Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Should The ECHO Legionnaire Plot Twist Be Explored?

While the general consensus of the question would likely (and correctly?) be "Hell No!"--there are a few potential possibilites that could transform this ill-conceived notion into something... if not exactly compelling and intriguing--at the very least palatable and worthwhile...

Harmonia Li--Has never really shaken the sinister manipulative vibes from her initial appearance where she participated in the events behind the destruction of Titan. Adym created ECHO to keep tabs on the Time Institute--something Li was already doing on her own. Her character's either heroic or evil nature should finally be established.

Dream Girl--Her pre-cog abilities could have warned her that such a betrayal of her Legion comrades was necessary or it could have been the cost of her ridiculousy simple rescue of Thom.

Brainiac Five--Adym seemed enough of an egomaniac that he could actually believe he was using Brainy while our resident genius was in reality exploiting the resources of ECHO for his own whims.

XS--Joining ECHO to safeguard her cousin Bart's life would actually make sense. Enduring the inane ECHO storyline would probably be a price the readership would gladly pay to ensure the return of Jenni to the LegioIn.

In all it would be a simple way to retrieve the lost Legionnaires...

Well, I haven't read much of Legion Lost, so I really don't know much about ECHO, but it seems like it would make a lot of sense if it were somehow connected to... Echo.

I have a feeling that we haven't seen the end of Echo as a plot thread. It is probably a part of the DCnU that is intended to link the Legion to the rest of present day DC titles. I for one would at least like to see who the other Echo spy is that Adym told Yera was in the Legion ranks.

I would find Echo much more palatable if it were later revealed that the Legion was secretly aware of this attempt to keep tabs on them (thanks to their combination of Titanian telepathy, Coluan genius, Naltorian precognition and Cham's good old fashioned nose for infiltrators), and had Yera and any other 'moles' functioning as double agents, feeding Echo whatever information that the Legion Espionage Squad has deemed important for Echo to know to better handle their timeline-protecting mandate.

It would be kind of a hoot for various Legionnaires (perhaps not all of them, 'though...) to be 'in-the-know,' and think that Echo has a good objective, and is just a little too fond of the cloak and dagger nonsense, and so has chosen to play along and pretend that they don't know.

After all, it's *hardly* the first time that people have been sent to infiltrate the team, and even back in the Silver Age, as with the Murran infiltrators, the Legion was occasionally competent enough to not only detect them right off, but to outwit them at their own game.

I would hope that the modern Legion is even *more* competent, although that seems to be a rare thing in modern comics in general. In the Silver Age, heroes generally outwitted villains and saved threatened civilians and cities and worlds. These days, the villains always seem to the clever proactive ones and ridonkulous amounts of people have to die in every event, with cities shot into space and planets exploding and entire universes being wiped from existence, such that the 'heroes' kind of looking like chumps because they keep failing to save people or anticipate villains or attain anything other than a grim bittersweet sort of Pyrrhic victory.

Regarding Echo, and so much more, I'd love for the Legion to be a bit more competent and proactive and on the ball.

I'd like to see ECHO in the plot if it could be used to tie up some other loose ends, like XS, and get the lost team home.

It could have grown out of the gang run by the original Echo. Also, I like the idea of tying in Harmonia Li (for good or bad) since I get the impression that she's playing Brainy for a fool.

It could be a great cat-and-mouse spy story, with double-think and lots of intrigue.

Personally I would rather that ECHO had never been mentioned in the first place but I suppose now that it has it makes sense to do something else with it.

Regarding XS though; is she still a loose end in this reality? I know she was (supposedly) part of the post LO3W team but how does that stand with the NU-52? I thought they wanted Barry and Bart to be the only speedsters?

As far as I know XS has not been mentioned since that backup of her doing the mosaic and getting invited by Lydda to join the Academy.

I so would like Set's suggestion of double agents to be true, although sadly Yera's thoughts seem to indicate that she really bought into the ECHO mission. Still, she definitely redeemed herself and she could just have been trying to maintain her cover.

I would like to. It's one of those things that sort-of makes sense in retrospect--why would the Science Police trust a bunch of spandex-wearing teenagers with potentially destructive time travel technology? Because they've been keeping an eye on them this whole time.

I don't like ECHO...for one thing I think it's an idea that just leads to way too much in the way of unnecessarily convoluted storytelling.

It's the sort of thing where I could see a hack writer having Chemical Kid go back in time to become Chemical King...or explain Shvaughn Erin's abrupt disappearance by saying something like she went back in time and became Lana Lang....stuff like that.

My other problem with it is that it makes no sense on any level to risk damaging the timestream as a whole just to protect one witness. What if someone kills their ancestor? Or breeds with them? Or meets a telepath and winds up sharing future knowledge? The risks vastly outweigh any possible benefit.

You'd have thought that keeping tabs on the Time Institute would have helped to prevent the meddling that Harmonia Li was up to.

My reading of it is that her longevity has made her, and probably a fair number of the Utopians, a bit removed from every day morality. It's why she gets on so well with Brainy.

However, for them to monitor the Time Institute, it would make sense that Echo have someone there.

If it's a Legionnaire that pretty much rules out Circadia Senius, Huxton, and Rugarth, leaving us with Brainy.

Considering his issues with working under constraints, his obsessive focus on science and no little arrogance, it's very hard indeed to imagine him reporting for anyone else, let alone working for them. Once occassion that could make sense would be Colu's restrictions on Brainy's Time research. This may have presented the SP with plenty to offer Brainy, in return for the fruits of his work. That would enable them to set up the Echo network.

My preferred bet would be Rond Vidar. He has been working on time travel since he was a kid. He would have interested the authorities in his studies from his first appearance through to getting into the time institute. He may have been funded by them, especially if they knew who his father was. In fact, his Legion status is more of a bonus to keeping tabs on the institute.

