The Dominator War is a Legion of Super-Heroes story by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson, told in Supergirl And The Legion Of Super Heroes #26-30 (March-July, 2007). It was both the Grand Finale and the swan song for Waid's second Legion run.
Several Legionnaires have been kidnapped by Mekt Ranzz, Lightning Lad's long-lost brother and leader of the group known as the Wanderers, who reveals the Dominators are about to declare war on humanity and believes the Legion and the United Planets to be too weak and soft to beat them.
Brainiac 5, Supergirl, Mon-El and Ultra Boy head towards Mega Tokyo to investigate Mekt's claims, and they indeed discover a massive robot being built below the city. However, the humongous mecha is not the real threat. When the heroes dismantle the robot, it releases a techno-organic virus which quickly spreads across the planet and turns all machines against humans.
Nonetheless, the real threat is the new race of genetically-engineered soldiers bred by a Dominator scientist who has foreseen their kin's defeat. Should the Dominators lose the war, their evolved Dominators will spread across the inhabited worlds and multiply until eventually taking over the galaxy.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: In the original continuity, the Dominators were originally a warlike alien race, but they could be reasoned with (sometimes holding peace talks with the United Planets government). In the rebooted 2004 continuity they are "an entire race of irredeemable monsters" who need to be dealt with permanently.
- Adaptational Heroism: Mekt Ranzz goes from Legion of Super-Villains' founding member to anti-hero who wants to save the galaxy from the Dominators but believes the United Planets are too soft and incompetent to be relied on.
- Angry Collar Grab: When interrogating Plant Lad, who has just revealed to be a traitor, Timber Wolf angrily grabs him by the collar and demands answers.
- Bittersweet Ending: The war ends with Mon-El sending himself into the Phantom Zone together with the Dominators' homeworld to make sure that they cannot threaten the galaxy again.
- But Now I Must Go:
- At the end, Cosmic Boy is visited by the Tempus Knights, a super-team hailing from the 41st century, who offer him membership. Cosmic Boy takes up their offer, goes away with them and is never seen again.
- It is mentioned during the final sequence that Supergirl is again looking for a way to go back to the 21st century now the war is over.
- Canon Discontinuity: The references to the Invasion and 52 events, Booster Gold, and Mon-El meeting Supergirl in the past before being sent into the Zone by Superman make no sense after Legion of 3 Worlds retconned this timeline into being the future of Superboy-Prime's universe.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover for issue #26 features the whole Legion fighting a huge orange robot emerging out of a city's underground. In the story, it is only Supergirl, Mon-El and Ultra Boy who engage a massively larger and completely different-looking robot which gets torn apart easily becasue it is only a decoy.
- Death Seeker: Subverted. When Light Lass meets the Wanderers, the army of metahumans raised by Mekt Ranzz to battle the Dominators, she warns them that her big brother -like most of Winathians who are born without a twin sibling- was born with a huge death wish. Hence, their "commander" is most likely leading them on a suicide mission. Later, though, Mekt states he is not thinking of dying anymore because he does not want to get the Wanderers killed.
- Digging to China: Mon-El, recently freed from the Phantom Zone, goes through the Earth to get from East Coast North America to Japan. Supergirl questions this and Mon-El explained that this was the first time in 1,000 years he had a physical form, and actually wanted to feel the rock he was plowing through.
- Earth Is a Battlefield: The Dominators have all but conquered Earth thanks to a worldwide machine-controlling techno-plague. In retaliation, the Legionnaires attack and conquer their homeworld.
- Genocide Dilemma: After conquering Dominion, the Legionnaires learn the Dominators intend to send their Xenoclone Shocktroopers -an army of millions of genetically-engineered super-powerful Dominators- throughout the inhabited worlds to multiply without control until eventually taking over the galaxy. The Legion has two options: leaving Dominion -the Dominator homeworld- and letting a race of monsters conquer the galaxy or blowing up five billion of sentient beings. However, Cosmic Boy takes a third option, and sends the whole Dominator homeworld into the Phantom Zone.Sun Boy: "What can we do [Cosmic Boy]? We have Supergirl. And Mon-El. And Ultra Boy and more. A full-out assault can literally— literally— tear that planet in half. Question is, are you willing to give your team the go-ahead to destroy an entire race of irredeemable monsters before they rise again?"
