Two fictional supervillains in DC Comics
Comics character
Key
is a
supervillain
appearing in media published by
DC Comics
, primarily as an enemy of the
Justice League
. The character continues to appear in Justice League and
Batman
comics, with a ghoulish appearance since 1997.
Publication history
[
edit
]
The Key first appeared in
Justice League of America
#41, and was created by
Gardner Fox
and
Mike Sekowsky
.
[1]
Fictional character biography
[
edit
]
The Key debuted in
Justice League of America
#41 (December 1965). The unidentified man known as the Key develops
mind-expanding
"psycho-chemicals" that activate his 10 senses. Assisted by henchmen known as "Key-Men" and a "key blaster" gun, the Key has several failed run-ins with the
Justice League of America
(JLA). The Key first drugs the Leaguers, which not only causes them to disband the Justice League, but also physically blinds them to the existence of the Key and his Key-Men. The Key fails to take into account
Hawkman
's sidekick,
Hawkgirl
, who frees him from the drug's effects. They free the other Leaguers, and the Key is imprisoned.
The Key returns three years later. During his last attack on the League, he left a subconscious command in their minds that would not allow them to leave the League's headquarters for one hour. At the end of that time, each Leaguer would turn on another and kill him or her. Superman defeats the Key by going back in time and sending his un-hypnotized self forward in time. He defeats each Leaguer in turn, and then imprisons the Key in the
Fortress of Solitude
in suspended animation.
[2]
The Key appeared to die six years later. He wires an entire city block of
St. Louis, Missouri
, with bombs, forcing the Justice League to pass through a series of traps to reach the device which will stop the detonation. The Key reveals that he was freed by a judge who found Superman's actions an unconstitutional use of cruel and unusual punishment. Incarcerated in a regular prison, he learns the psychoactive drugs he has taken have left him mere months to live. Released on humanitarian grounds, he attempts to destroy the League. The
Phantom Stranger
impersonates one of the Key-Men, helping to save the League. Green Lantern
John Stewart
uses his power ring to drive the explosive force of the bombs down into the ground, and the Key escapes at the last moment.
[3]
The Key appears again in
Justice League of America
#150 (January 1978). The
Manhunter Mark Shaw
has given up his old identity to become a new hero named the Privateer.
[4]
Doctor Light
attempts to gain access to the
Justice League Satellite
, but is driven off by the Privateer. Light encounters a new villain, the Star-Tsar, and they briefly engage in battle. When former League mascot
Snapper Carr
is discovered near the site of a battle with the Star-Tsar's henchmen, the Star Lords, the League becomes suspicious and travels to Snapper's home to speak with the Carr family. Light traps the League in his "Spetriminator", but they free themselves. They rush off to find Light, but instead encounter an unconscious Star-Tsar?who is unmasked as Snapper Carr. Star-Tsar is freed by his henchmen, but their getaway vehicles leave behind a distinctive radioactive trace. Several League members trace this trail to the Star-Tsar's lair, where they are captured by the "real" Star-Tsar (who has imprisoned Carr). The League free themselves and the "real" Star-Tsar is discovered to be the Key. The Key reveals that the bombs he used in St. Louis were "stellar bombs" designed to give off a peculiar kind of radiation. When the
Green Lantern
John Stewart
used his power ring to contain the blast, it drove the radiation downward into the Key's subterranean lair where the Key had prepared machinery to utilize the radiation and prevent his death. But the dying Key was only able to close his machinery over his head. The Key's body survived albeit in a dwarfish form, while his head remained life-size. Building a robotic body for himself, he approached a disillusioned Carr, provided him with weapons and henchmen, and launched his latest attack on the Justice League. The
Red Tornado
, however, discloses that the Key is not the real Star-Tsar, either: Mark Shaw is. Shaw came up with the villainous identity and approached the Key for help, which the Key gave. But when Shaw refused to work with the Key, the Key manufactured a mechanical Star-Tsar body and used Snapper Carr to carry out the Key/Star-Tsar's more athletic crimes (since the Key/Star-Tsar could appear alongside Snapper, no suspicion would fall on Snapper).
Still in his dwarfish, barely mobile form, the Key attempts to cure himself a few years later by reactivating the android
Amazo
, which was stored aboard the Justice League Satellite. He hopes that by absorbing the League's powers, his body can be restored. New League member
Zatanna
uses magic to cure the Key, restoring the powers to the League (who subdue Amazo).
[5]
The Key makes a cameo appearance in
Justice League of America
#240 (July 1985). The time-traveling villain Dr. Anomaly observes the Key's second battle with the Justice League before launching his own attack on the superhero group.
