Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes The Complete Continuity Match-Up Checklist: from Baxter to Levitz Relaunch (revised)

I am posting this as a new thread so that I can have it be in post #1 and edit it in place as new suggestions come in (rather than posting extra copies of it).

REVISED CONTINUITY CHECKLIST

Notes:

Post-Flashpoint and the new 52 (2011): Most Legion history has been kept in the new 52. The biggest effects are where the Legion intersects with the rest of the DCU--which makes crossovers a real problem. And given what happened post-Crisis, we may never find out the details for a long time, if ever. I've put some items in separate sections, but it becomes very tricky to classify things like "Dev-Em is a pre-Crisis character, and retconned post-Crisis, but in the Johns era there were two characters called Dev-Em, but in the new 52 those stories may not have happened", so you'll just have to deal with any fuzzy classifications.

Legion History: The Board Game from V6 Annual #1: Paul has said (on Facebook) that this timeline is not in continuity. This particularly means it's not evidence for Conspiracy happening, or Shadow Lass marrying and divorcing, along with some other items like the Legion being inspired by Superboy (not true in current continuity) and the Great Darkness happening before Yera was disguised as Violet.

Conspiracy and the death of Superboy: apparently gone; Mon-El is still alive, and Luornu had her second body until it died much later. There has been no in-continuity mention of Shadow Lass's marriage to Mon-El (which happened because he was dying) but Paul said on Facebook that they are divorced, which implies that the marriage still happened somehow.

Character info captions: These have been consistently inaccurate:
-- Describing Tyroc's home Marzal as a "homeworld"; it's an island that disappears into another dimension, not a planet. There's no evidence that Marzal is now a planet other than these captions. Some fans seem to think it really is a planet now. The captions have enough other errors that I refuse to believe it's a planet unless it is shown as one onscreen.
-- Describing Quislet's dimension Teall as a "homeworld".
-- Spelling "Spider-Girl" with a hyphen (Action Comics #859)
-- Having several inconsistent names for Luornu
-- Consistently misspelling Gates' home Vyrga as "Vyraga" (annual #1 gets it correct once).

Inconsistent with original/Levitz run, may be mistake or retcon (pre-V6) Many of these relate to other parts of the DC Universe and may be moot with the New 52. I will count these as resolved only if we are specifically told that they happened differently in the New 52.

Statues in Lightning Saga -- some members are missing:
Tyroc, Quislet: Former members, not members as of the end of V3, but who were described as disappeared members in Legion of Three Worlds.
Night Girl, Chameleon Girl, Rond Vidar: Not members as of the end of V3, but joined the Legion before their modern reappearance. Rond Vidar's membership was not revealed until Legion of Three Worlds.
Tellus, Magnetic Kid, Chemical King: No explanation.
The statues were a big problem back in 2007 because they seemed to be a big source of detail about the new continuity. But they turned out to be too inconsistent to be useful, and we now have better information anyway.

Lightning Saga: Batman acts as though he has not met the Legion or Karate Kid. He met them in the Brave and the Bold #179 and 198 from the 1980's, as well as JLA #147-148 (and Action #864 specifically says he still remembers JLA #147-8).

Supergirl #22: Has appearances by Karate Kid and Una from Countdown, but states 1) that Una has all three bodies but left two in the 31st century, 2) that Karate Kid and Una don't remember Supergirl as a member, and 3) that Supergirl now remembers her adventures with the Threeboot. 1-2 are both false. 3 is true but seemed to have been false for a while in #52.

The Miracle Machine -- used in Final Crisis #9, should have been gone as of S/LSH #251.

Infectious Lass as member -- in Dr. 13 she claims that she was a Legion member and then demoted to the Subs because they didn't think her power was that great. This seems to refer to her initial appearance (rather than to post-V3). Seems to be just a mistake, not a retcon.

Some rejected applicants revealed to be rejected for being insane. This however included Golden Boy, who was actually rejected when Dynamo Boy took over.

Durla - Brande and Chameleon Boy originally came from Durla. Adventure #11 puts their ancestor on "New Durla" instead. This isn't necessarily inconsistent since there is 1000 years for the planet to have been renamed or the family to have moved (they're also described as nomads) but it is surprising.

Karate Kid doesn't seem to be recognized by Batman or anyone else in Countdown. If the old continuity is back his karate-fad 1970's series should be in continuity. This could be because Countdown is generally recognized as a complete character and continuity failure. (And if nothing else, Batman knows the Legion from Lightning Saga!)

Legion of Three Worlds: Superboy-Prime is affected by Threeboot kryptonite on the grounds that that Legion is from Earth-Prime and the kryptonite has to match the Kryptonian's home universe. Except that the Threeboot had already shown kryptonite affecting Supergirl....

