Element Lad

Element Lad
Element Lad, from Adventure Comics #323 (August 1964)
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Adventure Comics # 307 (April 1963)
Created by	Edmond Hamilton John Forte
In-story information
Alter ego	Jan Arrah
Species	Tromite
Place of origin	Trom
Team affiliations	Legion of Super-Heroes
Notable aliases	Mystery Lad, Alchemist, Starfinger, Progenitor
Abilities	The ability to transmute chemical elements Flight and protection from vacuum of space and dangerous environments via ring

Element Lad (Jan Arrah) is a fictional character in the 30th and 31st centuries of the DC Comics Universe, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. A native of the planet Trom, he has the power to transmute chemical elements.

Element Lad first appears in Adventure Comics (vol. 1) #307 (1963). In this first story he is briefly known as "Mystery Lad" as the Legionnaires try to guess his superpower. Jan is the last survivor of Trom; with all of the planet's natives sharing Jan's abilities, the other Trommites had been massacred by the space pirate Roxxas for refusing to transmute valuable elements for him. Jan had only survived this genocide because he had been in space at the time.

With the aid of the Legion, Roxxas is brought to justice and Jan joins the Legion, using the codename Element Lad. He is a member of the Legion for many years, serving terms as leader and deputy leader. He is eventually linked romantically to Shvaughn Erin, the Science Police's Legion liaison, who herself first appeared in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241 (July 1978).

In November 1989 the Legion continuity jumps ahead five years; during this "Five Year Gap" following the Magic Wars, Earth had fallen under the covert control of the Dominators, and had withdrawn from the United Planets. In a storyline written by Tom and Mary Bierbaum, it is revealed in Legion of Super-Heroes (vol. 4) #31 (July 1992) that Shvaughn had been born as a male named Sean, and had taken a futuristic sex-change drug called ProFem in order to secure Element Lad's love. With ProFem no longer available in the tough economical times, Shvaughn reverts to Sean; Jan is unfazed, saying "Look, it doesn't matter. Don't you understand ... ? Anything we ever shared physically ... it was in spite of the ProFem, not because of it ... !"