Bring on the Bad Guys: Kraad the Conqueror

Real name: Kraad

First appearance: Justice League of America I#25 (Feb .1964)

Abilities: Commanding armies 

Worst act: Kidnapping, indirectly blowing up planets

Quote: "Welcome to Kraanal, Men of Earth! You have shown yourselves so potent, so well able to defeat all my plans--I have brought you here to my home planet where I can deal with you personally!"

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

Roll call: The Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Atom

This yarn kicks off with the Flash being kidnapped! Who did such a thing? The culprits turn out to be some scientists from the planet Sfarl. They have been teleporting themselves involuntary across the galaxy and they would very much like to stop, please. 

The catch is as soon as they leave a planet, it blows up for some reason, so if the JLA could do them a solid they would appreciate it. The JLA manages to get sent to the next planet on the list, where they encounter Kraad. Why is he doing this?

Seems the scientist's teleporting is needed to power his doomsday weapon. A weapon he promptly uses on the JLA, blowing them up. All save for the Atom, who's suit saved him. 

Finding Green Lantern's Power Ring, he manages to restore his teammates, sort of. Wonder Woman gets brought back fully, but the guys get merged. Despite this, they manage to stop the Conquror's plans and take out his doomsday weapon and get themselves restored. 

Bring on the Bad Guys: Queen Bee

 Real name: Zazzala

First appearance: Justice League of America I#23 (Nov .1963)

Abilities: Pretty much anything she wants

Worst act: Kidnapping

Quote: "Now that you super-beings have become my worker-drones, I command you to gain for me the treasure that will make queen of the universe!"

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

The League rollcall here is Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow. The team is attacked by bee men.

Insert "Bees, my God" meme here.

This isn't some random attack though. No, the Queen Bee of Planet Korll needs their help. If they refuse she'll blow up the Earth! Seems some time ago a scientist made a formula for immortality. He didn't take it, as he didn't wish to spend eternity as an old man. 

No, he split the formula in three parts and the Queen has an idea where they are. The Martian Manhunter tackles a lava monster, Wonder Woman and the Flash fight a plant monster, and Green Lantern and Arrow take down a living glacier. 

The team manages to find the vials, but they fuse the containers in such a way they can never be opened. After all, they promised they'd help the Queen find the things. They never said she'd get to use them.

Not a bad yarn but the queen's motivation is a bit thin and her powers are unstoppable unless they aren't. 

Bring on the Bad Guys: The Crime Champions

Membership: the Wizard, the Icicle, the Fiddler, Chronos, Felix Faust, and Dr. Alchemy 

First appearance: Justice League of America I#21 (August 1963)

Abilities: Various

Worst act: World conquering 

Quote: "The portable vibrator you gave us worked perfectly, Fiddler. With them we were able to fade away from Earth-One--vibrate ourselves at suer-swift speed--and to reappear here!" (Felix Faust)

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

I was pretty tempted to make these guys the 22nd entry but 23rd isn't a bad place to be. Very notable team, in that this was the first crossover between the Justice League and the Golden Age Justice Society. 

A small breakdown of the line up

From Earth-2

The Wizard (W.I. Zard): Mostly a JSA foe, magic master and former leader of the Injustice Society of the World

The Icicle (Joar Makent): Mostly a Green Lantern foe, has an ice guy

The Fiddler: Flash foe, was last seen in the first Earth-1/Earth-2 crossover. 

From Earth-1

Chronos (David Clinton): Atom foe, tends to go with a time theme 

Felix Faust: We've covered him already

Dr. Alchemy: Flash foe, we covered him during the Flash write up.

We open with both teams fighting groups dubbed the Crime Champions, on each world the teams consisting of three men. When the teams stumble across each other, they have the idea of doing the old switcharoo. Surely the JSA would be befuddled at the Earth-1 Crime Champions and vice versa!

The team actually does a pretty good job of taking down their respective foes, at least in the first part. Thus setting the nearly yearly team up between the two teams, so I can't hate them too much. 

Bring on the Bad Guys: The Crime Syndicate

Membership: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, and Power Ring

First appearance: Justice League of America I#29 (August 1964)

Abilities: Pretty much the same as the JLA, although Owlman has limited psychic powers

Worst act: World conquering 

Quote: "I'll tell you something so new--it'll curl your hair! I have discovered a way to get us out of the doldrums!"(Ultraman)

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

In the tradition of Two-Face and the rest, today we look at a special series of foes, my favorite of the JLA, the Crime Syndicate of America. Basically the 'mirror-verse' version of the JLA. Funny aside, the concept of an evil mirror first popped up here. The Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" didn't air until 1967. 

