After a lot of ultimately pointless cameos, Mon-El gets his own regular series…
Ambush Bug: Nothing Special (1992)
written by Keith Giffen & Robert Loren Fleming
pencils by Keith Giffen, Chris Sprouse & Bill Wray
cover by Keith Giffen
…after a pointless cameo.
The gimmick of the issue is that Ambush Bug is going around various superheroes to give his resumé. And being rejected every time.
(sorry about the washed out images, that’s the best scan I could find)
Which also involves him annoying Mon-El by advertising the upcoming series.
But he also drops by the SW6 Legion, to advertise the upcoming regular series Legionnaires.
This is the first glimpse to the new Legionnaire costumes, which will also be the basis for the standard Legion uniforms of the Reboot.
Weird that the new look was first seen HERE, and weirder still that the Legionnaires series will launch SIX MONTHS after this special.
I generally found Ambush Bug’s earlier specials much funnier, but at this point he had REALLY overstayed his welcome. Also Giffen is going into full absurdity now.
Death will make an appearance in Legion volume 4 #38, and that apparently took a lot of editorial influence to have her show up out of the Sandman books.
But apparently, the same year she had no trouble showing up in Ambush Bug.
Yeah this one is borderline unreadable and painfully unfunny.
At this point Keith Giffen was either running on fumes or was inhaling too many fumes.
But Keith Giffen won’t contribute to this series AT ALL, so let’s move on to the main subject.
Valor #1 (1992)
by Robert Loren Fleming & Mark Bright
As a reminder, in this period Mon-El is not TECHNICALLY called that… his codename is Valor.
I’m still calling him Mon-El because that name sucks.
A better codename would have been “Shoulder-pads”.
Also, as a disclaimer, I have never read this series before now.
We begin with Mon-El getting therapy, because he’s still traumatized by his Eclipso crossover.
He’s not really into it.
Wouldn’t “Paragon” have been a better codename than “Valor”? It would have a better in-universe explanation.
Still… could’ve been worse.
The last time Mon-El played Space Chess with his father, it was right before he was called to participate in Invasion!
This is already more character development than Mon-El received in every single appearance he’s had since the beginning of this era.
Mon-El has caught the attention of Lex Luthor Junior, the son of Lex Luthor… who will later be revealed to be a clone of the original with the mind of the real one.
Lex Junior’s plan to get rid of Mon-El involves sending him away from Earth on a spaceship.
Kind of a waste to throw away one of the few guys capable of fighting Superman on equal footing.
Mon-El still hasn’t fully recovered from his encounter with Eclipso.
Sounds legit. I mean, isn’t this the same reaction most readers had to the Eclipso event?
Sure enough, Mon-El soon comes across a cult of Eclipso worshippers who have been possessed by his spirit. I think.
Eclipso’s latest plan is to have the Moon crash on the planet.
As if any editor would be insane enough to allow that to happen in a DC comic!
Now that would just be silly.
Ever wondered what those huge buttons on Mon-El’s costume do? They’re not just for show!
Those “mini-Eclipso” are not human for some reason, so Mon-El has no reason to hold back.
Eclipso’s plan is to use Mon-El’s anger against his father to power up his evil crystal of evilness, but it doesn’t go well for him.
Keep working on these one-liners, Mon-El, you’ll get a good one eventually.
He also contradicts himself by getting really mad at his father once Eclipso has been defeated.
Valor #2 (1992)
by Robert Loren Fleming & Mark Bright
I commend this series for having the courage not to use Superman as a guest star to boost sales, but the fact that Supergirl has to show up in the second issue is not a good sign.
We discover Mon-El has a knack for building stuff.
And he’s already made peace with the memory of his father, by building a monument to him.
Well that was quick.
Luthor Junior has been spying on him, and decides to send Supergirl to investigate.
We’ve seen the post-Crisis Supergirl before, since she originates in the Pocket Universe.
To make a really long story short, in this version she’s completely unrelated to Superman: in fact, she’s an artificial alien creature with shapeshifting powers.
Who is currently dating Lex Luthor Junior, without knowing his real identity.
These two bond over Mon-El’s monument to his father…
…at least until she realizes he’s a nerd.
I’m not a big fan of this version of Supergirl. Unless you count the Peter David series she doesn’t have much of a personality… and that series is among the very few Peter David works that leaves me cold.
That being said she’s not a bad character, and she does have her moments.
Mon-El is pretty bummed by the fact that his ability to fly leaves her unimpressed.
Just wait until you get to the 30th century, Mon-El, and everyone working with you will be able to fly… and just stop doing it after the 5-year gap.
Since Luthor Junior sent Supergirl to pick up a fight this result in, of course, a Big Dumb Superfight.
Something Mon-El is not fully prepared for, especially because this Supergirl is basically Martian Manhunter if he had telekinesis instead of telepathy.
And better legs.
Unlike the pre-Crisis Supergirl this one is not a teenager, but the fact that she slept with Lex Luthor still makes my skin crawl.
The fight ends up destroying the monument.
The fight goes on for a while.
Until Supergirl uses her shapeshifting powers to trick Mon-El into a meeting with Lex Junior.
Lex’s plan to get rid of Mon-El is basically to gift him a car, AND IT WORKS.
You should try this trick with Superman someday, Lex. You never know.
In the end, Supergirl does make good in her throwaway promise to rebuild the memorial to Mon-El’s father. I wonder if that thing survived the countless retcons necessary to still be around.
