Valor (comic series)

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Valor is the title of a comic series that the US publisher DC-Comics published between 1992 and 1994.

The series, which chronicles the adventures of a space driver named Mon-El, who because of his heroism Valor (Engl. Valor "Valor") is called, is standard genre in the field of science fiction settled comics. The main character and premise of the series go back to a story by Robert Bernstein and George Papp published in June 1961 in the comic book Superboy # 89 .

Release dates and creators of the series

Valor reached twenty-three issues in just under two years, the first of which came on the market in November 1992, while the last issue appeared in September 1994. There were also numerous stories in other DC comic series in which the title character Lar Gand / Mon-El acted as one of several lead characters (such as LEGION, Legion of Super Heroes, etc.).

The authors of the Valor comics were the Americans Robert Loren Fleming (# 1–10) and Mark Waid (# 11–23). The visual design of the comics, however, was taken over by artists such as Mark D. Bright (# 1–4), Jeffrey Moore (# 5–8, 10–13), Paris Cullins (# 9) and Colleen Doran (# 14–23) .

action

Valor describes the experiences of an "intergalactic adventurer" named Lar Gand, who comes from a planet Daxam and was born in the bright future of the 30th century: The stories about Lar Gand play a role here - due to a confusing jumping back and forth between the centuries, through time travel, travel to other dimensions, etc. comes about - alternating in the 20th / 21st the series LEGION and Superman and in the 30th century the Legion of Super-Heroes . Outwardly indistinguishable from humans, Lar Gand, like all residents of Daxam - "Daxamites" (in the English original "Daxamites") - has innate abilities that go far beyond human possibilities: He has enormous physical strength and the ability to work in the vacuum of To “breathe” in space, he is able to see through material objects (“X-ray vision”), “manipulate gravity” (ie to fly) and a few others. Analogous to Superman whose famous Achilles heel is an alien rock called kryptonite that can injure and even kill the otherwise invulnerable hero, Lar Gand as a Daxamite has an innate weakness against lead : As soon as he comes into contact with the metal, it has a toxic effect on him , which can cause weaknesses and, if exposed for a long time, even death.

The Valor stories in Legion of Super-Heroes

The plot of the, chronologically speaking, first Valor stories within the Legion of Superheroes series begins with Lar Gand traveling through the universe without a specific reason - apparently only motivated by inquiring curiosity and a youthful “thirst for adventure”. After his spaceship suffers an accident, he falls to earth near the sleepy town of Smallville in the US state of Kansas: initially suffering from amnesia due to the hard impact, Lar Gand meets the teenage superhero Superboy who lives there . Due to the similarity of their powers and their origins - both were carried to earth by a rocket - Superboy considers the amnestic Lar Gand to be a family member (cousin) of his home planet Krypton, which was lost in a natural disaster. After Superboy and Mon El - as Superboy baptized the nameless Lar Gand with a Kryptonian name - worked together for a while for “justice” in Smallville, Lar Gand's memory gradually returns.

Meanwhile suffering from severe lead poisoning, he decides to continue his travels through the universe to find a cure for his illness. Lar Gand leaves Superboys Earth and resumes his odyssey. As it turns out, the entire universe in which Superboys Earth is located is only a slightly modified copy of the actual universe ("pocket universe"), created by an all-powerful alien named Time Trapper, into which Lar Gand now unexpectedly returns by unintentionally (and without even knowing of their existence) the “dimensional barrier” that separates the actual universe and the copy from each other breaks through. That Lar Gand in the wake of the spaceship accident that landed him on "Superboys Earth" must have broken this barrier into the pocket universe for the first time - penetrating at the time - so that it is even possible that he can leave it is implied, but not expressly stated.

The main difference between the actual universe and the pocket universe created by the Time Trapper is the role of Superboy: while Superboy in the pocket universe is the same person as Superman, young Clark Kent before he grew up and changes his name to Superman, the Superboy in the actual universe is a young clone of Clark Kent, who only started his superhero career as an adult (under the name Superman) and has therefore never been a "Superboy".

Lar Gand's further adventures then describe how he discovered these differences between the actual universe and the trapper's creation, into which he was temporarily caught: The reason for this is another visit to earth, during which he learns to his great surprise that his friend Clark Kent lived 1000 years ago in the 20th century, and that he only performed heroic deeds as a Superman, but never as a "Superboy", so there never was a Superboy (at least no "Clark Kent as a Superboy"). In search of the originator of the "whole haunt", Lar Gand finally joins the Legion of Super-Heroes, a group of teenage superheroes from the 30th century, one of whose enemies is the Time Trapper. When Lar Gand and the Legion, of which Lar Gand is the most powerful member, finally succeeds in confronting the Time Trapper ("Magic Wars" storyline), Lar Gand is killed in battle with him ( Legion of Super-Heroes , Vol. 3, # 61, June 1989).

