LAR GAND: recommended reading list

[taichara]

Lar Gand -- as Mon-El, Valor, M'onel, and so on -- has always been one of my favorite Superman- and LSH-associated characters. Regardless of the exact form of his background and just how he winds up in the straits he's in prior to Legion membership, his personality stays steady, and it's that personality I find appealing: as selfless as Superman, but with a push to explore and a peculiar combination of naivety and snark. Some of that gives way to a -- not darker, but more shadowed -- undertone that deepens after his stint in the Phantom Zone (or equivalent). Lar is more solitary than Clark by his LSH years, and he's marked by what he's experienced. All one thousand years of it.

The character can also be a bit tricky to nail down in suggested reads for earlier material, because he's always been very much a secondary character in the mythos despite his importance to Superboy/man. After the post-COIE order from editorial to remove all Superman mythos from the Legion, Lar gets more development as the replacement goldfish inspiration of the LSH, and as Valor, Seeder of Worlds, is the foundation for the United Planets (and in post-Zero Hour continuity, worshiped).

Since (especially as pre-v4 Mon-El) Lar pops up anywhere and everywhere, gets a scene or two and then wanders off, this is just a sampler and, yes, it skirts around the pre-v4/pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths version because there's just so much of it and all scattered around. That, and of two prominent stories off the top of my head, one was so out of character Mon-El was later retconned to have been possessed at the the time, and the other? Well, the other is listed here.

Hope these are helpful, and I'm happy to field any questions including "what is up with all these other weirdos" X3~


Original Appearance:

• Superboy (1961) #89


• Adventure Comics (1963) #305

Sample pre-Valor (Mon-El) Appearance (one storyline):

• Legion of Super-heroes v3 (1987), #37-39


• Superman v2 (1987) #08


• Action Comics (1987) #591

(pre-Zero Hour) Valor, first iteration:

• Legion of Super-Heroes v4 (1990) Annual #01


• Legion of Super-Heroes v4 (1991) Annual #02


• Valor (1992-1994) #01-23


• Legion of Super-Heroes v4 (1994) #59-61


• Legionnaires (1994) #16-18

(post-Zero Hour) Valor, second iteration/M'onel:

• Superboy v3 (1995) #17-19, 21


• Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #74-80, 122-123


• Legionnaires #30-37, 79-80


• Legion Worlds (2001) #01


• The Legion (2001-2002) #01-08

"Threeboot" Legion Continuity:

• Supergirl And The Legion of Super-Heroes (2006-2007) #23-25

Mon-El, Post-Infinite Crisis:

• Action Comics Annual (2009) #10


• Superman (2009) #684-690, #692-699


• Action Comics (2009) #874


• Superman: Secret Files 2009 #01


• Superman Annual 14 (2009)


• Adventure Comics (2010) #8-11


• Last Stand of New Krypton (2010) #1-3


• Supergirl (2010) #51-52



These are just samples, of course -- Mon-El has several smaller stints of story in post-IC Legion of Super-Heroes v5, for example -- but it's a decent working overview, I think ~