Who's This? A kinky locksmith.
The facts: Legion villain Grimbor the Chainsman was created by Jim Shooter and Mike Grell for Superboy #221 (November 1976) and the comic book kink was never the same again. He's since appeared infrequently, his biggest storyline in the early 80s in Legion of Super-Heroes #277-280. In the 5YL era, he chained up Paris in Legionnaires #13-14 (April-May 1994), and was defeated by the two Invisible Kids in the Reboot era. He was a member of Superboy-Prime's Legion of Super-Villains in the Legion's Final Crisis mini-series.
How you could have heard of him: Slim chance. He does appear in the LSH animated series, with a gimpy mask that makes him look even kinkier, if you can believe it.
Example story: Legion of Super-Heroes #278 (August 1981) "Tragedy at the Top of the World!" by Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Jimmy Janes and Bruce D. Patterson
Surely that cover is SYMBOLIC. You can't chain the EARTH?! Oh yes, you can! This is ACTUALLY happening. Not a dream, not a whatever. And Grimbor's energy chains are squeezing the atmosphere off the planet. And the chains hold a charge powerful enough to knock out Mon-El!
Shadow Lass would have been fried, but she never actually touched it. She just got some backlash from Mon doing so. Lightning Lad and Light Lass' powers have no effect either. Thankfully, Saturn Girl uses her telepathy to track the source of the chains, an ice castle on the North Pole. Meanwhile, in President Allon's office, Colossal Boy's mom is hopefully not considering caving in to Grimbor's demands, namely that he be crowned dictator and have the Legion delivered to him for immediate revenge. Then a hologram of Grimbor appears to them to shorten his deadline from 24 hours to just one. The Legion must pay for the death of his beloved Charma (they put her in prison where she was killed) and as soon as possible! You will believe a supervillain can cry!
He breaks out of his tantrum state just in time to notice the Legionnaires are coming up on his moat. But first, another group of Legionnaires is in the Middle East tracking the source of cargo stolen by Grimbor. It's some kind of huge power crystal warehouse - I bet the stolen ones are powering those chains. So back to the Arctic where that first Legionnaire team is about to fall prey to Grimbor's traps.
Told you. Of course, it might not have been as bad if the electric guy hadn't decided to shoot electricity at a conducting metal strapped to his wife. That's Powers 101, my dude. Mon-El rushes in and despite his Daxamite power levels, he also gets nabbed.
Grimbor has a trick for any power set. My hope is that he's thought of the Legion's badasses, but is underestimating the members who have "weak" or passive powers. Like Shadow Lass.
Nope. He's thought of everything, and he can even pull his punches to "toy" with the Legion. According to Timber Wolf, Tasmia should have been killed by that gag arrow, but wasn't. Next, Light Lass gets chained around her neck, cutting off her oxygen supply, which pretty much only leaves an enraged Timber Wolf who, by luck, is NOT grabbed by a trap.
Brin climbs up the wall to avoid all the entrance traps, but inside the trapster's lair, there's bound to be a trap in every room.
And of course, there is. There's a reason Grimtooth--I mean, Grimbor stays home and only sends holograms to give his ultimatums. It's all about being prepared and knowing your turf. And as the issue ends, the Legion is no closer (indeed, they are farther) from solving the problem. Earth is in a chokehold, and you're heading for your comic book shop or DC Infinite to see how this ends.
This shows Grimbor as a potent foe for as large a team as the Legion is, and I'm surprised he wasn't used MORE. A lot of superheroes have villains who craft death traps for them, but perhaps it's more interesting when writers shuffle the theme by changing which villain set it up.
Who's Next? Captain America's cousin.
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