Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Official LSH 3 Worlds Thread #5 out (FINALLY!! - spoilers)

sorta related http://dcublog.dccomics.com/2009/04...rlds-4-before-even-looking-at-this-post/

Hmm... this confirms my longheld belief that

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> Superboy-Prime is, in reality, Dynamo Boy!</span></span>

I haven't gotten the issue yet, but I have read the spoilers. The reveal does sound incredibly lame, but I'm taking it with a grain of salt. This is at least the fifth Trapper reveal, and prolly not the last. I prefer to thinkof him as the Embodiment of Entropy, and the Universe's spontanious response to the existence of Mordru. Trapper (and TPTB) just likes to %*!]! with our heads. Stephbarton is correct that SP is constitutionally incapible of making that leap.

I haven't read anywhere here that someone thought the threeboot was the Legion for Earth Prime. Can someone point me in the right direction.

It would make sense that Johns would be the ones to bring back these two characters, especially after the Titans Tomorrow storyline.

Also, Johns has written the best Polar Boy - what does he say as Prime is about to kill him 'Long Live the Legion.' Indeed.

I posed this theory a few posts ago. My idea was that Threeboot Element Lad's transmutation of rubble to Kryptonite affected Superboy-Prime, thus making the Threeboot Legion future Earth-Prime's. Brainy-0 also explained to Threeboot Brainy that his Earth will play a significant role in this crisis.

BTW, worldies, check out dcublog.dccomics.com and manapul.deviantart.com for sneak peeks on Adventure Comics.

Triplicate Kid: To each his own. I don't think Johns always panders to what fans think and make it reality in comic form. I take away from it as Johns being respectful to the fanbase. But ya got me stumped there on the Johns-being-derivative. Wish he would put the same energy in Legion like Green Lantern, which, BTW, can't wait for Blackest Night!

It was bad enough seeing former Teen Titans getting butchered in every mini-series in the last few years. I'm a little sad that so many Legionnaires are getting massacred as well. I mean, I realize that 2/3 of them will end up gone anyways, but still I don't enjoy seeing things blow through their chests.

At least Rond Vidar went down with some dignity.

You guys. I know another reason why Johns brought Conner back in the 31st Century. It concerns Blackest Night.

Conner Vs Conner

LOVE Krypto playing fetch. Gorgeous artwork. Francis has come a long way. Thanks, VV!

The death of Kinetix seemed to be something other than death. In the various other deaths-by-heat-vision we've seen from Prime, there's been fwooshes and zorches and piles of ash and charred bodies. Never before has their been a 'boom' and the character speaking the name of a teammate before she vanishes. Either she was seeing the dead Leviathan / Gim Allon, which seems odd, suggesting that even the dead Legionnaires are 'waiting somewhere,' or she was being shrunk out of the way of the blast by LeViathan, and the letterer didn't capitalize the V.

That being said, I know bupkiss about the character, and didn't know that she still had magic, but it sounds like those who *did* know about the character upthread *also* thought that she didn't have magic and had this hypertaxis thing instead. Wouldn't be the first character Johns has missed on (see Red Tornado / Wildfire), and I'm sure it's terribly unreasonable of me a a fan to expect the writer to look a character up on Wiki before introducing such a major character change as vaporizing her...

I've noticed that this issue, more than the others, seems to rely on feel-good nostalgia-drenched moments, rather than a strong story. It reminds me of those later Star Trek movies, where we aren't supposed to care about the story, just cheer whenever Data says something funny or Worf gets in a bit of macho posturing. The Polar Boy / Sun Boy bit was the worst, IMO. I hate the fact that the team is being wiped out by a dude who can kill them all with impunity, but it bugs me to see characters who've had years learning how their powers work, using them in ways that *obviously* won't even phase him, such as Polar Boy chucking ice at him (instead of the much more likely to be effective tactic of directly freezing him solid, which is his second choice. This is Prime. Super-speed, likes to kill. The only reason Polar Boy *got* a second choice is because the writers had him stop and monologue.) or Sun Boy throwing fire at him. The dude can fly through stars. Do something smart involving red solar radiation. It was completely dumb for Sun Boy to just chuck fire at him, and it was completely dumb of the writer to have this somehow work, and shoot Prime out of the sky, since a supernova to the face shouldn't have ruffled his hair, let alone sent him hurtling out of the sky on fire!

Unearned. That's what this feels like. Unearned attempts at bringing back fan favorites to evoke unearned sentimentality. Unearned character deaths leading to unearned pathos. Unearned victories by deus ex machina, from a group of heroes (and villains) who have the power and experience to *earn* the victories they gain.

It's just bad writing.

George Perez, the guy who's apparently holding it all up, is at least trying here. Geoff seems to be running on cruise control. It's all 'segue to next cool scene' and 'transition to big reveal!' and there's no story in-between.

Cool scene! Smart comment! Dramatic reveal! Rinse and repeat! I've seen better written episodes of Kim Possible.

Well I do notice the mistakes in the art and the writing. You know what they say about it getting worse before it gets better.

