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Quote1 When the original members first banded together, they called themselves the Superboy Revenge Squad! I've been dealing with their insidious attacks for well over half my lifetime! They began with the space-outlaws of Wexr II, whose depredations I stopped! Then they joined forces with other alien criminals-- Each of which tangled with me during the course of my space-travels... And all of whom had suffered humiliating defeats! Through the years, as I racked up more and more enemies on an intergalactic scale, the Revenge Squad roster kept on growing! And their follow-up schemes to do me in became more and more sophisticated and sinister! Quote2
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The Superman Revenge Squad was a confederation of criminals and tyrants from across the galaxy, united in their fanatical hatred of Superman.

History

The Superboy Revenge Squad came into existence on the planet Wexr II, after an imperialistic campaign mounted by the planet's nefarious rulers was halted by Superboy during one of his excursions in outer space. The following year, the Wexrian dictators banded together into the Revenge Squad for the first time, intending to suicide-bomb Superboy's homeworld with a device powerful enough to shatter a planet. The Revengers tracked Superboy into the Solar System using a machine attuned to his potent psychic residue, forcing Clark Kent to hypnotize himself into believing himself to be an ordinary teenager for a day. This suppressed the superior intensity of Clark's psychic signature and caused the Revengers to lose their bead on him, thereby saving the Earth from certain destruction.[2]

The Revenge Squad seemingly returned to Earth on a later date, engaging Superboy in a fight over the Smallville High football field. Bash Bashford appeared to sustain spinal cord injury rendering him paraplegic, though later Bash's injury and the Revengers themselves were shown to be realistic simulations created by a group of sentient machines as part of a moral experiment.[3] Eventually, the Revenge Squad managed to locate Superboy on Earth for real, but their goal on that occasion was to save their usual enemy from the bio-aging device created by their rogue member Trohnn. The Revengers needed Superboy to stabilize Wexr II's sun before it could go supernova, therefore justifying their actions. Superboy used the bio-aging device to artificially reduce the core temperature of Wexr's sun, while inadvertently thwarting a secondary plot by the Revengers to activate a solar detonator hidden in the bio-aging device and harness the evolved solar energy of the supernova to grant themselves superior powers.[4][5]

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The Superman Revenge Squad's first logo

After Clark Kent moved to Metropolis and became Superman, the Superboy Revenge Squad changed their name, appropriately, to the Superman Revenge Squad. The Revengers settled into an M.O. of trying to sabotage Superman's life by masterminding seemingly inexplicable catastrophes. The Revenge Squad exposed Superman to Red Kryptonite in order to induce a series of dreamlike hallucinations and make Superman question his grip on reality. With the Man of Steel suitably neutralized, the Revenge Squad launched a full-scale invasion of Earth, only for Superman to realize that his Red K visions shared a common theme that the Revengers' invasion had lacked. With his confidence restored, Superman expelled the Revenge Squad from Earth.[6][7]

The Revenge Squad later used a mind-altering ray to induce Superman into spontaneous fits of destructive madness, in order to discredit him to the people of Earth. Once Superman learned of the source of his "temporary insanity," he prompted Perry White to help him with an operation intended to deceive the Revengers into believing that his mind had snapped. Superman used this ruse to catch the Revenge Squad off-guard when he summoned the Superman Emergency Squad from Kandor. As the Revengers' mind-altering ray was attuned specifically to Superman's mind, the Revengers were unable to defend themselves against the Emergency Squad members and committed suicide to avoid the disgrace of returning to Wexr II defeated yet alive.[8]

A Revenge Squad ship visited the Earth to draw Superman into pursuit at superluminal velocity. Exceeding the time-barrier, the Revengers tricked Superman into following them into the year 1,000,000 AD, when the Earth's Sun had become a red giant and boiled away the oceans. The Revengers left Superman to his fate in a desolate world, devoid of any human companionship besides an ancient android built in the image of Perry White. Making a long trek to the Fortress of Solitude, Superman used a stored sample of Red Kryptonite to shrink himself for a 48-hour time period and used a Kandorian rocket to enter the Timestream and return to the 20th Century.[9]

The Revenge Squad scavenged the wrecked remains of Ajax, a Superman Robot, and downloaded his consciousness into a synthetic "human" body. The Revengers sent Ajax back to Earth in the guise of "Wonder-Man" and planted a seed of resentment in his mind, in order to pit Wonder-Man on a collision course with Superman. However, unbeknownst to the Revengers, Wonder-Man knew of the Revengers' treachery and drove them from Earth by Superman's side. Tragically, Wonder-Man's synthetic body was created to degenerate after only a few days, and so it was that Wonder-Man, once a robot, earned his right to die as a man.[10]

