SQUADRON SINISTER

Membership: Doctor Spectrum (Alice Nugent), Hyperion (Zhib Ran), Nighthawk (Kyle Richmond), Speed Demon/Whizzer (James Sanders);
    formerly Doctor Spectrum (Kinji Obatu), Doctor Spectrum (Billy Roberts), Hyperion (construct)

Purpose: To serve the Grandmaster;
    formerly to rule the world, to seek personal gain

Affiliations: Grandmaster, Ludberdites, Nebulon

Enemies: Avengers (Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Black Panther (T'Challa), Captain America (Steve Rogers), Goliath (Clint Barton),  Iron Man (Tony Stark), Thor (Odinson), Vision, Yellowjacket (Hank Pym)),
    Defenders (Doctor Stephen Strange, Hulk (Bruce Banner), Sub-Mariner, Valkyrie (Brunnhilde)),
    Thunderbolts (Atlas, Baron Helmut Zemo, Blizzard (Donnie Gill), Fixer (Norbert Ebersol), Joystick, MACH-IV, Radioactive Man, Smuggler, Songbird);
    formerly Nighthawk

Base of Operations: Supreme Power

Base of Operations: Manhattan;
    formerly Old Tappan, New Jersey; Crayton Observatory

First Appearance: Avengers I#69 (October, 1969)

History: (Avengers I#70 (fb) - BTS) - When the Grandmaster entered a competition with Kang the Conqueror over the fate of the planet, he needed human counterparts to battle for him against Kang's selected counterparts.  He looked back in time and altered the lives of four men to become super-villains.  Thus Doctor Spectrum (Kinji Obatu), Hyperion (construct), Nighthawk, and the Whizzer (James Sanders) were created to become the Grandmaster's Squadron Sinister.

(All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z#10) - Grandmaster based his champions on Earth-712's Squadron Supreme, with whom he'd had prior dealings. In order to power them, he drew upon a mystical source of energy, the Wellspring of Universal Power.

(Avengers I#69) - Kang selected his champions to be the Avengers, and astral images of the Squadron members were revealed to them.

(Avengers I#70) - After briefly explaining their origins, the Squadron members were deployed to four international monuments where they battled four Avengers.  Captain America defeated Nighthawk at the Statue of Liberty; Iron Man defeated Dr. Spectrum at the Taj Mahal; Thor defeated Hyperion at the Sphinx by setting Hyperion adrift shrunken and trapped in a sand particle; and, with the aid of the Black Knight, Goliath defeated the Whizzer at Big Ben.  Grandmaster perceived the Black Knight's aid as 'cheating' and had the Avengers fight another round.

(Avengers I#71 (fb) - BTS) - The Black Panther, Vision, and Yellowjacket defeated counterparts of the World War II Invaders and Kang won the competition, though he was then defeated by the Avengers.  The Grandmaster departed to seek out other games.

(Defenders I#14 (fb)) - Hyperion was freed and restored by Nebulon and, seeking revenge, agreed to sell the Earth to Nebulon.

(Defenders I#13 (fb) - BTS) - Nebulon restored Dr. Spectrum's (a new version, Billy Roberts) powers and recruited Whizzer and Nighthawk.  They planned to build a giant laser to melt the polar ice caps and flood the earth.  Nighthawk disagreed with this and betrayed the team to the Defenders.

(Defenders I#13) - Nebulon trapped Nighthawk in the polar ice caps while the Squadron finished the laser.  The Defenders attacked.  Hulk defeated Hyperion, Dr. Strange defeated Dr. Spectrum, and Namor defeated Whizzer before Nebulon stepped in and trapped the heroes.

(Defenders I#14) - Hyperion convinced the others to let the Defenders live, drifting in space as he had, but the Defenders attacked anew.  Nebulon was overwhelmed by their power and revealed to be a monstrous alien.  Nighthawk turned the laser cannon on Nebulon, and Nebulon imploded, taking the Squadron (except Nighthawk) with him.

(Giant-Size Defenders#4 (fb) - BTS) - The Squadron survived and ended up on the alien world of the Ludberdites with Nebulon. Nebulon chose to remain there, but used alien technology to return the Squadron to Earth, giving them a powerful energy-absorbing gun they could get revenge with.

(Giant-Size Defenders#4) - While the Squadron planned their revenge, they were shocked when the Defenders attacked them, thinking they'd been responsible for car-bombing Nighthawk. The Squadron made short work of Dr. Strange, Valkyrie, and Hulk, and kept them captive until the hero Yellowjacket arrived and freed them. The Squadron attacked Nighthawk in the hospital, then the Defenders renewed their attack. This time the Squadron was swiftly defeated and Dr. Spectrum's power prism was destroyed.