Anti-Lead serum: Legion of Three Worlds has Brainiac 5 state that he "alone" created Mon-El's anti-lead serum. In Adventure #300, Saturn Girl created the original serum based on technobabble about using her powers. Possible retcon, though it could just be bluster or referring only to the final serum.

Last Stand of New Krypton has Titanians coming from Lanoth. V6#1 has Dr. Aven refer to Earth as the motherworld, however. Resolved--one of the fastest ones to be resolved. LSH#3 says that the ancestors of the Titanians, presumably from Earth, met the Lanothians on Titan...

REBELS #2 (2009) has Starhaven as founded in the past instead of in the 27th Century.

Adventure #4 has Blok apparently in love with Mysa and changed to a less stone form. Whether this is a retcon depends on what you think of Blok/Mysa in the Levitz era--I don't interpret it as a romance so I consider it a retcon. Blok's new form was gone without explanation in Blok's next appearance.

Action Comics #858 and Superman: Secret Origin: The Legion had flight rings when they recruited Superboy. The Legion didn't have permission to use the time bubble when they recruited Superboy. Un-retconned in Adventure #517, however Supergirl Annual #2 again has flight rings appear too early.

Xenophobia: The Action Comics story described the xenophobia as a recent thing. That is arguably unrealistic, but it's not a retcon or change, just an event that happened after the end of V3. However, Superman: Secret Origin had the xenophobia as not recent; that one is a change.

Legion of Three Worlds shows the Adventure #247 costumes and colors. This is pretty much the only place that does that (and Legion: Secret Origin shows them in new costumes during the Adventure time period). We can probably assume this is just a mistake.

Takron-Galtos reappeared in Legion of Three Worlds (it was destroyed in Crisis).

Sorcerer's World reappears in Legion of Three Worlds (it was destroyed in the Magic Wars). This did not require explanation in Geoff Johns' run, since Johns wanted to continue from Crisis, but Paul continued from the end of V3.

Adventure #9: Brainiac 5's father is the first to make Brainiac a name associated with good. Contradicts several references, including V3#55 as well as another scene where Projectra says he is of noble lineage. Un-retconned in Legion: Secret Origin #2, where "Brainiac" is an honorable title.


Inconsistent with original/Levitz run, may be mistake or retcon (during V6)
Saturn Girl seems to use telekinesis (LSH V6#1). Verified with Levitz as error.

Saturn Girl says something in V6#1 about never having been religious, but she and Garth baptized Graym on Titan in v3 #16. This was a religious baptism with crosses and a Bible quote. Verified with Levitz as fans taking things too literally. It is possible to have a religious baptism without being religious.

Adventure #12: Saturn Girl claims to be an orphan. Contradicts several references including "The Five Legion Orphans", "Secrets of the Legion" and "Who's Who in the Legion". Verified with Levitz as error. He was thinking of Dream Girl.

Adventure #12 says that Superboy is from the 20th Century but the Legion is from the 31st. If the Legion takes place exactly 1000 years after Superboy's time, this can't be true. The current Legion is 1000 years ahead of the current Superman, while the Silver Age Legion is 1000 years ahead of Superboy, because comic book time has aged the Legion more than it has aged Superman. Back when we were in the Silver Age it didn't work this way but was generally inconsistent.

Adventure #12: Saturn Girl wipes Superboy's memory when he returns to his own time. The most famous post-hypnotic suggestion to forget the future was done by Supergirl, not Saturn Girl. The only time Saturn Girl wipes his memories of things he's learned about the future is after the Reflecto story. This retcon may be inevitable because super-hypnotism no longer exists, and because the idea that Superman is invulnerable to non-Kryptonian telepathy hasn't been true for decades.

Adventure #516: Brande talks weirdly. Paul has said he thought he had written Brande's speech pattern like this before. In LSH V6 #9, he acknowledged that Brande did not speak like this in previous issues. In Legion: Secret Origin, it seems to be off and on.

Superman/Batman #75: Batman acts as though he has never met the Legion, despite there being a number of both modern (Lightning Saga, Superman/LSH) and old crossovers where he did, plus the reboot and threeboot crossovers.

LSH #6: Cosmic Boy talks about his mother not forgiving him for the death of his brother in a way which sounded to some fans like she is alive. Paul verified on Facebook that she is still dead.

Annual #1: Orando is back in our dimension, apparently.

Inconsistent with original/Levitz run, may be mistake or retcon (during V7)

So far, all the inconsistencies I know of from during V7 were obviously done on purpose, so are listed below and not here.

Inconsistent with previous run, may be mistake or retcon (after end of regular Legion series in 2013)

Nothing yet, but there aren't many Legion appearances to contain any mistakes.

Intentional retcon (prior to V6)
Starman / Starboy's medical condition. Partly unretconned in #11 to be a result of his suit, so he was not schizophrenic all along.

