Legionnaires of Legion vol. 4 (the Glorith Reality)

Devlin O'Ryan

Created Tom Bierbaum and Keith Giffen

with some text from Who's Who #16 (1992)

Devlin O'Ryan grew up in an upper-middle class New Killarney district on Xanthu, where he nursed a dream of someday becoming a reporter. His mother, Megan, was the Xanthu bureau chief for the Daily Planet, and she delegated most of the domestic authority to her star columnist (and husband), Ethan, and Devlin's four older sisters. At age ten, Devlin talked his way into a copy boy's position at the Planet. He excelled at that job, raced through his required studies, and began digging up and reporting stories in what passed for his spare time. Within four years, the remarkable boy had accumulated enough credits and experience to earn himself a Journalism degree from Xanthu's prestigious Inishmurray University, and a cub reporter tryout at the Planet's home office on Earth.

As soon as he was old enough, he applied for an internship at the Interstellar Press's Earth office, based in the Metropolis offices of the Daily Planet, where the Planet's star reporter Iris West noticed the young man's enthusiasm and took him under her wing. O'Ryan and West were the first to acquire elusive information that exposed the Dominion's covert takeover of Earthgov.

The story led him to a closer look at detective Celeste Rockfish, who had been hired by Earthgov to quiet the public's fears. Devlin elbowed his way into her investigation and he found himself on Winath where the re-forming Legion was on the trail of Earthgov's agent, Roxxas the Butcher. His on-scene presence gave him and Iris the inside scoop when Roxxas was captured and revealed the Dominion control of Earthgov. (Legion vol. 4 #6-7, 12)

Devlin returned to Earth, now a trusted ally of the Legion. Soon civil government completely collapsed and he found himself hunted down by the Dominators. His escape led him into first contact with an odd group of experimental Dominator subjects—replicas of the teen Legionnaires!

O'Ryan was on Earth when the Dominator Triple Strike operation detonated fusion powerspheres all over the globe. This released null radiation, a catalyst for triggering metahuman powers. Indeed, he found his own metahuman gene activated. When the young "SW6" Legionnaire, Lightning Lad blasted him, Devlin's powers completely reflected the energy. He also became enamored of the young Shrinking Violet, who nicknamed him "Reflecto," after Stig Ah, a Rimborian hero of similar powers, but the name didn't stick. (#20-25)

When the war to liberate Earth ended, Devlin accepted Rokk Krinn's invitation to join the adult Legion, making the false assumption that Violet would agree to go with him. (#40) While she did love him, she decided she'd rather stay with her friends on New Earth, and the two have agreed to a long-distance relationship. Devlin, ever a man of his word, kept his commitment to the older Legion, and served with them. He has recently proven his value to the team by facing down Mordru at the height of his powers... and winning, saving the Legion from suffocation at Mordru's hands. During this battle, however, the Khund Legionnaire, Firefist was accidentally killed by Devlin's powers. (#47-48)

A similar circumstance resulted in defeat against Glorith, but turned him several years younger, removing him from active duty with the team. (#53) He was called back into service when Rokk Krinn was kidnaped by Mordru and Glorith, but his role in this mission was aborted when, amid flucuations in the space/time, he disappeared from existence. (Legionnaires #18)

Devlin is a character who has not been introduced in any other Legion continuity.

Notes

Tom Bierbaum noted that Devlin was his creation, adding, "I think it's fair to say Devlin never really caught on with the fans, he did serve a function for me, being a teen-ager and a very upbeat and idealistic person who injected some good, old-fashioned Legion spirit into the proceedings as far as I was concerned."

Powers

Devlin possesses the reflexive ability to repel any object or force that approaches him at aspeed of more than about ten miles per hour. Though Devlin may never master all the subtleties of the power, through great concentration it could the­oretically be used to repel such forces as light and gravity. Devlin currently has no exceptional powers or fighting skills.

» SEE ALSO: Major Spoilers: Devlin O'Ryan

 

Gemini

Name + aliases:

Doctor Frances Campbell, one of the most brilliant men in the galaxy and the only non-Coluan to be offered the title "Brainiac" (he refused it), spent his entire adult life in search of a legend. When he finally found it, he wished he hadn't.

