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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 19, 2022 9:17:31 GMT -5
Roquefort Raider , you got Bushwhacker and Ammo the wrong way round. Bushwhacker is the one can form his arm into a gun, and Ammo is the Village People reject with an eyepatch and blonde dye job.  Thanks! All fixed now. |
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Post by DubipR on Dec 19, 2022 9:22:48 GMT -5
#6- Sinister Syndicate I love the 1980s era of Amazing Spider-Man. Aside the whole Secret Wars black costume, the one that Felicia Hardy made for him was also a great look to him. The Hobgoblin storyline that made for some fantastic and underrated stories. During that run, Peter Parker had some run-ins with Silver Sable, who I'm a big fan of her. One particular team-up, in issue ASM 280 brought together an interesting batch of baddies that for the right amount of money would kick the snot out of Spider-Man. Enter the Sinister Syndicate. Also it now has gone through a few versions, the original team of The Beetle (leader), Hydro-Man, Speed Demon, Boomerang and The Rhino is the one I enjoy. In their debut together, the syndicate was hired by Jack O'Lantern to keep Silver Sable away from being captured. Silver Sable hires Spider-Man as additional muscle and Coney Island is laid to waste from their tussle. I'm a big fan of Ron Frenz's artwork. Coming from the Romita school of drawing, his characters are classic. I've always liked The Beetle. Great costume and an interesting baddie. Speed Demon was always cool, as I like speedsters. But the new design of the Rhino I totally dig. I like the shoulder plates design on this costume. Hydro-Man, like The Sandman (who makes an appearance in ASM 281) is just some schmoe in street clothes, which always bothered me but his powers are neat. Boomerang was a middle level baddie like Speed Demon. Just an odd collection of B and C-lister characters in the 80s. I've always had an affection for those guys over the main foes for any hero.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2022 9:59:06 GMT -5
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Villainy brought me a whole host of villains-Space Ghost's rogues gallery-Zorak, Brak, Lurker, Mettalus, the Creature King, all united by the Sinister Spectre   Space Ghost was a favorite of my Saturday morning viewing fare, and I had no idea that there were Space Ghost comic books or that Gold Key had produced comics featuring him in the 60s, so imagine my surprise when in 1987, Comico released a one-shot drawn by Steve Rude featuring Space Ghost. I was delighted and snapped up the issue where a mysterious new villain (The Sinister Spectre) breaks all of Space Ghost's most deadly villains out of Gaolworld and they united to take on Space Ghost and his trio of sidekicks, Jace, Jan, and Blip the Space Monkey. I was disappointed there wasn't more than 1 issue, but this one-shot remains one of my all time favorites and this collection of evil-doers really bridge the nostalgic picks and the picks of villains I still dig a lot for this event. -M |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 19, 2022 10:08:51 GMT -5
I wish I had thought of Space Ghost!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 19, 2022 10:51:23 GMT -5
Roquefort Raider , you got Bushwhacker and Ammo the wrong way round. Bushwhacker is the one can form his arm into a gun, and Ammo is the Village People reject with an eyepatch and blonde dye job. Thanks! All fixed now. Being unfamiliar with any of them, this was pretty confusing, since on that cover, the guy with the gun-arm also had blond hair and a patch over his eye. Evidently the Ammo character doesn't appear on this cover? Anyway, "Ammo" seems like a more appropriate name for the gun-arm guy, so I was really befuddled! Edited to respond to a later post, because I don't want to clutter this thread with too much discussion: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't know how I missed Ammo on the cover there, but I didn't see him. I wouldn't say this is a poorly composed cover, but somehow that figure just didn't register in my brain. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 19, 2022 10:52:02 GMT -5
I need to get that Comico Space Ghost comic again.
Cei-U!