Wildfire / Red Tornado weird connection -- that made little sense so hopefully is never mentioned again

Projectra revealed to have two hearts

Dream Girl connected to the Dreaming (JSA #5). That's right, connect her to a Vertigo series that leads to editorial interference for anyone who tries to cross over with it. What can go wrong?

L3W: Original meeting of the Legions of three worlds revealed, which led to XS being sent to the reboot universe in the first place.

Rainbow Girl's new powers

Adventure #9: Brainiac 5 isn't the fifth generation--there were lots of generations between Brainiac 3 and 4. This was pretty much necessary considering that Brainiac 3 already showed up in the present.

Superman Secret Files 2009: It is revealed that Daxamites live hundreds of years.


Intentional retcon (during V6)
Adventure #516: The Legion tried to get Superman, not Superboy; getting Superboy was a mistake (revealed to be intentional on Brainy's part in #519). It occurs to me that this makes sense because Superboy isn't a superhero in the present, so he's not in the history books and the Legion and Brande wouldn't intentionally recruit him. This also raises the question of if the Legion ever had an 18 year old age limit.

Adventure #516: Brande is Chameleon Boy's mother. "I laid his egg". Later issues seem to be moving away from this a bit, although it's not contradicted.

Adventure #516: The assassination attempt on Brande was actually from Durlans who wanted him to stay on Durla.

The six minute war: Adventure #516 and War of the Supermen both agree that the six minute war happened in the present day. However, this contradicts the old V2 Annual #2 and other sources which establish that it happened thousands of years ago. Since Durlans could not shapeshift until the war it also contradicts Invasion!

Durlans' natural shape: This is very confused, although in current continuity it seems the green tentacled form is their natural form. Adventure #516 says that it is, and that Brande designed the orange form. However, in Legion of Three Worlds, Brande reverts to the orange form when he dies, and in War of the Supermen, Durlans (before the war and before they could shapeshift) are orange humanoids. S/LSH#241 originally stated that the orange form was their natural form, but V2-V3 changed that to the green tentacled one. Note that Adventure #516 agrees with War of the Supermen about the date of the war yet disagrees about the natural form. (Strictly speaking this should be in another section, but I'm keeping the Adventure #516 references together.) Paul has said he isn't taking all of Legion of Three Worlds as continuity, which could mean that Brande didn't really change to the orange form when he died.

Adventure #517: Imra slept with Rokk. Imra wiped his mind. Rokk seems to think it's nothing unusual to sleep with someone and not remember who they are.

Adventure #518: Reveals that it was Nura, not a computer from the Tryops Council, who predicted a death when fighting Zaryan. It is implied that they will send the information without revealing the source.


Intentional retcon (during V7)

Legion: Secret Origin: The Adventure-era costumes are gone.

From a July 2012 interview with Paul Levitz: the Legion hasn't met the Fatal Five yet. As well as being a big change to history, it opens arguably the biggest continuity hole since the removal of Superboy: the deaths of Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid, and Mentalla were all associated with the Fatal Five, and so were Shadow Lass and Blok joining the Legion (for Blok, because of the Dark Man).

Legion Lost #0: Completely new origin for Timber Wolf.

Legion #0: Tharok's new origin is that he was possessed by part of Brainiac. Also, Brainiac 5 is responsible for releasing Brainiac.

Legion #23: Legion revealed to be in an alternate universe, to make way for Justice League 3000 being the future of the main DCU. May have been editorially mandated (unknown as present). This is similar to Earth-2, but on Earth-2 Superman had not actually died, and Paul Levitz is on record as saying that it's a parallel universe but not Earth-2 specifically.

Intentional retcon (after end of series in 2013)

A number of retcons related to the rest of the New-52 DCU; see below. The Legion hasn't shown up enough for anyone to bother making non-DCU retcons.


Happened after the end of V4 but not shown
Rokk/Lydda split-up: mentioned in Legion of Three Worlds. "I've given up my life, my relationships (Lydda in the background) so you don't have to" (to Garth and Imra). (Some people think this began in V6. It didn't.) However, this is contradicted by a later panel in Adventure Comics #9 showing them holding hands. They're broken up again in #526. V7#8 has them back together without much reference to the breakup.

Resurrection of Karate Kid. Karate Kid made vague mentions in JSA #6 that Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, and Lightning Lad "risked their lives to save" him. Complicating this is Threeboot #42, where that Karate Kid and Triplicate Girl were sent through time, suggesting that they're the ones in the present (particularly Countdown), yet they're obviously not. Jim Shooter reports that Geoff Johns was late with his scripts and #42 was an editorial mandate made without seeing the actual script. In V6 #6 we see a scene of a younger Karate Kid, which may or may not be related.