In an elaborate subterfuge directed at Superman's faith in his friends, the Revenge Squad kidnapped Perry White, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Batman, Supergirl, and Lori Lemaris, replacing them all with lifelike android imposters. The Revengers simulated a situation wherein it appeared that Lois, Jimmy, and Perry had learned Superman's secret identity from Supergirl, Batman, and Lori. After the Lois, Jimmy, and Perry androids tried to use that knowledge to blackmail Superman into committing evil deeds, the Man of Steel realized their true nature as non-human simulacra and set off to rescue his real friends from the Revenge Squad's captivity.[11]

The Superman Revenge Squad awakened Eterno the Immortal, a robotic behemoth constructed by an advanced human race predating Homo sapiens on Earth. The Revengers hoped that Eterno's power would surpass Superman and conquer their longtime foe, even as they had collected pellets of Absorbium to deactivate Eterno once he had outlived his usefulness. However, Eterno perceived that the Revenge Squad had been using him sooner than they anticipated, and they were forced to release their Absorbium payload against the android. Eterno deactivated and collapsed on top of the Revenge Squad ship, crushing it and killing the Revengers themselves.[12]

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The Superman and Batman Revenge Squads

The Revengers created a mock-up of Metropolis on an unpopulated parallel Earth and populated it with humanlike androids as a backdrop to their next scheme. One of these androids, made in the image of Clark Kent, was sent to the real Metropolis to get Superman's attention, claiming to be the version of Clark Kent from a parallel Earth where Superman and he were separate people. The Clark android claimed that his universe's Superman had imprisoned him for years while stealing his identity. This was all a ruse to trick Superman into shifting into the alternate dimensional plane, at which time the Revengers planned to erect a force-field around the parallel Earth and trap Superman there forever. However, Superman outraced the Revenge Squad ship to the aperture in their force-field, which was left open for the ship to leave. As a result, Superman returned to his own universe, while the Revengers crashed their ship into the closing force-field and suffered a fiery death.[13]

A competition between Superman and Batman was interfered with by the Superman Revenge Squad and its Earth-based counterpart, the Batman Revenge Squad. The two Revenge Squads booby-trapped the prizes being competed for and took turns rigging the contest in favor of one hero against the other. Ultimately, Superman and Batman discovered the Revengers' tampering thanks to Robin's observational abilities, and the Revenge Squads were located and captured soon thereafter.[14]

A duo of Revengers were later deployed from Wexr II to convince Superman that he committed a number of international crimes, despite having no memory of such. Their plot revolved around sabotaging the Telstar satellite that relays audiovisual feeds into the Fortress of Solitude's communications center, by secreting a shard of Red Kryptonite within its internal mechanics. As Superman's regular world patrol included a check-up on the satellite, this was sufficient for Superman to place himself in close enough proximity to the Red K radiations that they could affect him. The effect of this Red K sample was to make Superman increasingly emotionally unstable, such that Superman's first reaction upon being confronted with evidence of his "crimes" by the United Nations was to eliminate his own powers with his Fortress's sample of Gold Kryptonite. Regaining his senses in the moment prior to Gold K exposure, Superman noticed difficulties with the Fortress's reception of international news broadcasts and scanned the Telstar satellite with X-ray vision to see how he had been manipulated. Afterwards, Superman feigned an insane rampage in his Fortress and left to lure the Revengers around, where hidden recording devices captured their full confession so as to exonerate Superman's name to the world.[15][16]

Some years later, the Revenge Squad sent another team to Earth to kill Superman. This group charged Superman with an energy-package called a Puls-Flow, which would build as the Kryptonian used more of his super-powers. By the Revengers' calculations, Superman would be overcome by the Puls-Flow and die after his 10th super-feat. However, Superman spotted the Revenge Squad ship and overheard its occupants' discussion of their plans. Consequently, Superman deceived the Revengers by giving a pill to his professional impersonator Gregory Reed that would grant Gregory Kryptonian super-powers for a 24-hour period. By coordinating actions with Gregory, Superman made it appear that he performed 10 super-feats over the following day and had Gregory peform his "death scene," tricking the Revenge Squad into thinking they were successful and leaving the planet. Shortly afterwards, the Puls-Flow left Superman's body, and the Revenge Squad leaders punished their minions for their failure by destroying their ship in space.[17]

