by Scott Tipton
October 19, 2005
WHO’S WHO, ROUND TWO: THE LEGION OF DOOM
If my recent e-correspondence is any indication, there’s a lot of you out there watching and digging on JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED. As the citizens of discerning tastes I know you all to be, this comes as no surprise, as JLU is episode for episode probably the best exploration of DC’s characters ever undertaken in an animated format. Combining Bruce Timm’s renowned sense of design with both a deep respect for DC’s rich publishing history and a willingness to take chances with bold stories and characterizations of their own (under the careful hand of ace writer/producer Dwayne McDuffie), JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED is at present the best place to go for the truest, most character-accurate versions of DC’s heroes in any format, TV comics or otherwise.
With the new season of JLU having started last month, I’ve recently been besieged with requests for another character rundown, this time of the Justice League’s opposite number, Gorilla Grodd’s as-yet-untitled “Legion of Doom.” What can I say? Ask, and ye shall receive…
(And just in case you wondering, in the shot above, we have: Gorilla Grodd front and center, and behind him, from left to right, are Dr. Destiny, Cheetah, Evil Star, Atomic Skull, Devil Ray, Bizarro, Parasite, Giganta, Dr. Cyber, the Shark, Silver Banshee, Blockbuster, Dr. Polaris, Killer Frost, Queen Bee, the Puzzler, the KGBeast, Sinestro, the Gentleman Ghost, Black Mass, Star Sapphire, Toyman, Copperhead, Metallo and Rampage.)
Atomic Skull: And no, that’s not Ghost Rider. This guy showed up first back in 1970s issues of SUPERMAN, as Dr. Albert Michaels, a scientist type who had founded the famous DC science conglomerate STAR Labs, and later turned out to be the leader of SKULL, a secret-science-crime-type organization that the Man of Steel was contending with at the time. The first Atomic Skull was mostly just a dude in armor. The second guy to bear the name made his debut in the early 1990s, a fellow named Joseph Martin who found himself developing superpowers as a result of the “genebomb” that went off in Earth’s atmosphere in DC’s then-current INVASION! crossover. Suddenly, poor Joe lost all his hair and the skin on his face contracted, making him look, well, like a skull, while suddenly possessing superhuman strength, endurance and the ability to generate energy blasts. Driven mad by the transformation, Martin thought of himself as “the Atomic Skull,” the hero of an adventure serial he’d enjoyed on television.
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Looks like the television version is taking its inspiration from the more recent version. It’s all good either way, because the real selling point here is that name. Hard to think of a cooler villain name than “Atomic Skull”…
Bizarro: Superman’s imperfect duplicate created by Lex Luthor, you can read all about Bizarro right here.
The animated version of Bizarro made several appearances on SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and made his return on JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED last year in the episode “Ultimatum.” Since Bizarro was last seen on SUPERMAN happily residing on his own planet with one of Superman’s freaky alien pets from his intergalactic zoo, it’s not clear how he came back to Earth. For that matter, why Bizarro went bad hasn’t been explained either (as he was mostly just misunderstood in his earlier appearances), but one can assume that it wouldn’t be too hard for Grodd to mislead him into signing on.
Black Mass: Black Mass was a member of the Cadre, a team of supervillains created by the alien Overmaster as his agents in his quest to determine the overall worth of humanity. This all took place on the early days of the Justice League Detroit run, circa JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #234, which would probably explain why you don’t remember it.
Born Geoffrey Thibodeaux, the slender physicist would grow to a prodigious 9-foot-tall, 1,000-pound mammoth, thanks to the wristbands given him by the Overmaster, which allow him to control graviton particles. The wristbands grant him limited control over gravity, letting him create “gravity wells” and like that. Another example of a fellow picked by JLU producers almost entirely for his look, I’ll wager.
Blockbuster: Think of this guy as DC’s Hulk without the emerald hue or the charming personality. First showing up in DETECTIVE COMICS back in 1965, Blockbuster was the result of chemist Mark Desmond’s research in a serum that would increase physical strength. It did so, but with the side effect of leaving the subject nearly mindless in intellect. Initially, Mark would be manipulated by his criminal brother Roland into committing crimes as the Blockbuster, and was conditioned by Roland to hate and want to destroy Batman. Ironically, Bruce Wayne had once saved the life of Mark Desmond, so all Batman would have to do is unmask in order to calm the Blockbuster down.
