LSH v4 #6 annotations: "Five Years Later" (part 6)

Annotations for Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #6

• On sale date: February 13, 1990 
• It's OK, I'm a Senator: Issue 6 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 556 (June 10, 2019)
• Timeline: This issue takes place on November 29-30, 2994 (the Mordruverse story last issue was on 11/29, but since that timeline went away, this picks up from that point)

Names in bold look like they may have been from Interlac or other Legion fandom, if you recognize the names please leave a comment!

• Cover: homage to Justice League of America #10 and Sensation Comics #109, which also have characters as fingers on a giant hand
• Page 1: new character Celeste Rockfish, a private investigator (shout-out to The Rockford Files), mentioned in the Mordruverse issue
• Page 8: Cham’s brother Liggt (named for John Liggett). The 2995 Sourcebook puts this at 5/9/2971, about a year and a half before the formation of the Legion. Cham was almost 14 years old.
• Page 10: More about some horrible battle at Venado Bay in the Imsk/Braal war
• Page 11: Furball is Brin Londo, something mysterious happened called Black Dawn (mentioned earlier by Polar Boy’s resignation letter back in issue 1) in which Timber Wolf got irradiated
• Page 12: Mysa is seeing what everyone else sees
• Page 13 panel 1: Korr is home to Sky City, built on a giant pillar high above the planet's deadly smog. Sky City was the repository of the few Comet Jewels, said to the rarest of all jewels, stolen by Jungle King while the Legion worked to prevent the city from toppling over under the influence of an earthquake beast (ADV 309). Chadwick is named for fan Jim Chadwick (later a DC editor).
• Page 14 panel 6: no spoilers, but this person will be important in the near future.
• Page 15 panel 7: First we hear her name is Celeste Rockfish, now the Dominators call her Celeste McCauley. We know there has been a Leland McCauley III (first seen ADV 374, then once more in Adventure and twice in the Baxter run) and IV (first seen, as a kid, SBOY 214, and who will appear later in this series). Notice also the McCauley Omnicom prominently featured in the series so far.
• Page 16: Vrykos was originally planned to be a vampire Legionnaire, but Giffen and the Bierbaums apparently had other plans for him. From the preview article in Amazing Heroes: “The remaining new Legionnaires include Ryko, about whom Keith Giffen notes, “If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the vampire myth in the 30th century, then Ryko will answer your questions;” and Celeste, a light-energy woman who “is possibly the most powerful Legionnaire we’ve ever come across – even though she’s not aware of it yet,” Giffen states.”
• Page 17: no spoilers, but this is a brand-new character who is and was very important in Legion history. She calls the Legionnaires being held by Mordru her “old teammates”. Who is she? Review the blonde female Legionnaires: we know she’s not Saturn Girl, and Supergirl is gone with the Mordruverse. Not Projectra (who we haven’t seen yet) or Dream Girl, both of whom had white hair, although White Witch had white hair and skin and now she’s Caucasian skin and reddish hair, closer to her original appearance.
• Page 18: Mr Weisen is named after Mort Weisinger, a long-time DC editor and the Legion's first editor for over 15 years.
• Page 19: Accompanying Devlin from the Daily Planet are Celeste and Bounty.
• Page 20: Trom is one of the Gandian worlds. This is a new thing, pay attention.
• Page 22: Michael Eury is now co-editor, Waid is handing off duties
• Omincom 1: 
• First few paragraphs are the summary of the first battle with Mordru (that we never saw), summarized in flashback in Adventure 369. At the end of that, it was originally Superboy and Mon-El who locked Mordru in the vault, here it’s said to be Lar Gand and Star Boy. (Which makes one wonder how the Adventure 369-370 story was retconned, since they went back to Superboy's time in the mid-20th century). 
• Then after the Magic Wars, we hear for the first time how Mordru came back to be named Supreme Teacher of Sorcerors’ World. We learned earlier that 7/6/2992, the day Mordru was coronated, was also the same day that the Legion finally disbanded for good. Coincidence? 
• Alturny Ansky (Al Turnianski) and Ah-Zhay Draveed (Ajay Dravid) mentioned
• Page 24 Omnicom 2: The beginning of the Great Lar Gand Retcon, now that Superboy is off the table
• He’s now said to be one of Daxam’s greatest heroes of the 20th and 30th centuries, fighting Glorith since the 20th century.
• The Conspiracy (LSH v3 46-50) was now against Glorith for reasons we don't know about yet (we'll see this later in the upcoming Annual). Eltro Gand was released from Lar Gand’s mind during this battle.
• Spent 1000 years in the Bgztl Buffer Zone (formerly known as the Phantom Zone)
• Said their goodbyes and retired to explore deep space out beyond the Lallorian Colonies just before the Great Collapse
• Dev-Em is now from Daxam (he used to be from Krypton, so that's an easy enough retcon) and is the “third great survivor of the 20th century” – meaning Lar Gand and Glorith? His tenure with the Interstellar Counter-Intelligence Corps appears to be intact.
• The destruction of Daxam?
• Mentions Raub Woker (named for Rob Walker and Mike Raub), also mentioned in a medical article in issue 3
• Letters page has some surprisingly critical comments. 

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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).
• 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)
• TBD 2991 – Garth and Imra, having left the Legion, start the Lightning Ring Plantation (LSH v4 #3)
• 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).
• 7/6/92 – LSH leader Polar Boy disbands the Legion, mentions Black Dawn which cost the Legion (LSH v4 #1); Mordru coronated as the Supreme Teacher of Sorceror’s World (LSH v4 #6)
• 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)
• Sat 11/29/94 – Cham, Rokk, Jo, Kono, and Furball arrive on Tharn and are captured by Mordru; after being hired by Earthgov to find Blok’s killer, Celeste, Devlin, and Bounty leave for Trom (LSH v4 #6)
• Sun 11/30/94 – Celeste, Devlin, and Bounty meet Jan on Trom (LSH v4 #6)
• 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)