Legion of Doom

The Legion of Doom is the name of a team of super-villains in the DC universe which often includes a large sum of Batman Villains.

History[]

Creation[]

The team was created for the Super-Friends TV show with the original name having planned to have been the League of Evil.

The team was introduced into the show as the Legion of Doom, being assembled and funded by Lex Luthor to destroy the super-friends. As Black Manta wished their base to be underwater, Captain Cold wished for it to be underneath of ice-caps and Grodd wanted it to be in a jungle; Lex Luthor hope to build their base The Hall of Doom in the Slaughter Swamp outside of Gotham City.

DC Rebirth[]

Members[]

Super-Friends[]

Lex Luthor (leader): Superman's arch-nemesis is Lex Luthor, the billionaire, evil-mastermind head of LexCorp.
The Riddler: One of Batman's classic rogues, Edward Nygma AKA The Riddler is a criminal-genius obsessed with proving his intellectual superiority to Batman by using riddles and puzzles in his schemes.
The Scarecrow: Dr. Jonathan Crane AKA The Scarecrow is a mad-scientist who uses fear-toxins of his own design to terrorize Gotham, getting off on the fear of others.
Solomon Grundy: An enemy of Batman, Superman and the Green Lantern, Cyrus Gold was man whose corpse was dumped in Gotham's Slaughter Swamp in the 19th century. Cyrus' corpse bonded with the swamp and became the undead behemoth, "Solomon Grundy" who used immeasurable strength to rampage.
Cheetah (Priscilla Rich): Wonder Woman's original arch-nemesis, Priscilla Rich was a wealthy socialite who was obsessively envious of Wonder Woman and her alias Diana Prince. This lead to her crafting a cheetah-costume from a pelt rug she had and becoming, "The Cheetah", using her acrobatic ability and vast fortune to prove herself superior to Wonder Woman.
Captain Cold: Leonard Snart was a professional thief who alongside his sister Lisa, grew up under the care of an abusive cop. As adult the two of them became petty-criminals with a deep hatred for authority enforcers as they are inherently abusive and corrupt. This lead to Leonard becoming an enemy of the Flash, using a stolen freeze-ray gun to counter-act the speedster's powers. He would also form the super-villain team known as, "The Rogues".
Bizarro: Bizarro is a failed clone of Superman who has warped brain-physiology and an obsessive need to prove himself as Superman, often leading to violence with the Man of Steel himself.
Giganta: Giganta is a classic rogue of Wonder Woman. In original continuity, she was a gorilla who was put into a human-body by mad-scientists to fight Wonder Woman and kidnap her boyfriend Steve Trevor out of lust.
Black Manta: Black Manta is Aquaman's arch-nemesis, being a brilliant nautical-engineer consumed by the desire to destroy Aquaman's life and psyche by any means necessary due to bad blood between them.
Brainiac: Brainiac is an alien super-computer which travels the universe, shrinking cities to collect and stealing all the data and knowledge of entire planets. They are a major enemy of Superman.
Gorilla Grodd: Gorilla Grodd is a super-intelligent gorilla from the secret nation of Gorilla City. Following getting exposed to a meteorite that gave him telepathy, Grodd attempted to conquer the city only to be defeated and cast out. Since then he became a major enemy to the Flash.
Sinestro: Thaal Sinestro was the 2nd Green Lantern's arch-nemesis, being an intergalactic fascist criminal who possesses a yellow-lantern ring powered by fear.

Rebirth[]

Floronic Man: Dr. Jason Woodrue is an enemy of the mystical Swamp-Thing and the former abusive mentor to Poison Ivy, Floronic Man is a plant-like being who wishes for plant supremacy that he aims to achieve through mad science.
Solomon Grundy:
Klarion the Witch Boy: A powerful sorcerer in the form of a bratty immortal child, Klarion was born in the lost American colony of Roanoke and raised within a magical pocket-dimension.
Deathstroke: Slade Wilson is an arch-enemy of Nightwing, the Teen Titans and often Batman. He is considered the world's best assassin, being a skilled combatant who has mastered every weapon known to man and been enhanced with a super-serum which elevated his physiology and mind to superhuman levels.
Harley Quinn: Dr. Harleen Quinzel was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum until she was manipulated by the Joker into becoming his girlfriend and hench-woman. While Harley was obsessively in-love with the Joker, he saw her as sub-human and ultimately discarded her, leaving Harley to become her own psychotic super-villain.
Heat Wave: Mick Rory is a Flash villain who is a pyromaniac that uses sci-fi technology to commit fiery crimes.
Lobo: Lobo is an alien bounty-hunter and mercenary who is the last of an advanced species which had strength rivalling Superman, and a healing factor so strong that they could regrow from a single drop of blood. This species was inevitably massacred in a mass-genocide by Lobo himself, effectively for fun.
Mr. Freeze: Dr. Victor Fries was a brilliant cryonic scientist whose wife Nora contracted terminal illness, the cure to which had not been discovered. Victor placed Nora in a Cryogenic capsule while attempting to discover a cure only for his corporate superiors to try and shut the project down. When Victor fought back, it triggered a chemical explosion in the cryonics lab which augmented his body to only be able to survive in sub-zero temperatures, driving him to madness and becoming the cold-hearted Mr. Freeze.
Ocean Master: Aquaman's brother Orm Marius who hates Aquaman for his ascension to the throne of Atlantis and who aims at reclaiming it for his own.
Oracle (III): An evil android created by Barbara Gordon to replace her as Oracle.
Ra's al Ghul: The quasi-immortal head of the League of Assassins who has spent centuries attempting to destroy human society for eco-fascist ends.
Red Hood (Jason Todd): Batman's second Robin, Jason Todd was murdered by the Joker and was later resurrected. This lead to him being driven insane by Batman's refusal to murder the Joker leading Jason to take up Joker's old mantle of the Red Hood. As the Red Hood, Jason waged a murderous vigilante war on violent crime, became a minor gangster in an effort to control crime, and attempted to torment and spite Bruce and the Bat-Family.
Riddler:
Talon: William Cobb was the chief assassin for the Court of Owls for many years, having first been active in the early 20th century and only defeated by Batman in more recent years. He has a healing factor, weak immortality, an aversion to cold and is an ancestor of Dick Grayson.
The Terribles of Earth 29

