Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3

Book Three

Geoff Johns – Writer
George Pérez – Pencils
Scott Koblish – Inker
Hi-Fi – Colorist
Nick Napolitano – Letters
Adam Schlagman – Assoc. Editor
Eddie Berganza – Editor
Cover: George Pérez & Dave McCaig
Silver Cover: George Pérez & Hi-Fi

Our main cover features Cosmic Boy, with the two other Cosmic Boys appearing in the magnetic force fields coming from his hands. It's the same idea Pérez used with Lightning Lad on the first issue of this miniseries, and once again, the end result just feels off. Perhaps it's McCaig's coloring, perhaps it's Pérez trying something different. Whatever the case, it just doesn't look that great.

Our variant cover is a tease to a subplot we don't care that much about. Essentially, it's two Legionnaires convincing the galaxy's last surviving Green Lantern, Sodam Yat, to end his life of exile and help them battle Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains. I suppose this is a fine cover for the cramped space Pérez had to work with.

We skipped the second issue of this 5-part miniseries, but we really didn't miss too much, as far as this blog is concerned. Basically, all we need to know is Superboy-Prime has freed all the villains of the 30th century and is leading them on an all-out assault on Metropolis. To combat this threat, the Legion of Super-Heroes has recruited two alternate versions of themselves, so we now have three separate Legions to deal with. The "main" Legion of this Earth that is coordinating everything, are all adults, while the other two Legions are still teenagers. Of those two teenage Legions, we only recognize one of them — the Legion that includes Bart's cousin, XS, and had several adventures with Impulse and later Kid Flash before being lost into a void of emptiness at the end of the Teen Titans/Legion Special. I'm going to call them "Our Legion." The "Other Legion" are also teenagers and share a lot of similarities with their counterparts, but we don't have any history with them. And I'll call the main Legion the "Adult Legion," so hopefully this doesn't become too confusing.

Anyway, let's pick up with Superboy-Prime attacking the Daily Planet in a vain effort to destroy everything connected to Superman. Our Superman from the 21st Century, attacks Prime from behind, puts him in a head lock, and covers Prime's eyes with his hand to prevent him from using his heat vision. Superman still wants to try to redeem Prime, so he begins calling him Clark and urges him to remember his supportive adoptive parents from Earth-Prime and his best friend, Laurie. Superman asks Prime to consider what they would say if they saw him acting this way. But all this only makes Prime angrier, and he manages to shoot a blast of heat vision through Superman's hand.

The fighting continues to grow more chaotic in the streets, and it seems like the Adult Legion is about to be defeated, until the Adult Brainiac 5 arrives with the two other Legions, shouting, "Long live the Legion!" Our Brainiac 5 is supportive of his adult counterpart, but the Other Brainy has a cynical view of adults and often chastises his his teenage doppelgänger for sucking up to the Adult Brainiac 5. The combined might of the three Legions is able to turn the tide of the battle for the moment, but the Adult Brainiac 5 explains that the war against Superboy-Prime is as psychological as it is physical. Bringing the three Legions together was just the first stage of his three-stage plan. For the second stage, Adult Brainiac 5 requests all the lightning wielders to follow him back to the clubhouse. For stage three, he has sent three Legionnaires back to Smallville in the 20th Century to collect a single hair from a young Lex Luthor.

The three Brainiac 5s gather at the clubhouse with all the Lightning Lads and Lasses, as well as XS, who says she has the strangest feeling of deja vu. Adult Brainiac 5 says that's to be expected, as XS wasn't born on the recently destroyed Earth-247 like her teammates, but she was born on this Earth, the keystone to the multiverse. He leads Jenni over to the Cosmic Treadmill, which is placed in front of a couple of portraits of Barry Allen and his wife, Iris, as well as two statues of the Tornado Twins, Don and Dawn Allen. Adult Brainy plays a video showing how Barry and Iris retreated to the 30th century to start a family. They had twins, Don and Dawn, who married Meloni Thawne and Jeven Ognats, respectively, giving birth to Bart Allen and Jenni Ognats.