The most recent incarnation of the Key is introduced in
JLA
#6 (June 1997), by
Howard Porter
and
Grant Morrison
, in a teaser at the beginning of the issue. The Moon begins to fall out of orbit in
JLA
#7 (July 1997), and the Key is seen to not be responsible. As the Leaguers return to the
Justice League Watchtower
on the Moon, the Key immobilizes them. The Key's new look is explained in
JLA
#8 (August 1997): The Key spent years in a drug-induced coma to unlock even more potential in his brain. The "psycho-chemicals" altered his appearance so that now the Key is a pale, cadaverous, white-haired humanoid with greatly heightened mental abilities. The Key uses a programmable "psycho-virus" to knock the Justice League's members unconscious and trap them in a dream that they all share (a fantastic type of dream telepathy). The Key states he is counting on the heroes' known aptitude for dispelling such illusions, and that as they wake, he intends to siphon off the resulting energy to open a door to creation and become the center of the universe. Most of
JLA
#8 and
JLA
#9 (September 1997) consists of stories occurring in these fantasy realms?including
Kal-El
as the
Green Lantern
of Sector 2813 on a still-existent
Krypton
, a now-retired
Bruce Wayne
going back into action when
Tim Drake
and Wayne's son face the
Joker
(who is dying of cancer),
Aquaman
in a time where Earth has been virtually flooded, and a powerless
Wonder Woman
facing Nazi archaeologists and demons. The Key almost succeeds in killing the heroes. The League is saved when the
new Green Arrow, Connor Hawke
, teleports to the JLA headquarters to attend a pre-arranged meeting to discuss becoming a member of the League. Hawke attacks the Key before he can complete his goal. The Key is incarcerated in
Arkham Asylum
, where the
Martian Manhunter
puts him in a "mental maze" (a form of coma).
The Key next appears in
Gotham City
, where he uses his psycho-chemicals to remove
Batman
's inhibition against killing. The Key's goal is to have Batman kill him, so that he might unlock the secret of death.
Batgirl
and
Azrael
must prevent Batman from committing murder until the drug wears off.
[6]
The Key makes an appearance, along with a large group of villains, attacking the Justice League and
Marvel Comics
' the
Avengers
in 2003.
[7]
The JLA disbands in the "World without a Justice League" storyline in 2006, in which the Key plays a major part. The Key emerges from the "mental maze" with his telepathic powers even more greatly enhanced. Unable to shut out the voices of millions of people, the Key comes close to insanity before realizing that killing people helps calm the voices. The Key commits a large number of murders in
Metropolis
, which the Justice League investigates. The Key kidnaps the heroine sorceress
Manitou Dawn
, and attempts to merge his mind with hers to wipe all human life from Earth. The League stops him, but his new Key-Man android delays the heroes long enough to allow him to escape. The Key mentally orders thousands of people to kill one another. As the League separately battles the Seven Deadly Sins, the personification of Envy tries to stop the Key to keep envy (a human emotion) alive. Envy tries to use the Key to enter the minds of millions of people and listen to their seedy thoughts, but the Key resists and breaks free?forcing a temporarily unpowered Envy to flee. The Key begs Manitou Dawn to kill him, but she sends him to a "dream plane" instead, where he will hear no voices and can be at peace.
[8]
During the
Infinite Crisis
miniseries, the Key is shown during the Battle of Metropolis,
[9]
although whether this takes place just before the events of "World without a Justice League" or after is not clear. He is later briefly seen to be a member of the
Injustice League
.
[10]
The Key reappears in
Justice League of America
(vol. 2) #17-18 (March?April 2008), although neither his cure nor his escape from the "dream plane" are explained. The
Suicide Squad
is collecting the world's supervillains to send them to the prison planet
Salvation
. Several villains, led by the Key, take refuge with the Justice League and are imprisoned. The villains assume that, once the danger of exile is past, the Key will be able to free them whenever they wish, but a dampening field in the prison prevents the Key from using his enhanced intelligence. The Key next appears having escaped from the Justice League's prison (somehow), and is briefly depicted as a member of the
Secret Society of Super-Villains
.
[11]
He is next seen meeting with the supervillain
Roulette
a year later to receive information she had collected on the League.
[12]
The Key is apparently working for someone else, but who it is, is never revealed.
The Key's next major appearance came in
Batman: The Dark Knight
(vol. 2) #1 (November 2011). The Key is depicted incarcerated in Arkham Asylum (although how he got there is unclear). An aggression-enhancing toxin is released into the air at Arkham, and Batman must battle the Key and a number of other villains as he penetrates the hospital to reach
Two-Face
. The Key makes another major appearance in the
Justice League
comic a year later, when he is freed from his cell during a riot at Arkham Asylum. Although quickly captured by Batman, Superman and
Cyborg
, the Key reveals that he and the
Weapons Master
were broken out of their cells only so that they could be interrogated by a new villain,
David Graves
, who wanted to know the weaknesses of the Justice League.
[13]
The Key appeared in a flashback in
Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell
(July 2014).
DC Rebirth
[
edit
]
Talking with an unspecified force that is implied to be trapped, as seen during the
DC Rebirth
reboot, the Key captures Batman, Nightwing, Wonder Woman, Donna Troy, Barry Allen, Wally West, Aquaman and Tempest and traps them in a specially designed prison, with the goal of driving the mentors and proteges to destroy each other by exploiting their differences and paranoia. However, the heroes manage to overcome the Key's attempt to keep them divided and they attack him directly, forcing the Key to withdraw without gathering sufficient power to release his unknown associate.
