Analysis Notes
| General |
Due to the costume used by Wildfire in this issue,
this story is deemed to occur prior to The Legion #34. |
| Cover |
This storyline features a different, “hot”
artist on the cover of each issue. |
| 1:1 |
Captions throughout are from Trudy Trusoe and count as
dialogue for her. They are actually her handwritten report on the event,
done after the fact. |
| Trudy only being 21 is at first a bit surprising, but
this just puts her as a peer (or perhaps a year or two older) of the
Legionnaires. |
| “Spike” is the attack done by Canary, amped
up on the presence of Nura. It produces a self-feeding EMP (electromagnetic
pulse). |
| 1:2 |
The implication here is that artificial organs are commonplace
in the 31st century. Likely, though, is that Pinter has a form of obsessive-compulsive
disorder, perhaps with a touch of paranoia: he is fearful both of organ
failure and artificial implants, so he goes way overboard. |
| The way Pinter’s face is a patchwork of different
skin tones here indicates that he does more than replace his own organs. He looks like an amalgam of his victims; perhaps he has the power to
replace portions of his body with those of other people. |
| 1:3 |
“The rift” would be a single entry point
for Oasis One, a hole in their defensive screens. |
| Pinter must be quite dangerous if the preferred method
of transport for him is a single Legionnaire, as opposed to a shuttle
with a crew of Science Police officers. |
| The lack of mention of the main prison world of the galaxy,
Takron-Galtos, is telling: after the stargate network collapsed, Takron-Galtos
fell into disuse. Transporting criminals there via the Footstep Drive
would have been wasteful. It will perhaps be reinstituted after the events
of this story. |
| 2 |
Oasis One presumably moves to various locations over and
around Metropolis: within range of the Presidential destruct signal,
but never blocking anyone’s sky view for long. |
| 3:2 |
Of course she does. Before being a Legionnaire, Tinya
served as an aide to her mother, who was then an ambassador to the United
Planets from Bgztl. |
| 3:4 |
“Inferno hot” is probably no reference to
WorkForce member Inferno, still lost somewhere in the 21st century. On
the other hand, Trudy is wearing colors along the same lines. |
| That is presumably the cloaked Oasis One high above the
city. |
| 4:1 |
Winema is using a levitating mirror. Better, though, would
be a holographic one, something which would let you see yourself from
all angles, including the back. |
| “In plain sight”: Later in the story, Winema
gets shot as part of an assassination attempt, and the indications in
future issues are that she dies, but such occurs off-panel and is not
verbalized. One theory was that this line was foreshadowing, indicating
that the Durlan aide might replace Winema at some point, either before
or after the assassination attempt, perhaps based on information about
the impending attack (or even that the assassination was set up by Winema
herself). Who better to have as a stand in than a Durlan, and who
better to help enable such a switch than a Bgztler? And it would
not be the first time a Durlan has imitated Winema, either (Chameleon
did so in the sting on President Chu). |
| 4:4 |
Brainy is aware of the need for public recognition
and the like. He is probably being kept from a specific experiment he
is involved in. The theory about foreknowledge of the assassination
attempt
included that this dialogue was also foreshadowing. |
| 5:1 |
Interlac: “me----oli” and “opology”. The same text as is above in English (Metropolis Museum of Anthropology),
partially blocked by the Legion holo monument. |
| “Telepathic napalm”: perhaps a “mental
defoliant,” something that strips the “leaves” from
the brain. |
| There are nine figures visible on the platform, here,
and nine sere seen in 4:1, so despite only being able to clearly identify
Brainiac 5, all nine are counted as appearing. (Most likely, the three
to the far right are Tinya, Winema, and Taan.) |
| 5:2 |
Why the concern about the openness of the venue? This
again seemed to be foreshadowing something more than just the assassination
attempt, perhaps that the Legionnaires were there in case of a problem? |
| 5:3 |
This reporter is Vigo Toosalembli, but he should be
colored blue. |
| 6:4 |
Arrow is singing Verdi’s “Va, pensiero” (“Chorus
of the Hebrew Slaves”) from the opera Nabucco. It became a song
of Italian liberal nationalism, focused on unification with Lombardy,
then controlled by Austria. These particular lines translate as “Or
else be inspired by the Lord / To fortify us to endure our suffering.” Here,
it apparently refers to an attempt to throw down the United Planets and
return Earth to a “better” state. |
| 6:5-6 |
Winema is wearing a “frameless glasses,” presumably
held on by gravimetric or magnetic means. In 17:2, she is seen to be
still wearing them but with a bar across the bridge of the nose. The
implication thus is that technology is used to hide the bridge, and when
Canary’s cry shuts down technology in Metropolis, the bridge of
the glasses simply becomes visible again. |
| 7:2 |
Seen here at the base of the hologram are Violet (miscolored
as Winema), Chameleon, Apparition, Umbra, Ultra Boy, and Timber Wolf. |
| The bar through Kid Quantum’s foot indicates the
changing nature of the holographic display. The pale yellow is just a
bit too pale for easy clarity. |
