This story features a new evil team that bears a striking resemblance to a more familiar one, The Crime Syndicate. Yeah, yeah, I know in this issue it’s the Crime Society, but hey, I’ll take any chance to talk about one of my favorite villain teams! First appearing way back in 1964 on Earth 3, the Crime Syndicate of America always had a lot of potential. They were, of course, quite powerful. However, they never really got it together enough to be a serious threat. Even when they teamed up with Per Degaton, they ended up being a joke. That all changed years later when Grant Morrison got his hands on them in JLA: Earth 2.
Morrison introduced a Crime Syndicate that actually lived in the anti-matter universe and was much darker. They operated under the favor bank system, where if someone does you a favor, you owe them a favor no matter what. That anti-matter universe also had the Crime Lodge, their evil JSA, and the Young Offenders, their Teen Titans.
Upon the return of the Multiverse, a new Earth 3 was shown with its own evil team, the Crime Society of America. In this issue of Countdown, the team has been shown to include doppelgangers of both the JLA and JSA.
As an aside, my favorite episode of Super Friends back in the day featured a storyline where Superman went to a parallel universe and traded places with his evil self, discovering an evil Super Enemies group. A similar storyline was used years later in the Justice League cartoon with the Justice Lords.
Mr. Mxyzptlk. Actually, I’m going to save him for later. There’s too much good stuff here, and I’m sure DC will shortchange me on a future issue so I’ll pull him out then!
Buddy Blank, a.k.a. the original OMAC, or One Man Army Corps. Buddy Blank is a Kirby creation, a regular guy turned into OMAC by Brother Eye. He worked for the Global Peace Agency and was revealed to be Kamandi’s grandfather. So we actually could be seeing Kamandi in this issue as well! This storyline is progressing well, in my opinion, and I hope to be able to get into Kamandi in the future!
Fun story this week, even though once again the payoff will be in other titles. Take care, and I’ll see ya next week!