Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lo3W Discussion Questions

OK. So by now most people will be aware that issue #3 of this series has been pushed back yet again :anguished crying: and since I need something, anything to channel all my Lo3W excitement toward (other than its increasingly conspiracy theorist main thread) I thought I'd create this one to discuss/ponder/answer (and raise some more of) the questions and issues that the book has created so far.

Thus, onward -

1. The 8(+1+1) Missing Legionnaires

OK. So in issue #1 holo-Jimmy Olsen shows Superboy-Prime a room at the Smallville Museum that houses statues of the 14 missing Legionnaires. Since then we've learned of the whereabouts of 6 of them.

So where are the rest? Where do we think Quislet, Bouncing Boy, Tyroc, Dream Girl, Sensor Girl, Matter-Eater Lad, Chameleon Boy and Element Lad are going to show up? As prisoners? Dead bodies? Undercover agents? Retired civilians? Maybe even villains?

I'm enjoying the mystery of where these guys and gals are and I hope the answers pay off. It kinda reminds me of one of the things I liked most about the post 'Legion Lost' stories which was slowly finding out what had happened to all those non-'Lost' members during their year off.

Also missing from the team and from that room of statues is Magnetic Kid. What do we think has happened to Pol? Lo3W seems to be set before 'The Magic Wars' so his death there has probably (hopefully) been negated but if all his fellow Levitz-era inductees are on the team then why isn't he? I'm hoping it's just a simple answer of his having quit the team when his brother came back rather than something messy like a retcon that removed his membership or something. Death to retcons!

And finally even though we all know that poor Luornu suffered the extreme indignation of being given the worst death in all of comicdom when she was eaten to death by giant were-rats in that book, we have also heard that she may still be coming back with a nifty little power upgrade. If so, where do you think that's going to happen and what's gonna be the story with it?

2. Dark White Witch

So White Witch made a couple of anvil-heavy foreshadowing comments in the latest (ha!) issue that suggest she may be going down a litte bit of a Dark Mysa route for a while.

First, I swear she was staring straight at me the reader when she said to Blok after he rescued her from Mordru's cell - "Mordru will pay, Blok. I swear to fate, if I have to delve into the black arts , he will pay ."

But then, even more worryingly, she had this to say to her teammates when she awoke from her shock-of-seeing-Rond-killed induced coma - "I will damn all of you."

Heavy. If I'd been one of the Legionnaires at that point I would've been like "Yeesh. What did we do?"

So since it seems quite obvious that this storyline is around the corner, what do we think about it? And where do we think it'll play out?

Personally, I don't mind it. As long as it doesn't go on for too long. Or do anything irrevocably bad to any of the players involved.

3. The 21st Century Mission

Until I re-read the book today I had completely forgotten that Wildfire, Dawnstar and Polar Boy have been sent on some secret mission to do something or other in the 21st Century. So what do we think that is?

Usually when the Legion goes to the 21st Century it's to pick up Kal - but since he's already in the 31st C. this time around it must be something else. Scuttlebutt hints might've made me think they were picking up Bart Allen or Kon-El but if either of them show up it'll probably be from out of that rod that Brainiac 5 is carrying around. So I don't know. I'm stumped. Someone else have a go at answering this one.

4. The Invisible Invisible Kid

Wherefore art thou Jaques? So Brainy splits the team into 3 groups to carry out his plan - but Jaques Foccart isn't on any of them. He completely disappears from the book after page... well whatever page it was (damn comics not printing page numbers anymore), right after delivering his only line of the book - "And then what?"

Methinks Invisible Kid number 2 will be making a surprise reappearance somewhere down the line. Or I hope so at least. If GP just forgot to draw him on the last few pages because he's been such an inconsequential character in the series so far I will be mightily peeved.

So that's it for now. What are some in-story things that have got YOU working over-time mentally so far?

There's pretty even odds that the answer to number 3 is so they can collect either Tellus or Starman/boy. The only notch against this is that neither of them have finished their respective stories yet, although with Johns leaving JSA, he may cut short Thom's plot anyway.

Good guess rouge. I hadn't thought of them. Though I'll get a good laugh if Brainy's top secret master-plan is just to bring back Tellus. The obscurest Legionnaire of them all as their final hope!

Predictions;

Chameleon Boy is going to show up with the real R.J. Brande, after having faked his appearance (and death) in issue one.