Lar Gand's death turns out to be "temporary": The Time Trapper himself finally awakens him to new life, in the hope of being able to take possession of his body as a "new shell" for his consciousness after his own body is near death due to illness . However, the resurrected Lar Gand succeeds in defeating and killing the trapper ( Legion of Superheroes , Vol. 4, # 3-4, January – February 1990).

The plot of the Valor series

The death of the time-traveling Time Trapper causes a dramatic change in the flow of time or the space-time continuum, which serves as the starting point for the Valor solo series, which began in 1992: After the trapper's death, his assistant Glorith takes over the name and powers of her dead person Gentlemen and becomes the new trapper: She transports Lar Gand - again suffering from amnesia - into the 20th century where, as a young man “without a past”, he uses his amazing skills to accomplish a multitude of great heroic deeds: for example, he turns an invasion of the earth by the extraterrestrial race of the Dominators and becomes a legendary figure under the name "Valor", who a thousand years later for his friends in the 30th century - who do not know that Valor is identical to their teammate Lar Gand - the The inspiration for the establishment of the Legion of Super-Heroes will be ( Legion of Super-Heroes Annual # 2).

In the course of the joint fight against a monstrous being called Eclipso, the nameless Lar Gand also met Superman for the first time in the 20th century - the Superman of the "actual universe" (not the grown-up Superboy of the Pocket Universe, of which he no longer remembers hat) - who gave him the name "Valor" ("bravery", freer "the brave") in recognition of his heroic achievements in the fight against Eclipso. Thereafter Valor first worked as a member of an intergalactic police organization called LEGION, which fought against a multitude of dangers in the vastness of the universe, which usually reach “cosmic proportions”, and finally began to repeat his old one - apparently “in his blood” “- To resume routine as a space explorer: Together with an alien named Babbage he travels through different galaxies in a dashing spaceship, meets all kinds of extraterrestrial races and civilizations and is repeatedly involved in confrontations with villains and antiheroes such as the beating bounty hunter Lobo and the returned Glorith involved.

After Valor fell ill with lead poisoning, Superboy - a clone of Superman's - with the help of elaborate technical equipment transferred him to the material-free "phantom zone" (also called the stasis zone), in which living beings only appear as disembodied phantoms or spiritual beings exist: The idea behind this measure is to "keep" Valor in the zone - where his illness due to the lack of a body to harm it - until a cure is found that enables him to move into the "real" World ”and survive there. This remedy was only developed after a thousand years in the 30th century, when Valor once again - from his point of view - joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. In order to avoid religious hysteria among the inhabitants of the 30th century due to the "descent" of the legendary figure of inspiration for the establishment of the Legion and the intergalactic state of the United Planets (League of Planetes), whose protector is the Legion, Lar Gand decides to henceforth to use the name M'Onel .

Earlier versions

The original version of Valor differs in some respects from the "modern" version presented above. While Valor's encounter with Superboy in the modern version of the material only took place within a “copy” of the actual universe - the aforementioned “pocket universe” - the meeting between the two took place, as told in Superboy # 80, in the original version of the Material from 1959 in the "real universe", and not in a copy. The reasons for this are to be found in the complex contract policy of DC-Comics, the owner of Valor, Superman and Superboy: While Superman in the "old DC universe", in which the comics published by DC between 1935 and 1986 are set, already as Younger, who had just experienced heroic adventures under the name “Superboy”, is only the adult Superman in the “modern DC Universe” (Post-Crisis DC Universe), in which the comics that DC has published since 1986 are set become a superhero. So there was never a superboy in this version.

While it was possible for the Valor in the "old" DC comics to meet Superboy on a visit to Earth without any problems, this was practically impossible for the Valor in the "new" DC comics - because it was in "his universe “Just didn't give a young Superman whom he could have met as a superboy on earth. In order to still be able to tell a Superboy-Valor encounter, Valor was simply allowed to fall into a "copy" of the universe - the creation of the Time Trapper - in which a young Superman exists as a Superboy.

template

The direct template for the first story with Mon El from Superboy # 89 was the story "Superman's Big Brother" from the magazine "Superman" # 80 from January / February 1953, which was extremely similar in its plot to the first mentioned. In this booklet, Superman meets an alien named Halk Kar .

Like Mon El, he lost his memory after a spaceship crash and is mistaken for his older brother / cousin by Superman due to a misunderstanding. The "Superman Brothers" have some adventures together before Halk Kar regains his memory and remembers that he actually comes from the planet Thoron, which is very similar to Krypton. Alleged evidence of Halk Kar's Kryptonian ancestry from his spaceship turns out to be mementos that he took with him on a visit to Krypton. The story from '' Superboy '' # 89 was basically nothing more than a revival of the plot from "Superman's Big Brother", only that Halk Kar was replaced by Mon El. Unlike Mon El, for whom the story from Superboy # 80 was just the starting point for a long series of other stories, Halk Kar was never used for another story after Superman # 80.