In Part 1, we established the belief that the first super-villain team-up in comics history was probably the meeting of Dr. Fate's adversaries Wotan and Karkull in More Fun Comics # 70 (August 1941). We'll pick up the chronology from that point.
The Justice Society of America was the first-ever super-team in comics, their inaugural meeting depicted in All-Star Comics # 3 (Winter 1940), predating Wotan and Karkull's super-villain team-up in '41. The JSA's debut wasn't the first instance of characters from different strips crossing over--the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner battled in Marvel Mystery Comics # 8 (June 1940), and my gut is that was the first such crossover, though I invite corrections--and nor did All-Star Comics gather any bad guys from its heroes' individual comic-book homes. I think our next super-villain team-up came one year later, as part of the origin of comics' second super-team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
Like the Justice Society, the adventures of the short-lived Seven Soldiers of Victory (aka Law's Legionnaires) were published under the DC Comics imprint, although there were actually two different publishers sharing the DC brand name: All-American Comics and Detective Comics. That may be an oversimplification of the complicated interrelationship between AA and DC, but we don't need to get too much into the weeds here.
The JSA was originally a mix of AA characters (like Green Lantern, the Flash, Hawkman) and DC characters (Dr. Fate, the Spectre, Hourman, honorary JSA members Superman and Batman), though the DC heroes would be phased out of the JSA over time, at least until DC absorbed AA a few years later. The Seven Soldiers of Victory were all DC guys: Green Arrow and Speedy, the Vigilante, the Shining Knight, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Crimson Avenger, with the Crimson Avenger's Asian stereotype sidekick Wing serving as the unofficial eighth Soldier.
The SSoV debuted in Leading Comics # 1 (Winter 1941), brought together to combat the evil machinations of the criminal mastermind the Hand, who had gathered a group of our heroes' own enemies--his five fingers--for, y'know...EVIL! The bad guys don't act as a group, as each hero faces his own adversary in separate chapters. But all of the villains are acting under the Hand's guidance, making this the second super-villain team-up and the first super-villain group.
It's worth noting that two of our assembled malevolent forces--the Vigilante's enemy the Dummy and the Crimson Avenger's opponent Big Caesar--had not appeared anywhere prior to Leading Comics # 1. But--no matter what!--the three other bad fingers the Needle, Professor Merlin, and Red Dragon had indeed already clashed with their respective foes Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Green Arrow and Speedy, and the Shining Knight. Yeah, this one qualifies under my definition of a super-villain team-up.
You know what else qualifies as a super-villain team-up? Well! We'll talk about that worm and his monsters in Part 3.
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