The thing I love about comics is that the talent keeps pouring in. Say you are in the middle of really moribund stretch of shitfulness. Just wait and something good is right around the corner. In the 1980s, John Ostrander's Suicide Squad and Giffen's Justice League were breaths of fresh air. In the 90s, after crossover mania and the bubble bursting, James Robinson gave us Starman, Morrison gave us JLA and Johns gave us JSA. Say what you will about the ultimate outcome, but my favorite time to be a reader in the 2000s was in the lead up to Infinite Crisis.
Although the series itself was a bit of a let down, the countdown was very entertaining. Everything kind of unofficially kicked off with Identity Crisis (a very divisive mini series in which it was revealed that heroes had been erasing the minds of villains for years). The series was a hit but also kind of represented the apex of grim and gritty writing within mainstream, canonical comics. There was rape, murder, insanity, violence aplenty and heroes turning against each other.
I remember reading comments from Mark Waid in the lead up to Infinite Crisis that teased a return to fun in comics rather than dour, bloody gore. Years later, Waid would succeed in turning Daredevil, Marvel's grittiest title into one of the most enjoyable and light-hearted reads. Although DC disavowed Waid's quotes by the time Infinite Crisis came out, you would have been perfectly justified in believing that was the direction DC was heading in.
The idea was to get DC to its darkest point and then rebuild. Geoff Johns wrote an arc of Justice League where Batman finds out he was mind-wiped by his former teammates for refusing to go along with their plan to mind-wipe villains. This pretty much disbanded the Justice League. In "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" the Blue Beetle was shot through the face by Max Lord. To put things in context, both of these characters were part of the "Bwahahaha" era of the Justice League where comedy and action were mixed equally. Once one of your funniest characters is killed by someone who was never a serious character, things are looking dark.
Out of Countdown, four mini-series (arguably five) were launched to build anticipation for Infinite Crisis and get all the pieces on the board. One was Day of Vengeance, where the premise was that the Spectre (God's Wrath personified) is mislead by a villain into destroying all magic in the DCU. Basically, this was the company's way of saying, "Hey, we have lots of magic characters with lots of great potential."
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The second series was The OMAC Project. It followed Max Lord as he spied on and destabilized superheroes using technology a paranoid Batman had created. The culmination of the series spilled over into Wonder Woman and Superman comics where the two had to battle each other (long story). It ended with Wonder Woman murdering Max Lord on national television. The idea of the overall lead up was to separate Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman through differences of opinion. OMAC had to carry the weight of pulling that off by the time Infinite Crisis began. Superman lost control, Batman created evil tech and Wonder Woman murdered someone so all of them kind of hated each other by the end.
The third and (arguably) fourth series were tied pretty closely together. The Rann-Thanagar War was spun out of Andy Diggle's excellent Adam Strange series that revived interest in DC's Cosmic characters (like LEGION and the Omega Men). In regards to Infinite Crisis, it was a pretty useless series in that a weird hole was opening in the middle of the universe but these two giant civilizations (Rann and Thanagar, stay with me) are too busy killing each other to notice it. The little adjunct series to this was a mini called The Return of Donna Troy. As Superboy is to Superman and Nightwing is to Batman so is Donna Troy to Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, her history is garbled and confused and they needed a four issue exposition-only mini series to clear it all up. This is under the pretense of taking some of the heroes off Earth to go help with the Rann-Thanagar war. The Donna Troy thing amounted to nothing and the R-T War series was just a sci-fi version of Day of Judgment, meant to remind readers of the depth of the DCU.
Which brings me to (fucking finally) the point of this series of posts. The last mini to spin out of Countdown was Villains United. As with any crossover event, the idea is to "clean house" in some ways. Find ways to dramatically wrap up dead end storylines and cancel low selling titles while introducing new characters and new titles that will get readers hooked. Again, say what you will about the actual Infinite Crisis series but the resulting titles were almost uniformly excellent. Checkmate spun out of the OMAC Project, a new Blue Beetle series was launched that was a lot of fun, Shadowpact (a team of magic users) arose from Day of Vengeance and was mildly successful. But the best new title to spin from all this mess was The Secret Six that arose from Villains United.
I would place it as my favorite series of the 2000s. Gail Simone had recently split with Marvel and this was back in the day when Marvel lost talent to DC and not the other way around. Simone had already been given the keys to Birds of Prey (the all-female super-hero team) and proven herself adept at handling group dynamics. The powers that be handed her Villains United with the idea that Lex Luthor was gathering up a huge army of Super-Villains that would play into the Infinite Crisis story.
Comics are all about the illusion of change but this had to be a weird challenge of an assignment. Firstly, the ultimate purpose and use of the super-villain army couldn't be seen by the end of the series. Secondly, you have all the heroes busy in other books. Besides, you can't have a hero (or group of heroes) find out about the Society (as they are known in the books) because they either have to succeed in stopping the group (thereby cockblocking plans for Infinite Crisis) or they would have to fail (and considering the Countdown kicks off with the murder of Blue Beetle and the first issue of Infinite Crisis starts with the slaughter of the hero team known as The Freedom Fighters, this really isn't an option either).
