I feel like I gave myself a REAL challenge for today's blog entry. (And that's not just due to flagging spirits from yet MORE employment rejection notices... Ugh...) You see, when I covered the DC animated "super group", the Legion of Doom, there were some membership changes over various appearances over the years. But when I chose to tackle... essentially... Marvel's core super villain force, I realized there was NO REAL WAY I could take on every single member of the group. This particular group practically could fill a volume of the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe" on their own, for their various incarnations. Thankfully, I can at least touch base with various leaders of the organization, in various media, and sometimes on various worlds. But you can't just be an "amateur" evil force to gain membership into the group. No, no... You have to be considered a Master... Of Evil.
The Masters of Evil made their first assembled appearance in "Avengers #6". This introduced the concept of the semi-returning leader of the organization, Helmut Zemo... to be succeeded by an astonishingly lengthy list of sons... better known as Baron Zemo. Baron Zemo was first seen as an escaped Nazi scientist hiding out in South America, and the unique twist about Zemo was that he was SO hated in his home country... even DURING the Second World War... he had to constantly wear a mask in public. Well... Being splashed by an experimental "super-glue", Adhesive X, made that mask a CONSTANT companion, of which he blamed Captain America for. (But you'd think being implicitly involved in the missile incident that "killed" Cap's sidekick, Bucky, would be plenty satisfying enough for revenge...) But Zemo noticed in a paper that Captain America had found himself a new group of playmates called the Avengers, and Zemo ain't no dummy! No, he can't just tackle a long-time foe, an armored playboy, a Norse god on Earth, a gigantic man... or a miniscule, flirtatious, woman... all on his lonesome! He decided to recruit for the initial team's run:
- Radioactive Man: Chinese spy that became irradiated, and first lay claim to being an arch enemy of Thor.
- Black Knight: Iron Man was the foe in his multi-weaponed lance's sights.
- Melter: I... THINK... he may have first found life as a Giant Man villain, and he possesses the ability to shoot a ray from his chest, that can melt any metal.
Since that original "Avengers" run ran for 400+ issues, with none of those core members actively deceased in issue #7, we had an opening skirmish. But Zemo realized that while the battle was lost, he still had a war to wage, and he would return...
... Wow, it only took him nine issues to return with a newly organized team! Realizing that the Radioactive Man may have been a bit of a paltry Thor foe to add to the ranks, Zemo had the brilliant idea to recruit gods to fight a god! Enter the Enchantress and the Executioner. But this iteration of the team included a new wrinkle: they hired a sleeper agent called Simon Williams, whom they dubbed Wonder Man, to infiltrate the Avengers, and lead them to a destructive battle trap! Simon, knowing his powers only staved off his terminal disease, and realizing the betrayal Zemo planned for him after the Avengers destruction, decided to sacrifice his "life" to save the Avengers. (Because as we ALL know, this issue was the ABSOLUTE LAST TIME we ever heard about or saw Simon Williams... Wonder Man...) This issue also left the organization in doubt, since we are given the impression that Baron Zemo perishes under falling rubble. Well... THAT generation of Baron Zemo takes a cue from a Queen song, and "bites the dust", but the Masters just had to rest for a while before assembling like the Avengers normally would.
Note that for this newer incarnation, the Melter and Radioactive Man manage to worm their way back into the ranks as "regulars", and we have the new additions of Whirlwind and Klaw. (The latter DOES deserve special mention, since this was the time Black Panther first joined the team, and ostensibly Klaw is Black Panther's arch-enemy...) This time out, the Masters of Evil were led by a mysterious figure named the Crimson Cowl. Er... Spoiler alert for an issue that is still 30+ years old; the Cowl is actually a brainwashed Jarvis the Butler, who is under the influence of Ultron! Hey... Times were weird when you didn't have the stability of Zemo for management! As you shall see with our next example.