Quislet won't be a current Legionnaire. Tyroc probably won't either. Matter-Eater Lad might show up in a background picture, as part of the battle, but I don't think he'll be a major player.

Bouncing Boy will show up, and drive a spaceship into someone, all teary-eyed and outraged that his Lu is gone.

Element Lad is being kept off stage, IMO, because of how easily he could take out the Brat of Steel. When he shows up, he'll be power-drained or mind-controlled or in some way prevented from turning Prime into a warm, moist 'pffftt' of methane gas.

Or his transmutation powers will mysteriously not work on Prime, the same way that Kryptonite, Antimatter, Red Suns, Magic, etc. barely seem to slow down Prime, despite being able to smack down the real Superman like a punk. I call it 'lazy deus ex machina writing,' myself.

I have squiffier theories about Dream Girl and Sensor being out there. The absolute *BEST* I'm hoping for from this series is that we have a gut-wrenching issue long slaughterfest, with Prime annhilating the Legion, while his allies are conveniently sidelined. I expect this to happen in any event, but the part that could 'save' this issue of seeing Legionnaires die like chumps to a whiny brat that half of them could shut down (having beaten *hundreds of thousands* of people of his class before) would be for it all to be a stalling tactic coordinated by one or more Dreamys (anticipating where he's going), one or more Imras (telepathically keeping ahead of him) and one or more Projectras (allowing him to see himself killing the team with abandon, while, in the real world, he's floating in space unmoving, trapped in this fantasy, and the rest of the Legion are schooling the LSV handily).

That's pretty much my most optimistic hope for this series. Prime is locked into visions of killing the team, while the team takes out his allies. We get to see (along with Prime) all sorts of spectacular Legion deaths, but they are all happening in the fantasies that Projectra and Imra are feeding him.

It would be interesting if, when the worlds fall away from each other again, one of Luornu is left in each world, and the process of stretching between three worlds causes her powers to flare up exponentially. This would result in their being a 'Legion Lass' in each of the three worlds, each having been 'stretched' at a quantum level by the dimensional separation and being able to summon up dozens of 'quantum duplicates' or whatever.

I dread this, because we are already seeing it with Dark Projectra in Shooters run. It's *WAY* too soon to be retreading this ground. After the Element Lad / Progenitor crapfest, I think Dark Projectra was perhaps a bit too soon to see a Legionnaire 'go dark' again.

Dawnstar would be sent back to find someone or something. Starman/boy is hardly 'hidden,' but Tellus would be harder to find, and someone like Kon-El, who might exist only as a spark of sentience trapped within Match or something, might be very hard to find.

Wildfire would insist on tagging along, and could be the 'big gun' of the team. (Also, being composed of anti-energy, which is simply the energy version of anti-matter, which has been shown in the past to cut through Superman like a hot knife through butter, he's another team-member that has to be conveniently out of the way for Prime to be anything more than a speed-bump for the Legion. Wildfire would blast Prime into Krypto-kibble if they ever made contact. But, like everything else about Prime, I'll bet 200 quatloo that Wildfire's origin and nature is to be retconned away from 'anti-energy' to just a 31st century Human Bomb, so that he doesn't threaten precious fan-favorite Slaughterboy Prime.)

Polar Boy? Interesting choice. Either something needs to be cryogenically preserved for the trip, or the choice has nothing to do with his powers, and everything to do with his do-or-die gung-ho nature. If there is a Legionnaire who will *die* to get the mission done, it would be Polar Boy. It's also possible that he's got to serve as a catalyst in some way to get Sun Boy back in the game. Perhaps with his death...

It would make sense. That's the whole point of Invisible Kid(s), appearing when all seems lost to change the balance of power. Perhaps Saturn Girl is on the ropes against Saturn Queen, and he bonks SQ on the head to distract her and give Imra the upper hand. Perhaps Persuader is about to deliver a deathblow to someone and Jacques appears and throws him off-balance. Who knows. That's really the most intelligent use of his power, to play 'spoiler' and muck up the bad-guys plans, and stay out of direct combat otherwise, looking for opportunities to meddle.

Or he might be going to fetch backup, such as one of the above-mentioned missing Legionnaires, or even somehow *extending* his power to hide someone else, who will be unmasked to provide an 11th hour surprise?

