< Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)

Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)/Characters


Useful Notes on Legion Continuity:

The Legion of Super-Heroes has been ongoing in one form or another since 1958, encompassing three completely distinct continuities and several more "branch" continuities. That being the case, there are many alternate versions and a lot of Character Development involved, and what tropes apply to what characters varies from version to version. Here's a thumbnail reference for what refers to what part of continuity:

Preboot--The original continuity, prior to the 1994 Zero Hour continuity reboot. These stories take place on Earth-1 (Pre-Crisis) or Earth-0 (current continuity).
V4 / 5YL / TMK--"Five Years Later", the fourth volume of the Preboot title, a Darker and Edgier continuation following (as the title suggests) a five-year Time Skip. The 5YL stories were mostly written by Tom and Mary Bierbaum and drawn by Keith Giffen, usually abbreviated to "TMK".
Softboot / Glorithverse--The state of Legion continuity after a Cosmic Retcon unleashed during V4 to write the Pocket Universe Superboy out of continuity. Glorith was a time-controlling villainess who took advantage of the retcon.
Batch SW6--One of the most significant ongoing storylines from 5YL, involving a group of time-paradox duplicates of the early Legion (who went on to star in the Spin-Off Legionnaires until Zero Hour). The term comes from the cryptic labels of the People Jars the duplicates were found in.[1]

Retroboot / Deboot / Johnsboot--The version of the original continuity Legion that appeared starting in 2007's "The Lightning Saga", branching off from the Preboot continuity just before 5YL, except that Superboy didn't die.[2] So named because its tone was set by writer Geoff Johns.

Postboot--The continuity following the 1994 Zero Hour reboot, up until it was rebooted again in 2004. These stories take place on Earth-247.
Archie Legion--The relatively lighter initial portion of the Postboot.
DnA--The Darker and Edgier "Legion of the Damned" and "Legion Lost" stories by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.

Threeboot--The continuity following the 2004 reboot, re-envisioning the Legion as a rebellious youth movement in a stagnant society. These stories take place on Earth-Prime.

L3W--Legion of Three Worlds, a Final Crisis limited series bringing together the Retroboot, Postboot, and Threeboot Legions.

The version of the Legion currently appearing in comics is the "Retroboot" based on the original "Preboot" continuity, described above.

Characters below are listed in the era in which they were introduced, not when they joined the Legion. For instance, Night Girl was introduced in the 1960s but didn't become a full member until 2007, while Kid Quantum was introduced in 1990 but Retconned into being a member during the Silver Age era.

The Animated Adaptation has its own main page and character sheet.


The Founders

Cosmic Boy/Polestar

AKA: Rokk Krinn
Homeworld: Braal
Abilities: Magnetism manipulation

In most incarnations, the leader of the Legion. Cosmic Boy's serious demeanor and respect for authority lends him to the role of leadership, but places him at odds with Lightning Lad. Preboot, his brother was Pol Krinn, aka Magnetism Lad. His personality, like his power, is magnetic—he draws people to his cause with his charisma.

In the FYL continuity, Cosmic Boy was De Powered during a war between Braal and Imsk. He married Night Girl and had a son named Pol after his late brother. Shortly before his reality was destroyed by Zero Hour, he regained his powers thanks to a pair of power gauntlets and took the name Polestar.

Postboot, Cosmic Boy was a sports star whose talent helped him as a superhero. When half the team was stranded in the present day, Cos led them through Final Night and Genesis and was instrumental in getting them home. When the Postboot Legion's Earth was destroyed in Infinite Crisis, he continued to lead them, and in their current exile as the Wanderers, he is leading them in their search for a new home.

In Threeboot, though Cosmic Boy founded the Legion, he was widely disliked because he was forced to accept supervision from the United Planets. He struggled with command, and after the Dominator War, ceded leadership to Supergirl. He was approached by a group of superheroes from the 41st century whose legacy he inspired and joined them in the future.

Saturn Girl

AKA: Imra Ardeen
Homeworld: Titan
Abilities: Telepathy

A telepath from one of Saturn's moons, Saturn Girl is the glue that holds the Legion together, keeping a balance between the cool-headed Cosmic Boy and Hot-Blooded Lightning Lad. When Cos isn't the Legion's leader, it's usually her. In all incarnations of the Legion, the love of her life is Lightning Lad.

In Threeboot, Saturn Girl's people were so reliant on telepathy that their vocal cords were useless. She was distant and reserved. Her mother was a member of the United Planets council, which put her at odds with the more iconoclastic Legionnaires.

  • Freudian Trio: As the superego, with Cosmic Boy (ego) and Lightning Lad (id).
  • Happily Married: With Lightning Lad, Preboot. Following Legion of 3 Worlds in the Retroboot continuity, Imra and Garth went back to this in the latest Legion volume.
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Her Threeboot counterpart, along with Threeboot Invisible Kid. Francis Manapul redesigned her as being somewhat "hippy" with a little more weight then the other girl Legionnaire, but she is in no way fat or chubby. One of the complaints she has about herself is that people consider her "dumpy". Ultra Boy, in an attempt to make her feel better while she's in a rut with Lightning Lad, says "you're sexy for a dumpy chick".
  • The Lancer or The Chick
  • Mama Bear: Preboot/Retroboot. This woman went up against Darkseid to restore one of her sons to normal. Unless you want to end up as a mindless heap on the floor, do not mess with her kids.
  • Mind Over Manners: Generally observed, although Postboot!Saturn Girl has had a few memorable, if accidental lapses. Like telepathically animating a comatose Cosmic Boy to help keep the Legionnaires trapped in the past together—and turning him into her Relationship Stu. Then in Legion Lost, Imra used her psychic powers to make Ultra Boy think that his wife, Apparition, was with them in their deep-space exile, and when he found out, he was pissed.
  • Official Couple: With Lightning Lad. Various attempts at shaking it up have proven futile and/or unpopular.
  • Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The pink girl to Lightning Lad's blue boy. However, she's also been known to wear red instead of pink.
  • Power Limiter: Postboot. It comes off.
  • Telepathic Spacegirl
  • Telepathy
  • Three Amigos: With Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Preboot, during a Silver Age story where she rigged an election for leader, secretly stole her teammates abilities, and then had them suspended for arbitrary reasons. It turned out she did all that in order to spare her teammates from fighting in an upcoming battle with an alien overlord, where a member would've surely been killed. Her plan failed when Lightning Lad discovered what she was planning, and sacrificed himself in battle.

Lightning Lad/Live Wire

AKA: Garth Ranzz
Homeworld: Winath
Abilities: Electrical generation and direction

