Legionnaires #16 annotations: Guess Who's Back!

Annotations for Legionnaires #16:

• On sale 5/17/94
• Legion of Substitute Podcasters episode 705 (April 18, 2022)
• Timeline: Sept 29, 2995

Notes:

• Cover: Adam Hughes and Karl Story. Also recalls the cover to LSHv4 #40 with someone who looks like Wildfire, “Guess Who’s Back!” While a great cover, it spoils the appearance of Dream Girl, Star Boy, and Bouncing Boy in this issue. Also, I couldn’t help singing to myself Eminem’s “Guess who’s back / Back again / Shady’s back / Tell a friend / ….”
• Page 1: The title of this issue, “Saved by Zero”, is the title of a 1983 hit song by The Fixx.
• Page 3 panel 1: that’s not how physics works, if something is held down and then gravity is removed, it’s going to stay there until something makes it move, just turning off the gravity won’t make things float away
• Page 4 panel 2: the timequake from Valor #20 hits the 30th century, and Star Boy appears.
• Under the old clone storyline rules, only those who were Legionnaires immediately after ADV 349 were cloned; Star Boy and Dream Girl didn’t return until issue 351.
• Page 6 panel 4: recall in LSH #57 that Polestar left the adult Legion team to go back to New Earth, assume it took him a day to get there. This issue thus takes place at the same time as LSH #58, with the fight on Weber’s World and Glorith teaming up with Mordru. I estimate this to be 9/29/2995.
• Now that the two series are synched up, I can retroactively place the Legionnaires appearances in the last several issues of Valor properly (see the timeline below for the synched version)
• Page 8 panel 2: Catspaw asks how Cosmic Boy is doing since his injury. That was on 9/18, or 11 days ago.
• Page 8: Valor #13 p 21-22 take place while Cos is walking to the lab, when he sees a 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.
• Pages 9-11: covering events previously seen in Valor #13-19
• Page 9: Valor #14 p 1-2 and p 3 panels 1-6 are an expanded version
• Page 10 panels 1-2: Valor #14 p 3 panels 7-8 are an expanded version
• After page 10: The Legion’s appearance in Valor #15-19 takes place between pages 10-11
• Page 11 panel 1: The timeline is reset after Valor agrees to go back into the Phantom Zone in Valor #19. The Legionnaires return to the 30th century unaware of the journey they took.
• Page 12 panel 3: Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl realize that Dream Girl isn’t supposed to be there.
• Page 15 panel 2: Another timequake, goodbye Ferro and hello Bouncing Boy!
• Page 16: Invisible Kid is in cahoots with Rond Vidar
• In LSH #53, the adult Rond sees something in the time stream and runs off in a Time Bubble. He next appears in issue #57 when he has grabbed the deceased Circadia Senius (from before he died) to check out the black void in the time stream. In this issue, Senius is gone and Rond is now teamed with the SW6 Invisible Kid.
• Page 18 panel 4: gone, never to return? To the 30th century, maybe, but we readers will see them again in 9 weeks (publishing time) in the pages of Zero Hour #3.

It's beginning to look a lot like Zero Hour....

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Cutting down the timeline to just the last couple months since it was getting so long. 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.

