The world of the Legacy Legion

The Legion formed as per the original run, and began pairing off within the first five years, with Graym Ranzz (son of Garth Ranzz and Imra Ardeen, Legion founders Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl) being the first ‘second-generation’ Legionnaire, followed soon after by his best friend (and cousin) Garm Ranzz (son of Brin Londo and Ayla Ranzz, who took his mother’s last name because he can’t stand his father) and Wileza Wazzo (daughter of Jo Nah and Tinya Wazzo).

Brin Londo and Ayla Ranzz broke up even before the birth of their son, Garm, and she retired for a time to raise him on Winath, before coming back to rejoin the Legion during a time when her brother was retired (focused on raising his own son with his wife). Despite having strong friendships with Val Armorr and Tinya Wazzo, Brin never went on to another relationship. At the time of the final mission, Ayla was romantically involved with Salu Digby.

On Talok VIII, Valor and Umbra (Tasmia Mallor) retired to raise their son, Lamn (the former ‘Mon-El,’ Lar Gand, found himself uncomfortable on Daxam, and as ‘consort to the Champion of Talok VIII,’ was a feted hero on his wife’s homeworld). Umbra’s powers continued to develop as she remained on home soil and reconnected with the mystical forces that had originally empowered her (and faced various challenges, Valor at her side). With the loss of his mother on the final mission, the mantle of ‘Champion of Talok VIII’ fell to her younger brother Grev, and as a result, Lamn Mallor is one of the few Legacy Legionnaires who doesn’t hold much hope for his parents miraculous return...

Dawnstar never existed, being replaced with Shikari, who fell into the same sort of relationship with Wildfire. In an unexpected twist, their experimentation in an extra-dimensional realm led to *him* becoming pregnant… (After months of unusual energy-surges, sudden mood-swings and disturbing emotional displays, he discharged a squealing quasi-sentient glob of energy. Even Brainiac was speechless.)

Gates, Monstress, XS, Kinetix, Thunder, and various other ‘new’ or second-string Legionnaires never existed. Element Lad and Lightning Lad never fused into a composite entity, nor did Colossal Boy die or Shrinking Violet gain his powers and change her name to Leviathan.

Colossal Boy (Gim Allon) married a Durlan actress named Yera, who had been hired to impersonate the imprisoned Shrinking Violet for a time, and they had a son, Mard, who inherited a mixture of his parents’ transformative abilities.

The White Witch retired to inactive status and became an aide to one of the ruler’s of the Sorcerer’s World, usually being considered unofficial diplomat to ‘the rest of the universe,’ particularly after relations between the Sorcerer’s World and the UP fell apart following the confirmation of (reformed) former menace, Mordru the Mystic, as Master Mage and elected ruler of Sorcerer’s World. She lives on Sorcerer’s World with her ‘companion,’ the retired Legionnaire known only as Blok.

A half-dozen worlds have rejected certain UP requirements, and banded together with the Sorcerer’s World as unofficial watchdog / leader / spokesman. Unfathomable mystical gateways link these worlds and allow unparalleled trade between them, but each is quite traditional, to the point of hewing to ‘sacred’ rituals and behaviors that are not technically lawful under the current UP guidelines. For instance, on Talok VIII, a member of the unofficial ‘Free Systems,’ the loser of an honor-challenge is considered the property of the victor for a solar year (or longer in the case of an honor-challenge including houses, in which the victors can choose to either exterminate entirely the remaining family members of the losing house, or take them into permanent slavery, or admit them into their own house). The enslavement of fellow sentient beings is clearly against UP law, and both the UP governing body, and the Talokian authorities, refuse to budge an inch on the matter. Several local heroes, such as Grev Mallor, the new ‘Champion of Talok VIII’ who has taken on the mantle (and codename) of his sister, the Legionnaire Umbra, exist on these worlds (and the new Umbra in particular seems mystically connected to his home-world, and is not known to leave it), and an agent of Sorcerer’s World, a teenaged, apparently human, male named Elysion, with earth-manipulating powers, is known to patrol their territories. He has been seen reporting directly to Blok and Mysa Nal, and the latest UP surveillance indicates that he actually *lives with them*…

Since the breaking away of these ‘Free Systems,’ the UP high council has softened their stance considerably, and now grades individual worlds, systems and cultures based on the UP tenets as an *ideal,* not a requisite. A system in perfect compliance has full voting rights, and full benefits. A system with some oddities, such as unequal rights, caste systems, etc. may find that they have a slightly lower ranking.

