History Characters / LegionOfSuperHeroesSilverAge

* MultipleChoicePast: The details of his origin have constantly fluctuated, with the only consistent details usually being that he's a Daxamite who was sent to the Phantom Zone after being exposed to lead and was eventually freed in the distant future by Brainiac 5 once an antidote was created. One notable change is the etymology of the name Mon-El: In pre-Zero Hour and Retroboot continuity, Lar Gand was named that because he came to Earth on a Monday and was mistaken for being Superboy's older brother from Krypton, while the post-Zero Hour continuity spelled the name as M'onel and established that it was Martian for "He Who Wanders".

* ArtifactAlias: Mon-El's superhero identity was the Kryptonian name that ComicBook/{{Superboy}} gave him when he was suffering from amnesia. His actual name, as he recalled later, is Lar Gand, but he continues to be known as Mon-El.

* InterspeciesRomance: Whenever he dates a non-Tromian, and, well, he ''is'' the last one. He eventually settles down with Shvaughn Erin.

* ArchEnemy: Roxxas, the space pirate to wiped out the rest of his race.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: When confronting Roxxas, Jan manages to get his hands of a death-ray gun...and pulls the trigger on the surrendering pirate. Fortunately, Chemical King had used his power to neutralize the batteries and briefly knock Roxxas out, banking on the hope that seeing what he'd almost done would snap Jan out of it. (Roxxas by the by had gone insane, haunted by the ghosts of those he'd killed. So everyone wins. Until 5YL.)

** Postboot, his own morality begins to shift a bit when he discovers he can alter himself, which affects his mind and outlook. Shortly after, he changes Monstress's skin from green to orange, just because he thought she'd look better that way and didn't consider her consent. [[spoiler:Ow, my foreshadowing organ hurts!]]

* CommonLawMarriage: At one point, he takes her to Trom, sharing his lost culture with her and inviting her to pray with him in one of their religious buildings. Shvaugn regards this is as good as a marriage--neither of them are interested in anyone else anyway.

* InterspeciesRomance: Whenever he dates a non-Tromian.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Told his origin story to a group of Legion rejects in order to encourage them. In hearing that he'd been invited into the Legion after being a supervillain, Mentalla decided to outdo him and joined the Fatal Five in the hopes of betraying them from the inside. It worked, turning the tide of their next battle, but Emerald Empress killed the young psychic.

[[Characters/SupermanCentralRoguesGallery Central Rogues Gallery]] ([[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Alexander "Lex" Luthor]], [[Characters/SupermanBizarro Bizarro]], [[Characters/SupermanBrainiacCharacter Vril Dox/Brainiac]], [[Characters/SupermanCyborgSuperman Cyborg-Superman]], [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]], [[Characters/SupermanDoomsdayCharacter Doomsday]], [[Characters/DCComicsLobo Lobo]], [[Characters/SupermanMisterMxyzptlk Mister Mxyzptlk]], [[Characters/DCComicsMongul Mongul]], [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryPhantomZone Phantom Zone Criminals]] [[[Characters/SupermanGeneralZod General Zod]]]) | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryAToL A-L]] | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryMToZ M-Z]] ([[Characters/SupermanSuperboyPrime Superboy-Prime]])\\

* AccidentalMurder: Sarya, the Emerald Empress, begs Sensor Girl to free her from the power of the Emerald Eye, so she cuts off its ability to perceive the villainess. The grateful Sarya then proceeds to age and rot away before her eyes, which SG hadn't expected.

Mon-El is a Daxamite superhero inspired by Superboy. His powers are very similar, although he is vulnerable to lead instead of Kryptonite. Superboy put him in the Phantom Zone when Mon-El was fatally poisoned, and Mon-El stayed there until Brainiac 5 discovered a cure in the 30th Century. This lead Mon-El to become a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. When Glorith temporarily erased Superboy from time, Mon-El took his position in history.\\

[[WMG:[[center:[-''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' '''[[Characters/{{Superman}} Main Character Index]]'''\\

Superboy was originally the identity that Clark Kent adopted using his powers to help others as a teenager in Smallville before he became Franchise/{{Superman}}. His exploits as both Superboy and Superman was what inspired Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl to form the Legion of Super-Heroes. The three of them would later travel back through time to meet him, after which they brought him to the future and made him a member.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: In ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes2020'', he's a Kryptonian rather than a Daxamite.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In ''Comicbook/CountdownToFinalCrisis'' he and Triplicate Girl end up stranded in the past because Karate Kid's infected with a strange virus; they try to find a cure...[[spoiler: unsuccessfully. Both of them die. He only came back at the very end of the New 52 series.]]

