The Ed Hamilton Name Game - 11/18/18 09:18 PM
Listening to a Legion-centric podcast the other day, one of the hosts stated something so obvious I couldn’t believe I had gone over three decades without realizing that the story in Adventure 327, introducing Timber Wolf (or Lone Wolf at the time), had a clever bit of word play, namely:
The character’s real name is “BRIN LONDO”, with his father’s name as “MAR”.
Rearrange to: MAR - LON - BRIN - DO, or a sly reference to another brooding, loner type of the time, Marlon Brando.
That got me thinking about other Legion names coined by writer Ed Hamilton, and whether there were other neat little things going on. The most obvious one - to me anyway - is Dream Girl. First introduced in Adventure 317, her real name is not actually given in that issue, only her planet, “NALTOR”. It’s not until Adventure 342 that her name “NURA” is given, her last name “NAL” a reiteration of the planet. It doesn’t seem a stretch at all to see:
NALTOR + NURA ->
NAL + A + TOR + NUR ->
LANA + TORNUR ->
LANA TURNER, platinum blonde bombshell of the day
Hamilton also coined the name “JAN ARRAH” from “TROM” in Adventure 306. Obviously, “TROM” is “MORT” backward, a reference to editor Mort Weisinger, but the only thing I’m maybe seeing suggested with Jan is a vague semi-word scramble of the Mickey Rooney character, “ANDY HARDY” to whom the original design of Jan bears a passing resemblance:
That theory could be bolstered by the fact that fellow Legionnaire Mon-El’s real name “LAR GAND” - a name which wasn’t actually given until a “Know Your Legionnaires” feature in Adventure 329 - may be anagrammed to match Rooney’s often co-star Judy “GARLAND” (seen above), so - in other words - if Hamilton was doing an Andy Hardy nod with Jan, maybe he went to that well twice? But, honestly I think that's just coincidence, because my own theory about “LAR GAND” is that it’s actually a far more clever reference.
I think that “GAND” is actually a voiced consonant version of a different name entirely:
GAND (voiced consonants) = KANT (unvoiced)
and
LAR = CLARK (minus the two unvoiced consonants) ->
LAR GAND ~= CLARK KENT
…taking the whole “Superboy’s Brother” thing to a whole new level.
The character’s real name is “BRIN LONDO”, with his father’s name as “MAR”.
Rearrange to: MAR - LON - BRIN - DO, or a sly reference to another brooding, loner type of the time, Marlon Brando.
That got me thinking about other Legion names coined by writer Ed Hamilton, and whether there were other neat little things going on. The most obvious one - to me anyway - is Dream Girl. First introduced in Adventure 317, her real name is not actually given in that issue, only her planet, “NALTOR”. It’s not until Adventure 342 that her name “NURA” is given, her last name “NAL” a reiteration of the planet. It doesn’t seem a stretch at all to see:
NALTOR + NURA ->
NAL + A + TOR + NUR ->
LANA + TORNUR ->
LANA TURNER, platinum blonde bombshell of the day
Hamilton also coined the name “JAN ARRAH” from “TROM” in Adventure 306. Obviously, “TROM” is “MORT” backward, a reference to editor Mort Weisinger, but the only thing I’m maybe seeing suggested with Jan is a vague semi-word scramble of the Mickey Rooney character, “ANDY HARDY” to whom the original design of Jan bears a passing resemblance:
That theory could be bolstered by the fact that fellow Legionnaire Mon-El’s real name “LAR GAND” - a name which wasn’t actually given until a “Know Your Legionnaires” feature in Adventure 329 - may be anagrammed to match Rooney’s often co-star Judy “GARLAND” (seen above), so - in other words - if Hamilton was doing an Andy Hardy nod with Jan, maybe he went to that well twice? But, honestly I think that's just coincidence, because my own theory about “LAR GAND” is that it’s actually a far more clever reference.
I think that “GAND” is actually a voiced consonant version of a different name entirely:
GAND (voiced consonants) = KANT (unvoiced)
and
LAR = CLARK (minus the two unvoiced consonants) ->
LAR GAND ~= CLARK KENT
…taking the whole “Superboy’s Brother” thing to a whole new level.