The "Life Equation Matrix," or "Gemini Matrix," is a chemical formula which would raise a being to a higher plane...form, so to speak, a bridge between man and god. In its youngest stage, the being, known as Gemini, would be split into two twins, who between them only possess one soul. This would necessitate their re-joining in order to survive, and when the twins rejoin, the resulting being will be immensely powerful. The being will be even more powerful if the original application of the Gemini Matrix caused the child to split into a boy and girl rather than into two identical beings, as is the norm.

When Doctor Campbell's wife, Carole, was going through a difficult pregnancy, Doctor Campbell was approached by the evil Darkseid, whose lifelong obsession had been the Anti-Life Equation, and who offered to save his wife's life if he'd apply the Gemini Matrix to the child. He agreed to the bargain and split the eight-month fetus into two...a girl, Aria, and a boy, Coda. Carole wife gave up her life during childbirth in order that Frances not feel he had to honor his bargain with Darkseid, but Frances did feel bound by the deal, and kept it...sort of. While Darkseid was setting up a laboratory on the planet Zuun, Frances got Aria to run away. By the time Darkseid came for the children, he only had Coda. Aria, with the help of her friend Lori, escaped and hid in the sewer tunnels of Zuun. But Aria's and Coda's shared soul caused a planetwide disruption in energy-fields, as if the two were never meant to be apart.

Darkseid took over Zuun through having its military commander stage a coup and declare martial law, ensuring that the children couldn't leave the planet, and that no one helping them could get onto it. He then employed bounty hunters to track them down. But through a freak of timing, April 2995 also happened to see Legionnaires Brainiac 5 and Furball on Zuun for some tests on the Zuunium levels in Furball's body. Because of the martial law, Brainiac 5 was arrested and detained by Zuun's Science Police, and Furball, who they tried to sedate, escaped. When the bounty hunters caught up with Aria and Lori, Furball did too, and he saved them. Brainiac 5 eventually escaped captivity and met up with Furball and the girls, only to be met by Lobo, a copy of the famed twentieth-century killer created from Probe by Darkseid. Lobo defeated the Legionnaires and retrieved Aria. Coda, during this time, disengaged himself from their shared soul so that Darkseid would be unable to use them after all, but their father's machines kept him alive until Aria arrived.

When the two were finally united, the disruptions in Zuun's worldwide power ended, and a massive surge of power took place in Darkseid's and Campbell's laboratory. Aria and Coda merged into one adult, female being. Darkseid, calling her Gemini, urged her to kill Furball out of mercy, but she refused. He then reverted Furball to human form by himself, an act which provoked Gemini to retaliate, blasting Darkseid with much of her power. Darkseid seemed to say that this was the effect he desired, and vanished, leaving Aria still in a powerful, adult body, but without Coda's presence in her mind. Coda's fate is not absolutely certain, but it is suspected that it was his essence with which she blasted Darkseid, and that the two of them are together, wherever they are. Aria went home with her father. (Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 4 #21-24)

A few months later, Aria visited the dying Brin Londo, for whom she felt somewhat responsible. She attempted to heal him, but the Zuunium in his system blocked this. She therefore tried to go back in time and prevent him from ever being treated with Zuunium in the first place, but Brin grabbed her arm at the moment she tried to travel into his past, and as the timestream doesn't allow the same person to co-exist twice without great pain, and Aria was sensitive to Brin's pain and wouldn't allow him to suffer further, her power automatically shunted her further back in time...to the late twentieth century (Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 4 Annual #3). There, both Aria and Brin, now calling himself Timber Wolf once again, hooked up with a United States government agency called Point Force, and Aria was kidnapped by one of their operatives, who was a traitor and was working with Dominators, who were kidnapping metahumans for experimentation. When the Dominators discovered what Aria was, they tried to keep her unconscious and drain her power to power one of their own operatives, but her mother, in her dream, prompted her to give up the world of her unconscious dreams and wake up to help Timber Wolf, cutting off the connection with the Dominators' lackey and enabling her to cure Timber Wolf from the terrible feral rage which had, at the time, been gripping him (Timber Wolf #1-5). Gemini apparently remained in the twentieth century with Point Force when Timber Wolf was accidentally transported back to the thirtieth century during a fight with a parasitic alien (Legion of Super-Heroes (3rd series) Annual # 4).

