this special episode to focus on George Perez's work on the classic "Legion of 3Worlds" (L3W), while saving the rest of his career for another episode. The Subs reviewed and recapped each of the issues only as they came out in 2008-09, so now with the benefit of hindsight we're going to try to cover all five issues in a single episode.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to do much in the way of annotations for this miniseries, given that I already did them back in 2008-09, so I'll just link them here for your reading pleasure. I remember getting the issue and then spending literally hours researching everyone and everything, racing to be the first one to post the annotations (and then reading everyone else's to see what I missed). As an annotator, it was the nerdiest fun hard work I've probably ever done. 

Sadly, no guarantee that any of the links in my blog posts still work, all I can say is that they worked at the time I wrote the posts, 13-15 years ago.

• 5/27/07 - first mention of "Legion of 3 Worlds"
• 7/31/07 - Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio talk about L3W in San Diego
• 10/21/07 - Johns interview with CBR where he talks about the Superman & The Legion story and how it fits into L3W
• 4/2/08 - Johns explains how L3W and Final Crisis fit together
• 4/3/08 - Interviews with Johns and Perez, and the panel that was cut from a JSA issue that would have shown the first 3-way Legion teamup
• 7/24/08 - Johns teases what's coming in L3W
• 7/30/08 - Perez has a giant binder full of costume references
• 8/15/08 - Pre-annotations part 1 (pre-Zero Hour + Glorithverse + Retroboot) and part 2 (post-Zero Hour Reboot) listing the creators of each Legionnaire and their first appearances
• 8/16/08 - inker Scott Koblish looks forward to my brain melting as I try to annotate the series
• 8/17/08 - Pre-annotations part 3 (Threeboot)
• 8/19/08 - Pre-annotations part 4 (all the villains)
• 8/19/08 - L3W #1 annotations (part 1)
• 8/20/08 - L3W #1 reviews part 1, part 2
• 8/28/08 - L3W #1 annotations (part 2)
• 10/15/08 - L3W #2 annotations
• 11/12/08 - DiDio comments on L3W delays
• 1/17/09 - Final Crisis #6 annotations and what it all means for L3W
• 1/29/09 - Final Crisis #7 annotations and what it all means for L3W
• 2/4/09 - L3W #3 annotations
• 4/30/09 - L3W #4 annotations
• 7/22/09 - L3W #5 annotations
• 8/4/09 - I reveal my (extremely minor) role in the writing of L3W
• 1/2/20 - All the variant covers from L3W

Of course, what we didn't realize at the time was that the delays were caused by problems with Perez's eyesight, which wasn't really something that DC could (or should) say. But they did stick with Perez on pencils despite the fact they could have gotten someone else to finish in Perez's stead.

After it was all over, George Perez was at the Baltimore Con in 2009 and had this to say about working on L3W:

First, when asked about his "wish list" for future projects, Perez discussed the creators with who he wanted to work rather than characters. Basically, L3W fulfilled his last wish from his fandom days. For him, working with creators is what is interesting when considering new projects. He volunteered that having known Paul Levitz since their days in fandom, he would enjoy drawing a Legion project for him.

Second, I asked Mr. Perez what his feelings were about L3W. His response reflected a lot of fan criticism of the mini. He was originally disappointed that so much of the story hinged on non-Legion characters. He wanted the Legion to be more directly involved in solving the conflict. He came to understand that Kid Flash, Superboy and Green Lantern characters were needed to help the Legion reach a larger audience. This reach was important to ensure that the Legion would survive in the current environment. He was very complimentary of Geoff Johns and his answers were always positive and upbeat.

In an anecdote, Mr. Perez said that Johns sent him a full script for one of the early issues. In it, Johns listed all the characters to appear in one of those giant group scenes. Perez was not used to working from a full script and was a little taken aback. In COIE, Marv Wolfman's script basically said "draw characters here" without spelling out exactly who to draw. He then realized that Johns had essentially reversed engineered Perez' Crisis work, spelling out in words the type of scene for which Perez is famous. Perez found it amusing.

