Cabal

The Cabal is a secret society of supervillains and antiheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. As a more villainous counterpart to the Illuminati, the group was formed in the "Dark Reign" storyline very shortly after the Secret Invasion event. Publication history The Cabal first appeared in Secret Invasion #8 and was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu. Fictional team history During a presentation shown by Bendis during the 2008 convention season, a picture was made public of a second Illuminati group consisting of villains and former villains. Presented in the same pose as the cover of Illuminati #1, this group was revealed to include Namor, Doctor Doom, Emma Frost, Loki, The Hood, and Norman Osborn. The Sub-Mariner is thus revealed to be affiliated with two different Illuminati groups simultaneously allied with both heroes and villains. Uncanny X-Men writer Matt Fraction mentioned in an interview that the Uncanny X-Men annual in January will explain how Emma Frost was invited into the team. Loki was revealed to have dealings with Doctor Doom in recent issues of Thor and Namor was shown to have formed an alliance with Doctor Doom at the end of his last limited series. Namor had previously been aligned with Doom in the 1970s series Super-Villain Team-Up. A past connection between Emma Frost and Namor was presented in Uncanny X-Men Annual #2, where it was revealed that Emma and Namor shared a brief romance while attempting to recruit Namor into the Hellfire Club as the new White King.