Broken Frontier

For over a year now we’ve been following the Mystery of the Legion both in this feature and its predecessor Out for the Count. This week, with the release of Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #1, those long-awaited answers finally start coming. What is the truth behind the 31st Century and the trio of Legions? Does New Earth have three separate Legion-centric futures? Or are the Post-Zero Hour and Threeboot versions of the team on separate Earths altogether? What does this mean for Superman’s continuity? Or for the legacy of the Allen family? And just who is the Time Trapper really?

Over the next few months we’ll see if Geoff Johns can pull off the most continuity-intensive storyline of the year to everyone’s satisfaction. It's a tall order but we're in safe hands. In the meantime just sit back and enjoy that gorgeous Perez art...

Spoiler Warning: Read no further if you’ve not had your DC fix this week and don’t want to read about key story elements.

Across the Universe
(A rundown of the week’s releases)

Cassandra meets Marque, the "sister" she never knew, in Batgirl #2 as the hunt for Cain and Deathstroke continues.

Dust off your 1990s DC crossover books. It’s the possible return of a long-forgotten alien menace in Batman and the Outsiders #10.

There's a boardroom battle with the Joker when the Crown Prince of Crime comes to Platinum Flats and joins the Silicon Syndicate in Birds of Prey #121.

Superman and Catwoman face a kiln’s worth of Clayfaces in The Brave and the Bold #16.

DC Special: Cyborg #4 continues that unlikely 90s theme for the week. Meet the all-new Wildebeest as Mr. Orr’s manipulation of Vic Stone’s life continues.

Superboy-Prime is back and the 31st Century will never be the same in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #1.

How will the West family deal with the tragic events of last month? Check out The Flash #243 for the answers.

It’s the JLA versus Amazo with the final fate of Red Tornado hanging in the balance in Justice League of America #24.

In Rann-Thanagar Holy War #4 Adam Strange makes a fatal error with dramatic consequences for Prince Gavyn.

Who is the new Red Robin? The mystery deepens in the pages of Robin #177.

Superman/Batman #51 is your chance to meet the Li’l Leaguers as the cutest JLA teams up with the World’s Finest.

Batman meets Batman on Earth-9. Tangent: Superman’s Reign #6 has the story.

It’s a busy cross-dimensional week for the JLA as they also take on the Crime Syndicate of Amerika on Earth-II in Trinity #12.

And finally you can also (kind of) follow the JLA to Earth-50 in DC/WildStorm: DreamWar #5. Plus follow the post-World’s End WildStorm Universe in StormWatch: PHD #13.

The Bigger Picture
(All the developments, hints, clues and teasers for the overarching storylines)

The Mystery of the Legion – The Time Trapper, frustrated at his continual failure to wipe out the Legion, transports Superboy-Prime to their time. Prime, horrified at the reverence the 31st Century shows to Superman, is determined to destroy everything the Man of Steel ever inspired, including the Legion. The Trapper continues to foment anti-alien feeling on Earth in order to turn public opinion against the Legion. He manipulates industrialist, and rival businessman, Leland McCauley into assassinating Legion founder R.J. Brande, revealing that Brande was a Durlan all along and further whipping up the paranoia.

Meanwhile, on the prison planet Takron-Galtos, Prime frees the Legion of Super-Villains. Sensing the threat of the former Superboy, the Legion recruit New Earth’s Superman. The Man of Steel proposes the aid of the other two Legions in the war ahead and argues that the only way to defeat Superboy-Prime is to redeem him.

We get the first concrete signs this month that the classic Legion are the Legion of New Earth as Superman describes the alternate Legion’s Earths as "parallel worlds" not "alternate timelines". This is further underlined when the Legion briefly visit the Phantom Zone to rescue Mon-El in this issue. The General Zod and Ursa they encounter there are the same ones we most recently saw in Action Comics Annual #11, though there’s no sign of Christopher Kent in what little we do see of the Zone. If this is the case it would imply that the future Bart "Impulse" Allen came from is one of the alternate Earths of the 52 which opens up lots of very interesting questions...

