Even More Emissaries Of Evil!

 

While clearly alliterative, the name of the group of villains who comprised the Emissaries of Evil seemed to come up short--after all, what villain would want to be regarded as an "emissary"? Are they an evildoer, or a messenger? Diplomatic, rather than deadly. "Greetings... we're here to bring you the evil that we harbor toward you" or, closer to the mark, something that indicates they've been sent by someone even more evil: "We come bearing a message from our master: 'Die!' " Yet in comics, alliteration goes a long way when you add an exclamation point--and those who would join the Emissaries club took their role seriously, even though I doubt the "Emissaries of Evil" was a name they could use as a form of intimidation toward those they went after, or even to strike fear into their targets. The Masters of Evil grabbed the really good name in those respects.

There was only one grouping of Emissaries who formed up and operated on their own volition, and that turned out to be the original team (though I'm probably being generous with that noun) from 1967, with Electro getting first billing as the one who gathered them together:

As was the case with the the Sinister Six in the first Amazing Spider-Man Annual, Daredevil would initially battle the Emissaries one by one; but going the ASM Annual one better, the DD issue, as we've seen, would provide a finale where Daredevil faced and battled the entire group. But under what circumstances did other groupings of evil Emissaries stick with that dopey name assemble over the years?

That's our cue to assemble yet another

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Marvel Trivia Question

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Who made up the ranks of the Emissaries of Evil between the years 1976-1998?

It took nine years for someone to bring that not-so-hallowed name out of mothballs after Electro and his crew were carted off to jail. But who would instigate the concept anew? If there's a criminal mastermind who's often made use of super-powered hirelings to do his bidding (as he did the Masters), it would be Elihas Starr, aka Egghead, who gathered three such men to conduct an all-out attack on the Defenders--in part as revenge for interfering with his personal vendetta against his niece, Trish, but also as the means to gain for himself the largest ruby in the world, the Star of Capistan. The initial attack is aborted when the ruby proves to be elusive--and while Egghead isn't pleased, we readers are privileged to flip the pages and take in some excellent art by Keith Giffen and Klaus Janson.

But who was Egghead's third Emissary? None other than, of all people, the Cobalt Man, whom Egghead had brainwashed as well as armed to detonate in an atomic holocaust which would destroy the Defenders (and I'm guessing a good deal more).

We're all still here, so obviously Egghead's scheme didn't pan out--and there were also complications involving the Star of Capistan, which the PPC has covered previously.

From here we fast-forward sixteen years to find Egghead once again making use of Solarr and the Rhino while adding the Porcupine, the Eel, the Swordsman, and Power Man. Technically, we can't say this is a new assemblage of the Emissaries of Evil, since Egghead has apparently downgraded the name and now regards them as his "employed emissaries"--but we can take a little license nonetheless, and join them in Canada where they make the leap to being potential international terrorists who would eventually face budding members of Alpha Flight.

Next up, however, we leave Egghead behind and jump ahead six years to find that the Kingpin has gathered his own Emissaries to help secure his operations in Paris. Suiting up this time are Le Concierge, Synapse--and a founding member, the Stilt-Man, who is neutralized by Synapse under the Kingpin's orders for refusing to undertake an assignment to murder an innocent woman (Dr. Claudia DuBois) who had treated a dying SHIELD agent sanctioned by the Kingpin. After DuBois is rescued by a man named Laurent LeVasseur (in actuality Daredevil, unknowingly working undercover for SHIELD), DD eventually crosses paths with one of the Emissaries who is out to recruit him.

Once this storyline has run its course, it's clear that the "Emissaries of Evil" moniker has become available to be recycled from time to time, presumably whenever a writer feels like dusting it off for reuse with either familiar faces or fresh ones. I frankly can't see men like the Matador, the Leap-Frog, the Gladiator, or any former Emissaries feeling such pride in the name as to make an effort to reform their respective groups, but you never know--nostalgia on the part of a writer can sometimes be more compelling than any paycheck Egghead or the Kingpin might hand out.