Valor #3 (1993)
by Robert Loren Fleming & Mark Bright
After two full issues, Mon-El is back to the status quo of wandering among the stars… which is what he was doing before Eclipso anyway.
I’m not entirely sure why the spaceship was necessary. In this period Superman needs one to fly faster than light, but Mon-El’s appearances in this continuity have been consistent in showing that he’s capable of interstellar flight on his own.
You could, of course, rationalize this by saying that he just likes spaceships.
Which is fine, but why exactly does he need it to fight other ships?
We’re a few years away from Mon-El single-handedly defeating the Dominators so bad that it took them a thousand years to recover, but we’re supposed to believe a bunch of space pirates are giving him so much trouble?
Building that ship cost Luthor four billion dollars. In 2025, that’s over 9 billion dollars.
For comparison, in 1992 NASA had four operational space shuttles. The cost for their research and development is a bit tricky to find, but the best estimate I could find tells me it was something like 3.7 billion for all of them combined.
Adjusted for inflation, that’s roughly 8.5 billions in 2025.
So Luthor just throw away the equivalent of all operational space shuttles COMBINED just to get rid of a guy who MIGHT cause him trouble.
Is Mon-El planning to use this to fight Green Lantern?
For a moment I really hoped Lex Junior just recorded Mon-El’s modifications and is using this as an opportunity to develop his own FTL engine.
But no, he was just jealous.
Lately DC has insisted on merging all versions of the same character. I really hope this doesn’t mean the current Supergirl remembers what the shapeshifting one did.
Well alright, technically speaking Lex’s plan is to use the ship to gather information, but that doesn’t sound petty enough for any version of Lex Luthor.
Hey you can’t make fun of the story for being too boring! That’s MY job!
Eventually, Mon-El decides to stop dicking around in a ship and does the job himself.
At PAGE TWENTY.
Of a 24-page story.
And then Lobo shows up. At least it’s not at random as in the Quiet Darkness, since he does know Mon-El from his L.E.G.I.O.N. days.
Yeah that about everyone’s reaction to Lobo. If they’re invulnerable.
Valor #4 (1993)
by Robert Loren Fleming & Mark Bright
cover by Trevor Scott
Four issues in and you’re using another cover cameo? Definitely not a good omen for the series.
It’ a L.E.G.I.O.N. reunion, since Mon-El is apparently looking to replenish his anti-lead serum from Vril Dox II.
Mon-El is incredibly inconsistent.
Already in the first issue, he was way too quick to jump from idolizing his father to being angry at him.
Now he’s too quick to stop fighting Lobo after being the one to start it…
…but it does lead to a funny series of scenes of Lobo fantasizing how to kill him.
That whole sequence took four pages, but it was infinitely more entertaining than the entire previous issue.
The fight continues for several pages, and Mon-El is in serious trouble here.
It’s easy to forget, but Lobo is regularly shown to be strong enough to be a challenge to Superman.
Also, notice it’s apparently “laservision” and not “heat vision”.
Things are so bad that Vril Dox II has to be the voice of reason.
A pity that the Lobo fight lasted so long, because Mon-El’s relationship with the rest of the L.E.G.I.O.N. goes unexplored.
In a forced inside joke, Mon-El is apparently smitten by Shadow Lass’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.
Mon-El is unbearably naïve in this series. Considering his past history with Vril Dox II, does he really need someone to tell him this!?
In fact, he just sent him to a system with a red star, where his powers won’t work.
And Lobo got the last laugh, vandalizing Mon-El’s ship.
Legion significance: 0/10
Later stories will have a bit of significance, but these four are easily forgettable.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
The fact that Mon-El spent THAT LONG fighting in the ship without needing it.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
The first issue does the heavy lifting here, because it sets up Mon-El as a rather complex character… only for the others to just forget about it.
Everything drags on a little too much. Even the Supergirl and the Lobo fights, which are basically the only decent action scenes so far, start out fine but really drag.
The series overall seems to be truly struggling to find a consistent tone and characterization.
Is Mon-El a brooding loner on a personal quest? Is he a naïve newcomer trying to find his place? Is he an experienced hero and fighter or does he barely get by through luck and stubbornness?
The general feeling I’m getting is that this series happens because someone said “Do a series starring Mon-El”, but Fleming doesn’t come across as having anything to say.
These four issues are for completionists only. Especially issue #3, which shouldn’t come without a prescription for insomnia.
These look just awful. I was still buying the LSH back when these came out, but I wouldn’t buy these at the time–and it looks like I wasn’t missing very much.
The popularity of Lobo during this period was one of the main reasons I stopped buying DC Comics soon after this. His ubiquity dumbed things down considerably in the entire line.
What Jay said.
More than a decade later, a friend gave me several issues of the Superman & LSH comic book adaptation of the animated series. The stories and art were dumbed down for a very young audience (a shame since the animated series wasn’t). These issues of Valor remind me of that series.
I like the idea of Lar having daddy issues because we saw almost nothing of his family, and unresolved pain can be a driving force. But, from the review, it’s resolved too quickly, and nothing else makes Lar an interesting character. In L.E.G.I.O.N., he was the hero was too good and pure to remain on a team with a murky sense of morality. That’s why Dox fired him. In the panels above, he seems like a stereotypical teen jock (“COOL!” “AWRIGHT!” What scintillating dialogue.)
Mon-El was always my favorite Legionnaire, but here he’s unrecognizable. And “Valor” is the most unimaginative name ever.