  • Artificial Limbs: Loses an arm in most continuities, though what it's from varies wildly.
  • Back from the Dead: Came Back Wrong in 5YL. He also returned from a Heroic Sacrifice near the end of the Postboot continuity, inhabiting Element Lad's crystallized body.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: When he became Starfinger, Preboot.
  • Cain and Abel: With Lightning Lord.
  • Freudian Trio: As the id, with Cosmic Boy (ego) and Saturn Girl (superego).
  • Grand Theft Me: Postboot, Livewire eventually became trapped in Element Lad's body.
  • Half-Identical Twins: With Lightning Lass.
  • Happily Married: With Saturn Girl, Preboot. Following the end of Legion of 3 Worlds and the beginning of the latest Legion series by Paul Levitz, Retroboot Garth and Imra have gone back to this.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Several times in several continuities.
  • Hot-Blooded: In later continuities.
  • House Husband: The Preboot version, while his wife went back to being a Legionnaire, Garth was the one willing to stay at home and look after their twin sons, Graym and Garridan.
  • Jerk Jock: The SW6 version.
    • Hidden Heart of Gold: The SW 6 version is arguably the meanest of all the alternate Lightning Lads, at one point punching SW 6 Cosmic Boy in the face because he thought he was coming on to Saturn Girl. A Lotus Eater Machine experience revealed, however, when he was young he accidentally killed his pet and felt insanely guilty about it. His parents saying they could easily replace it and tossed it away didn't make him feel better.
  • The Lancer to Cosmic Boy's Hero, when Saturn Girl isn't filling the role instead.
  • The McCoy
  • Official Couple: With Saturn Girl. Attempts to shake this up don't generally end well or popularly.
  • Papa Wolf: Don't mess with this man's sons, not unless you want your synapses scrambled.
  • Perma-Stubble: His Retroboot counterpart was consistently depicted with stubble until the beginning of the new Legion series.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The blue boy to Saturn Girl's pink girl.
  • Red Oni: To Cosmic Boy's Blue Oni.
  • Redheaded Hero
  • Shock and Awe
  • Three Amigos: With Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl.
  • Understanding Boyfriend: His Pre-Crisis counterpart, in contrast to his counterparts, especially his SW 6 counterpart.


Silver Age (1960-1969)

Bouncing Boy

AKA: Chuck Taine
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Inflatable body, invulnerability (Preboot); expert mechanic (Postboot)

  • Acrofatic
  • Big Beautiful Man: Artists have drawn him with a fair amount of muscle over the years, making him appear beefy instead of simply fat. And even without that, fans find him attractive and utterly adorable.
  • Demoted to Extra / Ascended Extra: Like Matter-Eater Lad, Chuck was deemed too silly for the Postboot Legion, so he was recast as a non-powered mechanic contracted to the Legion. However, he proved popular, so during the DnA era he was promoted to "Chief Engineer" and joined the main cast... with his rather unique spaceship, the Bouncing Boy.
  • The Everyman
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin
  • Fridge Logic: Preboot. It would appear his power to inflate into a ball is the reason why he appears overweight, and this was justified by the Silver Age issues when he lost his bouncing power (the first time). He became so svelte his teammates refused to believe it was him. However, in his origin story, he's depicted as looking just as tubby as he did after he could inflate into a ball. Future stories supported the fact that his power had nothing to do with his weight.
  • Happily Married: To Luornu, preboot and retroboot. They were the first Legionnaires to get married.
  • Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: He IS one.
  • Lethal Joke Character: As pointed out elsewhere on the wiki, a 200+ pound weight that can fling itself around the room at remarkable speed is pretty dangerous.
  • Mr. Fixit: Postboot was too serious for Bouncing Boy, so it had Chuck Taine as the Legion's resident mechanic/engineer.

Brainiac 5/Brainiac 5.1

AKA: Querl Dox
Homeworld: Colu
Abilities: 12th level super intelligence; force-field projection (Postboot only)

  • Ambiguously Gay Bisexual: Postboot Brainy shows attraction to both Andromeda and Invisible Kid.
  • Barrier Warrior: Wears a belt that projects an impenetrable forcefield around himself; can sometimes extend the field to do more creative things with it.
  • Brains and Brawn: With Supergirl, Preboot.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Deflector Shields: He usually has one on his belt.
  • Flat Earth Atheist
  • Gadgeteer Genius
  • Insufferable Genius: 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 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.
  • May–December Romance: His Retroboot counterpart during New Krypton is still in love with Supergirl, even though, at that point in time in the 21st Century, she's still a teenager and he's an adult. Of course, Querl doesn't admit this to Kara because she had yet to actually join the Retroboot Legion.
  • Missing Mom: In Postboot, it turned out that Brainy was traumatized by the memory of his mother, Brainiac 4, abandoning him just as soon as she'd finished giving birth. Brainiac 4 was a statuesque blonde woman, by the way. 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.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The many times when one of Brainy's creations becomes a problem for the entire Legion (see: Computo).
  • Non-Action Guy: Depending on the continuity. He's always preferred to be mission control, but in some (especially Preboot) he can still pack a hell of a punch.
  • Science Hero
  • Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Goes crazy with remarkable frequency. The apparently decorative wires on his face are, in postboot continuity, part of a mental limiter that keeps him from becoming so intelligent that he becomes hopelessly focused on matters of cosmic knowledge, useless and/or insane.
  • The Smart Guy
  • The Spock
  • Straw Vulcan
  • Stuff Blowing Up: In some continuities, the frequency with which his experiments explode is a Running Gag.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Notably employed against the Time Trapper.
  • Technopath
  • Teen Genius
  • Wonderful Life: He's subjected hilariously to a Wonderful Life plot in a side story in one of the Postboot issues. When it appears that everyone else really would be better off without him, he decides he would rather go on existing just to make them miserable.
  • Writing Around Trademarks: after DC introduced Brainiac, the makers of a toy computer called "The Brainiac" complained. 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 2008 (the original change was in 1964), Brainiac was retconned back into being a living Coluan making this moot.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: His Glorithverse counterpart. During an Annual which acted as a recap of events in Legion history altered to fit the new continuity, Glorith kissed Brainiac 5 for a few seconds after he discovered that she'd been manipulating the Legion the whole time. Due to her time manipulating abilities she made the kiss last an eternity, effectively driving him insane in order to make him forget this revelation.

Chameleon Boy/Chameleon

AKA: Reep Daggle
Homeworld: Durla
Abilities: Shapeshifting

Chemical King

AKA: Condo Arlik
Homeworld: Phlon
Abilities: Can alter the speed of chemical reactions

Colossal Boy/Leviathan/Micro Lad

AKA: Gim Allon
Homeworld: Earth (Preboot/Threeboot); Mars (Postboot)
Abilities: Giant growth

Dream Girl/Dreamer

AKA: Nura Nal
Homeworld: Naltor
Abilities: Precognition

Element Lad/Alchemist/The Progenitor

AKA: Jan Arrah
Homeworld: Trom
Abilities: Capable of transmuting the elements

  • A God Am I, Blue and Orange Morality, Humanoid Abomination: "Legion Lost"
  • Apocalypse How: Varies. Preboot, a greedy space pirate/marauder exterminates the Tromians before we meet Jan. Postboot, we meet Jan, Jan's dad, and Jan's whole town before getting to watch four Daxamites with the powers of Superman simply roast the planet with heat vision. Threeboot, mention is made obliquely of Jan being the only survivor of a genocide by the Daxamites, now a dead race themselves.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Postboot Jan is kidnapped and brainwashed into becoming the Postboot Starfinger.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Postboot.
  • Go Mad From the Isolation\Showing Off the Perilous Power Source: "Legion Lost".
  • Hair of Gold: Sometimes even literally, once his Postboot version starts playing around with transmuting himself.
  • Hour of Power: Unlike his counterparts, Threeboot Element Lad's transmutations only last for sixty seconds.
  • Last of His Kind: Every time (spell his home planet's name backwards, why don't you?). See Apocalypse How, above.
  • Martial Pacifist: Some continuities have him as a deeply religious man who only uses his transmutation powers in nonviolent ways- and it's easy to see why, once Leviathan suggests that he just "turn the Fatal Five into Cheez Whiz".
  • Odd Friendship: His Postboot version with Monstress. He was often seen complimenting her on her appearance and wardrobe without appearing to be hitting on her, but from the way they interacted with one another there appeared to be potential for a romantic relationship.
  • Time Abyss: In "Legion Lost".

