Analysis Notes
| General |
While the cover refers to this as “Sovereign Seven Plus Legion of Super-Heroes,” it should be “Sovereign Seven Plus Saturn Girl,” as she is the only Legionnaire with a real part in the story. |
| Sovereign Seven was the first ongoing creator-owned series to be in-continuity for the DC Universe. (A couple other limited series and single appearances with that status had occurred previously.) As a result, any mention of the connections between Sovereign Seven and Saturn Girl probably require the permission of Claremont and Turner, and thus are unlikely to ever be seen again. Further, in the final issue of Sovereign Seven, the entire series was retconned out of existence (it was revealed to be a story read by the owners of the Crossroads inn). That effectively means that this story never took place. The important points of the issue, however - Saturn Girl coming to awareness of the limitations that her training imposes on her - may still be considered to have occurred in some fashion, whether via interaction with a different telepath than Network or via her own inner processing. |
| There is a change of inker (Vines to Baumgartner, probably) with Chapter Two, on page 17, and a change of penciller (and presumably inker; to Robinson and Martin) with the scene set inside Saturn Girl’s consciousness, on page 31. Page 38 reverts to the first penciller/inker pair (Aucoin and Vines). (This identification hinges on the inkers being listed in order of “appearance” rather than on knowledge of styles; the pencilling styles are easier to identify.) |
| This story occurs between Sovereign Seven #20 and #21, and between Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #< > and Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #< >. |
| 1 |
The faceless hologram of Network is the only hard evidence of Network’s existence that Imra has; she’ll have more after Team 20 returns to the 30th century, as seen in Sovereign Seven Annual #2. The holo of Impulse and Reflex is from Sovereign Seven #10. The newspaper photo is from when Molly Savoy wore Network’s outfit in Sovereign Seven #17-18. |
| Note that Saturn Girl’s flight ring is on its side, yet the “L” is still vertical. At various points in the Legion’s past continuity, the face of the ring has known to be turnable, and it has been theorized that the face might swivel according to gravity as well; this would seem to support that. |
| The object which the word balloon is emanating from is an Omnicom, although of a design not seen before. This is Saturn Girl’s personal diary/journal Omnicom. |
| The map is of the region of southern Massachusetts which borders on Rhode Island. The Sovereign Seven are based in Crossroads, at the state line intersection of Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York, while the Legionnaires trapped in the 20th century were based near Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. It is possible that Saturn Girl influenced the choice of the Legionnaires’ headquarters in an effort to be in the area where Network was said to be based, given the limited information Imra had. |
| As indicated in 24:5, the newspaper is the Daily Planet. That marks the bald man in the upper picture as Lex Luthor. |
| 2/3:2 |
The lack of faces on the spectators is odd. The penciller probably didn’t draw them, and the inker didn’t “fix” things. |
| According to the Sovereign Seven Index Page (no longer available on the web), Casey Rassendyll is “A young girl with a major crush on Rampart. Casey hung around Crossroads and got involved when Dystopia attacked Crossroads. While trying to protect Lucy, Casey, Lucy and Daisy got lost in the worlds of the Sovereigns when they went through one of the doors of Crossroads.” |
| Daisy Miller was “[i]ntroduced as Pansy and Violet’s cousin, Daisy became the best friend of Casey Rassendyll. Daisy can fight very well and she seems to know a lot about the Sovereigns[,] especially Finale.” She is believed by many to be Finale. |
| Since the field hockey game involves middle school students, Casey and Daisy are in 6th to 8th grades, ages 11 to 14. |
| 4:1 |
Network is a telepath. |
| Cascade is the leader of Sovereign Seven; she was in Manhattan at the time of this story. She can phase between dimensions. |
| 4:3 |
Cruiser is a telekinetic. |
