Product Description

Following the events of Identity Crisis, which shook the foundations of the Justice League, the world has become a more dangerous place for heroes and villains alike! Led by Lex Luthor, the world's criminals have organised themselves as the unstoppable "Society" in order to make a final stand against all super-heroes. A group of rag-tag dissenters, including Ragdoll, Scandal, Parademon, Cheshire, Deadshot and a reinvigorated Catman choose to form their own alliance under the watchful eye of the mysterious Mockingbird, and make their mark on heroes and villains alike! This dark, witty tale of the world's greatest anti-heroes leads directly into the blockbusting Infinite Crisis!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130249 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
Gail Simone is the fan-favourite writer of Birds of Prey, Superman: Action Comics, Rose & Thorn, Deadpool and The Simpsons. Dale Eaglesham has pencilled Green Lantern and the Batman: No Man's Land series (also available from Titan Books).

Customer Reviews

The best of the countdown...
There are four trade paperbacks that comprise the countdown to the Infinite Crisis, the story that redefines the DC Universe. Villains United stands out for several reasons as best of the bunch.

The first is that the story is pretty self-contained and straightforward. You don't need to know a lot of details about characters' pasts or the cosmology of the fictional universe to get what's happening. The supervillains of the DC Universe are teaming up to take down the superheroes, all except for six bad guys called the Secret Six who are being blackmailed by a mystery man called Mockingbird into attacking the Society of Supervillains. The result is a big, action movie ride of a story, where no one can be trusted and you don't know what will happen next. Because these are supervillains and as such they aren't held by the same moral codes as superheroes, so they really are unpredictable.

The second standout detail is that this book is written by Gail Simone, one of those rare female comic book writers who should be more prominent but who also has a control of humour and drama that puts a lot of male writers to shame.

Third is the art of Dale Eaglesham, which is very very easy on the eye. He has to draw literally dozens of different costumes and freaks and it all looks consistent and exciting, which is often lost amongst today's search by artists for realism. Just look at that cover. The work inside, which stretches from the African savannahs to rainlashed docklands to the final showdown at the house of secrets, never fails to convince.

One caveat is that there are some loose plotlines at the end which are to be gathered up in Infinite Crisis, but that does not stop the book being a satisfying read.

Villain on villain action
Following on from the Identity Crisis series and part of the Countdown to Infinite Crisis, this book deals with the reaction of the super-villain community to the knowledge that the JLA has been tampering their minds. In order to prevent such a thing happening again Lex Luthor, Talia Al Ghûl, Deathstroke, Black Adam, Calculator and Dr Psycho found the Secret Society of Super-Villains and begin recruiting criminals from around the world. Of those approached by the burgeoning Society six refuse but are later recruited by the mysterious Mockingbird to become the Secret Six and appose the Society at every turn.

Personally I have always found villains to be far more interesting heroes and as this story sees two groups of villains go toe to toe I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot is interesting, the art is a joy to behold throughout the book and the dialog is witty and has a natural feel to it. Although it is a good idea to have read at least some of the stories leading up to this book, the story itself is generally rather self contained and easy to read, although there are a few loose ends which I guess will be tied up elsewhere. Although not my favourite of the Countdown to Infinite Crisis series it is defiantly well worth reading.