Mon-El: the lead-vulnerable Daxamite Superboy mistakes for his brother

Mon-El in Superboy #89: the brother who fell from the sky

It all starts in Superboy #89, a comic cover-dated June 1961 that went on sale in the United States on April 6, 1961. Near Smallville, a spaceship crashes. Inside, Superboy finds an amnesiac young man who has the same powers he does, along with a star map and a medallion linked to Jor-El, Superboy's father. The hero quickly puts two and two together: this boy might well be his big brother. In fact, the story is titled “Superboy's Big Brother!”, and its second part is called “The Secret of Mon-El!”

Superboy names the stranger Mon-El, with help from the Kents according to some sources. “Mon” is a reminder that he arrived on a Monday, and “El” links him to Kal-El, Superboy's Kryptonian name. In Smallville, Mon-El takes on the civilian identity of Bob Cobb. The Superboy in this story is a teenage Clark Kent, not to be confused with Kon-El, the cloned Superboy who debuted in 1993, whose name sounds almost like Mon-El's.

Bernstein, Papp and Halk Kar: where Mon-El comes from

The script is by Robert Bernstein. George Papp draws and inks both parts of the story, under editor Mort Weisinger. You'll sometimes read that Curt Swan drew Mon-El, but that's a mix-up: Swan did the cover with Stan Kaye, and the two of them also drew “The Super-Cop of Smallville!”, another story in the same issue. The Mon-El pages are all by Papp.

The idea of a big brother from outer space wasn't new. Eight years earlier, Superman #80, cover-dated January-February 1953, ran “Superman's Big Brother,” featuring a visitor named Halk Kar. Superboy #89 reuses that plot and changes the details: the character becomes Lar Gand, his planet becomes Daxam, and he's made younger, down to Superboy's age. Keep the difference between these two almost identical titles in mind: “Superman's Big Brother” refers to Halk Kar in 1953, “Superboy's Big Brother!” to Mon-El in 1961.

The test that ends in tragedy: kryptonite fails, lead strikes

Eventually, though, doubt starts to get the better of Superboy. While Mon-El is asleep, he exposes him to green kryptonite, the mineral that makes Kryptonians suffer. Nothing happens. Convinced he's dealing with an impostor, Superboy stages a fake shower of kryptonite meteors: they're actually lead meteors, which he has painted to look like the mineral. This time, Mon-El collapses, and the shock brings his memory back. His name is Lar Gand, he's an explorer, he comes from Daxam, and he once passed through Krypton, where he met Jor-El and Lara.

For a Daxamite, lead is no mere nuisance: it causes fatal poisoning, which doesn't recede once the metal is taken away. Kryptonite works differently on a Kryptonian, since it stops harming him as soon as it's removed. Mon-El, for his part, is immune to kryptonite, but a single exposure to lead is enough to doom him. Each of the two boys has his own weak spot, and Mon-El's leaves no second chance.

Nearly a thousand years of exile in the Phantom Zone

Consumed by guilt, Superboy sees only one way to keep his friend alive: send him into the Phantom Zone. In that dimension, Mon-El doesn't age and the poisoning stops progressing. He can watch the world, but never act in it. Before sending him there, Superboy promises to find a cure.

At the time, the Phantom Zone is brand-new. It has just appeared in Adventure Comics #283 (cover-dated April 1961, on sale February 28, 1961), in “The Phantom Superboy,” by the same team of Bernstein and Papp, along with the first appearance of General Zod. Mon-El enters it two months later, for a completely different reason: he isn't locked up there like a criminal, he's put there for his own protection.

The wait will be a long one. Between his exile and his release in the 30th century, Mon-El spends about a thousand years in the Zone, watching without being able to touch anything. In the 2010 comics, it's in the 31st century that the Legion gets him back. In the Supergirl series, it's a wormhole, not the Zone, that sends him to the 31st century.

Mon-El joins the Legion of Super-Heroes

The cure comes from the future. Adventure Comics #300 (cover-dated September 1962, on sale July 26, 1962) launches the regular series of the Legion of Super-Heroes with “The Face Behind the Lead Mask!”, written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by John Forte. In it, Saturn Girl develops a serum against lead whose effect is temporary. Thanks to it, Superboy brings Mon-El out of the Zone just long enough to defeat Urthlo, an automaton sent by Lex Luthor.

The real cure arrives in #305 (cover-dated February 1963), “The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire!”, again by Siegel and Forte. A candidate calling himself “Marvel Lad” dazzles the team: it's Mon-El, treated with a serum made by Brainiac 5. He leaves the Zone for good and becomes a Legionnaire, on the condition that he keeps taking his serum regularly.

Sources disagree on when he actually joined the team: a full member as early as #300 according to some, merely an honorary member until #305 according to others.

After Crisis: Valor, M'Onel and the other Daxamites

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superboy disappears from mainstream continuity, and his meeting with Mon-El is moved to a “pocket universe” created by the Time Trapper. Lar Gand later receives a new hero name, Valor, given to him by Superman in Eclipso: The Darkness Within in 1992. His series Valor runs for 23 issues, from November 1992 to September 1994. After Zero Hour, another version of the character appears under the name M'Onel.

Daxam has given the comics other heroes, who shouldn't be confused with him. Laurel Gand, also a Daxamite, took Supergirl's place in the post-Crisis Legion, and Sodam Yat is a Daxamite Green Lantern. Superman X, or Kell-El, doesn't come from Daxam at all: he's a clone of Superman, created for the 2006 animated series Legion of Super Heroes and merely inspired by Mon-El. Even the origin of the Daxamites varies: depending on the version, they either do or don't descend from Kryptonian colonists.