Luornu in Countdown/Legion of Three Worlds -- Countdown killed "Una", who is one body of Luornu. Supergirl #22 said that she is Triplicate Girl and that two bodies are still alive in the 31st Century. Action and Legion of Three Worlds say that she was Duo Damsel until one body died in the 21st Century (Countdown) leaving one in the 31st. Countdown itself never says she has any other bodies alive and seems to assume that both others are dead--which means that different stories have tried to have it all three ways. The correct version in continuity would be Legion of Three Worlds (Duo Damsel, one body died in Countdown). Note that although she only had one body left at the end of V3 the story where the second body died was related to Conspiracy so didn't happen.

Luornu's new powers -- Legion of Three Worlds gave her new duplication powers, with an unrevealed source; her remarks about "something weird" make it unclear whether she knows why. Adventure #368 (Mutiny of the Super-Heroines) is precedence for being able to enhance Luornu's power this way.

Myg as Karate Kid II (spelled "Mygg" in L3W). He is revealed to have an apprentice, who could conceivably be the character in V6 #6.

Night Girl joins

Chameleon Girl joins

Rond Vidar joins

Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy rejoin -- probably doesn't need explanation, the resignations weren't permanent

New HQ built

Quislet returns. Geoff Johns wanted to start from post-Crisis and he left well after Crisis, so this only became a continuity problem now that LSH is going off of the end of V3. Note that Quislet only left because he lost his ship. He had every reason to come back if he got another one.

Tyroc returns.

Return / Resurrection of Tharok, return of Validus to monster state, resurrection of the Emerald Empress (specifically named as Sarya in Legion of Three Worlds #2). Validus has shown up in V6#9 (not Garridian), although Sarya is described as still dead in annual #2. Paul has said he was not taking all of Legion of Three Worlds as continuity, and having Sarya stay dead is an obvious example. Alternately, you could call it a time anomaly.

Dragonmage of this continuity appears -- he is later mentioned as murdered by Mordru in Legion of 3 Worlds but we know it cannot be the reboot Dragonmage or the TMK Dragonmage no matter what Geoff was thinking

Infectious Lass -- appears in our time in the Dr. 13 backup in Tales of the Unexpected. Later explained in the Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes arc by an offhand comment saying that Earth-Man threw her into the timestream.

Rainbow Girl (Adventure Comics #309) joins the Legion of Substitute Heroes

Double-Header killed by villainous Justice League of Earth

Blok's appearance:
1) Appeared in the Geoff Johns era without the new appearance he assumed at the end of the 1980s. Johns wanted to continue from Crisis, which would have left Blok like this, but that's no longer so, so it needs explanation now.
2) Appeared in Adventure #523 with no explanation for changing back from the appearance Johns left him with in Adventure #4.

Mordru un-depowered

First appearances of Saturn Queen, Echo, and Beauty Blaze in Legion of Three Worlds. Saturn Queen's name given as Eve Aries, same as the other versions. (And don't try looking Saturn Queen up in Wikipedia, since that mixes up V4, Adult Legion, and current.)

Destruction of all the Green Lanterns in the 31st Century, revealed in Legion of Three Worlds as what seems to be a recent event. Specifically not caused by Superboy-Prime, who only destroyed some, and in the 21st.


Up in the air
Order of joining of Superboy and Supergirl: There is a longstanding controversy over whether Superboy or Supergirl joined first. The Legion Index gives the main evidence as Adventure #323 where a flashback shows Superboy joining when Brainiac 5 and several other Legionnaires (who joined with or after Supergirl) are present. There are also doctored reprints of Adventure #247 that put Brainiac 5 in the first Legion story. Current stories that may affect this include Adventure #516, which seems to assume that Brainiac 5 hung around building time machines before he was a member, and Supergirl Annual #2 which flat out says that Supergirl joined after Superboy, contradicting Secrets of the Legion #2 which had Supergirl join first.

Ayla / Salu romance -- Was widely assumed by fans to exist in the V3 era, but didn't become official until TMK. Levitz has recently stated that it was a lesbian relationship and he wasn't sure how much of it he intended but the characters have a way of writing themselves. Settled by V6 annual #1. Yes, it's a lesbian relationship.

Laurel Kent -- Laurel Kent was revealed to be a Manhunter back in V3. There's no reason why this story couldn't still have happened, but it was obviously done not only for the Millennium crossover, but to get rid of a Superman-related character, so it's possible that it's no longer in continuity. Superman/Batman #80 features an "Elna Kent" as Superwoman; that was the name Laurel used in her first appearance.

The interview in Comics Buyers' Guide for August 2010 has Levitz state that Legion of Three Worlds isn't necessarily in continuity.

Durlan/Phase in LEGION: The Durlan was Brande in TMK, but is not Brande now, so exactly who he is and what happened to him is a dangling plot that dates from the reboot era. Presumably Phase is still 1/3 of reboot Tinya (since the reboot is an alternate timeline but still happened, including all the crossovers). LEGION/REBELS is presumably out of continuity in the New 52, so this shouldn't be a problem any more.

