Kandro Boltax (Pre-Zero Hour)

Kandro Boltax
Pre-Zero Hour‎
Gallery
Real Name	Kandro Boltax
Other Aliases	Kandru
Base Of Operations	Earth
Status
Alignment	Good
Identity	Public Identity
Occupation	President
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Hair	Brown
Origin
Universe	Pre-Zero Hour
Creators	Jim Shooter
First Appearance	Adventure Comics #359 (August, 1967)

And now off the record, I ask you: as leader of the Legion -- and of the LSH Espionage Squad, respectively -- what can you do to stop Deregon?

— Kandro Boltax

When the previous (unnamed) President of Earth died in a car accident, Vice-President Kandro Boltax succeeded him, and brought in an entirely new cabinet.

History

Unbeknownst to everyone, Universo orchestrated the assassination of the previous Earthgov President and was holding Kandro captive, using his illusion-casting powers to impersonate Kandro and assume his office. As such, the first few acts of "Kandro's" tenure were relatively popular infrastructure expansion measures, which Universo used as a cover to install a water "purification" facility with which he intended to contaminate the water supply of Metropolis with mind-control chemicals. Once these chemicals had made most of the population of the capital susceptible to his control, Universo instituted overt authoritarianism, establishing a curfew, revoking the charter granted to the Legion of Super-Heroes, confiscating their clubhouse, and banning the use of costumes and super-powers. Universo proceeded to bait several Legionnaires into action by simulating a monorail accident and had them arrested and sent off to Takron-Galtos, where Universo's new warden, a vicious mercenary, subjected them to back-breaking menial labor. Fortunately, the real Kandro Boltax was saved and the imposter was exposed thanks to Chameleon Boy and his Espionage Squad, with instrumental help from Rond Vidar.

Tyr later kidnapped Timber Wolf and brainwashed him to feign an assassination attempt on Kandro, although the true objective of Tyr's mission was to program Timber Wolf to set Legion HQ to self-destruct. Kandro assigned a team of Legionnaires and Science Police rookie Roon Dvron to recapture Universo after his escape from Takron-Galtos. Upstart rhetoric from the Governor of Australia, Deregon, caused Kandro to send the Legion Espionage Squad on an assignment to infiltrate the Australian regional militia and spy on Deregon to acquire intel on his ambitions. The Legion determined that Deregon was an agent of the Dark Circle who was receiving and acting out orders to manipulate Earth into a seventh World War that would cripple the United Planets, but having been exposed, Deregon attempted to detonate a doomsday weapon on Earth's surface and teleport off-planet instead. Legionnaire Chemical King sacrificed his life to disarm the weapon, and the Legion found and captured Deregon a few days later.

As the U.P. official sanction of Legion activities became increasingly controversial during Kandro's presidency, he began to succumb to certain political pressures which motivated him to act in ways obstructive to the Legion. For instance, when a Legion operation to descale space-dragons for the welfare of the planet Imsk caused the accidental fusion of several Legionnaires into a mindless composite-creature, Kandro contracted an amoral bounty hunter to bring the composite under control, dead or alive, before it could bring damage to crucial utilities on Earth. Ultimately, Superboy and Wildfire succeeded in separating the composite-being back into the separate Legionnaires, while the bounty hunter was arrested by Princess Projectra for attempting to deploy a nuclear warhead in an inhabited civilian area. Whether this may have caused scandal to the Boltax administration, the U.P. soon became engulfed in a war with the Khundish Empire due to maneuvering by the Dark Circle and Mordru. While the Legion repelled the Khund invasion and stopped Mordru from destroying the Earth, innumerable damages were incurred by people and property in the way of conducting the war. Furthermore, the Legion only decreased in popularity when a monster called Omega was summoned by the Miracle Machine to end the universe, and insane Legion traitor Brainiac 5 was revealed as the culprit. In a desperate bid to quickly procure the finances to subsidize reconstruction of the Earth, Kandro hacked into the bank accounts of the galaxy's wealthiest man and Legion financier R.J. Brande and siphoned his entire fortune, bringing his sprawling mega-corporation to the brink of bankruptcy and cutting off funds to Legion activities. Kandro then contracted a group of private military contractors to impersonate S.P. officers and seize Brande's tower in Metropolis, ostensibly to audit Brande's finances but actually to cover up traces of Kandro's involvement. At a despirited Brande's request, the Legion Espionage Squad infiltrated his building under the noses of the false S.P. officers and uncovered evidence of Kandro's crime from records of financial transactions on Brande's accounts. Brande and the Legion then stormed into the United Planets Government Complex to accuse Kandro, and Kandro confessed to being the responsible party, though refusing to apologize for committing the crime and justifying it with the needs of the welfare of the entire population of Earth. The U.P. Inner Council offered to refund Brande the stolen money, though Brande declined, conceding the good that the funds could do for the public, and decided to rebuild his business anew from the ground up. Nevertheless, this action brought Kandro's presidency to a disgraceful end, as he was either impeached or willingly resigned, to be replaced in the next election by Marte Allon.

Notes

• Was clean shaven when he took off, but grew a beard during his term.
• According to darkmark's comics indexing domain, there are two different but similarly named Presidents, Boltax last appearing in Superboy #212, Kandru last appearing in Superboy and the LSH #258. Marte Allon first appears as President in LSH #271. Who's Who in the LSH #3 (p. 16) regards Kandro Boltax and Kandru (note the spelling) as one person; a clean-shaven caucasian is depicted. Note, however, that the Who's Who title was published in 1988, i.e. post-Crisis, and was supposed to bring some order into the Legion world, so the two presidents may well have been collapsed into one.
• Another thing: Kandro Boltax first appears in Adventure Comics #359-362 (albeit as an Universo impersonation). Black-bearded Kandru (no other name recorded) indeed first appears in Superboy #228. It could be an oversight of the writers or of the indexers that they confused the similarly named characters.

Related

• 17 Appearances of Kandro Boltax (Pre-Zero Hour)
• 1 Images featuring Kandro Boltax (Pre-Zero Hour)
• 1 Quotations by or about Kandro Boltax (Pre-Zero Hour)
• Character Gallery: Kandro Boltax (Pre-Zero Hour)