Simone's solution (or maybe editorial?) was to create a group of villains who defied the requests to join the Society and actively fought against it. Again, a weird tight-rope had to be walked. If the villains were too A-list, they would need to be used in Infinite Crisis. If they were too shitty, no one would believe they could stand up to an army of villains by themselves. Thus, the Secret Six was born. Simone gathered a group of original characters with ties to continuity (Parademon, Ragdoll and Scandal) a couple of b-listers with a cult following (Cheshire and Deadshot) as well as a c-lister in need of a serious character rehab (Catman).
Today, since my preamble was so long, I am just going to cover the first issue of Villains United today. The whole series was a bait and switch of sorts, which was pulled off in this debut issue. The cover features Lex Luthor (Superman's arch enemy, duh), The Calculator (recently beefed up lame-o villain who acted as a counterpoint to Barbara Gordon's Oracle character, a sort of information merchant to villains), Dr. Psycho (Wonder Woman's enemy who Gail Simone writes the shit out of), Talia Al Ghul (Batman's one time lover and daughter of his arch-nemesis), Black Adam (the enemy of Captain Marvel) and Deathstroke the Terminator (long time enemy of the Teen Titans and pretty much most badass villain in the DCU, Deadpool over at Marvel is an homage to him). If these six were going to be your core cast, what a kickass book that would be! It would be like an evil Justice League.
Instead, the first issue is what one thought the entire series was going to be, it is about getting the band together. The core group is already assembled when this issue starts. Over the opening pages we watch the various members recruit Mr. Freeze, the Shadow Thief, Multiplex, Cheetah, Black Manta, Felix Faust and a host of other villains. All of them accept entry into the group until we get to...Catman. Last seen as a schlubby loser in Green Arrow, Simone and artist Dale Eaglesham have reinvented him as a Tarzan figure. Talia and Dr. Psycho are sent packing when Catman's pride of lions chase them away.
This leads to a scene of the inner circle of the Society debating what should be done about Catman. The rantings of Dr. Psycho in this scene are hilarious and it made me wish Gail Simone would always write him. Luthor rather ominously declares that he won't touch Catman at all.
Next, we see the Secret Six in action somewhere in the Amazon jungle. Scandal is defined as officious and overbearing. Deadshot is disinterested in the goings on. Cheshire, the Parademon and a new Ragdoll are shown as being quite effective in their deadliness. Poor Fiddler (a Golden Age Flash villain) is shown being completely useless. After the action resolves, they are given orders to kill Fiddler for his incompetence. Deadshot does so unceremoniously. This whole scene plays out as a nice summation of where the DCU is at the lead up to Infinite Crisis. The gimmicks of the Golden Age are thought of as hokey and useless. The only thing that resonates is violence, murder, bloodshed. In a few lines of dialogue, Cheshire is shown as professional and ruthless, the Parademon is oddly attached to Ragdoll but plays the part of a dumb brute and if you don't read Ragdoll's dialogue with the voice of David Hyde Pierce from Frazier in your head, you are doing it wrong.
Also, if you don't know what these people do, this is a handy intro to their skill sets as well. The Parademon is a bruiser who can fly. Ragdoll can wrap his body around his victims and squeeze them to death like a snake. Deadshot is a really good shooter and although we don't see Cheshire in action, we get the feeling she kicks ass. Later, I will get into back stories of these characters but for right now, this is all we as readers know based on the info in the issue.
Scandal and Deadshot go to recruit Catman into their group to replace Fiddler. Even though Eaglesham drops the ball on the art here, the implication is that Deathstroke has slaughtered Catman's lions on Luthor's orders (one was even with child!). Catman agrees to join the Six but also sends a mysterious letter to Green Arrow. Catman is brought the House of Secrets, the base of the Six that exists outside of normal space and time. As a nod to the original Secret Six series from the silver age, their leader is shown to be a shadowy figure known only as Mockingbird. Mockingbird reveals that he has something hanging over all of them in case they wish to leave. He also dangles the carrot of giving them each a continent to rule over if they succeed in destroying the Society.
So we have a group of villains battling another group of villains not out of any heroic impulse but from the motives of greed, fear and revenge. Readers quickly realized, we aren't going to be following Luthor and his Society so much as we will be following the Secret Six. As scummy and evil as they are, they are our protagonists. However, they aren't even as fun and interesting as the Society. How would Simone make them into readable characters?
For the next 5 parts I'll be doing issue reviews (or storyline reviews as is warranted) and discussing some aspect of the series.
Part 2 will feature the character's ties to the larger continuity of the DCU and what roles they fill in a classic team scenario. Also, I will focus on Villains United 2-6, The Villains United Special and the first five issues of the Secret Six Mini series.
Part 3 will be about the pitfalls of writing an ongoing series about villains. Issues looked at will be the last issue of the Secret Six mini, Birds of Prey 104-108 and the first six issues of the Secret Six ongoing series.
Part 4 will be about the legacy of John Ostrander's Suicide Squad series and, especially, how Deadshot serves as an example of overcoming the villain problem. I will focus on Secret Six 7-16 and Suicide Squad 67.
Part 5 will be about the rehabilitation of Catman as a viable character and some of the other nifty things Simone pulls off in her run. Issues focused on will be Secret Six 17-20, Birds of Prey 11, and Secret Six 21 to 26.
Part 6 will be a post-mortem on why the series never flew (sales wise) and what lessons can be learned. Issues covered will be Secret Six 27-28, Action Comics 896, Secret Six 29-30, Doom Patrol 19 and Secret Six 31 to 36.
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