Ferro Lad/Ferro

AKA: Andrew Nolan
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Can turn into living iron, gaining super-strength and invulnerability

  • Backup Twin: His brother Douglas.
  • Chrome Champion
  • Continuity Nod: 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, and offers to give his life to stop it, but is quickly told, "That's OK, son, but you've got too much to live for," and Hal Jordan stops it instead.
  • Facial Horror: Why he always wears a mask. We never get to see it, but Postboot he looks for medical treatment and is told that notonly is his skull structure sprocked up beyond repair, but his muscle and skin tissue are mixed in with it at random. The only help possible would come from a metallurgist and require him to remain metal for the rest of his life, sacrificing most of his senses of smell, taste, and touch. He still considers it for a while before deciding to keep his fleshy form. Later, he was just starting to accept his appearance when he was wounded and Mode Locked into metal form- with the mask on.
  • Fridge Logic: It was revealed that the Postboot Legion was actually the Legion from an alternate Earth, Earth-247. However, the Postboot version of Ferro and his brother both came from the 20th Century of New Earth, which is now revealed to be the Earth home to Retroboot Legion. This raises the questions of how two separate versions of Ferro Lad, and his/their brother(s), could exist in the same universe one thousand years apart?
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Preboot. Postboot, he had a twin brother who died protecting him and some of the timelost Legionnaires under unrelated circumstances.
  • Made of Iron: Literally.
  • Missing Mom: Postboot, he and his brother were abandoned by their mother and locked up with a number of other metahumans for experiments by a corrupt government-sponsored scientist.
  • More Expendable Than You / More Hero Than Thou
  • Nice Guy
  • Parental Abandonment: Postboot.
  • Percussive Prevention
  • Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Postboot. He was mortally wounded by a criminal and only stayed alive by morphing to iron form, forcing him to remain "ironed up" permanently.
  • Someone Has to Die: Preboot.
  • What Could Have Been: Jim Shooter wanted to make Ferro Lad African-American, but the editors were worried that they'd lose distribution in the South. So Shooter decided to have him heroically sacrifice himself.

Green Lantern

AKA: Rond Vidar
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Green Lantern power ring

  • Killed Off for Real: in Legion of Three Worlds
  • Sacrificial Lion: A variation where the character himself has been around for a long time, but his new role as a Legion member came just before his death—he was first revealed to be a member in Legion of Three Worlds, where he was killed. Previously he was only an honorary member, and he had only had the ring for a brief time.

Invisible Kid I

AKA: Lyle Norg
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Invisibility

  • Gadgeteer Genius: In the Postboot continuity, Brainy was more the pure scientist, doing things like creating antigravitic material as a side effect of an experiment, and Lyle was more the engineer, doing things like taking said metal and producing flight rings from it.
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Slightly, in the Threeboot continuity. Francis Manapul made it a point to design Lyle as a bit round and less of a typical skinny kid. This is averted when other artists pencilled issues during Jim Shooter's run, but in the issues that Manapul did illustrate, after the Legion gets new uniforms, one can note that Lyle's belly sticks out a bit.
  • Invisibility: Threeboot amps up the power by making him undetectable even by the most advanced tech.
  • Naive Newcomer: Threeboot's first arc is told almost entirely through his perspective and is about how alien everything is to him.
  • New Meat: Threeboot again.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: See Super Serum, below.
  • Science Hero
  • Super Serum: The source of his powers. In the Threeboot, he gives the serum to the Science Police in exchange for them leaving the Legion alone- but not before somehow encoding it with a virus that gives the Legion a backdoor into SP computers after it's analyzed.
  • Teen Genius: Threeboot Brainy goes so far as to say that Lyle's plan involving the virus mentioned above was the cleverest thing a human had done since the discovery of fire.
  • Teen Superspy: Postboot, this was his pre-Legion job, and he goes on to found the Legion Espionage Squad with Triad, Apparition, Shrinking Violet, and Chameleon. He also leads the Squad in most continuities where it exists.
  • The Everyman: Threeboot has him as an obvious audience identification character.
  • Word of Gay: Postboot.

Karate Kid

AKA: Val Armorr
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Martial arts master

  • Badass Normal: No version of Karate Kid has ever had an actual superpower. No version of Karate Kid except the one from the animated series has ever had any trouble with the Legion's traditional requirement that all members have an intrinsic superpower. The first version of the character accomplished this by proving he could stand up to no less than Superman himself.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower
  • Fad Super: An unusual case because he is a preexisting character who became one for a while long after he was introduced. In the 1970's, he was suddenly modelled after Bruce Lee (and drawn Asian), given a robe instead of a superhero costume, and spun off into his own series which was sold as a martial arts series until the martial arts fad died out. Also, note that the movie The Karate Kid came out decades after his premiere - the credits actually mention that DC Comics owns the rights to the name. (Unfortunately, in-universe he debuted a thousand years later, which leads to silly jokes being made every time he meets someone from the 21st century.)
  • Heroic Sacrifice
  • Race Lift: Started out Caucasian and has been Race Lifted back and forth to and from Asian a couple times.
  • Writer on Board: Keith Giffen really does not like Karate Kid, and has said up-front that any time he ends up writing the Legion he will kill off the character, as he did in 1984. (To Giffen's credit, he gave the the character an appropriately badass exit saving his wife's planet from the Legion of Super-Villains in a story arc that's remembered fondly by many fans.)

Lightning Lass/Light Lass/Gossamer/Spark

AKA: Ayla Ranzz
Homeworld: Winath
Abilities: Electrical generation and direction (as Lightning Lass/Spark); gravity manipulation (as Light Lass/Gossamer)

Magnetic Kid

AKA: Pol Krinn
Homeworld: Braal
Abilities: Magnetism manipulation

Matter-Eater Lad

AKA: Tenzil Kem
Homeworld: Bismoll
Abilities: Matter consumption

  • Adam Westing: A fictional version. By the time of the FYL Legion, Tenzil had gained a rock star persona and reveled in the ridiculousness of his power. He's a senator on Bismoll and a star of multiple TV shows, which he used to his advantage to get Polar Boy out of jail by having his trial televised and utterly owning the Dominator-controlled Earthgov.
  • Casanova Wannabe: The SW6 version.
  • Cool Shades: In FYL, Postboot, and Threeboot. In the latter, his shades have a built-in camera and lie-detector.
  • Darker and Edgier: The Threeboot version. He bit a guy's finger off.
  • Demoted to Extra: As with Bouncing Boy, Postboot was too down to earth for a guy with powers like his, so he became the Legion's cafeteria chef. Threeboot, he's a lawyer who searches for Cosmic Boy alongside the Legion- seeking to arrest him for war crimes.
  • Fun Personified: In FYL and Postboot.
  • Ho Yay: With Mon-El in "New Krypton".
  • Driven to Madness: By eating the Miracle Machine.
  • Extreme Omnivore
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Threeboot version.
  • Put on a Bus: After he ate a cosmic "Miracle Machine", M-E Lad went insane and was returned to his home planet. This was because the writers thought he was too silly and wanted to get rid of him without killing him.
  • Team Chef: In Postboot.
  • Temporary Bulk Change: In a Preboot Silver Age issue involving the Legionnaires trapped in a prison camp for superheroes, M-E Lad was hit by a ray that slowed down his Bismollian metabolism to that of a normal human, thereby making it impossible for him to eat anything anymore. He had previously eaten about a ton of dirt in order to form an escape tunnel, so when his metabolism slowed down he swelled to the size of a balloon.

Mon-El/Valor/M'Onel

AKA: Lar Gand (Bob Cobb, Jonathan Kent)
Homeworld: Daxam
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, and invulnerability

  • Secret Identity: 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.