In an 80's story arc detailing a criminal trial for Hank Pym, a new Masters of Evil formed. There were some REALLY cool new faces on the team, such as Moonstone, Beetle, and Shocker. (And the former two will be REALLY interesting to watch their development for the 90's...) But the leadership choice for this new team? Egghead? Ugh... I don't think I've elaborated enough on this blog that I CANNOT STAND the rogues' gallery of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Seriously, they are the definition of "lame". And I should mention Egghead bears NO RELATION to the awesome Vincent Price version from the 60's "Batman" television series. But this was just another odd placeholder for... as Tolkien would put it... the "Return of the King".
Aside from assembling a team that could rival the squad put together for the villains in "Secret Wars", Baron Zemo the second returned to lead another gathering of Masters of Evil in a GRAND storyline, affectionately collected under the title "Avengers: Under Siege". Seriously, I cannot recommend this story enough; it was one of the few times in comics during the 80's that a group of wholesome heroes was LEGITIMATELY up against the ropes... as close to defeat as they could be... for multiple issues of their own title. Zemo organized a clever combination of power players and manipulators to overtake the Avengers headquarters, and separate the team members to unleash a ton of punishment upon them. It doesn't even matter that the Masters of Evil are ultimately put to a stop at the end of the story; they made an impact on the Avengers enough that it still carried ramifications for latter issues.
I won't count "Acts of Vengeance" as a semi-Masters event, because all that was was a switching over of dance partners for the Marvel villains, orchestrated by Loki. The next time we REALLY start talking about the Masters of Evil for major impact is in the mid 90's. And the unusual thing is we can talk about them... THREE TIMES.
In the wake of "Onslaught", the Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Fantastic Four were considered dead. In reality, they were trapped in another dimension. To fill that void was a mysterious new team of heroes called the Thunderbolts. ... Who were actually the REAL Masters of Evil in disguise, to earn the public's trust... and then when all were complacent, they would ideally take control. The thing Citizen V/Baron Zemo did not reckon with is that his fellow Masters would grow to accept their heroic responsibilities, oust Zemo, and exist as a legit heroic team for a LONG and healthy run! What's even MORE fun is that another mysterious Crimson Cowl formed ANOTHER Masters of Evil team, which rubbed Zemo the completely wrong way. Hey, copyright infringement is a pain... But that was only just in the Marvel 616 universe PROPER.
In the "Heroes Reborn" universe, which was altogether too brief, Loki, the Enchantress, and Ultron all had a hand in forming ANOTHER Masters of Evil. What's even MORE "ironic" is that in this universe, Simon Williams returned as the "sinister" Wonder Man to assist the team! But if memory serves me right, this was this version of the Masters' only appearance, because the new "Avengers" title that sprang from the universal rebranding didn't even last 20 issues before "Heroes Return" brought the Earth's Mightiest Heroes back to our regular "reality".
We were granted another few years of a breather, but when Wanda Maximoff declared that there be "No more mutants", we were granted another alternate reality version of the Masters... that oddly blended into OUR reality!
This version was masterminded by the criminal known as the Hood. (Don't call him "Red": you don't wanna get sued by DC, now do ya?) The Hood's version of the Masters wasn't QUITE as selective as other incarnations. Basically, if you wanted in on the team, you got in. But while you think an alternate version of the team wouldn't sustain it's "legs", when Normal Osborne gained control of the Marvel Universe in the "Dark Reign" event, he needed the Hood as a criminal regulatory force... and even a recruiter for allies. And thus the Masters of Evil made another "large and in charge" return!
I can't speak for the status of the Masters in the current "Marvel Now" continuity... mainly that's because that would force me to follow about 100 separate "Avengers" series, but it's not just strictly in the comics that the Masters of Evil threaten the citizens of Marvel Earth. In the first "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" video game... NOT counting the boss battle with Galactus... the Masters were the driving threat of the game, under the general leadership of that supreme monarch of Latveria... DOCTOR DOOM. As if that weren't enough for Victor's honor, he also managed to snag the Masters' executive reins in TWO animated series: "Marvel Super Hero Squad" and "Avengers Assemble".
But we all have that smelly-masked former Nazi to thank for granting the Avengers a grouping of villains that can match... and sometimes surpass... the numbers game of the team, and provide us readers with a group battle-royale to enjoy!
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