As the Legion began its Baxter run, the regular Legion run became Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes while the new title became the first Legion of Super-Heroes #1 ever.

 

The problem with reviewing these issues is that in continuity they came out concurrently, meaning the events happening in LSH #1 were happening roughly at the same time as the events in Tales of the LSH #314… hence the dilemma of how to simplify this for the novice reader.  So, lets finish up some old business in Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes before tackling the major arc of Legion of Super-Heroes #1-5.

As we open the Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes we discover Sun Boy, Brainiac Five, and Supergirl on hand as witnesses for the Trial of Ontirr, the traitorous Science Police officer who collaborated with the Emerald Empress back in LSH #302-303.  It turns out that Ontirr is a member of the villainous Dark Circle, the group of shadowy anarchists threatening to undermine the United Planets.

While the Legion is busy putting Ontirr and a whole bunch of Dark Circle clones in their places… (and pay attention because that is going to come back to haunt us in a bit…)  We get the White Witch’s origin story in a back-up piece starring the White Witch and Blok.

Brainy and Supergirl share a few sweet moments here at the end and that’s good because this marks her last Legion of Super-Heroes appearance… (don’t worry, we’ll get to that story sooner than you think.).

Meanwhile, over in Legion of Super-Heroes #1, lets remind us of the subplots going on before going forward, because for the most part “Tales” is a great parking spot for some of the cast for some individual character stories and a great Dawnstar/Brainiac Five story, for the most part, LSH#1 on is where the meat and potatoes of the story is at this point.

  • Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are expecting their first child.
  • Colossal Boy fell in love with and married Yera, who was replacing Shrinking Violet.
  • Star Boy was glad that Dream Girl lost the leader election to Element Lad.
  • Shrinking Violet had been replaced by Yera Allon, Violet was rescued and sent into rehab.
  • Light Lass broke her relationship off with Timber Wolf and left the Legion.
  • Dream Girl had a premonition that a Legionnaire would die.
  • Queen Projectra and her consort Karate Kid got married.
  • Dawnstar left on a grand quest to find herself, only to find Wildfire again and their relationship rekindled.

As the story opens we see a very arcane stone carving featuring all the Legionnaire’s symbols and blood oaths being taken by a group of villains swearing to kill a Legionnaire each, starting with Lightning Lord vowing he will kill his brother Lightning Lad.

On Ventura, Dream Girl and Star Boy are enjoying a vacation even though Dream Girl recently had a vision foretelling the death of a Legionnaire.  The casino they are in is being robbed by Micro Lad, the same Imskian terrorist that held Shrinking Violet hostage for a while.  Being Legionnaires, there is no such thing as a vacation, so Dream Girl and Star Boy go in hot pursuit forcing Micro Lad to shrink away to avoid them.

On Daxam, a group of Legionnaires are helping repair the damage done by Darkseid when they are interrupted by a communique to inform them that Takron-Galtos appears to be under attack by a renegade Daxamite.  Mon-El grabs Shadow Lass and takes off leaving the others to follow in the cruiser.

Back on Ventura, Micro Lad is trapped by the Legionnaires who have called in the newly recovered Shrinking Violet in her first active duty case since the Nullport incident.  When Violet confronts her former captor, Micro Lad thinks he has found his easy way out.   (Never underestimate a pissed off heroine, folks)  Needless to say, she kicks Micro Lad’s ass all over that room only to have him disappear on her in a space warp.

On Winath, we find the now retired Light Lass enjoying farm life.  As she is taking a bin of harvest off to the storage barn she is ambushed by a Legion Reject named Radiation Roy and taken hostage, presumably under Lightning Lord’s orders.

On Takron-Galtos, the Legionnaires arrive to find the maddened Daxamite child Ol-Vir who has broken free and is wreaking havoc screaming about the coming of the darkness.  Mon-El takes personal offense to this and its on.

Back on Earth Colossal Boy discovers that his mother has resigned the position of President of Earth as he and Yera are moving into their new home.  The Private Detective that Timber Wolf hired to find Light Lass writes his last report to Timber Wolf.

Back at Takron-Galtos, Ol-Vir and other inmates of Takron-Galtos are beamed up into the same type of warp that summoned Micro Lad and the mention of “The Legion of Super-Villains” occurs.

Next Up:  Darkseid’s Curse Fulfilled!!!