Dominators
2931 - The Dominators have first contact with Earthgov.
2985 - The Dominators commit a planetary genocide of Trom, an uncivilized human planet.
2996 - The Dominators invade Earthspace, beginning Earthwar. Although they are defeated they plant genetically modified sleeper agents on Earth and begin taking over the government.
3000 - The Dominators successfully infiltrate the highest level of Earthgov. They begin their experiments on the metagene.
3002 - The Dominators take control of Earthgov agent Dirk Morgna.
3003 - The Dominators take the family of Dawn Allen to test their metegenes, triggering the latent speed force powers of Jenni Ognats. Iris Allen builds a refugee community on the moon to take care of victims of the Dominators. Don Allen & Melonie Thawne join the resistance against the Dominators on Earth.
3005 - The Dominators lose their control of Earth when they are stopped by the reformed Legion of Super-Heroes, with the help of Iris West-Allen & the new Green Lantern Corp.
The Dominators Comic HistoryWhile the Dominators we all know seem to be purpose-built as the bad guy aliens, that's not how they were introduced back in the original Jim Shooter Legion stories in Adventure Comics # 361 from 1967. In a great example of Shooter's surprisingly complex and thorough sixties-era worldbuilding, we learn that the United Planets have been at war for some time with another intergalactic federation of planets called the Dominion, who are now coming to Earth to negotiate a truce. A group of assassins (called the 'Unkillables', which... dope.) are planning to kill the delegation to prevent the truce, so the Legion is brought in to escort the Dominators to Earth. It's honestly a great issue, so much so that I'm not going to tell you any more about it so you can discover it for yourself.
The 90s Keith Giffen Legion series updated the Dominators as the series' main antagonists, with them secretly taking over Earth for a time. |
The Dominators also made a major appearance in the current DC timeline, in the 1988 crossover event Invasion! by Giffen, which actually depicted the beginning of their conflict with Earth. In one of my personal favorite bang-your-action-figures-together crossover events, Giffen tied together events from several of his series and introduced some of the aliens from his Legion series to the modern-day DC, with the Dominators, in particular, leading a coalition of alien races from around DC's history in a joint invasion of Earth that served, among other things, to jumpstart characters metagenes and explain new characters popping up everywhere (including Crazy Jane over in the Doom Patrol!)
With this crossover under their belt, the Dominators have remained classic DC villains, even though it's understood that in SOME Legion timelines (they get rebooted a lot) the war between Earth and the Dominators has actually been resolved and they are (kinda) on their way to becoming allies. TV viewers might also remember the Dominators as one of the first major crossover events, where we got some very scary but curiously naked CG Dominators. |
Our Dominators StorySo how are WE going to use the Dominators? We're going to make a core change here and shift their entire story up into the Legion's timeline; we do all enjoy the Invasion story quite a bit but it would be pretty clunky to try to deploy into our timeline given that it doesn't actually advance any part of the current DC story at all. Instead, we made their first contact with Earth sometime in the early 30th century. Their invasion of Earth can happen while the Legion is still active, and we can then set up our favorite Dominators story; their secret infiltration of the echelons of Earthgov. I'm a sucker for a good alien invasion conspiracy story, and by moving this into the distant future we can use it without disrupting the stories being told elsewhere in our timeline. We use this as a major event in Legion history, serving as the catalyst for them to come together again to free Earth, and even starting the careers of a few new heroes.
The decision to keep the Dominators entirely in the future doesn't mean they don't exist in the modern timeline, of course, they're still out there, dominating away. We could still absolutely embroil them in other non-Earth-based stories. |