Notes

Aria (after appearing in the 20th century in the Timber Wolf mini-series) had a second life over at Image Comics. Now called Skylark, she appeared in the Al Gordon penned Wildstar: Sky Zero series. Here, her costume seemed a bit more like Phantom Girl's, but she described herself a the "step between god and man." — Thanks to Thomas Lanese

Impulse

Created by Al Gordon

Richard Kent Shakespeare was created by inker Al Gordon, who confirmed that the character was intended to be a descendant of Superman (though this was never explicitly mentioned). (Al Gordon, Facebook, 2012)

Shakespeare grew up in the wealthy New Rochelle neighborhood of Metropolis. He was attending the University of Metropolis medical school when he was accidentally exposed to an experimental virus. He fell into a coma and didn't recover for months, but no one could figure out exactly what was wrong with him.Then his case was taken over by Brainiac 5. Brainiac discovered that the virus, rather than damaging Kent, was improving him, substituting itself for Kent's less efficient human organs. When Kent woke up, he was surprised to find himself in a body possessed of superhuman strength, speed, durability, and recuperative abilities. Brainiac 5 proposed him for Legion membership, and he was accepted, using the code-name "Impulse."

The Legion was the perfect place for an idealistic person like Kent, but his membership was extremely rough, due to the Legion's strained relationship with Earthgov at the time. The charismatic Earthling Legionnaire was deemed to be a great threat to the Dominators' covert control of Earth, and he was therefore hounded at every turn, until in late 2991 he was forced to flee his home planet. He escaped Earthgov with the help of many former Legionnaires on other planets, including Rokk Krinn, the former Cosmic Boy. He was with Rokk on Braal when the war with Imsk broke out, and he served in the Braalian army, getting caught in the massacre at Venado Bay. He sustained little injury, since the Imskian damper only affected Braalians, but he was forced to flee Braal when the war ended in Imskian occupation of Braal, bringing about the danger that the Imskians might inform Earthgov of his location. He finally settled into a job as a paramedic on the medical planet Quarantine, keeping an eye on Garridan Ranzz for his parents and befriending an odd little girl named Ivy.

Despite his happiness there, he missed the good that he was able to accomplish while with the Legion, and when the opportunity presented itself in late 2994, he rejoined his friends in the re-formed organization. This lasted until a confrontation with Glorith in late 2995, which youthened him to childhood, sending him off the team. He now spends his time with the children on Quarantine as one of their own.

Kent is a character who has not been introduced in any other Legion continuity.

Notes

Tom Bierbaum wrote credited inker Al Gordon with Kent's creation, and added:

"The original idea was that he was a descendent of Superman (a perfectly reasonable idea for traditional DC — lots of Legion characters were descendents, and there was even a well-established Superman descendent, Laurel Kent). But the Superman people quite appropriately felt that … firmly establishing that Superman would have any offspring at all was something beyond what the Legion series should be doing. But between the name of the character and his Clark Kent-ish appearance, certainly readers could guess that he was a descendent."

Kent appeared as a reporter in Justice League Adventures #28 (Apr. 2004). He was not a Legion member in this story.

» SEE ALSO: Major Spoilers: Kent Shakespeare

Ivy

Created by Keith Giffen

Ivy is a young girl who was sent by her parents to Quarantine (an ocean world dedicated to medical facilities, some for super-beings). They feared that she was delusional because the girl claimed she spoke to plants. Ivy was befriended by the paramedic (and former Legionnaire) Kent Shakespeare, who believed her claims. She felt abandoned when Kent left Quarantine to return to the Legion. (Legion vol. 4 #12-13) Kent managed to visit her often enough. (#44)

On Quarantine, Ivy made friends her own age, including Garridan Ranzz (son of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl). (#37) They're friends included other super-powered children like Spunge, who could absorb and project energy; a young Hykraian telepath called Lynk; and Scales, a reptilian shape-changer. Ivy led the children against the Legion foe called Grimbor, when he came to Quarantine after his daughter. The children caused enough of a distraction to let Kent take down Grimbor. (#51)

Ivy was never a member of the Legion. The character has not reappeared in any other version of the team.