| The guy behind Cruiser is Conal Savoy, a waiter at the inn called Crossroads, and the son of the town sheriff, Molly Savoy. |
| 4:5 |
Reflex has super-speed. |
| No reference to “Ygvald”. Reflex is a Viking, so this is presumably a hero from Norse mythology. |
| 5:1 |
Rampart projects psychic shields. |
| 5:3 |
Indigo’s powers include tracking and camouflage. It is not known whether Indigo is male or female (or both/neither). |
| It was all the rage for a while to use a title-specific icons (like the “S7” here) to indicate footnotes, rather than the traditional “*”. Sometimes traditional really is better. |
| 5:4 |
“Insurance goal”: Berkshire Prep was already ahead, so this goal wasn’t needed for the win. |
| 6:1 |
Daisy must have a split lip; she surely isn’t bleeding internally. |
| 6:3 |
Despite Daisy’s claim, 4:6 doesn’t indicate a hit from behind. |
| 7:1 |
The sign should say “Shoppe”, not “Shopee”. |
| 7:2 |
It is not evident from Imra’s internal dialogue whether Network studied on Titan or was otherwise connected to it, or if she is just an historical example of “telepath gone bad.” The latter is likely to be the case, given the lack of concrete information about Network. |
| Imra’s info must come from the 30th century version of the Flash Museum. |
| 8:1-2 |
Observe that the writer of this story, Chris Claremont, more or less wrote the book on telepaths in comics during his stint on The Uncanny X-Men and related titles. |
| 8:1 |
The bottom word balloon is from a nursery rhyme: “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig / Home again, home again, jiggedy jig...” |
| 8:2 |
“Stella!” is the trademark cry of Marlon Brando’s character in A Streetcar Named Desire. Since Saturn Girl would not be picking up television or other recorded content, someone in Crossroads must be practicing or performing the stage version of the play. |
| “Step step step kick” is a standard bit of jazz dance choreography. |
| 8:3-4 |
The running boy is Toby Merlin, who may be an incarnation of King Arthur. |
| 8:5 |
No, this is Sheriff Molly Savoy. |
| 9:1 |
Cruiser is holding himself and Network aloft telekinetically. |
| 9:3 |
Shogun is the criminal cartel that rules the world of Meridian, seen in Sovereign Seven #15-18. |
| 10:3 |
The sheriff probably sees Imra holding the Omnicom as though it were a makeup compact; that would be consistent with the mental image Imra is projecting. |
| The Legion’s “codes of conduct” have not been revealed in any detail. This proscription is not part of the Legion Constitution. |
| 10:4 |
And now the Legion “charter”. Anything but the Constitution. |
| 10:6 |
Very odd, showing Saturn Girl’s reflection in the mirror rather than Molly’s. Perhaps there is an art error here? |
| 11 |
One set of Molly’s great-great-grandparents was Japanese, hence the armor, sword, and setting. |
| 12:1 |
This is Dr. Aven, Imra’s mentor at the Institute. |
| 12:2 |
This is the planet Saturn (albeit colored strange). Its moon, Titan, is hidden behind the captions. |
| 12:3 |
This is the Institute, where Imra and other Alpha Class telepaths are trained. |
| 12:4 |
The sword is presumably Excalibur, and it was stolen from Toby Merlin. The speaker is the Terrorist, from Sovereign Seven #7; if Toby is an Arthur incarnation, the Terrorist is presumably Mordred. |
| 12:5 |
This is the young Imra with her parents, <Trebor> and <Sidne> Ardeen. |
| 12:6 |
When a Titanian child is detected as having a level of ability high enough to warrant an Alpha Class rating, s/he is removed from the family and taken to the Institute for training. An expanded view of this scene was seen in < >; Imra’s younger sister Jancel is theoretically present, too. |
| 12:7 |
Imra undoubtedly initially thought of her cell (as in monastic) at the Institute as a prison. |
| 12:8 |
“A sound mind in a sound body,” and all that - rigorous physical training is part of the regimen at the Institute. There may be other training occurring here, too, such as using the senses of others instead of the telepath’s own. |
| Dr. Aven is on the floating platform. The man in black is presumably either an advanced trainer (a supervisor) or a beginning one. |
| The rods being held by the training staff are probably either a type of “boffer” meant to hit Imra and push her off the beam, or else they produce some kind of an effect such as a gravity field (to act like a “boffer”, but with either push or pull qualities) or an electric shock. |