* SecretIdentity:

* CloningBlues: Several years after his death, Brainiac 5 cloned him, with all his memories and powers intact--but the clone only had a 48 hour lifespan.

* NonindicativeName: Costume-wise. Her [=SW6=] counterpart is the first version of herself to adopt a purple uniform. She, uh, herself ([[CloningBlues ?]][[TimeTravelTenseTrouble ?]][[OtherMeAnnoysMe ?]]) prefers green.

* CloningBlues: Several years after his death, Brainiac 5 cloned him, with all his memories and powers intact--but the clone only had a 48 hour lifespan.

* ThreeAmigos: Is shown in a flashback to have developed one of these friendships with Princess Projectra and Ferro Lad.

* ThreeAmigos: Is shown in a flashback to have developed one of these friendships with Ferro Lad and Karate Kid. She's the only one still living.

* ThreeAmigos: Is shown in a flashback to have developed one of these friendships with Princess Projectra and Karate Kid.

* HurtingHero: Although she hid it well at the time, it's revealed that losing one of herselves was a drastic physical and mental shock that would have killed a lesser Carggite, and still bothers her even years afterward.

* HurtingHero: Let's put it this way: One of his most frequent downtime activities happens to be going to Trom and making the local equivalent of a headstone for each and every one of the billions of his race who died, placing them exactly where their bodies lay.

* HurtingHero: His attitude covers up the chronic pain he's been in since being injected with Zuunium.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monel.jpg]]

See Characters/SupermanSupportingCast or his own page at ComicBook/{{Valor}} for more info.

* SecretIdentity: Postboot, Valor is a religious figure due to having seeded intelligent life on most of the worlds the Legion hails from, and when they manage to release him from the Phantom Zone, there's very nearly all sorts of riots over different races' beliefs regarding the legendary hero. They manage to get him out in secret, though, and eventually he takes the name M'onel as his new identity.

Superboy was originally the identity that Clark Kent adopted using his powers to help others as a teenager in Smallville before he became Franchise/{{Superman}}. His exploits as both Superboy and Superman was what inspired Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl to form the Legion of Super-Heroes. The three of them would later travel back through time to meet him, after which they brought him to the future and made him a member. See the ComicBook/{{Superboy}} page.

Supergirl is Kara Zor-El, daughter of Zor-El and Allura In-Ze and cousin to Superman. Kara was born in Argo, a Kryptonian city which initially survived Krypton's holocaust. Kara's parents [[ComicBook/TheSupergirlFromKrypton1959 sent their daughter to Earth to meet Superman]] when Argo City's environment lost its capacity to support life. After a long period of secret training, [[ComicBook/TheUnknownSupergirl Kara's existence was revealed to the world]], and she took up the "Supergirl" moniker officially. Her exploits also inspired the Legion, [[ComicBook/SupergirlsThreeSuperGirlfriends who made her a member of the team]]. See the ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} page.

* CreateYourOwnVillain: He bullies Cera Kesh so badly that it leaves her emotionally vulnerable enough for the Emerald Eye to latch onto her, turning Cera into the new Emerald Empress.

* MissingMom: In Postboot, it turned out that Brainy was traumatized by the memory of his mother, Brainiac 4, [[MissingMom abandoning him just as soon as she'd finished giving birth]]. Brainiac 4 was [[OedipusComplex a statuesque blonde woman, by the way]]. [[spoiler:Also a sociopath, who took on several wildly varying identities before eventually leading the Dark Circle and trying to kill Querl, all in pursuit of finding something that would provoke an emotional reaction in herself.]]