But after Barry went back to the 20th Century and disappeared while fighting the Anti-Monitor, his greatest rival, Eobard Thawne, traveled to the 30th Century to attack the Tornado Twins. So Don and Dawn modified the Cosmic Treadmill and loaded up their families as passengers behind them as they attempted to run away to a parallel world. But Professor Zoom sabotaged the treadmill, causing an explosion that tore open the multiverse, resulting in three Legions from three different worlds being pulled together. Professor Zoom apparently had an army of "speed soldiers" with him at the time, but they were all defeated by the three Legions.

The three Brainiac 5s worked together to send everyone back to their proper world, except for the Tornado Twins and their families, who stayed hidden on Earth-247. However, Don and Dawn were killed shortly after this adventure. But Jenni and Bart remained safe and were reunited with their grandmother Iris. And Adult Brainiac 5 says that Iris watched both Bart and Jenni age to teenagers in days. Jenni is shocked by this information overload, and asks Adult Brainiac 5 why he's the only one who remembers it. Our Brainiac 5 (and Jenni's) hypothesizes that the turmoil of the event erased it from everyone's mind, but the mental capacity of an adult Brainiac 5 would somehow be able to retain this information.

The Other Brainiac 5, however, calls this story "completely illogical," pointing out that his Legion has interacted with Supergirl in the past, implying they can't be from a different world. But Adult Brainiac 5 explains that when people travel through time, they often shift into the multiverse, and actually end up on a parallel world. So even though the Legion we knew and loved during Final Night and all those adventures were interacting with our world, they were really from Earth-247. The Other Brainiac 5 asks Adult Brainy which Earth his Legion is from, and Adult Brainy says it's an Earth that is vital to this war, but he declines to elaborate. He then turns to Jenni, telling her bad things have happened to the Flash family since she last saw her cousin, and now it's time for her to help them. Adult Brainiac 5 shows Jenni his lightning rod and says all she has to do is run.

Meanwhile, the Cosmic Boys manage to take off Superboy-Prime's armor to make him vulnerable to red sunlight again. But the evil Saturn Queen managed to read the Adult Brainiac 5's mind, and she warns Prime that the Legionnaires are working to bring "him" back. Prime panics and begins stuttering, saying, "N-n-no. Not him! I won't let them bring back HIM!!" One of the Sun Boys hits Prime with some red sunlight, but Prime angrily fights through the pain and freezes Sun Boy's head, killing him. Prime tries to head for the Legion Headquarters, but he's stopped by Sodam Yat. However, the rest of the villains notice a surge of lightning emanating from the clubhouse, so they all begin working on breaking through the force field set up by the Brainiac 5s.

Inside the headquarters, Adult Brainiac 5 restores the powers of one of Lightning Lads with the "living lightning" in his lightning rod. This gives him five lightning wielders to surround XS on the treadmill and one Light Lass to control Jenni's weight. As XS runs, the Speed Force begins to break down around her and the laws of physics come into play, meaning the faster she runs, the heavier she gets. So Light Lass has to counteract that to prevent XS from becoming a singularity that will rip open the universe. As XS approaches light speed, Adult Brainiac 5 orders the five lightning wielders to pour lightning into the treadmill and the lightning rod attached to it.

Superboy-Prime breaks free of Sodam Yat's chain and begins to smash his way through the Legion's force field. As he pounds away, a voice from the lightning rod calls out, "Hello?" XS says she can hear the Speed Force reaching out for her, but the voice says, "That's not the Speed Force, Jenni — it's me." There's a big explosion of lightning on the treadmill, and Jenni falls off, exhausted from her run. Superboy-Prime finally breaks through the force field and heads toward our heroes, saying, "He's just a stupid kid! He doesn't matter!" The lightning around the treadmill begins to take a humanoid shape, saying, "Hi, guys! Man, do I feel better."

Adult Brainiac 5 tosses a ring at the lightning, and a human hand catches it, releasing the Kid Flash uniform inside. As Superboy-Prime approaches, he begs himself to not be scared now. But once he turns the corner, he can't help but scream at the sight of Bart Allen saying, "Boo."

BART IS BACK!

