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"Baptism": While Brainiac 5 struggles to deal with Supergirl's death and Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl take Graym to a baptismal ceremony, the new Legionnaires try to track d

Quote1 But I still built the time bubble to conquer the centuries so I could hold her... kiss her... and not dare interfere with her death. May whatever gods there be have mercy on her soul -- and on mine. Quote2
Brainiac 5

Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 3) #16 is an issue of the series Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 3) with a cover date of November, 1985. It was published on August 8, 1985.

Synopsis for "Baptism"

While Brainiac 5 struggles to deal with Supergirl's death and Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl take Graym to a baptismal ceremony, the new Legionnaires try to track down a gang of bombers.

Appearing in "Baptism"

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Notes

  • Brainiac 5 mourns Supergirl, killed in 1985, exactly one thousand year earlier.
    • Brainiac has been in love with Kara since their first meeting in Action Comics #276, when they both joined the Legion. Her interest in him was less steady but nonetheless always present.
    • Kal-El and Kara as Legionnaires were aware that their teammates knew about their future lives. They, in turn, sometimes confirmed that they knew certain details of Kal and Kara's future, such as Luornu in Adventure Comics #369 knowing who Kal marries.
    • This issue confirms that Brainiac 5 built a relationship with Kara despite having always known when and how Kara would die, and developed time travel technology to meet her.
    • Both Kal and Kara had post-hypnotic commands to forget what they learned about the future after returning to the past. If Adventure Comics #518 and Supergirl Annual (Volume 5) #2 are consistent with the pre-Crisis timeline, they both knew about their future lives and deaths from visiting the future Superman Museum.
  • Brainiac is mourning Kara's pre-Crisis death, not her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7.
    • The issue does not have a Crisis crossover banner. The letter column in Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 3) #21 states that this issue was approved by Marv Wolfman and Robert Greenberger as consistent with the Crisis miniseries, so the lack of a banner is not an error.
    • The story does not mention the Crisis at all. Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 3) #18, which is bannered as a Crisis crossover, explains why many Legionnaires are attending Graym's baptism and not on alert for a great multiversal battle affecting all of history.
    • Kara died off screen, in the Legion's past. Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 3) #18 shows that the Crisis is constantly rewriting history, but (as in this issue) Kara's death is not unexpected or mysterious, unlike the Crisis-related events that the Legionnaires experience.
    • The conclusion is that Kara was always supposed to die in 1985 from some powerful force hitting her torso. In post-Crisis history, the Anti-Monitor became (or was established as) the cause of her death but how she died did not change.

Trivia


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