Laurel Gand

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Laurel Gand
Daxamite
Place of originDaxam (31st century)
Team affiliationsLegion of Super-Heroes
White Triangle
Notable aliasesAndromeda, Sister Andromeda
Abilities
See list
    • Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, agility, durability longevity, and reflexes
    • Solar energy radiation absorption
    • Super-Hearing
    • Enhanced visual perception
      • Electromagnetic spectrum vision
      • Telescopic vision
      • Microscopic vision
      • Heat vision
      • X-ray vision
      • Thermal vision
      • Infrared vision
      • Ultraviolet vision
    • Flight
    • Invulnerability
    • Super-breath
      • Freezing breath
      • Wind breath
    • Longevity
    • Indomitable will
    • Self-sustenance
    • Accelerated healing
    • Genius-level intellect
    • Basic hand-to-hand combatant

Laurel Gand is a

Manhunter android).[2]

Fictional character biography

Pre-Zero Hour

Main article: Legion of Super-Heroes (1958 team)

Following her death in the

Time Trapper
as reality's master of time manipulation, resulting in several alterations in Legion continuity. In the new timeline, the 30th century native Laurel Gand replaces 20th century native Supergirl in Legion history; all of Kara Zor-El's appearances are said to have been appearances by Laurel.

The pre-Zero Hour Laurel was similar to the pre-Crisis Supergirl in that she was a distant relative of the Glorithverse's

Argo City). Also, upon arriving on Earth she had posed as a shy, bookish young woman with glasses. As a child, Laurel fought off a Khundian attack force threatening to invade Daxam (the planet of her ancestry), but not before the Khunds slaughtered her parents and other inhabitants of the Ricklef II research station. Living in exile on Earth and fearing further vengeance from the Khunds, Laurel jumped at the chance to join the Legion of Super-Heroes
.

Where the pre-Crisis Supergirl had been romantically linked to Brainiac 5, so too was Laurel Gand. Laurel and Brainy eventually parted ways, and after the "Five Year Gap", it was revealed (much to Brainiac's dismay) that Laurel had married Rond Vidar and borne a daughter, Lauren. Laurel spent her years away from the Legion, singlehandedly beating Khundian forces back from the United Planets systems, and rejoined the reunited Legionnaires when her husband Rond disappeared while on a mission to rescue the White Witch from Mordru. Laurel proved a tremendous asset to the new Legion during the war against Earthgov and the Dominators. When the mysterious "Batch SW6" doppelgänger Legion appeared, the younger SW6 Laurel soon distinguished herself from her adult counterpart by taking on the codename "Andromeda" and wearing a colorful gold-and-black costume. It is unknown whether the adult Laurel ever used "Andromeda" (or any other codename) during her own youth in the Legion.

The adult Laurel stayed with her Legion when it was forced to go underground to fight corruption in the Science Police. Tragically, Laurel was killed by a terrorist bomb during one of the renegade Legion's early missions. Shortly thereafter, Laurel, her younger self, and the rest of the Legions were erased from history, following the

reboot
.

Post-Zero Hour

Main article: Legion of Super-Heroes (1994 team)

Laurel Gand spent most of her early life in a xenophobic Daxamite White Triangle community, being indoctrinated in the "horrors" of interspecies co-operation 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 meant that 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 free after a mugging, shortly after which they beat and almost killed

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. After discovering the serum which

Trom
, telling the rest of the team.

Confined to quarters after an unsuccessful attempt by Cosmic Boy to have her removed from the team, she used her super-senses to see Ambassador Roxxas gloating, but he managed to bully her into giving him the anti-lead serum. Taking it himself and giving it to four other Daxamites, they proceeded to cause mass destruction on Earth. When Andromeda herself confronted Roxxas over what he was doing and had made her do, she was almost defeated when Violet began thrashing around in his head, before coming out and telling Andromeda to take him down. As she pummelled him repeatedly, he destroyed the covering of an "atomic furnace", and both were thought to have died in the resulting inferno (causing Brainiac 5 severe depression). Only Cosmic Boy was told that she had survived and voluntarily exiled herself to Planet Hell.

Later, she was brought out of this exile by

Live Wire
, after Cosmic Boy had told him where she was as part of a way to build up a "Legion Rescue Squad", and she was awed by Valor (who later called himself M'onel), himself being another member. She he declined to rejoin the Legion after the Squad had served its purpose, preferring to head off into deep space. She eventually joined a religious convent.

After the events of

Time Trapper
, alongside dozens of other Legionnaires from alternate realities. She survives the battle and leaves with the 247 Legion to try to rescue more survivors from destroyed universes.

Powers and abilities

Generally, the abilities of Laurel Gand (and other Daxamites) are identical to those of Superman and other natives of the planet Krypton (super-strength; speed; flight; X-ray, heat, microscopic or telescopic vision powers; invulnerability and super hearing), with two major exceptions:

  1. She is vulnerable to the inert element lead instead of the radioactive element Kryptonite. Lead poisoning is fatal to Daxamites, and Laurel is kept alive only through ingestion of anti-lead serum, such as the one modified by Brainiac 5.
  2. In her two pre-"Zero Hour" incarnations, red star radiation would not rob Laurel of her powers, as it would with most Daxamites and Kryptonians.

In other media

  • Laurel Gand as Andromeda makes a cameo appearance in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "New Kids In Town".
  • Laurel Gand as Andromeda appears in
    Justice League Adventures
     #28.

See also

  • Alternative versions of Supergirl

External links

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-345-50108-0
    .
  2. ISBN 978-0-7566-4119-1
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