Legion members are rescued by a time-travelling adventurer from 20th century Smallville, but not the character they expected! To read the story and see a couple of 500-point HeroClix forces from the time that Lex Luthor helped the Legion of Super-Heroes, follow the link!

Synopsis: Lex Luthor appears in the 30th century and saves Triplicate Girl and Matter Eater Lad from certain defeat. The Legion is surprised by Luthor's turn, but one look at his finely coiffed full-head of hair and they realize this is a young Lex Luthor before he turned to evil.

Luthor quickly gains the trust of the Legion, but a deception is revealed when a gust of Mon-El's super-breath blows the toupé from Luthor's evil bald head! Luthor subdues the Legion in short time by the use of a Phantom Zone projector, but is ultimate foiled. This force represents the characters that fell for Luthor's deception prior to his heel turn:

109 (Superman 015) Lex Luthor
88 (Superman 008) Brainiac 5
70 (LSH 001) Lightning Lad
70 (LSH 003) Cosmic Boy
2x 50 Experienced (Origin 053) Triplicate Girl
35 (Superman 025) Matter-Eater Lad
+ 24 Additional Team Ability Legion Lost

= 496 Points

The recommended build for this comic uses the "All-Star" version of Lex Luthor from the Superman booster set. Full disclosure: The mid-dial 'transformation' is not representative of how Luthor acted in this issue, except for his later ability to fly thanks to a Legion flight belt. I admit that this figure choice is motivated by my desire to have Lex Luthor be the dominant figure on the force, and also because the wild transformation of the dial is evocative of Luthor's reveal half-way through the issue.

E Lex Luthor Points: 109 Range: 4
Team: No Affiliation
Keywords: Celebrity, Metropolis, Scientist

7 9 15 1

6 9 15 1

6 9 14 0

5 8 14 0

10 11 18 4

9 10 17 3

8 10 17 3

7 9 16 3

KO KO KO KO

Last Perfect Cocktail Was a Super-Serum: When turning the dial, if this click is revealed due to damage taken from a opponent's attack, stop turning the dial.

If the idea of the Hypersonic Speed Lex Luthor is too offensive, there is an excellent 'mere mortal' version of Lex Luthor available from the Smallville Fast Forces set. This version can be swapped in and allow the addition of a third Triplicate Girl figure. This dial is interesting because it can take advantage of the Legion Lost additional team ability at no cost, and the top-dial enhancement can benefit the ranged attackers. I particularly like variant Mastermind power, but it isn't extremely useful with this group of HeroClix figures.

R Lex Luthor Points: 50 Range: 4
Team: Calculator
Keywords: Celebrity, Injustice League, Legion of Doom, Metropolis, Politician, Scientist, Superman Revenge Squad

7 9 16 2

6 9 16 1

6 8 16 1

6 9 15 2

6 10 15 2

KO KO KO KO

Everything Superman is Not: Lex Luthor can use Mastermind. He can use it to transfer damage to characters of 150 points or less if both can use the same team ability.

This issue is a wellspring of great Silver Age dialogue. One of the best lines is from Brainiac 5 after the Coluan fails to 'soften' Lex Luthor's evil fate by 'bisecting and multiplying urgal psytrops' with his potential factors re-organizer complex: "Sorry! The machine doesn't always succeed! In your case, negative id elements complicated by F-type ancestral karmatics zeroed out the mechano-tracers that sought to recondition your reflexes!"

E Brainiac 5 Points: 88 Range: 0
Team: Legion of Superheroes
Keywords: Future, Legion of Super Heroes, Scientist

7 9 17 2

7 9 16 2

6 9 16 1

6 9 16 1

5 8 15 1

5 8 15 1

KO KO KO KO

Force Field Belt: Brainiac 5 can use Invulnerability. Give Braniac 5 a free action and choose an adjacent character with the Legion of Super-Heroes keyword. That character can use Toughness until your next turn as long as it is adjacent to Brainiac 5.

Twelfth-Level Intellect: Brainiac 5 can use Outwit. Once during your turn Brainiac 5 can use Perplex or Probability Control.

The ranged offense from this force comes from a pair of reliable stand-by figures from the Legion of Super-Heroes starter, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy.

