Seeking distraction from super-villain team-ups in the real world, I started thinking about the history of super-villains joining forces in the comics. As I said in the preamble to a recent short story I wrote, "Much of the pulp fiction of the 1930s and ‘40s was created in response to the crisis of the Depression and the horror of Fascism...Catharsis is no substitute for action. But it does serve a purpose."
I started my reminiscence with the first meeting of Superman's arch enemy Lex Luthor and Batman and Robin's foe the Joker (World's Finest Comics # 88, May-June 1957), even though I knew that certainly wasn't the first time previously-established nogoodniks formed a bad-guy pact in comics. At the very least, the Luthor-Joker alliance was predated by the 1944 teaming of the Joker and the Penguin in Batman # 25. And I was pretty sure that wasn't the first super-villain team-up either.
While I had no illusions of concocting a definitive timeline of super-villain team-ups, I was interested in slappin' together some general information on the history of such things. I presumed there weren't any precedents in 1930s newspaper strips; if it turns out two or more of Dick Tracy's previously-introduced adversaries formed an alliance prior to 1941, I will stand corrected.
Otherwise, 1941 seems a good starting point. A Google search for "first super-villain team-up" brought me to the GCG Comics chat forum, where a 2020 post suggested that the partnership of Dr. Fate's enemies Wotan and Karkull in More Fun Comics # 70 (August 1941) was comics' first-ever super-villain team-up.
I was initially resistant to this, figuring Daredevil Battles Hitler # 1 (also from 1941, published just a little before the above-cited issue of More Fun) had to be the first. But my memory of the Daredevil book led me astray; I thought the issue-long story involved Daredevil's opposite number the Claw working with other villains on behalf of the Third Reich, but I believe the Claw was the only comics super-villain enlisted here by real-life super-villain Adolf. Daredevil Battles Hitler doesn't qualify. Barring evidence to the contrary, I'm gonna go along with naming Wotan and Karkull as the first. And thank God Dr. Fate was there to stop them!
Where does the history of super-villain team-ups go from there? I have a Leading idea. We'll attempt to continue tracking that chronology of treacherous collusion in Part 2.
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