'Supergirl' References Another Legionnaire in "Legion of Super-Heroes"

In tonight's midseason premiere of Supergirl, things looks bleak for both Supergirl and National City itself as Reign continues to rise, but even with the Legion of Super-Heroes around, the team is reluctant to get involved. Turns out, that reason has ties to another Legionnaire.

Spoilers below for the midseason premiere of Supergirl, "Legion of Super-Heroes", below.

With Kara Danvers/Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) still in a coma following her defeat by Reign (Odette Annable) during the winter finale, the DEO is short-handed when it comes to fighting the Worldkiller. Despite Winn's (Jeremy Jordan) suggestion that the answer is the Legion, Mon-El (Chris Wood) refuses to have his team step in. While he explains that, with their limited knowledge of the past, he knows that Supergirl survives, and Reign is defeated eventually, there's a very important reason that he and his team cannot risk their lives to help.

It turns out that reason is a catastrophic event in the future involving the planet Winath, the home planet of fellow Legionnaire, Ayla Ranzz. In Mon-El's explanation, a thousand years into the future the thriving Winath goes dark with Ayla heading home to find out why. She arrives to find her world decimated and dried out due to the machinations of creatures called The Blight. These creatures sound like a nightmare, described as consuming anything in their path and while Brainiac 5 did figure out how to stop them, they were unable to act. Instead, they stored the information of how to defeat The Blight in their DNA so that when time comes around again to stop them, they will be able to. The trick is that they must stay alive long enough to do so.

It's an interesting reveal, but for comic book fans, it was doubly exciting as it teases that there are even more members of the Legion out there and that at least one of them is comic book canon. In comics, specifically Silver Age stories, Ayla Ranzz is better known as Lightning Lass, twin sister of fellow Legionnaire Garth, aka Lightning Lad -- who, by the way, had a romantic relationship with Saturn Girl. Ayla and Garth also had an older brother, the villainous Mekt, aka Lightning Lord. All three of the Ranzz siblings had lightning powers that they obtained after being forced to land on the planet Korbal and were charged with electrical energy in the process.

The mention of Ayla by Mon-El and Saturn Girl (Amy Jackson) confirms what many Supergirl fans have hoped: that there are more Legionnaires in existence than just the three currently in National City. And while it's not entirely clear what becomes of Ayla or how many other Legionnaires there are, it could mean that additional heroes are scattered around other parts of the timeline or even the multiverse. It might even be a clue that the mystery girl at the West-Allen wedding during "Crisis on Earth-X" could, in fact, be a part of the Legion, though specifically which one is up for debate.

And while it's exciting to have another familiar Legionnaire mentioned, there are other things Mon-El says that are less reassuring. When explaining that he knows that Supergirl lives, it's also mentioned that something pretty awful happens to humanity in the future leading to the obliteration of nearly all historical and cultural records. That left Mon-El to educate the 31st century about important works of literature, art, and the musical genius of Bon Jovi.

Supergirl airs Mondays at 7/8c on The CW.