In other Media[]

Film[]

Justice League: Doom[]

In this film, the Legion of Doom includes one member of the rogues gallery of each Justice League member. They are assembled by Vandal Savage in order to use contingency plans stolen from the Bat-Computer to take down each Justice League member individually.

Members of the team include:

Vandal Savage (leader): An immortal cave-man who is obsessed with world-domination.
Metallo: John Corben was a criminal whose body was crippled in an accident caused by Superman resulting in him being given a cyborg one to replace it by a xenophobic mad-scientist obsessed with killing the man of steel. He was later given a pseudo-heart made of Kryptonite to power him.
Bane: A hulking mercenary and super-genius, Bane was raised in the hellish and corrupt prison of Pena Duro, from birth serving the sentence for a crime his father had commit. As an adult he was experimented on with the super-steroid Venom which gave him super-strength at the cost of brain-damage as is true of many drugs. He would come to move to Gotham City in-order to defeat and break the spine of the Batman who he'd come to see as his greatest enemy.
Star Sapphire: Carol Ferris was the boss and girlfriend of the second Green Lantern, Hal Jordan. She was later given a power-ring from the alien Star Sapphire Corps to be a warrior in their ranks with her ring warping her mind's understanding of love resulting in her being obsessed with killing Green Lantern.
Cheetah (Dr. Barbara Minerva): Wonder Woman's arch-nemesis is Dr. Barbara Anne Minerva, Diana's former best-friend. Envious of Diana's powers, Barbara found a magical society that worshiped a malevolent cheetah deity that she forced them to put her through a ritual to become an incarnation of. The ritual gave Barbara the speed, jaws, appearance, claws and instincts of a Cheetah with invincible skin and super-strength that lead to her abusing her powers and becoming an enemy of Diana.
The Mirror Master: An enemy of the Flash, Sam Scudder was a criminal who was found out and arrested by the Flash's forensic-scientist alter-ego of Barry Allen. Following this, an accident with mirror chemicals caused him to develop mirror-based superpowers that he used to try and destroy Barry and the Flash.
Malefic: Martian Manhunter's brother and the only other surviving green-martian of Mars is Ma'alefa'ak who engineered the virus that killed off the life on Mars in the first-place. On Earth, Malefic is obsessed with killing his brother due to the Manhunter having always been seen as the good brother as Malefic was born without telepathy or an aversion to fire, both of which are staples in Green Martian genetics.

TV Shows[]

DC Animated Universe[]

The Legion of Doom was adapted into the series Justice League Unlimited under the name of "The Society", intact with their headquarters (which here doubled as a spaceship). The group was assembled by Gorilla Grodd from the remains of a team assembled by Lex during the show Justice League.

Eventually, a civil war breaks out between Grodd loyalists and Luthor loyalists which splits the Society in-half.

The show-runners were planning on putting the Riddler and Scarecrow in as members but couldn't due to the embargo on major Batman characters in media at the time.

Batman Villain (and Batman relevant characters) include:

Batman: The Brave and the Bold[]

In this series, the team appears to fight the Justice League in a baseball match. Members include:

Lex Luthor
Joker
Cheetah
Weather Wizard
Amazo
Felix Faust
Chronos
Clock King

Gotham[]

See: The Legion of Horribles

Harley Quinn[]

The Legion of Doom appears in the show as a public group of super-villains lead by the incredibly misogynistic Lex Luthor and has Harley spend season 1 trying to join their ranks. One notable member of her crew is Doctor Psycho, a golden age Wonder Woman villain who got fired from the Legion after calling Wonder Woman the c-word on live-television.

Harley is later recruited after robbing Aquaman of Atlantean jewels but is only there so that the team can manipulate her to get at Poison Ivy for her powers.

Relevant members include:

Harley Quinn
Clayface
Doctor Psycho
King Shark
The Joker
Man-Bat
Killer Croc
KGBeast
Solomon Grundy
Bane
Calendar Man
Two-Face
The Penguin
The Riddler
Scarecrow