Loyal Ladies Liberate Larcenous Lads

Behind every successful man is a supportive woman. This adage definitely epitomizes the relationships between Rita Desmond and Flora Styles, and their true loves, Albert Desmond (of Earth-One) and John Sargent (of Earth-Two). 

While Desmond and Sargent were both good hearted men, at times they were sadly corrupted by the  abilities  bestowed upon them from when they were infants, enabling them the transmute elements. At times, this led to their mercurial temperament, when operating under their alter egos, Desmond as Mister Element (and later Doctor Alchemy) and Sargent as Sargon.

Sargon was once framed for a crime, which thanks to the tenacity of his stage assistant Flora he was able to  prove his innocence and expose the true convict. Mister Element repeatedly fell prey to his criminal leanings, due to outside manipulations.

While Albert eventually put a definitive end to his supervillain career, John became intoxicated with the thirst for more power. Sadly, by that point, Sargent had migrated to Earth-One where he remained, unlike Desmond who only briefly lived on Earth-Two while with the Crime Champions. Although Sargon like Element regained his sanity and morality, he never reunited with Flora. Meanwhile, John and Rita lived happily ever after.

Terrific and Terrifying Twins of Twin Terra-firmas

Let's consider Albert Desmond, whose criminal tendencies motivated his scientific acumen towards a career as the costumed criminal known as Mister Element, a crime spree abbreviated due to the appearance of Earth-One's Flash. So in response, he adopted a new alias as Doctor Alchemy, possessing the transmuting Philosopher's Stone... and still met with failure. 

Eventually, Desmond joined the Crime Champions where he encountered his foe and another Flash as well as their twin teams. After a series of failed attempted at fame, Albert retired from crime to reform and marry his long suffering girlfriend Rita.

Soon thereafter, Albert's cousin Alvin assumed the alias Doctor Alchemy which led to a duel between the two, with Alvin eventually joining the second incarnation of the Crime Champions then fading away. Albert's counterpart on Earth-Two, John Sargent aka Sargon, had a 30th century descendant instead who mirrored the hero known as Element Lad. 

Alvin's counterpart was a red haired man like himself named Slicer who had attempted to obtain the Philosopher's Stone of his world from the evil Lorelei, rather unsuccessfully as it turned out when she transformed him into a canine. This stone soon after came into the possession of the supervillain Professor Zobar Zodiak.

Lorelei and her allies Rumpelstiltskin and Gallifron were the dopplegangers in an Earth-Two adjacent dimension to the trio of terror Saturna, Simon Magus, and Troll King of an Earth-One adjacent dimension. These powerful foes battled and were vanquished by the Justice Society and Justice League respectively in twice-told-tales.

Crime Champions Create Criminal Chaos Cunningly

The Crime Champions were the first of its kind, two separate supervillain teams that merged into one combined group, with three members in each unit plundering their own worlds while spending their ill-gotten loot on a parallel planet. Although they caused the Justice League and Justice Society considerable grief on both worlds, they were eventually defeated.

The members would disperse, with the Earth-One Felix Faust and Doctor Alchemy hatching separate schemes before both seemingly repenting of their criminal lives, and their ally Chronos joining the Injustice Gang, while the Earth-Two Wizard, Icicle and Fiddler would each join later incarnations of the Injustice Society.

Then years later, the Johnny Thunder of Earth-Two requested that his Thunderbolt take him to meet his criminal counterpart on Earth-One, however as with their first encounter (which both forgot due to the T-Bolt) the crook waylaid his innocent natured twin and commandeered his powers. Orchestrating a scheme whereby the Thunderbolt cause all Leaguers to be rendered unconscious while the reconstituted Crime Champions each take over portions of Earth-One, the Society intervened yet nearly all perished until the Leaguers were revived and aided their dopplegangers. This due to the clever actions of the heroic Johnny versus his villainous twin, and at the end of the tale there would no longer be a Crime Champions evermore! 

Between these two occasions, the Wizard and his five criminal compatriots had attempted to stage a coup on Earth-Two after their initial defeats in an attempt to avoid capture. The Justice League and Justice Society employed the teamwork necessary to capture their amoral adversaries. This would be repeated years later on Earth-One during a similar plan by these costumed crooks.

One of the Crime Champions, Felix Faust, encountered his counterpart Kent Nelson in battle during this initial team up of the twin Justice teams. Nelson as Doctor Fate defeated Faust, which would later motivate Felix into adopting the costumed identity of his world's Doctor Fate that battled Superman and Green Lanterm of Earth-One. This same enmity between these two was replicated with their recurring foes, which they encountered on at least two occasions. These adversaries were Phantom Strange and Lando the Unknown, men of mystery and means.

