Secret Six (comics)
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The Secret Six is the name of three distinct, fictional comic book teams in the DC Comics universe, plus a noncanonical fourth team. Each team has had six members, led by a mysterious figure named Mockingbird whom the characters assume to be one of the six themselves.
This comic book team is unrelated to either the 1931 gangster movie The Secret Six or the real-life covert group of radical abolitionists who assisted American Civil War-era revolutionary John Brown.
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[edit] Original Secret Six
The Secret Six first appeared during the Silver Age of comic books in the initial team's seven-issue title, Secret Six (May 1968 - May 1969).
Unusually, the premiere issue's story began on the cover, and continued on the interior's page one. This strike team of covert operatives consisted of August Durant, Lili Deneuve, Carlo DiRienzi, Tiger Force, Kit Langman, and King Savage.
Created by writer E. Nelson Bridwell and artist Frank Springer, the ongoing series ceased publication with the identity of Mockingbird unrevealed. The first two issues were reprinted in The Brave and the Bold #117 & 120, (March & July 1975).
[edit] Secret Six revived
Writer Martin Pasko and artist Dan Spiegle introduced an updated version of the team as an eight-page feature in the omnibus title Action Comics Weekly #601 (May 24, 1988).
They revealed Mockingbird as Durant, who now reunited the team after five years while also assembling a new team consisting of Mitch Hoberman, Ladonna Jameal, Tony Mantegna, Luke McKendrick, Vic Sommers, and Dr. Maria Verdugo. The following issue saw the entire first team, including Durant, die. The feature ran through Action Comics Weekly #612 (Aug. 9, 1988), with DiRienzi succeeding Durant as Mockingbird.
Longtime comic-book letterer Clem Robbins has said that Secret Six originator Bridwell did not have Durant in mind as Mockingbird:
| “ | When I first began freelancing for DC in 1977, I was introduced to E. Nelson Bridwell, who wrote every Secret Six story [to that time] and originated the concept. I took him aside and asked him point-blank who Mockingbird actually was, since the book was cancelled before the issue could ever be resolved. Bridwell told me who Mockingbird was, and explained his logic in choosing that particular character. [1] | ” |
Regardless, the later comics themselves, albeit under a different writer, established Durant canonically. A second arc of this team, by writer Pasko and original Silver Age artist Springer, ran in Action Comics Weekly #619-630 (Sept. 27 - Dec. 13, 1988). DiRienzi died, and his son Rafael disappeared amid intimations that he may be the successor Mockingbird.
[edit] Villainous Secret Six
The next version of the team, introduced in Villains United #1 (July 2005), consists of the pre-existing DC characters Catman, Deadshot, and Cheshire, and the newly created Ragdoll, Scandal Savage, and Parademon. Another member, Fiddler, is killed by Deadshot on order of Mockingbird. Later Parademon is killed and Cheshire betrays the group and is apparently killed, but eventually turns up alive and plotting revenge.
In the 2006 Secret Six miniseries, (written by Gail Simone with art by Brad Walker and Jimmy Palmiotti), Knockout, who was revealed as a mole infiltrating the Secret Society of Villains in Villains United, has officially joined the group to be with her lover, Scandal. At the end of issue #1, Catman asks the Mad Hatter be the sixth member of the group. While Catman meets with the Mad Hatter, Dr. Psycho orchestrates a series of attacks designed to wipe out the Six. Ragdoll and Knockout are severely injured in the attacks.
[edit] Alternate versions
A version of the Secret Six appeared in DC's alternate-universe imprint Tangent Comics, in the one-shot Secret Six #1 (Dec. 1997), by writer Chuck Dixon and artist Tom Grummett. This team consists of the Atom (Adam Thompson), the Flash, the Joker, the Spectre (Taylor Pike), Plastic Man (Gunther Ganz), and Manhunter.