LSH v4 Annual 5 annotations: Darkseid of the Moon

      Annotations for Legion of Super-Heroes v4 Annual #5:

• On sale 3/22/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 699 (March 7, 2022)
• Timeline: Sept 28, 2995

Notes:

• All of this summer’s annuals had an “Elseworlds” theme. The Legion book did a takeoff of the Wizard of Oz, while a few months later the Legionnaires book did (will do) a King Arthur-style story (which is kind of odd in that the very next regular issue of Legionnaires after the Annual was the first part of End of an Era, so it’s like why even bother with an Annual? But I digress…)
• This is the final work that Curt Swan did for the Legion (though he did a L.E.G.I.O.N. story parodying the Silver Age Legion in that style for their upcoming annual). He passed away in June 1996, about two years after this issue went on sale; after this issue, he did a few pinups and story pages here and there but he was essentially retired (he was born in 1920, so was in his mid-70s at this point).
• Tom McCraw, this issue's writer, previously worked on some of Eric Shanower's Oz books. Not sure if that means anything, but it's a thing.
• Given that in the last regular issue #57 Ayla learned she was getting younger, this issue takes place right afterwards.
• The story is inspired by the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie with some elements of Return to Oz. As a tribute to the urban legend, start playing your "Dark Side of the Moon" album by Pink Floyd when we get into the story. (Or should that be "Darkseid of the Moon"?) There were lots of uses of Legion-inspired characters, and we got the obvious ones, but does anyone more versed in Oz lore know who the question marked ones are supposed to be? Or maybe they're new concepts to this. 
• Ayla = Dorothy
• Dream Girl = Toto
• White Witch = Glinda the Good Witch of the North
• Starfinger = Wicked Witch of the East
• Violet & Imskians = Munchkins
• Valor = Oz
• Shadow Lass, Shadow Kid = ???
• Brainiac 5 = Scarecrow
• Glorith (as Lady Starfinger) = Wicked Witch of the West
• Tellus = ???
• Wildfire = Tin Man
• Timber Wolf = Lion
• Polar Boy = ???
• Sun Boy = ???
• Laurel = ???
• Dawnstar/Starhaven = flying monkeys
• Proty = ???
• Blok = Nome King
• Page 33 panel 5: the map that Laurel shows is roughly L-shaped. Among the lands whose names are readable are homages to various Legionnaires: Colossal Mountain Pass, [something] Keep, Dryadidia, Eatter's Place, Image State (!), Iron Hills, Land of Blobs, Bgztl's Fade Away, Rimborian Caves, Ring Around Land, Spark's Mountain, Lu's Lakes, Injun Prairie, Troy's Terrain, Land of Chameleons, KK Keep, Gandia, O'Ryan's Way, Land of Bouncers, Inviso Plains, Magno World, White Island, Ice World/Fire World, Kalloris, Shadowkins, Imskia, Lalloria, and ERG Wasteland.

• So going back over their journey, Ayla landed in Imskia in the bottom right, then went to the Shadowkin's, a maze (not shown on the map), Tellus' swamp (not shown on the map), ERG Wasteland, Furball's forest (not shown on the map), Ice World/Fire World, Inviso Plains, Gandia (where we see the map), Injun Prairie, Land of Blobs, Dryadidia, and Starfinger's Keep.
• The last page shows the artists roughly chronologically by page number and what work they did. It was easier for me to translate it into the following list showing who worked on which pages.
• 1-2 Immonen, Marzan
• 3-5 Swan, Boyd
• 6-10 Farmer
• 11-14 Boyd, Hoover
• 15-16 Von Grawbadger, John Lowe
• 17-18 Craig Hamilton, Von Grawbadger
• 19-22 Von Grawbadger
• 23-24 Hamilton, Von Grawbadger
• 25-26 Von Grawbadger, Lowe
• 27-28 Farmer
• 29-34 Moy, Marzan
• 35-37 Swan, Boyd 
• 38-41 McKeever
• 42 Boyd, Cooper
• 43-48 Moy, Campanella
• 49-50 Moy, Story
• 51-53 Doran
• 54 Swan, Boyd
• 55-56 Immonen, Marzan

---

Cutting down the timeline to just the last couple months since it was getting so long. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow; text in yellow is as written in the Sourcebook), 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.

