I’d have deducted half a Flight Ring in rating this for some of the less well focused Mike Grell art … but then put it back for the shimmering lines of the Jim Sherman art in the Legionnaire biographies. (Sherman, for once, had an inker who matched his talent.)

I can’t believe you didn’t mention the all-time inside joker, though. Paul Levitz and Mike Grell showed up for Garth and Imra’s wedding! They were drawn, smiling, into the foreground corners of the two-page spread.

[...] we can also assume that SOMETHING equivalent to the wedding happened in the CORRECT (subjectively) timeline.

If you trust the Luck Lords, it did. Their recollections (about Lightning Lad) resulted in our seeing a depiction of the same wedding in the “correct” timeline, without the bristling armaments around the ramparts of Legion HQ, in “LSH” v3 n45. (Though in only half of a normal-size page.)

Besides, it was the ’70s! Things were different then!

Ahhh, yup. Nobody who missed living through them can grasp the difference. *gathers his courage* Leisure suits. *shudder* ;)

Well, yes and no. If we assume that only the Legionnaires know of the alteration of reality (which does beg the question of how Wildfire and company remember what happened, since they were within the timeline when it changed, but I’ll deal with that anomaly in the next question.) we can also assume that SOMETHING equivalent to the wedding happened in the CORRECT (subjectively) timeline. Besides, it was the 70s! Things were different then!

2. How could a Legion even form with the exact same members if every planet is at war with each other?

Same way that Picard and his core crew were exactly the same save for Tasha not being dead in the alternate universe in “Yesterday’s Enterprise…” Suspension of disbelief. Given an infinite number of universes typed by an infinite number of monkeys… Alternate explanation: The Legion’s time-traveling ways and interactions with Time Trapper, Infinite Man, et al, have imbued their bodies with a temporal energy to where the universe (and parts of their memories) changed, but the Legionnaires themselves remained mostly untouched. Alternate alternate explantion:it was the 70s! Things were different then!

3. How the dissolution of a useless organization like the UN would cause 1000 years of war?

Thirty years ago, the U.N. was relatively new and still hadn’t been overridden, countervened, and slapped around by various presidents and foreign potentates as much as it has today. I think there was a belief at the time that it was actually a necessary and useful organization, and that it helped to defuse some of the tensions of the cold war. Besides that, comic books have a history of presumption as to the powers of the United Nations, note the sheer number of hero teams who have U.N. approval (The JLA, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, The JSA, even the short-lived U.N. Force) and seem to think that it means something. Alternate explanation: Blah blah blah 70’s blah blah different blah blah blah fishcakes.

I read it now as an adult, and the problems with this issue become apparent:
1. If Garth and Saturn Girl’s marriage happened in an alternative timeline, wouldn’t it be null and void once the proper timeline was restored?
2. How could a Legion even form with the exact same members if every planet is at war with each other?
3. How the dissolution of a useless organization like the UN would cause 1000 years of war?

Unless the seven Legionnaires ALL came from different timelines?

This only serves to make me hope more that one of the new 52 Earth’s is home to the original Legion timeline.

I’m just sorry that my scanner wasn’t large enough to input the whole double-page spread of Karate Kid wiping out his LeBaron on a lamppost. Truly an awesome sight to behold…

Still, some of those costume designs are mind-bogglingly terrible, such as the aforementioned Jim Brown as Peter Pan and can you answer this…was Cosmic Boy going skins or was that just a really faded shade of pink? It looks like a bustier if the former is true.

Finally, I flipped through an old GL Corps issue the other day, and I noticed Mon-El and Sonar are sometimes just some chest decoration away from being dang near twins!