Lar Gand
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Lar Gand, known variously as Mon-El, Valor and M'Onel, is a fictional character in DC Comics' universe who is affiliated with the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superboy, and later Superman.
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[edit] Halk Kar
"Superman's Big Brother," in Superman #80 (January–February 1953), introduced a character named Halk Kar — who had a logo-less costume almost identical to Superman's but with the red and blue colors reversed — as a super-powered alien much less powerful than Superman. Halk Kar was essentially the original prototype for Mon-El.
In the story, Halk Kar crash-lands on Earth in a rocketship and is rescued by Superman, who discovers that Halk Kar suffers from amnesia. Discovering a note from Jor-El (Superman's father) in Halk Kar's possession which mentions Jor-El's son, Superman assumes that Halk Kar must not only be from his own planet Krypton, but he must be a son of Jor-El and thus also his own older brother.
Superman quickly realizes that Halk Kar is less powerful than he is and — instead of subjecting him to embarrassment over the fact that he may be weaker than his younger brother — opts to use his own powers to cover for Halk Kar's deficiencies. Unfortunately this plan backfires on Superman, as Halk Kar begins to assume a superior attitude to Superman and even begins to make romantic advances on Superman's girl friend, Lois Lane.
Finally, after Halk Kar is exposed to a powerful electric shock inflicted on him by criminals, he recovers his memory and explains to Superman who he is and how he came into possession of a note from Jor-El. He says that his name is Halk Kar and that he is from the planet Thoron, which is in the same solar system as Krypton was. (The planet "Thoron" was named after thoron, an isotope of Radon-220, just as the planet "Krypton" was named after the chemical element krypton.) Years ago, while on a pioneer voyage into space, he landed on Krypton with his damaged rocketship. There he met Jor-El, who explained that Krypton's destruction was imminent and repaired Halk Kar's rocketship, sending him away with the note which had a map from Krypton to Earth on it. Krypton exploded shortly afterward, causing Halk Kar to be put into suspended animation until he drifted to Earth to meet Superman, the grown-up son of Jor-El referred to in the note.
After explaining his story, Halk Kar bids farewell to Superman and returns to the planet Thoron in his repaired rocketship, leaving Superman with the experience of briefly having had a brother.
[edit] Mon-El
In Superboy #89 (June 1961), the story recycled much of the plot of "Superman's Big Brother," replacing Halk Kar with Mon-El (who was given the name of Lar Gand in a later story).
Lar Gand is a Daxamite, an alien from the planet Daxam. Exploring the galaxy, he landed on Krypton, but was immediately warned by Jor-El of the planet's imminent destruction and was given a map to Earth. He then went into suspended animation. After a few years he landed on Earth and met Superboy. Although Gand suffered from amnesia upon landing on Earth, he and Superboy became good friends. Under Earth's yellow sun he had powers like those of Superman; this led Superboy to believe that Gand might be his heretofore unknown long-lost brother. Superboy named the amnesiac alien "Mon-El": "Mon" because he landed on Earth on a Monday, and "El" for Superboy's own Kryptonian family name. Monel is also a steel alloy, an appropriate name for the brother of the man of steel.
However, Daxamites are highly sensitive to lead; even a small amount causes fatal, irreversible, poisoning. After heavy lead exposure, "Mon-El" was dying, so Superboy transported him into the extradimensional Phantom Zone until a cure could be found. Gand spent one thousand years as a poisoned, insubstantial, telepathic phantom, able to watch everything that happened in the outside world, but unable to affect it in the slightest.
In the 30th century Saturn Girl created a temporary antidote to this poisoning allowing him to be released from the Zone for brief periods of time. During this period he was considered an honorary Legionnaire. Brainiac 5 later created a permanent antidote, based on Saturn Girl's serum, with the addition of Kryptonite.
After passing his Legion test (including inventing flight ring metal) under the name "Marvel Lad", Mon-El then joined the Legion of Super-Heroes, using the "Mon-El" moniker Superboy had given him. During this time he was considered one of the Legion's big 3 (along with Superboy and Ultra Boy) and served two terms as leader. Many years later he married fellow Legionnaire Shadow Lass, with whom he had a long romantic relationship.