It bugs me that each of these meaningless death-scenes is the end of a character that had unresolved story potential. Given that their series have ended, I never expected them to be resolved, but now they will have to undergo an equally unearned and meaningless ressurection before any other writer can take a look backwards and bring them to life, the way other fallow properties, like the Swamp Thing, or Sandman, or Animal Man, or frigging Darkseid have been picked up, dusted off and re-introduced after years and years of disuse, occasionally with amazing eye-popping results.

It's just lazy, killing off 3rd-tier characters that nobody is using to attempt to establish some villain of the minute as the ultimate badass.

It was lazy back when Prime was punching Pantha's head off, and it was lazy when Black Adam was punching through Terra v3.5.2.

Grr. If you want the villain to be a badass, and you're so creatively bankrupt that the only way you can think of to do that is to kill a character, kill someone *meaningful.*

Superboy Prime could slaughter the entire reboot and threeboot lineups, and the average DC reader would be like, 'Who the hell was the snake chick again?' and 'Why were there three Star Boys anyway?' Have him kill Ma Kent, and then we're talking. Everybody knows who Ma Kent is.

Welcome to my world. I spend half my time moping about all those background characters they kill off in ANY comics when they've barely had a chance to get fleshed out.

I don't have a specific post to link to (too lazy to look), but we've been discussing this fact since WaK established the 20th century heroes were all in comic books throughout the 3boot. Even the other Legions were used as just stories (i.e. not real) in Stuart Moore's story issue with

3boot = Earth-Prime was absolutely no surprise.

I'm having a pretty mixed reaction. As a follow up to the Lightning Saga it is working pretty well. We finally have a plausible explanation for why Brainiac 5 sent the Legion back to the point when Bart was killed. He was trying to save Bart and bring Conner back to life based on Dream Girl's vision. Solid enough motivation. It is frustrating that it took almost two years to get it.

I enjoyed John's run on Teen Titans. The prospect of seeing Bart, Conner, Tim and Cassie together again has some interest for me. On the flip side, I am so tired of seeing comic book heroes killed off and brought back to life. It's an endless cycle. Death in comic books has absolutely no meaning any more.

This appears to be a set up for Conner being the "Superboy" for the next version of "Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes". That concerns me a bit because he just seems to work so much better with the Titans. Maybe, with the right writer it can work. We'll see. If the preview work for Adventure by Manapul, that veryvery linked to is any indication, it might work. Beautiful stuff.

I'm totally okay with the idea that the 3Boot Legion is the Earth Prime Legion. It fits well with the use of real comic book covers in some of the early issues of the series. That may not have been the intent, according to what Kitson has said in interviews, but the material that was actually printed left the door wide open. I can't fault Johns for walking through it.

Superboy Prime as Time Trapper... Lame. I'll go with Jim's explanation that the the Time Trapper is an entity who shows us different faces for different occasions.

I'm having a Mon-El problem. Is the Mon-El who is currently appearing in Superman the Mon-El of the Lightning Saga Legion? If the 3Boot Legion is the Earth Prime Legion, where did their Mon-El come from? What about the reboot version? Answers please.

The biggest disappointment, of course, is that there is so little focus on the actual Legions with all the cosmic goings on. We love the Legionnaires for their characters and personalities. Both the reboot and 3boot series ended abruptly in manner that didn't allow for wrapping up storylines or a proper farewells. Both times, the loyal readers were totally screwed. I hoped that Legion of Three Worlds would remedy that, or at least make an effort. Sadly, nobody working on this series seems to care about making amends to us on that front.

Some random comments:

Set: I am with you, bro. Very powerful thoughts, to which I wholeheartedly agree.

Johns' work: I still think he was much more effective in JSA and GL, basically because he built on characterization. Even though JSA more recently has become a way too de-com-pres-sed reading, it was still fun and unpredictable. GL is also starting to be too much of a gory-fest, something it didn't use to be. I love violent books, but not when they become cheap ways to solve ambiguous plots (alas new GL power to kill).

Adventure Comics: according to Johns, LSH will be a co-feature of the book, much like The Question is on Detective Comics. Moreover, Francis f*&^*ing amazing artwork indicates that Conner is staying in the 21st Century. So I think there will be no Superboy and The Adult Legion of Super-Heroes.

Multiverse: with Morrison working on The Multiverse, there might be a chance all Legions will survive, with the Silver Age one remaining on Earth-One. Which means v4 can be canon in one world without Superman. THAT would make me really happy, even though I do not expect anything come out of it.

Titans: I think Geoff is going to be back somehow to Titans. See, he got all characters back to life and Dan Didio basically fired Sean McKeever and put a bunch of new writers to write a bunch of fill-ins. So, it's Johns back to save the sorry book.

Nightcrawler: sorry about messing up - you can all ignore my own reply below...

man, i really want to know what kinetix's words at the end mean...

hey, maybe they'll somehow bring all those dead people back to life!

hahaha god, legion babies. i want him to EXPLAIN what the big plan there was ;__;!

"I'll turn them into children!!" is a different thing than "i'll punch their heads off".