• Wed 7/29/95: Jacques and Drura join the team; Mysa is possessed, and goes to Tharn to confront Mordru (LSH v4 #43), but she is defeated and is absorbed into Mordru. Using this power, he raises armies of the dead in a number of worlds in both UP and Khund space. The Legion agrees to help the Khunds, but they insist that the Legion take on four new Khundish members (LSH v4 #44).
• Sun 8/2/95: The Legion fights Mordru’s zombies on Sklar, Talus, Trom, and in space (LSH v4 #45). On Talus, the Legionnaires fight their own dead, and new Khund Legionnaire Bloodclaw is killed before the team halts Mordru’s magics on the planet. Jan fights the dead Trommites on Pasnic (LSH v4 #46). The Legionnaires bring the fight to Mordru on Tharn, losing the Khund Firefist in the process (LSH v4 #47). The dead on Talus are defeated, but during the fight Timber Wolf returns to the 30th century with Jamm (LSH v4 Ann #4). With the help of Devlin O’Ryan and the spirit of Amethyst, Mordru and Mysa are separated and Mordru is defeated (LSH v4 #48). 
• Mon 8/3/95: Jamm takes the Legionnaires on a prodigious trip before being returned to his own time (LSH v4 Ann #4).
• Tues 8/4/95: The Legion leaves Tharn for Khundish space, where Flederweb and Veilmist are forced to rejoin the Khundish forces. Jan recovers on Pasnic, while Amethyst and Mysa ponder the future (LSH v4 #48).
• Wed 8/5/95: Tenzil travels to Tartarus and with the help of Polar Boy and friends, they rescue Eve and defeat Evillo (LSH v4 #49). 
• Thu 8/6/95: Tenzil and Eve depart Tartarus for Titan (LSH v4 #49); the Legion rebury their dead on Shanghalla, and Wildfire is resurrected there (LSH v4 #50).
• Fri 8/7/95: the SW6 Legionnaires spend the weekend at the Atlantis Dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve arrive on Titan; the rest of the group arrives on Talus from Shanghalla (LSH v4 #50).
• Sat 8/8/95: the SW6 Legionnaires encounter the race of Devil-Fish in the Atlantis Dome (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil and Eve get married; Jan almost dies; Kono leaves; Sean arrives on Talus (LSH v4 #50).
• Sun 8/9/95: the SW6 Legionnaires leave the Atlantis dome on New Earth (Legionnaires #7); Tenzil sends out holos of his wedding from the day before (LSH v4 #50).
• Mon 8/10/95: Several Legionnaires leave New Earth for Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Tues 8/11/95: Brainiac 5 thinks of leaving the Legion and remaining on Colu (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 8/12/95: Brainiac 5 returns to New Earth with the rest of his team (Legionnaires #8).
• Wed 9/13/95 (estimated): “Several weeks later” after Tenzil’s wedding, Dawnstar returns to Starhaven; three BIONs attack the Legion on Talus; Universo convinces Relnic and King Jonn that the Legion is helping the Khunds attack UP space (LSH v4 #50). 
• Thu 9/14/95: Cocheta Drisden fails to escape from Takron Galtos, and is moved to Quarantine; Grimbor attacks the team and Ivy’s Li’l Legion on Quarantine trying to grab her (LSH v4 #51).
• Sat 9/16/95: Kent and Celeste arrive on Talus from Quarantine, as Ayla and Brin reminisce and Vi monitors the Khund situation; Mysa tells the crew that since they just defeated Mordru, they have to take on Glorith to keep the balance (LSH v4 #52).
• Sun 9/17/95: Relnic shows Jacques that the Legion is working with the Khunds; Rond rushes off in a Time Bubble; the Legion lands on Baaldur and confronts Glorith, with disastrous consequences to the team; in her mind, Glorith is confronted by the Time Trapper; the UP calls for the Legion’s disbandment (LSH v4 #53). Recovering from the fight with Glorith, several Legionnaires find themselves older or younger, and head for Quarantine to see if Brainiac 5 can reverse the effects (LSH v4 #54).
• Mon 9/18/95: Brainy tests the Legion on Quarantine; Kent and Devlin, who have both been de-aged, stay behind while the others go to Talus (LSH v4 #54).
• ME-Lad, Violet, Dragonmage, Catspaw shot down over Antares II by Khunds (Legionnaires #9). The Proteans want the Legionnaires to go inside a crashed ship, where after defeating more Khunds they find Kid Quantum (Legionnaires #10). Dragonmage helps restore the Soul of Antares, and Andromeda calls HQ to say she’s found them and bringing them all back (Legionnaires #11).
• Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy find a freighter that’s been attacked by Sklarians (Legionnaires #9). Kono arrives to help out (Legionnaires #10).
• Legion tryouts at Metropolis (Legionnaires #9). Inferno helps out in Essen (Legionnaires #10), then goes to Paris where he finds someone has chained a tunnel shut (Legionnaires #11).
• Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Livewire go to Acapulco to quell food riots, and Cosmic Boy is injured by Livewire (Legionnaires #9). More Legionnaires arrive to help (Legionnaires #10). Cos is taken to the medi-center, while Spark, Brainy, Phantom Girl, and Ferro tend to a wounded child with odd powers (Legionnaires #11).
• Tue 9/19/95: The Legion gets captured at Talus and taken to Weber’s World (LSH v4 #54). 
