Each Drosophila body wall muscle is seeded by one Founder Cell (FC) issued from division of a Progenitor Cell (PC). Each PC is selected from an equivalence group of myoblasts, called promuscular cluster (PMC), at a precise position within the somatic mesoderm. Muscle identity – i.e, orientation, size, shape and final skeletal attachment sites - reflects the expression by each PC and FC of a specific combination of identity Transcription Factors (iTFs). Our previous observation of the serial emergence of several PCs at the same position raised the question of how developmental time controlled the muscle iTF code. Through a systematic chromosomal deficiency screen, and focusing on the 6 dorso-lateral muscles, all issued from the same PMC, we identified new roles of Anterior Open (Aop), ETS domain lacking (Edl), Eyes absent (Eya), No Ocelli (Noc), and Sine oculis (So), in serial specification of muscle identities. The muscle phenotypes and windows of transcription of these, and several other transcription factors such as collier/knot (col/kn), and slouch/S59, in wild type and mutant embryos, as determined by using intronic probes, revealed a cascade of regulations integrating temporal with positional information. This includes lineage-specific feed-forward or incoherent loops, and sequential use of alternative transcription start sites. Together, our data provide a dynamic view of the transcriptional control of muscle identity in Drosophila and an extended framework for studying interactions between general myogenic factors such as Nautilus/Myo-D and iTFs in evolutionary diversification of body wall muscles.