ICONIC BONDING PT. 3

 In ICONIC BONDING PT. 1 I formulated three types of bonded ensembles using the Dick Grayson Robin as an example of a character who had participated in all three, to wit:

--the "unbonded" ensemble in which he has brief, semi-regular teamups with Batgirl II--

--the semi-bonded ensemble, in which he gravitates to two different iterations of the TEEN TITANS (after leaving the Batman-and-Robin ensemble)--

--and the fully bonded ensemble, such as the Dick Grayson version of Robin enjoyed with Batman roughly from 1940 to 1970.

In all of these examples, Robin is a superordinate icon, as are the majority of fictional heroes. In contrast, most fictional villains function as subordinate icons. So when villains appear in ensembles, they usually do not possess the quality of stature, only charisma. But this charisma-action also manifests in line with the three models seen above.

"Unbonded ensembles" would be any sort of short-term teams, or teamups that prove loose at best over time. For instance, there have been many gatherings of Bat-villains in the Bat-verse, ranging from RESURRECTION NIGHT to HUSH. No reader expects these peripatetic assemblages to have any durative value. The same applies to teamups that may last a few issues before dissolving, such as the alliance of Daredevil's foes the Gladiator and the Masked Marauder. However, in the above cases the charisma-crossover action depends on the fact that the villains have been previously established. So when both the Enforcers and their boss the Big Man first appear in SPIDER-MAN #10, they had no crossover-charisma because they had no previous iterations. Further, their ensemble expires with that issue, for the Big Man never returns. When the Enforcers make their second appearance, which is also the first appearance of the Green Goblin, the "familiarity" of the Enforcers sustains a "proto-crossover" with the "novelty" of the Goblin, but only because the Goblin himself will go on to future appearances.

"Semi-bonded ensembles" are those that have some impressive duration, even when the icons aren't joined at the hip. I've written a couple of times about how Stan Lee took two THOR villains who no longer fit that feature, the Cobra and Mister Hyde, and made them a semi-regular team. However, even in the period when the two malcontents were most often allied, one would occasionally appeared independently of the other, or in alliance with some other super-fiend. In the 1980s Cobra severed his alliance with Hyde and his short-lived 1970s group of serpent-themed villains, the Serpent Squad, became reworked by later hands into the Serpent Society. I can't speak about Cobra's status in current Marvel comics, but up until the end of the 20th century he became much more prominent as the member of the Society than he was as a solo player, or as the partner to Mister Hyde.

"Bonded ensembles" are those in which the durative value is even more noteworthy, and may involve qualitative escalation as well as the quantitative kind. The Enchantress and the Executioner appeared together in their first appearance, and tended to appear together more often than not, with a slightly different angle: that the Executioner desired Enchantress as a bed-partner. There's a hint that this finally came to pass in a 1970 AVENGERS story, and future stories built on that development. None of the THOR stories in which Enchantress and Executioner are the only villains are charisma-crossovers, any more than Batman and Robin are stature-crossovers when they're the only heroes in a given story. And if the renegade Asgardians appear together in a non-aligned feature like THE HULK, it's not any more a charisma-crossover than Greenskin squaring off against a single non-aligned villain like Maximus the Mad.

A somewhat different ensemble without crossover-charisma is that of the Lord With Many Powerful Servants. In the original NEW GODS universe Darkseid is the guy in charge of many such servants-- Mantis (seen above), Desaad, the Deep Six-- but there is no crossover-vibe there, any more than Sergeant Rock being separate from the grunts under his command. An exception was the Apokolips-Lord's brief role as the organizer of the first "Secret Society of Super Villains." But even there, the charisma-crossover would be between (a) Darkseid and any minions, such as the pictured Kalibak, and (b) the Secret Society as a whole, which functions as a semi-inclusive team. 

Heroes and villains may be the only two of the four personas that regularly appear in all these configurations. Even I, the author of said personas, will probably not bother trying to suss out if my models to apply to the other two, the "monster" and the "demihero."