Adventure #2: Mekt sends Garth to find out if Mekt has a twin. Dangling plot, and if he does it would be a major retcon.

LSHV6#4 membership: Cosmic Boy says there are 26 Legionnaires. The mission monitor board has 26 spaces on it. Assuming that Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Damsel are at the Academy, that leaves Chameleon Girl, Night Girl, Starman/boy, and XS as not being active members. The Legion vote adds Chameleon Girl as an active member again but removes Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad.

Adventure #523: Introduction of a new character named Glorith. The original Glorith is most known for appearing in 5YL and for almost but not quite appearing in the reboot as Lori, but she was a minor villain in the original Adventure Comics. She doesn't look like the original Glorith and any connections remain to be revealed.

Marriage and divorce of Shadow Lass and Mon-El: It has usually been assumed that the Conspiracy never happened, since none of its effects have been seen--Mon-El is still alive and Luornu's second body was still alive, for instance. However, Paul confirmed on Facebook that Mon-El and Shadow Lass are divorced, which implies a marriage--and originally, the marriage happened because Mon-El was dying as a result of Conspiracy (and died an issue later). I have no idea how to reconcile this.

Inferno: since the reboot still happened (with Legionnaires from another timeline) Inferno is still around in the 21st Century, although she hasn't appeared recently.

Sun Girl: a new character who appeared in Teen Titans in 2007 written by Geoff Johns. Wizard gives her name as Deborah Morgna which is an obvious Legion connection. I have yet to be told that her name actually appeared in a comic book.

Adventure #1 page 30 panels:
Panel #1: Shown in Adventure #8.
Panel #2: Shows Nura captured in the 21st century giving warnings. There is a captive female Daxamite in the 21st century and there is some speculation that she was put there because the Nura plot was dropped.
Panel #3: Not Legion related.
Panel #4: Blok has a "complication"; shown in shadow. Could be about Blok returning to his old appearance prior to Lightning Saga, but if so, must be a flashback. #4 also has a change in Blok's appearance but the scene doesn't show up then either; another possibility is that it's for a dropped or upcoming plot where he changes back from that appearance.
Panel #5: XS needs to warn someone. Dangling plot.
Panel #6: Earth-Man with Legion and GL rings. Resolved.

Wildfire in the future: DC One Million showed Wildfire as leading a new Legion team in the far future. DC One Million has direct connections to the modern DC Universe, but the reboot is now considered to be an alternate universe, so DC One Million is probably not the future of the reboot. Moreover, the reboot ended with a dangling plot where Wildfire would run out of energy if he keeps using it. This makes it possible that he is actually the original universe's Wildfire.

Resurrection of Karate Kid in V7: Not only unexplained, but the Karate Kid crossover into the main DCU during V6 couldn't have happened in the New DCU, raising questions such as whether he was brought back in the same way as before but just never died again. Another possibility is that he is an illusion.

Legion Lost #13: Dangling plot about traitors in the Legion.

Legion Lost: This series ended with the members still trapped in the 21st Century.

Death of Sun Boy: the body was only ever seen without the head, and Sun Boy didn't show up in the land of the dead, leaving some doubt.

Disappearance of Quislet--he seems to have fallen through the plot cracks.


DCU connections (New DCU)
It is reported that Superboy still had some Legion connection. Action Comics #5-6 show the Legion meeting Superman as a boy. This is in flashbacks by Saturn Woman from the Adult Legion stimulating Clark's buried memories. The Adult Legion is notoriously out of continuity, but theoretically the memories come from Clark, not from them. Legion: Secret Origin #5 shows the Legion failing to reach Superman (at an age which seems older than the one in Action Comics).

Barry and Iris are not married, which leaves XS up in the air (although Bart Allen still exists).

According to Dan Didio, the new DCU has not had any Crisis. This raises the question of whether Gates and XS were ever from another universe.

There is fan speculation that the purple hooded woman that appeared post-52 in many DC titles is Glorith. According to Jim Lee , the woman is a new character.

Since the JSA didn't exist on the New 52 Earth, Starman's recently retconned-in past is once again in limbo.

Legion #0: Some version of Brainiac has survived to the 31st Century and is responsible for making Tharok what he is.

Legion #23: This issue claims that Superman was killed by Steppenwolf and makes references to alternate realities. This is similar to but not the same as the new Earth-2.

Superboy #26-28: Features a group of Legion lookalikes inspired by Kon-El.


DCU connections (Old DCU)
Elastic Lad (Jimmy Olsen), and Pete Ross as honorary members: Possible but unlikely. In modern continuity, Pete learned Clark's secret as an adult, and Jimmy was Elastic Lad only very briefly in shoutouts to the original Elastic Lad stories.

