A clear mark of distinction for comic book heroes was to have your enemies band together in a group dedicated solely to your destruction.
You knew you’d arrived then.
So, the Blackhawks ran into the League of Anti-Blackhawks (Blackhawk 165, October 1961), a team consisting of the Eel, the Buzzard, the Chameleon, and the Owl.
Archie Comics’ Fly and Fly-Girl faced the Anti-Fly League (Adventures of the Fly 21, Sept. 1962). The Spider, Bra-Kr, the Metal Monster, Roxr, Lxo III, Dovi, Karl Rance, and Linda Drake were the charter members.
And of course, Superman had the Superman Revenge Squad, described in the Comic Book Encyclopedia as a “…loosely knit organization of extraterrestrial villains, founded originally by the warlike inhabitants of the planet Wexr II but (later) comprised of aliens from many planets.” They were more of a plot device than a team.
This villainous tradition even dated back to the 18th century, with the League of Tomahawk-Haters. The frontier felons Lightfoot, the Trapper, and the Highwayman joined forces in Tomahawk 54 (Feb. 1958).
My favorite, however, was the League of Challenger-Haters, which debuted in Challengers of the Unknown 42 (Feb.-March 1965).
More than just run-of-the-mill costumed criminals, the Challenger Haters offered an interesting visual variety.
The original Haters included a giant robot, a fire monster, and whatever the hell the mercurial Multi-Man was. I loved the absurdity and excess of all those super-beings.
“Old foe Kra, self-styled king of the robots, returned for payback, and recruited other old enemies of the Challs to help him in his campaign: Drabny, who wielded a psychokinetic helmet; Volcano Man, a lava creature; and Multi-Man, a former shape-changer, currently stuck in a dwarfish form, but retaining his huge intellect,” noted comics historian Keith W. Williams. “However, with the aid of some of the specialist equipment they’d accumulated, the Challs turned out to have the upper edge for this outing.”
Multi-Man debuted in The Man Who Conquered the Challengers (Challengers of the Unknown 14, June-July 1960). He was Duncan Pramble, a man who found a serum that allowed him to acquire a new life and a new superpower when he died.
The giant robot dictator Kra appeared in The Prisoners of Robot Planet (Challengers 8, June-July 1959). The same issue saw the introduction of Drabny, a criminal who wielded advanced technology (The Man Who Stole from the Future).
The hissing Volcano Man was introduced in Challengers 27 (Aug.-Sept. 1962, Master of the Volcano Men).
The ranks of the Haters were expanded to include Multi-Woman, a giant, caped female robot who was an object of perverse fascination for her creator, Multi-Man. She was constructed and destroyed in Multi-Woman, Queen of Disaster (Challengers 34, Oct.-Nov. 1963) and joined the Haters (after being rebuilt) in The Queen of the Challenger-Haters (Challengers 45, Aug.-Sept. 1965)
Another later addition to Haters was the aptly named Villo, introduced in Final Hour for the Challengers (Challengers 50, June-July 1968). Villo and his sentient computer, Brainex, destroyed the super-team’s headquarters in Challenger Mountain.
Undaunted by their various defeats at the hands of the champions who lived on borrowed time, the Haters appeared in issues 42, 45, 48, 50, 60, 61, and 62.
“The League of Challenger-Haters!” Joseph Lenius quipped. “And their motto is ‘Let’s take on the guys who have no super powers!’”
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