Kono

Created by Mary Bierbaum and Keith Giffen

When Brita An'nan was five, her mother, a Sklarian technology pirate, took her on a raid. Her mother had once saved the life of Mysa Nal (then known as the Hag) and was rewarded with a daughter–Brita–with the power to shift mass through time to make things more or less dense. The Khunds attacked the Sklarian ship and threatened to kill all aboard. Brita used her powers to render all Khund clothing immaterial, providing much embarrassment to the Khunds and a rallying point for the Sklarians. This won her few Khundish friends, and the feeling is quite mutual.-

Fleeing from the Khunds, she ended up on Rimbor, where she took to smuggling the government-controlled substance Silverale. She enjoyed the freedom and hedonism of Rimbor, especially the parts of it which disregarded laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors. It was here that she developed a great fondness for Kono ale, a fact that has stuck to her as a nickname.Her smuggling operation was in opposition to that of Jo Nah, formerly Ultra Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Rather than fight her, Jo took her under his wing, and when Chameleon Boy re-formed the Legion, Jo suggested her for membership. She stayed with them for a while, which has proven fortunate on a number of occasions...and very annoying on others. After a visit from her mother, she decided that the time was ripe for her to assume her traditional Sklarian duties, and, certain that Jo was well "cared for" by Spider Girl, left the Legion. She returned to help the younger Legionnaires crack a ring of Sklarian food-pirates, and later went to help rescue Rokk Krinn from Mordru and Glorith, a fight during which Zero Hour caused her to disappear.

Notes

Tom Bierbaum noted that Devlin was Mary Bierbaum's creation, adding,

"Some people saw her as an intended replacement for Tinya, but that was never our intention. Mary thought of an interesting power that happened to have some similarities to Tinya's and I think Keith just coincidentally put her on Rimbor as a shady Sklarian pirate-type, she was a natural for Jo's band of smugglers. And her uppity feminist point of view worked well with Jo, a very formidable male but also someone who had no trouble getting along with very assertive women. When Mary came up with Kono, I don't think we had the slightest hint that she'd be teamed initially with Jo."

Reboot: Earth-247

There was a Kono in the Reboot Legion reality. She appeared only briefly, in Legion vol. 4 #104 (May 1998).

Spider Girl

Created by Jack Schiff and Sheldon Moldoff

Spider Girl's villainous career began like many others: she was bitter about having been rejected by the Legion. Her power, bestowed upon her by genetic experiments by the matriarchs of Taltar, enabled her to control her hair and use it like a limb. The Legionnaires were unimpressed. Neither did her charm and good looks help, as Saturn Girl was presiding over the try-outs that day. (Adventure #323)

Upon this rejection, she was recruited by the Legion of Super-Villains, and she trained in their academy, becoming very proficient in the use of her powers. (#372) Since then she has continued to be a team player for their side, joining the LSV twice more. (Superboy #208, Legion vol. 3 #1-5)

More recently, she shone as a member of Earth-Man's so-called Justice League of Earth. She and others who were both Earth natives and Legion rejects banded together to sow the seeds of xenophobia across the globe. The Justice League were global heroes until the Legion rallied back to expose their lies. (Action #859-863) Immediately after this, she joined Superboy-Prime's massive new Legion of Super-Villains. (Legion of Three Worlds #2)

Glorith Reality (Legion vol. 4)

In Glorith Reality continuity, Spider Girl actually went on to become a Legionnaire and was romantic with Ultra Boy.

Sussa eventually struck out to try her luck as a freelance thief. She was arrested on Xanthu for trying to steal the Stancio Dazzle Gem. Naturally, she claimed that she was framed by Benn Pares, her former partner. (Legion vol. 4 #23)

This led to her being hired by Molock Hanscom (Starfinger III) to steal a canister from the headquarters of the Science Police on Earth. (#27) This, too, was a badly timed misadventure; she arrived in the middle of Earth's revolt against the Dominators. Quite by accident, she found herself allied with Science Police chief Circe and the Legionnaire Bounty. Sussa made it out alive, and learned how to contact the Legion (if it ever became necessary). (#32)

It did, shortly after the destruction of Earth, when it became clear that the canister she had yet to deliver was making her a target. She stole into the Legion's headquarters seeking their help just before Mordru made his move for universal conquest. (#43) Once again, she was roped into the good fight, and actually stayed on with the Legion for a disastrous mission against Glorith. She was formally invited to join the Legion, and accepted, if only to better flirt with Jo Nah. The team was forced into exile with the rest of the Legion due to the machinations of Universo. As a disguise, she has dyed her great locks blue and called herself Wave. (#54)

Sussa's relationship with Ultra Boy never really took off, and she eventually urged him to go through time to try to find her. (#59)