* MartialArtsUniform: His uniform usually resembles some form of martial arts costume.

[[Characters/SupermanCentralRoguesGallery Central Rogues Gallery]] ([[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Alexander "Lex" Luthor]], [[Characters/SupermanBizarro Bizarro]], [[Characters/SupermanBrainiacCharacter Vril Dox/Brainiac]], [[Characters/SupermanCyborgSuperman Cyborg-Superman]], [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]], [[Characters/SupermanDoomsdayCharacter Doomsday]], ComicBook/{{Lobo}}, [[Characters/SupermanMisterMxyzptlk Mister Mxyzptlk]], [[Characters/DCComicsMongul Mongul]], [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryPhantomZone Phantom Zone Criminals]] [[[Characters/SupermanGeneralZod General Zod]]]) | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryAToL A-L]] | [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGalleryMToZ M-Z]] ([[Characters/SupermanSuperboyPrime Superboy-Prime]])\\

* HumanAlien: Pretty much identical to a human except for the splitting.

* LiteralSplitPersonality: Postboot, each duplicate embodies a different personality aspect, in a ThreeFacesOfEve pattern. Specifically, "Lu-Orange" as the shy Child, "Lu-Purple" as the Seductress, and "Lu-Neutral" as the Wife holding them all together metaphorically. Taken to an extreme shortly before the start of the "Emerald Vi" and 20th-century arcs, where Shrinking Violet and the Emerald Eye split the three personalities into separate bodies with distinct character redesigns, who were not able to recombine. The Preboot and Retroboot versions of Triplicate Girl are more Single Minded Triplets (see below). Threeboot is a whole other story originally but works out similarly to the Single Minded versions.

* SelfDuplication: Probably one of the more interesting variations. Luornu used to be able to split into three distinct bodies, each with their own will and personality. [[spoiler: After the death of one of them at the hands of Computo, she could only split into two bodies]].

* HumanAlien: Bgztlian, but close enough to human (and/or Carggite) to interbreed.

* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: After his discovering his long-lost father was secretly RJ Brande, who'd been funding the Legion for years, he made one of the few impulsive decisions of his life and took several Legionnaires on a mission to spy upon the Khund, which ended up getting them led into a trap with no apparent hope of rescue on a frozen asteroid. They were rescued in the end, but a) everyone could very well have died b) Light Lass and Timber Wolf broke up their long-standing relationship over a MistakenForCheating incident that also harmed Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad's marriage, and C) he very nearly touched off an open war between the United Planets and the Khunds, and therefore was sentenced to Takron-Galtos for treason...with all the other criminals the Legion had busted and his powers neutralized.

* ModeLock: If exposed to Cancelite, a Durlan is frozen in whatever form they were taking at the time until it wears off. He also temporarily loses his powers due to illness.

** ShapeShiftingSquick: Given a nod in Threeboot, in which one character suggests that Chameleon is not attracted to non-shapeshifters.

Colossal Boy is a human member of the Legion. Exposure to a radioactive meteorite gave him the ability to grow incredibly large. His mother is President Allon, and his wife is Chameleon Girl. In Reboot Legion continuity, he is a member of the Science Police who takes the name Leviathan when he joins the Legion. [[spoiler: This version dies in battle against Doctor Regulus]]. In Prime Legion continuity, he belongs to a race of giants and has the power to shrink to normal size. Everyone calls him Colossal Boy, but he insists that his name is Micro Lad.

* RetGone: When Glorith ages the [=SW6=] Gim to death, his adult version vanishes, cluing the Legionnaires in to the nature of [=SW6=] as time-displaced versions of themselves, rather than clones.

* TheEveryman: Threeboot has him as an obvious audience identification character.

Born on the super-intelligent planet Colu, he is a 12th-level intellect considered a genius even by their standards. This makes him an incredible scientist, inventor, and strategist in combat. His ancestor is the super-villain ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}, and he takes this name to redeem his family's lineage. His longest romantic partners have been Supergirl, Andromeda, and Dream Girl.