I summon further proof I'm getting old: I can't remember where my earlier copy went!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 19, 2022 11:30:45 GMT -5
Being unfamiliar with any of them, this was pretty confusing, since on that cover, the guy with the gun-arm also had blond hair and a patch over his eye. Evidently the Ammo character doesn't appear on this cover? Anyway, "Ammo" seems like a more appropriate name for the gun-arm guy, so I was really befuddled! Ammo is the one with the baseball bat. I agree that the name would be fitting for Gun-For-Arm Lad, which probably explains my confused memory! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 19, 2022 13:57:37 GMT -5
6. Injustice Society (All-Star Comics 37)"Attack of the Underworld Giants"*
  Forget what other posters tell you; I was too young to see the asteroid hit the Yucatan and to read the classic story pitting the Injustice Society of Earth-Two against the JSA. I read it first in JLA during its 100-page giant incarnation and hadn’t read it since until a year or two ago when I picked up a copy of the All-Star Archives on the cheap and there it was again in all its old-fashioned glory. This time I read it slowly, absorbing its primitive, quaint, innocent approach to the notion of super-heroes and putting myself as best I could into the shoes of a kid in 1947. I read “between the panels,” too, supplying the kinds of details that would have been added by Roy Thomas in the 70s or a contemporary writer for whom the first two pages would have been the first two issues of a maxi-series. As Cei-U mentioned earlier, the plot was a grabber, perfect for a book like this. Hordes of escaped killers roam the nation looking for revenge, led by evil ganglords. (Sounds like a Fox News Alert, now that I think about it.) For me, reading it was like watching a 70-minute 1940s Warner Brothers crime movie, with the emphasis on danger, excitement, and conflict. You need details, fill them in yourself, bub, or get out of the theatre, or comic, as the case may be. I also loved the way the criminals look like criminals; the hell with deceptive appearances, they seemed to say, just glare angrily, grin madly or stare heartlessly as you carve the US of A into fiefdoms. The ISA must have seemed more menacing a cadre of crooks in 1947, too. After all, the Axis had planned just such a partitioning of America only a couple of years before, a threat well depicted in many a comic during the war. The ISA was a pretty despicable gathering of a nasty-ass clan. Even guys like the Gambler made you think they meant business. They may not look like much now in their less than sophisticated depiction, but try reading it as if you were a Jack Finney character willing yourself back in time, and you might see it as the Golden Age epic it was. *Mystery in Space 86
PS: Am I crazy, or did Brain Wave look a whole lot like Dr. Sivana? I wonder if Fawcett was ticked to see him pop up three years after their major arch-villain.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 19, 2022 15:23:00 GMT -5
(Sounds like a Fox News Alert, now that I think about it.) (...) Yeah, but the Fox was still an Archie/MLJ character at that point...  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2022 15:50:42 GMT -5
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Villainy brought me a whole host of villains-Space Ghost's rogues gallery-Zorak, Brak, Lurker, Mettalus, the Creature King, all united by the Sinister Spectre. These were new to me. I only know of Space Ghost, I can’t swear I’ve ever watched his cartoon or read a comic. Nice to discover new teams in this topic. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2022 15:52:12 GMT -5
#6- Sinister SyndicateJust an odd collection of B and C-lister characters in the 80s. I've always had an affection for those guys over the main foes for any hero. Nice choice. I, too, have an affection for villains of lesser renown, particularly within Batman’s comics. Sure, it’s great to see the Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Bane and others, but I was more drawn to those who weren’t over-exposed, such as Catman, Crazy Quilt, Blockbuster and others. |
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Post by Jeddak on Dec 19, 2022 19:05:05 GMT -5
#6 - The Crime Syndicate of Earth-3  (There have been a lot of different versions of this team in the DC continuity. I'm talking about the originals, from Justice League of America 29-30.) I'm a sucker for evil counterparts, always have been. The path not taken, the dark side unleashed, all that. So after the first crisis had introduced me to an alternate JLA from Earth-2 (as I thought of them), it just made sense for the new crisis to give us a bad Justice League. So these guys had the whole doppelganger thing going for them, and powers I was already familiar with. Plus, since they were created at the same time, their costumes didn't clash, which was nice. But another, subtler aspect to the characters made them even cooler. See, they had no super-competition on their world, so they always won. This made them confident, even casual about their crimes. It was only when they realized they were getting soft, losing their edge, that they decided to challenge the super-heroes of 2 other worlds. (Though even then, they only seemed to take the League seriously, hardly giving any thought to their fight with the JSA.) Arrogant s.o.b.s, am I right? |
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Post by Myke Gee on Dec 19, 2022 20:32:31 GMT -5