Superboy was only a superhero in the future, not in Smallville, so all those early stories which were Superboy stories with a page of the Legion at the end probably didn't happen. In some cases a version without costumes could have happened, such as the Mon-El origin. Many of these stories are silly enough that they couldn't have happened, regardless.

Supergirl -- Supergirl #52 and Annual #2 covers most of it. The 2000's Supergirl joined the Legion in Annual #2, between #57-58 (In #52, Brainy speculates she has already joined but this turns out to be false). The Satan Girl story is retconned (Satan Girl is a separate entity, and she's present because Brainiac 5 was careless), but other Silver Age Legion stories with Supergirl get cameos and could still have happened in some form. History does include the death of Supergirl and she did get a post-hypnotic suggestion to forget it. The exact details of her death (and whether she did die or whether this is a post-Crisis anomaly) are unrevealed. Note that:

• Supergirl #22 has her recovering her memories of the Threeboot. #52 seems to ignore this (she finds Brainiac 5 "familiar" but doesn't actually know who he is) but Annual #2 takes it into account.
• DC Universe: Legacies has the pre-Crisis Supergirl dying, not her. Annual #2 shows her statue in the Supergirl Memorial Hall using the current costume, however.
• Lightning Saga mentions that "Kara" has a flight ring, which can only mean her. At this point she hasn't joined the Retroboot yet, so should only have a Threeboot flight ring. Annual #2 has her get a Retroboot flight ring. Unfortunately the Legion was still using flying belts back then, which it seems only Paul Levitz remembers.
• There is no sign that Supergirl was hypnotized to forget her future in the old Legion series. Superboy was hypnotized, but by Supergirl.
• Annual #2 has Supergirl join after Superboy. It is possible the writer didn't realize this was controversial. See above.
• Annual #2 correctly says that it takes place in the 30th Century but incorrectly claims the Threeboot was also 30th Century.
• Annual #2 says that Supergirl and Superboy are not allowed in the same time period, which retcons or ignores the original Legion stories. This didn't last long. Supergirl and Superboy are both in Adventure #520.

Insect Queen -- not likely. The modern Insect Queen first appeared in Superman #671-673 in 2008 and is an alien villain who copied and later took over Lana Lang.

Dev-Em -- There are two recent characters by that name, a cult leader from 52 (who wasn't really Kryptonian) and a villainous Kryptonian in the Phantom Zone in Action Comics #851. Neither one would make sense as the Legion character. In the Chris Kent story, Superman claims that there are no surviving Kryptonians other than Supergirl, which would rule out meeting a more Legion-like Dev-Em when he was a boy.

Tornado Twins/Impulse/XS -- The Tornado Twins left the 'Preboot/Johnsboot' Earth/Universe and lived on the Reboot Earth/Universe. They have since died. Their children are XS and Kid Flash (formerly Impulse), who grew up on that Earth/Universe. Kid Flash journeyed back to the PB/JB Earth/Universe in the 21st Century and XS has now done the same in the 31st Century. XS has rapidly aged like Impulse, which means that having the Tornado Twins be their preboot age is not a problem. All this revealed in Legion of Three Worlds. Note: The characters who returned in Lightning Saga are Wally's children, not the original Tornado Twins, who are Barry's.

Iris West Allen came from the 30th century, and the Tornado Twins were conceived during the Flash's brief 1 month stay in the future with her before Crisis. For the next few years, this will only work if Iris is still assumed to be 30th Century, but the Legion is 31st. Also, Iris's 30th century is inconsistent with the Legion's anyway, but this was a problem even pre-Crisis and was never really resolved.

Reboot and threeboot crossovers: Action Comics #864 establishes that Final Night (reboot) and the Brave and the Bold #1-6 (threeboot) still happened with their respective teams, implying that most crossovers still happened as published with whatever version of the Legion is involved just travelling from their own timeline. Also note that the clone Superboy still has his reboot flight ring (Adventure #10). This explanation doesn't work for every crossover, however--for instance, it seems unlikely that three versions of Mon-El came to Earth, were sent into the Phantom Zone three times, and came out into the correct future each time. And then there was the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern crossover which depended on a person in the future actually being his descendant. Titans/LSH couldn't have happened either, but that doesn't matter since it erased itself from history anyway.

Starboy: The Lightning Saga, Legion of Three Worlds and his JSA appearances have called into question some of Starboy's original tenure with the Legion. There are two major points: (A) did Star Boy rejoin the Legion with Dream Girl as originally presented or was he among the Subs longer? (Lightning Saga says he was kicked out of the Legion after killing Kenz Nuhor, phrased in a way which implies he didn't return.) (B) Did he receive his black-starry costume at the same time (which allows him to travel through the multiverse or something), and if so, does that firmly plant the original meeting of the three Legions between the end of the Action Comics back-up stories and the beginning of the Superboy back-up stories within the PB/JB timeline?

Lois Lane has a flight ring (Action #900).


