FORMER ALIASES: Tsarin
OCCUPATION: Assistant manager of a bookstore and would-be writer
MARITAL STATUS: Single
SEX: Male
AGE: 36
BASE OF OPERATIONS: East Tennessee
LEGIONNAIRE YOU LOOK MOST LIKE: An adult Element Lad with blue eyes and a de-powered Chuck Taine's belly
FAVORITE LEGIONNAIRE: Element Lad; Brainy; Shady; Dreamy; Sun Boy; Invisible Kid
FAVORITE MUSICIAN: U2; Indigo Girls; Chris Isaacs; Bernadette Peters; Sondheim
FAVORITE BOOK: Bleak House by Dickens; the Master of Rome series; anything about Alexander the Great
FAVORITE MOVIE: Fanny and Alexander; Easy Living; Rashomon
LEGION FAN FOR: 26 years
Zal saw bits of his life flash before his mental eye, as he vaguely felt the sensations of transport. He saw his homeworld, Trom, destroyed. He saw Trom's sole survivor transmuting the remains of his dead into tsarin crystal. He felt again the mute horror of being locked in a death-like coma as Jan Arrah waved his glowing hand over Zal's still body. He remembers the effort of changing the block of tsarin into a human, but still crystal form. And he remembers the confusion of finding his transformative power itself transformed into the ability to change any substance to crystal. He sees the moment when he learned to 'soften' his form into a flesh-like state- and to harden it past the natural strength of tsarin crystal. He flashes to the day he learned that he had similar control of anything he transmuted.
Zal awoke to see a circle of concerned faces peering down at him. He later placed the names Lardlad, Lash Lad and Shadowplay in Candlelight Lass with those faces, whose concern proved to be genuine when they helped I.D.less Zal get into the school where he met his favorite lab partner, Cobalt Kid. Concentrating on learning every science he could, Zal hoped to find a way to return home. But as he learned to love his new world, he settled on creating a viewer that allowed him to watch the adventures of the Legionnaires he once hoped to join. Taking the name Tsarin Kid, Zal joined the LMB, and occasionally allows some of them to watch those adventures. A few of them know of his real connection to that continuity, but most think it a hard-to-tune-in soap opera. They find Zal's addiction to that soap humorous.
Zal, feeling caught between two worlds and unable to fully commit to either, has remained resolutely single- though he does feel an attraction to a hero who looks remarkably like his home-reality's Invisible Kid.
POWERS: Tsarin Kid has the ability to change any substance to crystal. He can also 'soften' his crystalline form into a flesh-like state or harden it past the natural strength of tsarin crystal. He also has a similar control over anything he has transmuted.