3boot =earth prime is cool to me! hahaha i guess i'm the only one that thinks so? maybe... ALL of the legions will get a superthing to chill with.

what i still want the answer to is something thom said in JSA. he was talking to superman (on sloppy joe day), and said that clark kents (PLURAL!) can't come to the future. and that the reason was was obvious.

anyone know why??

I'm gonna have to re-read that. I guess it might mean that Clark's Legion isn't really the same as it was, and that he can't go back to HIS Legion anymore. I'll still have to figure out the plural.

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">This series is awesome, easily one of my favorite Legions stories ever. I think Johns is putting a lot of stuff in there that to me is right on the pulse of the Legion.

I mean I love that that the characters fighting the Trapper at the end of the time are the 4 characters from Adventure #247.


That fight scene with Polar Boy and Prime is easily one of the best fight scenes ever in the Legion and IMO in all of comics. The dialogue, the facial expressions Perez gave him...

Polar Boy was complete and utter defiance personified. There was not an ounce of fear, sadness or the sligtest bit of regret as he went to face his certain death...he was simply pissed.

That was awesome to me. Johns definitely cast Polar Boy in a totally new light IMO. And Perez played a huge part in it as well.

That's just great character building to me. The original scrub of the Legion facing down a twisted version if it's ultimate hero, and with a fearlessness that could perhaps be matched, but never bettered. It simply ruled. Polar Boy is awesome.

Even better was that I was almost certain he was going to die, as that battle had all the classic trappings of a death scene, and then he didn't.


As for the Time Trapper Prime. Well the Time Trapper is always someone different. That's pretty much the thing with him. I have a feeling Prime's tenure as the Trapper is going to end as soon as this series is over anyway.

I would say it's increasingly likely that this very battle with Prime that created the Prime version of the Time Trapper...perhaps the Trapper was created by the Legion imprisoning Prime at the end of time to defeat him in this battle... Now that they know that's what created him, will create him, since he pretty much gave it way himself, they can just not do that, and this version of the Time Trapper will cease to exist.

As for it being Prime, I wouldn't say it was my first choice, simply because it reduces two high caliber villains to one and the Legion doesn't have enough of them as it is, but I can already kind of see it's not going to be a permanent thing and in this story, I kind of do like that it turned out to be Prime, because it's relevant to the entire battle and history of the Trapper. I mean if it had been Glorith or Cos, or the Entropy entity well I've seen that before and I can't see it enhancing the story at all if this version turned out to be one of them. In fact it would have come off as pretty much random and divergent to the story.

It makes sense for him to Prime in this story. And Prime has been shown to change history in a variety of ways going back to IC.

What we are seeing is the battle that both created and ended the Time Trapper, and it's the same battle.


And I definitely think the 3boot was revealed as the Earth Prime Legion....which means that Legion is still going to exist at the end of this battle. I didn't really like Element Lad getting killed, especially since he's the first character shown to be capable of killing Prime...but then I never like to see Legionnaires die, it's not something I read the book to see, never has been. I truly sympathize with anyone who considered him their favorite character as I am sure some do, ditto the 3boot Sunboy...


Anyway, absolutely loved it.</span></span>

LOVED it till the last page. Hated the last page.

I think Prime is overplayed big time.

BUT I already know of a way to make things better in my own personal continuity.

The Time Trapper IS the embodiment of the end of time...entropy. And different people wear the robe over...time. It's a position to be filled much like the Spectre. That is why we can have a Controller, Glorith, Cosmic Boy, and SPOILERS under the hood at different times.

It has to do with the role of a writer. Specifically, what is the role of a writer on a series (in any medium) with a large and/or vocal fandom? Fans will always be making predictions about future stories, and saying how they want things to turn out. It's just lazy to write the series making the most common fan predictions come true. In that case, the average fan could write it. You don't "respect the fans" by only giving them what they've already thought of. Johns is particularly bad because he transparently sets up coming events. Not only does he give fans what (he thinks) they want, he makes it easy to anticipate that he will.

A friend just told me something quite funny: Superboy-Prime is Voldemort. That is, he is (or will be) the villain behind every story. Another villain? Oh, no, it's really Superboy-Prime in disguise.

I think Kinetix was seeing the dead Leviathan beckoning her to the other side. Or maybe he just wants her to be his bunkmate on Shanghalla.

TT's original plan was to have Glorith devolve the Legionnaires into protoplasm, but a freak accident stopped them at toddler age. (heh. Imagine a bunch of Protys oozing around) Glorith was punished for her failure by being devolved into protoplasm herself.

And then Element Lad turned his ship into candy and they ate the candy and the Time Trapper stomped his feet and howled because he got beat by three year olds.

Okay bye.

Which actually is a bit like Superboy Prime. So you can tell what Johns was thinking.

Superboy Prime is a fanboy metaphor. The Time Trapper has sometimes been used as a metaphor for editors/creators making changes in LSH continuity. One could say that SP becoming the TT in many ways could represent the current state of the comics industry, written by fanboys for the fanboys.