Villains United

Villains United trade paperback

The current DC Universe is exploding again. After 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which DC tried to correct all its alternative universe problems, the universe has gotten darker and yet more realistic. They killed Superman once (even though they acknowledge now that it was all a ploy designed to sell books), they broke Batman's back and he miraculously healed, they killed Robin, and they made Lex Luthor President of the United States. They have been getting darker as well.

We recently discovered in the epic mini-series Identity Crisis, quite possibly the best series that I personally have ever read, that the heroes mind-wiped some villains. Remember that heroes don't kill the bad guys. It's not like all the movies. In the comics, the bad guys do not die. When the villain Dr. Light is discovered brutally attacking and raping (told ya it was getting darker) Sue Dibny, the wife of the Justice League's Elongated Man, the heroes don't know how to prevent further attacks. If the bad guys start attacking family members, family without powers, who is safe? Yet the "code" says they can't just kill the guy and prison never holds them. So they decide to enlist the sorceress-magician Zatanna, a member of the Justice League, to mind-wipe the villain. The problem is that they don't just do it once. They've done it multiple times. This explains those villains that always seem to be stupid, relating plans and individually attacking teams. Just being plain stupid and laughable. It comes from the damage from the mind-wipe.

The bad guys find out. All the bad guys are simply pissed. Somehow a line has been crossed. That is the premise of Villains United. Lex Luthor, Deathstroke, and a few other villains that you have to be really into the DC Universe to even know about, have banded together to declare outright war on the good guys. Their final plan is this machine that will globally mind-wipe select members of the Justice League (remember, it's a comic book). The problem is that there are six villains that don't want to join and get recruited by the enigmatic figure known as Mockingbird to wage a counter-battle against the Society of Supervillains emerging. Again, unless you know the DC Universe, telling you that our protagonist villains are Catman, Chesire, Scandal, Deadshot, Parademon, and Ragdoll really doesn't help. Admittedly, I have barely heard of some of these villains throughout the entire book. They make interesting new protagonists.

What's interesting about this book, originally a six-issue limited series leading up to Infinite Crisis, when villains fight each other, they are plain nasty. There is real pain inflicted. There are some real devious methods used. There is betrayal. There is betrayal among villains banded together because they are simply villains. It is kind of like watching an episode of The Sopranos. You know they are all bad guys and are just amazed at how much they fight each other instead of just the cops.

The ending revelation of exactly who the Mockingbird character is again provides an awesome "A-HA!" moment for us DC fans. It ties in well with years of continuity. I realize after reading this that I wish that some books would concentrate more on some bad guys and their motives and fights. This was a fun and great read.