Continuity in Valor #11-21 and Legionnaires #16

Starting with issue #11 of Valor, Mark Waid came on board and course-corrected the series from being a science-fiction outer-space super-hero book into one more closely tied to the Legion. Issue #11 wrapped up most of the plot threads from the first 10 issues, then ended it with an ominous warning that Valor was going to die at the end of the next story arc.

They actually went and did it - by the end of #17, the hero we had been following since issue #1 was indeed dead (as dead as you can be in the comics - and this death lasted!). That six-issue storyline was called "D.O.A.". If you read the series as it came out, you noticed that some of the SW6 Legionnaires (from the Legionnaires series) appeared, but it had nothing to do with what was going on in their own series at the time, which was easy enough to tell because both the Valor and Legionnaires series came out the same week.

It wasn't until Legionnaires #16, which came out the same time as Valor #21, that we saw the events of issues #11-20 from the perspective of when they happened to the Legionnaires. So now, in retrospect, we can see how that whole timeline fit together.

• The Legion part of Valor #11 takes place somewhere in between Legionnaires #15-16
• 11: Triad reviews Valor’s history with Catspaw
• The Legion parts of Valor #12-14 are the same as Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10
• 12: DOA 1 – Is that the Time Trapper? Or maybe Glorith?
• 13: DOA 2 – Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history
• Valor #13 pages 21-22 take place during the last couple panels of Legionnaires #16 page 8, as Cosmic Boy is finishing up his workout and headed to the lab, he sees a white flash. Brainiac 5 and Triad are discussing the legend of Valor, and then a time blip happens and the computer says there’s no record of Valor.
• 14: DOA 3 – Brainy, Triad, Saturn Girl, Dragonmage, and Cosmic Boy leave to go back in time to find out what happened
• Valor #14 pages 1-2 and page 3 panels 1-6 are an expanded version of Legionnaires #16 page 9
• Valor #14 page 3 panels 7-8 are an expanded version of Legionnaires #16 page 10 panels 1-2
• The Legion appearances in Valor #15-19 take place outside of time, in between Legionnaires #16 pages 10 and 11
• 15: DOA 4 – The Legionnaires are in the time stream and crash their Time Bubble
• 16: DOA 5 – The Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Valor's companion Lori is Glorith
• 17: DOA 6 – The Legionnaires fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; SW6 Valor appears
• 18: DOA Aftermath 1 – SW6 Valor is told that he will have to spend another 1000 years in the Phantom Zone in order to save time, and he does not take it well
• 19: DOA Aftermath 2 – a talk with Waverider and seeing his fellow Legionnaires vanish convinces Valor that he must relive his life in the Phantom Zone, and the timeline is reset.
• Valor #19 pages 19-20 are are an expanded version of Legionnaires #16 page 11: the Legionnaires return to their present with no Valor-related problems and unaware of the journey they took, but there are other time shenanigans going on...
• There are no more Legionnaires in Valor #20-21, but Valor's story continued with Sudden Death Overtime, back in his present of summer 1994.
• #20: Sudden Death Overtime part 1 – Valor tries to recreate his historical events, but there are Timequakes as seen by the Linear Men, which result in Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Bouncing Boy appearing in Legionnaires #16.
• #21: Sudden Death Overtime part 2 – As a result of the timeline issues, Valor splits into multiple copies of himself and manages to do all the things that legend said he did over the years (as seen in LSH v4 Annual #2), in just a few hours, then resigns himself to having Glorith send him back to the Bgztl Twilight dimension. But the Linear Men realize it’s too late…

Coming up next: 

• End of an Era Part 1: Legionnaires #17
• End of an Era Part 2: Valor #22
• End of an Era Part 3: LSH v4 #60
• Zero Hour #4
• End of an Era Part 4: Legionnaires #18
• End of an Era Part 5: Valor #23
• Superboy v3 #8
• Zero Hour #3
• Zero Hour #2
• Zero Hour #1
• End of an Era Part 6: LSH v4 #61
• Zero Hour #0