Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Nardo-- the most woefully underused villain in Legion history?

With the exception of battles against Mordru and the Progenitor, never has the Legion seemed as helpless as they did in the first Super-Stalag story. He was killing prisoners right and left, and any attempt to escape seemed utterly hopeless. The guy is simply creepy.

The fact that Nardo has never returned to menace the Legion again, when lesser villains like Universo have been massively overused is pitiful.

I agree. That two-parter has to be one of the darkest, most terrifying in all the Silver Age. The killing and the utter meanness of Nardo is shocking in retrospect--I can see many a kid getting nightmares from that tale (and his physical appearance is scary too).

I'm surprised he was never used again--I can see many Legionnaires harboring a long grudge against him, after that ordeal. Many of them may have been tortured off-panel too.

If he were ever used again, I can only imagine how terrible he'd be in the hands of someone like Grant Morrison, Alan Moore or hell, Mark Millar.

On a side note, I think Alaktor could have been another bigtime Legion baddie if used again. If you strip away some of the things that seem silly about both villains now, and tweak them slightly, both could be incredible threats to the Legion.

Levitz missed a great opportunity to use Nardo.

Remember when Universo had all the heroes shipped off to that prison camp planet? Whom do we think he should have enlisted to oversee the prisoners?

It would have been more interesting than having mere "spy-eyes" and could have made that 4-part tale a 5-parter!

It could have made the Universo Project actually exciting!

Alaktor is Per Degaton and the Ultra-Humanite rolled into one!

I'm surprised there was never an Alaktor/Time Trapper team-up issue. Hell, Alaktor himself could be used to explain away some Superboy inconsistencies!

The thing about Nardo is that his sole motivation is to torture heroes, to get vengeance on "lawmen everywhere". No "I want to rule the galaxy" or "I want to be fabulously wealthy" for him. It's entirely about "What can I do to make the heroes suffer the most?"

I could easily see him capturing the Legionnaires families, Dagon the Avenger style.

Yeah, that's probably the most terrifying motive for any Legion villain we've seen. Capturing families could be done up to the max for Nardo!

I can also seem him doing awful things like trying to destroy Shanghalla, to just hurt the Legionnaires in any way.

Then he realizes that the way to torture a hero the most is to have him made forcibly super-fatassed!

Ooh, I like that. What better way to strike at the very heart of the heroic ideal than by destroying the cemetary asteroid for heroes?

Well, besides super-fatassing...

Yeah, it seems like a very Nardo-ish thing to do. Things like that are right up his alley!

I can also see him strike at the most intense pyschological fears of Legionnaires in the most outright fashion possible. For example, I can imagine him capturing Dawnstar or Wildfire and talking endlessly how Wildfire is not truly a man and neither will ever feel the others touch (while physically torturing them too).

Remember that creepy scene of him trying to brainwash Brainiac Five? Yeesh!

He could destroy Shanghalla as bait, then capture the legionnaires who come to investigate.

Presumably, he was put in Takron-Galktos at the end of the Super-Stalag story - I'd like to see him stage an uprising and take over the prison - Super-Stalag II. And what happened to all his clones?

According to the Legion Help File, Nardo had a Dark Circle connection. I didn't know that. It would be great to see him back, with a re-imagined Dark Circle. I believe that Nardo himself needs no re-imagining. He was cold-hearted, single-minded and full of snappy patter.

I wouldn't mind seeing him either!

For his Dark Circle connection, I can see it being the Nardo-clones themselves (which may be where they ended up). We've thrown around the idea of a Dark Circle/Android Master connection relating to clones and that stuff, so I can see a Nardo connection too!

Supposedly Nardo fled "another galaxy" to escape the authorities there. The Dark Circle is an ancient civilization which supposedly controls much of the unexplored part of our galaxy. It would make sense if the first civilization Nardo encountered after his exile to our galaxy was the Dark Circle. I'm not quite sure how they would have gotten him to work for them, however.

Awesome connection!

That makes a lot of sense actually, and the Dark Circle are far more terrifying than the UP is. Maybe they captured him at some point and tortured *him* (as the Dark Circle is apt to do), and this led Nardo to see *them* as law-makers, thus creating his long-standing grudge against them?

That would put Nardo in a tragic light, and create a bit of empathy for him in the end, although it might explain his motivation some. Of course, he was probably a murderous villain to begin with if the Dark Circle considered him worthy of capture...

I remember the Nardo two-parter too...

Particularly with the death of Blockade Boy by laser-rifle

and Weight Wizard's slow, agonising death whiffing poisonous perfume from a mutated Venus fly trap plant (who may have done even further unimaginable things after the poor lad was dead)

But i wont go there....

Nardo seemed too independent for the Dark Circle. What if he was a member of a sort of Hellfire Club along with Otto Orion, Grimbor the Chainsman and maybe Tyr?

I don't really see Nardo working with anyone else, quite frankly.

Nah- me either. I thought maybe he'd participate in a loose club of crankies... but he'd probably be better used as dictator tyrannizing his own little planet/asteroid/planetoid/satellite/summer camp.

Summer camp? Maybe he could be the 31st century's Granny Goodness. He wouldn't capture just "lawmakers" - but kidnap and imprison their children.

And after that he'd turn them into his own lackeys - training them to capture more and more children!

Nardo and Brainiac 4 would have made a great team - him capturing children, while she wants children so she would have the distinct joy of killing them later on!!!!

Then Nardo would super-fatass all the Coluan babies!

Of course, Brainiac 4 would have a hell of a time breast-feeding them.

You gotta admire the ego of a villain who builds countless robots to be his henchmen and makes them ALL in his image...