• Wed 7/29/95: Jacques and Drura join the team; Mysa is possessed, and goes to Tharn to confront Mordru (LSH v4 #43), but she is defeated and is absorbed into Mordru. Using this power, he raises armies of the dead in a number of worlds in both UP and Khund space. The Legion agrees to help the Khunds, but they insist that the Legion take on four new Khundish members (LSH v4 #44).
• Sun 8/2/95: The Legion fights Mordru’s zombies on Sklar, Talus, Trom, and in space (LSH v4 #45). On Talus, the Legionnaires fight their own dead, and new Khund Legionnaire Bloodclaw is killed before the team halts Mordru’s magics on the planet. Jan fights the dead Trommites on Pasnic (LSH v4 #46). The Legionnaires bring the fight to Mordru on Tharn, losing the Khund Firefist in the process (LSH v4 #47). The dead on Talus are defeated, but during the fight Timber Wolf returns to the 30th century with Jamm (LSH v4 Ann #4). With the help of Devlin O’Ryan and the spirit of Amethyst, Mordru and Mysa are separated and Mordru is defeated (LSH v4 #48). 
• Mon 8/3/95: Jamm takes the Legionnaires on a prodigious trip before being returned to his own time (LSH v4 Ann #4).
• Tues 8/4/95: The Legion leaves Tharn for Khundish space, where Flederweb and Veilmist are forced to rejoin the Khundish forces. Jan recovers on Pasnic, while Amethyst and Mysa ponder the future (LSH v4 #48).
• Wed 8/5/95: Tenzil travels to Tartarus and with the help of Polar Boy and friends, they rescue Eve and defeat Evillo (LSH v4 #49). 
• Thu 8/6/95: Tenzil and Eve depart Tartarus for Titan (LSH v4 #49); the Legion rebury their dead on Shanghalla, and Wildfire is resurrected there (LSH v4 #50).
• Fri 8/7/95: the SW6 Legionnaires spend the weekend at the Atlantis Dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve arrive on Titan; the rest of the group arrives on Talus from Shanghalla (LSH v4 #50).
• Sat 8/8/95: the SW6 Legionnaires encounter the race of Devil-Fish in the Atlantis Dome (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve get married; Jan almost dies; Kono leaves; Sean arrives on Talus (LSH v4 #50).
• Sun 8/9/95: the SW6 Legionnaires leave the Atlantis dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil sends out holos of his wedding from the day before (LSH v4 #50).
• Mon 8/10/95: Several Legionnaires leave New Earth for Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Tues 8/11/95: Brainiac 5 thinks of leaving the Legion and remaining on Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 8/12/95: Brainiac 5 returns to New Earth with the rest of his team (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 9/13/95 (estimated): “Several weeks later” after Tenzil’s wedding, Dawnstar returns to Starhaven; three BIONs attack the Legion on Talus; Universo convinces Relnic and King Jonn that the Legion is helping the Khunds attack UP space (LSH v4 #50). 
• Thu 9/14/95: Cocheta Drisden fails to escape from Takron Galtos, and is moved to Quarantine; Grimbor attacks the team and Ivy’s Li’l Legion on Quarantine trying to grab her (LSH v4 #51).
• Sat 9/16/95: Kent and Celeste arrive on Talus from Quarantine, as Ayla and Brin reminisce and Vi monitors the Khund situation; Mysa tells the crew that since they just defeated Mordru, they have to take on Glorith to keep the balance (LSH v4 #52).
• Sun 9/17/95: Relnic shows Jacques that the Legion is working with the Khunds; Rond rushes off in a Time Bubble; the Legion lands on Baaldur and confronts Glorith, with disastrous consequences to the team; in her mind, Glorith is confronted by the Time Trapper; the UP calls for the Legion’s disbandment (LSH v4 #53). Recovering from the fight with Glorith, several Legionnaires find themselves older or younger, and head for Quarantine to see if Brainiac 5 can reverse the effects (LSH v4 #54).