Almost two years after being killed as the Flash, Bart Allen has been brought back to life. But he's not that mopey 20-year-old anymore — he's the more light-hearted and fun 16-year-old Kid Flash. (Not as fun as the 14-year-old Impulse, though, but beggars can't be choosers.) It's a very exciting — and confusing — development that we'll get more into next issue. But for the main takeaway of this issue, I found it highly satisfying that Superboy-Prime completely lost his mind at the mere idea of Bart returning. Prime absolutely loathes Superboy and carries an intense hatred for all things Superman. But Prime is only truly afraid of one hero — our beloved Bart Allen. As Kid Flash, Bart handed Prime his first real defeat by carrying him off to the Speed Force. Prime was able to immediately break free of the Phantom Zone, but it took him a bit longer to escape from the Speed Force. This gave him a general fear of all speedsters, but Bart holds a special place in Prime's deepest fears. And I think that's because of the pure courage Bart demonstrated by continuing to run forward even after Jay and Wally fell away. Bart was clearly outmatched, and he wouldn't have been able to accomplish this task without the aid of Barry, Max and Johnny from the other side. But he still persisted in an act of selfless sacrifice — a courage that Prime had long ago forgotten and is now incapable of feeling. Years later, even with a massive army at his back, Prime is still haunted by the memory of Bart.

Now, we unfortunately have some retconning to address in this issue. It does make sense, though, as reality has been massively altered once again after Final Crisis (this miniseries ironically still carries the Final Crisis name, even though that event has already concluded). We are now told about what was surely a thrilling adventure with the Tornado Twins, Professor Zoom and the combined might of the three separate Legions. Although, I'm reasonably certain this event has never been depicted in the comics. If it has, and you know where it is, please let me know, because I would very much like to see it.

Anyway, the main takeaway here is that the Tornado Twins took their families to a parallel world that no longer exists. Unfortunately, this raises more questions for Bart and Jenni. Remember, originally, Bart's grandfather, Thaddeus Thawne, was President of Earthgov and the main antagonist of everything bad that happened to the Allen family. He had the Tornado Twins killed, cloned Bart, and forced his daughter, Meloni, to remain separated from her family. But if Meloni went to a parallel world, did any of that happen? How did Bart's dad die? Is Bart's mom still alive in this new reality?

Adult Brainiac 5 also delivered a very problematic line for me. He claimed that Iris Allen watched both Jenni and Bart age to teenagers in days. Originally, only Bart suffered from accelerated aging, growing to the age of 12 in two years. And it was precisely because of this aging problem that prompted Iris to take him back to the 20th century so Wally could save Bart's life. Jenni, originally, didn't display any super speed powers until she was a teenager, enabling her to grow up normally, and later join the Legion of Super-Heroes when she was ready. But if Jenni also had that accelerated aging problem, then why wasn't she also brought back to the past? How was her problem solved? Of course, the simplest explanation for this is that Brainiac 5 misspoke when he said both of them rapidly grew up (or rather, Geoff Johns made a mistake — it should be noted that George Pérez only drew Bart growing up quickly).

Setting all that aside, though, this was an incredible issue. Johns and Pérez are dealing with so many characters and alternate versions of those characters, yet have somehow managed to keep everything together as one cohesive, thrilling story. It's great for Bart Allen fans like me, but I'd imagine it's even better for long-time Legion fans. The only weakness this miniseries had was its slow release schedule, but looking back at it years later, I'm grateful to have the same art team on each issue. Now let's check out the new ads:

To hadouken or not to hadouken? Street Fighter IV for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Halo Wars for Xbox 360.

got milk? with Chris Brown.

Afro Samurai for Xbox 360.

Resistance: Retribution for PlayStation 3 and PSP.

Wondercon in San Francisco.

Dragon Ball Z Season Eight on DVD.

H.A.W.X.: High Altitude Warfare for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The DC Nation page previews the Battle for the Cowl storyline.

Knowing. What happens when the numbers run out?

Win a trip to the premiere of Star Trek through Esurance.

Next in ... Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #4, will evil win the future? Also, you know, Kid Flash!