Perez y Johns en Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds

by Vaneta Rogers

After our interview with George Perez about this August's five-issue mini-series Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, we talked with the artist about the teaser image he drew for the series that appeared in this week's Action Comics #863.

We wanted to know the names of the characters we couldn't quite identify in the image, and Perez loved verifying who's who, even pulling out his reference comics to double-check the spelling of Ol-Vir's name as we talked.

As a result, we decided to share an accurate list of characters with Newsarama readers. So for fans who have been guessing whose boots those are flying off the page or who that is in Shadow Lass' trail of darkness, we've included everyone's names in the image to the right.

And as we talked to Perez to confirm the names, we asked him about the image's design and how long it took him to pull it together. So as an extra bit of commentary on the image, here's what the artist had to say:

Newsarama: OK, but George, besides all these Legion characters, right there on the top of the page are these characters that hint at something bigger to this story. There's XS, and Time Trapper...

George Perez: And there's Lex Luthor!

NRAMA: And Lex Luthor!

GP: Yeah, that bald guy shows up in there. Geoff described, "Lex Luthor in a lab coat." That's all I know about what Lex Luthor's going to be doing. So obviously, although this is set in the future, we still have elements of a character that’s firmly based in the 21st century. But I guess that's what the Time Trapper is all about.

NRAMA: This image certainly implies Time Trapper is one of the main villains in this story.

GP: Well, he is the first person I drew in issue #1. So that gives you an indication. Him and a lot of cockroaches. The first reference I had to use on Legion of 3 Worlds was cockroaches, to make them look authentic. Without explaining a damn bit of what that means, it gives you an idea that this is going to be one strange story.

NRAMA: I think the most exciting thing for a lot of Legion fans will be the appearance of XS. She's a fan-favorite character we haven't seen in years.

GP: Yeah. I played her down. She's the only member of the Abnett/Lanning era Legion that appears on that teaser, so it does look a little odd to see her there. So obviously that will cause people to be very, very curious about her.

NRAMA: How much time did it take you to draw this?

GP: The teaser image took me a good part of three days or so. I spent almost a day on each grouping of the characters. Then I spent about two or three days on the big splash with all the characters going at each other. Choreographing all those characters is always tough. Yeah, I can draw them all in there, but I have to make them do something. Again, when I do big battle scenes, the big key is that they all have to be moving according to who they are and what they can do.



NRAMA: Like how Mano is fighting Phantom Girl, and his hand is going through her. The two of them fighting is ideal.

GP: Exactly! The one thing he can't do is detonate something that isn't there. And the fact that Colossal Boy is the only one big enough to go up against Validus.

NRAMA: Yeah. You have to really figure out what works, don't you?

GP: Right. And of course Mordru is also of a large size, but I'm using Shadow Lass against Mordru, because then he has to fight the darkness. I mean, little things like that have to be figured out.

NRAMA: And you have to figure out which characters are in the foreground or background.

GP: Yeah. And things like Hunter shooting at Blok, only because it gives me something that can go across the page as a design element. Something to put a character in the foreground and background. Of course someone had to be in the extreme foreground so I could use Shrinking Violet as a character who can be seen other than a speck. She's being held by Universo right in the extreme foreground on the bottom left.

NRAMA: Yeah, and even though his back is to us, you can tell it's him because of that monocle.

GP: Yeah. That character has a monocle. One of the toughest things was that Universo has gone through changes in costume, as many of the villains had, so I was asked by Geoff, when drawing those characters, to try to go for the 1980's interpretation of the characters, with exception to the Fatal Five because I had already done a modification on them for the Brave and the Bold. So they look like their '80s version with a slight tweak. And that's what he's trying to go for -- a real classic feel to the characters.

NRAMA: There's just so much detail. It's really fun to look at.

GP: I had a great time on it. And I'm having a great time on this whole series, really. I've been wanting to do the Legion for so long, and now I get to do it, so I can't complain. And I can already tell it's going to be a lot of fun. This teaser image just proves it.

en FC # 2 hay una explosion en el Daily Planet y en FC # 3 Superman no aparece por ningun lado porque esta como Clark Kent al lado de su esposa herida, en el hospital