Crime Syndicate

35 years ago (dream realm memory) - Krypton is destroyed. Jor-el's son is rocketed to Earth. Zod & the Phantom Zone criminals escape and attempt to sustain themselves on the ruined hunks of their planet. Zod's son Lor-Zod is kept in a hyperbaric chamber with sustained exposure to Kryptonite.

31 years ago (dream realm memory) - Thomas Wayne Jr stages the death of his parents and little brother Bruce.

23 years ago (dream realm memory) - Green Martian chieftain J'edd J'arkus, having assisted in the eradication of other Green Martians after the Martian Civil War, is banished to Earth. He becomes the Martian Maneater.

20 years ago (dream realm memory) - The remains of Krypton are fully converted to Kryptonite, killing the survivors from the Phantom Zone. Lor-Zod is sent to Earth, where he becomes the adopted brother of Clark Kent. He kills Clark and his adopted parents, assuming the name and creating his own organization, the Terror Legion.

19 years ago (dream realm memory) - Arthur Marius stages a coup, claiming the throne of Atlantis from his stepfather Orm. He becomes the Sea King. Wealthy playboy Oliver Queen is betrayed by the cabal of elite controlling Star City, thrown off a building. Soon the Cabal is stalked by an undead specter, The Black Archer.

18 years ago (dream realm memory) - Chemist Johnny Chambers first discovers his Speed Formula, which allows him to manufacturer the drug Velocity 9. He becomes heavily addicted, using the superhero name Jack B Quick. Harold Jordan is present when his test pilot cousin Hal Jordan is killed by a bolt from space. He is chosen by Vulthoom, the alien entity that has infected the Green Lantern's ring. He becomes Power Ring.

17 years ago (dream realm memory) - Rockstar Dinah Lance, daughter of Laurel Drake, defeats Sandra Wu, becoming the new Paper Monkey. She returns as Scream Queen.

16 years ago (dream realm memory) - The Crime Syndicate comes together to defeat the formation of the Justice Underground.
Membership: Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, and Martian Maneater

15 years ago (dream realm memory) - Thomas Wayne Jr returns to Gotham, having trained with and stripped all the resources from the League of Shadows, Court of Owls, & Order of St Dumas. He takes on the identity Owlman.
Membership: Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, and Martian Maneater

14 years ago (dream realm memory) - The Black Archer begins working with Scream Queen, and joins her on the Crime Syndicate as her enforcer.
Membership: Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, Martian Maneater and The Black Archer

13 years ago (dream realm memory) - Clark Kent arrives in Metropolis and assumes the role of Ultraman. Both he and Owlman attempt to take over the Crime Syndicate. They arrive at a truce with Ultraman as public leader but Owlman secretly controlling their resources.
Membership: Ultraman, Owlman, Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, Martian Maneater and The Black Archer

12 years ago (dream realm memory) - Lois Lane, daughter of General Sam Lane, crashes her charter jet on Themyscera. The Amazons have a contest to see who can venture into man's world to return her. Lois poisons Princess Diana and takes her place, cheating to win the contest. She is granted the strength of the Amazons and returns to man's world, using it to become Superwoman. Ray Palmer invents his shrinking tech belt using Dwarf Star Matter. He is killed by Slybert Rundie, who steals the belt and becomes Dwarfstar. Lois & Sylbert both join the Crime Syndicate. Superwoman begins a relationship with Ultraman while also cheating on him with Owlman.
Membership: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, Martian Maneater, The Black Archer, and Dwarfstar

12 years ago - The Justice League are attacked in their dreams by John Dee. They follow him back into the Dream Dome defeating him and disabling his technology. The Dream Dome builds a dream reflection of the world and populates it with nightmare mirrors of the Justice League. They remember their own history, coming together as the Crime Syndicate and dominating their world.
Membership: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, Martian Maneater, The Black Archer, and Dwarfstar

9 years ago - Morpheus returns to the Dreaming. While reclaiming his realm, he disabled the Dream Dome, the technology built by Garrett Sanford while lost in the Dreaming. The dream reflection of the world that is home to the Crime Syndicate, no longer protected by the Dome, is set adrift in its own corner of the Dreaming.
Membership: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Jack B Quick, Power Ring, Scream Queen, Sea King, Martian Maneater, The Black Archer, and Dwarfstar

7 years ago - The Crime Syndicate confirms that their world is in fact merely a dream reflection of the real world. They escape, and attack the Justice League to take their place. The League is defeated, and has to regroup. They are assisted in finally defeating the Crime Syndicate by Owlman.