** [[spoiler:During one of his crazy periods, felt like he wasn't getting the credit he deserved, so he used the Miracle Machine to create the unstoppable Omega, a living agglomeration of '''all''' hatred, '''everywhere''', demanding to be named Ruler of the Universe in exchange for the secret of stopping him]].

* InsufferableGenius: More often than not, depending on the writer. In the Postboot continuity, he's so fed up with the other Legionnaires pestering him for help that [[spoiler:when the Emerald Eye grants his heart's desire, he becomes invisible and inaudible to everyone but himself and simply goes about his own projects without interference.]] This is most apparent in ''Legion of Three Worlds'', where Retroboot, Postboot, and Threeboot Brainy all have to work together and just can't stop arguing (albeit for different reasons; one of them is distrustful of an older Brainiac 5 because he's never trusted any adults before and isn't about to get in the habit of it).
* {{Irony}}: He was always one of the loudest voices against using the Miracle Machine to fulfill the Legion's desires, both out of the danger involved and because the Legion might go soft if they did. [[spoiler:Then he goes nuts and uses the Machine to make Omega, the most dangerous thing in the universe, for entirely selfish reasons]].

* WritingAroundTrademarks: After DC introduced Brainiac, the makers of a toy computer called "The Brainiac" complained. [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/11/30/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-79/ DC had to place a trademark notice for the toy computer in the comic, and made Brainiac a robot with a computer mind.]] This made things complicated for Brainiac 5, who could not be a descendant of Brainiac and was retconned as the descendant of a humanoid who Brainiac adopted and who later rebelled. The animated version simply made Brainiac 5 and all Coluans robots, with Querl based on the original's code. In 1988 (the original change was in 1964), Brainiac was retconned back into being a living Coluan (fully confirmed in [[ComicBook/SupermanBrainiac 2008]]) making this moot.

** In the Threeboot she is a brash ActionHeroine, who hates being called Shrinking Violet. She's Atom Girl.

* HumanAlien: As an Imskian, yes.

* ShrinkingViolet: TropeNamer.

* TheChewToy: His deaths throughout the various versions of the Legion. His FYL counterpart was rendered a perpetually burning corpse before he was shot in the head, the Threeboot Dirk had his head completed destroyed by Superboy-Prime, and now [[spoiler: his post-Flashpoint counterpart dies from a crushed skull and then has his body cooked and devoured by the natives of the planet his team crashed on.]] At least he was able to go out like a hero.

* {{Mutant}}: Apparently gestating and being born on an orbital observatory exposed him to cosmic energy of some sort which gave him his powers.

* InnateNightVision: Since he has the same (or superior) visual powers as a Kryptonian and they can see in the dark, then by implication his penetra-vision can do the same.

* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: He can eat stuff. Hardly a power to write home about. However, seeing as Tenzil Kem's personal definition of "stuff" includes ''laser beams'' and ''doomsday computers,'' you might want to keep him around in case you need to get rid of something. In one story he ate [[CosmicKeystone a supposedly-indestructible wish-granting device]] and so saved The Legion from the invincible monster it had created after everyone else failed. It drove him mad, but hey, he saved the universe! In at least one version, being able to bite through and chew up anything meant the RequiredSecondaryPower of acidic saliva, providing a potentially nasty ranged attack.

* AGodAmI: In "Legion Lost", after a few billion years alone, he goes hopelessly insane, creates a race of his own, and becomes a villain with this schtick.

* ChestInsignia: Depending on the era, it's an "E" in either [[https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ikav8-w86CY/VJ6-2qTAZEI/AAAAAAAAX8g/3qpWrXbHPhI/s1600/ACT_392(640x470).jpg English]] or [[https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YbNE9KvFbLc/VJ6-yiGZHfI/AAAAAAAAX8Q/JbZhCvHkuIo/s1600/19_ElementLad%2B(527x800).jpg Interlac]] (the latter which looks uncomfortably phallic). Later, it's an [[https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/13/134753/5453866-img_5306.jpg upwards-pointing arrow]] coming up from his legs, which, uh, isn't much better. And then there's [[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MXfpOsr5W3Q/VJ6-_SV_VsI/AAAAAAAAX-M/JoCu4JStqS4/s1600/LSH_profiles_1978_ElementLad.jpg this one]] he only wore once, for ''some'' reason.

