For this weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog we’ll take a look at the early stories of the Legion of Superheroes’ archenemies the Fatal Five. For my recent review of 1970s Legion tales click HERE.
ADVENTURE COMICS VOL 1 #352 (January 1967)
Title: The Fatal Five
Legion Roster: Superboy, Cosmic Boy, Princess Projectra, Sun Boy and Ferro Lad
Villains: The Fatal Five (Emerald Empress, Tharok, Validus, the Persuader and Mano)
Synopsis: In the 30th Century, a space entity called the Sun Eater devours a star, causing the destruction of all life on the planet that orbited it. The Science Police had charted the Sun Eater’s path and warn Earth that its sun is next on the menu for the being.
The only Legion of Superhero members that are not already away on missions are Cosmic Boy, Ferro Lad, Sun Boy, Princess Projectra and Superboy. With a mere two days before the Sun Eater arrives to feed on Earth’s sun, the Legionnaires convince the United Planets to let them recruit the Fatal Five, the collective nickname for the most dangerous criminals in the universe.
The Fatal Five are Tharok, a cyborg whose cybernetic brain makes him more intelligent than Brainiac 5; Validus, a huge purple monstrosity whose insanity drives it to perpetual violence; the Emerald Empress, evil ruler of an entire planet whose populace recently won a war to overthrow her; the Persuader, a killer and plunderer whose armor and Atomic Axe make him unstoppable; and Mano, a mutant whose hand wields energies so powerful that the hand destroyed his entire home planet. Continue reading
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #104 (January 1972) 
Back to the story, Spider-Man is saved from the quicksand by the timely arrival of 
LEGION OF SUPERHEROES (Superboy starring the …) Vol 1 #203 (August 1974) 
Eventually, Dream Girl has a dream foretelling an imminent attack by Validus – the huge, mindless monster who is strong enough to take on entire teams of Legionnaires at once. Because Validus is usually harmless unless controlled psychically by its fellow Fatal Five member Tharok, the Legion makes sure that the cyborg Tharok is still safely incarcerated at Space Prison Complex X33. 
When Validus ultimately attacks Legion headquarters in future Metropolis, he is routing the heroes while withstanding all their counterattacks. Invisible Kid at first seems to have abandoned his post to dally with Myla but it turns out he actually solved the problem at hand. 
AVENGERS Vol 1 #84 (January 1971) 
While searching for the Well at the Center of Time, the only safe place to hide the Ebony Blade, the Black Knight is captured by Arkon and his new consort – 
For this weekend’s light-hearted, escapist blog post about superheroes, Balladeer’s Blog goes back to the Justice Society of America, this country’s very first superteam. Years ago, I covered the early years of the JSA, from their first appearance in 
ALL-STAR COMICS Vol 1 #28 (April 1946) 
AVENGERS Vol 1 #72 (January 1970) 
This leads to the Avengers learning that Scorpio is not alone – he is a member of 
POWER MAN Vol 1 #21 (October 1974) 
The hurt and angry Power Man returns to his Hero for Hire office above the Gem Theater. Luke gets attacked there by the original Power Man, a former operative of Baron Zemo who was given his super-strength by the Avengers foe the Enchantress. 
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #129 (December 1972) 
Crystal, Johnny Storm’s longtime girlfriend and former member of the Fantastic Four, was forced to move back to the Inhumans’ hidden city of Attilan due to her body’s negative reaction to air pollution in the human world. 
GRIPS 
As I indicated in the title of this blog post, I consider the Grips tales to be what low-budget, disreputable Grindhouse movies of the past were to glossy, professional films from major studios. The writing and artwork in Grips seldom approached the standards of the Big Two publishers, but the visceral violence, profanity and often taboo subject matter more than made up for the overall shoddiness of the finished product. 
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #183 (October 1980) 
The remaining evil forces on Apokolips – led by Granny Goodness (a Kirby creation, needless to say) – have raided New Genesis and abducted most of the inhabitants, then taken them as slaves back to their own planet. They did it with the help of three Earth-Two villains – Icicle, Shade and the Fiddler – so the New Gods use the annual get-together of the Justice Society and Justice League to recruit the two teams to help them recover their kidnapped population. 
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