LSH v4 #9 annotations: "Five Years Later" (part 9)

Annotations for Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #9

• On sale date: May 15, 1990 
• It's OK, I'm a Senator: Issue 9 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 562 (July 22, 2019)
• Timeline: This issue takes place on December 2, 2994

A few names at the bottom in bold may be Interlac or other Legion fandom references, if you recognize them, please leave a comment!

• Per this issue’s IOKIAS, this is another fill-in issue. Through a long sequence of events, they ended up having two fill-in issues back to back, so last issue was the revised origin story and this became a good spot to introduce Laurel’s back story since we just met her.
• Page 1 panel 1: Cygnus IV is the home planet of the Bacard Barley Interstellar Travelling Carnival & Sideshow (LSH v2 261). Also, Cygnus was the pre-Crisis home system of Warworld, Mars II, and Mongul’s home base.
• Page 2 panel 7: Laurel says she’s the 9th to join. She’s a distant descendant of Valor.
• Pre-Crisis, this was the joining order: 1-2-3 Cosmic Boy/Lightning Lad/Saturn Girl, then 4-5 Phantom Girl/Triplicate Girl, then 6-7-8 Chameleon Boy/Invisible Kid/Colossal Boy, then 9 Star Boy, then 10-11 Supergirl/Brainiac 5, then 12 Superboy, then 13-14 Sun Boy/Shrinking Violet. But we find out later that Kid Quantum had already come and gone right before her, so she should be the 11th, not 9th. 
• Page 3 panel 1: Ricklef II, named after fan James Ricklef. Looks a lot like Argo City! 
• Page 3 panel 3: Laurel will eventually take the name Tiger Rose towards the end of the run, years from now. Also, the Electro-Towers were also used on Earth during the Khundish invasion of ADV 346-347
• Page 3 panel 4: Notice that Laurel’s mom is wearing clothes that resemble Jor-El (subbing red for green)
• Page 3 panel 5: Zaryan of the planet Brok originally appeared in ADV 304, now retconned to be a Khund (and the ADV 304 story was later retold in ADV 517-519 by Paul Levitz and Kevin Sharpe). He was responsible for the original death of Lightning Lad; Bierbaum says that retconning him into a Khund tied things together and made the stakes retroactively higher.
• Page 7: Eltro Gand again
• Page 8: This whole sequence, including specifically the name Cranston Creek, is a rewrite of “Supergirl’s Three Super Girlfriends” in ACT 276
• Page 9 panel 6: They apparently tried to retcon the name “Triplicate Girl” into “Triad” here, complete with a relettering, but someone must have forgotten about it since she never goes by Triad again.
• Page 10 panel 5: Laurel is wearing a costume based on Valor’s, but doesn’t appear to have a code name. 
• Page 12: In the original, Supergirl hit some Red Kryptonite which turned her into an adult (ACT 267), so she was ineligible to join the Legion, but she joined soon after, along with Brainiac 5 (ACT 276). Also, as in the original, Bouncing Boy was still an applicant at this point.
• Page 13 panel 2: Brainiac 5 modified Mon-El’s serum to allow him to permanently live outside of the Phantom Zone (ADV 305), so this is a nice callback to that
• Page 13 panel 5: Sun Boy wasn’t a member when Supergirl joined, and if he’s a member when Laurel joined, that should now make her the 12th member and not the 9th.
• Page 15: The Shrine Asteroids are unknown under that name, but they look like the Mount Rushmore of Space (ADV 310)
• Page 19: Roxxas has just been betrayed by Earthgov, who (via the Dominators) hired him to hunt down the Legionnaires in the first place.
• Page 20: Yucutan VII was last seen in issue 7. Recall that planet J586 was the home of plant-based life and the 20th century Green Lantern named Medphyll.
• Page 21 panel 4: Celeste and Jan headed towards Winath (along with Bounty and Devlin). They left Trom in issue 7 back on 11/30, so they've been en route for 2 days.
• Page 21 panel 7: The Westerner first appeared in LSH v3 #24 as a student in the Legion Academy, but training how to use his powers out on the frontier and not to become a Legionnaire
• Page 23 panel 4: who’s that statue with the comet symbol?
• Omnicom page 1: looks like an old Adventure letters page, with excerpts from actual Adventure letters columns. 
• Letters from Freedom Gale of Brookline (named for Gail Freeman of Brookline and Ken Gale), Rimbor; Sharleen Sopowitz of Metropolis; Eddie Jones, of Jefferson City, Toonar; Flynt Brojj of Metropolis (who first appeared in SBOY 209; named for Mike Flynn and Harry Broertjes)
• Sharleen Sopowitz wrote the following letter which was published in ADV 347, and copied verbatim to this issue: "Dear Editor: When, in heaven's name, are the Legionnaires going to have some genuine weddings? When I saw the issue in which you advertised the marriage of two couples, I was overwhelmed - but unfortunately, it turned out to be a hoax. I think the rule prohibiting Legionnaires from marrying should be changed. I'm sure they could do their work just as well if they were married. How about some real weddings - soon? -Sharleen Sopowitz, Brooklyn, N.Y"
• Eddie Jones also had a letter published in ADV 347: "Dear Editor: I notice that most of the girl Legionnaires have boy friends they particularly like. For instance, Phantom Girl goes for Ultra Boy and Shrinking Violet likes Duplicate Boy, of the planet Lallor. But what about Duo Damsel? Does she flip over one particular boy, or is she just a two-timer? -Eddie Jones, Jefferson Cit Mo."
• 1915 Euclid Avenue was the address of Nancy Northcott
• Omnicom page 2: history of the Khunds and Zaryan
• 2975 1st Khund invasion of Earth (ADV 304)
• 2977 Garlak defeat (ADV 346-347)
• 2982 Garlak in league with Dark Circle and Mordru (Earthwar)

---

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); with the help of Laurel Gand, Rokk’s crew rescues Mysa and Rond from Mordru but are teleported to Grocz; Celeste, Devlin, Bounty, and Jan leave Trom for Winath (LSH v4 #7)
• Mon 12/1/94 – Rokk, Cham, Jo, Kono, Furball, Rond, Laurel, and Mysa travel from Grocz to Zirr (LSH v4 #8)
• Tues 12/2/94 – Rokk, Laurel, and Rond take some R&R time on Zirr with baby Lauren, while the others go to Winath; Marla reminisces (LSH v4 #8); on Cygnus IV, Roxxas watches a holo of Laurel Gand; Celeste, Devlin, Bounty, and Jan arrive on Winath (LSH v4 #9)
• 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)