I had another take on Mysa's statement that she would damn them all. I saw it more as Mordru would be coming for her, or she for him, and that the legionaires would be in the crossfire and be killed. And thus, she would be the cause of their "damnation".

I think if she had meant that she would attack them it would have read more like "Damn you all!"

I could be wrong, though.

i have a question:


which legion is this adult legion? i was reading somewhere that there are four main legions. pre crisis, post crisis (5yl magic wars etc.) and of course reboot and threeboot.

so...could this adult legion be pre crisis legion where the magic wars happen later or not at all, and magnetic kid may not join or not be joined at this time.

i was kinda assuming this was just 5yl legion, (missing issues/adventures) from the 5 years they weren't published. and just ignoring the discrepancies...(like they still idolized supes. and not lar gand)

is there an idea on what legion this probably is? or a new one....


+sigh+ i'm really over reboots at this point...(but i'm happy to see the giffen/levitz-esque legion back!!!)

I agree with Rickshaw. WW was saying she would be the cause of the Legion's ruin because Mordru is coming after her and won't let anyone get in his way. Either way, I prefer Off-white Witch to Dark White Witch, which seems like an oxymoron. ;-)

Blacula, what's your source for Duo Damsel getting a new power? I hadn't heard that.

I still can't help but think Triplicate Girl's disappearance in the Legion's own book is tied in somehow to DD's MIA status in L3W.

Hard to believe the active Legion even cares where such heavy hitters as BB, ME Lad, and Duo Damsel, etc. are at a time like this. Why aren't they calling in Dev Em, Duplicate Boy, and the Subs (who they just used in the Action story line)? Any or all of them are more powerful than many of the missing members.

San Diego Comic Con - Johns said that Lournu will become Duplicate Damsel with the power to create multiple bodies.

I hadn't thought of it that way but now that you point it out Rick, I think you might be right.

I still like the comedy factor of Mysa just waking up and randomly insulting the Legionnaires for no apparent reason though.

I imagine that Nura Nal's had a vision or two and has gathered who she needs (those sent off world to prevent Earth Man from absorbing their powers, right?) and will swoop in at just the right moment. If she's interpreted things aright, that is.

Via Time Bubble, maybe. Or accompanied by Tyroc's ARRRUUUGGGAALLAA!

Tyroc. Element Lad. Sensor Girl. Cham. Dream Girl, to lead. That's a pretty potent sub-team there. Bouncing Boy and Matter-Eater Lad- used to great effect? Quislet?

I thought Mysa was talking about damning the Legion of Super-Villains?

Mind if I throw out an odd thought?

What if S-Prime's "redemption" is to be babyzapped by the Time Trapper and exiled to the Trapper's shiny new "Pocket Universe"?

The "original universe Superboy" could juggle moons and cross interplanetary space no-sweat. Prime's power levels are pretty much the same (except for kryptonite and magic)..and it would retcon all those Superboy stories (arguably) into Superman-Prime stories to fit the new legal framework.

Just an idea that came to me.

What if Lournu's powers included not only being able to split into multiple different bodies, but also amongst multiple different parallel deminsions? What if all 3 Triplicate Girls are only different bodies of the *same* Triplicate Girl?

There's definitely a surprise re-appearance in store for Cham somewhere down the line. I'd have originally thought he was undercover with the LSV but I think Saturn Queen or Esper Lass would've detected him by now if so, not to mention that he probably would've made more of an effort to rescue Rond.

I more or less agree with you on these three though I'm very intrigued to see what the three of them have been up to during their time off. Especially Tyroc.

As for your predictions for the rest - well, let's just say I think I'm a lot less pessimistic than you seem to be with where Geoff Johns is going with this story.

I'm not reading the current book so the story would be fresh to me but I guess it is too soon to have another 'psycho female Legionnaire' story so soon after the Shooter one.

Killing one character to give poignance to the actions of another is definitely the kind of cliched writing that Geoff Johns falls back on from time to time - but I'm not sure an avowed Brek Bannin fan such as he would use one of his faves to tell that kind of story here. Though I could be wrong. One of the solits does mention a hero having to make a great sacrifice doesn't it? Is that next issue or the one after it?


Yes. And exactly why I much prefer the more limited-powered and therefore sneaky and creative Legionnaires than the boring punchy ones (except Gim of course). The scenarios you mention above would be a lot more interesting to read about than just having everyone punch each other til they got tired.

