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

Good point Jim. The Mysa in the group shot page must be the girl Mordru is obsessing over. I wasn't expecting her so soon after his statement about him not being able to find her. The battle is still raging outside the Legion Clubhouse so I expect we'll see something happen between those two.
My bad.

Yeah VV, reboot Nure aka Dreamer is in the group shot but i don't see the other two either. There are still some missing characters so maybe the Adventure era Dream Girl will still show.

Personally, I'm still waiting for Cham to make an appearance. He could be anyone and anywhere. I hope it's worth the wait. He could have even been Leland McCauley and the whole Brande assassination thing was a fake to protect Brande. Or, he could have been Brande, only to pop up later so everyone could say, "oh, Brande wasn't a Durlan, it was just Chameleon Boy." I don't know. What do you guys think?

Cham was totally R.J. Brande, IMO.

Durlans don't revert when they've been depowered *and* their true form isn't an orange skinned humanoid with antennae, it's a mass of tentacles. If R.J. Brande had been a depowered Durlan, and died, he would have remained the corpse of a heavyset old human. If he'd regained his shapeshifting abilities and died, he'd have turned into a mass of tentacles.'

Since neither happened, it was either yet another continuity change for no darn reason, or a clue to those who know what Durlans *really* look like that this was a staged 'Durlan death' and not a real one.

There have been contradictory depictions of Cham taking physical damage or ignoring it, so it's not entirely clear whether or not a bullet could do more than annoy him. As of the Universo Project, his body is contiguous with no differentiated tissue types and he doesn't 'bleed,' so if that's the version of Durlans being used, a bullet should just damage some of his tissue, which he can re-arrange within moments. If this is the case, McCauley's gun would have just pushed some cells around, and Cham-pretending-to-be-Brande would have reverted to the orangey-antennae-humanoid that *most* UP residents think is a Durlan's true form, and leaked some green alien-looking 'blood' for versimilitude.

There's no way that Saturn Girl would have fallen for it, either, although the others may not have been 'in on it'...

Finally got it (shipment was damaged, they had to re-order stuff, and I didn't get Agents of Atlas! Argh!).

Normally, I'd be annoyed at the chump death handed to Myg, but since classic universe Myg was a bronze-skinned asian dude, and this Johnsboot version was a bearded white guy who had nothing to do with him, I don't really care that much. If the original Legion ever returns, perhaps the asian Myg will still be around and the dead jerk can be forgotten with the rest of this Johnsboot Legion.

Huh. Johnsboot Sun Boy felt Threeboot Sun Boy's death. Because they are quantum versions of each other? Dramatic license? Who knows. That really was Sun Boy's best costume ever, and this particular iteration of Sun Boy best exemplified Superman's 'everyone deserves a second chance at redemption' mentality, with the way he tried to rehabilitate Terror Firma personally. I wonder if the death of this Sun Boy, whose most notable act was attempting to redeem some mass murdering villains, is a subtle hint that Superman's mission to redeem mass-murdering Prime is equally doomed to tragic failure?

Interesting to see that Lazon survived Rond Vidar's 'lethal force' (or struck and was reflected away before that command went into effect). When I was writing my Lo3W fanfic I debated whether or not I should use him because of his seeming 'death,' but did anyway.

Also fun to see the Shady's draining the solar energy out of Prime. I totally called that they could do that, and it *radically* redefines most readings of the Shady & Mon-El relationship / power dynamic, knowing that she can suck the superpowers out of him and make him a normal guy with a wave of her hands...

Let's see: Cham and R.J. were blood (sorry, Set) relatives (via something like a retcon) about halfway into V.1. Possibly blood relatives in the animated series (but Cham could've been adopted. Nobody ever clarified one way or the other.), but not in the other two (?) versions ? Am I right ?

[rubs eyes, fetches another cup of coffee, dumps coffee on head]

Not that I'm reading this series or anything, but thanks for the always-timely reminder that my favorite characters almost invariably have origins/backstories that break my brain repeatedly. I obviously need professional help, which I can no more afford than I can afford this series.

Way to go, AFOB.

We don't know that. We've never seen a de-powered Durlan die. At best it can be said that "Doyle Brande" was said to have died in prison off-screen (in Secrets of the LSH), and presumably he still had a human appearance since no one knew or suspected that Brande was Durlan at that point, but we really don't know what happened to the corpse. Maybe R. J. actually used his money to have the truth hidden somehow? Or maybe the circumstances of death are germane? Sudden, violent death shocks the system out of its assumed shape while a natural death might not? Perhaps the Durlan's self-image (as stored in its "shape-memory" banks) is integral to whatever default shape the body assumes at death.

