Remember when you were a kid, and you thought that growing up would be great because you could buy all the candy that you wanted? And that you absolutely would, without fail, do exactly just that, because how can too much sweetness be bad for you? Then you grow up and you realize that you weren’t so keen on eating all of that candy after all?

Yeah. ‘Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds’ is like that.

That’s not to say that ‘Legion of 3 Worlds’ is bad; far from it, ‘Legion’ is an absolutely fun romp that embraces the franchise’s long and storied history, with all of its characters, reboots, and more.  It is, in a lot of ways, a fanboy’s dream. But it also loses its way somewhere in the middle, racing at full speed even when parts of the vehicle are falling off.

Geoff Johns is one of the biggest names in comics right now, with his classic runs on ‘JSA’ and ‘Green Lantern’ being only a few of his accolades.  Johns has been slowly reinventing the Legion of Super Heroes for the 31st Century over past few years; ‘Legion of 3 Worlds’ is the pay off from the previous storylines (from the ‘Superman’ series, ‘Superman and the Legion of Super Heroes’, and the ‘Justice League of America’/'Justice Society of America’ crossover ‘The Lightning Saga’).  There is no prerequisite in reading those stories before ‘Legion of 3 Worlds’ but I can’t imagine it would hurt.

Paired up with Johns is legendary artist George Perez, who worked on the original ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ series, among other things.  Perez’s artwork is detailed and dynamic; perhaps the weakest portion being the inks, which he did not handle this time around. At times they get in the way, muddying up some of Perez’s graceful lines.

The thing about ‘Legion of 3 Worlds’ is that it contains indulgences that get in the way of the story.  Never mind the fact that, as per the premise, Johns features not one or two, but three different versions of the Legion of Super Heroes, and that he is trying to clean up the last couple of decades of muddled Legion history (while establishing the ‘true’ Legion of Earth-0’s future). He also manages to fit in the Time Trapper (and yet a different explanation for the character), just about every major villain in the 31st century, a subplot involving the Green Lantern Corps, nods to the team’s history, time travel, deaths, some major character upheavals, and not one but TWO major resurrections.

It is impressive that Johns is able to fit it all in, and that the story does not self-destruct as it would have under lesser writers, but at some point your suspension of disbelief begins to be stretched very thin.

Not that Johns doesn’t make it fun. Each resurrection is explained well and works in the context of the plot. The final one is particularly cool, with another nod to an early 90’s Superman epic.  ‘Legion of 3 Worlds’ is a book where fanboys stand up and cheer; and sure, on some level, every comic book fan enjoys those kinds of stories. But to be objective, some elements of the story could have been tweaked or removed (the first character resurrection didn’t seem particularly as important as the second).

The other problem with the story is that it gets convoluted (as the Legion’s history is, I suppose),  and this leads to fanboy arguments, such as, why are the other two Legions from the future of Earths that don’t fit into the current DC ‘52′ Multiverse? One of them was from the future of Earth-247, which was apparently brought back briefly during ‘Infinite Crisis’. But it shouldn’t exist now, so where did that Legion come from?

And don’t get me started about how Earth-Prime makes zero sense, given its metafictional nature. If it’s not one of the numbered Earths and just an additional, off-the-cuff one, then DC is already going down the path that lead them to wiping out the Multiverse in the original ‘Crisis’… namely, too many alternative Earths with little thought or meaning behind them.  ‘52′ was supposed to change that, but DC editorial seems to be letting that slide.

See what I mean?

Oh, and disregard the ‘Final Crisis’ moniker in front of the title; any ties to Morrison’s epic are tenuous, at best.

‘Legion of 3 Worlds’, despite its flaws, is a winner. Perez’s art is almost worth it alone.  Combined with Geoff Johns’ above average script and (Finally! Hopefully!) the stabilizing of the Legion franchise, ‘Legion of 3 Worlds’ is a great kickoff to the future of the Legion.