6. ZODIAC II The Zodiac was the name of a criminal organization whose members were named and costumed after a sign of the astrological zodiac. Over the years, there have been various incarnations of the organization. The android Zodiac was created by Jacob Fury, a member of the human Zodiac Cartel, in hopes of creating a team that would operate under his control. Jacob Fury, as Scorpio, was believed to have died in a previous attempt to kill his brother, Nick Fury, the public director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Scorpio wielded an ankh-shaped extra-dimensional power object called the Zodiac Key, which could fire energy bolts and teleport people and objects, even from one dimension to another. The Key originated in another dimension where conflict, especially between the forces of good and evil, in which neither side entirely and permanently defeats the other, is prized above all else. However, when conflict had waned there over time, a cult of beings known as the Brotherhood created the Zodiac Key and sent it to Earth, believing that the Key would perpetuate the struggle between good and evil, as the battle was more intense on Earth than in their own world. The Key appeared to Jacob Fury, drawn to him by his great potential for doing evil, motivated by his intense hatred of his brother and of the society and governmental system that Nick Fury worked to protect. Jacob Fury had not died in his last defeat, and he recovered the Zodiac Key after it had been sent back to Earth by the Brotherhood. Fury again assumed the role of Scorpio and used the Zodiac Key as an energy source for his "Theater of Genetics." In this laboratory he created eleven sophisticated androids known as Life Model Decoys (LMDs) to serve as members of his own Zodiac organization. The Capricorn and Pisces androids, however, died due to imperfections soon after their activation, and the Virgo android proved to be impossible to activate. Fury again went after his brother, but the Defenders and their ally, Moon Knight, defeated the Zodiac LMDs. Jacob Fury, engulfed by despair at the failure of his plans, committed suicide by shooting himself. Nick Fury came to the scene and found his brother's corpse. But this was not the end of Jacob Fury. The sentient Zodiac Key constructed an LMD in his form. This LMD believed itself to be the original Jacob Fury and that the original Jacob Fury's spirit and consciousness were transplanted by the Key into this android form. The Jacob Fury LMD, retaining the identity of Scorpio, found the Zodiac androids that had escaped from the Defenders and created new ones to replace Capricorn, Pisces, Virgo, the Zodiac androids that had been destroyed by S.H.I.E.L.D. after their capture. The new android Zodiac first appeared having been organized by the Avengers’ then-renegade member, Quicksilver, although the exact details of Quicksilver’s recruitment remains unrevealed. Quicksilver, who was then temporarily insane, ordered the Zodiac to defeat the Avengers in revenge for imagined wrongs. However, the Avengers defeated them all before escaping to regroup. Most of the androids were placed in federal custody. The android Zodiac were soon released, and the Scorpio LMD rebuilt a number of them. Scorpio used the Zodiac Key to create LMDs that exemplified the forces and personalities inherent in each sign, hoping to create great strength in the combination of all twelve traits of the Zodiac. At some point the android Zodiac captured and presumably killed the human Scorpio, Jacques LaPoint. Jacob Fury's Scorpio android then impersonated him and infiltrated the original, human Zodiac organization. He arranged the ambush in which the android Zodiac killed all of the remaining human Zodiac leaders except Cornelius van Lunt, alias Taurus. Immediately afterward, Van Lunt sought out the services of the Avengers' West Coast branch to confront and defeat the android Zodiac. In their initial foray, the Avengers failed, although several androids were destroyed. Sagittarius, in particular, was destroyed and replaced with an LMD replica of the Avengers’ Hawkeye. Hawkeye's LMD was used to infiltrate the Avengers' headquarters, and Scorpio also made a Leo LMD in the form of the Avengers’ Tigra for additional infiltration. This new Leo LMD helped the Zodiac gain an upper hand when the Avengers tracked the Zodiac to their refuge in Death Valley, California, but the first android Leo took offence at being replaced. He battled Scorpio directly, seemingly destroying him. The Zodiac Key immediately resurrected the Scorpio LMD. Claiming superiority and believing that the Zodiac would eventually kill the Avengers as the androids could never be stopped, Scorpio wanted to use the Key to transport everyone on the scene to the Key's native dimension where the conflict, he believed, could be prolonged indefinitely. However, when the androids were in the other dimension, they ceased to function because each of them were aligned with a particular zodiacal energy, energy that did not exist in the other dimension. The Avengers found Hawkeye and Tigra had been sent to the same dimension and, reunited, the team was sent back to Earth by the Brotherhood. However, secretly the Brotherhood waited so that someday they could also send the Key to Earth again and create new conflicts for them. Members: Aquarius, Aries, Cancer, Capricorn, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Pisces, Sagittarius, Taurus, Virgo, Leo. Creators: David Anthony Kraft and Keith Giffen. First Appearance: THE DEFENDERS VOL. 1, #49.***** I love a super-villain group with a theme! However, the criminal cartel Zodiac did nothing for me. They were corny-looking and they had no powers. How they ever gave the Avengers trouble is beyond me. The LMD, at least, betters costumes and had powers or weaponry that made a bit more sense to me. Not much else to say about this group. I just dig them. |
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Post by coke & comics on Dec 20, 2022 7:03:35 GMT -5
6. Harley & Ivy
Batman & Robin Adventures #8, DC, 1996  It's just cute how they're such good friends. They first teamed up in the animated series. Not certain of the first comic team-up. This seemed like a good guess.
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 20, 2022 7:20:13 GMT -5
6. Harley & Ivy
Batman & Robin Adventures #8, DC, 1996 Doggonnit! Why didn't I think of Harley and Ivy? If I wren't committed to my chosen final four, I would so ditch one of 'em for this team.
Cei-U! I summon the lost opportunity!
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