We've never seen any Durlan die on-screen other than SW6 Cham, who was incinerated completely.

aw....please don't remind me on that particular scene....I thought that with him, Karate Kid, and Princess Projectra died from the nuclear bomb is the saddest moment - a big shift from the happiest knowing that they are defeating the Dominators and then not knowing what hit them in the end - Boom! they died like true Legionnaires.

Also before i forget - I am still hoping to see Kent Shakespeare, Celeste, Ivy, and others from the Legion Run to grace the pages in L3W.

ADVENTURE COMICS #344 (May 1966)

The fact that it's rare is a testament to the DC that used to value its characters beyond Superman, Green Lantern, and Flash and their franchises. And that you didn't need a death every other panel to write a good story.

This issue was awesome; I really liked it.

Sad to see the two characters bite it, but I'm still surprised the death count isn't that high (and relatively glad). I almost thought Jacques was a goner too but I'm pretty positive thats not the case.

John's writing is great. His dialogue is great and the pacing is excellent. A very clear tale, everything laid out nicely and well understood (like veryvery says, the opposite of Final Crisis).

I'm enjoying the way he's writing Tinya, Mon, Shady and so many others, and I feel like now he's at last getting to the reboot and threeboot. I also think he's finally getting Preboot Brainy right.

Sodom Yat was only in it briefly which was good. I'm more glad Johns tied up XS's history and where she's from more than anything--and at the same time, making it clear that the preboot is the future DCU, although the reboot and threeboot have met people from the preboot's past (re: the DCU).

Loved that he fixed Jarth once and for all, even more happy he did it in one panel, as "Jarth" was so stupid to begin with.

The return at the end was expected but welcome.

Perez is just nailing it on every panel. His work here is excellent, and reminds me more of Crisis than his most recent stuff.

Kind of funny and cool to see Nuetrax and some others in action again after all these years.

PS - Also, I think VV and Rick are spot on--Johns just generally doesn't delve too far into the romantic side of things. His relationship themes are more along the lines of friendship, mentor/apprentice, and family. He's very much like John Broome, Binder, Hamilton and other DC Silver Age writers in that respect.

Also, I want Vi and Ayla to be together too, but they certainly were not together at the end of the Baxter run. It was pretty clear to me that they were firmly together in 5YL, but at the end of the Baxter run they were just becoming much closer to one another, not falling in love.

It would also make sense for Ayla to be worried about Brin. She loved him for several years, anyone would feel the same. I don't think that means they're still dating. I hope not, I always liked the fact that they broke up.

I think thats a great quote and I agree. Its obvious Johns cares about all Legion fans and is giving fans of the other 'boots something too. Its quite easy to blame Johns for whatever has happened to the threeboot but thats Didio's crime, not his. Johns is honestly trying to give Legion fans one really great story here--I think he's succeeding.

I totally enjoyed this issue. I think the reason this preboot Legion feels like the real Legion is due as much to the appearance of the long-time preboot villains as it does to the Legionnaires themselves. None of the other boots had as outstanding villains.

I must say the pathetic ending to the 3boot series overshadows my enjoyment of any interaction with those character in this story. I hope their participation is minimal as the lame way they went out taints their current actions... at least for me.

Nightcrawler:

I stand corrected. And that Durlan did revert to his "natural" (i.e., antennaed humanoid) form, didn't he? So the only real issue with the Brande reversion is the fact that he'd lost his ability to shape-shift. Heck, it could be that Yorggian fever affects the Durlan mind, not his body, and thus only inhibits a Durlan from consciously changing form.

Unfortunately it's not just DC, or even just comics in general. It happens in TV all the time too. I gave up watching ER partly because whenever an actor left the show it was about 50/50 whether they'd just write the character as leaving for another job or kill them off. "Battlestar Galactica" is shedding 2nd and 3rd tier characters in it's final season at lightning speed, and "Lost" bumps off a few redshirts at random just to show how tough the current week's antagonists are.

Just joined the forums, so I really haven't read all 50 something pages of replies in this thread but I have to say I have been enjoying Lo3W immensely so far.

Issue #3 was amazing! I read it 3 times back to back. And when -

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Bart showed up at the end</span></span>

- I was ecstatic.

Even though this is a side event to Final Crisis, this series has been far more entertaining then FC itself (so far). >_>

No, he did not. He retained Superboy's form, convincing Nardo that he'd killed the boy of steel. When Supes showed up in the next issue, Nardo exclaimed, "Impossible! I killed him!"