Night Girl

AKA: Lydda Jath
Homeworld: Kathoon
Abilities: Superhuman strength, activated in darkness

Phantom Girl/Apparition/Phase (Tinya Wazzo)

AKA: Tinya Wazzo
Homeworld: Bgztl
Abilities: Intangibility

Polar Boy

AKA: Brek Bannin
Homeworld: Tharr
Abilities: Cold control

Princess Projectra/Queen Projectra/Sensor Girl/Sensor/Imperiatrix

AKA: Projectra Wind'zzor (Preboot); Jeka Wynzorr (Postboot); Projectra Vauxhall (Threeboot)
Homeworld: Orando
Abilities: Illusion casting; mind control and super-strength (Threeboot only)

Shadow Lass/Umbra

AKA: Tasmia Mallor, Betsy Norcross
Homeworld: Talok VIII
Abilities: Generate absolute darkness

  • Casting a Shadow
  • Dark Is Not Evil
  • Proud Warrior Race Girl: Tasmia's origin lies somewhere between "native powers" and "unique powers", in that she is the "Shadow Champion" of Talok VIII. In some continuities, this means that all Talokians have these powers and she's officially the best at using them in combat; in others (Postboot particularly), she's officially the best in combat among Talokians, and that earns her the right to her powers. The latter scenario turns out disadvantageous in Postboot when she's missing and presumed dead by her people and they appoint a new champion.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: In some continuities, "Shadow Champion" is a hereditary position, making her akin to a princess or queen who is officially required to kick ass.
  • Ship Tease / What Could Have Been: Upon her introduction in Postboot, her narration briefly mentioned an attraction to M'Onel. They had been a long-standing couple in Preboot, but nothing came of it.
  • What Does She See in Him?: Her Retroboot counterpart has broken up with Mon-El and entered into a relationship with Token Evil Teammate Earth-Man. Tasmia tries to justify this in that he is a warrior befitting of her race, but her teammates aren't exactly buying it.

Shrinking Violet/Virus/Veye/LeViathan/Atom Girl

AKA: Salu Digby
Homeworld: Imsk
Abilities: Able to shrink to microscopic size; giant growth (Postboot only)

Star Boy/Starman VIII

AKA: Thom Kallor (Danny Blaine)
Homeworld: Xanthu
Abilities: Gravity manipulation

  • The Ace: Postboot only.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Invoked but averted. Postboot Star Boy learns that the Starman that succeeded Jack Knight in the 21st century is him in his future, but Jack tells him that the future can always change. Lo and behold, the future Starman later turns out to be Retroboot Star Boy instead.
  • Gravity Master: Most versions of the character could only make things heavier. The Retroboot version can also make things lighter.
  • Legacy Character: Retroactively. Though not originally conceived as such, later continuity connected him to the Starman mythos.
  • Never Live It Down: In-universe example: the Postboot Star Boy crashed a spacecraft once, so all his friends thought he was a terrible driver.
  • Race Lift: The Threeboot version is black; all others are white.
  • Superpower Lottery: Postboot, Star Boy manifested Super Strength, Super Speed, Nigh Invulnerability, and Lightning Vision, from (unbeknownst to anyone) eating Space Whale flesh. These extra powers faded after the battle against Mordru.
    • This was also true in preboot/current continuity. Star Boy's first appearance showed him having many powers, while his later appearances showed the gravity powers. This was explained away with a story explaining that he had had the gravity powers from birth and the others were temporary.
  • Weaksauce Weakness/Bizarre Alien Biology: In threeboot, he's more or less diabetic because people from Xanthu can't break down sugars properly. Unlike most Weaksauce Weaknesses, this is only mentioned in a throwaway scene and never actually used against him.

Sun Boy/Inferno I

AKA: Dirk Morgna
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Solar energy generation and manipulation

  • Brought Down to Normal: Retroboot Sun Boy lost his powers not long before Lo 3 W
  • Face Heel Turn: In 5YL, Sun Boy becomes a willing pawn of the Dominators.
  • Chest Insignia
  • Chick Magnet
  • Demoted to Extra: Postboot, though he still gains his solar powers (albeit for only a short time, and less controllable- while he has them, he glows so brightly that he needs a tinted transuit to keep from blinding or burning people).
  • Gender Flip: Subverted—a female Inferno appears on the WorkForce in the Post-Zero Hour continuity, but she turns out to be a different person than Dirk Morgna.
  • Handsome Lech
  • Heroic BSOD: Retroboot, after he's imprisoned and tortured by Earth-Man. He gets better after seeing his Threeboot counterpart get murdered by Superboy-Prime.
  • Playing with Fire
  • Redemption Equals Death: His Five Years Later counterpart decided to finally do some good, only to have the people of Earth reject him for being a sell-out. He's then caught in a nuclear blast and his powers are warped to the point that he's rendered a perpetually burning corpse until his lover Circe puts a bullet in his skull. His body then gets hijacked by Wildfire.
  • Space Madness
  • Took a Level in Badass: Threeboot, after quitting the Legion.

Supergirl

AKA: Kara Zor-El (Linda Lee, Linda Lang)
Homeworld: Krypton
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, and invulnerability

Superman/Superboy I

AKA: Kal-El (Clark Kent)
Homeworld: Krypton
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, and invulnerability

Lone Wolf/Timber Wolf/Furball

AKA: Brin Londo
Homeworld: Zuun
Abilities: Super-human strength and speed, heightened senses, and claws

  • Animorphism: Mode Locked into the bestial Furball in 5YL.
  • Badass Longcoat: Threeboot.
  • Beast Man / Wolf Man: To varying degrees depending on which part of continuity you look at.
  • Catch Phrase: "Think fast!"
  • Ineffectual Loner: Occasionally averted- in one Postboot story, he takes on the current Fatal Five solo and beats them because they're horrible at teamwork. Generally this holds true, though.
  • Romantic False Lead: Sometimes plays this role for Phantom Girl, against her already-established relationship with Ultra Boy.
  • Super Senses
  • Super Strength
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: His Threeboot counterpart after he received a Power Upgrade. He became stronger and faster, but he also became more aggressive and threatening to his teammates. Slightly Justified by the reveal that Saturn Girl had been exerting a bit of control over his emotions to keep him in check for a while.
    • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: One of his outbursts is caused when he's thanking, in his own way, future teammate Giselle for helping in a battle, and learning that the reason why she wasn't with the rest of the citizens in the safety zone was because the city manager locked her out on purpose. He then attempted to tear said manager's throat out before Saturn Girl intervened. Some of his other outbursts after that could be contributed to his overprotective nature with Princess Projectra.

Triplicate Girl/Duo Damsel/Triad/Una/Duplicate Damsel

AKA: Luornu Durgo, Marie Elkins
Homeworld: Cargg
Abilities: Able to split into three bodies (as Triplicate Girl/Triad); two bodies (as Duo Damsel); or unlimited bodies (as Duplicate Girl)

  • Doppelganger Spin
  • Last Of Her Kind: Threeboot Triplicate Girl started out as an amnesiac in the ruins of a world called Cargg, and eventually duplicated enough to repopulate it. She/they sent one of her as an ambassador to the United Planets, who became a Legionnaire... but can't go home again. See Stranger in a Familiar Land, below.
  • Literal Split Personality: Postboot, each duplicate embodies a different personality aspect. Preboot and Retroboot are more Single Minded Triplets (see below). Threeboot is a whole other story originally, but works out similarly to the Single Minded versions.
  • Me's a Crowd: Probably one of the more interesting variations.
  • Single Minded Triplets: Some versions.
  • Stranger in a Familiar Land: Threeboot Triplicate Girl is shunned by her other duplicates back home because of how she's changed from her experiences on Earth.
  • Three Faces of Eve: SW6 and Postboot.

