Drake Burroughs (Wildfire)

Often defeated by the heroes of Earth, the creature known as Starro the Conqueror had not been seen in many years.  Instead, after his last defeat and exile from Earth, Starro drifted through space for eons, eventually crash landing on the small, backwater world officially designated by the United Planets as "Stq-L 4", for its position as the 4th planet around star Stq-L.  As at the time of its discovery, it was still in the local version of an industrial revolution, official policy was hands off, to not initiate any form of contact until the planet had become space flight capable in a few hundred years.

Less than ten years later, a representative from the planet, now called "Starlaxia", strode into the United Planets headquarters and delivered a petition for membership, a Starro on its face.

What the United Planets quickly discovered, however, was that Starro had not completely seized control over the world.  Instead, it was working in quiet symbiosis with the people of the planet to accelerate their development, and in return, was more than satiated by having an entire world's population's worth of mental energy to absorb.  It shared its knowledge with them, helped to regulate deviant mentalities and the like, and in return, it was well fed and worshiped.  Make no mistake--every man, woman, and child on the planet plays host to a Starro-spawn.  But the UP was unable to find anything overly actionable with the situation, to the discomfort of many member worlds.  But better the devil you can watch, and Starlaxia was reluctantly admitted into the UP.

Three days ago, Starlaxia went dark.

When the Legion is sent to investigate, they find what seems like the fact that Starro has finally reverted back to its old ways and had seized total control over the planet.  In a swift battle, many of the Legionnaires are quickly taken over by Starros themselves.  Only Drake and Andrew, along with 1/3 of Triad, manage to escape.

And as they are forced to battle their friends and a whole entire freaking planet's worth of people, they ultimately discover that Starro is just as much a victim in this as they are.  A lone mutant member of the population, possessed of undreamed of psychic powers and undreamed of sociopathy, has seized control of the whole through his Starro-spawn.

And the Legion may not be able to stop him without killing all the Starros.

Do they have the right to make that choice?

Is Starro the lesser of two evils?

The United Planets is rocked by acts of terrorism, various facilities across the galaxy owned by Brande and used in the production of stars come under attack. Some of these were stopped by the Legion, some by the Science Police or local super-heroes, but in others, the facilities were damaged or outright destroyed. It becomes clear this is a very targeted attack on Brande's holdings. The crews involved are all known criminals, but many of them come from what were thought to be disparate organizations. And all of them were armed with weapons that fired matter drawn from stars.

And then, an act of unmitigated sabotage. A star in progress in an uninhabited sector of space suddenly goes nova, killing the research/build team, but fortunately no one else. At first, no one claims responsibility.

And then, someone does. A mysterious broadcast. The unidentified speaker warning the galaxy that they put their trust in the wrong man. That Brande's stars, Brande's technology, would ultimately bring about their end. He would see to it. But peace can be bought. For a price. If not paid, in twenty-four Earth hours, every planet with a Brande-built star would die.

The Legion scrambles. But there's too many systems and not enough of them. Some worlds are left to their local heroes, others... others are simply left. No other options. The Legion battles agents of this blackmailer, more well-armed criminals, but also creatures made of star-matter, vicious and deadly. It is a holding action. They have no clue what the terrorists plan to do, how they plan to do it, anything.

Not until Brainy or one of the other science guys is finally able to trace the transmission, to Rimbor. There, the mobs have mostly coalesced under new leadership, along with the construction of a new tower that is more than it seems. Those Legionnaires who can be spared lead a desperate attack. The tower itself is a weapon, designed to send a signal that will detonate all those stars...

The Legion wins, destroys the device. But the mastermind remains yet unseen. And he remains to taunt the galaxy that the galactic civilization they have built is safe no more...

The Legionnaires Who Shouted “Peace” at the Heart of War World

1) Centuries ago, the people of Tyrazz were one of the worst terrors the galaxy had ever seen, building alliances with some of the worst races in the galaxy, such as the Dominators and the Khunds. They even transformed their home planet into a gigantic, mobile war planet. Only a heroic effort by the Green Lantern Corps stopped them, destroying the power source that allowed them to keep their world mobile.

Though they maintained a fearsome reputation as warriors and pirates, the Tyrazzian star faded for a time.

2) A little less than a year ago, however, the Tyrazzian war-chief Tyr made an alliance with an unknown individual, who provided him with a new power source for their planet. The Tyrazzians wasted no time in waging war with the rest of the galaxy again. It came to the notice of the United Planets, but because their actions were largely directed against non-UP planets, including some races themselves considered enemies of the UP, they were not considered a significant threat. Borders were more secured, transmissions more carefully monitored, but no one wanted to get into a war, despite pressure from certain worlds and sectors.

3) Until the Tyrazzians made an incursion into UP space, striking at the border world of _______ (Xanthu, maybe? Isn’t that supposed to be one of the more out there worlds?). Unwilling to risk planetary retaliation that would come from a direct engagement, the UP dispatches a team of Legionnaires to engage and investigate instead.