To further confuse matters the 31st Century's Superman Museum has exhibits depicting the pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths Superwoman as well as the first out-of-continuity Nightwing/Flamebird team (Superman and Jimmy Olsen in the bottled city of Kandor), the original Earth-2 Superman, the Tangent Superman of Earth-9, the Superman of Earth-22 and the DC One Million Superman. (Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #1)

Brother Eye-Spy – Outsiders associate member Dr. Salah Miandad attempts to discover the truth behind the Jardine Corporation/Brother Eye conspiracy take an unexpected turn when a lab accident results in his mind being trapped in REMAC, the upgraded OMAC the Outsiders appropriated some months back. (Batman and the Outsiders #10)

Back in a Flash – Wally’s daughter Iris’s death is shown to be an illusion that Gorilla Grodd cast. After the Wests defeat the simian mastermind Wally forces the Speed Force to cure his rapidly ageing children. Will there be consequences to this action for the third generation Scarlet Speedster? (The Flash #243)

The Tenth Age of Magic – Vixen convinces Animal Man that the changes in their powers are due to the manipulations of a mystical entity. (Justice League of America #24)

Magical imp Mr. Mxyzptlk plagues the lives of Superman and Batman when he brings back the "Li’l Leaguers" Superman recently saw when under the influence of Silver Kryptonite. Waiting in the wings, though, are a whole host of diminutive super-villain counterparts. (Superman/Batman #51)

Mystery in Space – The Eternal Light Corporation have succeeded in plucking Synnar, villain of the 1998 Hardcore Station series, from the timeline just prior to his death. They have a use for him in furthering the cause of their god the Nameless, who we also know as the Demiurge from events in the recent Hawkman Special #1. Seeking to stop the temporal emissions that are destroying Rann, Adam Strange makes a disastrous decision. He recruits Bizarro, from where he is residing on Starman’s Throneworld, in order to stop the ELC’s chronal experiments. However, this leaves Throneworld defenceless and easily conquered by Lady Styx’s fleet. (Rann-Thanagar Holy War #4)

The Trinity – Nightwing hires the Riddler to discover who is behind the Tarot-related museum thefts. From the available evidence the Riddler can only conclude the impossible – he is behind the crimes himself! The name Enigma (as in Eddie Nigma perhaps?), an aggressive demand that the Troika leave Earth-II alone and knowledge of the Gotham underworld all seem to imply that Trinity major player Enigma is the Anti-Matter Universe’s Riddler. (Trinity #12)

Batman R.I.P. – In the Dark Knight’s absence Jason Todd attempts to consolidate control of the Gotham street gangs which brings him into conflict with Robin. Only the intervention of the new Red Robin saves Tim from a potentially nastier fate at the hands of the former Boy Wonder gone bad. Elsewhere Spoiler appears to set up the ultimate betrayal of Tim Drake... (Robin #177)

Rounding up... Batgirl teams with Marque, another "daughter" of David Cain determined on ending his threat once and for all. They are duped by an old associate of Slade Wilson into a confrontation with Cain’s current partner Deathstroke the Terminator. The mercenary easily takes them down. (Batgirl #2)

Kirk Langstrom drops in on Outsiders HQ. Could we be looking at future membership of the team for his alter-ego Man-Bat? (Batman and the Outsiders #10)

Mr. Orr has been working for Project M, using the tech that turned Vic Stone into Cyborg to create the ultimate super-soldier. He has already implemented it to upgrade the cyborg Equus, designed to take down Superman, and a new version of old Titans foe/ally the Wildebeest. He also unveils Cyborg 2.0... (DC Special: Cyborg #4)

Earthwatch

Earth-II – The Crime Syndicate of Amerika offer to return the kidnapped citizens of New Earth if the JLA leave. The team refuse to go without freeing the other Multiversal abductees. (Trinity #12)

Earth-9 – The Earth-Tangent Halo recounts the recent history of Earth-9 to Batman. After a great war with the Ultra-Humanite the Tangent-Superman was the hero who led the way in rebuilding the shattered planet leading to his eventual "benevolent" dictatorship of this Earth. Although initially refusing to help the Tangent heroes in their quest to overthrow Superman, New Earth’s Batman finds himself rescued and brought to the HQ of this world’s Outsiders. (Tangent: Superman’s Reign #6)

Earth-50 – Jackson King leads a new incarnation of the StormWatch team as the mission to protect the surviving pockets of humanity on Earth-50 begins. (StormWatch: PHD #13)

Continuity Corner
(The whys and wherefores of some of this week's characters and events)

The Brave and the Bold #16: Super-Villain Team-Up

This month’s hero/villain teaming of Superman and Catwoman may seem a little offbeat but back in the classic days of the original The Brave and the Bold run such partnerships were a semi-regular staple of the series.

