Twice-Told-Tales: Satellite Crisis

A variety of arch-fiends and master criminals have found their sinister schemes squelched by the Worlds’ Greatest Heroes, those worlds being Earths One and Two. However, it was two mental masterminds who very nearly succeeded in destroying the Justice League and Justice Society… aboard the League’s own orbiting satellite headquarters! Who were these men, and how did they compare to this corrupt contemporaries? Let’s see!

Both Hammond and Romaine were opportunistic criminals who stumbled upon the means to transform themselves into immortals with the power to control the minds of those with weaker wills than their own. While Hammond prime adversary was Green Lantern of Earth-One, just as Roger Romaine’s main obstacle was Mister Terrific. 

Hammond reflected on various prominent villains who menaced the Justice League, each of whom had an Earth-Two counterpart that fought either the combined Justice Society and/or its individual members. 

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These menaces included, but were not limited to:

• Despero & Kulak
• Kanjar Ro & Blakfu
• Professors Amos Fortune & Zobar Zodiac
• Silver Age & Golden Age Key
  
• Androids Amazo & Akhet

Eventually, each hatched similar schemes whereby they took control of a super-powered agent while aboard the Justice League’s satellite, with the intend of turning said agent against their arch-enemies and their foes’ teammates.

Hector tried this first, dispatching the artificial life form known as the Shaggy Man to attack the Justice League aboard their satellite. The resulting conflict, after Hammond through his pawn overwhelmed all the League save one, led to the satellite falling out of orbit and nearly crash landing on Earth-One. Thankfully, the sole hero who hasn’t succumbed to Hector’s agent of destruction was Green Lantern, who saved the satellite and shrunk down the Shaggy Man!

Roger was the next to try this technique, mind-controlling his world’s Flash to attack the speedster’s Justice Society teammates along with their Justice League allies aboard the League satellite. The twin teams were able to stabilized the satellite’s decaying orbit during the conflict, thanks in part to the combined efforts of the Green Lanterns of two Earths. These two men along with their costumed colleagues uncovered the true culprit, Romain, who slayed Mister Terrific out of revenge for the humiliating defeats dealt to him by the Defender of Fair Play. The malevolent murderer fled back to Earth-Two, never to reappear.

The missing element in Hammond and Romanine’s criminal calculations was the indelible fidelity of honor, friendship and trust which ensures that the heroes will always… eventually… triumph over vile villains opposing them.

Antagonist Automatons Aid Assembled Avengers

Perhaps the deadliest foe of the Justice League of America was the adaptable android known as Amazo. A creation of the sinister scientist Professor Ivo, Amazo had the ability to absorb and replicate the superhuman abilities of all he encountered, and he was tasked with defeating the Justice League in order to secure for his master the secret to immortality. Eventually defeated by the team's combined might, Amazo was kept stored inert at the League's original cave headquarters, and later onboard its orbiting satellite base above Earth-One.

Amazo's physical doppleganger on Earth-Two, the android known as Akhet was developed by the international brain trust known as the Binary Brotherhood to portray an alien invasion that would motivate the warring nations of the world to unite against a common threat. Although Akhet's energy abilities kept members of the Justice Society of America and their allies in the All-Star Squadron humbled for a time, the heroes eventually defeated both him and his true master, Hawkman's oldest enemy Doctor Hastor. While Akhet did not possess powers similar to those of the Justice Society, these were contained in other devices from another reality.

However, the brain developed by Amazo was a singular creation, one intent on remaining eternally in a state of slumber. When awoken, the angered android struck out against his enemies time and time again. And in fact, twice the League reactivated him to regain their "winning factor" and powers that were sapped by an extraterrestrial entity known as "I" and later after their battle with Libra and his Injustice Gang. So more than once, Amazo was an unwitting aid to his bitterest foes.

Was there a correlating brain behind Akhet, which later assisted the Society and Squadron? Indeed there was, and it originated from the brains of All-Stars Robotman and Commander Steel, who reprogrammed the once robotic pawn of Brain Wave... the World's Fair automaton named Elektro*... into the subservient mechanized butler of the Squadron named Gernsback. Prior to this, Steel and Robotman were among those captive scientist who's brainwaves powered Hastor's Akhet, hence Akhet and Gernsback had a mutual genesis in their cybernetic synaptic network.. making Gernsback a later incarnation of Akhet. And one that was much more amiable to those whom he once fought... first in the Akhet body and later in Elektro's form. He would reside at the Squadron's Perisphere headquarters through the end of World War II. What became of him after is unknown.

