Secret Society of Super Villains
group of fictional characters
Secret Society of Super Villains (SSoSV) is an American comic book published by DC Comics, created by writer Gerry Conway and artist Pablo Marcos, which first appeared in May–June 1976. The series' focuses on a titular group of supervillains, most of whom are foes of the members of the Justice League of America. The series was cancelled with issue #15 in July 1978, as part of the DC Implosion, a period when DC suddenly cancelled dozens of comics.
Following the cancellation of the original series, the fictional group has returned in many forms.
Series conception
Editor Gerry Conway created the team to be "a kind of 'evil' Justice League", inspired by the "Rogues Gallery" that fellow editor Julie Schwartz created for the Flash. Since other editors were somewhat possessive towards the more popular DC Comics supervillains, Conway resorted to sifting through DC's back issues in search of members, finally selecting a lineup of obscure or forgotten villains. Conway said: "Obviously, this was lifted from Dick Tracy, but having costumed villains with a shared goal — even if it was simply the destruction of their common enemy — seems to be something that was unique to DC".
The first issue of Secret Society of Super Villains was drafted with artwork by Pablo Marcos. Then, according to Conway's assistant Paul Levitz: Custom in those years was for the editor to bring the finished inks of an issue in to [editorial director] Carmine [Infantino] for a cover conference, during which Carmine would usually sketch a cover design in pen on typing paper. While I wasn't in the room, I clearly recall Gerry coming back down the hall to his office, confused, as Carmine had looked through the issue wanting to see the villains' clubhouse or headquarters, and when that wasn't in the book, asking Gerry to redo it.
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This entry incorporates text from “Secret Society of Super Villains” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.