Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! The Legend of Valor -- Visited

I agree with Kent.

Esoteric ancient mystery religion Dark Circle is much cooler than clone Dark Circle.

And both completely rock out over Brainy's Mom's puppets Dark Circle of the post-ZH Legion.

I thought you were part of the thousands of Legion fans who swore a blood oath never to mention that again. I know I still have my scar.

EDE, i never knew Mon-El was an explorer. Having him leader of the Wanderers just opens up a new avenue for the Legion.

The ancient cult Dark Circle does rock. But you can still work the cloning in.

Jorge, being an explorer was part of the reason Lar Gand went to Krypton in the first place.

If you're interested, I once wrote a fanfic to explain, in part, why he never returned to Daxam.

HWW, I never knew he went to Krypton until yesterday.

I knew he met Superboy and then because of lead poisoning went into the Phantom Zone. That's it. I've been reading since 83 (around) and don't remember hearing about him going to krypton.

Was it mentioned in the Who's Who in the Legion mini? Until recently (the internet) that was my source for Legion info.

Yeah, only in WWitLSH, he actually visits Pocket Universe Krypton!

So, he goes off to explore space, somehow ends up crossing over to the Pocket Universe, lands on one of the only two inhabited planets in the PU, finds out this planet (Krypton) is about to blow up, gets a map to the other inhabited planet, winds up in suspended animation on his way there, finally lands but with amnesia, meets the son of the guy who gave him the map and is mistaken for the kid's older brother, regains his memory after being massively poisoned, is put in the "Phantom Zone" for 1000 years, and is finally released and cured of his poisoning in his home dimension.

Hmm.... maybe that "Valor" stuff isn't so convoluted after all...

So how long was he in suspended animation? Same time as Superman it seems. So Mon-El is from the distant past?

I don't think there was any suspended animation in the Silver Age Superman origin.

So, Mon-El was born in, like, the early 1910s, visited Krypton in the late 1930s, was in suspended animation for about 15 years, landed on Earth in the 1950s, was in the Phantom Zone for 1000 years, and freed in the 30th century.

I understand some issues with the storytelling style; I will say, however, that this is one of my favorite Legion stories. I thought it was a beautiful example of a retcon that made sense and really answered a fundamental 30th Century question: Why do people from different planets, although all of them are basically humanlike, have different powers? The Silver Age explanations for how these powers developed was not really holding up very well, and it also established why Valor was such an important figure. I don't really consider it to be a "Mon-El replaces Superboy" story.

armsfalloffboy, i agree. I think that was the main reason for it. Why do all these worlds have human characters that are very earthlike. I hope that story still stands somehow.

The problem is it doesn't really explain that, though. You've still got tons of planets that are basically inhabited by humans (Thanagar, Rann, Krypton, Daxam, many others), with or without powers, that have nothing to do with Valor. If you've got a universe where you've got tons of planets that are inhabited by humans, I don't see anything weird at all about some of those planets having people that develop powers without some unifying explanation for how specifically those powered races got there.

Basically, you're trying to explain why there are super-powered humanoid aliens out there by saying "a super-powered humanoid alien did it", but that's no explanation at all.

I understand that point but those planets that the survivors inhabited are all Legion related planets. Daxam, Thanagar, Krypton, Rann we all know existed.

I don't remember anything about Winath, Tharok, Braal, Naltor mentioned in the 20th century.

What planets exactly did they explained were colonized by the human survivors anyways? It wasn't that many was it? Starhaven probably needed an explanation.

(though i'm sure it was mentioned in a PC Superman comic. He was meeting aliens from every other planet it seems. And they looked just like the boy next door)
*blah messed up my post*

Yeah, but before the late 80s (not long before the "Valor" retcon was introduced) we hadn't seen anything about the Dominion, Khundia, Durla, et al. in the 20th century, either. Legion planets just weren't used in the twentieth century pre-Crisis.

I kind of wish Legion planets are not used by the current DCU myself. We see Khunds, Durlans, Coluans, Dominators popping up everywhere. And there isn't much of a difference between them in the current DCU and 1000 years in the future.

I guess Invasion! introduced the Dominators and Khunds to the "present" time. Damn Giffen!

Yeah, I think one of the biggest problems with comics (at least DC) is that all of the "sci-fi" settings seem to be basically the same. So, if you travel to the 22nd century or the 30th, there's not a whole lot of difference, and they both look pretty much like most alien planets you visit.

Exactly. The only example I can think of is the Durlans are shown to be hi-tech and in the future they are not?

Also the Khunds are slightly more barbaric than in the future version. but in the future they still are barbaric.

I guess many of the present races/planets like Tamaranians, Psions, half the members of the Omega Men and L.E.G.I.O.N. are not represented in the Legion future.

What happened to them?

"Only the children of Gand survive. Only the children of Gand."

And people think he's not a savior.

Square Peg, Round Hole. This is exactly why I didn't like the retcon. Having Man-el/Valor take over the Superboy stuff in continuity wasn't a good fit because their characters were so extremely different.

Mon-el was slightly morose and haunted by his time in the past. He took so much joy in his friends and relationships because they were the only thing that eased his pain, yet he was still prone to wanderlust and isolation.

Superboy was, well, Superboy. Youthful, energetic and a heroic inspiration, mostly because of the first two traits. Trying to take the "inspiring" part and graft it onto Mon-el just didn't work. I'll stop now because I sound like a broken record.

It kind of makes sense that a lot of the planets that might be important in the 31st century would be different than the planets that are important in the 21st century.

I mean... if you think about it on analogy with countries... how many countries that are powerful today were really all that important/powerful 1000 years ago?

You could add something into the background of the Legion about how a bunch of planets all develop space travel about the same time in, say, the 29th century, which leads these "young planets" to form the United Planets.

We need a Who's Who for DC Aliens. Marvel is doing all those handbooks DC needs to do the same.

rogue, good point btw. The present DC cosmic scene is very dark while the future isn't.

I agree that there is no reason to see the same aliens in the 20th/21st centuries that we see in the 30th/31st. One important reason not to include the same aliens in both settings is that faster and more efficient space travel will enable humans to encounter worlds undreamed of a thousand years earlier. Many of the races in the Legion's future would not be known to exist in the present day.

As for Tamarians, Psions, etc., existing in the future: there are many possibilities. They could be extinct. They could have bred and merged with other races. They could have simply changed their names and the surface features of their cultures. Just as countries undergo changes in real life, so would extraterrestrial societies.

I'd like to see those reasons in a new story. Maybe by T&MB with a recap of how Mon-El is responsible for the dysporia of the human race.

Ok, that might be going to far. I think DC should avoid using the Legionverse aliens and use more of the ones that already appear in the "present" DCU.

The Khunds appeared in a recent Ion issue. eh.

The worst thing is that when the Khunds were first introduced, they were supposed to be this completely unknown race from distant space with a vast empire who were suddenly invading the U.P.

Now they're like boring generic aliens who pop up everywhere in the 21st century.

DC is missing a great opportunity to tell stories of what happened in the millenium between our time and the Legion's. Understandably, they don't want to tie too many things down, otherwise it might hamper future writers as the Adult Legion was accused of doing. But there's plenty of time (and space) to explore these other settings.

Agreed. I winced at Invasion for those exact reasons. While tying Dominator interest ot Earth worked, the rest did not.

Nor has any other tie... I recall Despero escaping from Takron-Galtos at one point. Aaaaaargh!