Noteworthy Lineups

Founding Members

Full Membership

One of the core tenants of this entire project from the very beginning has been that we were going to build our version of DC without a Multiverse. I always describe it as "One timeline that makes sense". During that process, I of course have had a lot of conversations with people about the various Multiversal worlds in DC's lore, and which ones I think I WOULD include if I was ever going to do it.

So many of the worlds people often bring up right away are really Elseworlds stories; Superman Red Son, Kingdom Come, Gotham by Gaslight, New Frontier, Thrillkiller, and so on. These don't need to be parallel worlds, because these never need to interact with the core story. Then there's the worlds that represent characters purchased from other companies: Earth X (Quality Comics), Earth 4 (Charlton Comics), Earth-S (Fawcett), Earth-50 (Wildstorm), Earth-M (Milestone ). This is sort of an extra unnecessary step: either integrate the characters or leave them in their own world. The vast bulk of Multiverse worlds are actually references to single issues from the Silver Age, often referred to as "imaginary stories" where some relationship shenanigans happened, like Jimmy marrying Lex Luthor's sister or Superman and Lana having kids or something. Really... these are just old fashioned Elseworlds. Then of course there's the OG: Earth-2. The classic break between the Golden and Silver Ages of Comics. This is the granddaddy of them all, and once you decide you're going with the Post-Crisis take on the Justice Society... you've basically exhausted the utility of the entire Multiverse.

With one notable exception.

The Crime Syndicate's Comic History

The classic Justice League of America series included the now-famous issue #21 from 1963, "Crisis on Earth-One!", the first crossover between the Justice League and the Justice Society. (This happens after the whole concept of a multiverse is introduced in Flash #123, "Flash of Two Worlds"). This is an extremely popular issue, and would introduce what amounted to an annual event when the League would cross over with Earth 2 in some way. The very first of these annual "Crisis" issues was #29, "Crisis on Earth-Three".

We're introduced to ANOTHER alternate Earth, this one operating on a sort of opposite-world logic, populated by "heroes" that actually use their powers as criminals. They are so bored with being the only powered people on their planet they attack Earth 1 just to pick a fight with the Justice League, and actually manage to beat both them AND Earth 2's Justice Society. This is a REALLY good story, and the invention of these mirror-world takes on the main five Justice League members are all a really cool invention.

That's actually the only time we see them, though. The rest of the annual "crisis" issues mainly revolve around Earth 2, with the occasional detour to invent whole new worlds like Earth X. Three of the Crime Syndicate, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, and Power Ring, appear in a few issues of the Secret Society of Super-Villains in 1978, but that's really about it. In 1985, when we saw whole universes collapsing in the beginning of the Crisis of Infinite Earths, one of the first ones we saw was Earth 3, with the Crime Syndicate marveling at the fact that they were actually fighting to protect their world before being destroyed.

After the Crisis there was of course no longer a Multiverse and so for a good while the idea of the mirror-world Crime Syndicate was impossible, but of course this changed during Grant Morrison's JLA series, where they managed to bring back so many fantastic concepts from the Silver Age League. This happened in a graphic novel called JLA: Earth-2 by Morrison and their long-time collaborator Frank Quietly. It dove into Green Lantern lore, where his long-time enemies the Weaponers of Qward came from the "Anti-Matter Universe". (There's actually a tiny bit of precedent about this one, because all the way back in the original Justice League story Starman used anti-matter to defeat Ultraman, and I can guarantee you Morrison clocked that.) We were treated to a whole new take on the Crime Syndicate, with updated costumes and much more complex backstories for all the characters. They're now no longer just characters who happen to be similar to the League, the entire world is now literally a mirror-universe style good is bad, bad is good reflection of our own, and each character is an actually morally flipped version of their counterpart.

