JLA 80-Page Giant #1: The Secret Society of Super-Villains

[history79]

3.33 pages of 10

Comments

[zylly]

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

...Really, Blockbuster? I'm pretty sure half the people in that room have been "dead" at some point or another.

Also, I'm a giant nerd and can actually identify all the different villains there (though Star Sapphire sleeping with Floyd is kind of weird, since that looks like Carol).

[crinos]

I can recognize like 90% of the guys here.

Guys I can't ID:

The guy with an eyepatch watching the JLA on TV with his kids. (And seriously dude, do you not own any civilian clothes? What kind of asshole watches their kids dressed like a super villain?)

The guy in the silver helmet in between Dr. Alchemy and The Wizard in the composite shot right after the JLA show up.

The purple guy next to Captain Boomerang in that same group shot (Unless that guy is supposed to be Angle Thief).

(Also: The Prankster? Seriously? Scraping the bottom of the barrel there aren't we?)

[icon_uk]

I SHOULD recognise silver helmet and eyepatch guy but I can't name them and that's annoying me! :)

The purple guy is Black Hand, a Green lantern villain from the Silver Age, who went on to become the focal bad guy in Blackest Night when he became the first Black Lantern.

And yeah, the likes of Prankster, Crazy Quilt (a villain who hates Robin more than Batman) and the Monocle are all slightly C to D list threats.

[crinos]

Well at the very least Monocole was a member of the Secret Society of Super villains at one point (He and Signalman were members of Ultra Humanite's Secret Society back pre crisis, when he has this big plan to kidnap key super heroes from Earth one and two and use them in a machine to erase super heroes from Earth 1. I have the first two issues of that arc.) So Monocole at least has a reason to be there.

Not so much Prankster and Crazy Quilt (I wonder if Rainbow Raider ever teases Crazy Quilt, since he's basically a cheap knockoff of him).

Also, yeah Black Hand, I can't believe he showed up again before Darkest Night.

But I suppose that's the point. J'onn is rounding up all the villains that are dumb enough to fall for this scam. Notice how there are no A tier villains in this Secret Society: No Luthor, no Joker, no.... Wait. Grodd is there too? And Cheetah? Grodd, dude, you're a telepath. You should have picked out J'onn in like two seconds. Come on man.

[icon_uk]

Monocle I always liked, he had a great "odd couple" pairing with Ragdoll in one of the old JLA/JSA crossovers in the 80's.

Aside from them not really having the same powers, Crazy Quilt predates the Rainbow Raider by about thirty years, as he first appeared in 1946 though he had a loooooooong gap between his early and later appearances

Not sure about how they'd get one, but IIRC Underworld Unleashed has the Trickster make a snarky comment about how Dr Spectro (The Captain Atom villain) and Crazy Quilt, who have both answered Neron's invitation, though I don't think either takes him up on his offer, are standing there admiring each other's costumes, which he think says a lot about them as people.

[crinos]

For Monocole, he kind of feels like he wouldn't be out of place in the Venture Brothers, where underneath the silly costumes and gimmicks the villains are stone cold professionals.

[zylly]

Eyepatch Guy is the Psycho Pirate, who got a terrible makeover in Underworld Unleashed, where he fought the Chase Lawler Manhunter.

The silver guy.... not sure. He might be my blind spot here.

[zylly]

The DC wikia suggests that Silver Guy might be Major Disaster.

[icon_uk]

That's deinfitely him I'd say! Thanks! :)

[crinos]

Yeah, in fact that costume is the one used on Major Disaster's normal wikipedia page.

Which is weird because I've never seen him in that getup before. I've seen his classic costume, and I've seen the Uniform he wore when he was in the JLA's Black ops team, but never in that one.

[icon_uk]

THAT was what they did with Psycho-Pirate in the 90's?

Geez, I almost feel sorry for him

[crinos]

I'm more confused why he's apparently got a family now.

Wasn't Psycho Pirate's whole deal post crisis was that he was hopelessly insane because he was the only one who remembered how things were before the Crisis? At what point did he get out, apparently get married and have a couple of kids.

Also, I just realized something: The eyepatch, the cape, the shirt... this is him dressing up like a Pirate, like he's leaning into the Pirate part of his name. uuuuggggggghhhhhhh....

[zylly]

Yeah, it’s just... bad.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/9/9b/Psycho-Pirate_Roger_Hayden_005.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121227060213

The eyepatch is supposed to be the Medusa Mask fused with his face.

