1994-1996: Earth-247 Legion era

In October 1994, a little over 36 years after the Legion's first appearance in comics, came the most serious reset the team had ever suffered. The Zero Hour miniseries (supposedly) wiped out the "old" universe, and the Legion began anew. Oddly, the Powers-That-Be at DC, having decreed that the Legion would re-start from zero, nevertheless refused to allow the existing comics to start over with Issue #1 of a new volume. The Legion comics, they said, had renumbered too often. (This despite the fact that DC was even then offering a new Aquaman #1 roughly every third week.) After the "zero issues" of October 1994, issue numbers continued with LSH(4) #62 and Legionnaires #19. This time around, there was no certainty that events would follow previous continuity. Just because someone had been a Legionnaire previously, it was not guaranteed that he/she would be one this time around. Just because someone had died (or lived!) previously, there was no guarantee that he/she would do so this time around. The creative teams involved had to walk a tightrope between attracting new readers on one hand, and not driving away old readers on the other. All things considered, they did a fairly good job. At the time, DC claimed that the multiverse no longer existed; that the post-Zero Hour DC Universe was the only one; and that this version of the Legion was the only version. Later, when the multiverse was reintroduced, multiple alternate Legions were acknowledged. The post-Zero Hour Legion was identified as the Legion of Earth-247. In its first year, the Earth-247 Legion grew from three members to more than a dozen, encountered a rival super-group (the Workforce), defeated a threat to the entire United Planets (White Triangle), and suffered their first deaths (Kid Quantum, Apparition, and [apparently] Andromeda). The second year would see many classic Legion elements: more heroes, the debut of the Espionage Squad, a time-travel encounter with Superboy, a great conspiracy, and the revamped versions of the Fatal Five and the Emerald Eye. The chronology of Earth-Zero's Legion continued to parallel that of the original, with significant differences and surprises.