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    Lethal Legion

    Team » Lethal Legion appears in 98 issues.

    A group of villains that has taken several forms over the years, each iteration equally dedicated to the destruction of the Avengers.

    Short summary describing this team.

    Lethal Legion last edited by SlamAdams on 01/31/24 01:17PM View full history

    Origin

     The original Lethal Legion.
    The original Lethal Legion.

    The Lethal Legion was first formed by the Grim Reaper to destroy the Avengers. The other members included Man-Ape, Swordsman, Power Man and the Living Laser. Man-Ape defeated Black Panther in combat and kidnapped his fiancee Monica Lynne. He took them to a secret chamber where he was held captive and met the rest of the Lethal Legion. Grim Reaper gathered his associates because they all had a deep hatred for the Avengers and had plans to eliminate them once and for all. The Grim Reaper sent his Lethal Legion to the water main that ran beneath the Avenger's Mansion and a nearby power station to ambush the Avengers. Black Panther escaped from his shackles and warned the Avengers of a possible trap but is eventually taken down in combat by the Grim Reaper. Goliath and the Scarlet Witch would come into conflict with the Swordsman and Power Man at the water main but they are defeated. Captain America and Quicksilver come into conflict with Man-Ape and the Living Laser at the power station but they also fall in combat as well. The fallen Avengers are held captive inside a giant hourglass that begin to fill up with deadly vapors. Power Man appears with a fallen Vision and places him inside the hourglass and hands the Grim Reaper personal files on the Avengers. Grim Reaper reads the file on the Vision and discovered that his brother's brain patterns was preserved to become the mental basis for the Vision. The Grim Reaper shatters the hourglass with his scythe to save his brother but they realize that the Vision inside was really Power Man and that the android had traded places with his enemy. The Avengers are free and they defeat all the members of the Lethal Legion.

    Creation

    The Lethal Legion was created by Roy Thomas and Sal Buscema in 1970 and first appeared in The Avengers # 78.

    Major Story Arcs

    Reunited

    Simon and Hank in the Legion's clutches
    Simon and Hank in the Legion's clutches

    Grim Reaper got the Lethal Legion back together so that he could kidnap Vision and Wonder Man, both of whom he considered tarnishing his brother’s legacy. Reaper’s plan was to scan both of their minds using a machine built by Ultron, creating an approximation of Simon’s brainwaves free of Vision’s robotic corruption and Wonder Man’s mutation. Those brainwaves would then be implanted by Black Talon into a zombie look alike of Simon.

    He sent Black Talon and Nekra to attack Vision and Scarlet Witch on the east coast with an army of zombies. He sent Ultron and Man-Ape to attack Wonder Man and rescue Goliath from the Avengers West Coast. The West Coast team managed to capture Hank Pym in addition to Wonder Man, but the east coast team was not as successful.

    The Avengers of both coasts would compare notes and lead a rescue mission to Reaper’s mountain hideout. When they attacked, Man-Ape, Black Talon, and Talon’s zombie soldiers would abandon the Lethal Legion. They had been looking for their chance due to Reaper’s racism. While the rest of the Legion is taken care of by Avengers, Wonder Man and Vision would try to corner Reaper who accidentally fell into a cavern.

    Satannish’s Lethal Legion

    The demon, Satannish, revived the villain, Hangman, to lead a new Lethal Legion. If they took out the Avengers West Coast, they would be given their souls back. Membership included some of history’s biggest sinners:

    Stannish's sinners
    Stannish's sinners

    They joined forces to take down U.S. Agent, but they were forced to retreat when the rest of the team came to his rescue. They planned on taking out each member individually. By going underground, they forced the team to split up and follow up on people and places once affiliated with Hangman. The Avengers managed to survive their encounters, but Mockingbird was kidnapped by Satannish.

    They followed to Satannishes realm where Mockingbird was guarded by the Lethal Legion, however, they were interrupted by Mephisto, who was unhappy that Satannish stole souls from him. He de-powered the new Lethal Legion and sent them back to eternal damnation.

    Dark Reign

    No Caption Provided

    After the Skrull invasion failed, Norman Osborn was made the head of SHIELD, changing it to HAMMER, for his efforts against the invasion. Covertly, he used this new position to push his own dark agenda, giving new opportunities to super criminals for a price. Reaper didn’t trust Osbron though. He believed Osborn would turn on them the first chance they got, so he assembled a new Lethal Legion on the promise that they would take out Osborn. Members included:

    Surprisingly, he also recruited his brother Wonder Man. His public persona as an entertainer was put in jeopardy for speaking out against Osborn. He had the most influence over the team, forcing them to curtail the violence and target Osborn where it would really hurt: his power. Their best idea was to apprehend him themselves. The Legion would run a distraction to lure the Dark Avengers away, while Simon swoops in and grabs Osborn.

    While babysitting Osborn, the team started infighting only to be interrupted by the Dark Avengers. Reaper had been working with Osborn all along to create a team of creeps so vile the public couldn’t help but cheer for the Osborn’s Avengers. They were all sent to the Raft, where Osborn helped Reaper fake his own death and throw his old team off the scent.