[lonewolf23k]

Really ironic to have Per Degaton rant about "The Death of Democracy" considering how often he's been involved in helping actual Fascist villains...

[crinos]

Something the past year of watching actual fascists run around making asses of themselves has taught me two things:

1) The basic tenant of their philosophy is "but its okay when I do it!"

2) These guys have MAJOR projection issues.

[q99]

To be fair, he's just saying "Ah ha, now it's just a question of who authoritarianly rules- I vote me."

[q99]

Ok, who really thought this was a good idea and why were some of the villains so confident? Unless there's a lot more, their 'sheer weight of numbers' seems to only have a moderate number of heavy hitters- Cheetah, Star Sapphire, Atomic Skull, and Killer Frost, and Grundy can't carry the whole fight. A lot of them can barely contribute to a dogpile against the big guns!


Sure, they got ambushed rather than doing the ambushing, but the outcome's about right either way.

[crinos]

Well a lot of the guys are like Batman, they do better with prep time.

Riddler, Prankster, Scarecrow, Ivy, if you give them a little time to get stuff set up they can royally ruin your day. I mean, I'll rag on Prankster all day, but the guy regularly throws down with Superman, so he knows how to fight outside his weight class if nothing else.

Plus you got Grodd, whose super strong and a telepath (Which again, why did he not spot J'onn here), The Wizard (who can potentially shut down Superman),

I mean for comparison, Ultra Humanite's Secret society consisted on him, Brainwave, Monocole, Psycho Pirate, Ragdoll, Cheetah (And that's the Deborah Domain version of Cheetah, who was the niece of the original Cheetah who was brainwashed by Kobra. So basically she's a second rate copy of a second rate Catwoman), Floronic Man, Killer Frost, Mist and Signalman

So a lot of the same faces here, and these guys managed to take down some key members of the JLA and JSA for their plan, one on one even.

So never underestimate the power of surprise. Sometimes the only thing that decides the outcome of the fight is who is the first one to know they are in a fight.

[q99]

True, though for "we'll win for sure with sheer weight of numbers," it seems like they'd be talking about a real army of villain.

[crinos]

Well, again, there's like Seven Justice league members. Granted they are pretty powerful, but not counting brainwave there are like 25 guys there. They outnumber them over 3 to 1.

And as I said, this team has the potential to take down the League, presuming they have time to prepare. Think about it, Riddler and Prankster distract the League in order to split them up. J'onn gets jumped by Grodd and Heatwave. Green Lantern gets jumped by Crazy Quilt and Scarecrow (Crazy Quilt projecting yellow light on him so Scarecrow can fear gas him till he's to frightened to use the ring). Grundy, Cheetah and Star Sapphire take on Wonder Woman, Major Disaster, Fiddler and Killer Frost attack Atlantis, Wizard, Dr, Alchemy and Blockbuster jump Suiperman, Captain Boomerang, Black Hand and the Royal Flush Gang hit The Flash, and that leads Ivy, Woodrue, Cheshire and Deadshot to hit Batman.

With proper coordination, a little luck, and of course the element of surprise, this is totally doable,

[q99]

True, it's *doable*, but it's also a relatively normal approach that's been tried fairly often and occasionally done well, not an unusual exceptional teamup.

[scorntx]

Gosh, Mark Millar really likes the plot-beat of "all the supervillains team up and have absolutely no problems doing so", along with the almost obligatory comment of "I don't WHY we never did this before", doesn't he?

I mean, 1985 gets a pass because they were all brainwashed, but... dude likes using it.

(Just once, it'd be nice to see a story where this happens, and all the supervillains fall over one another in a big free-for-all due to their inherently clashing goals or personalities before ever getting on the heroes' radar, rather than them all becoming one big faceless mass of henchpeople for whichever villain suggested it.)

[zylly]

I think it depends on the villains, because really, you have multiple categories going on here.

1) Bank robbers with a gimmick (inclusive of the Rogues, the Royal Flush Gang, some Bat-villains)

2) Gangster types (like Blockbuster), with a moderate interest in power

3) World conquerers (Grodd)

5) Stone cold killers (Deadshot, Bolt)

5) Absolute nutjobs

So depending on the mix, I could see a lot of minor villains throwing in with a big villain.

Granted, I'd also think a lot of the bank robber types would be more apt to realize there's no money in vendettas.