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Blockbuster appeared very sporadically throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, before being killed off on the very first mission of the 1987 version of the Suicide Squad. Mark’s brother Roland later would take the serum and become Blockbuster himself with very similar results, until striking a deal with the demon Neron that allowed him to retain both his newfound strength and his intelligence. The new Blockbuster then took over all the organized crime operations in the city of Bludhaven, finding himself often at odds with Bludhaven’s protector Nightwing, at least until Roland’s murder at the hands of Nightwing’s vigilante associate the Tarantula. The JLU version is very much the classic old-school “orange-tattered-shirt-and-purple-pants” version of the character.
Cheetah: The Cheetah character has been around in WONDER WOMAN comics since the Golden Age, with the original version first appearing in 1943. As originally conceived, the Cheetah was spoiled debutante Priscilla Rich, who suffered from a split personality and would often find herself attacking Wonder Woman in a skintight leopard-print (or, one supposes, cheetah-print, to be precise) leotard.
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The updated version of the Cheetah as seen in George Perez’s post-CRISIS Wonder Woman revamp is a much more imposing and cool character, archaeologist Barbara Minerva, who took part in an ancient ceremony to give herself the powers of a South American feline god, and as a result is now a half-human/half-cat creature with physical attributes making her a match for Princess Diana. This seems to be the version that the JLU series is taking its lead from, although their Cheetah, seen in both the Injustice Gang and briefly in the new Legion, seems more even-tempered and reasonable than the current DC Universe comics version.
Copperhead: Copperhead is a somewhat second-rate supervillain in the DC Universe, who’s fought everyone from Batman to Superboy to Starman.
Initially he was a contortionist with a silicon-coated suit that allowed him to squeeze through small crevasses and narrow openings, until selling his soul to Neron in DC’s UNDERWORLD UNLEASHED event, in which he was transformed into an actual snake-man, with a real tail and poisonous venom dripping from his teeth. I think he was recently killed off in the pages of DC’s new MANHUNTER series. The animated version is a nod to his more recent snakeman incarnation.
Devil Ray: Heh. Devil Ray is nothing like Black Manta. Certainly not.
Since clearance issues apparently preclude Aquaman and Black Manta from appearing on future episodes of JLU (which I suppose means someone else has been sold the “Aquaman” rights. Good luck with that one, buddy.), this new Black Manta-esque character was introduced in a recent episode, and I gotta say, I like him just fine. Although I love the classic Black Manta helmet made famous in CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS, there really isn’t a whole lot more to the character, so changing him to “Devil Ray” doesn’t really bother me all that much, especially since an attempt was made to at least somewhat retain the design. In the comics, Black Manta was briefly transformed into an actual Manta-human hybrid (are you sensing a theme here, by the way?) a few years back, but wiser heads prevailed and the Manta is now back to his old ways and his enormous helmet.
Doctor Cyber: This fairly obscure character was one of Wonder Woman’s enemies in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
A female crimelord who blamed Diana for her facial disfigurement, Cyber wore a metal mask that hid her features and could link her brain and neural system to electronics and computers. Kurt Busiek revived the character a couple years back and used her in his POWER COMPANY series. A surprising choice; I’ll be curious to see if she gets much screen time in upcoming episodes.
Doctor Destiny: Alias John Dee, Dr. Destiny is a longtime JLA foe, usually making use of a device called the Materioptikon to interfere with the Justice Leaguers through their dreams.
For a look at John Dee at his absolute worst, take a look at PRELUDES AND NOCTURNES, the first SANDMAN graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, which includes a story about Dee brutally torturing the staff and patrons of a small-town roadside diner. It’s one of the scariest comics I’ve ever read. He’s previously appeared on JUSTICE LEAGUE in the episodes “Only a Dream,” with a design that some have remarked is a little too reminiscent of Skeletor, but I certainly found it sufficiently creepy, and besides, he had the look first.
Doctor Polaris: Dr. Polaris is pretty much the DC version of Magneto, being the most powerful guy running around with magnetic powers. Primarily a Green Lantern villain at first, Dr. Polaris has since battled everyone from the Justice League to the Titans to third-stringers like the Ray and Damage.
Dr. Polaris was another one of the DC villains with the ol’ split-personality syndrome, a character bit that was capitalized on by writer Gail Simone in a recent issue of ACTION COMICS to pretty good effect. Dr. Polaris has also managed to hang on to his decidedly Silver-Age costume design, complete with the tuning forks on his head and the magnet on his chest.
