The Seven Soldiers of Victory (also known as Law's Legionnaires) are a team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. They first appeared in Leading Comics #1 (Winter 1941), and were created by Mort Weisinger and Mort Meskin. The team was a short-lived assembly of some of the less famous superheroes in the DC Universe who have made occasional appearances since their Golden Age debut.
Contents
Fictional team history
Pre-Crisis
The Seven Soldiers of Victory (also known as the Law's Legionnaires) is DC Comics' second super-hero team, following the Justice Society of America. Like the Justice Society, the membership of the Seven Soldiers is drawn from DC's anthology comics: Vigilante (from Action Comics); Crimson Avenger (from Detective Comics); Green Arrow and Speedy (from More Fun Comics); Shining Knight (from Adventure Comics); and Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy (from Star-Spangled Comics).
Unlike most superhero teams, the Seven Soldiers include two sidekicks, Speedy and Stripesy, as members (Stripesy is a rarity, an adult sidekick to a "kid" lead character). Crimson Avenger's sidekick Wing also takes part in the team's adventures, and is in every other way an "eighth Soldier", but is never considered an "official" member. All of the group's members are non-powered humans who rely on conventional weapons or training in place of superhuman abilities.
The team is formed when the criminal mastermind called the Hand (later the Iron Hand), believing himself terminally ill, gives his greatest unused schemes to five other supercriminals who he saved from the police (Big Caesar, Dummy, Needle, Professor Merlin, and Red Dragon) to commit crimes across the U.S. as "the Hand's Five Fingers" and prove his genius to the world. The Hand also challenges the five criminals' enemies (Crimson Avenger, the Vigilante, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Green Arrow and Speedy and Shining Knight, respectively) to stop the criminals, presuming they will fail. However, the heroes defeat the Hand's Five Fingers. The heroes converge on the Hand's base after he reveals his whereabouts; the villain had found out a cure for his condition and decides to eliminate the heroes so he can remain free, but the heroes evade his traps. When the villain tries to use a lightning ray machine against them, the Vigilante shoots a crucial component of the device, bringing machinery down upon the Hand and apparently killing him. Deciding they work well together, the heroes form the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
The Seven Soldiers of Victory appear in the first 14 issues of Leading Comics (which changed to an all-humor format in #15).
A script by Joseph Samachson from the 1940s, in which the elf-like Willie Wisher banishes the Soldiers to "the Land of Magic", where they encounter various supernatural characters, was later serialized in 1975 in Adventure Comics #438–443, with each chapter illustrated by a different artist (including Dick Dillin, Howard Chaykin, Lee Elias, Mike Grell, Ernie Chan, and José Luis García-López).
Post-Crisis
In the original post-Crisis retcon of the team, both Wing and the Vigilante's sidekick Stuff the Chinatown Kid are promoted to full membership, to replace the Golden Age Green Arrow and Speedy, who had been removed from active continuity. Stuff had never appeared with the team during the original Leading Comics run, while an older man named Billy Gunn helped out the Vigilante on his cases in the comic.
This retcon is changed in the late nineties, in Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9. While Stuff remains a full member, Wing is not an official Soldier because his mentor Crimson Avenger wants him to do something more important with his life. The remaining spot on the team is filled by the Spider, an archer who had originally appeared in Quality Comics' Crack Comics. This Spider is a villain and has been working with the team's archenemy the Hand, creator of the original Nebula Man. Spider sabotages the Nebula Rod, and sends the team to fight a fruitless battle. The villain tries to kill Wing, but he escapes and reaches the other Soldiers. They repair the Nebula Rod and use it to destroy the Nebula Man. Wing dies and his teammates are again tossed through time and later retrieved by the JLA and JSA. The only major difference between this story and the 1972 story is that this time the Vigilante is found after he had spent nearly 20 years fighting crime in the Old West. In the 2010 series DC Universe: Legacies, TNT and Dyna-Mite are retroactively established to have been part of the Seven Soldiers.
Another group takes the name of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in the Showcase issue of the miniseries known as Silver Age. This group, brought together to help the Justice League of America and the other major heroes and teams of the 1960s to battle the menace of Agamemno, consists of Adam Strange, Batgirl, Blackhawk, Deadman, Mento, Metamorpho, and a new Shining Knight. This group's Shining Knight is Gardner Grayle from the Silver Age feature The Atomic Knights; in previously published stories that occurred after the Silver Age limited series, he becomes the Atomic Knight and joins the Outsiders. This is the only appearance of this particular assemblage.
Seven Soldiers
Seven Soldiers is a comic book metaseries written by Grant Morrison and published by DC Comics. It was published as seven interrelated mini-series and two bookend issues. The series features a new version of the Seven Soldiers of Victory fighting to save Earth from the Sheeda.
