When "Legion of Three Worlds" #1 comes out later this month, I plan to do a set of annotations over at my site, the Omnicom .

Legion World, Matthew's "Legion Abstract", and Doug Wolk's "Final Crisis Annotations" are three other sites that I suspect may be interested in doing the same thing (though I haven't asked Matthew or Doug yet).

Has anyone here discussed annotating the series when it comes out? Or, to avoid duplication of effort, could I ask you guys collectively to help me out over there? I certainly don't know everything, and my expertise is mostly with Pre-Crisis (and I plan to come here anyway asking who so-and-so is). Maybe even a joint effort with the annotations published in multiple locations. Wolk's site has more readers in general, but I expect our sites to have more Legion knowledge.

We should at least keep this topic here as a reference site for link to these annotations, n'est pas?

Part 1 of my annotations are up, based on the cover and 5-page preview at Newsarama. This is the easy part; inker Scott Koblish said the annotators will have a meltdown trying to identify everyone on pages 6-15.

http://adventure247.blogspot.com/2008/08/annotated-legion-of-three-worlds-1.html

UPS screw up. No comic book deleveries in Maine today.

PLEASE POST SPOILERS!!!!!!!

The big Pérez boast in #1? Already? Jajaja, I'd say. And I'm suddenly infatuated with spoilers.

Klordny, you have you work cut out for you.

I'm simultaneously looking forward to it and dreading it. I'll post back here later tonight when I'm done with the entire issue, then you guys can help fill in the blanks with what I've missed or gotten wrong.

I think it'll be fun hunting Easter eggs and identifying aliens.

Well I've got the entire first issue done. There were some really obscure entries (like the planet Taltar, from ADV 368, which featured the Mutiny of the Super-Heroines), some easter eggs in the portrait gallery (hint: translate the interlac), the return of Myg, and even Proty if you look hard enough.

Plus, of course, the maximum squee-age at seeing group portraits of all three Legions.

http://adventure247.blogspot.com/2008/08/annotated-legion-of-three-worlds-1.html

Ok, I give up, where's Proty?

On the page where Superboy-Prime starts burning the statutes, and before holo-Olsen mentions the LSV, there is a panel where holo-Olsen asks SBP if he's back for more information on the Legion. Just to the right of Olsen is Proty. The Interlac below the figure spells "pr," with the rest being cut off (though shouldn't the p be capitalized, and have a different symbol?). In the same panel are Stone Boy and Color Kid.

The reboot Legion's belts are wrong. Their star is supposed to be shooting downward.

Michael, just checked it out and it rocked my face off! I didn't realize there were a few things I missed!

Awesome!

Thanks for this work guys.

Being a relatively new LSH fan, joining with the most recent version, the comic is pretty good without knowing all this stuff it does add a real texture to the universe to their work.

Although Taltar was represented, the Taltarians were never shown as green skinned before. what's up with that? screw up?

Yeah, I wondered about that. Maybe they have immigrants from other planets who want to live in a matriarchal society - or maybe they always had mixed skin colours and it was just never represented. Green always makes me think of Coluans (although we've seen other green-sskinned races) and I wonder if there are Coluan malcontents who leave the planet to settle elsewhere.

I like that idea. Maybe their color differs as other races are brought in to Taltar, almost for breeding purposes. That could be a pretty groovy story!

I wonder if Lady Memory has any Coluan blood in her.

Hello Michael - I went to your site -

http://adventure247.blogspot.com/

and did the search engine into trying to find the answers on Jeph Loeb/Chris Pachecho on absolute power from Superman/Batman 14 to 18 and I could not find it in your site. Is there a site where I can find out who and which legion members actually appeared in those issues?

See for yourself -

SB #14 . SB #15 . SB #17 . And, SB #18 .

thanks!!! youre a life saver!

Any thoughts on where this story arc fits in the DCU. The 'adult' Legion seemed to harken back to the very early Superman adult Legion walk on issues. Is this one of the 52 Earths or what?

Annotations for issue 2 are up.

This was a lot easier than issue 1.

What's the reference for Taltar recruiting Spider Girl?

The 2995 Sourcebook says "Gained ability of rapid-growth prehensile hair through mutagenic experiments of Double-X Liberators on Taltar. Applied for Legion membership, was rejected for lack of control. Recruited into Legion of Super-Villains by Laevar Bolto."

It's not 100% canonical, but it's the next best thing, just like the "Who's Who in the LSH". Both books introduced information that had not appeared in the comics but were later referenced.

Sorry, I don't buy it. not when we saw her being recruited by Tarik the mute's school, which didn't include Cosmic King.

If it didn't happen in the book, I don't buy it.

I certainly can't disagree. However, there are names and places referred to in many entries that did end up in the comics after first appearing in the Who's Who or the Sourcebook.