    No Surrender

    The Challenger's Legion
    The Challenger's Legion

    The Lethal Legion moniker is borrowed by The Grandmaster for a team of alien warriors he put together when he is challenged by a forgotten Elder of the Universe, The Challenger. His team is comprised of:

    The Challenger recruited Thanos’ Black Order to compete against this Lethal Legion. The object of the game is to collect crystals across a random planet by any means necessary. Once a member collects this crystal, they are whisked away to a trophy room and held in stasis, giving the other team an advantage toward the next crystal. The winner will get the title Grandmaster, which the Grandmaster stole from Challenger when they were younger.

    The planet they chose was Earth. This planet’s most powerful heroes were held in stasis so that they would stay out of the game, however, the heroes considered less powerful by the two Elders ran interference and eventually ended the game on their own terms.

    Sinister War

    Sin-Eater Six
    Sin-Eater Six

    Count Nefaria, who had previously led Lethal Legions, brought classic members together: Whirlwind, Living Laser, and Gray Gargoyle. They target an ESU symposium to steal the best renewable energy device in existence to reinvigorate Count Nefaria's superpowers. This gets the attention of Sin-Eater, back from the dead. He is able to shoot Nefaria's three goons.

    Due to the new magical nature of Sin-Eater’s gun, these Legion members survived being shot. Instead, they had a newfound impulse to repent for their sins and willingly went to Ravencroft to pay back their debt to society. Unfortunately, the Kindred twins, Sarah and Gabriel, were manipulating Sin-Eater, eventually causing him to have a mental breakdown and release the sins he had amassed. Once their sins returned, they immediately regressed to their criminal ways.

    The Kindred twins then broke them out of prison to add to their assault on Spider-Man. Their plan was to attract multiple teams of Spider-Man rogues to a graveyard and convince them that they were all hellbound and the only way Kindred would free them was if they took out Spider-Man, starting a supervillain war. The Legion, joined by Juggernaut and Morlun, would follow Sin-Eater against the other teams. Eventually, Doc Ock uses a piece of Black Ant's helmet to knock everyone out through the ear centipedes Kindred was using to control them.

    Orchis New Lethal Legion

    Henry Gyrich stole the name for a hit squad he formed as a mole for Orchis on the Alpha Flight Space Program. The team consisted of:

    New Legion on Arakko
    New Legion on Arakko

    They were infinitely replaceable cyborg clones created by Orbis Stellaris. If a team fell, a new team was activated and sent to replenish the ranks. Gyrich sent them to Planet Arakko, the new name for Mars since mutants terraformed it. Arakko was hosting a Shi’ar diplomatic party with Empress Xandra as part of their move to become the galactic capital of the solar system.

    They failed to assassinate Xandra, but Orbis Stellaris still considered this field test to be a success. Killing Xandra was an impossible task, and they got closer than he expected.

    Membership Drive

    No Caption Provided

    Still reeling from his losing his crew to the Sin-Eater, Count Nefaria hosted a membership drive at his upstate mansion while he continues to recover to his full strength. Unfortunately, not everyone who arrived could be on the team. They were forced to compete in sparring matches in Nefaria’s empty pool until five of them remained.

    They were then welcomed into the house for a complimentary feast, while Nefaria interviewed each of them individually. Unfortunately for Nefaria, two of these villains turned out to be members of the New Mutants, Scout and Escapade. Escapade had been the newest recruit and a bit of a troublemaker. She convinced Scout and Cerebella that it was heroic if they ran a heist on a villain. What they found was a much more serious weapon than they originally anticipated. Nefaria intended to use it with his new Lethal Legion at “Future Expo”in the heart of New York City.

    When the two New Mutants are found out, Nefaria immediately deputizes the other contestants to the Legion, while calling in Moonstone as the fifth member. They were unable to stop the New Mutants from getting away and reunited with the rest of their team, but they were able to retain the weapon. They made it to Future Expo where Nefaria intended to use it to turn all the attendees into ionic batteries, recharging him to his full power. The New Mutants did their best to stop him, but, in the end, the energy was just too much for Nefaria. And his plan fizzled out.

    Hank Pym's Lethal Legion

    Ultron activated
    Ultron activated

    In a possible future, Hank Pym embraced as much of the All-Father power as he could and used it to separate himself from Ultron and return him to the future. This took its toll as Hank was returned to modern day having aged quite a bit. He could not get over the feeling that Ultron had returned with him. Using ant-tech from the future, Hank would fake the deaths of a number of villains to recruit them to his Lethal Legion. They would stand guard for when Ultron finally resurfaced.

    Unfortunately, a piece of Ultron remained embedded in Pym. It had manipulated Pym into assembling this Legion so that Ultron and his co-conspirator, Black Ant, could infect the members with Ultron programming that Ultron could network into a hivemind army.

    Luckily, Avengers, Inc had been investigating the missing supervillains and tracked them down to Pym's new hideout before Ultron could reach full strength. With Ultron-12 (a previous version of Ultron's programming) on their side, the Avengers, Inc were able to purge the programming from Pym and the others. Believing Ultron was still a threat, Pym teleported himself and this Legion to Subatomica to regroup.

    Alternate Realities

    Mutant X

    The Lethal Legion of Earth-1298 (Mutant X) consists of; Brother Voodoo, Slapstick, Gargoyle, Fin Fang Foom, Devil Dinosaur, Moon Boy and Sherry the Showgirl.

    Heroes Reborn

    On Counter-Earth, the Lethal Legion was started by Enchantress and included members, Executioner, Ultron V, Scarlet Witch, and Wonder Man.

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