The Legion of Super Bloggers! : Who's Who: Ferro Lad

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Who's Who: Ferro Lad

Ferro Lad
by Russell & Siskoid

Real Name: Andrew Nolan

Super-Power(s): Ability to turn his body into an iron-like substance
Planet of Origin: Earth

Legion Seniority: Ferro Lad was one of the four members who joined during the Open Call immediately prior to the Khund Invasion. Traditionally, Princess Projectra is listed first among them, followed by Ferro Lad, and then Karate Kid, making him Legionnaire #23.

Legion Log
Ferro Lad made his debut during the open call for applicants during the first Khund invasion attempt of Earth. However, during their first mission, the new members were suspected of helping the Khunds. Although the traitor turned out to be Nemesis Kid, the three others bonded under the adversity of suspicion and became good friends.

Ferro Lad was born with the mutant power to change his body into a nearly indestructible iron-like form. He and his twin brother, Douglas, both had this ability, but while it made their bodies incredibly strong, it made their faces hideously ugly. They both covered their faces whenever they went out in public. Andrew was the more out-going and determined brother, while Douglas was the more shy and introverted brother. Andrew applied to the Legion as soon as he was old enough, intent on making what he considered a weakness into a strength. As he had hoped, he was accepted into the Legion, both officially and socially. No one cared that he hid his face, and for the first time in his young life he was accepted by others outside his family.

Unfortunately, only a few months after becoming a Legionnaire, Ferro Lad was on duty when the Sun-Eater menaced the universe. Even recruiting five of the galaxy's worst criminals - they would become the Fatal Five - the Sun-Eater could not be stopped. The super-intelligent criminal Tharok created an absorbatron bomb, but did not have time to create a propulsion unit for it. Superboy offered to carry the bomb into the core of the menace, but Ferro Lad, knowing that red sun radiation was part of the Sun-Eater, knocked down the unsuspecting Superboy and delivered the bomb himself. The Sun-Eater was atomized, but only at the cost of young Ferro Lad's life.

The Legion immediately launched a cenotaph to the cemetery planet, Valhalla, to mark Ferro Lad's courage. Soon after, it appeared as if the ghost of Ferro Lad was angry at the Legion for causing his death, especially at the four members present when he died. However, it turned out that this was a plot of a renegade Controller, the same alien who had created the Sun-Eater. Thanks to spiritual assistance from the real (?) ghost of Ferro Lad, the Legion was able to defeat this menace.

Several years after his death, Ferro Lad returned to life as a result of a cloning experiment. He had the memories, experiences, and courage of the dead hero, but unfortunately ceased to live after 48 hours due to the unstable nature of the cloning process.

As soon as Douglas heard that his twin brother was dead, he fell into a catatonic state. Several years later, Brainiac 5 and Rond Vidar were attempting to cure him when they realized that Douglas was mentally "traveling" between various alternate timelines. Douglas eventually disappeared, most likely in a timeline where he replaced his dead brother in the Legion as the second Ferro Lad.

It was eventually revealed that Andrew and Douglas were the sons of actress Luiza Karamonte and billionaire heir A.D. Nolan. After Andrew died and Douglas disappeared, Karamonte sold the rights to their stories to Hollywood to make The Story of Ferro Lad. The motion picture series currently has five sequels.

Several years after creating him, Jim Shooter said in an interview published in The Legion Companion that he had intended to make Ferro Lad the first black Legionnaire. When editor Mort Weisinger did not allow that, Shooter decided to kill him instead.

In the briefly dominant reality known as the "Glorithverse", Andrew Nolan becomes a freedom fighter, masked because of his disfigurement. He sacrifices his life to protect the spell that erases this time line.

Five years after the Magic Wars, Ferro Lad was one of the members of the SW6 Legionnaires, a temporal clone Legion discovered on Dominion-controlled Earth, and appeared in Legionnaires when it was spun-off into its own series as, simply, Ferro.

After the Reboot, Andrew Nolan and his twin brother Douglas were born in the 20th century, and left in the care of the evil Doc 30 when their mother discovered she couldn't bear to look at their deformed faces. He escaped the institution and lived on the streets for a while, until a Sun-Eater threatened Earth in the events known as Final Night. Inspired by Superman and other heroes, Andrew started helping them with the crisis as Ferro. Taking Superman's place in a suicide mission to destroy the Sun-Eater, he was prevented from sacrificing his life by Hal Jordan who, as Parallax, destroyed the Sun-Eater himself.

Shortly thereafter, the time-displaced members of the Legion invited Ferro to join them, unofficially at first, then, after his brother died in a failed attempt to spring him from Doc 30's institution, officially. He followed them to the 30th century when they returned home. He served on the team until a group of Legionnaires was lost in an unknown galaxy and the Legion disbanded. He accompanied Karate Kid to Steeple, where he planned to study with pacifists, and was stranded there when the planet was cut off from the rest of the galaxy by black hole activity, until Brainiac 5 found a way to retrieve him, just in time for Ferro, Karate Kid and other forgotten Legionnaires to turn the tide against Universo. Due to injuries sustained on Steeple, he is currently trapped in his metallic form.

After the Threeboot, no version of Ferro Lad seems to exist.

After Infinite Crisis, Ferro Lad's original history has more or less been re-established, which means he has been dead for some time.

Ferro Lad appeared on the cartoon series, The Legion of Super-Heroes, voiced by Dave Wittenberg. True to the original story, he sacrifices his life defeating a Sun-Eater, though a later episode shows his body floating in space, promising a resurrection that never came. He also had a cameo (as a memorial statue) in Justice League Unlimited's "Far From Home".

Important Ferro Lad Stories:

Adventure Comics #346

(reprinted in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 5)

Ferro Lad makes his debut, joining the Legion

Adventure Comics #347

(reprinted in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 5)