Phantom Stranger and Faust first fought when Stranger was made an honorary member of the Justice League during a case. Later, the two opposing forces came to blows when the Stranger was allied with various unaffiliated heroes like himself. Both times, the Stranger gained the upper hand on Earth-One's faux Fate, Felix.

The once "heroic" Lando the Unknown adopted the alter ego of Krishna Das, pretending to predict the future for his own greedy goals. Doctor Fate had initially been bested by this turbaned tyrant, but turned the table on his foe in March of 1943. 

However, Das escaped using his abilities, and in May of 1943 adopted another alias...as Mister Fortune! Lando's true allegiance was finally revealed as a Nazi collaborator seeking to undermine trust in democracy and influence Americans into placing their trust in a German empire. In this role, Lando once more ran afoul of Doctor Fate during a case involving the Justice Society.

The connection between the Earth-One Johnny Thunder and his Crime Champion ally Felix Faust would be similar to that between the Johnny of Earth-Two and his Justice Society ally Doctor Fate... as both worked together only on the opposite side of the law from their doppelgängers. However, Faust would eventually turn to the side of good after extensive therapy, something that Lando no doubt would have benefited from following his fall from grace.

Phantom Stranger would assist the Justice League in several adventures following his initial clash with Felix Faust. These included the League’s battles with:

• Versus the Key
• Versus the Shadow Thief and his allies Minister Blizzard, Captain Cold and the Icicle of Earth-Two
• Versus Count Crystal (while Crystal’s counterpart Frederic Vast faced the Justice Society alone)
• Versus The Red Tornado Construct entity
• Versus the Key once more, along with Star Tsar and the Privateer
• Versus the “Fiend with Five Faces”
• Versus the alien War-Kohns
• Versus the Appellaxians

Lando eventually returned when he and Ian Karkull traveled from the past to recruit Vandal Savage, who was fleeing the combined might of the Justice Society following their invasion of Savage’s artificial world Colu-Two. What became of Lando/Krishna Das/Mister Fortune following this final appearance was his transformation into a shadow being like Ian, who was eradicated from existence when Karkull’s plot to assassinate future presidents of the United States was thwarted by the Justice Society. Doctor Fate and his teammates ended up absorbing the abilities of Lando and Karkull.

Evil Elementals: Elemental Enemies of the Flash

As infants, Albert Desmond and John Sargent were each exposed to a powerful ruby which gave them mastery over the elements as adults. Both men flirted with good and evil in their costumed careers, each encountering the Flash.

As a scientist with criminal leanings, Albert devised an elemental gun which could transmute objects, and used this as the sinister mastermind known as Mister Element. Taking Central City of Earth-One by storm with his criminal gang, he faced the town's new hero the Flash. Despite quick thinking and awesome adaptability, Mister Element was no match for his fleet footed foe.

Soon after, Desmond discovered the Philosopher's Stone which gave him even greater abilities as Doctor Alchemy. After a rematch with Flash, he joined fellow villains of Earths One and Two to form the Crime Champions, battling the Justice League and Justice Society.  The Earth-Two Stone was first claimed by the criminal Slicer and later by Professor Zobar Zodiak. Slicer was his world's version of Albert's evil cousin Alvin, who also used the stone.

As a stage performer with heroic aspirations, John Sargent utilized his ruby of life to control matter to become the caped crusader known as Sargon. Travelling across America and to other countries on his native Earth-Two, Sargon battled a variety of foes. Using his quick thinking along with with adaptable abilities, he even earned a spot on the All-Star Squadron, working alongside the golden age Flash.

Unlike Desmond, who had his wife Rita to stabilize him with her love to become a law-abiding citizen, Sargent left the woman in his life, Flora Styles, who had been his moral compass when he eventually moved to Earth-One for a a few decades and turned evil.

In fact, an adverse influence to each of them was Eubard Thawne, also known as Professor Zoom or the Reverse Flash. Zoom brainwashed Desmond into resuming his Mister Element alias on two occasions, to further Thawne's own scientific research. Later, Sargon enlisted the aid of Zoom to assist him in learning the secrets of time travel.

Just as there were twin rubies on Sargon's world, so too they existed on Element's world. The one known as the dragon's eye ruby ring was owned by Desmond since his youth, just as Sargon's ruby was a childhood inheritance.The other Earth-Two ruby ring was possessed by police detective Jim Corrigan, and for a time by a common criminal, while the other Earth-One ruby ring was possessed by Latin America dictator Pedro Valdez. 

In fact, the rubies that Desmond and Sargent each owned were temporarily claimed by actor "Brick" Ford and Jerry "the Gyp" Swain, immediately after Albert was cured of his ruby's influence (thanks to Flash's help), and John's ruby was stolen from his apartment. Each ruby teleported to those "in need" of them after the former owner no longer had use of them. Eventually, one of the Earth-One rubies was destroyed by Wonder Woman, and Sargon's Earth-Two ruby returned with him there during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.