• Mon 9/18/95: Brainy tests the Legion on Quarantine; Kent and Devlin, who have both been de-aged, stay behind while the others go to Talus (LSH v4 #54).
• ME-Lad, Violet, Dragonmage, Catspaw shot down over Antares II by Khunds (Legionnaires #9). The Proteans want the Legionnaires to go inside a crashed ship, where after defeating more Khunds they find Kid Quantum (Legionnaires #10). Dragonmage helps restore the Soul of Antares, and Andromeda calls HQ to say she’s found them and bringing them all back (Legionnaires #11).
• Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy find a freighter that’s been attacked by Sklarians (Legionnaires #9). Kono arrives to help out (Legionnaires #10).
• Legion tryouts at Metropolis (Legionnaires #9). Inferno helps out in Essen (Legionnaires #10), then goes to Paris where he finds someone has chained a tunnel shut (Legionnaires #11).
• Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Livewire go to Acapulco to quell food riots, and Cosmic Boy is injured by Livewire (Legionnaires #9). More Legionnaires arrive to help (Legionnaires #10). Cos is taken to the medi-center, while Spark, Brainy, Phantom Girl, and Ferro tend to a wounded child with odd powers (Legionnaires #11).
• Tue 9/19/95: The Legion gets captured at Talus and taken to Weber’s World (LSH v4 #54). 
• In Metropolis, Kid Quantum is sworn in, and Computo sends M-E Lad to help Kono with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #12). Kono uses the Grandin Gender-Reversal Disease to turn Tenzil into Tenzi, where they go undercover, but he quickly blows his cover (Legionnaires #13). They manage to signal the rest of the Legionnaires (Legionnaires #14).
• In Acapulco, Invisible Kid arrives to help, but he’s zapped unconscious, while in the Acapulco medi-center , Cosmic Boy nearly dies but Saturn Girl’s telepathy stabilizes him while a jealous Livewire watches (Legionnaires #12). Invisible Kid manages to break free of the mental-energy vortex as Andromeda and Ultra Boy arrive, while Cosmic Boy recovers (Legionnaires #13). Rokk is released, and Saturn Girl links the minds of the team to try to rescue their downed teammates (Legionnaires #14).
• In Paris, anti-alien hysteria picks up, so a team goes there, where they are blasted by a Dominator child who thinks they are attacking her (Legionnaires #12). She teleports them to a prison, but they escape. They find the girl in the sewers, and she sends them to the Archduke's palace to stop the xenophobia, only to find Grimbor instead (Legionnaires #13). They escape Grimbor’s traps and discover that the mayor of the Paris dome has been working with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #14).
• Wed 9/20/95: The Legion is briefly detained on Weber’s World but escape, while the UP officially disbands the Legion; Universo tells Cham and Computo that the Legionnaires aren’t needed to help (LSH v4 #54).
• Sun 9/23/95: The team arrives on Rimbor, and Jo brings a team to an old warehouse but he and Sussa are captured by a rival gang. (LSH v4 #55)
• Wed 9/27/95: Legionnaires start the process of going undercover while hiding out on Rimbor, and Sussa escapes (LSH v4 #54). Universo is looking for the Legion on Rimbor; Jo recruits other gangs to go against the government, while Mysa and Vi sneak into government HQ to find out what’s going on; on Starhaven, Dawnstar undergoes a vision quest (LSH v4 #55); the Legion exposes Khundish interference on Rimbor and escape (LSHv4 #56).
• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).