Personally, I place the Who's Who at one level below canon, and the Sourcebook at two levels below. At least the Who's Who was published by DC, though the Sourcebook was co-written by the Bierbaums while they were working on the comic series.

Plus there's been so much stuff from the Sourcebook that was later used in the comic books, like a lot of the Five Year Gap details. DC certainly seems to be treating it as canon.

I remember Michael Eury (editor at the time) saying the Sourcebook was 100% canon to DC at that time. I even bought it for that reason. But I might be mistaken...

Except that there seems to be a lot that actually happened IN the book that the current writer isn't considering as canon.

As I said on my comments to L3W#2, Geoff is doing whatever he feels like doing. Chronology be damned. If that makes for a good story (to him), he doesn't seem to care at all. He's got Infinite Crisis to say whatever he wants to blame.

The 5YG Legion and therefore the Sourcebook for it are no longer canon. Thhat much is clear.

The original Legion ceased with Crisis on Infinite Earths and anything from there to Zero Hour has to be regarded as non canon in the Johnsverse. Johns said as much in at least one interview.

Actually, nothing is canon at all. Again, I invite you to read L3W #2 to see lots of unexplained things.

The way I interpret it, all of LSH history between (approximately) Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour, which includes the pocket universe stuff, the Magic Wars, the Five Year Gap, the Five Years Later era and the End of an Era storyline, as well as everything in that sourcebook, is canon, but it's canon for a branch of history that's no longer active. The Time Trapper remembers it. So - and I invite you to pay attention to the grammar I'm inventing here - all that history hasn't happened, but it has has happened.

Which is not to say that FC:L3W #2 didn't raise any continuity questions for me. It did. Nothing I'm going to lose sleep over, but:
- I'd like to hear the backstory on Mordru killing Dragonmage
- I'd like some more detail on just why Andromeda is with the reboot Legion. I am told that she was in the Titans/Legion Special, so that's fine, but why and how was she there?
- How, why, and since when is Tharok alive?
- Where did threeboot Karate Kid and Triplicate Girl spring from?

I don't classify any of these as mistakes. But there are some dots that have not been connected for us.

Yeah, I think Matthew has it. Essentially there is Preboot V.1, which no longer is an active timeline and Preboot V.2, which is what we're seeing.

Therefore *both* are the original Legions, just different offshoots of it, splitting at the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Johns Legion isn't so much a Fourthboot, but a Preboot v.2.

Some ideas on those continuity questions:

(1) The only Dragonmage we ever knew of in the preboot was the one that appeared in Legionnaires, so this means he would never grow up to be captured by Dominators, etc. The original preboot v.1 has him join the SW6 Legion, this one has him die before he ever appears on panel. I'd like to hear more backstory too.

(2) Totally agree on hearing more. I actually like the move too.

(3) One of the more annoying things for me. Question (since its been so long since I read it): when Tharok reappeared in Legionnaires, how did he come back to life?

(4) Freaking Countdown and its annoying deaths of KK and Trip. Obviously no one wants to count it as canon other than Didio.

Regarding the annotations for page 3:

"Panels 1-2: L1 Mordru and his mages have stolen her magics.
Panels 3-8: it's Blok, Wildfire, and Dawnstar to her rescue. Blok and White Witch had a relationship, as did Dawnstar and Wildfire. Due to their natures, Blok and Wildfire could not have physical relationships with their partners as other humans could."

Saying that White Witch and Blok had a "relationship" and calling them "partners" is a bit of a stretch imo. I'd say that Blok appeared to have a crush on her and she was touched by his attention would be closer to the truth.

Drake and Dawnstar had a bit more going on than that, but it still wasn't a full-fledged relationship, imo. More a case of his pursuing her and her being evasive.

"Page 7
Panel 1: "I saw Legions dying, and I saw a new one rising." A prophecy of the future.
Panel 3: The White Witch first appeared as the old crone The Hag, an associate of Prince Evillo. In her next appearance, she was young and beautiful. It was never revealed how this change took place; Mordru says here that he transformed her as he taught her magic"


In her first appearance, White Witch says that Evillo transformed her into the Hag with "an evil essence". Dream Girl restored her to youth in the same story. Mordru's comments here make no sense. In a later story, Mordru is responsible for turning her into the Hag, but not for making her young again.

No, it's *threeboot* Val and Luornu I'm wondering about, after they disappeared from Velmar an issue or two ago. Unless you figure that it was *them* in Countdown? If so, where are Johns-retroboot Val and Luornu?

No, I always figured it was Johns-retrboot Val and Lu in Countdown. I just completely forgot they had dissapeared from Velmar. I figure (at least hope) that Shooter will address that in the next few issues. Kind of weird that Luornu and Val dissapeared though of all people.

I like "Johns-retroboot"