The Revenge Squad's next plan involved irradiating a satellite with an aura called a Quoa-Charge and deflecting it out of orbit. In the process of smashing the satellite before it could penetrate the atmosphere, Superman exposed himself to the Quoa-Charge, which altered Superman's mentality such that his pretended timidity as Clark Kent would become genuine during his exploits as a superhero. Nevertheless, Superman realized that his Clark Kent alter ego was well-known for regaining his composure in front of a camera as a news anchor and took advantage of the fact that his battle with the Revengers was being televised to overcome his imposed psychological handicap.[18]

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The Superman Revenge Squad's second emblem

The Superman Revenge Squad infected Supergirl with Virus X and left her in New York City for Superman to find at their rendezvous point, expecting him to treat his cousin at his Fortress with White Kryptonite radiations. However, the Virus X infection was intended to mask the effects of a radiation that the Revengers afflicted Supergirl with, which would simulate the effects of sleep-deprivation at an accelerated rate. As a result, Supergirl became dangerously unstable by the time that she made full recovery from Virus X, challenging and later trying to kill Superman. Superman managed to subdue Supergirl and bring her back to her senses, after which the Revenger responsible for the plot tried to surrender himself to the super-cousins to protect from his leaders' wrath. Regardless, the Revenge Squad dispatched their failed minion before Superman's eyes.[19]

Deciding that the Revenge Squad went too far in attacking him through Supergirl, Superman resolved to take the fight to them on their own turf. Using a piece of alien technology, Superman altered his physiology into that of a reptiloid race from a distant star-cluster and hypnotized himself with a fake set of memories. In this guise, Superman assumed the persona of Vlaatu of Plyrox, a space-pirate with a fierce hatred of the Man of Steel for getting in his way. "Vlaatu" arranged to be captured by the Revenge Squad near their new planetary base of operations and managed to join their organization, ascending the ranks through multiple tests against the Revenge Squad's android duplicates of Superman until the Revenge Squad agreed to send him to Earth as their next anti-Superman operative. However, the Revenge Squad's ruling council secretly saw through Superman's ruse and programmed a post-hypnotic trigger into his mind. After reverting to his true form and extracting his memories as "Vlaatu," Superman activated the post-hypnotic trigger by seeing his reflection in a mirror. As a result, Superman was hypnotized into believing that he was one of the Revenge Squad's android replicas and that he was sent to Earth to destroy the "real" Superman's legacy. After wrecking the Superman Museum under this delusion, Superman kidnapped Lois Lane to use her as bait for the "real" Superman. Lois intuitively detected that her captor was the real Superman, under a form of brainwashing, and put her own life at risk to break the mental programming. This was successful, and Superman subsequently detonated a bomb over the Revenge Squad's base world, releasing a mist throughout the planet's atmosphere that would give the Revengers amnesia. Superman left the Revengers with an ultimatum: Remain confined to their world for all time, or re-enter the greater universe as new individuals without the grudges of the past.[20][21][22]

In spite of this seemingly final defeat, the Revenge Squad found a way to escape their entrapment and returned to plague the Last Son of Krypton again. The Revengers altered Superman's heat-vision power using a cosmic storm in order so that its next usage would engulf the entire Earth in a wave of destructive force. This had the unpredictable effect of activating Robrox, a robotic protector that an alien race buried in the Earth's crust millennia ago to defend the planet. Robrox had a series of encounters with Superman that left the Man of Steel confused whether Robrox was friend or foe, but eventually Robrox engaged Superman in a fight that led them to the Moon. There, Robrox provoked Superman into using heat-vision and releasing the Revenge Squad's destructive effect where no living human would be harmed by it, explaining that his previous appearances were intended to prevent Superman from using his heat-vision on earlier occasions. Robrox was destroyed as a result of Superman's energy-release, having sacrificed himself to save humanity.[23]

Paraphernalia

Equipment: Brain Wave Machine
Transportation: Space Ship
Weapons: Various

Notes

  • It was part of the Superman Revenge Squad's standard operating procedure that any operative who failed in his mission would be killed[17][19] or enslaved.[16]
  • Some Revenge Squad members would wear a replica of Superman's Costume with a luminescent green S-symbol (meant to invoke the imagery of Green Kryptonite) and/or shave their heads bald in imitation of Lex Luthor.[14][15]


See Also

Links and References

Footnotes


Villains-secret-files
Superman Villain(s)
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This character has been primarily an enemy of Superman in any of his various incarnations, or members of the Superman Family. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Superman Villains category."

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