Ah can't believe this either, but Ah am gonna try and make some sense out of all this Mon-El/Valor/M'Onel squeeze! *snarf* Hang on! It's gonna be a bumpy ride ...

The Great And Powerful Dannell (AKA She-Who-Channels Mon-El) hath writ:

And in the beginning ... there was Mon-El ...

Ah found this entry for Mon in The Superman Encyclopedia and it fits very well!

A member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the only inhabitant of the Phantom Zone who was not sent there for any crime. Mon-El is a native of the planet Daxam and is a longtime friend of Superman. His real name is Lar Gand and he is fully aware that Clark Kent is secretly Superman.

Arriving on the planet Earth while Superman was still a teen-ager in Smallville (see Superboy), Mon-El discovered that, in the alien environment of Earth, he possessed super-powers identical to Superman's. Soon afterward, however, he was completely robbed of his super-powers as the result of a potentially fatal overexposure to lead, which affects Daxamites in the same manner as Kryptonite affects Kryptonians.

To halt the physical deterioration wrought by the lead poisoning and thus save Mon-El's life, Superboy (the young Superman) projected his friend into the Phantom Zone. He will remain there unaging, until the thirtieth century A.D., when, thanks to a special "antidote serum" developed by Brainiac 5, he will be released from the Phantom Zone permanently to assume a regular role in the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Here's what another source had to say about The Original Origin Of Mon-El:

Kal-El's brother Mon-El crashed on Earth in suspended animation. His rocket incorporated Kryptonian designs and he carried a letter from Jor-El. Superboy immediately accepted the amnesiac space traveler as his long lost older brother. Kal-El named him Mon-El since he arrived on a Monday and used the family name El. Mon-El moved in with the Kents using the identity of Bob Cobb and joined Superboy in patrols. Eventually Kal-El became jealous and suspicious of this stranger and arranged a trap with fake kryptonite {Lead balls painted green} to trick him. When Mon-El collapsed succumbing to the fake kryptonite Superboy called him out as a fake. But the pain returned Mon-El's memory. He told Kal-El he was from the planet Daxam but to Daxamites lead is fatal and the poisoning is irreversible. Mon-El's name was Lar Gand and he had visited Krypton before Kal was born and befriended Jor-El and Laura. Due to a space accident he had drifted in suspended animation until he fell to earth. Superboy swore to save his friend from his fate and sent him into the Phantom Zone to save his life until an antidote could be found. Superboy never found the cure.

1000 years later {About Adventure Comics 300} Phantom girl of the Legion of Super-Heroes finds Lar Gand floating in the Phantom Zone and alerts the others. Saturn Girl develops a temporary antidote that allows him to escape temporarily and help the Legion for short periods. Later Brainiac 5 develops a serum that allows him to escape the Zone altogether.

Simple enough, right??

Well, yes it was! Simple, direct, with an element of pathos and yet filled with hope for the future! Kewl:):) BUT! Joining the LSH, he became it's strongest member! He soon acquired a steady girlfriend in the form of Shawdow Lass, Tasmia Mallor, of Talok V111. He was known for his steady level head and mostly, unfortunately, by his absense from Legion affairs. Mon was a loner. He was happiest doing what he started out doing so many years ago when he left Daxam - exploring space. In the now retconned Adult Legion stories, when Shady was killed and buried on Shanghalla Mon left the Legion and became a full time space explorer and pretty much a legend. Are ya'll with me so far?? Good! 'Cause NOW things start to get ... odd ...

Lar Gand's first death Dream Girl foresees the Death of Mon-El. But nothing happens. At the end of the story Mon-El reveals he is really Eltro Gand, a descendant of Lar Gand's family and has taken Mon-El's place to keep him from harm. But when he return's to where he's hidden the unconscious Mon-El they find him succumbed to trace lead elements on the asteroid. Grief stricken Eltro speeds Mon-El to Legion Headquarters and uses the same device used to revive Lightning Lad to exchange his life for the heroe.

Lar Gand's second death Mon-El is nearly fatally injured by the conspiracy that attacks the Time Trapper in Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 3 #50 in retaliation for the Death of Superboy. Under intensive care for the rest of the Volume, Shadow Lass tows him around the universe searching for a cure for his broken battered body. During this period she also takes Mon-El as her husband according to her peoples custom. When the Magic War happens and technology falters across the Universe Mon-El's life support equipment fails and he dies. Shady stricken with Grief returns to her world to mourn her lovers loss.