Ultra Boy/Emerald Dragon

AKA: Jo Nah
Homeworld: Rimbor
Abilities: Able to use one power at a time--ultra-vision, strength, speed, or invulnerability

White Witch/Jewel/Black Witch

AKA: Mysa Nal
Homeworld: Naltor (Preboot); Sorcerer's World (Postboot)
Abilities: Sorcery

Bronze Age (1970-1989)

Blok

Homeworld: Dryad
Abilities: Super-strength, durability

Chameleon Girl

AKA: Yera Allon
Homeworld: Durla
Abilities: Shapeshifting

Computo II

AKA: Danielle Foccart
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Controls technology

  • Canon Foreigner: Sort of. She existed in the original series but only got powers in 5YL.
  • Grand Theft Me: She was possessed by the original Computo as a child (which is how she got her powers).
  • Mission Control
  • Redeeming Replacement: Of Legion villain Computo, the sentient computer who posessed her in an earlier story (giving her powers in the process). She's also the younger sister of the second Invisible Kid.
  • Technopath: She can "speak" to and control computers.

Dawnstar

Homeworld: Starhaven
Abilities: Flight, long-range tracking

  • Absolute Cleavage
  • Bi the Way: When the Justice Society tracked Dawnstar's flight ring to Thanagar, they found it in the possession of a woman who implied that she knew Dawny in a rather... intimate way.
  • Braids, Beads, and Buckskins
  • Magical Native American
  • Scarily Competent Tracker
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: With Wildfire.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: Her Five Years Later counterpart. There was a supporting character with the same skin tone as Dawnstar who called herself "Bounty", and she was an Anti-Hero bounty hunter with a vague backstory. It turned out that she was really Dawnstar, being possessed by a demon called Bounty that amputated her wings. Unlike Lightning Lad and Shrinking Violet, who both had their limbs grown back, Dawny's wings were never restored. And then Zero Hour happened, and that was the last fans saw of her until The Lightning Saga.
    • During Legion of 3 Worlds, artist George Perez drew the wingless Dawnstar deliberately behind where Cosmic Boy's word bubble would be placed.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Her relationship with Wildfire.
  • Winged Humanoid

Invisible Kid II

AKA: Jacques Foccart
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Invisibility, formerly also Uncontrolled Teleportation

Quislet

AKA: (real name untranslatable)
Homeworld: Teall
Abilities: Object animation

Tellus

AKA: Ganglios
Homeworld: Hyrkaius
Abilities: Telepathy and telekinesis

Tyroc

AKA: Troy Stewart
Homeworld: Marzal
Abilities: Sonic manipulation

  • Absolute Cleavage
  • Angry Black Man
  • Characterization Marches On: Paul Levitz, despite ignoring him in the 1980s, has devoted enough effort in the current Legion volume to move Tyroc beyond his previous "angry black man" personality and make him likable. For the most part, its worked.
  • Collared by Fashion
  • Executive Meddling: How he was created. The writers and artists were all equally disgusted that the editors forced them to include a black character who was both a stereotypical angry black man and a racial separatist, in a time when racism should've been eliminated. Paul Levitz ignored him completely during the 1980s.
  • Green Lantern Ring: His superpowered screams can do basically whatever the writer likes. (Though after a while most writers just treated them as destructive blasts.)
  • Humans Are White
  • Leotard of Power
  • Writer Revolt: No one liked the idea behind this character, especially given that the writers had previously tried to introduce black characters. Mike Grell intentionally made his outfit stupid, comparing it to a cross between Elvis and a football player.

Wildfire/ERG-1/NRG/Wildflame

AKA: Drake Burroughs
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Composed of anti-energy, energy blasts and manipulation


Five Years Later (1989-1994)

Andromeda

AKA: Laurel Gand
Homeworld: Daxam
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, and invulnerability

  • The Atoner: After the Daxamite attack on the Postboot United Planets, she joins a convent to atone for her sins.
  • Defector From Decadence: In the Postboot continuity, she was raised in a racist cult, but turned over a new leaf (a while) after she joined the Legion.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Before turning over her new leaf, Postboot Andromeda was a hugely racist bitch, only agreeing to join an interspecies, pro-integration organization like the Legion because being a superhero surrounded by "lesser races" still beat being an ordinary teenager going to school back home, where she didn't have any powers.
  • Expy: Of Supergirl, when that character was removed from the Preboot timeline. Her Postboot name was taken from Laurel Kent, Superman's descendant and Legion Academy student from the original continuity.
  • The Mole: In the Postboot, Laurel was secretly a member of the White Triangle, and gave the Daxamite-led group the formula to the serum that protected her from lead.
  • Star-Spangled Spandex
  • Statuesque Stunner
  • Superpower Lottery: Before Valor joined the Postboot Legion, Andromeda was the team's most powerful member.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Like all Daxamites she has a fatal allergy to even trace amounts of lead. In all continuities where she exists, Brainiac 5 developed a serum which soon rid her of the problem, but early on in the Postboot she had to wear a transuit at all times to avoid exposure (and actual physical contact with the "lesser races").

Catspaw

AKA: April Dumaka
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Super-human strength and speed, enhanced senses, and claws

  • Beastess
  • Catgirl
  • Expy: Catspaw was the Legionnaires' rough equivalent to Timber Wolf (who also existed in their continuity, but was not one of the Batch SW6 duplicates).
  • Super Senses
  • Touched by Vorlons: She got her powers from gene-altering experiments performed on her by the Dominators.

Dragonmage

AKA: Xao Jin
Homeworld: New Shanghai Colony
Abilities: Sorcery

  • Ambition Is Evil: His desire to get his powers back Postboot led him to inadvertently release the Elements of Disaster, who almost destroyed the United Planets.
  • Canon Immigrant: He first appeared in 5YL as a new member to join the SW6 Legionnaires; he later reappeared in Postboot, albeit not as a Legionnaire. He briefly turns up as one of Mordru's undead warriors (in the Preboot universe) in Legion of Three Worlds.
  • De-Power: By Mordru Postboot.
  • Ethnic Magician: He's very stereotypically Chinese, at least in appearance and powers.
  • Squishy Wizard

Kid Quantum I

AKA: James Cullen
Homeworld: Antares (Preboot); Xanthu (Postboot)
Abilities: Temporal manipulation; shapeshifting, telepathy (Preboot only)

Postboot (1994-2004)

Gates

AKA: Ti'julk Mr'asz
Homeworld: Vyrga
Abilities: Teleportation

  • Bee People
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Unlike almost every other Legionnaire, he was not a volunteer. His planet drafted him so they'd have a representative on the team.
  • Canon Immigrant: Postboot is the only Legion continuity with a Gates. In Legion of Three Worlds, he notices and calls speciesism on the parallel universes. He joins the Retroboot Legion to even things out a bit.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Cynically killed off in the first issue of Legion Lost v2, 2011).
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Probably because he was so different from a typical Legionnaire.
  • Mass Teleportation
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much
  • Only Known by Their Nickname
  • Portal Cut: Ra's al Ghul loses most of an arm being cut off by the edge of one of Gates's portals being used to rescue someone from the villain's grasp, taking the arm with him. This is the first indication that the portals which he's been using for years have sharp edges, which is kind of Nightmare Fuel when you consider that he can create and move them about at will...
  • Soapbox Sadie: Most of his dialogue consists of complaining about the "capitalist police state" he's been drafted into.
  • Strawman Political: He's a revolutionary communist- this doesn't stop him being an interesting and well-developed character, though.
  • Teleporters and Transporters
  • We Are as Mayflies: Inverted. Gates's species has a much shorter lifespan than humans, with 20 being elderly.