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Gand's history was unchanged, except that his encounter with Superboy took place in a pocket universe created by the Time Trapper, a mysterious being living at the end of the universe, as Superboy was no longer part of the DCU Superman's history.
[edit] Valor
Following a number of "rewrites" of Legion history by various incarnations of the Time Trapper, Lar Gand replaced the non-existent Superboy as the Legion's inspiration. As detailed in "The Legend of Valor" (Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2, 1991), Lar Gand would enjoy a heroic career in the 20th century as "Valor," stopping the second Dominator-led invasion of Earth, freeing thousands of humans who had been experimented on by the Dominators and seeding them on a series of worlds between Dominion space and Earth as a "buffer zone" to prevent future invasions. These colonists had gained metahuman powers due to the experiments and would in 1,000 years time evolve into many of the worlds that would join the United Planets. After completing this task and an indefinite number of other 20th-century ventures, he would be placed in the Bgtzl Buffer Zone by the time-sorceress Glorith where he would be rescued by the Legion in the 30th century. But none of these great 20th century adventures had occurred yet in the modern DCU.
In his new history, Lar Gand was inspired by his father's sacrifice in the crossover story Invasion! to become a hero. He briefly joined L.E.G.I.O.N., where it was Vril Dox II who cured his lead poisoning.
Gand left L.E.G.I.O.N after a disagreement and travelled to Earth. He played a significant part in the Eclipso: The Darkness Within crossover, in which Superman gave him the name "Valor". He was given his own solo series Valor which lasted for 23 issues. It began with Lar as an adventurous young man exploring the universe in a spaceship with a sentient A.I. called Babbage, encountering various aliens and civilizations. After #12 however, things became complex.
Glorith had continued altering the timeline, inadvertently recreating the original Time Trapper in the process. Travelling back to when Lar Gand was a young man in another attempt to win his affection, she accidentally caused his death. Attempting to undo the damage this caused history, she called forth a duplicate Valor from the Legion's time (a second version of Valor created by the Time Trapper) to take his other self's place, "patched" into the 20th century timeline by Waverider. He was tasked with completing Valor's legendary feats such as stopping the Dominators' second invasion of Earth and seeding the UP worlds so that 30th century history would play out as it was supposed to. But history was playing out much earlier than it was supposed to which led to some changes in Valor's exploits. This was one of the many destabilisations of the timestream that eventually led to Zero Hour, and the "Legion Reboot".
[edit] M'onel
After the Reboot, Valor reappeared in Superboy Vol. 3 #17. He was amnesiac, but had vague memories of his time with L.E.G.I.O.N. and the events of his own series. Tricked into a fight with Superboy (the modern clone version), he discovered Dox's anti-lead serum was wearing off. To save him Superboy placed him in the "Stasis Zone", an extradimensional space used by the minor supervillain Loophole. (It was later confirmed that the Stasis Zone, the Buffer Zone, and the Phantom Zone were all different names for the same dimension.) With Loophole's device to enter the Stasis Zone destroyed before a cure could be found, he remained there (once again) for a thousand years, before being released by the Legion, and injected with Brainiac 5's improved version of his ancestor's serum. To avoid the religious fervor his return would cause, the Legion kept secret the fact this new Legionnaire was the legendary Valor. He took the name "M'onel", which, he claimed, was Martian for "the Wanderer".
[edit] Threeboot
Following another reboot of Legion history, in Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #23 (Dec 06), Saturn Girl senses a telepathic call for help while on Rokyn. When she traces the source of the call she sees a ghostly form resembling Lar Gand, "haunting" a Phantom Zone projector and begging for release.
A figure in Mon-El's costume appears on the cover of the upcoming Action Comics Annual #10 (January 2007), with a caption reading "Who is Clark Kent's big brother?".[1].
![[1]](http://www.newsarama.com/imagepop.html?imageURL=http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/Jan07/superpics/ACANNCv10.jpg){kind=link}