Plot elements that originated in other continuities:
Dragonmage existed (5YL/reboot)

The name "Garridian" (5YL)--he was just called Validus in V3.

LSH#1: Dr. Aven as Saturn Girl's mentor (reboot). Superboy/LSH #236 had Professor Vndarr instead.

Kent Shakespeare (5YL) briefly appears in Superman/Batman #80 as a future Superman.


Changes to other Legion versions (non-retcon, retcon, or mistake)

The "first" untold Legion of Three Worlds story shows Brainiac 5 and Kid Quantum together in the reboot, which is not consistent with when they joined.

L3W: Kinetix killed by Superboy-Prime, power and memories absorbed by current Mordru, in turn absorbed by the Black Witch.

L3W: Threeboot Sun Boy and Element Lad killed by Superboy-Prime.

L3W: Current Earth Brainiac 5 transforms postboot Live Wire's body into a Garth body.

L3W: Shikari returns to her Legion, fixes dangler from the start of the Threeboot. Misspelled as "Shakari". (Shikari had also been shown on her own Earth in Infinite Crisis #6, which may not be consistent.)

Ir's the COSTUME that lets Starman move about? I missed that one.

Isn't the costume a map or something?

Which doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense... but...

Nope, I like you taking over!

Keep it going and I'll add suggestions/opinions as we go.

And here are some...

(1) I don't think we can make any assumptions about Pete Ross and the Legion. For all we know it's happened and we the readers are as unaware of it as Superman. I feel like this will one day be addressed.

(2) I feel like we've figured this out before, but I think the Legion of 3 Worlds original meeting likely occurred at the end of the Adventure run, and is when Thom got the costume.

(3) Regarding Thom's tenure per the original continuity, we can probably safely say it remains the same. All there ever was were some confusing implications by Geoff and Brad Meltzer that didn't really reveal anything. Probably Meltzer never read the original stories and didn't realize he was making things confusing. But they never actually said anything that didn't fit.

(4) The statue thing can be explained by a number of things and isn't really all that big a deal. Superman's robots were cleaning them or something. Just because the artist didn't have a reference and forgot to include Tyroc and Chemical King, doesn't mean any continuity is changed.

Well, I did say the statues could be mistakes.

Actually, I think that continuity cops, both fans and writers, are often too unwilling to admit that some things are mistakes. It's nice to come up with some unwieldy explanation (or worse, a retcon) that explains a mistake, but those have a cost; they make the series as a whole make less sense, a little bit at a time. It's often better in the long term to just accept that there's a mistake, and pretend it never happened, then to try to explain it away and damage the entire series.

I really hope they don't add a retcon saying that Infectious Lass was a member for a week just to explain away one poorly written line in Dr. 13.

As for Pete Ross, Wikipedia says that in modern continuity he does know Clark's secret, but learned it as an adult.

I think rather, we could chalk it up to Dr. 13 just not understanding her past.

I have a feeling the statues will never be addressed. And like you, I hope they never are too.

The statues are fairly unimportant, as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully they'll forget about Projectra having two hearts and the whole Wildfire/Red Tornado thing, as well...

Infectious Lass herself uttered the line, it's not Dr. 13's mistake, it's a writer mistake.

PS: What two hearts thing? It should go in the list, even if just as a "I hope we forget this retcon" item.

I think she says something about that in the Lightning Saga.

Myg went from younger than the rest of the team and a bronze-skinned asian to a caucasian with some grey hairs. IIRC, the previous version of Myg was captured by Dominators and experimented upon and may have had sonic powers when rescued, as well.

Fanon potential explanation under spoiler;

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> Myg was captured by the Dominators, only the dude rescued wasn't the original, but a clone / copy / something, and the original bronze-skinned youth is still out there somewhere... </span></span>

Yera was once said to have a different range of expression than Chameleon Boy, and that 'not all Durlans are the same,' but now she seems to be able to increase her mass and turn into tentacle-monsters and the like.

Fanon potential explanation under spoiler;

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> Yera was greatly damaged in an energy discharge, and 30% or more of her biomass disintegrated. She would have died if not for a 'transfusion' of mass from Chameleon Boy, and, in a rare reaction to his infusion, she gained powers more similar to his, with either her cells learning from his, or her cells being replaced over many months with his. Could lead to story potential as Yera would now have had a very intimate connection with Cham during this time, which Gim might have even encouraged, since he couldn't save her life, but Cham could.

Alternately, her ability to generate all sorts of mass could come from Gim! It is his power, after all. Wounded, she needs biomass to replenish her lost tissue, and they aren't in a place with a handy supply of organic material, so Gim grows to large size and gives her a blood transfusion himself, several gallons worth, which causes a reaction as her body assimilates the transfusion. Perhaps she becomes a Legionnaire soon after, noting that she's already in danger, as a result of her marriage to one, so she might as well join the team and *earn* the ire of Legion foes!</span></span>

Mordru and Mekt 'un-redeemed' and turned back to cackling bad-guys, after getting over their issues and becoming halfway decent characters.