Gear

AKA: I.Z.O.R.
Homeworld: Linsnar
Abilities: Grows organic technology from his body

Kid Quantum II

AKA: Jazmin Cullen
Homeworld: Xanthu
Abilities: Temporal manipulation, throws damaging "q-spheres"

Kinetix

AKA: Zoe Saugin
Homeworld: Aleph
Abilities: Manipulates inanimate objects

Magno

AKA: Dyrk Magz
Homeworld: Braal
Abilities: Magnetism manipulation

  • C-List Fodder
  • Demoted to Extra
  • De-Power: Dyrk loses his powers in the fight against Mordru, and ends up as part of the Legion's support staff when the team won't give up on him.
  • Expy: Of Preboot Pol "Magnetic Kid" Krinn, arguably. Pol, Cosmic Boy's little brother, also appears in Postboot, but never joins the Legion; instead, Magno is the one who struggles with being overshadowed by Cos.
  • Extra Ore Dinary
  • Mission Control
  • Replacement Scrappy: In-universe, several characters - most notably Live Wire - treated him this way after he joined the Legion in Cosmic Boy's absence. Some fans see him this way as well, even though his character was never actually presented as a replacement for Cos, who was still a series regular (just stranded in the past).
  • Ship Tease: While XS is depicted as crushing on a number of different guys, Dyrk was the first one to show interest in her... which she didn't notice until after she'd accidentally brushed him off. And then the timeline ended.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In Legion Worlds #3, Cosmic Boy promises to let Dyrk, now a Sci-Cop, in on what the Legion is up to (the construction of Legion World and their return to active duty) as soon as he has a chance. The Legion ran for a year or two after that, but even when Cosmic Boy is shown returning the planet where Dyrk is still presumably serving as a police officer, Dyrk is never mentioned again and has yet to appear in any subsequent versions, not even L3W.

Monstress

AKA: Candi Pyponte-Le Parc III
Homeworld: Xanthu
Abilities: Super-strength

Shikari Lonestar

Homeworld: Kwai migrating colony
Abilities: Flight, transdimensional navigation, bio-armor

  • Bee People
  • Expy: Of Dawnstar, who was deemed too silly for Postboot.
  • Meaningful Name: "Shikari" is a term used in India for a hunter and guide.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Sort of. In the peaceful, community-minded culture of her species, Shikari's wanderlust and more warlike tendencies make her something of a throwback.
  • The Nicknamer: Of sorts; some quirk of culture or language leads her to call her teammates names along the pattern of "X Legion" - Brainiac 5 became "Smart Legion" or "Green Legion," Umbra is "Dark Legion," etc. Possible explanation is that she is from a such different part of the universe that even the translated interlac sounds too weird to her.
  • Canon Immigrant: In the Legion annual that wiped Postboot from continuity and established Threeboot, Shikari was accidentally trapped in the Threeboot world. This clearly earth-shaking development was never followed up on, and she simply reappeared with the Postboot Legion in Legion of Three Worlds saying "Oh, there you guys are."
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: This is a racial ability, which eventually leads to Kwai navigators being implemented as a means of using "thresholds" for personal interplanetary teleportation throughout the United Planets, because the Kwai can navigate in the other-space that threshold technology moves mass through.

Superboy II

AKA: Kon-El (Conner Kent)
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, invulnerability, and tactile telekinesis

  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: He was stuck in the Legion's time period for a while, but simultaneously appeared in Teen Titans... eventually, Teen Titans had a crossover with the Legion in which he disappeared from the 21st century, then came back moments later, having traveled to the point in the Legion's timeframe where he first appeared, then spent several months there before being sent back to get the Titans and bring them to the future for a time-traveling team-up.

Thunder

AKA: Cece Beck
Homeworld: Binderaan
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, flight, invulnerability

  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: She's from the 90th century, 6000 years after the Legion's time.
  • Flight
  • Flying Brick
  • Legacy Character: Of Captain Marvel.
  • Older Alter Ego: Like Captain Marvel. She's around 10 or 12, but her super-powered form appears around 16.
  • Put on a Bus / Brother Chuck: It was established early on that only Thunder had been sent to the Legion's time period; when she changed back to Cece, she appeared in her home time, and when she transformed again, Thunder was back with the Legion. After "Legion of the Damned", which destroyed the stargate system and made interplanetary travel take months or years again, the Legionnaires are devastated by the sudden distance separating them from friends and family, and Thunder, realizing she's lucky enough to be able to visit her parents without a ship, says the magic word and returns home. She says she'll be back, but the timeline ends before she's seen again.
  • Shout-Out: Her name and home planet are in-jokes on Captain Marvel creators C.C. Beck and Otto Binder.
  • Super Strength
  • Super Speed

XS

AKA: Jenni Ognats
Homeworld: Aarok
Abilities: Super-speed

  • Canon Immigrant: First appeared in the Postboot Legion; Legion of Three Worlds retconned her as being a refugee from the Retroboot Legion's world and had her join them.
  • Cowardly Lion: Originally, but in literally her second appearance she gets over it in time to save the entire Legion from an explosive device planted in Kid Quantum's coffin.
  • Fragile Speedster: Notably, unlike most speedsters, she's never shown vibrating through solid objects (destructively or otherwise)- probably because this would make Apparition obsolete.
  • Genki Girl
  • Humans Are White
  • Legacy Character: The granddaughter of Barry Allen.
  • Motor Mouth
  • Strapped to An Operating Table: Her origin story has her growing up without superspeed, despite being the granddaughter of the Flash and the daughter of one of the Tornado Twins- until, in an attempt to understand and duplicate her bloodline's powers, the Dominators abducted her, and the trauma of their experimentation triggered the emergence of her powers.
  • Super Speed

Threeboot (2004-2009)

Dream Boy

AKA: Rol Purtha
Homeworld: Naltor
Abilities: Precognition

Gazelle

AKA: Giselle Smith
Homeworld: Triton
Abilities: Conscious metabolic control

  • Facial Markings
  • Hot Amazon: Invisible Kid develops a crush on her after seeing her in action.
  • Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: She's considered a freak by her own society because of her powers and appearance, and even her parents seem to slightly think she's a lost cause. She also got off to a rocky start with the Legion, considering them "sell-outs", but she does help a squad of Legionnaires by telling a group of Science Policemen they went the other way.
  • Super Speed and Super Strength: In limited bursts.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: She can only "run hot" for a few minutes, after which she becomes extremely fatigued until her protein levels get back up. She keeps supplies of glycogen on hand to stave this off.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: In addition to "running hot", she can also slow down her metabolism and play dead. She admits that this is a very limited power.

Sizzle

AKA: Teela Spuunvll
Homeworld: Abaddonus
Abilities: Absorbs, alters, and redirects energy

Theena

Homeworld: Unknown
Abilities: Bonded to clairvoyant symbiont

  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Following Mark Waid's departure, Theena appeared for only one panel the next issue and then completely disappeared from the series.
  • Mauve Shirt: She's one of the hordes of teens camped outside Legion headquarters.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: The strange "screens" on her psychic symbiont's appendages allow for remote viewing of almost any location in the universe. She usually uses them to help the Legion's allies keep tabs on them.

