Intergang

Intergang

A giant Bruno "Ugly" Mannheim from Superman #654,
artist Carlos Pacheco
Publication information
Publisher DC Comics
First appearance Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (October 1970)
Created by Jack Kirby (writer - artist)
In-story information
Type of organization Organized crime
Leader(s) Darkseid
Bruno Mannheim
Lex Luthor
Boss Moxie
Agent(s) Frank Sixty
Whisper A'Daire
Kyle Abbot
Morgan Edge
Vincent Edge

Intergang is an organized crime group in Superman and other DC comics. Armed with technology supplied by the villainous New Gods of the planet Apokolips, it is a potent foe who can seriously challenge the most powerful superheroes.

Publication history

Intergang first appeared in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (October 1970) and was created by Jack Kirby.

Fictional organization history

Intergang was run by a gangster named Bruno Mannheim, as revealed in Jimmy Olsen #139. He was, however, getting orders and weaponry from Darkseid, who was using Intergang to help track down the Anti-Life Equation.

Intergang also worked with Morgan Edge, the head of the Galaxy Broadcasting System television network (which had recently purchased the Daily Planet and had Clark Kent transferred to its Metropolis affiliate WGBS-TV as its anchorman). It was later revealed that this was not the real Morgan Edge, but a clone from the "Evil Factory." When the clone could not bring itself to kill the original Edge at the order of Darkseid the real Edge was imprisoned. The original Edge would later escape with the help of Jimmy Olsen. During an ensuing battle with Intergang the clone was mistaken for the original by Intergang hitman Tombstone Gear and incinerated. The real Edge was soon free to resume his role as Galaxy's president.

Post Crisis

Vincent Edge as seen in The Adventures of Superman #500

In the post-Crisis DC Universe, Edge was the leader of Intergang, until he suffered a heart attack due to stress. While he believed he was working for Darkseid, his Apokoliptian contact was actually Desaad, whose only aim in supplying him with weaponry was to cause suffering. While he was in the hospital his legitimate businesses were taken over by his father Vincent Edge, and Intergang was taken over by Ugly Mannheim, who trained on Apokolips with Granny Goodness. A later retcon has it that Mannheim was the original leader of Intergang, dealing knowingly with Desaad. How Edge took over is unrevealed.

Eventually, Intergang was brought down by Clark Kent and Cat Grant, Mannheim was arrested, but managed to escape. He attempted to disappear through a "boom tube" (a New Gods transporter), but it collapsed when he was halfway through.

Some time later, Mannheim's father Moxie "Boss" Mannheim, a gangster who had been in prison since the 1940s after being captured by the Newsboy Legion, was released. Discovering that the Newsboys were, seemingly, the same age as when he first fought them, he determined to find out how such a thing could be. Meeting renegade Project Cadmus geneticist Dabney Donovan, he arranged for himself and his former gang members from the 1940s to be cloned into youthful bodies with superpowers. Using Vincent Edge to arrange a meeting between Metropolis' gang-leaders, he killed them all, and declared himself the new head of Intergang. The new Intergang spent much of their time tracking down Jimmy Olsen, whom Moxie believed knew Superman's secret identity.

Following a short-lived attempt by Morgan Edge to regain control, Lex Luthor gained control of Intergang, retaining Moxie as a figurehead. Moxie and his lieutenants were later captured by Superman. When last seen, Intergang was run by a criminal cyberneticist named Frank Sixty.

Infinite Crisis

There was some suggestion that Boss Moxie (who was a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains at the time) was slain during the miniseries Infinite Crisis. The suggestion comes from a sequence during the Battle of Metropolis, during which Superboy-Prime snaps a villain's neck, killing him. In an interview DC editor-in-chief Dan DiDio confirms that Boss Moxie did indeed die in Infinite Crisis #7 by stating that Superboy-Prime snapped his neck.

52

In week 9 of the ongoing 2006 weekly series, 52, the Question tells Renee Montoya that Intergang is preparing for an invasion of Gotham City. Two weeks later, the pair finally have a confrontation with the two operatives of Intergang in Gotham, Whisper A'Daire and Kyle Abbot, known in the public eye as the manager of HSC International Banking, an holding connected to Intergang itself, and her bodyguard. In the weeks that follow, the further investigations of Montoya and the Question reveal Intergang to be operating a mining company called Ridge Ferrick in regions such as Australia, and also having expanded into nations such as Oolong Island, Bialya and Yemen, reorganized along quasi-religious lines, complete with a "holy" text known variously as the Book of Crime or the Crime Bible, which treats Cain as a heroic, if not semi-divine, figure for his role according to Judeo-Christian theology in creating the "most sacred" crime of murder. It has even been revealed that the original text is bound by the stone with which Cain slew Abel. In issue #25, Bruno Mannheim was revealed as the current head of Intergang, which is also behind the kidnapping of many of the world's "mad scientists", in a grand plan to take over America by the end of the year. He shows himself now acting like a cult leader, exalting the power of crime as the dominant order in the 21st century, and now becoming a cannibal, eating anyone he kills who refuses to join Intergang. At the same time, Magpie and Ventriloquist swear their allegiance to Intergang.

In Superman #654, Bruno "Ugly" Mannheim returns as a giant wielding alien technology, claiming that someone other than Darkseid is behind Intergang's current activities.

Gotham Underground

In the storyline Gotham Underground, Intergang is in a gang war with Tobias Whale. Intergang buys him out and makes Tobias Whale the CEO of Kord Enterprises which has become a front for Intergang's criminal activities.

Membership

Here is the known membership of Intergang:

Leaders

Other members

Other versions

JLA/Avengers

Main article: JLA/Avengers

Intergang is seen in Metropolis robbing a bank during the Justice League's absence, only to be stopped and beaten by the Avengers.

Armageddon 2001

Main article: Armageddon 2001

In the first probable future of Superman, seen by Waverider, Intergang takes Metropolis hostage with a nuclear bomb, which detonates due to a member of Intergang being too nervous, leading to Lois Lane's death (among others), and thus, Superman destroying every nuclear weapon that exists on Earth.

In other media

Television

Video games

See also

References

  1. ↑ Nightwing #42-44
  2. ↑ Vixen: Return of the Lion #1
  3. ↑ Nightwing #1
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