Villains United (Countdown to Infinite
Crisis) by Gail Simone
Excellent Infinite Crisis Lead-In Centering On Some Of Dc's Baddest
Villains United is one of the four miniseries that lead up to DCs Infinite
Crisis. Lex Luthor uses the events of Identity Crisis (as well as the threat
of unstoppable force) to persuade nearly every super villain to join his
society, which is led by a core group of himself, Deathstroke, Talia, Black
Adam, Dr. Psycho, and Calculator. But a band of relatively obscure
villains--Cat Man, Scandal, Cheshire, Deadshot, Parademon, and
Ragdoll--organized by a mysterious figure named Mockingbird and calling
themselves the Secret Six, defy Luthor, leading to all-out war. Its action-
packed and includes some fantastic full-page shots, and is fun for people
who like to pick out people from criminal lineups. If you cant recognize
everyone, the trade paperback has a guide to the characters as well as a
summary of events leading up to the six-issue series (but not the 2006
one-shot issue published during the run of Infinite Crisis). Written by Gail
Simone (Birds of Prey) with art by Dale Eaglesham and Val Semeiks.
--David Horiuchi

Personal Review: Villains United (Countdown to Infinite Crisis)
by Gail Simone
When the one-shot "Countdown To Infinite Crisis" came out back in 2005,
a couple months after the Identity Crisis (DC Comics) finale, it started a
pattern that would continue on with a host of DC's biggest projects and
events over the next year or so - taking big, immediate-appeal concepts
that often hit across the DC Universe, and then often having these events
spearheaded by characters who were certainly less-than-obvious picks.
Countdown To Infinite Crisis officially ignited the post-Identity Crisis
happenings and served as a prelude to Villains United as well as to Day of
Vengeance (Countdown to Infinite Crisis), The OMAC Project (Countdown
to Infinite Crisis) and The Rann-Thanagar War (Countdown to Infinite
Crisis), and served as a major pivot point in the DCU. But instead of
having the likes of Superman or Batman at the center of attention, that
focus went to Blue Beetle, a character who'd seldom been seen in the few
years prior, and whose heyday in the 1980s wasn't remembered by many
as being particularly....memorable. But it worked tremendously well, he
was the right guy for the story, and just as Day Of Vengeance brought in
some highly unorthodox choices to lead the war against an insane
Spectre, Villains United also went down that road.
In Villains United, Lex Luthor has succeeded in pulling a vast host of the
DC Universe's deadliest bad guys into a co-operative venture the likes of
which the Earth has never seen before. With so many A-List villains in the
fold, the spotlight naturally falls on.... Cat-Man, Scandal, Cheshire,
Ragdoll, (a single) Parademon and Deadshot?? With the possible
exception of Deadshot, and with Parademons usually only counting as big
players when they're en masse, not exactly the characters one would
expect to take an important - let alone central - role in this. Those six,
though, don't even form a part of Luthor's Secret Society; in the series's
first big swerve (this isn't a spoiler, the first issue of the six parter sets this
up) the main group in these pages arguably isn't Luthor's Society at all, but
a much smaller group of lower-profile villains assembled by an unseen
mastermind called Mockingbird to take on the Society. Going by the name
The Secret Six, the group is headquartered in a surprising location (I don't
think this place had been featured prominently within the DC Universe in
ages) and isn't even made aware of their ultimate objectives. Whereas
Luthor's Society has been recruited at least partly through coercion, the Six
have been brought together by more direct force, and have no choice but
to begin taking on Mockingbird's missions.
Meanwhile, the Society itself has an inner circle consisting of Luthor,
Black Adam, Talia Al Ghul, Deathstroke, The Calculator (another
unorthodox choice for such an important role, and one that would have
been unthinkable before Identity Crisis revamped the character as a
computer-inclined entrepeneur who doesn't plan out crimes of his own but
who sells his organizational services and resource-gathering skills to other
villains) and Doctor Psycho, plus it quickly gathers upwards of 300 other

associates. And although we don't see all of them on the pages, we do
see a lot, and they've brought in a ton of recognizable characters like
Solomon Grundy, Scarecrow and Dr. Polaris, not a bunch of generic
henchman-type villains. Although there are immediate benefits to such a
united force, the ultimate goals behind the inner circle - or perhaps just
those of Luthor himself - remain something of a mystery in the beginning.
Some will be disappointed that the Society and its grand plan aren't given
the total focus in here, with so much being spent on the Secret Six but I
think it worked great and that it was better not to cram too much into six
issues; much of the struggle between the Society and their collective 'good
guy' enemies takes place in the tie-in issues to Villains United (Firestorm #
17; Breach # 7 - now There was an underappreciated series; Action
Comics # 831; Superman # 221; JSA Classified #s 5-7 - see JSA
Classified: Honor Among Thieves, Nightwing #s 109 & 110) and much of it
happens later, as Villains United was always intended to flow straight into
Infinite Crisis.
This tale is done extremely well, with lots of twists and a couple of Highly
unexpected returns; it can be read on its own although having the 'tie-in'
issues enhances and extends the whole series. Villains United works as
both a vital piece of the extended crossover arcs that started with
Countdown To Infinite Crisis and continued straight through that event,
and, like Identity Crisis, did a great job in taking previously unused (or
occasionally mis-used) characters and making important, interesting
characters out of them. This isn't the kind of story geared for someone
new to comics, but for somebody already into the DC Universe it's a dream
project. Also recommended, in addition to the aforementioned
'Countdown' events (Day Of Vengeance, Rann/Thanagar and OMAC) are
JLA: Crisis of Conscience (Identity Crisis) (Countdown to Infinite Crisis)
and JSA: Mixed Signals.
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