4) In system, the Legionnaires make planetfall to find the world being stripped of its resources, and that many of its people, including the Uncanny Amazers, have already been captured and taken to the mobile planet. The Legion opts for a two-fold operation. The more powerful members of the away team will engage and attempt direct intervention, while the more stealthy members will sneak in and do what they can to free the captives.

5) The attacking members engage the planet, but are quickly overwhelmed and themselves captured. Shackled, and their powers muted, the Legionnaires discover that many of the captives are being used as entertainment in gladiatorial games. Games that they are quickly tossed into as well (possibly against some of the Amazers, who may be a bit brainwashed at this point).

6) The stealth team, meanwhile, has made it inside, unaware of what’s happened to their other members. They further split up, with some going to free any captives and others going to shut the war-planet down.

7) In the war world’s massive engine room, the Legionnaires discover that Tyr’s erstwhile ally is… Mongul! (or rather, a direct descendent there of). They battle him, and one of the smarter people (Lyle, maybe?) uses their know-how to work the massive engines into reverse, setting up a countdown before the War World violently leaves the system.

8) The Legionnaires in the gladiatorial pits work their teamwork and skills, engaging an escape with both themselves and the Amazers, while the other stealth team members arrive and free the captives, overwhelming the guards, and briefly engaging with Tyr himself.

9) The Legionnaires and Amazers work together to get the captives off the ship, escaping just in time for it to violently hyper-drive itself away.

10) The day has been saved, but Xanthu has been badly ravaged… and the galaxy has one more powerful enemy out there…

By the 31st century, Metropolis has grown to encompass many of the surrounding major cities, such as New York and Gotham.  It is, by all accounts, a prosperous place.  Certainly, there is still crime, but nothing like the levels some of those cities experienced during their heyday.

But in the parts of Metropolis that used to be Gotham, there is a small section of the city that no one goes.  With Park Row at its center, a twenty square block area is utterly dark and completely without power.  It's walled off, guarded.  No one goes in.

Three hundred years ago, when the city was still mostly called Gotham, terrorists calling themselves the Sons of Laughter attempted to upload the digitized brain patterns of the long-dead criminal called the Joker into the city's mainframe.  The madness infected much of the city's computers, until it was beaten back by that era's Batman.  Unable to defeat it completely, Batman and his allies were able to drive it back into a smaller area, whereupon they cut the power, cut the lines of communication, evacuated the people, and completely sealed it up.

Of course, in the intervening years, this 'Dark Zone' has become home to many criminals and vagrants, despite the best efforts of the authorities.  In some small ways, unofficial policy is to leave it alone.  Any lawman who enters seems to go irrevocably insane.

And now, somewhere, some stupid criminal is bringing power into the Dark Zone...

Drake Burroughs was a junior astronomer, working in a stellar research division laboratory belonging to R.J. Brande, and operating under the directorship of Dr. Zaxton Regulus.  Though Brande's star-building process had already made billions and pretty much changed life in the galaxy as people knew it, the process was one of continual refinement, always seeking to be better.

One of those experiments to refine the process was in Quantom-field sustained anti-matter reactions, an attempt to create a self-sustaining energy release generator that would further push the boundaries of thermodynamics.  Unfortunately, science like this has a bad habit of getting very badly out of hand very quickly.  Or just as likely, successes like Brande's have a way of attracting sabotage.  In this case, it was a little of both that brought things to an interesting head.

The device would have been unstable in and of itself, and eventually would have self-destructed in on itself rather harmlessly.  But because of an act of sabotage by persons working for Orion Starfinger (seeking to destabilize Brande's threat to his operation).  As the device reached its explosion point, just about everyone got out as the security seals began to activate...  everyone but Drake.  The explosion, thankfully contained, only took the life on one young man, seemingly vaporizing him completely. 

Investigations eventually did determine the cause was sabotage, but not the who.  The lab was decommissioned as the others involved move on to other projects.

Ten years later...

In the exact same spot as Drake had vanished, an energy creature appeared.  Seemingly crazed, it went on a rampage until it was contained by the newly formed five member Legion of Super-Heroes (the telepathic Saturn Girl discovering their was a mind inside the creature), with help from a Coluan scientist also in Brande's employ, who was able to design a containment suit for the creature... now revealed to be Drake.

Brande suggested his special academy for Drake, for people who were uniquely gifted or estranged in some way.  His parents and brother having died in a tragic speeder accident while he was displaced, and struggling to come to grips with who he was, Drake agreed.  There, he struck up a friendship with a fellow outcast named Myke Chypurz, who helped bring the despondent Drake back to his humanity a little bit.  Myke would go on to quickly join the Legion of Super-Heroes himself.

Eventually regaining his sense of self and control over his new abilities, Drake would follow his friend into the Legion... and be nearly struck right back into a deep depression when he was killed in action, both for the loss of his good friend, and his own lack of humanity (both his inability to die himself, and his inability to even cry for his friend).

Sometime during this period, Drake would strike up a friendship with the winged woman called Dawnstar, fast tracking her way into the Legion.