Fanon potential explanation under spoiler;

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> Johns wanted to use those classic characters and found their character growth to have been stifling his 'creative' license to use older characters, rather than invent new ones.

Or Prime punched the timestream or something, and the bad-guys he wanted on his team turned evil again, since the very notion that bad-guys could be redeemed, or 'turn into weakling good-guys' so terribly offended him. And perhaps scared him a little. Mekt and Mordru looked so happy, post-villainy, and that threatened his fragile assumption that being the bad-guy was the only way to be! </span></span>

Set: It's hard to tell if you're serious. The best explanation for Yera is the shapeshifter equivalent of "doing a lot of superheroing made her stronger". The only one of those which I'd even count as a list item is Mekt and Mordru.

Well, Mekt was never redeemed until TMK. Levitz never did anything with that, so his days as Lightning Lord fit right in with the current continuity.

That all happened off-panel in the 5 year gap, as revealed in TMK.

Supposedly, Thom's costume is a map of the multiverse, created by the three Brainy's during the first Legion of 3 Worlds. When Thom creates a singularity or black hole.. not sure which.. he can travel through the multiverse using the costume as a guide.

"Crap, I'm lost! This part of the multiverse is on my back... let me take my shirt off!"

Death of Superboy
This could have still happened. The Pocket Universe still could have been created by the Time Trapper to mess with the Legion, and the pocket universe Superboy still could have died. Maybe the Legionnaires assumed this was the real Superboy, and started the Conspiracy?

If the pocket universe did not exist, then Superman never would have executed the three kryptonians from the Phantom Zone, Matrix would never have existed to be "Supergirl" and Superman would not have exiled himself and came across the Eradicator and Mongul.

The pocket universe has to exist in continuity. What do you guys think?

It's pretty much established that we didn't have a Conspiracy. For one thing, Mon-El is still alive.

And Superman has had his history rewritten several times since that pocket universe story, so saying "if there was no pocket universe, then Superman..." is pointless.

Really, the pocket universe was an awful patch job that was the best that could be done at the time, but which we're better off without if we don't need it any more.

I'm pretty sure it was said by Geoff or whoever that there was no pocket universe in an interview (which we're using to complete the continuity).

But oh boy, talk about a headache for Superman's history. Good thing Matrix is officially eliminated from continuity already so its already a mess .

Someone mentioned in another thread that Reflecto was missing from the statues. I don't think that counts; it's a different set of statues after all. I know that normally "dead Legionnaires" is a subset of "all Legionnaires", but the special circumstances of Reflecto would mean that just because he's in the dead Legionnaires set doesn't mean he's in every set.

Yeah, I only mentioned him because I remember a memorial statue of him at the end of the Reflecto storyline.
BTW, by listing the statues missing in Lo3W, I didn't mean to imply that I thought those Legionnaires' deaths are no longer in continuity. I was just trying to show that the statues shown were incomplete, therefore not answering the question of whether Magnetic Kid was dead or not.
In other words, I was of no help at all! LOL!!

I added a bit about Iris West Allen a few days ago, and after looking at Luornu's scene in Legion of Three Worlds, fixed that reference.

I'm starting to suspect that Countdown was simply a mistake. Whoever wrote it just didn't realize that 1) Karate Kid shouldn't be alive in the preboot, and 2) Luornu shouldn't be down to one body, since there was no Conspiracy. It's not as if Countdown didn't have plenty of other mistakes (so many that it's not completely in continuity).

As for Luornu's new powers, Mutiny of the Super-Heroines (Adventure #368) has her gaining the ability to split into many duplicates; maybe someone found a way to make that happen again. (Edited post: I originally confused this with the Femnaz story from #326.)

That answer's not good enough for me. Countdown was advertised a being "the spine of the DC Universe" for the time that it was in print. It was a weekly comic that was a big financial investment for those who were loyal to DC and picked it up consistently. That doesn't apply to me. I only picked up occasional issues and felt ripped off just doing that. There should be an attempt to explain the contradictions other than just "mistakes" or saying that is wasn't completely in continuity.

Well, it was Johns and Meltzer who brought Karate Kid back for the Lightning Saga, so I don't think you can blame it solely on Countdown.

And wasn't it Thora that enhanced Lu's powers?

Yeah, I just misremembered it. I corrected it a few minutes later but you people respond at exactly the wrong times.

And personally, I'm happy with saying mistakes are mistakes. See my first reply on page 1. Sometimes it can be interesting to retcon away a mistake, and sometimes it's even necessary, but there's a point where fixing the mistake isn't worth forever making the series' history 1% or 2% harder to understand.