Rond's death may help explain why Harmonia was in a position to conduct another of those disastrous viewing the dawn of time experiments. It would also add to Echo having to use the Legion more, as per Legion Lost 1, now that they were without their key agent (and handy Green Lantern)

Other Legionnaires (bearing in mind I read this as monitoring rather than taking actions to betray the Legion) :-

Dream Girl - while she cared for Star Boy, she was having other relationships as well. She's also been show as quite fatalistic about her prophecies in the past.

Projectra - Monitoring the Legion for her lost love, would be more the reaction of Projectra - hence Karate Kid sitting alive and well in the shuttle of the last issue. Not that she would lower herself to work with such an agency.

Cosmic Boy - Very interested in Time Travel. Founder of the Legion and not likely to be questioned too closely while having to maintain close relationships with key UP & SP organisations.

Phantom Girl - If I lived in the Phantom Zone, I'd be very very concerned about the Earthlings constant meddling. Before you know it you'd be a Buffer Zone or a Bleed or maybe not there at all. One run had Phantom Girl interested in our time.

Sun Boy - Earth resident. Towards the top of the Legion's scientists, so taking an interest in what Brainy's up to is not too far fetched. Extrovert personality used to cover up a number of questions.

Tellus - Possibly a little in awe of time travel and exploring other eras. In the way that pretty much most of his world never get away form their home world and the dominance of the Goldfish Bowl Gil'Dishpan. Possibly a little used to being slightly subservient - Goldfish Bowls and Dark Circle come to mind. Abilities a huge plus to Echo. Not least that no one else on the team can read his mind.

Dawnstar - Simply paid to do it. An arrangement going all the way back to when she first joined on a salary at the Academy. Also see '300 when she also expressed dissatisfaction with the way the Legion was run in one of the alternate world plots. Her tracking abilities great for key missions in time. As with Tellus, that she's on the team is significant.

It's a bluff. Echo exists to protect criminals by hiding them form law enforcement in the past. Adym is a crook too. There are no other agents and Yera is being duped.

Those are all good suggestions! Frankly, I could accept any Legionnaire as the "mole" as long as:

1) They're merely monitoring, as you'd stated above,

2) Their motives make sense

and

3) This whole thing would be resolved cleanly and completely!

Just playing continuity geek for a minute:

Why does ECHO care about the "present" of the DCFU "mainline" Earth if the Legion is from the "future" of Earth-2? Have the "Lost" Legionnaires figured out they are in the wrong universe?

Gates, XS, and Powergirl are anomalies: they remember universes that never existed! Why don't people just think they're crazy? Earth-247 is at least 2 iterations of the multiverse removed from the DCFU, and Powergirl's Earth-Two is... I've lost count. Five?

Or, do analogs of Earth-247 and Earth-Prime exist in the DCFU? Otherwise, how do you explain Legion of Three Worlds? (although the Legion fought the Fatal Five then...) And why is Mysa the Black Witch?

and on and on...

Basically, they don't because the Earth-2 reveal was made up at the last second The Continuity Cop answer would be that history has shown a key interconnectedness between several alternate universes, mainly Earth-1 and 2.

Totting up the JSA appearances in the original JLA run makes people like Dr Fate practically full members.

Also, many Crises seem to involve multiple worlds - almost annually in fact



It's a complete mess. But imagine that there were just enough people and artefacts around to convince the powers that be that there was something going on. Would you like to have your whole life rewritten every year and not know about it? Especially if you felt that you were in command of things in this world. No, it all seems to involve these caped people. Better keep an eye on them.



All the worlds exist, at all moments in their history to be cut back or grown at various points it would seem. Laurel Gand keeps showing up despite having been killed in the 5YG (although I don't buy that for a second) for example.

Mysa is the Black Witch because when she tried to be the Grey Witch and grow a beard, the Lord of the Rings people sued.

Mysa and Gandalf - now that is a crossover waiting to happen!

Re Power Girl - going off on a tengent for a minute. I'd always wondered, why was Power Girl spared from COIE when the thrust seemed to have been to make Superman unique? Sparing her would have meant rewriting her origin. Was it to throw a bone to Supergirl fans? Keep a powerful female hero to help balance the sex scales? (Not that I'm complaining, I love Power Girl and am glad she was kept).

They were going to retcon her to be the granddaughter of Arion following the crisis, and it just took a year or so to get round to it in among all of the other relaunches.

That would have been a Secret Origins followed up with the Power Girl mini series back in 1986/87.

I believe that at the time there was an attempt the "save" all or most of the "Infinity, Inc." characters-- they were seen as the future of DC.

Also remember, there was no Supergirl at the time.

Jade, Obsidian, and Huntress were successfully retconned into the post-Crisis Earth, but Power Girl's new Atlantean origin never really stuck for some reason.

Hard to believe it's been thirty years since Infinite Crisis.

In another 20 years, Infinite Crisi will mark the mid-point of DC comics history.

Just the sort of thing you want to attach one of those shifting "Golden Age" or "Silver Age" things to. "The Pants Age" has a nice ring to it.



Apart from being killed, then forgotten after the Dawn of Time battle, the Crisis went well for the Huntress But yeah, they did do a relaunch of the character that lasted a while.


To go from a character who had a vulnerability to magic to one that was connected to the greatest mage of Earth, possibly did it. Perhaps the lack of anything mystical in her new approach?

It's a simple "what I thought I knew was wrong" reveal, but it does mean that at some point there's someone hogging in on the post crisis Superman, thinking that they are related. Considering how precious DC can be over that sort of thing, I'm surprised too that they didn't just wipe it.