Lar Gand's third death After the Five year gap in Volume 4 of the Legion of Super-Heroes Lar Gand explodes from his grave on the Shanghala asteroid. Soon he is back in conflict with the Time Trapper. The Time Trapper has hidden a piece of himself within Lar Gand as a fail safe. Eltro Gand long ago was a ploy to weaken Lar Gand. Since that episode Eltro has been incorporated in Lar's mind. When the Time Trapper is forced into competing with Lar on the physical plane he discovers Lar can destroy him. Before that happens the Time Trapper warns Lar that if the Trapper dies all he has done from creating the Legion to Lar himself will disappear. Lar decides to that in order to rid the universe of the Time Trappers Evil he is willing to take that chance. In his final blow the universe fades to white.

Post Mordru-verse Lar Gand now known as Valor. After the rise of Glorith many of the pieces used by the Time Trapper before her were gone. She had to use what she had to change things. Lar Gand of the Pocket Universe no longer existed. It is unclear if a Superboy existed or not for a while. First no, then yes, but only for a short time. Later in Zero Hour his contribution is recognized but immediately swept away again.

Now a Lar Gand leaves Daxam to honor his father who sacrificed himself in Invasion to help save Earth. He first joins L.E.G.I.O.N. and meets Phase but is fired when Vril Dox realizes his morals are too high to be able to subvert Lar to Vril's whims. Lar comes to Earth for a while then goes out into space to make his legend. At the end of his series Valor, Lar Gand succumbs to Lead Poisoning and dies after Glorith causes his anti-lead serum to fail in DOA.

And then DC decreed that there shall be: THE CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS!

Now, DC's Great Housecleaning Project (as Ah like to think of the Crisis) was a huge sucess. The original idea was to make things much simpler for the modern day DC writers by getting rid of all those multiple versions of the same character, all those inconvenient extra earths, silly characters or villains and so on. All well and good.

But at the time they didn't realize how *badly* this was gonna mess up the LSH:(:( Wisely, Ah think, DC decided to get rid of the Superman as a boy concept and eliminated the Pre-Crisis Superboy! He never existed. But, but, but! *sputter* *sputter* What about the LHS??? Superboy was the inspiration for the 30th century formation of the LSH!! Quick! Whatever shall we do?? No problem! They had that one covered:):) They decided that Mon-El would replace the Boy Of Steel in the hearts oand minds of Legion Lovers everywhere!

So! They renamed him Valor, fleshed out his history a tad and viola! Instant Legend. Ya'll still with moi?? Good!

After this point the Legion creative team is forbidden to use the name Mon-El as it has historical links to Superboy who never existed damnit. A compromise could have occured, or some sort of retcon like the suggested Daxamite word for Valor = mon-el. So far DC has refused to budge, but we heard that about Superboy. :-)

Adult Valor the Legend In Volume 4 of the Legion of Super-Heroes Lar Gand had to step into Superboy's old role as the inspiration and living legend of the Legion. In this continuity Valor is the source of most of the worlds inhabited by humans. Valor helped settle all the all the barrier worlds with Humans released by him from Dominator laboratories. But when he refused to become Glorith's consort and help her conquer the Universe she banished him into the twilight dimension where he nearly went mad. After 1000 years he is found and released by the Legion and welcomed by adoring hordes who see him as a god like being.

SW6 Valor When a young group of Legionnaires appear from Dominator laboratories under Metropolis a young copy of Valor is included. After the Dominator's defeat on Earth the SW6 batch decides to search for their origin and find their way back. A time bubble is used to send Valor into the time stream to search. But upon takeoff his bubble is seemingly vaporized in a purple flash. {Purple is associated with Glorith} SW6 Valor is never seen in the future again. At first we don't know if the SW6 batch are clones, or the older Legionnaires are clones, or both, or neither. Arguments can be made for both cases. During Zero hour another argument is given. The SW6 batch are time duplicates of the originals taken from an earlier period by the Time Trapper and held as an emergency reserve army to use against Glorith and Mordru. This explanation is rather silly as during end of an era both copies will disappear once the SW6 member is destroyed. But earlier on Chameleon, and Projectra's duplicates are destroyed with no ill effects.

