History
Original earth-one
Ferro Lad attended the Legion open calls and demonstrated how strong he really was by turning himself into Iron and having Lightning Lad blast him with one of his thunderbolts, then he bent steel to show strength and informed the legion that his
costume turned into iron with him. After being accepted he was sent on a mission to ask Mano of the Fatal Five team to help fight against the Sun-eater.
Later he agreed to be apart of Tharoks plan to increase the superheroes abilities with a intensifier that took its power from a Antimatter Universe. Unfortunately the power up wasn’t strong enough to have any effect on the Sun-eater. As the Legions many attempts failed Ferro Lad threw himself at the sun-eaters core to discover a massive energy as the heart of the sun-eater. Ferro lad believed that if he destroyed the core the sun eater would die, but failed in the attempt as he was blasted away. Ferro Lad told the legion of his discovery and Tharok made a Absorbatron Bomb that would absorb all the sun eaters power defeating it if the bomb could be introduced onto the core.
As they had no time Tharok didn’t build a timing device or driving force pack which meant someone was going to have to take the bomb to the sun eater and detonate it dying in the process. As the heroes stayed silent Superboy said that he would take the bomb seeing as he had invulnerability which meant that he might have a chance of survival. Ferro Lad saw that Superboy was weak and his survival was slim so he sucker punched Superboy, took the bomb, and escaped the ship with it while propelling towards the Sun-eater.
As he reached the core of the Sun-eater, Ferro Lad was successful in detonating the bomb and killing the Sun-eater. Meanwhile the Legion watched as the Absorbatron Bomb tore the cloud apart absorbing the energy and sent lighting across the silent cold black space.
When the legion returned safely they had a funeral was made in Ferro Lads honor for making the biggest sacrifice that saved the galaxy and the millions of lives who live in it.
Five Years Later: Mordruverse
After Lar Gand face the Time Time Trapper and defeated him, he caused a alternate timeline where the Legion didn’t existed and Mordru take control the universe in the century 30th. In this universe many legionnaires were dead but not Ferro Lad, who joined the resistance and helped Glorith to recreate the Legion replacing the rol of Superboy with Valor. However when the timeline was restored, also it was the death of Ferro Lad restored too.
Batch SW6
Among the Legion duplicates than appeared on earth as part of the Batch SW6 there was an alternate version of Ferro Lad, who joined the Legionnaires and stayed in New Earth after the destruction of earth. This new Ferro was a daredevil and optimist fighter but still hiding his face behind not one but two masks.
Post- Zero Hour: Earth 247
Post Zero hour Andrew Nolan and his twin brother Douglas where born both metahumans with the ability to transform themselves into iron. Unfortunately both where born in the late 20th century with their faces disfigured which led to their mother Nancy Nolan to give them away to a mad scientist known as Doc 30. After years of being under the care of the doctor he managed to escape while his twin brother stayed behind.
In the arc of Final Night ,where the sun was dying, Douglas, calling himself Ferro, assists Perry White from the Daily Planet deliver the newspaper because Perry is set on having the Daily Planet not miss on day of delivery to its readers. When the Legion of Superheroes are marooned in the present day of Superman’s time he as well as other heroes join JLA to help save the destruction of the Sun and Earth. When its time to save the sun from the Sun-eater Ferro heroically gives his life in order to defeat the sun-eater. Yet at the last possible moment he is saved by Green Lantern Hal Jordanwho has the power of Parallax and Hal Jordan instead gives his life to give light once again to the sun. Ferro stays on the Legion team even though he knew they where from the 31 century.
He ventures with them back to their time in the future and found a new home up until half of the team were stranded in a rift and rest of the team disbanded.
He and fellow legionnaire Karate Kid traveled to the planet Steeple to visit a monastery who is only able to be found every 10 years (the entire planet) until a black hole returns and stops the gateway preventing anyone from returning to their part of the galaxy. At the monastery Ferro Lad began to cope with his disfigurement instead of being ashamed of it, while there he was
brutally assaulted by a dangerous fugitive. His life was saved by the monastery monks but Ferro Lad was imprisoned in his Iron form and unable to remove his Iron helmet that he wore.
What was worse is that while all of this happened it was time for them to make their way back to the portal but due to the events Karate Kid and Ferro Lad where stranded on the planet for 10 years or so they thought.
However legionnaire Brainiac 5 used Threshold Tech to open the portal to the planet Steeple but while trying to do this the Legion and many planets where spellbound by villain Universo. Sensor and Shikari used the untested device to open the way to Steeple and escape from the villain. Now on the planet they found the lost legionnaires and went off on a mission to free Saturn Girl and where helped along the way by Phantom Girl and Ultra Boy to overthrow Universo and bring back all the entranced legionnaires and planets.
After defeat Universo and prevent the destrution of the timestream by Darkseid, Ferro and the Legion had to go against the Fatal Five hundred, alternate versions of their enemies than menaced with destroid eveything. Recruiting the help of 21st century heroes, the Teen Titans, both teams could trap the enemies in ta time flux, but that separed them from the timespace, making the 31st century being reboooted. This version of the Legion along ith Ferro would be see again first in Infinite Crisis and later in Final Crisis: Legion of Three worlds, when the three versions of the legion joined to fight against Superboy Prime and his future version, an incarnation of the Time Trapper. When the Legion of Earth-247 returned to the timestream, Ferro re-name themselves as the New Wanderers.
In the Threeboot version there was been no new version of Ferro.
Other media
On the TV show Legion of Superheroes, Ferro Lad is introduced in the episode “Chain of Command“. He and Cosmic boy try to help Lightning Lad save his planet. Same as the original story Ferro Lad gives his life to stop the Sun-eater when the detonators fail so he must become the new conductor to set the bomb off and kill the Sun-eater, he dies just after he joined the Legion of Superheroes.
In the season one finale, “Sundown” there’s a scene shown where there’s a rock floating aimlessly in space just after the defeat of the sun-eater and it shows Ferro Lads iron form body in a deep slumber.
Characteristics:
Physical characteristics:
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 155
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Green
Powers:
Able to turn his entire body into Iron. When in Iron form he has Super strength. The post Zero Hour version also was a whiz with a sewing machine
Personality
Ferro Lad always hide his face because he consider it hideous. He diguise his pain with a jovial attitude and always ready to tall jokes. Depise his joker personality he was always ready for the action and willing to risk his life for any person.