I thumbed thru the new (October) issue of JLU that came out Wednesday, and the last page leads directly into the annual. Mon-El cameos there and announces the alien kid has to die to save their future.

Nice to see Mon-El show up on the last page of the October JLU issue. I'm buying the story arc for now, but we'll see if these issues make it into my permanent Legion collection.

It will be interesting whether Lemire picks up on either DeFalco or Levitz's Legion future, or ignores both story lines all together.

Hearing Mon-El wanting to kill someone doesn't work for me but we shall see. I'll be interested to see how Lemire reconciles this Legion story-arc with Legion lost and the end of Levitz's run. He'll probably just ignore them.

Yes but think of the all the covers and splash panels over there years that same thing has been said. For X to live, Y must die!

^Classic comic trope.

"For the World to Live a Legionnaire must die". I remember as a kid buying that issue off the newstand at the time and seeing Chemical King on the cover. And I just knew he was the one to die because he never got to be on the cover.

Then there was a storyline in the early DC Comics Presents (like #12 and #13?) where Superman teamed with Superboy and then later the Legion. But it had something to do with the Legion coming back in time to prevent Superman from saving the life of Pete Ross's son as he was fated to die according to future records. Or something like that.

I also object to a Legion mission to kill anyone in the past much less a child. OTOH in the time that it takes for Mon-el to announce his intention to kill the child (on the last page of Justice League United #5) he could of killed the child & been on his way back to the 31st Century. So maybe that's a red herring.

It was either here or most likely on Facebook that someone quoted Keith Giffen as saying that his stories on the latter part of Levitz's run were set in an alternative Universe.

It was originally supposed to be "For the future to live, this kid must be tossed into the Phantom Zone so he/she can't mess up history. But I objected because it's a fate worse than death, so the kid should die instead."

Damn! That's a long title.

You see to me the Legion would not do this. Mon El is not saying to save the future, he is not even saying to save the legion, the kid must die, but he does say the Legion will die, if the child is not killed.

Now “my” legion would have died trying to avoid killing that kid, it was almost a given that Legionnaires will die trying to save lives. So to have Mon El, Superboys brother and all that, be the one to propose killing a child is a complete perversion of the true Legion mythos.

So, although I will buy this to see how things pan out I’m not too optimistic about the future of the Legion.

Spot on Darden

The Legion I know would be all about finding a third alternative.

Perhaps Mon-El spoke poorly...

Clearly, his intent was that, if the timeline of the child living results in a future where:

A) The Legion exists but are all killed by circumstances unknown, or

B) The Legion does not exist (didn't Mordru and the Time Trapper try this a couple of times?)

Perhaps he meant to say that, if the child lives, the future (as the Legion knows it) is doomed.

What he did say, albeit incorrect, was certainly more dramatic.

I wonder if there will be some Silver Age-y bait-and-switch to explain this all while making the Legion still look good. Somehow I doubt it though.

DC, in the name of edginess, seems to be going out of its way to make all of its characters look anything but good. Why would they make an exception for the Legion?

Perhaps it's the version of Mon El from the world where some of the Legion had gone bad.

More likely, it's just one of those cliche teases as mentioned above.

Whether this is an unprincipled Mon-El or not, this sort of tease is not new.

For example, the cover of Adventure Comics #374 from November 1968:
Villain: "These are your targets, Legionnaires! You will kill them...or we will kill the rest of the Legion!"
Supergirl: "We can't, Ultra Boy! We've taken an oath not to kill!"
Ultra Boy: "We must do it, Supergirl...to save our buddies!"

Exactly. It's a hook we've seen before. The Legion may even have talked themselves into believing it until that critical moment when one of them is finally alone with Ultra, and won't be able to go through with it.

According to the solicitations, the Legion are hell-bent on killing the kid:-

Annual: The Infinitus Saga begins as the Legion of Super-Heroes arrive with the shocking news that the 31st century has been destroyed! Now it’s up to the Justice League United to save the future!

#6: The Infinitus Saga continues as a displaced Legion of Super-Heroes tries to prevent the destruction of the 31st century by killing Ultra the Multi Alien! Complicating matters is the fact that Multi is a young innocent in the current time period, forcing the Justice League United to stand in the Legion’s way!

#7: The Infinitus Saga continues as the JLU battles the Legion of Super-Heroes over the fate of the innocent alien who may grow up to destroy the 31st century!

#8: The penultimate chapter of “The Infinitus Saga” is here as the fate of the future is decided in a battle between Justice League United and the Legion of Super-Heroes!

This is why I - and a lot of people I know - have stopped buying DC comics.

OK I admit I am going to buy all the Legion JLU books so a bit hypocritical but I have to buy Legion books.

I've been buying untied because of two character, Hawkman and Stargirl. Then this...yeah, we know something will happen and Mon won't actually kill most likely, but...

Went to my LCS yesterday, sooo many books I don't buy now, and they had been good enough to put a lot of future's end stuff in my pull with the mulitversity stuff. I handed them all back for shelf sales.

on the other hand, Aquaman is great, both books. Imagine that! On the other hand...GL is falling down on story. NOt art, which is great, but story.

Grayson is...shite...

Legion worries me now. I can't help but think that they will cut the heart of of the team and butcher it for "hip" stories that won't be remembered three years down the road.

These are still the Legion characters I'd like to read more about, as long as DC don't screw them up.

DC should at least know how to throw a few standard plot twists, so I'll reserve judgment on the previews until I've read more of the actual issues.