I've always had a fondness for multiple Earths and in #29 (after establishing that the JLA live on Earth 1 and the JSA on Earth 2) we see Earth 3. A world in which Christopher Columbus Europe, England fought for its freedom from America, and President John Wilkes Booth was gunned down by noted actor Abraham Lincoln. 

Here we have the Crime Syndicate, with members Ultraman (Superman), who gains powers from kryptonite

Owlman (Batman), who has super intelligence and can have limited control over minds

Superwoman (Wonder Woman), with her shapeshifting lasso 

Johnny Quick (the Flash), the fastest man on Earth 3

Power Ring (Green Lantern), has a magic ring 

Here the Crime Syndicate discover the whole multiple Earth thing, and, being bored as they have utterly conquered their world, set their sights on the new target. Seeking a neutral battleground, they find Earth 2 and thus the JSA gets dragged into this. 

Looking back, rather surprised the Crime Syndicate wouldn't show up again until 1978 and again in 1982 before the whole Crisis blew Earth 3 up. 

I love the idea of the team certainly, but the concept didn't get much further than that. The characters really weren't fleshed out until (in some cases) a few decades later. 

Overall, good concept but a lackluster execution. 

Bring on the Bad Guys: Spaceman-X

Real name: Inapplicable 

First appearance: Justice League of America I#20 (June 1963)

Abilities: Absorbing radiation, super strength 

Worst act: Assault, destruction of property

Quote: Not applicable

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

In the interest of a recap, #19 featured the return of Doctor Destiny. Here, the league handles three separate issues on three different planets. Despite the fact that the problems were caused by machines, the issues they created persist. Unknown to the team, all three planets are linked, in that each machine was controlled by the other planet. 

While on Earth, a giant spaceman shows up and starts wrecking the joint when he isn't helping people out. The twist? Turns out the spaceman is a robot being controlled by the ship, who turns out to be the mastermind and the one behind the machines. 

A twist, certainly, 

Bring on the Bad Guys: The Android Protectors

Real names: Terrane, Ocana, and Etheran

First appearance: Justice League of America I#18 (March 1963)

Abilities: Discharging radiation

Worst act: Discharging radiation, kidnapping

Quote: "We are the three protectors of this world! We brought you here--so you could destroy us!"

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

Not really villains per say, but the antagonists for sure. During their usual meeting, the JLA get shrunk and dragged off to the microscopic world of Starzl. The people are having a tiny problem. Some time ago, the people built three androids to protect them from various threats. The issue now is they are all putting out dangerous levels of radioactivity, so the androids figure kidnapping the JLA would be a solution, one way or another. The members:

Terrane (land protector)

Ocana (sea protector)

Etheran (air protector)

The team splits up and tries to take the androids down but all come up short; which is odd as they don't SEEM that powerful. 

Yeah, it seems their power is based more around confidence. If they think they're unstoppable, they are. The solution? Snapper Carr! Yeah, they figure bring him and don't tell him anything and something this will work. 

It does. Yeah, I can't explain it either. 

Bring on the Bad Guys: The Tornado Tyrant II

 Real name: Not applicable 

First appearance: Justice League of America I#17 (Feb. 1963)

Abilities: Tornado creations and control

Worst act: Attempted world conquering 

Quote: "I have defeated you, Justice League! Now will you acknowledge that evil has triumphed over good?"

Created by: Gardner F. Fox (script), Mike Sekowsky (pencils), Bernard Sachs (inks) 

Another odd one and the first foe that appeared somewhere else first. In Mystery in Space #61, Adam Strange battled a strange creature called the Tornado Tyrant. The creature had a crisis of conscious and renamed itself the Tornado Champion, vowing to be good!

Pity it didn't quite understand what that meant. In order to better understand the concept, it ends up creating its own version of Earth, including versions of the Justice League. Pity that in all this, either an evil double or a newer version of its old persona pops up and declares itself the Tornado Tyrant. The Champion is blocked at every turn, so it figures the best way to handle this is to hop over to Earth 1 and subject the JLA to the same pitfalls the Tyrant is using, hoping they can figure it out. 

Thanks mostly to Green Lantern, the Champion figures out a way to beat the Tyrant. This wouldn't be the end of the Tornado Champion. You might recall him better as the Red Tornado.