[14]
His benefactor was later revealed to be Troia, a dark future version of Donna Troy. He along with Mr. Twister and Psimon fought the Titans before driving Troia back into the abyss.
[15]
The Key's most recent appearance is in
World's Finest
#8 (December 2022). He has instilled entamaphobia (the fear of doors) in everyone in Gotham City. People are afraid to leave their homes, businesses or automobiles. The Key is demanding five billion dollars in ransom.
[16]
Powers and abilities
[
edit
]
Originally, the Key carried a blaster in the shape of a key. The psycho-chemicals he created also allowed him to access the
90 percent of the human brain that is untapped
. This vastly increased his intelligence and expanded his range of senses. The Key also had a large number of henchmen known as Key-Men, who acted as bodyguards and who had enough limited fighting skills to delay heroes (and allow the Key to effect an escape).
The Key is a master of
chemistry
, and utilizes chemicals (most often in the form of drugs) as weapons. He used drugs to bend the Justice League to his will twice, and Batman once. More recently, the Key created a programmable psycho-virus that initiates a dream-like state that allows the Key to produce structured hallucinations. He created a machine that allowed him to steal energy from the mind of the infected person, and conceivably could make him the most powerful telepath in the universe (even able to open dimensional doorways at will).
The Key has shown an extraordinary capacity for creating androids and various kinds of machines. Aside from building his own Key-Man servant (which has some resistance to physical attacks and limited offensive capabilities), he was able to control the highly advanced
Amazo
android as well. The Key built weapons and other devices capable of harnessing stellar radiation for their power, altering the Moon's orbit, harnessing dream-energy, and regenerating his own body using radiation. On one occasion, the Key developed a "vibrational prison" which was capable of immobilizing a wide range of heroes (including Superman). More recently, the Key altered his key-blaster so that instead of firing energy bolts, it fires psycho-chemicals which can disable practically any living organism.
Other versions
[
edit
]
- An unrelated villain, also called the Key, had previously appeared in
All Star Comics
#57 (March 1951), which featured the last
Golden Age
appearance of the
Justice Society of America
. In this story, the Key is the head of a major crime syndicate and uses various agents around the world to engage in crime. While escaping from the Justice Society in a cable car moving over a
gorge
, the Key leaps out to avoid capture, presumably falling to his death.
[17]
In other media
[
edit
]
Television
[
edit
]
- The Key appears in
Justice League Unlimited
, voiced by
Corey Burton
. This version is a member of
Gorilla Grodd
's
Secret Society
who specializes in penetrating secure areas, possesses a form of intangibility, and wields a key-shaped gun that can easily open doors as well as operate like a regular gun. In audio commentary, the series producers stated that the Key was originally going to be possessed by, or be connected to,
Brainiac
, and play a larger role in the episode "Alive!".
[18]
Prior to and during the aforementioned episode,
Lex Luthor
takes control of the Society, but Grodd mounts a mutiny. Key sides with the latter, only to be frozen by
Killer Frost
and killed off-screen by
Darkseid
along with Grodd's other loyalists.
- The Key appears in
Beware the Batman
, voiced by
JB Blanc
.
[19]
This version is a diminutive, elderly shopkeeper able to mold his fingers to fit any lock and download digital security keys from computers into his brain. Additionally, he is an expert
forger
who creates new identities for a high price.
Film
[
edit
]
The Key makes a cameo appearance in
Justice League: The New Frontier
.
Video games
[
edit
]
The Key appears as a boss in
Justice League Heroes
, voiced by
Carlos Alazraqui
. This version is affiliated with
Brainiac
.
Miscellaneous
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Rovin, Jeff (1987).
The Encyclopedia of Supervillains
. New York: Facts on File. pp. 173?174.
ISBN
0-8160-1356-X
.
- ^
Justice League of America
#63 (June 1968).
- ^
Justice League of America
#110 (March 1974).
- ^
Justice League of America
#140 (March 1977);
Justice League of America
#141 (April 1977);
Justice League of America
#143 (June 1977).
- ^
Justice League of America
#191 (June 1981).
- ^
Batman: Gotham Knights
#5 (July 2000).
- ^
Avengers/JLA
#3 (December 2003).
- ^
JLA
#120-125 (December 2005-April 2006)
- ^
Infinite Crisis Special: Villains United
(April 2006).
- ^
Justice League of America Wedding Special
(November 2007).
- ^
Justice League of America
(vol. 2) #21 (July 2008).
- ^
Justice League of America
(vol. 2) #37 (November 2009).
- ^
Justice League
(vol. 2) #9 (May 2012)
- ^
Titans
(vol. 3) Annual #1
- ^
Titans
(vol. 3) #16
- ^
"Batman/Superman: World's Finest #8 review"
. 19 October 2022.
- ^
All Star Comics
#57 (March 1951).
- ^
Justice League Unlimited Season Two, commentary on
Alive
- ^
"Beware the Batman - JB Blanc Interview - Comic-Con 2013"
.
IGN.com
. July 29, 2013
. Retrieved
August 7,
2014
.
- ^
Green Lantern Corps Quarterly
#3 (December 1992).
- ^
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
#5 (July 2009).
- ^
DC Super Friends
#6
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