Superman & Batman: Generations III #4

Superman & Batman: Generations III #4 cover

Date:

June 2003

Title:

“Century 23: Return of the Warrior”
(Cover Title: “The 23rd Century!”)

Plot:

In the year 2225, Superman has been having bad dreams.  Beautiful Dreamer helps him unlock them, revealing the death of Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl’s flight to the 20th century.

Only scenes featuring Legion of Super-Heroes characters are dealt with here.

Credits:

John Byrne (Writer) • John Byrne (Artist) • John Byrne (Letterer) • Alex Sinclair (Colorist / Separator) • Ivan Cohen (Associate Editor) • Mike Carlin (Editor) • John Byrne (Cover)


CHANGE HISTORY

Date of Change
Content of Change
12/22/03
Posted
12/23/03
Tracking corrections

Character and Object Tracking

     

Name

Previous Appearance

Next Appearance

Heroes

Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen) None in this continuity Superman & Batman: Generations III #1
Brainiac 5 (Querl Dox)
None in this continuity None; dies this issue
 
Superman (Clark Kent / Kal-El) Previous Legion appearance:
      Superman & Batman: Generations III #1
Next Legion appearance:
      Superman & Batman: Generations III #7
Beautiful Dreamer
None in Legion books None to date; continuity rewritten

Villains

Parademons
No appearance; blaster effect only

Locations

Smallville (2925) (exterior)
Previous Legion appearance:
      Superman & Batman: Generations III #1
Next Legion appearance:
      Superman & Batman: Generations III #7

Technology

Legion Time Sphere
None in this continuity Superman & Batman: Generations III #1
 
One-shot or Untracked Items:
     micro-circuit unit
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Analysis Notes

General Only pages 20:4-22 are covered here.  This is presented as a buried dream memory of Superman’s, but it is actually something Saturn Girl planted in Superboy’s mind three hundred years before.
This is an Elseworlds story.  Continuity is only tracked within this “universe”, that depicted in the three (to date) Generations series.
Each issue of this series occurs about 100 years after the previous one, tied to year xx25.  The theory behind that being that Superman was 29 years old in his first appearance in 1939 (29 being his stated age throughout the Silver Age), and thus 1925 is when he was 15, the right age for joining the Legion.  This issue takes place in 2225, but the memory is from 2925, planted in 1925.
20:4 This is the exterior of the Smallville dome in 2925.  The woman is Beautiful Dreamer of the New Gods, Superman’s wife.
21:2 Why Brainiac wouldn’t have had his force shield on during a Parademon blaster attack is unclear.  (Not it’s not: Byrne decided to have the smartest character in the book do something really stupid in order to push the plot along.)
21:3 If anyone would know his injuries are terminal just by having them, it would be Brainy.
Then again, Saturn Girl apparently died in the first issue of the series, and her body is found in the 7th issue, but that doesn’t stop her from being found alive in the 11th and then killed again in the 12th.  Brainy could have survived this.
22:2
This would be important to ensure that people of the past don’t reverse engineer the time sphere’s technology, and to make sure that someone doesn’t manage to steal it and use it to come to the fut… oh, wait, never mind.
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Appearance Counts

Character Name

Cover

Panels / Speaking

Heroes
Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen) 8 / 7
Brainiac 5 (Querl Dox)
7 / 6
 
Superman (Clark Kent / Kal-El) 7 / 4
Beautiful Dreamer
7 / 2
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