LSH v4 #4 annotations: "Five Years Later" (part 4)

Annotations for Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #4

• On sale date: Dec 12, 1989
• It's OK, I'm a Senator: Issue 4 Recollections (March 28, 2009). This is Tom Bierbaum discussing all of the stuff going on behind the scenes that culminated in this issue.
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 554 (May 27, 2019)
• Timeline: this takes place on November 28, 2994, the day after Mon-El's resurrection on Shanghalla

• This issue was originally going to be very different, but the Superman office decided that there was to be no Kryptonians and no reference to Krypton, so Mon-El had to have a backstory transplant. What happens with the Time Trapper this issue (and next) was the Bierbaums and Giffen's way of changing the backstory while keeping as much as possible. See this week's IOKIAS for the details.
• Page 1: Tasmia Mallor has been the Talok VIII Planetary Protector, but she's been replaced by her cousin Grev, aka Shadow Kid (last seen in LSH v3 #47)
• Page 4: it’s the Time Trapper! Last seen in LSH v3 #50, he's the purple speech balloon
• Page 5: Brainy is still working on the Winathococcus Validus cure (as we saw him in issue 1)
• Page 7: Here's the story of Eltro Gand. In Action Comics 384 “Lament for a Legionnaire”, Dream Girl foresaw Mon-El is going to die in five days, and of course, her predictions are never wrong. The Computo News gets wind of it and says that Mon-El will die, so it went public. Dream Girl gets another premonition that he’ll battle a band of invaders on the day of his supposed death, and when that day comes, Mon-El fights off the invaders while the Legionnaires are trapped. But it turns out that it’s not Mon-El, it’s Eltro Gand, a descendant of his brother’s, who knocked Mon out and took some of the serum to prevent lead poisoning, and who planned to die in Mon-El's place. But when they go to get Mon, they find that he’s dead, because his serum wore off. Eltro brings Mon’s body back to LSH HQ where there just happens to be a Daxamite machine called the Exchanger, which was built on the principle of the device that revived Lightning Lad when he was killed (ADV 312), as it transfers life essence from the living to the dead. So Eltro sacrificed his life to bring back Mon-El’s. We now see the pink speech balloon is Eltro, talking to the purple which is Time Trapper. Eltro is killed by the Trapper, leaving Mon-El in charge of the body. Tom credits Margie Spears (in his IOKIAS) for the theory that it was a life-force and mind transfer. 
• Page 9: a new backstory on the Time Trapper vs the Legion, he now created the Legion to oppose Mordru so that the Trapper could conquer the universe
• Page 19: this whole Mordru vs Time Trapper thing is a brand new retcon. Panels 5-7 explain where the “Pocket Universe” came from, and that all previous time travel from the 30th century had been to that Earth, not Earth-1. (That conveniently forgets about all the times the Legion met Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, the JLA/JSA, etc. Also, Supergirl/Matrix was from here.)
• Page 20 panel 1: one exception that had been punished – Superboy
• Page 22: fade to white at the end. This becomes a Legion tradition for when continuities get wiped out. We will see this later in Zero Hour, Legion/Titans Universe Ablaze, and at the end of the Reboot right before the Threeboot.
• Page 23 Omnicom
• “When attempting to interfere in a political dispute on Talok VIII, Mon-El suffered a violent mental breakdown… he attacked and injured Colossal Boy, Star Boy, and Timber Wolf, and sent him into the Phantom Zone until he calmed down.” That was depicted in Tales of the LSH 318-319 (although in that issue he wasn’t actually projected into the Zone, he snapped out of it when Superboy showed him the projector). 
• Then the story of his immunity serum wearing off is from LSH v3 #23.

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Here's what we know of the timeline to date. I'm color coding them based on whether the date appeared in the 2995 Sourcebook (yellow; text in yellow is as written in the Sourcebook), it's a confirmed date that was given in the comic (green), or an estimated date based on keeping track of events and days (cyan). Bold text is something new added this issue. Italics are unknown dates.

• 6/23/89 – Magic Wars end (LSH v3 #63)
• 10/89 – the Great Collapse
• 4/90 – Validus Plague ravages Winath; former Legionnaire Brainiac 5 helps (LSH v4 #3).
• 4/13/90 – Communique from Earthgov President Wellington, trying to legally disband the Legion, with Imra, Rokk, and Cham “currently out of the picture” (LSH v4 #1).
• TBD 2991 – Garth and Imra, having left the Legion, start the Lightning Ring Plantation (LSH v4 #3)
• 2/20/91 – Tinya accused of having a “torrid affair” with Thom before announcing her upcoming wedding to Jo (LSH v4 #2)
• 3/23/91 – Tinya’s wedding dress announcement (LSH v4 #2)
• 3/30/91 – Tinya and Jo wedding set for June 9 (LSH v4 #2)
• 4/12/91 – Tinya goes missing (LSH v4 #2)
• 5/8/91 – Search for Tinya called off; Sun Boy is leader (LSH v4 #2)
• 6/9/91 – Planned date of wedding of Tinya and Jo (LSH v4 #2)
• 1/21/92 – Rebirth Summit (LSH v4 #1)
• 7/6/92 – LSH leader Polar Boy disbands the Legion, mentions Black Dawn which “cost” the Legion (LSH v4 #1).
• Nov 2993 – Xenobiology Update article on the Winathococcus Validus bacteria (LSH v4 #3) 
• Wed 10/22/94 – Raid on anti-government terrorists, but ringleader Vidar (aka Universo) is not captured; Cham tells Marla he’s leaving (LSH v4 #1).
• Thu 10/23/94 – Cham begins to recruit members for the new Legion, first approaching Rokk; Vi leaves the Imsk army for Winath; Dominator agents help someone escape from Labyrinth (LSH v4 #1).
• Fri 10/25/94 – Attack on Jo and Kono on Rimbor; Loomis and Lydda en route to Kathoon (LSH v4 #2).
• Mon 11/17/94 – Article in InterFaces magazine about the Lightning Ring Plantation (LSH v4 #3)
• Fri 11/21/94 – Blok is killed by Roxxas the Butcher (LSH v4 #3).
• Thu 11/27/94 – Mordru crushes Rond Vidar’s ring; Rokk and Cham finally meet up with Jo and decide to go to Tharn to rescue Mysa; Dominators and Shvaughn Erin watch the tape of Roxxas and Blok, whose body is delivered to Winath; Mon-El resurrected (LSH v4 #3).
• Fri 11/28/94 – Mon-El goes to Talok VIII, then Shadow Lass and Mon-El visit Brainiac 5, then Mon-El destroys the Time Trapper (LSH v4 #4)
• April 2995 – Imra & Garth’s twins due (LSH v4 #3)

Unknown dates, presented in the order they were revealed in the comics:

• Black Dawn: something big and bad happened. Polar Boy says “you know what that cost us”. Sun Boy was a previous leader. By the time it happened, Chameleon Boy had left the Legion and “watched everything fall to pieces” (LSH v4 #1). 
• Rokk and Loomis are injured in the Braal/Imsk War at Venado Bay, and Rokk lost his powers. Salu was somehow involved on the Imsk side, which did some questionably legal things. Imsk won, as the army is occupying Braal. (LSH v4 #1)
• At some point, the Science Police Earth splintered off from the main Science Police (referred to as Science Police Proper) (LSH v4 #2)