* The Elektro robot of the Earth-One World's Fair, as with its Earth-Prime counterpart, was kept as a museum piece until the present day. Likewise, the Akhet android was last seen sequestered by the United States government following its failed attempt at world conquest, and kept in its collection.

Metal Menaces Meet Men and Maiden of Might

The heroic members of the Justice League and Justice Society faced many and varied threats over the years, and among the most dangerous were robot rogues that wielded sufficient abilities to match and exceed their enemies.

For example, Amazo, the android built by Professor Ivo utilized his power absorbing abilities to defeat the Justice League and prolong his master's life. Amazo succeeded, although the cost to Ivo for immortality was inhumanity. Another example was military scientist Helmet Streicher who sought to see the future and harness futuristic technology to provide him a cybernetic armor. He triumphed although as the Red Panzer found continual defeat versus members of the Justice Society.

While the Panzer initially faced Batman, Flash and Green Lantern... it was Wonder Woman who was his most persistent opponent. Similarly, after a series of battles with the League... their most powerful member Superman became Amazo's primary foe. Each metallic menace faced off against the Man of Steel and Amazing Amazon on a couple of occasions, the last of which found decisive defeats from which they never truly recovered. (Amazo and Red Panzer’s counterparts on each other’s Earth, Akhet and Atomic Knight, were more “one-hit-wonders”)

Interestingly, the Wonder Woman of the Justice League twice journeyed to Earth-Two to aid her counterpart. Although the two twins initially fought, they soon reconciled and tackled Red Panzer together... then on the Earth-One Princess' return trip aided her Justice Society doppelgänger versus the Angle Man. 

A parallel event happened on her own world when she and her Justice League allies battled the automaton Super-Duper, created by criminal Joe Parry, on one brief occasion before it was recreated by T.O. Morrow once more. Super-Duper possessed several attributes of five Leaguers, with the head of Wonder Woman herself! This character was a minor footnote in history, and had a doppleganger in T.O. Morrow's cosmic rod energized cat statuette.

Earth-Three Tour de Force: Objects of Power Corrupts

Power corrupts... and absolute power corrupts absolutely as our heroes today learned! While the good guys in other universes forsook  this temptation, using their powers and abilities for justice, on Earth-Three this hadn't been the case (until Alex Luthor donned a uniform and become his world's first native-born hero). The ambitious antagonists of humanity on that world were the Crime Syndicate of America (although two of their number, Ultraman the Kryptonian and Superwoman the Amazonian, were not Americans). 

While Ultraman relied on Kryptonite to power him, and Owlman mysteriously had mental abilities his doppelgängers the Batmen had not possessed, the other three Syndicators were equipped with devices giving them tremendous might.

Similar to the speed force of each Flash, the power rings of the Green Lanterns, and the golden lassos of the Wonder Women... these three items of power were distinct in their own right. For instance, Johnny Quick's superspeed was derived from a helmet (reminiscent of Jay Garrick’s Flash helmet). Superwoman's lasso transform into animal forms such as a winged serpent. Power Ring's ring functioned similar to Green Lanterns Hal and Alan's only its effects could prove toxic to himself and others over time.

Just as these devices ended up on Earth-Two, which the Secret Society of Earth-One used to travel to that world from Earth-Three (long story), duplicate of the power ring, the lasso, and a red-skull cap (with speed enhanced thought and reactions) was wielded by the android Amazo versus the Justice League. What became of the Syndicate’s facsimile weapons once on Earth-Two is unknown… although Amazo’s Earth-Two analogue Akhet never came into possession of them, relying upon the mental energies of others to empower him.

Migrants of Multiple Earths: Emerald Energies

The year was 1978, a significant period in the Multiverse as there was numerous incursions into adjacent universes by superheroes and villains alike. For example, Earth-Two's Wizard drew four of his cronies in the Secret Society of Supervillains (and his new foe Captain Comet) first to Earth-Three before finally arriving at the world of his birth. In order to get there, he had to purloin items of power possessed by the  Crime Syndicate of America, which led the Society and Comet in direct confrontation versus CSA. After discovering the cause of a mutant plague afflicting Earth-Three, originating from Power Ring's own battery, the Captain used Power Ring's power battery to transport him to Earth-Two where he would "destroy it". Whether that was done or not, this green lantern given to Power Ring by the evil Volthoom was transferred to Earth-Two's universe.

