Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Best Fatal Five

Yes, but Mano is a sympathetic survivor, villainous only in that he'll kill for revenge, the others are bloodthirsty cutthroats (perhaps Validus is merely a mindless monster, but Tharok could control him). Wouldn't Chu have been better off finding a fifth actual cutthroat? It was obvious that the other four knew one another (at least by reputation, or possibly because Chu told them she'd be forming them into a team), Mano was thrown into the group with no connection to the others at all and no knowledge of Chu's manipulations to get him there.

Apparently the grouping wasn't entirely Chu's choosing, however.

So the interesting thing about that frame is that (as far as I can remember, anyway), Mano wasn't really a criminal until he went on the vengeance spree against McCauley, which was AFTER Lyle joined the Legion.

Was he a criminal prior? Otherwise how would Mano be on Lyle's "Fatal Five" list? I guess its just an off-frame assumption?

I remember thinking at the time there was something super-suspicious about Lyle backing up Chu's rather goofy presentation here...

True, I don't think Mano had a criminal past before his revenge spree... and he in fact originally intended to kill himself. He only came after McCauley when he found he was immune to his own power.

Cos and Lyle at this point already thought Chu was fishy, so could have been Lyle playing along...?

Original recipe Emerald Empress and Persuader are my faves, though I like Mano probably more than he deserves as well. I don't think Mano necessarily needs to kill a Legionnaire every time he appears, but he needs to kill someone occasionally or at least do some heavy property damage. As much as his power is deadly, I hardly ever recall him actually using it in the original continuity tbh...at least Persuader gets to do stuff like cut through lightning or gravity or Shady's darkness to prove he's actually hard to fight but Mano should have been doing stuff like that as well. I feel like he'd get more respect if he'd taken down a few Legion cruisers or bystanders or apartment buildings, or he showed that his own destructive energy could disrupt other energy attacks on him, stuff like that.

Tharok always seemed like way too much of a He-Man villain to stand out much to me - I'd be down with him controlling technology a la Computo and using that power to cause massive disruptions or even just commandeer the Legion's flight rings in battle...and I think Validus lost his appeal when they gave him a backstory. As other people have already mentioned, he works best as this force of nature type creature that defies comprehension. Making him Garth and Imra's kid is kind of wasted if nobody was ever going to do anything with that revelation from that point forward.

I chose Validus as well because I like his connection to Darkseid and I liked his actions versus the Sun-eater and Pre-Crisis swatting Kryptonians power.

Emerald Empress was pretty neat when she had Sensor Girl end her and her exploits on that capital world

Mano had a great story in the reboot and the sun-eater storyline but other than that he's been massively under-utilized.

Tharok is probably the one that I'm least enamored with but I think the DnA technovirus twist was interesting.

Persuader is the merc for hire and the reboot with Karate Kid story was neat, the Original trying to conquer Shady's planet was neat, the 5 year later fight versus Kent was neat so he's been used to good effect.