This was kind of confusing with it's million superheroes and time travel and multiverse hopping. Also fighting Superboy Prime again wasn't all that exciting, but it does get pretty dark. Full disclosure though, I've never read any Legion of Superheroes comics, so that probably added to the detachment and confusion.

Doesn't seem like this spin-off is really necessary to the Final Crisis story line, but I guess I'll find out as I read more of the Final Crisis event. ( )

The Time Trapper retrieves the rogue Superboy and sends him into the future to defeat the Legion once and for all. Superboy then proceeds to free all the Legion's foes and unite them, much as Superman inspired the original Legion. The Legion responds by summoning their other incarnations. As a fan of Abnett & Lanning's version, I was glad to see them back, but they are all pretty interchangeable in the end. Perez's art is decent but he is no longer one of my favorites. He is known for drawing scenes with large amounts of characters in them but they can be visually confusing because he details absolutely everything. The degree to which you enjoy this book will probably depend on how much you can tolerate Superboy's whiny, childish antics and the constant bickering of the Legionnaires. The most interesting aspect of the whole event is the (possible) explanation of what the Time Trapper really is. ( )

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This story's connections to the main Final Crisis are tenuous at best: basically it serves to explain how Superman ends up in the 31st century, which he returns from after a month-long absence near the end of Final Crisis. What he was up to in the meantime was helping the Legion of Super-Heroes battle Superboy of Earth-Prime, in what must be the only good Superboy-Prime story: Superboy is portrayed as a cynical, obnoxious fanboy that hates the very optimism that the Legion represents. Geoff Johns likes to tell stories that don't show why someone is awesome, but constantly tell you they are, and Legion of 3 Worlds definitely does that for the Legion, but in this case, he makes it work, and it's fun to see the "reboot" and "threeboot" versions of the Legion united with this "deboot" version of the original, even if the focus is squarely on the original Legion. (Of the other two versions of the Legion, really only their versions of Brainiac 5 get any focus.)

A couple complaints, though: Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes mentioned a case called "Legion of the 3 Worlds," which turns out to not be this one, but an unseen past one that sounds incredibly complicated, but for some reason this adventure we've never seen has continuity ramifications for the one we're reading. Huh? The other is that two different issues end with the restoration to life of... Teen Titans! Characters from a completely different series who have nothing to do with this one. It's a little weird (though getting back the clone Superboy of Earth-Zero is a nice touch, given it was Superboy-Prime who killed him in Infinite Crisis.)

But overall, this is a fun, crowd-pleasing book. The complicated planning of Brainiac 5 is always a delight, and getting three Brainiacs makes it even better. I wanted more Saturn Girl, though! It doesn't have the character depth of Legion heights like The Great Darkness Saga or Legion Lost, but it does have the undefeatable storytelling skills of George Pérez, the master of the page with over a dozen panels as well as the two-page spread. Pérez knows how the punctuate the big moments, and when to let them breathe-- and of course a book about three different Legions is perfect for his infamous ability to cram in a bajillion characters.

DC Comics Crises: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

http://geekylibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/review-final-crisis-legion-of-3-w... ( )