(New Thunderbolts#15 (fb) - BTS) - Years later, as the Wellspring of Universal Power began to increase, the surviving former members (Nighthawk and Speed Demon) of the Squadron Sinister began to notice increases in their power. Meanwhile a new Hyperion (Zhib Ran) appeared on Earth, a surviving member of a destroyed Microverse world.

(New Thunderbolts#15) - A new Power Prism appeared and bonded itself to Alice  Nugent.

(New Thunderbolts I#16 (fb) - BTS) - The Grandmaster made contact with Dr. Spectrum and Hyperion and recruited them to his new cause.

(New Thunderbolts#15) - Nighthawk and Speed Demon were having a small altercation with the Thunderbolts when Dr. Spectrum and Hyperion arrived and tried to recruit them to their new cause.

(New Thunderbolts#16) - After a brief battle, Dr. Spectrum took Nighthawk, Hyperion, and Speed Demon back to Nugent Technologies where she and Hyperion revealed their origins, and told them of their plans to force change upon the world. The Thunderbolts attacked again, and Nighthawk and Speed Demon turned on them. Dr. Spectrum and Hyperion teleported away, and were later rejoined by Speed Demon, who saw that the Grandmaster was behind the plot.

(Thunderbolts II#102 (fb)) - Nighthawk, due to his distrust of Zemo, rejoined the Squadron Sinister (though Dr. Spectrum still pushed for the team to be called Supreme Power). Grandmaster had his team began tracking the Wellspring of Power conduits in order to find its primary source, thus allowing them access it.

(Thunderbolts II#102) - The Squadron tracked down the Wellspring to various conduit points around the world, fighting against the Wellspring's protectors, who could tap into the Wellspring for temporary super-powers, and attempted to track each conduit to its greater source. Joystick, of the Thunderbolts, tracked Speed Demon's movements and, tapping into the Wellspring, defeated Speed Demon in battle, breaking both his legs and taking away his powers. The Squadron was not aware that Grandmaster was working with Joystick behind their backs.

(Thunderbolts II#105) - Though Speed Demon had no powers, the Squadron continued working to track down the Wellspring conduits. Nighthawk also worked on both sides of the 'Civil War,' considered by the Squadron to be a mole. Grandmaster reminded them that if Baron Zemo accessed the Wellspring, the universe would die.

(Thunderbolts II#106) - At the Wellspring in China, Dr. Spectrum used lethal force to subdue the guardians, causing distress to Nighthawk. They, with Hyperion, got the guardians to release their power, and they worked to track the energy back to its source. Nighthawk called in a favor with Dr. Strange, and Speed Demon used some scrolls to track the final source to Germany. At the Germany plant, the Thunderbolts attacked them in great force. Hyperion fought savagely against Atlas' giant foot, Songbird's sound constructs, and Fixer's hyper-sonics, but Radioactive Man defeated him by cutting off his power source.  Nighthawk evaded Blizzard only to be knocked out by Joystick. Dr. Spectrum held Smuggler in a bubble until MACH-V fired on her. She wouldn't surrender while Radioactive Man disrupted Hyperion's powers. Zemo confronted Nugent, but walked past her to the Wellspring of Power. He then seemingly killed Grandmaster, and the Squadron was nowhere to be seen.

(Thunderbolts II#108) - Grandmaster was revived and he and Zemo fought for control of the Wellspring. Zemo won, but at the last second, Speed Demon, now powered again, rushed in and got revenge on Joystick.

Comments: Created by Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, and Sam Grainger.

The big battle between Grandmaster and Zemo ended in the heroes' favor, but the Squadron was nowhere to be seen at that point. For an in-depth history of the various members of the Squadron Sinister, read the fantastic Squadron Sinister entry in the recent Handbook profile.

The Squadron Sinister has an entry in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe#10.

As pointed out by Luis the Daevanator it should be mentioned that Krimonn, the original Power Prism used as a power source by the Squadron Sinister's Dr. Spectrum, appeared again in Avengers Annual#8 where it was destroyed for real. This happened some time after Giant-Size Defenders#4.
--Markus Raymond

In Last Defenders#5-6, Yandroth used the Omegatron to pluck alternate versions of the Squadron Sinister (Dr. Spectrum, Hyperion, Whizzer) from the timestream. The team was defeated by a future incarnation of the Defenders.

Profile by Chadman

CLARIFICATIONS:
Squadron Sinister is based on, but should not be confused with:

• Squadron Supreme, of Earth-712 @ Avengers I#85