I wonder if Jim Shooter wanted to kill Sun Boy as the "longstanding" Legionnaire, but Geoff wanted to briefly use (kill) him in Lo3W #3. That could have also been another nail in the coffin that caused Shooter to depart from the threeboot, since he couldn't end his story his way. Dirk would have been the odds-on favorite to die IMHO in #50 of the threeboot. Of all the betrayals Projectra felt, his was the worst transgression, for joining and leading Terra Firma! Would have made for a much better #50... of course watching paint dry on the side of Legion HQ for 22 pages would have been a better #50 too.

P.S. Didn't we see Cham kill his brother in a flashback? Can't remember if he changed shapes though. Not even sure the actual death appeared on panel.

You reminded me of something I realized recently. Legion of Three Worlds is the opposite of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Why?

Crisis was meant to eliminate the multiverse, and succeeded in that. As we all know, DC had sweeping changes planned for afterward that weren't implemented, but that's another story. What it didn't succeed in was convincing readers that they were better off without it. DC thought the multiverse was an impediment to storytelling... and then they make a successful story that (in the course of undoing it) celebrates it. Actually, I do have to get to the "other story", because I now see how it's relevant. Every DC title was supposed to reboot in 1986, not just Superman and Wonder Woman. And then DC would focus on marketing to new readers. In an industry already dominated by a small core market, it seems DC wanted to win by not trying to beat Marvel at its own game, but by broadening their appeal. The rumor that many characters were to become non-white or non-American (at least partially substantiated by specific reports of an early 80s proposal to reboot Captain Marvel as black) suggests an attempt to widen demographic appeal. Crisis was meant to be the story that would never have or need a sequel, the story that would change the nature of the comic industry. Unfortunately, it did in the wrong way. Instead of establishing a clean new world, its biggest effect was in publishing practices. It set the pattern of "all big events all the time".

There's a reason I wax nostalgic about the Crisis - or what could have been. It was the weapon to end all wars, but it didn't achieve that because nobody built a secure postwar world. Instead, we got an industry locked in an increasingly futile struggle.

There isn't a true parallel to the bomb here. DC could still pull a Crisis like the one they wanted on us today, and it would have just as much impact now. I often wish they would do just that - rewrite the rules of war again.

Legion of Three Worlds is definitely giving two of the Legions not much to do. Even if they get more page space in ensuing issues, they can't really drive the story. Only the neo-80s Legion has agency. This isn't about celebrating the Legion's history. Nor is it about setting up a major revitalization and jumping-on point. And rather than being its own story, it's picking up on plots from other titles as well.

Regarding the 'Dead Durlans' debate -

We also saw a few dead and dying Durlans in the Reboot after the Composite Legionnaire escaped from his cage and attacked a bunch. IIRC they stayed in their natural "tentacley" forms after death.

Back later to wax lyrical about how awesome Lo3W #3 was!

I though that, too. I was also amused that the Threeboot Legionnaire who reacted quickest to Sun Boy's death was Brin, who was the only vote against Sun Boy's return.

The only thing that spoilt Lo3W 3 for me was the way Briany casually described the 'recently destroyed Earth 247' and no-one reacted. Brainy knows that 'Earth 247' means 'universe 247' so he's telling all the reboots that while they were trapped in limbo all of their families and friends have been wiped out - Chuck Taine, Tenzil Kem, Jo & Tina's cub, mothers, fathers. But the comment was almost throw away and didn't cause a single comment. Even in the heat of battle that was hardly likely. No 'how?' 'did anyone escape?' 'is Chuck dead?'

The reboots now also know that when L03W is finished they have no-where to go (which was I guess the real purpose of the line)

Yes, I mentioned it before but unless there's something going on we don't know about seeing reboot Jo and Tinya bantering around was totally ridiculous. Either they don't know or they have some major coping skills.
Glossing over the death of Earth 247 (and by extension the whole reboot universe) undermines the whole book to me.

You can't expect the Legionnaires to have authentic feelings or personalities anymore. That unfortunately is a thing of the past. They're now one dimensional TV tropes.

There's an even bigger problem, though. The idiocy of the entire LO3W storyline is that Brainy could end the war and save millions of llives in the blink of the eye using the Miracle Machine. It worked for Final Crisis, didn't it? I guess Johns and Morrison can't be bothered to read each others' comic books.

It was much better for the Miracle Machine to have been taken off the table, but then Morrison might have been deprived of calling it "The God Machine" which is right up his alley.