Colu, ironically, given it’s prominence in the UP, has a fairly low rank as a world, since it completely ignores UP law with little more than a gesture of contempt when the subject is brought up. Only the fact that they almost never do anything seriously worth censure, and the awe, and perhaps even fear, in which the members of this race of geniuses are held, has allowed them to get away with this. Generally, their ambassador looks up somewhat bored and responds with, “Yes, yes, the Timeline Preservation Act is a very important law, we did help to frame the language it contains, after all, and value it highly, but in this particular case, Researcher Sklar clearly knew what she was doing and was authorized to use anti-tachyons to attempt chronitonic reversal. This is a matter of science, not politics, and clearly should be left to those qualified to discuss it.”

Karate Kid died on Orando, saving it from the Legion of Super-Villains, but not before gifting his wife with a daughter, Wilhemina Shen Voxv (‘just Shen,’ she insists, ‘who the hell names their daughter ‘Wilhemina’ anyway? Gee, thanks mom…’), who was raised at first on Orando, and later in Legion HQ, when her mother returned to active duty as Sensor. Currently Orando is under the rule of a council of advisors, who also maintain control of the Emerald Eye of Ekron, which they use for peaceful purposes only (really, you can trust us…). Orando remains a member-world of the UP (with restrictions due to the planet’s unwillingness to give up certain practices, such as capital punishment), and not a part of the Sorcerer’s World ‘Free Systems alliance.’ Due to the ‘grave threat that Mordru represents,’ ambassadors from the UP high council spend a lot of time on Orando, hoping to curry favor with the most magically-potent world still in the United Planets, for what some see as an inevitable conflict-in-the-making. Many Computo-cycles have been processed on what sort of effect the Emerald Eye and the high wizards of Orando would have if forced to stand against the might of a returned-to-form Mordru…

The threat of the Fatal Five is mostly forgotten. The Emerald Empress finally escaped the curse of immortality placed upon her by the Eye (with the help of Sensor) and succumbing to the ravages of age. Validus turned out to be a ‘twin’ of Graym Ranzz, named Garridan, and was returned to an infant stage and replaced with his family, only to grow up with a healthy distaste for the whole ‘super-hero/super-villain’ thing and returning to Winath, where he has completed studies in meteorology and works in the Weather Control Bureau. The Persuader’s axe was thrown (by Ultra Boy, who spent much of his time on Rimbor running an organization called the Emerald Dragons, that some called ‘criminal gang,’ but the citizenry lauded as the closest thing Rimbor had ever had to a police force) into Rimbor’s sun, leaving him little more than a particularly ruthless thug. Mano worked alongside the Persuader as his ‘enforcer,’ disintegrating his opponents, until he finally tired of the Persuader’s abusive tirades and attempted to walk away, only to be savagely beaten by his former team-mate (who took the simple expedient of restraining his hands while stomping him into the ground). Realizing how low things had gotten, the beaten Mano looked up at his former teammate and placed his hands together, destroying himself utterly, rather than continue on as the Persuader’s flunky. Without the help of his superhuman enforcer, the Persuader lost control of the crime-organizations he was trying to weld together and was extremely lucky to only be thrown into prison, considering how many people wanted him dead… Tharok is the only member of the original team left that can be regarded as a threat, having spent the last two decades continually upgrading, first into a sort of mobile war-platform ‘mech’ with his last human components tucked away by multiple foot-thick metal plating, and finally into a living warship, that survives by raiding the stellar shipping lanes.

For some inexplicable reason, Comet Queen was admitted as a full Legionnaire a few months before the team was lost, but she has no Legacy characters or children.