Trade Waiting - Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds

I've been told that one thing every comics fan needs to own in their personal collection is a complete event. Obviously, doing so would almost certainly be costly and probably saddle anyone with a decent amount of bad comics. Of course, there are exceptions. For me, those would be either World War Hulk or Final Crisis. I enjoyed both of the main series for the two events but Final Crisis not only had fewer tie-ins they also had better creative teams, at least on paper. Another reason why I was interested in getting all of Final Crisis was because it was one of the few comics that I managed to keep my enthusiasm for when I switched from buy singles to buying only trades. So, today I am going to take a look at Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds. Hit the jump for my review.

FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF 3 WORLDS

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by George Perez

Collects Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #1-5

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds is probably most famous, or infamous, for both it's delays and ending. To me though, those are relatively unimportant issues. My problems with the series go far deeper. I guess I'll start with the title since that where my biggest complaint originates from. No, it is not the fact that this mini has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH FINAL CRISIS but, rather, the fact the series was really only about restoring the Silver Age Legion of Superheroes, not working the three different Legions into one cohesive whole. Well, actually, it does but that's not the point of the series.

A problem I've always had with Geoff Johns's is writing is that his stories often exist to "fix" a problem as much as they exist as stories and, to me, this is has gotten worse as time has gone on. Especially from Infinite Crisis onward. This annoys me for one of two reasons, sometimes both, because I either don't think what Johns is "fixing" is a problem or I think his "fix" is just downright horrible, either in it's execution or conception, whether or not I agree there was a problem in the first place. Johns does this is one of two ways.

The first is that he creates a cohesive version of a character that works all of said character's history into one unified whole. His work on Toyman and Brainiac are perfect examples of this. The other is that he picks and chooses whatever he personally likes, works that into that into something and then discards the rest., his work on Superman: Secret Origin being a good example of this. Ironically, he does both of these things with the various Legions.

Johns's actually does work the Legions' tangled history and continuity into something that actually allows all three versions to co-exist at the same time and allow all of them to have interacting with the larger DCU without the need for any Legion to be the only Legion that existed at that time. The problem is that by the end of the mini Johns basically went "F@#% that!" and all but killed off the other two Legions. Well, actually, the the two non-Silver Age Legions existed basically to be cannon fodder, which one of the Brainiac's actually says in the story, which is the height of stupidity, for obvious reasons. Anyway, Johns takes two, and just two, members of the Lost Legion and then sends to rest of the non-Adult Legion members back off to obscurity again which goes a long way in making this mini a total and utter waste.

Before I get to the rest of my problems with the collection, I guess I'll touch on the Legions real quick since they are supposed to main characters in this disaster of a story. They are the Adult, Silver Age Legion lead by asshole Brainiac 5, the Lost Legion lead by sycophant Brainiac 5 and the "Suck It Grandpa!" Legion lead by dumb ass Brainiac 5. I am not a fan of them. At all. None of them clicked with me and, never really being a fan of the Legion to begin with, Legion of 3 Worlds does nothing but re-enforce that for a variety of reasons. It ranges from the small stuff like them using names like "Dawny" or Brainy" to their actually code names, which I just find completely dull, to the fact that I think that they, as a group(s), have the personality of a piece of cardboard. Well, actually, I did end up being a little interested in the Lost Legion but, obviously, that doesn't matter since Johns deemed them "unworthy" and put them back into limbo, both literally and figuratively. I think they made up most of the canon fodder as well.

Pretty much all of the problems with Legion of 3 Worlds are related to the story, or lack thereof. It starts off well enough with Superboy Prime's arrival in the future and him forming the Legion of Super Villains while the Silver Age Legion's world crumbles around them so they call Superman for help while Brainiac 5 also decides to get the assistance of two other Legions. The "plan," as it were, is for Superman to try and redeem Prime. This is actually a pretty good basis for what could be an interesting story and could have worked as something of a traditional Crisis to Grant Morrison's Final Crisis but it's merely an afterthought by the time issue #2 ends and is completely forgotten by the end of issue #3, where Johns decides to use the series to "fix" stuff instead of telling an actual story.

In fact, most of the plot, and I'm using the term loosely here, is just used to set up a variety of action scenes while Johns goes around fixing things, the biggest of which don't really have anything to do with the story - the return of Superboy and Bart Allen. Now, granted, Bart Allen's return was set up in JLA/JSA: The Lightning Saga, which is a problem I'll touch on later, but neither Bart Allen or Superboy play a significant role in the story, to my mind, yet their return is treated as a big deal even though it's almost a non sequitur to the rest of the story. Well, Superboy does contribute to the story in the most asinine way possible and it makes no sense if you even think about it for a second.

Another problem with the story is that, as it goes on, it becomes less and less of Legion story and more and more of a Prime story, and a stupid one at that. Well, Prime does have his moments but, as a whole, his story gets worse the longer it goes on because he isn't a metaphor that can be carried on indefinitely. Johns also seems to have gotten lazy in that regards as well, just taking the simplest, and worst, path. This is perfectly high lighted by the several endings to Prime's story. The first, where he punches his future self and vanishes off the page, is the best while him showing up on Earth-Prime and realizing his greatest desire is now a nightmare is also good and the Trollboy-Prime ending is just horrible. Well, horrible as an ending for a comic anyway. I found it amusing and actually like it but it's definitely something that DC should have put up on their website and called "The Real End of Superboy-Prime?" or something.

The one part I actually did enjoy was the stuff with Sodam Yat but even that leads me to another problem the story - there are too many unrelated plot lines that Johns brings into the story. Legion of 3 Worlds picks up on plot lines from Infinite Crisis, post-Infinite Crisis Flash, JLA/JSA: The Lightning Saga, Justice Society of America, Sinestro Corps War, Action Comics, and I wouldn't be surprised that there a few more that I'm unaware of. Of course, you could point out that they were all written by Johns but not everyone who reads one Johns comics is going to read them all. The Sodam Yat stuff would definitely interest Green Lantern fans but it's more of a throw away scene in Legion of 3 Worlds than anything else since it has almost nothing to do with the plot. That goes with a lot of the other plot lines Johns brings in. They either tease a story the reader may or may not be aware of, or even interested in, or just wrap something up for the sake of wrapping it up. All of this just distracts from the main story and adds very little in return.

I know George Perez has a lot of devoted fans but I've never really been a fan of his work, what little I've read, which is pretty much just Crisis on Infinite Earths and JLA/Avengers. Of the three works I've read I only liked the art in Crisis. His later art is a little to cartoony for my tastes and I don't really think it meshes well with his style. That said, the man can cram a lot of characters onto a page or into a panel and his art does a good job of telling the story.

Verdict - Avoid It. Despite the fact that Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds started with some potential, it quickly turned into a mess filled with some of the most off putting trends that have been showing up in superhero comics lately.

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