Another entry in our look at CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2, the assemblage of material that was left without a publication home in the wake of the DC Implosion that eliminated 40% of the company’s publishing output and saw a number of staff members let go.
SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS was something of an oddball title, dedicated to following the adventures of a gang of costumed villains as they made plans to maraud across the world. In practice, the strip often had to pit the group against other villains or order to give them a foe that they could win out against. It was the creation of writer/editor Gerry Conway during the brief period when he’d been on editorial staff at DC, and continued on under other hands after Conway departed.
By the time the series was terminated by the DC Implosion, the writing duties had passed into the hands of Bob Rozakis, who had embarked on what would have been a lengthy sequence of stories. One of the Society members, the Wizard, had accumulated new and greater powers, and had taken the members of the group back to his native parallel world of Earth-Two, where he planned to eliminate his eternal enemies, the Justice Society of America by striking at them one at a time, outnumbering them individually. Meanwhile, back in Earth-One, a few remaining Society members were engaged by the villainous Silver Ghost to wipe out his recurring nemeses, the Freedom Fighters.
Like the Secret Society, the Freedom Fighters had been a concept begun by Gerry Conway in that exact same period. They were a team comprised of characters created for the long-defunct Quality Comics line of the 1940s, the rights to whom had been purchased earlier by DC. They’d been revived as a group in a Justice League/Justice Society team-up adventure, where we learned that their homeworld of Earth-X had lost World War II, leaving the Nazis in control of the planet. After the three groups of heroes sorted this all out, the Freedom Fighters relocated to Earth-One themselves for dubious reasons, and soon became hunted by the authorities, who believed them to be criminals themselves.
FREEDOM FIGHTERS has been cancelled a short time before the DC Implosion, so writer Bob Rozakis was hoping to be able to fold some of his dangling plotlines from that series into SSOSV in order to wrap them up, scarcely imagining what was to come. When SECRET SOCIETY was also cancelled, it left all of these situations in comic book limbo.
Eventually, though, Gerry Conway would resolve at least the dangling plotline of the villains who’d gone to Earth-Two in a three-part JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA storyline–the very storyline that would later become the crux-point for the IDENTITY CRISIS series. In it, we learned that the JSA had joined forces to defeat the Society and drive them back off of Earth-Two.
Many years later in 2011, this unpublished issue was included in the second of two SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS hardcovers that collected the entirety of the series run.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
There is also the wrap up that Bob supplied in DCCP #62
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Is it known why (in the real world) the Superman/FFers team-up in DCCP 62 left out Phantom Lady?
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whats funny is that in the last published issue of SSOSV (I happily own the cover) they are teeing up a JSA feud (they are fighting Al Pratt and Dr Midnite on the cover) but then suddenly there was going to be a feud with the Freedom Fighters.
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That Vosburg/Bob Smith art is quirky, but pretty stylish
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This is the first time I ever heard of the Secret Society of Super-Villains: Justice League of America#195-197 ( October-December 1981 ) — majority drawn by George Perez ( Issue 197 by Keith Pollard ( pages 1-19 ) and George Perez ( pages 20-27 ) ). First introduction for me of Brainwave ( Hated that Roy Thomas killed him off ), The Mist ( who kind of reminded me of the Red Ghost — who was in mist form in FF#197 ( August 1978 ) ), Signalman, The Cheetah II, The Monocle ( Probably made me think of his Marvel counterpart I first saw in FF#207 ( June 1979 ). DC’s Monocle in his Golden Age only appearance only fired energy from the monocle on his eye on the splash panel ), The Ultra-Humanite ( I liked him, couldn’t figure out why he was dumped for Luthor as a Superman main foe. I found him far more interesting, like Ras al Ghul over the Joker ), The Floronic Man, Psycho-Pirate II ( liked him ), Killer Frost ( liked her too ) and Rag Doll ( I found interesting ).
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Had DC Comics writers thought of it they could have used their villains to have an unofficial DC COMICS-MARVEL COMICS CROSSOVER: Sizematic Twins ( as Ant-Man & Giant-Man/Goliath ), Blockbuster ( Hulk ), Merlyn the Archer ( Hawkeye ) & Reverse-Flash ( Quicksilver ). She was only used once ( as far as I know ) but Morgana the Witch [ Wonder Woman#186 ( January-February 1970 ) I-Ching era — shades of Thor, someone was turned into a frog ] could take the Scarlet Witch’s place.
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When last we saw Ultra-Humanite they had had their brain transplanted into the body of Dolores Winters with every indication this was meant to be permanent (all that multiple-body swaps thing was a later retcon). This being so the character may have become too transgressive for editors of the period.
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Using real world science, Dolores Winters was probably chosen instead of a man because of organ transplant rejection issues ( Ultra-Humanite must have found away to avoid that in a T-Rex and mutated white gorilla ). Decades later and over in the Marvel Universe, another male scientist ( extradimensional one ) also found himself in a woman’s body ( Yandroth’s astral form floated until he found a woman, an unappreciated chemist Stephanie Donal, whose brain pattern’s matched his — Defenders#119 ( May 1983 ) marvunapp.com ).