* CreatingLifeIsAwesome: Subverted in "Legion Lost". [[spoiler:Creating a race of genocidal life-forms to wipe out the genetically impure is ''not''. Neither is blowing up your dearest old friend when it turns out you didn't create her.]].

* HumanAlien: He's a Tromian.

* IdentityAmnesia: In "Legion Lost" [[spoiler:a few billion years in isolation destroy everything he was. He even forgets his own ''name''.]]

* ProphetEyes: He's got them when the group finds him in "Legion Lost". [[spoiler:After billions and bilions of years alone]].

* InnatenightVision: Thermal vision is one of her sensory powers as Sensor Girl

* MixAndMatchCritter: Near the end of Postboot, she was mutated into a naga-like form.

* AdaptationAlAttractiveness: After his death his mother made a series of Ferro Lad action films in his memory/to make a profit. He's played by a handsome actor in the movies, of course.

* ContinuityNod: The Preboot Ferro Lad is best known for sacrificing his life to stop a Sun-Eater. The Postboot Ferro first appears during the ''Final Night'' crossover, featuring another Sun-Eater. He [[MoreExpendableThanYou volunteers himself for a suicide mission to keep the Sun-Eater from destroying Earth]], but at the moment of truth, he is quickly told by [[Franchise/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]], "[[MoreHeroThanThou That's OK, son, but you've got too much to live for,]]" and rescued. Hal Jordan, currently the supervillain Parallax, sacrifices himself to stop it instead.

* HumanAlien: She's a Talokian.

* {{Stripperific}}: Tasmia's first costume in original continuity was essentially a dark blue bathing suit with a cape. Like many Legionnaires she underwent a sexy makeover in the 1970's, adopting a revealing black bikini-like outfit with gold accessories -- a tiara, bracelets, and an "S"-shaped logo just below her navel.

* {{Animorphism}}: {{Mode Lock}}ed into the bestial Furball in [=5YL=].

* CompressedVice: Also an InformedAttribute. In 5YL, Darkseid, out of the blue sky, claims that Brin is "addicted" to Zuunium before he reverts him back into his human form. Brin and Brainiac 5 later corraborate this, as if it were some steroid he'd been willingly putting into himself (thus causing himself to mutate) instead of something that had been permanently infused into his body largely against his will. It doesn't make a lick of sense, directly contradicts his origin story, and he'd never been seen doing or referencing anything of the sort in all his thirty-ish years as an existing character. The notion (fortunately) appears only in 5YL continuity.

* MenDontCry: Why he never told anyone that he'd been suffering from chronic pain since getting injected with Zuunium as a child. His father was a SocialDarwinist type, who raised him to never be "weak", to the point of extracting a promise of such from Brin as he lay dying.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Princess Projectra left the Legion because of this [[spoiler:following the (first) death of her husband, Karate Kid]] and the need to rebuild her homeworld. She later returned to the team in secret, under the guise of Sensor Girl.

* [[SingleMindedTwins Single Minded Triplets]]: Some versions.

* BareYourMidriff: Her Threeboot outfit. It's somewhat fitting considering her "girl next door" characterization.

* BareYourMidriff: Like Light Lass below, Dream Girl had this look in the threeboot.

Bouncing Boy has the power to inflate himself and bounce around like a giant ball. This combination of invulnerability and velocity makes him a surprisingly useful combatant. Born on Earth without any powers, he received his abilities by accidentally drinking a super-plastic formula nhe believed was soda pop. He has shared a long-term romantic relationship with Triplicate Girl of the planet Cargg, one of his fellow Legionnaires whom he eventually marries. In Reboot Legion continuity, Chuck Taine has no powers and is the Legion's mechanic.

* GreenLanternRing: Just sit down for a while and think about all the chemicals he could generate, the reactions he could cause in someone's body, all the superpowers out there which come from biological reactions or energy reserves...he's got a StoryBreakerPower, if he only had the confidence to match.