Turtle

AKA: Bogdan Tarka
Homeworld: Doopa
Abilities: Invulnerability

  • Nigh Invulnerable: His only power is that he's ridiculously hard to harm (though it is possible). This was deemed cool, but his lack of offensive capabilities sent him to the Legion Reserve.
  • Petting Zoo People: Doopans are all very turtle-like, but evidently Turtle is especially durable.
  • Stone Wall

In addition to the Legion, myriad other characters, heroes and villains alike, live in the 31st century.

Other Heroes

Dev-Em

AKA: Dev-Em (Preboot); David Emery (Softboot)
Homeworld: Krypton (Preboot); Titan or Daxam (Softboot)
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, and invulnerability

Inferno II

AKA: Sandy Anderson
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Pyrokinesis, flight

The Legion of Substitute Heroes

Antennae Lad

AKA: Khfeurb Chee Bez
Homeworld: Gryxor
Abilities: Can hear radio transmissions

Chlorophyll Kid/"Plant Lad"

AKA: Ral Benem
Homeworld: Mardru
Abilities: Manipulates plant growth; claims he can talk to them, which he cannot

  • Green Thumb: Essentially taken to its logical conclusion - he can accelerate the growth of plants, and that's his only power. The inability to actually control plants is the largest reason for him never being accepted
  • Heroic Build: Originally played straight when he was first introduced in the Silver Age, up until the 1980s when the Subs were rewrote as a group of incompetent fanboys, and he was made rather obese. Following the return of the "original" Legion, he was slimmed back down.

Color Kid (Color King)

AKA: Ulu Vakk
Homeworld: Lupra
Abilities: Can change color of any object

Double Header

AKA: Frenk and Dyvud Retzun
Homeworld: Janus
Abilities: Has two heads. (Really.)

Fire Lad

AKA: Stag Mavlen
Homeworld: Schwar
Abilities: Breathes fire with moderate control at best

  • Unskilled but Strong: The reason his membership has been repeatedly denied. His fire breath is incredibly potent, but he lacks the ability to control it in any meaningful way. The original incarnation even had terrible allergies that would often activate his powers. Preboot, he would eventually achieve a level of control that was frankly ridiculous, capable of making ice sculptures with his fire breath, but this would be ignored in Retroboot.

Infectious Lass

AKA: Drura Sepht
Homeworld: Somahtur
Abilities: Spontaneous generation of infectious diseases

  • Ascended Fangirl
  • Plaguemaster: A rare heroic example.
  • Put on a Bus: In Retroboot, she was banished to Limbo by Earth-Man (where she joined up with Doctor Thirteen and a Nazi gorilla).
  • Unskilled but Strong: Like many of her teamates, her inability to control her powers is her downfall. In her second attempt to apply for Legion membership, she boasts that she's much more powerful than before and can even cause epidemics... but her control hasn't improved remotely.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: She makes people sick. Like, aches and sniffles (or more exotic diseases).
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: In the last postboot story, Drura is introduced as a Legion cadet, airlifted in as part of emergency backup during a riot in Metropolis, and demonstrating much greater control of powers than the previous version, reduces two dedicated terrorists to vomiting bags of sick who eagerly give up the location of their ringleader.

Infectious Lass: Hi, fellas. You're now officially walking hot zones.
...
Arrow: I'm... I'm willing to die for my cause.
Chameleon: Oh, you'll die. We'll all die someday. The issue is, do you want to die in your bed surrounded by loved ones... or bent over in this alley with a woefully inadequate supply of tissues?

Porcupine Pete

AKA: Peter Dursin
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Shoots quills from his body

  • Flechette Storm
  • Unskilled but Strong: His quills are extremely harmful.. to friend and foe alike, since he can only shoot them all at once and in all directions surrounding him.

Rainbow Girl

AKA: Dori Aandraison
Homeworld: Xolnar
Abilities: Wields the powers of the mysterious emotional spectrum, resulting in unpredictable mood swings

  • Mood Swinger: She doesn't have full control over her power to tap into the emotional spectrum, which leads to her going from raging mad to hopeful to cocky and willful in the space of a few panels.

Stone Boy

AKA: Dag Wentim
Homeworld: Zwen
Abilities: Able to transform his body to stone, but forced to remain inanimate

  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: He even won a contest held by the Legion proper with membership as the prize, which he rejected because he couldn't bear to abandon his friends.
  • The Stoic: Often characterized as being an extremely taciturn and serious individual
  • Stone Wall: Essentially invulnerable in stone form, but incapable of movement.
  • Taken for Granite: What his power amounts to, turning into an immobile statue. Eventually, Preboot Stone Boy learned how to turn just his fists to stone, but this is usually ignored by other incarnations.

Members who went on to join the Legion

  • Dream Girl
  • Night Girl
  • Polar Boy
  • Star Boy

The Uncanny Amazers (Postboot)

  • Atmos
  • Atom'X
  • Insect Queen
  • Kid Quantum I and II (joined the Legion)
  • Konk
  • Monstress (joined the Legion)
  • Phrenologax Lad
  • Star Boy (joined the Legion)

The Wanderers (Preboot)

  • Dartalg
  • Elvo
  • Immorto
  • Ornitho
  • Psyche
  • Quantum Queen

The Wanderers (Threeboot; in spite of their name, they're a combination of the Legion of Supervillains, the Substitute Heroes, and miscellaneous Legion washouts and associated heroes.)

  • Grav
  • Inferno
  • Jeyra Entinn
  • Kid Quake
  • Kromak
  • Mekt Ranzz
  • Micro Lass
  • Nemesis Kid
  • "Plant Lad"
  • Polar Boy
  • Thoom
  • Vrax Gozzl
  • White Witch

The WorkForce (Postboot)

  • Amber
  • Blast-Off
  • Dune
  • Evolvo
  • Inferno (defected)
  • Karate Kid (joined the Legion)
  • Live Wire (defected from the Legion; later went back)
  • Lori Morning
  • Particon
  • Radion
  • Repulse
  • Spider Girl
  • Ultra Boy (joined the Legion)


Villains

Composite Man

Homeworld: Durla
Abilities: Copies the powers of those around him; shapeshifitng

Computo I/Mister Venge

Homeworld: Earth; later Robotica (Postboot)
Abilities: Controls technology

Darkseid

The Dominators

The Fatal Five

The Emerald Empress

Mano

The Persuader

Tharok

Validus

Mordecai

Glorith

  • Ascended Extra: was a one-shot minor villain in the 1960's until brought back for Five Years Later.
  • Big Bad: Of the Glorithverse, naturally.
  • The Chessmaster
  • I Am Not Shazam: Many people operate under the belief that Glorith was another of the Time Trapper's identities. The truth is, that she merely replaced him as the Legion's time manipulating Big Bad. All his accomplishments became her's, and she remembered everything from the previous timelines. She even met the Trapper in the remains of his pocket universe and tried to stomp out his remaining consciousness while gloating how everything he created was now her's, only, as she put it, "better".
  • Vain Sorceress

Grimbor the Chainsman

The Justice League of Earth

Earth-Man/Absorbancy Boy

AKA: Kirt Niedrigh
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Super-power absorption and duplication

Eyeful Ethel

    • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She and Tusker really do love each other.
    • Evil Blonde: She originally had black hair.
    • Hollywood Homely: In her first appearance, she was very pretty (with the exception of the multiple eyes around her head). After she got older she become rather dumpy, and her extra eyes were now permanently on her forehead. Following the reboot, she lost weight and dyed her hair.
    • Sadist Teacher: Revels in the fact that her students will believe anything she tells them because she's their teacher.
    • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Her power is that she can sprout eyeballs on any part of her body. Not terribly useful in combat.