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Sad to see Mr Terrific so aged and disenchanted here; and then DC killed him off!
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Did anyone else when younger come up with ideas for DC and Marvel unkilling Mister Terrific and Sylvester Pembleton and Thunderbird?
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Alas, the Star-Spangled Kid died twice: the first was when he became ‘Skyman’; has there ever been a blander character reinvention?
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Infinity Inc in general was meh. There was great fodder there for stories as other writers would prove but it always felt like untapped potential.
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Thunderbird sure ( but this century not when I was younger ). Magik time travelling to the past creating a magical duplicate ( Doctor Strange created one of himself and Timely Comics Mantor did too ) to die in his place ( plus a spell so that Professor X will experience Thunderbird’s death like he did the first time ) so the timeline remains intact and Thunderbird travel to the present with Magik ( Her mutant power is time-travel ). I also had Professor X at Muir Island in a sub-basement a secret program to give his X-Men a second chance at life if they were killed — clones. I emailed both suggestions to Marvel years ago ( Same year as the teen age original X-Men were brought to the then present by the Beast — for the clones & multiple times for Thunderbird and time-travel by Magik ). In Thunderbird case both Storm & Banshee could have saved him ( sonic beam from Banshee or wind from Storm to knock him off the plane and either he or Storm could have caught him; Plus Professor X could have taken control of him and had Banshee or Storm fly him to safety ).
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I liked Infinity, Inc. when Jerry Ordway was the artist [ Infinity, Inc.#1-10 ( March-January-1984-1985 ) ]. Especially the Stream of Ruthlessness storyline ( Issues 3-10 ).
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Thunderbolt ( William Carver ) [ Power Man#62 ( April 1980 )/Power Man and Iron Fist ], I would have his aging to death be a temporary side effect of his increased speed. Plus I believe I said on this site how I would have had Guardian & Sasquatch brought back differently. Guardian by the Master of the World teleporting him out of his battle-suit [ Alpha Flight#12 ( July 1984 ) ], healing his injuries and doing something similar with him that Ultron did to Hank Pym [ The Avengers#161-162 ( July-August 1977 ) ] and Sasquatch having Snowbird asking her mother or grandfather to have The Shaper create a new body for Walter ( Arguing that he was a powerful ally before and could be again ) or the Beyonder curious about why Walter turned down the Hulk’s body when Bruce offered it to him [ Alpha Flight#28 ( November 1985 ) ], creating a new one or resurrecting his original one with the power to turn into Sasquatch from the Beyonder and not Tanaraq this time.
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For me, Thunderbird would have been caught in Nefaria’s teleport beam for part of the trip but left severely injured and recover over long period of time.
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As for Mister Terrific ( Terry Sloane ), if like Timely Comics golden age DC had resurrection serums or an object I would use those or since he was a genius in a number of sciences he could take a page out the DNA Project/Cadmus Project [ Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen#135 ( January 1971 ) clone of the Guardian ( Golden Guardian –Jim Harper )] and have him clone himself or since DC Heroes collect trophies from various villains they fought maybe one or more of them used technology to resurrect the dead that could be used by one of the other heroes to bring him back or always used the tried and true — it was a duplicate that died. During DC’s Invasion mini-series I had wish they had Guardian contact his fellow Golden Age Heroes and offered them younger clone bodies so they could join the fight or fight in their prime ( Their spouses get younger bodies too so one isn’t old and the other young )– plus they are fighting a war against aliens, so why not clone any hero that dies in that war? As Star-Spangled Kid/Skyman, maybe a duplicate ( Skyman ) could be used to explain why he is alive again ( I don’t from memory know if DC had any western heroes using Kid in their names, but I know Marvel’s Two-Gun Kid & Rawhide Kid weren’t kids so why should the Star-Spangled Kid change his name ).
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Yes. Sly was kidnaped and put in stasis so the villain could raid his mind for details to fool his fellow heroes. We could explain the Skyman thing as the baddie hoping that any slip ups would be attributed to his forging a new persona. Unfortunately, the bad guy got killed soon after and Sly is still in that tube somewhere. As for Terry, he was a polymath of sorts so if he knew his murder was coming, he could have faked his death and been a sort of secret one-man good guy Illuminati. If they don’t want Babs as Oracle, my preferred Mister Terrific could play the role but no with that name.
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I guess a DC Universe method of resurrection was on my mind last night cause I woke with Lazarus Pit and the Amazon’s Purple Healing Ray ( created by Diana ) [ Wonder Woman#1 ( Summer 1942 ) — even being able to bring a recently deceased person back to life — like Steve Trevor –dc.fandom.com ] in my head. So neither of the Wonder Women were there for Mister Terrific’s death, so either they never told their teammates about the Purple Healing Ray or none of the JLA/JSA liked him enough to want him back. You would think if Fury knew about the Purple Healing Ray from her mom that she would want her team leader Skyman back.
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