Wizard and his Secret Society also on this occasion stole Power Ring's ring of power, Superwoman's lasso and Johnny Quick's speed helmet... which he used to transport himself and his team to Earth-Two from Earth-Three. When they arrived on Earth-Two, these devices had disappeared from Earth-Three but had not reappeared there. These three items were replicated on Earth-One by the adversarial android Amazo, a foe of the Justice League! The Syndicators apparently retrieved them on Earth-Two after they’d been freed from their Limbo prison by Per Degaton during his “Crisis on Earth-Prime” caper.

As for Earth-Three's power battery which Volthoom obtained from a meteor fragment embued with emerald energies from the Starheart of Earth-Two, this battery correlated in Earth-Two's universe with the yellow power ring and supplemental equipment obtained by the renegade ex-Green Lantern known as Sinestro, which he used in his never-ending battle with his former masters the Guardians of the Universe, their Green Lantern Corps, and Sinestro's arch-enemy from Earth-One... Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan.

Sinestro obtain his various yellow power rings from the antimatter universe world of Qward, where on that world the Guardian's counterparts the Weaponers developed this technology which they bequeathed their agent Sinestro with during his attempts to conquer his home universe. The yellow ring could syphon emerald energy from the Green Lanterns' power rings and their power batteries, with abilities that matched these devices.

Amazingly Agile Androids vs Teams of Justice

Professor Ivo of Earth-One invented a technology whereby a synthetic being could gain powers through its absorption cells. This android was named Amazo, a being capable of replicating all of the powers of the heroic League, and later android servants in Ivo's image. Ivo-Two made more primitive robots that nevertheless did the same trick. Amazo's agenda was to defeat the newly formed Justice League and, utilizing their replicated abilities, collect seemingly inaccessible ancient objects from around the world, from which an immortality serum could be distilled. Amazo succeeded in providing his master the means to extend his life another 500 years, although the automaton was himself defeated. 

A cabal of scientists from around the world of Earth-Two gathered together in the early days of World War II to find a solution to their global conflict. Developing an artificial vessel, shapped as an eye, and creating an android through whom they would project their combined personalities into named Akhet, they hoped to trick the governments of the world into joining forces together to combat the threat of an alien invasion. When Akhet and his starcraft landed in Washington, D.C., he immediately faced the All-Star Squadron, including their allies in the Justice Society of America. Possessing the mental might of his creators, Akhet was initially able to overpower the heroes. Soon, they discovered that the mastermind behind Akhet was one of the scientist, Anton Hastor, who usurped the project to fullfill his own ambitions for power. When Hawkman and Hawkgirl defeated him, Akhet was likewise vanquished, nevermore to return to plague these heroes.

Amazo would be redeployed on a few more occasions, twice at the bidding of the Justice League in order to reinvigorate themselves after particularly disheartening attacks by their enemies as well as a pawn of another scientist in T.O. Morrow who was trying to destroy the Justice League.

Two other robots would bedevil these two teams of justice. Criminal scientist Doctor Indrom used the lives of 100 super-villains from across the cosmos to become the core for his World Beater robot, possessing all their superhuman powers. Although initially defeating the Justice League, the Super Friends were able to defeat him by exploiting the weaknesses of the powers the automaton possessed. Then there was Nazi scientist Helmutt Streicher who built the Murder Machine, which nearly vanquished Batman, Flash and Green Lantern in their first adventure together.

Around the time period that the Panzer debuted, Wonder Woman's All-Star Squadron allies assisted teammate Amazing-Man against another non-living yet sentient being named Real American. This automaton  was fulfilling his master's prejudicial programming. Just as the All-Stars faced and vanquished this robot in their world's Detroit, it was the Justice League of Detroit who themselves finally eliminated the threat of Amazo.

Shortly before Amazo’s reappearance in Detroit, another robotic rogue battled that city’s League. This cyborg, Commander Steel, tangled with the Justice League and Justice Society, whom he felt dishonored traditional heroism as he perceived it. 

And just as Real American was assembled on Earth-One and lived out its existence on Earth-Two, so too had Commander Steel left his native Earth-Two to live his remaining years on Earth-One.