| 13:1 |
Imra is shaking the hand of President Chu (as noted by the white suit sleeve). This scene occurs prior to the formal presentation of the Legion in Legionnaires #0. |
| 13:2 |
This scene must occur during < >, although Imra’s expression and the caption raises the issue of whether this was not supposed to be Shrinking Violet instead. |
| 13:3 |
This scene is from <Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #85>. The characters seen in the timestream are Saturn Girl, Brainiac 5, Inferno (upside down), Spark, Shvaughn Erin (in the circle), Gates, and Cosmic Boy. |
| 13:7-8 |
The face is that of Mitch, who owns the Avalon bookstore. The dream turns out to be prophetic, although that is not a power typically associated with Saturn Girl; the special qualities of Crossroads may be influencing her. |
| 14:2 |
In the 30th century, all this sort of stuff is automated. Brainy has probably set things up in the 20th century headquarters to provide most such functions, as well. |
| 14:3 |
Network is probably damping Imra’s mindcalls. |
| 16:1 |
There is a strong design influence in the Legion’s technology from Star Trek (and has been for decades). |
| 16:6 |
Convenient answer, and Saturn Girl is probably right about the uniforms not shrinking, but she isn’t in any mental state to question Taryn’s claim. Taryn is, in fact, probably using her powers to scrambles Imra’s. |
| 17:2 |
Rampart is to the right, levitating the tray. The fully masked character is Finale; she is a warrior from a tropical water world, and may also be Daisy Miller. The woman with her hair in a bun is Violet Jones, one of the owners; Pansy Smith is < >. |
| 17:3 |
Mitch’s hair color is significantly off from her appearance in Imra’s dream. |
| The dog is a wolf named Jack, possibly a were-human, given that Mitch has a seldom-seen boyfriend by the same name. |
| Croyd was Toby Merlin’s bodyguard, who left Crossroads with Cascade. From the dialogue, it appears that Toby controlled Croyd when he worked as Toby’s bodyguard, but cannot do so any more. |
| 17:5 |
Note the reference to Toby as just “Merlyn” (and note the spelling, too). |
| 18:1 |
Imra’s comment seems strange to anyone who remembers her always clad in a pink bathing suit. |
| 18:2 |
Mitch’s hair is the right color now, and was closer to correct in 17:4. Coloring error, or an actual change over time? Given that Toby’s hair is the right color on this page and the wrong color on page 17, probably the former. |
| 18:3 |
Conal Savoy and Cruiser are in the background of this panel, miscolored. |
| 18:4 |
Imra’s comment would seem to indicate that different Titanians might have different psychic skills and specialties: telepathy, precognition, empathy, illusion-casting, mental possession, mental daggers, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, psychic invisibility, and psychic shields are all psychic skills seen in comics from time to time. |
| It isn’t clear why Toby moved from a booth on page 17 to a chair (without a table) here. |
| 18:7 |
Does Imra mean the cerebral Brainiac 5, or Cosmic Boy, noted in the preboot as a scholar of 20th century artifacts? |
| 19:1 |
Pansy (Smith) and Violet (Jones) are the owners of Crossroads. They are based on Emma Bull and the Fabulous Lorraine, aka The Flash Girls. |
| 19:2 |
This is Casey Rassendyll again. |
| 19:4 |
The facial scars on the man in the next booth mark him as the Molecule Man (from Marvel Comics). |
| Casey’s best friend is Daisy Miller, and Daisy is theorized to be Finale. |
| 19:5 |
“Aquaworlds” being shorthand for “water worlds,” rather than being a specific place. |
| 19:6 |
Imra apparently did not see (or did not recognize) Finale, who was in the same room when she came down the stairs. |
| 20:1-2 |
Seeing the characters preparing food in their superhero outfits seems just... wrong. |
| 20:5 |
Finale’s comments are enlightened by recalling her water world origins. |
| 20:6 |
Oracle is the computer information system covertly operated by Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl. That Molly was able to get information on the Legionnaires as time travellers out of Oracle marks her as having further special talents. |
| 20:7 |
Indigo is quite adept with kir “camouflage” powers. |
| 21:1 |
Network apparently fed the info to Indigo telepathically. |
| 21:7 |