Lar Gand's fourth Death Previous to Zero Hour a strange malady overcame Valor in the 20th century. His anti-lead serum which should have lasted him the rest of his life is wearing out. Instead of dieing quietly he decides to go out in a blaze of glory. With his new girl Lori he tries to attempt his last great deeds. Meanwhile in the future the Legionnaires have noticed time anomalies occurring focused around the Legend of Valor. Suddenly the computers don't know who he is, except for a minor adventurer who died in the 20th Century. An emergency time trip is arranged to try to save Valor and set time right. Back in the 20th century we find Lori is really Glorith who is causing Lar's problems in order to coerce him to work with her. But typical of Glorith she goes too far and Lar Gand Dies. At this point time itself starts to fracture and burst. Finally the SW6 Valor appears in the midst of this chaos. In order to save time itself Valor must complete all the events of his former life but in a short time or everything will come apart. Valor manages to accomplish his task with help from the Linnear Men. Afterwards he allows Glorith to send him into banishment and he enters the zone in peace because he knows he has friends waiting for him in the end. This is really a very sad ending. Because after Zero-Hour the future was wiped out. The SW6 Valor will never be found because there was no one at the other end of his journey to rescue him.

THEN DC started to get lots of folks pointing out how messed up the Legion was now thanks to Crisis ... Among other things that DC purists pointed out that had been torpeoed by Crisis! That's when they decided on Zero Hour:(:( Zero Hour was a huge massive timeshift that was gonna fix all those problems and shut folks up:):) Not a bad little plan, actually. But then that left us with:

Post Zero Hour Valor All we know so far is that Valor existed past Zero Hour and the DOA story line didn't occur. So the DOA storyline in Valor has been retconed. Probably because in this time line Glorith wasn't around or was prevented from messing with Valor.

Mark Waid said that Valor still lives somewhere out in space in the 20th century after the Zero Hour start of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Legion fans still expected Lar Gand to turn up again in the 30th century and once again become a living legend from the 20th century.

Then Lar Gand appeared in the Superboy title in July '95, suffering from Lead Poisoning and amnesia. Lar was found by Gangsters and convinced to battle the Hawaiian based Super teen. But his Lead poisoning nearly killed our hero until Superboy had Lar placed into the Stasis Zone by Star Labs scientists. The widget used to place Lar in Stasis promptly broke leaving him stranded.

Soon after this the new Legion started the "Search For Valor" arc. The Legion reacting to Valor sightings visits the 20th century to find out from Superboy what did happen to Valor who had become a religious figure on many UP planets. In order to avoid a jihad the Legion secretly releases Valor

Here's the word from the GiffenBaum Team!

Alter Ego: Lar Gand Occupation: Space Explorer and Adventurer Known Relatives: Tasmia Mallor (wife), Kel Gand (father, deceased), Marisa Gand (mother), Eltro Gand (descended from Lar's brother), Laurel Gand (descended from Lar's brother) Group Affiliation: Legion of Super-Heroes, L.E.G.I.O.N. Base of Operations: 30th-Century Space First Appearance: SUPERBOY #89 (June, 1961) Height: 6'2" ; Weight: 200 lbs. Eyes: Blue ; Hair: Black

HISTORY

Few of us can claim to rank as one of the giants of our century, but Valor is revered as one of the greatest heroes of both the 20th and the 30th centuries. To earn this acclaim, Valor has endured sacrifices, torments, and misfortunes as monumental as his heroics.

Born Lar Gand on 20th-century Daxam, Valor was the son of an official observer who gave his life during the Dominator-instigated Invasion of Earth. For Lar, the loss of his father out in the previously unknown regions of the galaxy only increased the already irresistible siren call of space exploration. With his formidable intellect and will, Lar was a trained space explorer by his mid-teens.

Lar's early adventures in space included a brief stint serving with Vril Dox's L.E.G.I.O.N. Valor later stumbled across a planned second Dominator invasion of Earth. He attacked the Dominion home world, joining forces with that planet's underground resistance and the human escapees of the Dominators' genetic experimentation camps. Together, they overthrew the planet's ruling caste and freed the surviving human captives. To guard against possible future invasions by the Dominators, Valor planted some of the survivors on buffer worlds between Earth and the Dominion. On many of those planets entire races of super-powered humans developed throughout the centuries, making Valor the "father" of some of the races that produced members of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century.

After his defeat of the Dominion solidified Valor's galactic reputation, he was visited by those 30th-century Legionnaires and made an honorary member of their group. He shared adventures with the Legion both in this century and in theirs during the Legion's youngest days.