| 7:3 |
Violet would know from big. |
| 8:1 |
The Legion logos on the wall are for Ferro Lad, Chameleon,
Wildfire (a radiation symbol), Timber Wolf, XS, Kid Quantum, Live Wire,
Ultra Boy, and Saturn Girl. |
| 8:3 |
Here we also see logos for Phantom Girl (the dotted nature
doesn’t come through well here), Violet (a flower), Invisible Kid,
and Star Boy. |
| 8:5 |
“Jump up here and chew some scenery with me! There’s
enough for two of us, easy!” Devil is apparently a loony. This
makes her motivations that much harder to fathom. |
| 9:1 |
“Indoc Center”: Indoctrination Center. Probably just the prisoner intake office. |
| The woman is named Lialla, as revealed next issue. |
| 9:2-3 |
If Pinter does his organ replacement via metahuman powers,
he may indeed bite, literally eating the parts he is adding to himself. |
| 9:5 |
No, the Persuader from the Martian uvula band, The N’illyons. How many Persuaders do you know? (Actually, Val’s surprise is probably
that the Persuader was here on Earth, and that the Legionnaires didn’t
know it. The Fatal Five were captured on Tenazor-4 and presumably locked
up on Takron-Galtos again, although Tharok is known to have escaped,
undoubtedly via the machinations of C.O.M.P.U.T.O.) |
| 10:1 |
Oasis Cell ADV-352: The Persuader first appeared in Adventure
Comics #352. |
| 10:5 |
It’s probably not the ugly rash on Lialla’s
face which makes him want to puke, although what that is caused by remains
unknown. It is possible that her presence really does make him want to
puke, due to some posthypnotic suggestion or the like. |
| We don’t yet know the Persuader’s true origin – he
may or may not be Cole Parker from the 21st century – and it’s
likely that he doesn’t (or doesn’t want to) remember whatever
situation led to Lialla’s birth (assuming she’s telling the
truth about his daughter, of course). |
| 11:1 |
No, “cutesick” is this kind of portmanteau
language. |
| 11:2 |
“Holy Mole-y” is a reference to the star-shaped
mole on Dreamer’s cheek. And to 21st century hero Captain Marvel,
of course. |
| 12:4 |
How would Devil know this, since Dreamer is the first
precog on Naltor in several generations (per Legionnaires #<47>)? Perhaps Canary’s power is hereditary and her ancestors interacted
with Nura’s (and perhaps led to the recessive nature of the precog
abilities). |
| Canary’s powers must be able to reverse the temporal
nature of Dreamer’s precognition, making time equal to space, and
thus pushing Canary’s power effect “seconds” away from
its source. |
| 12:5 |
Arrow is using martial arts skills to rupture the
Science Police officer’s armor, but he probably isn’t actually
driving his hand into the guy’s chest. |
| 13:2 |
Arrow is leaping back to the same platform he left from,
where the rifle is still at. |
| 13:4 |
This is the last time Taan is seen. Perhaps he is actually
a holographic projection and gets shut off when Canary’s power
turns off all the tech in that part of the city? |
| 14:1 |
Ooh, hot lesbian action! |
| 14:1 |
This is Ultra Boy’s flight ring, since he and
Umbra are the only Legionnaires involved who are not seen on this page,
and the hand certainly isn’t hers. (And his may be being actively
used at the moment.) |
| 14:9 |
Winema probably should have automatically phased, rather
than be hit by the holocam. Then again, her powers and attention isn’t
as honed as Tinya’s are. |
| 15:2 |
The symbols behind Gear are Dreamer (should be off), XS,
Karate Kid, two unknowns, Star Boy, Chameleon, M’Onel (should be
on), Ferro, Umbra, Ultra Boy, two unknowns, Timber Wolf, Live Wire, Invisible
Kid, Violet, Saturn Girl, Wildfire, two unknowns, Kinetix (note the crescent
moon), Brainiac 5, and Kid Quantum. |
| 15:5 |
Again, Winema should have automatically phased, like Tinya
did, but she was dazed by the holocam. Of course, the theory mentioned
above had it that she did not phase because she was actually Taan posing
at Winema. |
| 16:4 |
It’s not clear what Lantern’s comment about
Violet not fighting back means. |
| 16:5 |
Well, Umbra, start by wrapping everything in shadow… |
| 17:1 |
The Blight invaded earth in Legion of Super-Heroes v4
#121. |
| The character with white skin in the crowd is no one special,
despite the coloring
(or lack of same) making him stick out boldly. |
| 19:3 |
This is a reference to the preboot madness which affected
Brainiac 5. |
| Brainiac 5 returned from the Fires of Creation with those
implants, which he
referred to as an “upgrade”, although we never learned just what
that meant. Umbra also returned with a power boost (the ability to make her shadows
solid) and Kinetix returned nearly catatonic (but that may have also been a symptom
of changes invoked by the Fires). What changes were caused in Andromeda, M’Onel,
and Gates have never been revealed. |
| 20:3 |
That is Violet’s symbol being crossed out. |
| 20:5 |
More likely, the threshold equipment can’t verify
that a threshold has been successfully created, and without that, the
navigators dare not try
to go through. |
| Wildfire is wearing his old outfit here, not the new one
introduced in The Legion #34. Since that one presumedly
replaced a destroyed one, this indicates that this story occurs after
this storyline, after
The Legion #38 (and presumedly prior to Teen Titans #15, although
that remains to be verified). |
22:5 |
“Spike plus ten minutes”: it has taken this long for
the dead zone to expand to the height of Oasis One. |