E Lightning Lad Points: 70 Range: 10
Team: Legion of Superheroes
Keywords: Future, Legion of Super Heroes, Teen

8 10 16 3

8 9 15 3

8 9 15 2

7 8 14 2

7 8 15 1

6 7 15 1

KO KO KO KO

E Cosmic Boy Points: 70 Range: 6
Team: Legion of Superheroes
Keywords: Future, Legion of Super Heroes, Teen

9 10 17 2

9 10 16 2

9 9 16 2

8 9 16 2

8 7 16 1

7 7 15 1

KO KO KO KO

As always, I don't mind filling out the force (especially one that can use the Legion Lost additional team ability) with lower-point figures like Triplicate Girl and Matter-Eater Lad. Since they made first contact with Lex Luthor, it is not appropriate to leave them off the force. The choice of Triplicate Girls (recall that I suggest using two Experienced versions on this force) can be changed if there is a desire to make more room for feats, or if the Additional Team Ability is not available.

E Triplicate Girl Points: 50 Range: 0
Team: Legion of Superheroes
Keywords: Future, Teen, Legion of Super Heroes

8 8 17 2

8 10 17 2

8 9 16 2

7 9 16 1

6 8 16 1

KO KO KO KO

E Matter-Eater Lad Points: 35 Range: 0
Team: Legion of Superheroes
Keywords: Future, Legion of Super Heroes, Politician

8 9 16 2

8 9 16 1

7 9 15 1

7 9 15 1

KO KO KO KO

Matter, Eaten: Give Matter-Eater Lad a free action and destroy an adjacent wall, adjacent square of blocking terrain, or remove an object in his square or an adjacent square from the game.

For completeness, here is the text of the Legion Lost additional team ability:

LEGION LOST Cost: 4 per character
Prerequisite Keyword(s): Legion of Super Heroes, Legion of Super Villains

Once at the beginning of the game, if no character on your force possesses a team ability that isn't a wild card team ability, choose any one DC team ability other than an additional team ability, a wild card team ability, or a team ability that can't be used by wild cards. Characters using this team ability are not wild cards and can use the chosen team ability if they can't already.

This issue featured almost all the current Legionnaires (Bouncing Boy had been bounced by this point, due to a loss of powers), so you could consider just about adding any members of the Legion on this force, except for a conveniently-arriving-simultaneously 5-figure HeroClix force of Legionnaires that immediately saw through Lex Luthor's deception:

150 Rookie (Smallville 001) Superman
130 (LSH 006) Ultra Boy
100 (Smallville 001) Supergirl
60 (LSH 002) Saturn Girl
58 Veteran (Unleashed 039) Chameleon Boy

= 498 Points

The second force cannot easily take advantage of an Alternate Team Ability (the Superman Ally team ability prevents Legion Lost, and the point total prevents Kryptonian or Legionnaires) but it is a keyword theme team, whereas the Lex Luthor force build here will not be a keyword theme team.

Quick question, I thought your synopsis said Mon-El revealed Lex to be evil but the revealing force you created doesn't have him on it. I'm not familiar with this storyline so is Superman(Smlvl001) suppose to represent him or was he actually on the force and Mon-El just wasn't added?

Mon-El was 'convinced' of Lex's good intentions by other Legionnaires. Once Luthor had plans to the Phantom Zone projector, he tricked Mon-El into using his super-breath, at which point Luthor made sure to step into the way to lose his hairpiece. It was a "Republic serial villain" type move, at which point Luthor 'disintegrated' Mon-El.

The other team I mentioned all appeared simultaneously some time later.

I'm going to set ablaze your Legion long box -_-;;

I like the inclusion of the "versus" team! It makes the theme team battle so much more worth playing out.

I played a variant of the main force in a 'Traitor' scenario yesterday. The simplest way to describe the scenario is that eventually one figure from each force switches sides. Because of the scenario, I played without the ATA and upgraded a Triplicate Girl from Experienced to Veteran.

Brainiac 5 was the traitor on my force! Luckily the Luthor was able to rally the forces (thanks to the reveal of a certain little purple dragon) to defeat the villainous X-Men.

This could be a villain team for a home game.

Thursday I could play this team as a theme! The scenario is a 400pts, non-generic theme teams only and you must have a guest star character who doesn't share that keyword. They are considered to have that keyword.

This is one of my favorite covers of this vintage. The coloring of the Phantom Zone effect and the puzzled looks on Superboy and Supergirls faces are great. You could just paint the orange suit of Luthors grey.

You know, you could also use the JL008 Lex and slide in another Triplicate Girl, if you're not going to go against the "reveal" team, though you would have to switch to Legionnaires as your ATA. It comes out to around a 600-point team, and gives you an awesome ranged attacker/Outwit piece.