The Legion of Three Worlds

Like most Legion fans, I've been looking forward to "The Legion of Three Worlds" all year. Overall, I thought it was a good set up issue, but not much more than that.

First of all, I hate Superman Prime. I get what he's about--I understand why his character is written the way it is--but he's still annoying as hell. So the fact that almost half of LoTW was devoted to him was disappointing. However, the best part of his storyline was when he meets up with the Legion of Super Villains. It reminded me of the old Silver Age story starring Dynamo Boy--a superpowered miscreant that infiltrates the Legion only to become a pawn of the LSV--who ultimately strand him at the end of time. (Secret origin of the Time Trapper anyone? That's my first crackpot theory of the morning.)

Now, I like the direction that Johns is going with Superman trying to convince the Legion that they need to redeem Superman Prime rather than simply defeat him. At this point, I can't really imagine what that entails. Hopefully, it will involve them using their futuristic computers in a high tech game of spin the bottle:

(note that it is Invisible Kid who is asking Star Boy to participate)

The other problem I had with LoTW was that the legionnaires it focused on were pretty much the same ones from the recent Action Comics story. I am jonesing for some post-Zero Hour Legion here, and that one splash page of them at the end just wasn't enough for me. Yes, yes, I understand that this was merely a set up issue, but it would have been cool if they had woven them into the story a little bit more.

As far as the newest Legion, the Waid/Shooter group, I could care less. I've been following it on and off, but I haven't really gotten into it. So I can't say that I really care much about their involvement in LoTW. However, I am excited to see the interactions between the different versions of the characters--most notably between the Brainiacs. The one thing I do like about the Waid/Shooter Legion is that their version of Brainiac seems most similar to Vril Dox II of L.E.G.I.O.N--especially in the early run when Barry Kitson was the artist. I think this character who is manipulative and scheming above all else will be an interesting contrast to the pre-Crisis and post Zero Hour versions of Brainiac. Also, I imagine the interaction between the wildly different versions of Shrinking Violet will be entertaining too.

Things I liked: The scene with Polar Boy and Sun Boy was great:
Especially because I found it to be reminiscent of a scene from the Five Years Later Legion after Sun Boy has let the Legion fall apart under his leadership.

I don't know if this was an intentional shout out to the Five Years Later Legion, but I still thought it was pretty cool.