Commando (M'Nell),

Gladiator is another one of those characters that writers use to prove how tough their characters are because they can beat him, or hold their own with him.

___

I call this the "Worf" syndrome. At first on ST:TNG you said "Man! He's tough! He beat up Worf!" but after the 400th time Worf got his butt handed to him, you had to wonder if he wasn't just a pansy Klingon.

You are correct!

If memory serves, the original line-up of the Guard matched up with the Legion like this:

Gladiator- Superboy
Oracle- Saturn Girl
Tempest- Lightning Lad
Electron- Cosmic Boy
Mentor- Brainiac Five
Smasher- Ultra Boy
Hobgoblin- Chameleon Boy
Impulse- Wildfire
Astra- Phantom Girl
Midget- Shrinking Violet
Titan- Colossal Boy
Fang- Timber Wolf
Mystik- Princess Projectra
Nightside- Shadow Lass
Starbolt- Sun Boy

... Aaaand I'm drawing a blank on the guy who is Star Boy... Quasar!  That was it!  JB's non-LSH members were:

Webwing
Hussar
Warstar (B'Nee & C'cl)
Jort
Raskor, the skrull
Some Kree officer
Earthquake
Manta

I'm forgetting the name of that giant robot guy from X-Men 108 who was then followed by the bigger robot guy (Mott?) and then the lil' guy who pitched Wolverine into orbit. (Mott & Jaff! I remembered that after I posted the first time...) I'd be doing better at this if I had my comics here.  After their association with the whole Phoenix phenomenon, the I.G. started appearing in various places, including their own mini-series.  They picked up new members along the way, like the Commander M'Nell guy above, but I have no idea who any of these new people are... I wonder if there's an Imperial Guard of Pets yet...

Okay, I'm only going by memory here...
The Kree and Skrull appeared alongside them in X-Men 137, so I mixed that up...
I think Jort may have been a bad guess about Mott & Jaff...
Wasn't there a big web-octopoidal thing that "fmoopf"ed itself over it's foes...? I thought that was Webwing. I don't know...