Valor's brilliant 20th-century career was cut short, when he confronted the 30th-century villainess Glorith. Valor refused to join the empress, in the future as her consort, so the scorned Glorith imprisoned him in the buffer region between Earth's dimension and the BgztI dimension, where he remained for 1000 years. Finally, the legendary hero was located in that void and rescued by the same Legionnaires with whom he'd shared adventures before his 1000-year exile.

Valor rejoined the Legion and became one of its greatest members, but his exemplary career lost much of its luster in later years. His troubles began when Eltro Gand, a descendent of Lar's brother, attempted to save Lar from a fatal dose of lead poisoning by hooking up himself and the apparently dead Valor to a life-transfer machine. Years later, It was discovered that Valor hadn't yet died, so instead of restoring life to a dead hero, Eltro simply projected his own personality into Valor's psyche.

Unaware of the freak occurrence, Valor found himself now responding with Eltro's weaknesses to the stresses of his career and the traumas of his past. Those years were dominated by long periods oi moodiness and occasional destructive rampages. The Eltro personality was finally "shaken loose" during a fearsome battle with Glorith that followed her monstrous genocide of the population of Daxam. With Valor's powerful personality once again in control, Valor gained the strength to recover from his injuries.

During the convalescence, Valor married his longtime sweetheart Tasmia Mallor (Legionnaire Shadow Lass) and they decided to resign from the Legion to pursue his first love space exploration.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Valor possesses the full range of Daxamite powers, including virtually unmeasurable strength, speed, and vision, as well as flight and near invulnerability. He maintains them even under his native red sun because of a side effect of the serum that protects him from lead poisoning. Valor may be the most powerful humanoid in the DC Universe.

text: Tom & Mary Bierbaum

Now soon after Zero Hour what TPTB at DC decided to do with the Legion was erase everything that had gone before and start over. From scratch. The Legionaires were teenyboppers again and nothing was sacred! Including Mon-El/Valor! phui! Here's his current Legion Bio:

Lar Gand of Daxam. Lar Gand was the son of the Daxamite who sacrificed his life to save the planet Earth in the Invasion mini-series. Lar Gand left Daxam to travel space unlike most of his race to honor his father. During his adventures in space Valor joined L.E.G.I.O.N. met Green Lanterns, Superman, and fought many enemies in space. But his greatest accomplishment was to rescue many humans from the clutches of the Dominators and resettling them on planets which would become in the 30th century the foundation of the United Planets. Valor was placed in the stasis zone by Superboy when he showed up on Earth suffering from fatal Lead poisoning. He was lost for a thousand years during which time Valor's legend grew and he became revered throughout the UP and worshipped by Billions. Because of this the UP feared his release would initiate galactic chaos. Valor's return has been declared a secret by Cosmic Boy. Since his release from the Stasis Zone he has been sight seeing the UP and gathering data at the request of Cosmic Boy. In order to be able to move around the UP he has adopted the name M'Onel, a Martian name meaning "He-Who-Wanders" . Currently in the Legion with a special detached service agent membership.

*sigh* Ah hope this helps ya'll in ya'll's quest to understand Lar:):) Probably not, but Ah did try!

Legion Who's Who Entry

Lar Gand was a biotechnologist and and astronomer of the planet Daxam in the 20th century. He began his greatest journey, a trek through unknown space searching for new lifeforms, but his spaceship was shunted into the Time Trpapers Pocket Universe, where he met Superboy. Though he gained super-powers under tEarth's yellow sun, Lar had amnesia and Superboy, thinking him a lost brother, gave him a name based on his own Kryptonian name. Mon-El regained his memory when exposed to lead, a substance deadly to Daxamits, but Superboysaved Lar by placing him in The Phantom Zone, an extrademensional ghostlike plabe where Lar stayed for 1,000 years.