• In Metropolis, Kid Quantum is sworn in, and Computo sends M-E Lad to help Kono with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #12). Kono uses the Grandin Gender-Reversal Disease to turn Tenzil into Tenzi, where they go undercover, but he quickly blows his cover (Legionnaires #13). They manage to signal the rest of the Legionnaires (Legionnaires #14).
• In Acapulco, Invisible Kid arrives to help, but he’s zapped unconscious, while in the Acapulco medi-center , Cosmic Boy nearly dies but Saturn Girl’s telepathy stabilizes him while a jealous Livewire watches (Legionnaires #12). Invisible Kid manages to break free of the mental-energy vortex as Andromeda and Ultra Boy arrive, while Cosmic Boy recovers (Legionnaires #13). Rokk is released, and Saturn Girl links the minds of the team to try to rescue their downed teammates (Legionnaires #14). The team manages to calm the mind of a young boy who was creating the dangerous hallucinations and everyone survives. (Legionnaires #15).
• In Paris, anti-alien hysteria picks up, so a team goes there, where they are blasted by a Dominator child who thinks they are attacking her (Legionnaires #12). She teleports them to a prison, but they escape. They find the girl in the sewers, and she sends them to the Archduke's palace to stop the xenophobia, only to find Grimbor instead (Legionnaires #13). They escape Grimbor’s traps and discover that the mayor of the Paris dome has been working with the Sklarians (Legionnaires #14).
• Wed 9/20/95: The Legion is briefly detained on Weber’s World but escape, while the UP officially disbands the Legion; Universo tells Cham and Computo that the Legionnaires aren’t needed to help (LSH v4 #54).
• Date unknown: Triad reviews Valor’s history with Catspaw (Valor #11, in between Legionnaires #15 on 9/19 and #16 on 9/29)
• Sun 9/23/95: The team arrives on Rimbor, and Jo brings a team to an old warehouse but he and Sussa are captured by a rival gang. (LSH v4 #55)
• Wed 9/27/95: Legionnaires start the process of going undercover while hiding out on Rimbor, and Sussa escapes (LSH v4 #54). Universo is looking for the Legion on Rimbor; Jo recruits other gangs to go against the government, while Mysa and Vi sneak into government HQ to find out what’s going on; on Starhaven, Dawnstar undergoes a vision quest (LSH v4 #55); the Legion exposes Khundish interference on Rimbor and escape (LSHv4 #56).
• Thu 9/28/95: The Legion tries and fails to protect Starfinger III from the Khunds, while fighting the Legion Academy, the Khundish ex-Legionnaires, and the mind-controlled Heroes of Lallor; Polestar leaves for New Earth while the rest of the team go to Weber’s World; Valor finds something strange with Dev-Em; Rond Vidar finds something strange in the time stream (LSHv4 #57); Ayla is growing younger since the battle with Glorith, and to comfort her, Vi reads her a bedtime story (LSHv4 Ann #5).
• Fri 9/29/95: Arriving at Weber’s World, the team tries to stop the Khunds’ bombs from destroying the planet; Dawnstar arrives and meets Wildfire; Firefist kills Veilmist; and after studying at the Infinite Library, Glorith travels to Tharn where she restores Mordru’s powers to help her conquer the universe (LSHv4 #58). SW6 Brainy & Triad find that Valor has been retconned from history (Valor #13, Legionnaires #16 pages 9-10); Brainy, Triad, Saturn Girl, Dragonmage, Ultra Boy, and Cosmic Boy leave to go back in time to find out what happened (Valor #14, Legionnaires #16 page 10).
• Outside of time: the Legionnaires enter the time stream and crash their Time Bubble (Valor #15); the Legionnaires fight Valor and find out that Lori is Glorith (Valor #16), and then fight Glorith, but Valor succumbs to the effects of his lead poisoning and dies; SW6 Valor appears (Valor #17); Brainiac 5 tells SW6 Valor that he will have to spend another 1000 years in the Phantom Zone in order to save time, and Valor does not take it well (Valor #18), but the presence of Waverider and seeing his fellow Legionnaires vanish changes his mind. Once he accepts his fate, the Legionnaires appear back in their own time and the legend of Valor is restored (Valor #19, Legionnaires #16 page 11). 
• Date unknown, 1995: Valor tries to re-create the feats he did before he went into the Phantom Zone, but fails; the Linear Men follow Valor from Vanishing Point, and see a timequake affect the 30th century (Valor #20), which causes Dream Girl and Star Boy to appear (Legionnaires #16).
• The Legionnaires instantly return to their present, unaware of their meeting with Glorith and the Valors (Valor #15-19, Legionnaires #16 page 11); Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Bouncing Boy appear with the Legionnaires and Ferro Lad is long dead, leading Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad – who seem to be the only ones aware that something funny is going on – to take a Time Bubble to figure it out (even though Invisible Kid and Rond Vidar are secretly aware that something’s happening); Polestar appears at New Earth (Legionnaires #16).