Who's Who: Size Lad

Size Lad
by Russell & Siskoid

Real Name: Aarl

Super-Power(s): Ability to make any object larger or smaller; the power is temporary
Planet of Origin: Murra

Relationship to Legion: Villain; temporary Legionnaire

Legion Log
When super-powered agents from an unknown world decided to invade Earth, their preliminary step was to plant monitoring devices in the Legion club house in order to learn Earth's defenses. However, their actions alerted Saturn Girl, who with Brainiac 5 came up with a plan to draw the unknown forces out into the open. Saturn Girl and three other Legionnaires faked quitting the Legion, opening spots for these super-powered spies to take their places. Size Lad was one of the three spies who joined the Legion at this time.

The scientists on Murra had developed a machine that could create "super power pills" that when swallowed, gave the person temporary super-powers such as super-strength, invisibility, shape-changing, and mental telepathy. The three spies Aarl, Xaxan, and Graah took a supply of these pills with them to Earth, so that the Legion initially thought that each had incredible super-powers.Aarl took a pill that allowed him to increase the mass of any inanimate object. Brainiac 5 dubbed him Size Lad.  He and his cohorts were successfully inducted into the Legion.

Size Lad and the other two spies made it look like they were attacked and injured by the invasion spies. This was a ruse so that they would be brought back to the Legion club house. They immediately knocked out their escorting Legionnaires in order to ransack the place. When they found what they thought were confidential documents regarding Earth's defenses, they returned to their natural Murran identities and left Earth.

However, as soon as they escaped back to Murra the Legion then had a known destination, and followed them. The Legion then made quick work of the super-power pills, the machinery, and the Murran invasion force.

In the original story Size Lad was shown as a Caucasian. In later reprints, such as in the Legion Archives, he was re-colored as having blue skin. That is the version that appears in Who's Who in the Legion (shown above).

The Murran spies did not appear during the Reboot or during the Threeboot.

After Infinite Crisis, Size Lad's original history has presumably been more or less restored.

Only Size Lad story:

Adventure Comics #337

 (reprinted in The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 4

and Showcases Presents: The Legion Vol. 2)

  

Size Lad's one and done appearance