I want to see more limited/interestingly powered members on this team asap!

Oooooo - I'd love to read a few stories starring that strange little sub-team. What an interesting (yet powerful) combo.

DB - this is a Legion from a new timeline that branched off from the Levitz Legion run immediately after Crisis on Infinite Earths. So Pocket Universe Superboy/Magic Wars/5YL didn't happen to this Legion (eg Blok/Dirk still alive).

Some comments:

Don't forget Infectious Lass is also in the 21st Century. Wouldn't it be great if she brought down the mighty Prime & LSV!

We haven't seen the 5YL Legionnaires (Kent, Kono etc) yet. I suspect though that these will be just Time Trapper flashback rather than an active appearance.

Morrison and Johs have been creating multiple versions of the JSA, Marvel family etc across the Multiverse. I suspect that Final Crisis will rationalise all of those leaving just one version of each. Final Crisis:Lo3W will replicate this for the Legions.

The JSA origin of Starman said that Thom got his starsuit from the three Brainiac 5s. That must have happened during the first meeting of the three Legions. Why?

The solicitation for Polar Boy's time travel said the 20th Century. A misprint or a visit to when Clark Kent was a boy? Possibly to when the early Legionnaires were meeting their counterparts in his barn?

Hearing about all these exciting possiblities that could be done with the Legion makes me even sadder for the book's (hopefully temporary) cancellation. The most intriguing story/character change I'd like to see play out: Duplicate Damsel! (Heavy Sigh)

Please come back soon, Legion.

It makes sense that there would be Kryptonian diseases out there, and if anyone could create one it would be Drura.

thanks SAL.

maybe prime's fancy amour protects him from magic but, i would think mordru would be able to do better than a few sparks. (legions of undead, changing the time stream etc...)

maybe the legion's just off their game after the justice league and xenophobia otherwise they're kinda used to bigger and badder enemies than Prime.


maybe Prime will rip through the other two legions and leave only the pre crisis legion? >)

(oooooo become rehabilitated and join the legion of super heroes again! ha)

As much as this thread was created to entice potential outcomes of the delayed Lo3W series, it is my fear that only those plot-threads mentioned above (and one Green Lantern one) will be highlighted throughout the last 3 issues.
I think each Legionnaire deserve the spotlight in this series, especially if he or she stands to be "changed" forever somehow by series' end.
Yeah the founders are important and so is Superman/boy/whatever, but so are all the others, old and new, powerful or not so much.
Remember this is THEIR story and, after this mini series is over, its their future in comicdom that hangs in the balance.
I hope that the creators, writers and editors of DC remember that as well.

Thank you Blacula for making us think, and hope.

I had not noticed that it said (and still says) "20th" not "21st" century. Either that or I forgot which year it is...

It COULD BE that they are going back in time to ensure "our" Superman meets "their" Legion as a boy. I would think it would have to be covert though, as Polar Boy's hair (and ice arm for that matter) doesn't exactly allow him to blend in.

I must have missed something-how did Infectious Lass/Drura end up in our era?

Good points one and all.

Earth-Man threw her into the time-stream.

(The Subs mentioned it in their spotlight issue in the Action Comics storyline.)

Thanks future king.

I'm all about seeing the Legionnaires take centre stage in this book too.

And that's why, even though I'm an out-and-proud drinker of the 'Geoff Johns Legion-verse' kool-aid, I do unfortunately also harbour a fear at the back of my mind that this book might turn into the Sodam Yat/Kon-El/Bart Allen guest-star variety half-hour for it's last few issues... and nothing would annoy me more than wasting panel time on any of those three when we could be getting a cool Invisible Kid or Grimbor or Ron-Karr or Chameleon Girl or Tyroc moment instead.

You're welcome.
Such insight coming from someone living in "the last place on earth..."
I'm impressed! ;-)

^^^ My secret is that I get away from it as often as I can.

Sadly I think that to Johns/DiDio et al, Final Crisis: Lo3W should be "Final Crisis in the 31st Century". It is about rationalising and finalising the DCU not about spotlighting the Legion per se. As Lo3W goes on we will probably see the reason for the Final Crisis banner increase.

PS for those that missed it Infectious Lass turned up in the Tales of the Unexpected mini-series. The story was also collected in the Dr Thirteen TPB