Benno Tarik was caught in the crossfire of a Science Police shootout in which his larynx was destroyed by a stray blast. Afterwards, a United Planets grant paired Tarik with a robot which could receive and interpret Tarik's thoughts as word as well as serve as his bodyguard.

The incident turned Tarik against all law-enforcement agencies, and he decided to establish an organization that would crush all law. Tarik modeled his organization on the Legion of Super-Heroes, and called it the Legion of Super-Villains.

Tarik turned Colossal Boy's parents into glass with a special gun that he carries. He threatened to shatter them unless Colossal Boy secretly turned over all of the Legion of Super-Heroes' training manuals and procedures, which Tarik would use to train his team of villains.

The Legion of Super-Heroes eventually uncovered Tarik's Legion Villain Academy and foiled his plans.

Tarik was captured and imprisoned before earning an early paroled due to a terminal heart condition. Still embittered about his defeat, Tarik programmed his robot before he died to engineer an assassination attempt on Colossal Boy's mother Marte Allon. But this plan, too was foiled by the Legion of Super-Heroes and the robot was destroyed.