Laurel Gand
Laurel Gand is an extraterrestrial comic superhero who features in DC Comics.
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Biography
Pre-Zero Hour
Laurel Gand
As a child, Laurel lived with her parents on one of the orbiting space stations that, among other things, served as a line of defense against invasion. Her mother, the station commander, insisted that Laurel know how to operate the station's weapons, training that proved critical when the Khunds attacked. Laurel was able to activate the defenses, utterly destroying the Khundian fleet and earning her both their fear and their enmity. She was declared an enemy of the Khundish empire. To ensure her safety, she was given a secret identity and sent to Earth where her Daxamite physiology would help protect her. Shortly afterward, she was invited to join the fledgling Legion of Super-Heroes. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #9)
She was at the scene when the Legion confronted Tangleweb where she showed a reluctance in touching the bug-like alien villain. This led to the Legionnaires telling her to use her laser vision where she hurt their foe causing him to flee the scene. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #67)
Post-Zero Hour
Following the Zero Hour, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
Laurel Gand spent most of her life in a White Triangle community, being indoctrinated in the "horrors" of interspecies cooperation before the Triangle's political clout led her to become the Daxamite representative in the Legion. Away from Daxam's red sun, she gained powers similar to Superman's, but the race-wide hypersensitivity of Daxamites to lead that meant even minuscule amounts could prove fatal even to a powered-up Daxamite, forcing her to wear a transuit at all times. This did not trouble her since it meant she never had to actually touch any non-Daxamites.
Her Triangle-derived beliefs hampered her effectiveness as a Legionnaire, thanks to her reluctance to physically engage with any enemies, but the real problems started after she let several Triangle members go after a mugging, shortly after which they beat and almost killed Triad. Angered more for their defiance of her than for the beating, when she was ordered away to prevent the Composite Man gaining her powers, she flew after them. Immediately, they tore her transuit and directly exposed her to lead, and she barely managed to turn them over to the Science Police before crashing through the walls of Legion HQ.
While Brainiac 5 worked on devising an anti-lead serum, he confronted her about her beliefs, and after discovering the serum Vril Dox, his direct ancestor, had created for Valor and tailoring it to her genetic structure to allow it to work properly on her, he forced her to confront the fact that he wasn't her inferior before giving her the serum. While this was happening, however, Shrinking Violet discovered a White Triangle necklace in her room and connected it to the group which had assaulted Triad and destroyed Trom, telling the rest of the team.
Overview
Personality and attributes
She was given the code name of Andromeda during the time she joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #66)
Outside of Daxam, she gained superhuman abilities which she was surprised about as she had never gone off-world before. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #66)
Laurel Gand was noted to had been a xenophobe and initially she refused to intermingle with other races. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #66) She had a fear of touching bugs and at times refused to touch such creatures. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #67) This stemmed from her hatred and dislike of aliens as she could not accept something not of her form. She sometimes suffered a hysterical reaction when faced with the prospect of touching alien beings. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #68)
Powers and abilities
As a Daxamite, she gained superhuman abilities when she was underneath a different sun. She demonstrated a range of abilities including mega-strength, mega-breath, fly, laser vision along with mega-speed and reflexes. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #66) Her speed was shown to be capable of matching certain space craft. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #67)
Similar to others of her kind, Laurel Gand was noted to had found common lead to be highly toxic. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #66)
In addition to her costume, she wore a transuit that offered her protection from other environments. (Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #68)
Whilst being a member of the Legion affords Andromeda the use of a Flight Ring, she has the ability to fly without the aid of it, at velocity's approaching the speed of light.
Notes
- Laurel Gand was created by Tom and Mary Bierbaum, Keith Giffen and Al Gordon where she made her first original appearance in Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #5 (March, 1990) and his Post-Zero Hour appearance in Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #66 (March, 1995).
- She was based on Supergirl who was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino.
- Tom Bierbaumwrote about Laurel's creation: "We tried to give Laurel an origin that contained elements of the Supergirl history but that were clearly her own. While this seemed like the obvious way to go, we probably would have done ourselves a big favor by just doing a completely new story. Editor Michael Eury and Keith weren't very pleased when our script included countless references to the early Supergirl appearances as reference for the artist. Michael and Keith didn't want the story to look like a juvenile comic of the late '50s/early '60s, nor did Michael relish xeroxing countless panels out of old issues."
Alternate Versions
In other media
Television
- In Superman: The Animated Series, Andromeda made a cameo appearance in the setting of the DC Animated Universe series in the the episode "New Kids In Town".
Appearances
- Legion of Super-Heroes v4: (1990)
- Legionnaires v1:
- Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds v1:
External Links
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