Freedom Five periodicity

I'm listening to old podcasts that I missed before I started listening, and was surprised to learn that Omnitron became sentient/destructive partly because of being connected to the internet.  This surprised me, because I thought of Omnitron as an older villain, and Sentinel Comics predates the internet (or at least general knowledge of the internet) by about 50 years.  So I started trying to figure it out, knowing that Omnitron's first appearance is in Freedom Five #305, but I'm getting confused.

Assuming Freedom Five is a monthly magazine, I looked for known reference points.  Wager Master's first appearance is in the early/mid-1970's, with Freedom Five #174 (according to the video game).  That's a difference of 131 issues, which would put Omnitron's first appearance in the mid 1980's, well before anyone other than a handful of computer scientists and defense contractors knew there was such a thing (and wasn't called "The Internet" yet).  The RPG starts with Freedom Five #801; if we assume Omnitron was introduced in 1995, which is when I recall "the internet" entering common parlance, at one issue a month that would put #801 in the mid 2030's, which seems unlikely.

Citizen Dawn, Visionary, La Capitan, Fright Train, and Citizens Hammer and Anvil also first appear in Freedom Five (not the Annual), but we weren't told when those characters were invented in their podcasts.  Same applies to Voss and Kaargra, whose podcasts we haven't heard yet.  I also couldn't find a whole lot of known years for significant events--I was looking for Vengeance specifically, being an easy one to cross-reference since it's in nearly every story, and which I thought wasn't all that late since the Villains stories take place quite a bit after.

Anyone have any insight?

Yep. 

Given the history of the Internet, my bet is they connected it in the late 70s or early 80s. 

That makes sense as a retcon, but in the early 80's, no one had heard of the internet.  Practically speaking, a defense contractor sure could have had access to it, but the Sentinel Comics writers wouldn't have known to say anything about it.  And even then, there wasn't a whole lot on it; Omnitron wouldn't have been able to "browse" it to learn about all the problems facing the world.  It would have just learned a bunch of computer science stuff.

I could swear it was stated somewhere anyway that both the actual Sentinels universe and the Publishing universe actually are both ahead of ours anyway, so it actually really is the 2020s and 2030s.

I think I remember somewhere stating that Legacy was born in 1972, for instance.

Maybe not called the internet in the early 1980’s... but that time period was ripe with movies and other media about computers taking over the world. I’m thinking about things like Wargames, Terminator and Superman III.

omniteon seems to fit right in with that zeitgeist.

And the Internet aspect could have been a retcon later in the life of the comics...

Yeah, the internet probably wasn't mentioned in Omnitron's first appearance, but was naturally retconned in later.  This still brings up a good question about the periodicity of the Freedom Five book's releases though.  If say Wager Master's first appearance in the early/mid 70s was in 1973 and that's Freedom Five #174, then if they're releasing once a month, that puts the start of the RPG in Freedom Five #801 in 2025.  I suppose they could be a bit ahead of us, as Jeysie suggested, but I thought I remembered them saying that the dystopian future Visionary came from was like 2020, so if that was considered the future, they can't be too far ahead of us, if at all.  If we try to fix the problem by saying the books are released twice a month, that puts the start of the RPG in 1999, so that's definitely wrong.  The best solution I can come up with is that the Freedom Five books haven't always been published with the same periodicity throughout the years.  We already know that's true for the Annuals, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch that it would apply here too.

Visionary came from 2018, but that was in Freedom Five #422, which would be, what, mid-90’s or so? That would have made perfect sense at the time, making her about 20 years older than her young doppelganger.

I believe it was mentioned in one of the Interludes that Sentinel Comics has a “rolling continuity”, similar to that of Schmarvel Comics. In such a continuity, stories get retconned to fit their appropriate era.

As such, Gold-Titanium Alloy Man may have had his first appearance during the Vietnam War, but in later issues, comics may reference his first appearance as being during Afghanistan. So it is for SC characters… how long was Wraith a college student again? Can’t treat time linearly… the timelines are shattered, after all!

I think this is a great question for the letter page.   Omnitron very much feels like a silver age robot monster type so my bet is the whole “hooked it to the internet” was probably a retconned reason why he went crazy fine later.  In his initial appearance it was probably just simply a case of sentient robot factory goes insane because that’s what they do 

Also note that sometimes comics can come out twice or three times a month. Spider-Man for the longest time released like every other day!

Sentinels definitely has a rolling continuity. For example Bunkers backstory is of a Gulf war veteran but he denied in the early silver age. 

I too remember reading that Finest was born in 1974 but he too is an early silver age character.