Preboot

The Legion of Super-Heroes has actually been around since 1958 and began its stories as a spin-off of Superboy in Adventure Comics #247. They appeared in several Superman related titles until they got added to the title for the Superboy comic with issue #231 in September of 1977, at which point it became Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Then, with issue #259 released in January of 1980, the title simply became the Legion of Super-Heroes (1st ongoing series). This book continued until the Legion was one of the select few comic titles to start being printed on a nicer paper stock called the Baxter Series which was only available through comic specialty shops or subscription (at the unheard of cover price of *gasp* $1.25). The Baxter series started with a new Legion of Super-Heroes (2nd ongoing series)#1 released in August of 1984, while the pre-existing series was re-titled Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes with issue #314, also released in August of 1984. The Tales Legion printed original stories for 12 issues and then began re-printing the stories from the Baxter series before finally being cancelled in October of 1987 with issue #352.
The 2nd Legion series lasted for 63 issues when it was cancelled in August of 1989 to make way for yet another Legion of Super-Heroes (3rd ongoing series) #1, released in November of 1989, which picked up five years "in story continuity" after the previous series ended and is often called the 5YG, or 5 year gap. Where the original Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes had teen-age members and was a fairly bright future, the newest Legion book had adult former Legionnaires in their 30's and was a particularly bleak future without a Legion. This new series, often referred to as the TMK Legion (based on the creators -Tom & Mary Bierbaum and Keith Giffen) covered the re-formation of the team and their efforts to make the future a better place once again. Towards the end of the TMK run, they introduced a second group of Legionnaires who were teen-age duplicates of many of the adult Legionnaires, including some members that had perished, such as Invisible Kid and Ferro. This youthful group spun out into its own title with Legionnaires #1, released in April of 1993.

Then a particularly big, nasty, problem came along called Zero Hour. The Legion had been put through many changes throughout the years: the Crisis on Infinite Earths and remake of Superman's origin meant that there was never a Superboy, so the Legion had to work around that. Ditto for Supergirl. Much of the Legion history that included Green Lanterns was replaced with Darkstars... yadda, yadda, yadda. The Legion had to re-write so much of its own history that it became fairly confusing to understand which parts of continuity were still valid and which parts were not. With Zero Hour, that was no longer a problem. The entire Legion history was suddenly erased. The Legion was "REBOOT"ed from scratch. For good or ill, the creators had a blank slate to work with. The new Legion creation began with Legion of Super-Heroes (3rd series)#0 and Legionnaires #0, both released in October of 1994, and picked back up with Legion of Super-Heroes (3rd series)#62 and Legionnaires #19.

Still with me?

Now, even though I was a big fan of the preboot Legion -especially the TMK adult Legion, this site concentrates on the current Legion. As far as preboot continuity goes, I'm only going to touch on "what I deem to be" highlights. After all, the Legion had been around for 36 years before the reboot and they'd been around for more than 20 years when I started reading comics, so its unlikely that I could cover it all to any real extent. I should point out that the history highlights I present are based on the post Crisis Legion in which Superboy only existed in the Time Trapper's pocket universe. So, even though Superboy was the original inspiration for the Legion, his and Supergirl's place in Legion lore was replaced with Valor and Laurel Gand respectively.

Click the "NEXT" button above to start at the beginning, or skip to...

Page 1 > from the formation of the Legion to the defeat of the Academy for Super-Villains

Page 2 > from the induction of Chemical King & Timber Wolf to Chameleon Boy's loss of his powers
                     includes EARTHWAR and the GREAT DARKNESS SAGA

Page 3 > from the secret marriage of Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet to THE DEATH OF SUPERBOY
                   includes the LEGION OF SUPER-VILLAINS and the UNIVERSO PROJECT

Page 4 > from the formation of a new Legion of Substitute-Heroes to the beginning of the post Five Year Gap
                     includes the MAGIC WARS and the 5 YEAR GAP

Page 5 > from the beginning of post Five Year Gap to the reversion of Shvaughn Erin back into a man
                     includes the re-formation of the Legion, the QUIET DARKNESS and intro of the SW6 Legion

Page 6 > from the destruction of Universo's Earthgov Resistance base to Jan Arrah's return from death
                     includes the end of the Dominator-control of Earth (Terra Mosaic), the formation of the new teen
                             Legionnaires and the LEGION OF THE DEAD

Page 7 > from the resignation of Kono to THE END OF AN ERA
                    includes the LEGION ON THE RUN

This Preboot History could not have been put together without the Legion of Super-Heroes Help File.

Note: The official first Legion of Super-Heroes comic was a four issue mini-series that reprinted earlier Legion stories and was published in 1973. Considering that it was only a mini-series and that it was reprints, I'll stick to calling the ongoing series as 1st, 2nd and 3rd on this site. Plus, I don't wanna go back through all the entries to correct them. :)
Thanks to Legion Message Board member He Who Wanders for pointing this out.