Analysis Notes
| Cover |
The Legionnaires on the cover are Cosmic Boy, Ultra Boy, Saturn Girl, and Brainiac 5. |
| General |
Only pages 8-22 are dealt with here. |
| 8:1 |
Left to right, these are Sgt. Shvaughn Erin, Inferno, Spark, Ultra Boy, Gates, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Brainiac 5. |
| Although she is not yet visible on a regular basis to anyone except Ultra Boy and Saturn Girl, Apparition is presumably present but inactive throughout this story. |
| While Ferro hooks up with the Legion shortly after The Final Night, this story must occur before that happens. |
| Despite the fact that the dialogue indicates that the intruders are in the same building as Lex Luthor’s private apartments, Superman’s thoughts on page 12 indicate that the building is the same as the one housing the LexCorp space hangar. Even with large civic donations and such, there is no way Metropolis would have allowed LexCorp to put a space hangar in downtown Metropolis; the space hangar is presumably outside the city limits. |
| 8:2 |
The silhouetted characters are (left to right) Inferno, Cosmic Boy, Ultra Boy, Saturn Girl, Gates, and Brainiac 5. |
| 8:3 |
Inferno’s head looks oddly disconnected from her body here; perhaps it was redrawn later? As well, she is drawn without pupils throughout this story; that is presumably an error propagated from her model sheet. |
| Gates is drawn quite a bit fatter than usual. Maybe he should lay off those fatty 20th century grubs. |
| 9:3 |
Brainiac 5’s force shield is apparently on, despite the lack of the traditional blue aura indicating such. |
| 10:2 |
The implication here is that Gates teleported the guards to the surface, that the space hangar is below the streets of Metropolis. This is false; Gates did teleport the guards to a city street, just not directly up. |
| 10:3 |
Saturn Girl is using her Science Police martial arts training, although she might be using it in concert with her mental powers, causing the guard to react as though he had been struck harder than he actually was. |
| 10:4 |
Inferno presumably melted the gun and then sucked the heart back out of it, or else she would have seriously injured the guard. |
| Inferno is being a little more chummy than she was depicted in the Legion of Super-Heroes issues of the time. She would not normally use the “Cos” nickname. |
| 10:5 |
Coloring error: Inferno is between Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5, but her hair is colored like Spark’s. |
| 11:2 |
Brainiac 5 and Spark built something of a friendship during the time they were stuck in the 20th century. This would be the start of that. |
| 12:4 |
Luthor should be doing more than feeling that Superman is lying. Luthor should be aware that the alleged solar flare activity has not been occurring. |
| 13:1 |
Observe that Saturn Girl is refraining from scanning for Superman’s real intentions. Her Titanian training is still in place at this point. |
| 13:2 |
Brainy can be a team player, at times. |
| 13:3 |
Luthor won’t call the bluff because he sees this as a means to get Superman (and the Legionnaires) in his debt. |
| The two Legionnaires at the top of the panel are Cosmic Boy and Brainiac 5. The costumes match who is speaking, but the hair colors are wrong. Ultra Boy is under the wing, and down at the bottom are Spark, Superman, Saturn Girl, Shvaughn Erin, and Gates. |
| This is presumably the same hangar area where Babbage was stored prior to Valor’s departure from Earth. |
| 15:2 |
The dialog from Brainiac 5 is actually pointing to Cosmic Boy. We can see Rokk’s power effect, and Brainiac 5 is next to Superman, as seen in 15:3. |
| The characters are (left to right) Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Superman, Brainiac 5, Gates, Ultra Boy (below the ring), Spark (in the ring), Inferno, and Shvaughn Erin. |
| 15:4 |
Here and later, the Legionnaires should be drawn with a slight aura around them to indicate the presence of the transuit. |
| Ultra Boy is being awfully positive, here. “Have a seat and hope Brainy’s magic touch...” would be more typical. |
| 16:1 |
Superman’s suit is presumably not just a standard spacesuit, but is designed to help transmit the solar energies throughout his entire body. |
| 17:1 |
Bad Legion Science™ at its finest. |
| 17:2 |
That’s Cosmic Boy in the back. |
| 19:4 |
This becomes a favorite stunt of Ultra Boy’s: use super speed to get himself moving toward a target, and then shift to invulnerability at the last moment, using the flight ring to retain maneuverability. |
| 20:1 |
Cosmic Boy is using his powers to try to contain the explosion. |
| 20:2, 21:2 |
It isn't clear that the procedure was a failure. It is possible that the procedure would have worked - eventually - or that it jump started a process which would bear fruit eventually. This attempt turns out to be the first of several different ones, culminating in transforming Superman into an electrical entity for several months. |
| 21:5 |
Despite seeming to be heading toward the LexCorp building, the space plane will end up returning to the space hangar outside Metropolis. |
| 22:2 |
Superheroes are typically drawn to be between seven and eight heads tall. Superman is only six heads tall here, make him seem diminished and thus less the hero. |
| Ultra Boy is standing in the background, next to Saturn Girl. |