Very early in the Batman team-up strand the Darknight Detective met Eclipso in The Brave and the Bold #64 (Feb-March 1966) but his first pairing with one of his established villains came in The Brave and the Bold #111 (Feb-March 1974) billed as "The strangest team-up in history" when he shared an adventure with his greatest enemy the Joker.

Unsuprisingly, the Joker would become the most frequent guest-villain in the book’s pages over the coming years. He got cover billing with Batman and Wildcat in The Brave and the Bold #118 (April 1975), was one of "4 Famous Co-Stars" when he and Two-Face took on Batman, the Atom and Green Arrow in #s 129-130 (Sep-Oct 1976), popped up in solely villain-mode to cause misery for Batman and Black Canary in #141 and made his final partnership with the Dark Knight when he was framed for the Penguin’s murder in B&B #191 (Oct 1982).

But the Clown Prince of Crime was not the only Gotham Rogue to fight side by side with the Caped Crusader in B&B’s pages. The Brave and the Bold #159 (Feb 1980) has a much-overlooked appearance of Ra’s Al Ghul in one of the most intriguing team-ups in the title’s run and #183 (Feb 1982) predicts Batman’s current uneasy alliance with Eddie Nigma as he works with the Riddler to solve a case. But perhaps the most fondly-remembered of all these tales is the story of the love between the Earth-2 Batman and his future wife Catwoman in #197 (April 1983) which also featured that world’s version of the Scarecrow.

Batman and the Outsiders #10: New Blood – The Next Generation

The "vampiric" Xenomorph giving activating the metagene in Gotham’s youth with its bite would appear to be one of the aliens from the 1993 DC crossover series Bloodlines. These creatures ran rampant across the DCU in that summer’s Annuals after arriving on Earth to feed on the population by sucking out their spinal fluid. While most humans they attacked died, a few survived the ordeal with newfound superpowers becoming known as the New Blood heroes.

The idea of this crossover was to introduce a new super-hero in each Annual but very few of the debuting characters proved to be all that memorable. The obvious exception was Tommy Monaghan whose long-running series Hitman is some of Garth Ennis’s most enjoyable work. Gunfire and Anima were two other short-lived ongoings that span out of the event with the latter being a somewhat under-rated gem that’s worth hunting the bargain bins for. There were also a few scattered miniseries featuring characters like Loose Cannon, Argus and the New Blood team Blood Pack, led by established DC hero Jade.

The original Bloodlines parasites were defeated in the Bloodbath Specials (hey it was the 90s –everything had "Blood", "Death" or "Dark" in the title) that tied up the crossover. It was revealed in last year’s JLA/Hitman miniseries, though, that some years later another wave of the aliens attacked Earth. Whatever relationship this straggler has with his predecessors is, as yet, unknown.

The New Blood characters still make very occasional appearances in the DCU. Generally, though, it’s simply to be used as cannon fodder. A number of them were brutally killed off in a panel in Infinite Crisis and earlier this year Anima was one of the new Titans team greviously injured in Titans East Special #1.

Trading Places

There are five collections of Hitman  available and, let’s face it, Tommy Monaghan was far and away the best thing to come out of Bloodlines! And there are currently two volumes of Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold: Batman Team-Ups. While they have a way to go before they get to the villain team-ups both are well worth picking up.

Fanboy Moment of the Week

Separated at birth? Kiddie-fied versions of established characters are nothing new in the world of comics but could the Li’l League in Superman/Batman #51 be the post-Crisis/Zero Hour/Infinite Crisis version of the long-forgotten Super Jrs.? Enquiring minds need to know...

That's it for another week. Until then feel free to post corrections, criticisms and commentary on the Broken Frontier ATDCU message board thread here. See you in seven days and thanks for reading!