The series was bookended by Seven Soldiers #0 and #1, with art by J. H. Williams III. The rest was made up of seven mini-series: Shining Knight with art by Simone Bianchi, Manhattan Guardian with art by Cameron Stewart, Zatanna with art by Ryan Sook, Klarion with art by Frazer Irving, Mister Miracle with art by Pascal Ferry, Bulleteer with art by Yanick Paquette, and Frankenstein with art by Doug Mahnke.
The New Golden Age
In "The New Golden Age", the Seven Soldiers of Victory reunite upon being summoned by Jill Carlyle. While Carlyle takes the adults on a mission, Stargirl and Red Arrow find out that they are going after Clock King. They find the Seven Soldiers of Victory fighting Clock King on a ship where the original Crimson Avenger (Lee Travis) had died. Before Stargirl destroys Per Degaton's time machine that sends the ship back to its own time, Crimson Avenger tells her to find Wing. Once time is fixed, history is changed so that Travis' body was found.
Halo Corporation
The re-integration of the Wildstorm characters into the DCU saw a relaunch of the Wildcats title. In issue #2-3, Jacob Marlowe unveils a version of the Seven Soldiers of Victory that will serve as a public 'face' and PR cover for the covert actions of the Wildcats team. This team consists of Threshold (formerly of Dv8), Majestic, Andromache, Maul, Mother One, Agent Wax, and Pike.
Members
Pre-Crisis
Crimson Avenger (Lee Travis)
Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton)
Stripesy (Pat Dugan)
Vigilante (Greg Saunders)
Shining Knight (Sir Justin)
Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)
Speedy (Roy Harper)
Wing as "unofficial eighth soldier"
Post-Crisis first team
Crimson Avenger (Lee Travis)
Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton)
Stripesy (Pat Dugan)
Vigilante (Greg Saunders)
Stuff the Chinatown Kid (Victor Leong, Vigilante's sidekick)
Shining Knight (Sir Justin)
TNT (Thomas N. Thomas)
Dyna-Mite (Daniel Dunbar)
Spider (Tom Holloway/Thomas Ludlow)
Wing as "unofficial eighth soldier"
The Squire (Percy Sheldrake), later Knight accompanied them on one mission.
Post-Crisis second team
Batgirl (Barbara Gordon)
Blackhawk (Janos Prohaska)
Metamorpho (Rex Mason)
Mento (Steve Dayton)
Deadman (Boston Brand)
Adam Strange
Shining Knight (Gardner Grayle)
Enemies
Notable enemies in order of appearance include:
Iron Hand - Ramon Solomano is a master criminal.
Big Caesar - An enemy of Crimson Avenger who allies with Iron Hand.
The Dummy - A villain who dresses like a ventriloquist's dummy and an enemy of Vigilante who allies with Iron Hand. In a reversal of Doome's tactics, Dummy later uses a time machine to send the Soldiers into the past.
Needle - An enemy of Star-Spangled Kid who allies with Iron Hand.
Professor Merlin - A mad scientist and enemy of Green Arrow who allies with Iron Hand.
Red Dragon - An enemy of Shining Knight who allies with Iron Hand.
Black Star - A villain who uses "black light" to transform himself into a giant.
Brain - A minion of Black Star who fights Crimson Avenger.
Captain Bigg - A scientist, modern day pirate, and minion of Black Star who fights Star-Spangled Kid.
False-Face - A master of disguise and minion of Black Star who fights Shining Knight.
Hopper - A minion of Black Star who uses a special pogo stick and fights Green Arrow.
Rattler - A minion of Black Star who fights Vigilante.
Dr. Wilfred Doome - A scientist who uses a time machine to summon historic tyrants as his operatives, including Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Nero.
In other media
The Seven Soldiers of Victory appear in the Justice League Unlimited episode, "Patriot Act," consisting of Green Arrow, Vigilante, Shining Knight, Stargirl, S.T.R.I.P.E., Crimson Avenger, and Speedy.
The Seven Soldiers of Victory appear in Stargirl, consisting of the Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, Green Arrow, Speedy, Vigilante, Shining Knight, Crimson Avenger, and Wing. This version of the group operated years before the Justice Society of America.
Collected editions
The original appearances have been collected as part of the DC Archive Editions:
The Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives
Volume 1 collects Leading Comics #1–4, 240 pages, March 2005 ISBN 978-1401204013
Volume 2 collects Leading Comics #5–8, 228 pages, July 2007 ISBN 978-1401213084
Volume 3 collects Leading Comics #9–14 & a script for #15, 288 pages, July 2008 ISBN 978-1401216948