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: When Cosmic Boy talks to the hologram of one UP delegate, the projection wavers and is green-tinted.
- Humongous Mecha: The Dominators build a giant robot under Megatokyo. It is so big that its head knocks several skyscrapers down when the massive monster bursts out of the ground.
- Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Played with. When Supergirl, Mon-El, Ultra Boy and Brainiac 5 punch their way through the Earth's molten core, the surrounding magma is a glowing, orange-and-red ocean or a dense blackness depending on the panel.
- Lured into a Trap: The Dominators are told the remains of the Resistance are gathering for a last stand, so they capture Cosmic Boy, Triplicate Girl and other Legionnaires and torture them into revealing the rendezvous point. The Dominators send Shock Troopers into the meeting point, and immediately Supergirl, Mon-El and Ultra Boy barrel through them, fly into the portal and take over the Dominators' teleport network, allowing the Legion to invade Dominion...which was Cosmic Boy's plan all along.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The war was accidentally -and unwittingly- caused by Booster Gold stealing a Dominator weapon and boasting about saving fifty-two worlds before disappearing back into the time-stream. The Dominators never found out his identity or intentions, but they were incensed at the humans breaking the peace treaty, and they misinterpreted his words as Earth having allied fifty-two worlds against them covertly.
- Planet Destroyer: Brainiac 5 states that Supergirl, Mon-El and Ultra Boy's full assault "can literally— literally— tear [the Dominator homeworld] in half".
- Portal Cut: As the war against the machines rages in Earth, the Legion try to teleport the United Planets delegates to a safer world. Unfortunately, the techno-virus takes over the dimensional portal right when the diplomats are being herded through it, and several of them are torn into pieces.
- Robot War: The Dominators spread a techno-irus across Earth which turns all robots and sentient machines against humans.
- Rule of Perception: As they travel through the interior of the Earth, Brainiac 5 complains he cannot see absolutely nothing on account of being thousands of miles away from any source of light. However, he and his partners are surrounded by a bright orange glow that allows the readers to see the team and their reactions.
- Storming the Castle: Since the Dominators have turned all machines against humanity, the Legion invades their homeworld.
- Super-Soldier: The Xenoclone Shocktroopers are genetically engineered Dominators with metahuman DNA. They are larger, stronger and faster than their race's average member.
- That's No Moon: After putting down the robot rebellion taking shape under Megatokyo, the Legionnaires wonder where the giant mechanical monster which they came to take down has gone. Then the ground starts shaking and rising. The Legion flies upwards and see the "floor" was the forehead of a city-sized mecha which is emerging out of the ground and tackling buildings without even noticing.
- There Was a Door: When Supergirl's X-Ray Vision finds the Wanderers' secret hideout, the Legionnaires burst crash through one wall and into the place.
- Thrown Down a Well: Brainiac 5 builds a device which throws the whole Dominator homeworld into the Phantom Zone to stop them from spreading across the galaxy.
- Tunnel King: Mon-El has to go from Metropolis to Tokyo, so he tunnels his way to Japan merely because he feels like it.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: When White Witch shows up, there are zero indication that she and Dream Girl are sisters as was the case in the previous continuities. In fact, Nura does not even acknowledge her.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: When the Ranzz siblings were hit by the electric attack of the Korbalians, Garth and Ayla lost consciousness immediately. They woke up several weeks later in a Winathian hospital, and found out Mekt had gone missing.
- We Have Become Complacent: According to the Dominator's head scientist, the Dominators became weak because of long years of peace, and the baseless notion that the human heroes would remain out of their borders only because one paper told so.Dominator: "In the years following our retreat from Earth, we grew insular and withdrawn. [...] A few centuries later, this status quo was formalized in the Nameless Treaty. We called it that because the human term "non-aggression pact" had no equivalent in our tongue. Alas, in time it did enter our Lexicon. We had grown soft, believing an empty human promise actually protected our sovereign borders."
- Women Are Wiser: At the end, when the Ranzz brothers have one opportunity to catch up, Garth and Mekt unanimously decide to let their sister do the talking, since unlike them, Ayla knows how to keep a cool head.