Evil Star: An old-school Silver Age Green Lantern bad guy, Evil Star was an alien scientist who invented a device called the Starband, which both rendered him immortal and turned him, well, evil (probably could have guessed that – it says so right in his name. I mean, he’s not called “Neutral Star”).
Kind of a mixed bag if you ask me. When his people wanted him to give up the Starband (and his immortality), things turned ugly, and by the end of it, all the people on his home planet of Auron were dead, except for him. The Starband could create forcebands and hard-light constructs, and even weirder, create miniature versions of himself called Starlings. I’m not sure how he’s going to work in a team environment, but it’ll be worth it just to see a bunch of those little Star Jr. dudes running around.
Gentleman Ghost: The restless spirit of 1800s highwayman “Gentleman Jim” Craddock, the Gentleman Ghost has long been a thorn in the side of Hawkman, continuing in his criminal ways despite no longer being among the living. In the current HAWKMAN series, it was recently revealed that in one of his earlier reincarnations it was Hawkman himself who killed “Gentleman Jim” Braddock, accidentally thinking the thief guilty of a more heinous crime, and as a result, the Gentleman Ghost can never rest until his murderer is dead, and since Hawkman is continually reincarnated, the Ghost is cursed to walk the Earth forever.
The Gentleman Ghost design is a sharp one, with a floating top hat and monocle over an all-white fancy suit and cloak, and no head. No surprise the JLU guys seem to have changed it not a whit.
Giganta: A Wonder Woman villain dating back to the 1940s, the colossal Giganta is probably best known from her appearances on CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS in the 1970s.
While her comic-book origins vary from the outlandish to the confusing (one of which involved her being artificially evolved from a gorilla), I liked the one they used in the SUPERFRIENDS cartoon, where she just out-and-out stole the growth formula from Apache Chief (a bit also enjoyed by current DC Comics writers Geoff Johns and Mark Waid, based on the commentary from the recent CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS DVD set).
Gorilla Grodd: A long-running FLASH supervillain, Gorilla Grodd hails from the super-secret Gorilla City, a scientifically advanced community of superintelligent gorillas, most of whom are peaceloving, with the exception of Grodd, whose repeated plans to take over both Gorilla City and the world have resulted in his often being imprisoned or banished from his hometown. With near-endless mental powers, Grodd can do everything from mindreading to generating psychic bolts to total mind control. Plus, he’s a big honkin’ gorilla.
They’ve used him several times before on JUSTICE LEAGUE to excellent effect, with the help of great performances from actor Powers Boothe, who doesn’t go for a clichéd “big scary gorilla” voice for the character, instead electing for an intelligent, slightly mannered and condescending, and flatly dangerous tone for the character.
Heat Wave: One of the second Flash’s longtime enemies, Mick Rory is a pretty standard supervillain whose entire identity is pretty much tied up in his gimmick, a flame gun and an asbestos suit.
More recently, Geoff Johns tried to flesh the character out psychologically with a “pyromania” angle, which helps a little, but at base he’s still not much more than a suit and a gun.
The Key: Another long-running Justice League enemy, the Key is, naturally, obsessed with all locks, traps and imprisonments. Having dosed himself with a variety of chemicals to give himself psionic abilities, the Key was occasionally able to control or enter the minds of the Justice League, proving himself to be much more dangerous than his somewhat goofy suit would suggest (an orange number with a head piece that makes him look like an actual key, a design I was surprised to see the JLU producers utilize.)
The Key’s high point in the comics was definitely his appearance in Grant Morrison’s JLA series, in which, having defeated the League and taken over the Watchtower, he has to contend with the League’s newest member, the second Green Arrow Connor Hawke. You can read all about it here.
KGBeast: Seeing this fellow show up on TV was a surprise. I’m not sure how he snuck past the embargo that currently prevents any Batman villains from appearing on JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, but the KGBeast here first appeared in BATMAN back in 1988, when the idea of a Soviet Union-trained assassin didn’t seem horribly dated.
Known for his unerring drive to succeed, the KGBeast cut off his own hand in order to escape capture by the Batman, and later replaced the hand with a stump-mounted automatic weapon. I don’t expect a lot of big dramatic moments with the KGBeast in future episodes, but he should make for good cannon fodder for the fight scenes.
Come on back next week for the conclusion of our “Legion of Doomtorial,” won’t you? If you have any questions about the Legion of Doom or comics in general, send them here.
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