Eventually, Saturn Girl developed a temporary cure for Lar's lead poisoning, enabling him to live outside the Zone for short periods of time, and he became a Legion Reservist,(AKA Marvel Lad, Leggionnaire Lemon and Dues Ex-Machina Lad!) to be called on only in emergencies. Brainiac 5 later came up with a permenent cure which allowed Mon-El to retain his yellow sun based powers under a red sun. Although happy to be freed from the Zone, Mon-El suffers from periods depression when he thinks back on all the years and lives he watched as a phantom. This depression is helped by his love for Shadow Lass, but recentkly he has been becoming more and more withdrawn an moody. He often takes long journys through space by himself, and his team mates speculate that there will come a day when he may choose not to return. While his powers make him the most powerful Legionnaire, he is equally useful in the lab, where his training and expertise in the fields of biotechnology and enginering make him a match for Brainiac 5. He created the alloy used in the Legion flight rings as part of his initiation test.

POWERS AND SKILLS

Mon-El has suer-powers when under a yellow sun, including super strength, invulnerability, super speed, flight, and vision powers. Due to the serum he takes to counter the effects of lead, he keeps his powers under a red sun. He is familiar with Legion combat training, but most of it is pointless for someone of such great power.

And then there was THIS little gem ...

Titan In A China Shop The Unauthorized Biography of Mon-El By Baretta West {from Legion Of Suoer-Heroes #4 (v2)}

would never acjnowledge it publically, it was a open secret among Talok V111's upper administors that his death ultimately brought more relief to Tasmia's scarrred psyche.

They say that's why Tasmia failed so completely as the planetary champion when she returned to Talok after the Mystic Wars, and why she's now retreated to to the seclusion of the Abby of the Ancestors.

While his Legion friends continue to paint the picture of a stoic, noble Mon-El, loving toward Tasmia to the end, journalist covering the Legion closely during those final months know different.

Even Tinya Wazzo has been quoted as admitting that before the ill-fated showdown with the Time Trapper, in which Mon-El was mortally wounded, he and Shadow Lass had barely spoken a sentence to each other in weeks.

Wazzo had written off that episode as a manifestation of the grief Mon-El was feeling after the death of the 20th century champion Superboy. But there's convincing evidence Mon-El's psychosis were by this time running rampant. After years of wavering on the brink, this unstable boy-in-a-titan's-body had become a source of constant anxiety to his teammates and friends. Massive world-threatening tantrums were becoming commonplace.

Kahnya Nahtahnie, Lady Memory and a co-prefect of Talok V111, describes in vivid detail and embarressing incident the Legion's PR machines have attempted to hush up. While attempting to interfer in a political dispute on Talok V111, Mon-El suffered a violent mental breakdown, according to Nahtahnie.

Legion records are conveniently sketchy on the details of this rampage (while unusually through in cataloguing the group's grievances against Nahtahnie, whom Tasmia considers a political enemy), but there's no doubt the beserk hero attacked and injured fellow Legionnaires Gim Allon, Thom Kallor, and Brin Londo, finally being psychically restrained only by Kallor's powers.

Ultimately the Legionnaires had to project Mon-El into the Phantom Zone and simply wait out his fit before they could resume their interference in the Talok V111 dispute.

But perhaps the Legionnaires talk so little abut the incident because it was quickly overshadowed by another, far more frightening breakdown. Legion records, obtained only through the invocation of the Information-Freedom Decree, provide sketchy details of the greatest Mon-El rampage of them all.

The episode was apparently triggered when the Daxamite developed an immunity to the serum that ws protecting him from lead poisoning. As Brainiac worked to update the serum, Mon-El suffered a complete breakdown that some Legionnaires have privately admitted was a suicidal rage.

The Legion headquarters took a battering. Records indicate the damage Mon-El inflicted cost 30,000 credits to repair. Finall, the beserk titan, in an apparent attempt to end his life threw himself at super-speed into the Earth's polymer shield.

In his weakened condition, the ploy almost worked. The mighty Legion had no alternative but to project the critically wounded Mon-El into the Phantom Zone to save him from himself.

Even then, Legionnaires Tinya Wazzo and Tellus had to enter the Zone and psychically force the rampaging titan to submit, against his w3ill, to attempts to save his life. Finally, a life saving injection was admninistered while Mon-El ws restrained by teammates Jo Nah and Tellus.

Unfortunately, that incident did not mark the end of the psychological battering Tasmia was subjected to. In the weeks that followed, Mon-El's violent mood swings and long, sullen periods of silence continued. But Tasmia;s torment would grow far worse after the subsequent, unexpected death of Mon-El's friend Superboy. After that tragedy, Mon-El's obsessive, suicidal behavior seemed to on take an entirely new scope, totally eclipsing whtever geniality remained a part of his nature -- a grim forshadowing of things to come.