From 2007 to 2010: Clark's “brother” watches over Metropolis

In 2007, Action Comics Annual #10 (cover-dated March 2007, on sale February 7, 2007) reworks the 1961 story. In “Who Is Clark Kent's Big Brother?”, written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner and drawn by Eric Wight, it's young Clark Kent, not Superboy in costume, who takes Mon-El in. The kryptonite used to test him is kept in a lead box: it's the box that poisons him, and the Zone becomes his only refuge. Sources differ on whose idea that is: Clark's according to some, Mon-El's own according to others.

James Robinson brings him back in 2009. In Action Comics #874 (cover-dated April 2009), the Zone collapses and Mon-El begs Superman to get him out, even if it means dying of lead poisoning in the arms of his “brother.” Superman pulls him out just in time, and then, in Superman #685, a vial marked with the Legion's symbol and the words “Drink Me” cures him.

While Superman leaves for New Krypton, Mon-El protects Metropolis alongside the Guardian, Steel and Jimmy Olsen, under the name Jonathan Kent, as a tribute to Clark's adoptive father. This Jonathan is not Jon Kent, Superman's son. In Adventure Comics vol. 2 #11 (cover-dated July 2010), Mon-El helps the Legion restore the bottled cities to their full size, goes back into the Zone, and then the Legion retrieves him in the 31st century.

Mon-El today: king of the Zone in the comics, traitor in animation

In 2024, Mark Waid and Clayton Henry bring Mon-El back in the “Phantoms” arc of Action Comics, which runs from #1070 to #1081. Issue #1072, cover-dated December 2024, goes on sale on October 23, 2024. In it, Superman finds his friend again, now the “Phantom King,” guardian of the Phantom Zone. In this version, it was a young Clark Kent who took him in, and Clark remembers their week with the Kents as one of the happiest times of his life.

Animation offers a completely different take. In the movie Legion of Super-Heroes, released digitally in the United States on February 7, 2023, Mon-El is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, alongside Supergirl and a Superman voiced by Darren Criss. The character turns out to be an agent of the Dark Circle. So this Mon-El has nothing in common with Superboy's brother or with the 2024 guardian of the Zone.

Mon-El in the Supergirl series: Chris Wood, prince of Daxam

On TV, it all starts with “Better Angels” (1x20), which aired on CBS on April 18, 2016, in the United States: a pod identical to Kara's crashes on Earth, without its passenger being shown. It's opened in “The Adventures of Supergirl” (2x01, October 10, 2016), on The CW. Because of the pod and his invulnerability, Supergirl, played by Melissa Benoist, and Superman take him for a Kryptonian, never for a brother.

He wakes up in “The Last Children of Krypton” (2x02, aired October 17, 2016, in the United States), and then, in “Welcome to Earth” (2x03, October 24, 2016), Winn discovers that he comes from Daxam, Krypton's neighboring and rival planet in the series. Kara gives him the human identity of Mike Matthews. Chris Wood plays the role from season 2 on, voiced in the French dub by Julien Allouf.

In “Star-Crossed” (2x16, March 20, 2017, in the United States), retitled “Le Prince de Daxam” in the French version, Mon-El is revealed to be the heir to the throne. His father, King Lar Gand, is played by Kevin Sorbo, and his mother, Queen Rhea, by Teri Hatcher. So the series shifts the name: in the comics, Lar Gand is Mon-El himself, whereas here he's his father.

Lead in Supergirl: a Cadmus bullet, then exile

Lead catches up with Mon-El on screen too, but never in the form of a disguised test. In “The Darkest Place” (2x07, aired November 21, 2016, in the United States), Lillian Luthor, the head of Cadmus, shoots him in the leg with a lead bullet to force Kara to give in. In “Medusa” (2x08, November 28, 2016), he falls ill, but because of the Medusa virus, not because of lead.

In the season 2 finale, “Nevertheless, She Persisted” (2x22, May 22, 2017, in the United States), titled “Le Sens du devoir” in the French version, Mon-El fights the Daxamite army alongside Superman, played by Tyler Hoechlin. To drive the invaders out, lead is dispersed into the atmosphere, and Kara has to send Mon-El away in a pod, which gets pulled into a wormhole.

He comes back in “Wake Up” (3x07, November 20, 2017), married to Imra Ardeen, aka Saturn Girl, and founder of the Legion in the 31st century, then reappears in the 100th episode, “It's a Super Life” (5x13, February 23, 2020), and in the very last one, “Kara” (6x20, November 9, 2021), all U.S. air dates. Smallville, on the other hand, has no Mon-El: some fans see a nod to him in Cyrus Krupp, a character from the episode “Visitor” (2x18, April 15, 2003), but that's just a theory.

Conclusion

Mon-El is first and foremost the big brother Superboy thinks he's found in 1961, before a fake lead meteor sends him into the Phantom Zone for a thousand years. Depending on the comics era, he joins the Legion in the 1960s, becomes Valor in 1992, guards Metropolis in 2009 and then rules over the Zone in 2024. In both 2009 and 2024, Clark thinks of him as a brother. The Supergirl series turns him into a prince of Daxam whom nobody takes for a brother.

To understand what makes Superman suffer, dive into the different varieties of kryptonite. For the team that saved Mon-El, discover the Legion of Super-Heroes. And for the heroine of the series, follow the journey of Kara Zor-El.