He Who Wanders, wrote:
"Some preboot stories tried to deal with this by portraying him as a man who had blotted out the traumatic memories of his imprisonment. One story (of which you were the guest-penciller, by the way) had him going mad at the prospect of being sent back into the Phantom Zone."
You'll notice that, although Paul Levitz frequently mentioned that I contributed to the plotting, this story is the only example of my getting an official co-plotter credit on Legion.
Before "Back Home In Hell" Mon had always been shown as a Superboy type. Clearly, Jim Shooter considered him to be a lesser Superboy. Occasionally it seemed that Mon-El had a slightly more serious attitude, as if the burden of the responsibility weighed a bit heavier on him than on Superboy. At least, that is how I cam to interpret it. Chances are that writers simply saw him as inferior to Superboy, even in personality.
To really deal with the Phantom Zone realistically you are almost forced to imagine that he previously had been suppressing the true trauma of the experience ... probably to preserve his sanity. I never intended that he should wander around with psychological open wounds from the experience, or that he should have panic attacks whenever the Zone was mentioned in conversation. Mon-El was stronger than that. Think of him as a "man of steel" who had his steel refined and purified in a thousand years of flame.
Also, I defend Mon-El's breakdown in "Back Home In Hell" as being much more than a tantrum. Although a line or two of the dialogue may sound a bit whiny, really what is being shown was a psychological collapse. It was something along the nature of a devastating panic attack ... an unreasoning and momentarily overpowering fear. Realize that Mon-El, after his one thousand years in the Phantom Zone, probably seldom encountered anything that instilled fear in him, certainly not a physical enemy. To be confronted with his one true fear, to my thinking, was worse than any threat he had ever faced with the Legion.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Superboy had placed Mon-El in the zone, promising that he would dedicate himself to finding a cure. Assuming that Superboy meant what he said, we can assume that Superman spent a good deal of his lab time in the Fortress of Solitude working on the cure that always eluded him. In the issue, I even drew an image of the adult Kal-El, as seen from Mon's point of view in the Phantom Zone. Still, keep in mind that Kal-El NEVER found the promised cure. Chances are that Mon-El watched Superman grow old. Mon-El must have seen the one person, who knew of his captivity in the Zone, die. Did years of hopelessness follow? Did that thousand years then seem like an eternity that would have no ending? Just how did this man preserve his dignity, his faith, his ideals? We know that somehow he did, and I find that incredibly intriguing. Mon-El is not made weak by his traumatic experiences in the Phantom Zone, rather, the remembrance of them stands as testimony to his strength.
I'm convinced that Mon-El should be portrayed as the most serious and most compassionate Legionnaire. He should also be the most emotionally reserved and the possess the most complex personality. There should be an enigmatic aspect of Mon-El, which his team mates, and we readers, might never fully understand.
He's a noble survivor, tried by a thousand year flame ... for all his great powers, still a man, capable of fear and doubt, but always clinging to his unshakable belief that he serves a high calling ... a purpose greater than himself. Mon-El represents the victory of order over chaos. Darkseid is his ultimate opposite and his greatest physical enemy.
That's how I see Mon-El.
Steve Lightle
