The Injustice Gang
Founded by Lex Luthor, this rotating team of supervillains appeared in Injustice For All and in Fury. At various times during the First Season, its roster consisted of Lex Luthor, Joker, Star Sapphire, Copperhead, Shade, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, the Ultra-Humanite, Aresia, and Tsukuri.
Bruce Timm on supervillain team-ups (circa 1994): "I have a problem with villain team-ups: I think it diminishes them. [For example], when you put Penguin, Joker, and Two-Face all in one scene, suddenly they're all about one-third as interesting as they would be by themselves. And, unfortunately, [The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne] proves my point (courtesy of Cinefantastique Magazine)."
Excerpts from the Justice League Panel at the 2001
Bruce Timm: We had to do [an
Injustice Gang episode]. And
that’s one of the cool things about this show—that, once you start doing a
show like [Justice League], there’s just certain things that you have
to do. You know, it’s like:
you’ve got to do the Injustice Gang…the Legion of Doom, whatever you
want to call them. And you’ve got
to do…no, I don’t want to tip them off…the cool thing about the Injustice
Gang is that they’re cool, but they’re kind of uncool.
They’re kind of corny, but we tried not to fight the corniness of it.
It’s like: no, this is the
show where, literally, all the supervillains team up and fight all the super
guys. And it’s just a really fun
episode. Actually, it gets started
by Luthor.
Courtesy
of Revolution Science Fiction
and Comics2Film.
Rich Fogel
on the Injustice Gang: “I’m
excited about Injustice For All, which features Lex Luthor and a bunch of
other villains, such as The Ultra-Humanite, The Shade, Star Sapphire, Cheetah,
Copperhead and Solomon Grundy. It’s
kind of a tip of the hat to the old Legion of Doom from Superfriends.
At first, Bruce Timm resisted the idea because it was too Superfriends,
but James Tucker and I convinced him that we had to do a story like this.
Clancy Brown returns as the voice of Luthor, and he was just wonderful.
We really put old Lex through the wringer (courtesy of Toon
Zone).”
Bruce Timm on Injustice For All’s airing delays: “How will this affect the continuity of the other Injustice Gang episode, Fury? The answer is ‘not too much.’ All anyone needs to know is that in Injustice, Lex recruits a group of super-villains to help him take down the Justice League. I don’t know if this exact grouping of villains has ever been used before, so whether you call ‘em the Injustice Gang or the Legion of Doom or The Secret Society, it doesn’t really matter. They never call themselves anything in either episode, but in-house, we generally refer to them as the Injustice Gang, if that makes a difference. At the beginning of Fury we find them taking orders from a new boss…that’s about it (courtesy of Toon Zone)!”
There have been “Justice Leagues” before, of course.
I’ve indulged their existence. Let
them conduct their colorful public brawls, like drunken sailors with a
Lex
Luthor, Rock of
Ages (JLA #11)
An organization that
has roots going back to the Golden Age of Comics, the Injustice Gang has also
been known as the Injustice Society of the World (Golden Age), the Injustice
Gang of the World (Silver Age), and (simply) as the Injustice Gang (Modern Age).
This version of the team, like the Justice League itself, is made up of
characters that were members of the organization at different times.
In addition, there is quite a bit of other related teams—such as the
Secret Society of Super-Villains and the Legion of Doom—mixed in as well,
possibly to ease the transition into the Secret Society that may or may not be
happen in Season Two.
For more information about the Injustice Gang, go to The Injustice Gang/Secret Society History page and to the member’s respectful listings.
Images courtesy of Cartoon Network and Cyber E.