10. Every Groo Villain Ever
Occurred in Sergio Aragones' Groo The Wanderer (Marvel) #35 (January 1988)
By Sergio Aragones

Look, as entertaining and talented as Sergio Aragones is, Groo stories tend to run together pretty forgettably. However, one thing Groo absolutely has going for it is very memorable antagonists. Giving them a story where Groo wishes them all into the same room with god-like powers, only to ultimately drown them in cheese dip, was pretty much the best thing ever. The sheer amount of personality Aragones packs into those panels as each of these totally different characters finds an instant commonality in hating and fearing Groo...



Classic.

10. Super-Axis
first appearance: Invaders #38 (#41 in their full complement)
line-up: Lady Lotus, U-man, Baron Blood, Warrior Woman and Master Man

(this image is from the much later story, Forever Allies)
Although I liked the concept of the Invaders, I only sporadically read it for most of its run (I think a big factor was the pretty wonky art by Frank Robbins). But then at around issue no. 35 or 36 – after Alan Kupperberg had become the main artist (and Don Glut took over the scripting from Roy Thomas) – I started picking it up regularly, and to the young me back in 1979 it seemed to really kick into gear with issue no. 38. That was when the beguiling but nefarious Lady Lotus enlisted the aid of the renegade Atlantean U-man in a long-running scheme to take down those pesky Invaders once and for all. Soon the vile Baron Blood came aboard, and then finally the uber-Nazis Warrior Woman and Master Man joined the fold for a big showdown in what – to my regret back then – ended up being the last issue of the series. But it was a great story and an ideal finale – I especially liked the key role played by Sub-mariner taking them down. Anyway, I re-read those last four issues quite a bit back then, and they left quite an impression on me, because even though I haven’t read that story since probably early 1980s, I still thought of these guys as one of my favorite instances of super-villains joining forces.

Because the female of the species is more deadly than the male...

10. Circe's villainesses Wonder Woman #174-175 (2001)



Similar idea to yesterday's pick, but a slightly different application.

In "The Witch & the Warrior", the Earth still is repairing itself after the events of "Our Worlds at War." So naturally, the evil sorceress Circe decides to take advantage by transforming the weary male heroes of the JLA, JSA, Titans, and Young Justice into fantastic creatures that a cadre of super-villainesses will hunt down and kill! Wonder Woman must assemble a team of Earth's greatest heroines - including Power Girl, Doctor Light, Vixen, Black Canary, and Troia - to save the heroes, while she saves Superman.

10. House Tagge



A long time ago, in a galaxy pretty darn close, a young boy's imagination had been fired up by the Star Wars movie. He wanted more. Alas, those were the days before videotapes and home computers; the best one could hope for after watching the film during its initial release was to get some ancillary material like the novelization or... comics. The thing is, the first Star Wars comics weren't very good, the presence of a certain green rabbit notwithstanding. In fact, they were downright bad most of the time; closer, as far as I was concerned, to Lost in Space silliness than to George Lucas' more elaborate and well-defined fantasy world.

Eventually, story arcs like The Wheel got us closer to what I really wanted, but there was one important thing missing: a good villain.

Oh, I understood even back then that comic writers weren't allowed to do anything significant before the eventual Star Wars sequel came out; it wouldn't do to have the status quo upset in ways that would later be contradicted. But what kind of credible threat could one use if Darth Vader wasn't available?

Enter the House of Tagge. Apparently, one of the dudes at the Death Star meeting (the one where Vader infamously found someone's lack of faith disturbing) is supposed to be a certain General Cassio Tagge, even though he's not called by name in the movie. But in the comic, the House of Tagge would be built into a rich and credible threat under the pen of Archie Goodwin, providing our star warriors with a more than decent opposition. Cassio might be dead, but he had several siblings!

Orman Tagge was pretty cool, as dramatic figures go; an ambitious aristocrat, blinded by Darth Vader himself, Orman got his hands on a lightsabre in a pawn shop somewhere and trained himself in its use, hoping to get revenge on his nemesis using his own weapon of choice. I love it when villains don't only take on the good guys but work against each other too! (Oh, and Orman did not go the Zatoichi way... he wore cybernetic goggles restoring his sight).

One Tagge would have been good, but several was better! Rounding up the ranks are Silas, a mad scientist type who invented all sorts of things that made our heroes' life difficult; kid brother Ulric (a military type, mostly used a sa foil for Orman) and Sister Domina, who would put the moves on a naive Luke Skywalker (whom she blamed for her elder brother's demise) just to set him up for a ghastly fate. Domina was quite a shrewd strategist, as she managed to catch both Luke and Darth Vader in her trap.

The Tagges represented the kind of direction I would have wanted the franchise to go after the death of the emperor in the third film; instead of starting freash with a renewed republic, I'd have liked to see powerful families commanding troops of their own and trying to preserve the imperial system. I mean, how much sense does it make for an entire political system to collapse just because oe guy dies? Alas, Marvel decided instead to go the alien invasion route.

The House of Tagge, alongside Shira Bree, were contributions to the Star Wars universe that outclass anything that came after the original trilogy (and a lot that was introduced in there as well)!

Spoiler alert, but they're going way higher for me. There aren't too many villains who I find truly scary, but The Dark Judges fit the bill. 

I've read this particular tidbit in many Shooter interviews too; Weisinger was well known for encouraging his writers to borrow from other sources (movies, fairy tales, books, etc.).  What's also interesting is that Shooter's Fatal Five debuted in Adventure #352, which was on sale in November 1966--months before the film premiered in June 1967!  

However the 1965 novel was a best-seller and excerpted in magazines, etc., plus from what I understand there was a lot of pre-release publicity and information around about the making of the movie--so even without actually seeing the movie its basic premise was well-known, and on the radar of people like Weisinger and Shooter who were on the lookout for story ideas. 

Injustice Society



Back to the Golden Age again for me today. But my love for these guys started in the Bronze Age. My first Vandal Savage story was in a collection of the World's Greatest Superheroes newspaper strips, I thought his story was amazing and all the identities he's assumed over the countless years. And then Per Degaton and Brain Wave in All-Star Squadron, loved them both.

Making my way to their debut above by way of the All Star Comics Archive editions (#8 specifically, great volume overall in fact), you see them in their earliest form as a team (rounded out with the Wizard, Gambler, and Thinker in addition to the 3 I mentioned). What a concept...the villains are organized, it's not just gangsters and Nazis and whatnot. 

And like my Monster Society of Evil from yesterday, this team has gone through various iterations over the years, as can be seen by the much expanded later roster below. Viva Earth-2!!