It isn’t clear just what “help” Imra needs, from this story; the largest cause of Imra’s mental troubles is probably the sudden trip through time that brought the Legionnaires to the 20th century. In the larger picture, this story precedes and predicts Saturn Girl’s encounter with Dr. Psycho, which succeeded in breaking down the barriers which Network is trying to strengthen |
| 22:4 |
This is a flashback to Imra’s training on Titan, shortly preceding Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #0. |
| 23:4 |
Sometimes? Conal has known her for perhaps an hour at best. |
| 24:2 |
Conal should talk about freezing; he’s the one not wearing a shirt or pants. |
| 24:8 |
Is Conal naturally sensitive to mental powers, or has his experience with Network merely trained him? |
| 25:7 |
EarthGov has nothing to do with it. Earth and Titan are separate political entities. The Untied Planets may require such registration, though, at the behest of EarthGov and other governments. |
| Imra wears the symbol as a badge of pride, though, rather than of shame. She attempts to “take back the power” of the symbol, turning into something positive rather than negative. (Compare to the “pink triangle,” originally a symbol of gay tragedy, transformed into one of liberation.) See also her comments in 26:7. |
| 26:2 |
In the 30th century, many large animal species are extinct (such as horses), and at least some cultures (such as Winath) are heavily negative about the idea of using animals as food sources (see Legionnaires #<24>). Given advances in food replication and hydroponics, probably most sentients are primarily vegetarian. (Further, having perhaps never consumed animal by-products, Imra may turn out to be unable to digest the food.) |
| 26:6 |
Now there’s an interesting thought: a telepath being able to preserve and transmit the memory of the taste of real ice cream, enabling 30th century chefs to replicate it better. |
| 26:7 |
Imra was raised by the government, trained to be a police officer. Adherence to the needs of the establishment is all but bred into her, and the “evils” of Network’s alleged viewpoint have been beat into her to the degree that she can hardly conceive of questioning such. (Compare both to extreme religious sects, who train their children along specific paths such that they never question the base fundamentals, and to lowest common denominator history, which transforms people into one-note caricatures with agendas rather than personalities, be they “evil” like Hitler or “good” like Lincoln.) |
| 27:1 |
Many old theaters like this one have been transformed into other businesses. Many have become churches; one on University Avenue in Palo Alto has gone just the way of Avalon, and is now a Borders Books. |
| The figure here is Rampart (based on 27:2), but is drawn as Indigo; Indigo is flying with Cruiser. |
| 27:3 |
The figure on top of the building is Finale, since Rampart is on the building across the street. |
| 27:6 |
“The threat”? There appears to be a portion of the story missing here. Is there indication of this threat other than Imra’s dream? When did she even meet the Sovereigns as a group? |
| Taryn’s comments really come into focus here in light of the later developments with Imra and Team 20. |
| 28:2 |
Imra should be wowed as much by the old books themselves as by any individual ones. Books printed on paper are probably almost nonexistent in the 30th century. |
| 28:3 |
Isn’t a “manuscript copy” something of an oxymoron? |
| 28:4 |
Mitch has no idea the value of what she has given Imra, a person from 1000 years in the future. Let’s hope it made it back to the 30th century with her. |
| 28:5 |
“Jack” being the pet wolf. |
| 28:6 |
Datacards and vucrsytals are presumably memory chips for Omnicoms and holoprojectors; some are seen in Legionnaires #75. |
| 28:7 |
It isn’t clear what Imra means by “You can’t see it.” Is it just that Network doesn’t have the mental background to appreciate such an item, or can she really not see what Imra is referring to? |
| 29:1 |
Is “yuntz” Yiddish, a variant of “yutz” or “putz”? |
| 29:5 |
Surely Imra should have training for dealing with such sort of traps. Either the technology is so different from anything she has been trained to deal with, or else her guard is way down due to her recent time Crossroads. |
| 30:1 |
Observe that Imra apparently did not get Mitch’s psychic self. |
| 31 |
