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The Comic Book History Of Mon-El

Published Wed, 19 Oct 2016 14:00:30 -0500

If you watched the latest episode of Supergirl, then you'd know it's a good time to talk about the character of Mon-El. This is a character from DC Comics history that has been closely tied with both Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes. With him making his live action debut, seems like a good time for a primer for those not familiar with the character.

Mon-El first appeared in Superboy #89 (1961) by Robert Bernstein and George Papp. Though it could be argued that Otto Binder and Al Pastino should be credited for his creation in part. You see, in Superman #80 (1953), a man from another planet crash landed on Earth wearing a reversed version of Superman's costume with no logo, he had amnesia and he carried a map from Jor-El. The man was Halk Kar from Thoron who Superman assumed was his older brother but turned out he had just crashed landed on Krypton prior to it exploding and was aided by Jor-El who fixed his ship and gave him a map to Earth. The plot of the issue was reused almost a decade later to create a new character that crashed landed on Earth and was rescued by Superboy. He was closer to Superboy's age and carried a map from Jor-El… and he had amnesia. Superboy assumed he was a brother and named him Mon-El… Mon since he landed on Monday.

Mon-El tried to blend into the world, even taking on a secret identity of Bob Cobb. But when he was not affected by Kryptonite, Superboy became suspicious and tried to tricky him using a fake piece of Kryptonite made from led. The led made his memory return and we learn that his real name is Lar Gand and he's not Kryptonian at all. Instead he is a Daxamite… whose one weakness is lead. It poisons them irreversibly. So to save his life, Superboy puts Mon-El into the Phantom Zone where he would not age, the poison would not kill him and he could observer Earth.

He would later be rescued by the Legion of Super-Heroes who find an antidote for the lead poisoning and he becomes a member of the team, even leading for a while. He also became romantically involved with and eventually married Shadow Lass.

Then Crisis on Infinite Earths came and erased Superboy from the comic history… except in the case of Mon-El where they said that all still happened in a pocket universe created by the Time Trapper. There's back and forth with Time Trapper where Mon-El dies and is resurrected and then Mon-El defeats Time Trapper only to have someone named Glorith step in and recreate Lar Gand as Valor. In this new line, Valor becomes the inspiration for the Legion of Superheroes since there is no Superboy. He had his own comic series for 23 issues until there was a Zero Hour reboot of the Legion.

If this wasn't convoluted enough, the character would then pop up in the third volume of Superboy #17 with amnesia and lead poisoning and was tricked into fighting Superboy (Conner Kent) and was eventually put in the Stasis Zone (Phantom Zone) to save him then revived 1,000 years later by the Legion. But to prevent a religious fervor, he didn't use the name Valor but took the name M'Onel which was Martian for 'He who wanders'. There were a few more flip flops of his history up until Infinite Crisis.

With Infinite Crisis everything changed again. Lar Gand's distant relative Bal Gand came to Earth during the height of the Maya culture and she got pregnant by a Earthling. She decided to go home to Daxam to raise her child instead of having them on Earth where they'd be a demi-god. Centuries later Lar decides to travel the stars and ends up on Earth with no memory and basically doing his origin over again. Superman finds him and tries to see if he's Kryptonian by using Kryptonite (Action Comics Annual #10 2007), but the lead case it came in poisoned Mon-El and returns his memories. Once again into the Phantom Zone until it is about to collapse and Superman pulls him out and administers as cure left by the Legion. He settles into a life in Metropolis, taking the name Jonathan Kent, Clark's cousin from London. As Mon-El, he helps to fill in for Superman while Kal-El is off on New Krypton, he works with the Metropolis Science Police and gets into a romantic relationship with Billi Harper, Guardian's grand niece.

With the New 52, Mon-El is back with the Legion as one of the field leaders.

There is a ton of material for the writers of Supergirl to pull from there. He's tied to the Legion as well as the Phantom Zone. They have all the pieces to do his basic origin, replacing Supergirl for Superboy, the lead poisoning and even putting him into the Phantom Zone. But any of his history after that involved the Legion and I'm not sure if the series is ready to meet them yet.

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