Golden Boy

Radiation Roy

Storm Boy

    • Heel Face Turn: His Five Year Later counterpart actually got over his rejection and went on to work with weather-generating machinery, before joining the Legion when they were desperate for members during the Five Year Gap.
    • I Just Want to Be Special: So he replaced most of his internal organs with weather-control machines.
    • Motive Decay: His original reason for joining the Legion was a stunt for a fraternity. In the Reboot continuity he claims that he very badly wanted to join the Legion and considers them amoral bullies for not understanding what that kind of rejection does to someone.

Tusker

The Khunds

The Legion of Super-Villains

Cosmic King

AKA: Laevar Bolto
Homeworld: Venus
Abilities: Transmutation of chemical elements

    • All of the Other Reindeer: After accidentally gaining his powers, he was exiled from his home planet of Venus, where transmutation is regarded as inherently evil.
    • And Man Grew Proud: How the other Venusians view his creation of the transmutation ray.
    • Big Bad: In the Silver Age at least, where he was not only a founding member of the Legion, but the leader of the initial Terrible Trio.
    • Beard of Evil: In later versions. The original was clean shaven.
    • Cool Helmet: Sometimes pictured in a space suit and helmet.
    • Demoted to Extra: He's one of the founding members of the Legion of Super Villains, but he doesn't get nearly the screen time of Saturn Queen, Lightning Lord, or even Sixth Rangers like Nemesis Kid.
    • Evil Counterpart: To Cosmic Boy, though their powers are vastly different. In fact, his powers make him more like Element Lad or Chemical King. As the leader of the original Terrible Trio however, he is very much the Evil Counterpart to Cos.
    • The Exile: Kicked off of Venus for practising transmutation.
    • Mad Scientist: Pre-supervillany
    • Revenge: In classic Super Villain fashion, he sees his actions as a way of getting back at the Venusians who banished him.
    • Start of Darkness: Tried to create a transmutation ray to solve his planet's environmental problems. Was shunned and exiled for it. Way to go people.

Lightning Lord

AKA: Mekt Ranzz
Homeworld: Winath
Abilities: Electrical generation and direction

Saturn Queen

AKA: Eve Aries
Homeworld: Titan
Abilities: Telepathy

    • Card-Carrying Villain: In the original comics, there was no crime on Saturn due to certain minerals in the rings (hey, it was the Silver Age). Upon coming to Earth, and getting out of range of the rings, she just decided, "hey I think I'll turn evil for the Hell of it."
    • Evil Counterpart: To Saturn Girl.
    • Evil Matriarch: In "Absolute Power" and the Kandor arc of the new Supergirl series. She seems to have developed an obsession with having a child to serve as her Dragon. In both cases, she's gotten to watch said child die.
    • Evil Redhead
    • For the Evulz: Why she originally became a villain.
    • Mind Rape: Inflicts it on her victims, including Superman.
    • Heel Face Turn: In the original comics, prompted by Superman exposing her to Saturnian elements. More recent versions, not so much.
      • Her Five Years Later counterpart turned and stayed good, eventually marrying Matter-Eater Lad and becoming queen of Titan.
    • Humans Are the Real Monsters: More like all living beings are bastards. This has become her belief in the most recent reboot.
    • Misanthrope Supreme: Which she uses to justify her For the Evulz tendencies.
    • Telepathy

Sun Emperor

AKA: Nigal Douglous
Homeworld: Earth
Abilities: Solar energy generation and manipulation

Superboy-Prime

AKA: Kal-El (Clark Kent)
Homeworld: Krypton-Prime
Abilities: Super-strength, speed, senses, flight, and invulnerability

Chameleon Chief

AKA: Jall Tannuz (?)
Homeworld: Not Durla, strangely enough.
Abilities: Shapeshifting, can also change objects

    • I Am Not Weasel: Looks like a Durlan, has the same powers as a Durlan, but apparently not actually Durlan.

Nemesis Kid

AKA: Hart Druiter
Homeworld: Myar
Abilities: Spontaneously develops powers to defeat a single opponent

Leland McCauley

Mordru the Merciless

Homeworld: Sorcerers' World
Abilities: Sorcery, immortality

  • Bigger Bad: Postboot. Mordru was unquestionably the most powerful foe the Legion went up against, but lesser threats like C.O.M.P.U.T.O. and Ra's al-Ghul hit closer to home.
  • Dimension Lord: In some continuities, Mordru's domain, Sorcerer's World, is a dimension unto itself. (In others, it's merely a planet in the material universe.)
  • Evil Sorcerer
  • Galactic Conqueror: Mordru ruled a star-spanning empire before his initial defeat.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Post-Crisis, Mordru was revealed to be one of the immortal Lords of Chaos rather than a human wizard.
  • Kryptonite Factor: Mordru suffers from a crippling phobia of being buried alive. A Shout-Out to its origin appears many years later: "We all make our own weaknesses, his from a nightmare happenstance long in his past." In his first appearance, at the climax of the story, after trying the Legion for "acts of anti-crime" and sentencing them to death, Mordru "gathers the power to annihilate worlds, to shatter suns, preparing to hurl it at the helpless heroes." But the cavern they're in can't endure the stress of the leaking energy. The end result is Mordru and his "devil's jury" are buried, the Legionnaires survive due to Mordru having trapped them in a powerful force field, and Mordru, who cannot die by any known means, but can't remain conscious without air, is sealed inside solid rock.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: His original era and post boot incarnations both started as this.
  • Wizard Beard
  • Wizards Live Longer

Praetor Lemnos

Abilities: Memory modification

Ra's al-Ghul

Sklarian Raiders

The Time Trapper

AKA: Identity changes frequently
Homeworld: Unknown/multiple
Abilities: Temporal manipulation; others depending on identity

  • After the End: He/She/It lives at the end of time, or not. Depending on the continuity
  • Purple Cloak
  • The Chessmaster
  • Bigger Bad: The Trapper is arguably the most powerful, resourceful, and persistent foe the Legion has faced.
  • Deflector Shield: His/Her/It's iron curtain of time.
  • In the Hood: Trapper's identity is either Superboy-Prime, Cosmic Boy, Lori Morning, Weeja Dell, A sentient Time-Line, A living embodiment of Entropy, or some dick with Cosmic Powers.
  • Multiple Choice Past: Probably the only character for whom this is an actual power—he has the ability to change his own past, down to his very identity. The Time Trapper has been, among others, Cosmic Boy, Lori Morning, and Superboy-Prime.
    • Or S/He could be all of those people, only from different futures.
  • Physical God: At least while he was Superboy-Prime.
  • Time Abyss: An odd case. The Trapper's history begins a thousand years in our future, but ends untold billions of years after that.
    • But with the constant change in Identity and continuity., He/She could be from the modern time or from the beggining of time or even next week.
  • Time Master: In the truest sense.

Universo

AKA: Vidar (Preboot) / Sarmon Ardeen (Postboot)
Homeworld: Earth (Preboot) / Titan (Postboot)
Abilities: Mind control


Supporting Characters

The Athramites

Gym'll

Koko

Lori Morning

Marla Latham

M'rissey

Proty

R. J. Brande

The Science Police

Gigi Cusimano

Lon Norg

Officer Dvron

Shvaugn Erin/Sean Erin

Back to Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)
  1. ↑ Well, that was the reason in-story. It actually came from half of a fan's postal code.
  2. ↑ Superboy had to die because changes to Superman's history post-Crisis erased Superboy from history. A "Pocket Universe" Superboy was introduced and killed to patch the plot holes. Superman's history was (partly) changed back, so this is no longer necessary.
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