Note that Network apparently managed to change her psychic self’s outfit between being pulled in and arriving in Imra’s mind. This is a clue that it is really Indigo posing as Network. |
| 31:1 |
The ruined building is Legion Headquarters. The fragmented Emerald Eye (seen also in 31:3) is the remnants of the Emerald Eye satellite from <Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #85>. |
| 31:3 |
Network is lying about Indigo, because Network is Indigo. Since Network entered the mindscape of her own free will, she is able to control things and “hide”. |
| 31:6 |
Huh? This seems to indicate that the mere mention of Network is all it took to “reveal” the truth to Imra. |
| 32:1 |
Observe the in-process change from Saturn Girl to Emerald Empress garb. |
| 32:3 |
While Sarya was the Emerald Empress in the preboot, this is the first “Empress” reference to an Eye-wielder in the postboot. The Empress from the postboot Fatal Five is an assassin, instead. |
| 32:7 |
Characters in silhouette are Cruiser and Indigo (disguised as Network). |
| 32:9 |
The second balloon should point to Reflex, not Emerald Star Boy |
| “Each manipulates mass?” Whatever. |
| 33:1 |
Note the tail on Emerald Kinetix. <Did she still have it then? If so, is her skin miscolored here?> |
| 33:4 |
Silhouetted figures are Cruiser and Reflex, now motionless because they have been defeated by Emerald Saturn Girl |
| 33:6 |
Another misdirected word balloon. |
| 34:1 |
This is supposed to be a flashback to < >. Did Dr. Regulus actually have growth abilities like this indicates? |
| 34:2 |
This is Network appearing as Saturn Girl. “Do no more harm” echoes back to Reflex’s comment in 27:7. |
| 34:3 |
After Leviathan died, it was revealed that Violet had a crush on Leviathan. It isn’t entirely clear how much that crush was engineered or expanded by the Eye and how much was authentic. |
| 34:5 |
Hmm. Most of the Eye’s “heart’s desire” wishes were undone when Team 20 got sent back to the past (with the exceptions of Leviathan’s wish to die a hero and Dirk Morgna’s to lose his powers). Perhaps Saturn Girl’s also did not get undone, and this led to her later control issues; it is even then possible that the trip to the 20th century, rather than a side-effect of the explosion, was part of the fulfillment of Imra’s (or another of the group’s) heart’s desire. |
| 34:6 |
Curious that no comment is made about the name similarity between (Shrinking) Violet and Network’s friend Violet, co-owner of the Crossroads inn. |
| 35:1 |
Remember that this is Saturn Girl’s subconscious speaking, not Shrinking Violet/Emerald Veye. Saturn Girl blames herself for the failure (although she also is making assumptions about that failure, not knowing how the events seen after Team 20 got trapped in the past were playing out). |
| 36:1 |
The pile of rubble is the remnants of the Emerald Eye satellite. It has degraded further as Saturn Girl’s mental state crumbles. |
| 36:2 |
The patch of flowers is presumably growing on the remnants of the Emerald Eye satellite. Despite the angle, Imra is not standing amidst the flowers. |
| 36:4-5 |
Is there such a thing as controlled anarchy? Network is recommending that rules be broken only sometimes, not all the time, and in controlled, planned ways, rather than simply removing all rules completely, as “anarchy” so often gets used to mean. |
| 37:5 |
That Dr. Aven and Network used the same phrasing would seem to indicate a direct connection between Network and Titan at some point. |
| 37:6-7 |
Alas, there were no further meetings between the two in the 20th century, so any such teaching was limited to what occurred during the few days Imra spent in Crossroads. |
| 38:1 |
As observed in 2/3:2, the players in this field hockey game should be no older than 14, but Imra should be about age 17 at this point in the reboot, giving her a potentially unfair advantage. Perhaps this indicates that “Crossroads Middle School” isn’t a “middle” school (aka a junior high), but that it is the name of the school, parallel to what something like “Upper Columbia School” might be. |
| Again, the artists have left faces off the background characters, and one of the girls even has no hair as a result. Weird. |
| Special Thanks |
The level of detail in this analysis would have been impossible without the existence of the Sovereign Seven Index Page and the assistance of Joel Kramer. |
