Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Persuader Question ** Spoilers for 52 - week 34**

Forgive me if this post is in the wrong place, I haven't found a thread on this yet --

But, what's the deal with the Persuader connection with the Suicide Squad? Is it the 31st Century Persuader, Axe, or something different? Is there a Suicide Squad issue out there explaining all this? By the events in 52, we won't be getting much new info on THAT character.

One possibility: there was a 21st Century Persuader introduced in the Superman comics in 2002.

The fuller story:

In 2001's "Our Worlds At War" Brainiac 13 sends solid holograms of the Fatal Five to battle Superman.

In Adventures of Superman #598 we learn that transmissions of the battle were beamed to Earth. Cole Parker, a disgruntled ex-employee of the Daily Planet printing plants (shut down and replaced by B13 tech) sees the transmission and is inspired. He leads a gang of thugs in hockey masks and axes into the Daily Planet offices and takes Perry White hostage--Superman, as you expect, stops them and Parker is imprisoned.

In Adventures of Superman #601-602, Parker recieves power from a skeevy character he'd been imprisoned with (I can't remember if that guy's story was ever told), and Parker is soon renewing his vendetta clad in armor and carrying an Atomic Ax as the Persuader.

At the end of this story, Parker accidentally cuts open a dimensional rift and disappears. It's not impossible that Cole Parker returns sometime between AOS#602 and 52; the costume the Persuader in 52 wears does look like the one Cole Parker wore. That doesn't make that a lock, of course.

Ah ha! Thanks! That explains a lot! I missed the Brainiac 13 storyline, although I really like the action figure. I 'm going to look up those back issues.

No problem.