There was quite a bit of storytelling centered around the Anti-matter Crime Syndicate. Later when the Multiverse was reintroduced in 2006 during Infinite Crisis, there was always understood to be a new Earth 3 with new versions of these characters. What's more, there are quite a few stories that play with the concept of an alternate, evil variant of the Justice League. There's the "Injustice" world created for the Mortal Kombat style fighting game that has also spawned a way-better-than-you'd think comic series. There's the animated movie "Crisis on Two-Earths" that gives us entirely new designs for the Syndicate while also proposing lots of new members (This is where we get my favorite Earth 3 character, J'edd J'arkus). There's even "A Better World", one of the most celebrated episodes of the classic animated Justice League, which presents the Justice Lords, not so much evil counterparts as much as just variant versions of the heroes who have been pushed just a LITTLE too far to disastrous results.

During Geoff Johns Justice League run, during the huge Forever Evil storyarc, Earth was invaded by an entirely new take on the Crime Syndicate, reimagined by Johns and Jim Lee & Ivan Reis just like Morrison and Quietly before them. This is the version of the Crime Syndicate you see today, although as they appear now they've actually undergone a few more redesigns. Creators clearly enjoy playing with these concepts, and that's part of the fun.

Our Crime Syndicate Story

When asked about what worlds of the Multiverse I though would be worthwhile to include, it always came down to Earth 3. Everything else was skippable, but this idea, the evil mirror-earth version of the Justice League, was always really fun and it seemed a shame to leave out. Clearly Grant Morrison thought the same thing. I'd already made some changes to the Weaponers of Qward, getting them out of the anti-matter universe and into their own hidden sector of space for obvious reasons. (Anti-matter doesn't actually work like that, and sometimes certain details just stick in my brain as unmovable). So we didn't have a way to include what would otherwise be a really fun idea.

The solution we found, however, came about when we decided to include the Garrett Sanford Sandman and interweave his story with John Dee's Doctor Destiny. Within that story, we found, was a way to spontaneously create, within Sandman's Dreaming, a whole hidden world. We could actually create the Crime Syndicate's Earth, not using far-fetched science fiction principals, but using the far more narratively flexible concept of the Dreaming. There's really no limit on how we go about putting this together, because it doesn't actually have to fit in with anything. This is all dream logic. The various members backstories, since they are all fictional even within the metafiction of our story, means we can reference stuff we never reference anywhere else.

Even doing it this way, we did need to follow a guideline laid out by the timeline. We know that we want our Crime Syndicate to include, at the very least, the five original members. If they are mirror versions of the Justice League that encountered Doctor Destiny inside the Dreaming, then we know that version of the Justice League can't be any earlier than twelve years ago, because that's when Wonder Woman joined. This gave us the ten Justice League members of the Syndicate we were going to include. Some of those were obvious and easy (Hell YEA J'edd J'arkus!) and in some cases we had to get a little creative, but I really solidly stand by the lineup we put together here.

When exactly the Syndicate escape their world and into ours also had to be worked out carefully. At this time we haven't yet done Morpheus's story, but we've done Doctor Destiny, so that dictates some of the basic timeline elements as to when certain parts of that story happen. Knowing this would be a later lineup of the Justice League confronting a Crime Syndicate mirroring the classic Satellite Era League, this actually becomes a cool opportunity to show them having to basically pit themselves against their predecessors. We chose the League from seven years ago, which is essentially the first time the League is almost entirely new characters.

Ultimately, what we have here is not so much a way integrate the Crime Syndicate into the timeline at large so they can appear in lots of stories. Instead it's telling one GREAT Justice League story, and I think that's the best possible use for them.

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