Dr. Sivana
Sivana is one of the elders when it comes to villains in the DCU, and one with a stories history. The World's Wickedest Scientist has been clashing with Earth's Mightiest Mortal since Whiz Comics #2, cover date February 1940- and cover number #1, due to a misprint.
Like a great deal, if not most of golden Age DC characters, you can safely cut Sivana's history into two: Pre-Crisis and Post. Furthermore, you can divide Pre-Crisis into two eras in and of itself: Fawcett and DC Comics. We shall deal with those in order.
Dr. Sivana first appeared in Whiz Comics #2, March 1940. Note there wasn't a Whiz Comics #1, as that was probably taken up by a ashcan copy. In his first appearance, Sivana was essentially a stereotypical mad scientist extorting money using a "Radio Silencer". Seriously, it's hilarioius how stereotypical he is. His catchphrases included "Curses! Foiled again!", considered himself the Rightful Ruler of the Universe, caps included and kept a vault for his inventions that could be used for good, as seen in Marvel Family Adventures #50, August 1950. This included a machine, that he had invented by accident, that changed rocks into food. His labs were frequently decorated in what I can only call James Whales chic.
Sivana's main gimmick in the Golden Age was a bizarre connection to the planet Venus. As told in Whiz Comics #15, March 1941, Sivana was once one of Europe's best and brightest. Unfortunately for both him and the rest of the human race, he couldn't find anyone interested. So, he took his family and left for Venus. He stayed there until his four children (His two eldest, the good hearted Beuticia, Whiz Comics #3, April 1940 and Magnificus, Whiz Comics 15, March 1941, and his two youngest, who took after and looked like him, Georgia, Mary Marvel Comics #1, January 1946 and Thaddeus Jr., Captain Marvel Adventures #52, December 1945.) were grown. Together, they made the Sivana Family, a dark mirror of the Marvel Family six decades before the Black Marvel Family. Together, they fought against the Marvels until DC finally beat down Fawcett in 1953.
DC aquirred the rights to Captain Marvel almost immediately, but sat on them until 1973, when DC got the band back together and started a new Shazam! series. In this series, the first issue revealed that A: the Marvels lived on Earth-S (though it was likely supposed to be Earth-5, but hand lettering and all) and B: The Marvels and Sivanas had been in suspended animation for twenty years thanks to an invention of Sivana's called Suspendium. Due to the dual Crisis nature of Suspendium, I'll deal with that in its own section. In Shazam! #28, April 1977, Sivana used his "Reincarnation Machine" to bring back Black Adam. This might actually be one of his most important Pre-Crisis, since it helped bring Adam to the forefront and probably helped him get the major roles he's had since.
Post-Crisis, Sivana played a major role first in the abortive reboot in 1987's Shazam! The New Beginning OGN, where he was more or less the same mad scientist he had been up to this point, save for the fact that he was now Billy Batson's step uncle. Oh, and he also had Mr. Mind in a tequila bottle!
This reboot didn't stick very long at all. In fact, outside of the OGN, it didn't stick at all, unless you count the Action Comics Weekly stories. During Jerry Ordway's well received series, Sivana appeared once again as a mad scientist, albeit one that had been a businessman, and quite a successful one. Following the series end, Sivana appeared as a member of the Fatal Five in Judd Winick's Outsiders title. In the first week of 52, Sivana is forcibly removed from his lab by Intergang's beast men and becomes a regular in the Science Squad shenanigans later in the series. Issue 26 also reintroduced his entire family for the first time Post-Crisis.
Long story short, Sivana is one of the greats when it comes to comic book villains, and with good reason. He's one of the most pure villains and is quite fun if you're into kitsch, ironically or not.
Suspendium
Yet another of the items that make up the Science Squad experiments set in DCUO, Suspendium is actually kinda important compared to the rest of the Science Squad inventions, albeit tangently.
Suspendium first appeared in the aforementioned Shazam! #1 back in the '70s, and as mentioned it was essentially a Macguffin to explain how Billy and the Marvel Family could be alive in the then contemporary year of 1973 and not have aged. Suspendium in its first appearance was a massive globe of some weird compound the pernicious Dr. Sivana and his corrupt kids had created that causes things incased in it to go into suspended animation. The Sivanas trick the Marvels into the Suspendium, only for Sivana Jr. to smack his father on the back in congratulations, only to knock him into the controls plunging the family's rocket into the globe as well. The globe orbited the sun, growing closer until, twenty years hence, it got close enough to the sun to melt the globe.
Pretty weird, eh? The part about it apparently being gelatinous is what gets me the most. But that's just how Captain Marvel stories rolled.
Post-Crisis, Supendium appeared in 52, being first hinted at in the first week, when Sivana is seen irradiating the World's Wickedest Worm, Mr. Mind, with the substance. As shown in the final issue of the series, the "artificial time" had caused the caterpillar to mature into a Hyperfly, a massive creature that eats time itself. Once again, the Suspendium played the role of the MacGuffin, this time in the creation of the new Multiverse that Mr. Mind created.
Ira Quimby
Ira Quimby first appeared in Mystery in Space #87, cover date November 1963. Quimby is a member of the surprisingly robust Hawkman Rogue's Gallery. Quimby first appeared in Mystery in Space #87, November 1963. In said appearance, Quimby is a schlub working for a gang who always comes up with dumb ideas, and is ridiculed for the contrast between his initials and reality. Case in point: Levitating a car to get it away from its escort. The gang rightfully ridicules the schlub, leaving him to go hang around the Midway City museum the gang is headquartered in.
As it so happens in so many of stories from this era, Quimby finds a stone that, when exposed to sunlight, radiates "brain-wave radiation" and increases his intelligence. Interesting side note: Unique for the time, the stone had been brought ot Earth by the museum's creator Adam Strange in the first story in the issue. While I hesistate to say the IQ story was a follow-up or sequel, it definitely lead from the Strange story. Anywho, IQ suddenly gets the idea to make a magnetic gun and associated jet shoes, which are amongst the Science Squad Collectibles in DCUO, to help with the heist.
IQ and the IQ Gang ultimately draw the ire of Midway City's most prominent heroes, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. By using fancy schmancy goggles to find traces of that strange "brain-wave radiation" that empowers IQ. The two come to blows with Quimby and ultimately destroy the rock that had irradiated him.
A few years later, in Hawkman #7, April 1965, Quimby finds that hey, he can now get smarter when exposed to sunlight! That, my friends, is Gardner Fox in the Silver Age. Quimby uses his new found superhuman abilities to pester Hawkman again. In the ensuing years, Quimby made sporadic appearances fighting everyone from the Justice League to Superman & the Metal Men.
In 52, IQ appeared as a prominent mad scientist on Oolong, and was the one to rally the Mad Scientists against Black Adam in Week 45. Following his surprisingly awesome turn in 52, he appeared in Giffen's Doom Patrol occasionally and was reduced to a jibbering wreck by Prometheus in Cry for Justice. Feel free to disregard that- Giffen sure did.
Doctor Death
Very few characters can come close to the age of this guy in the realm of comics. As most early superheroes fought mostly gangsters and other assorted, one shot criminals, Doctor Death's only elder villain in DCUO is the Ultra Humanite. And he only precedes him by a single month.
Doctor Death, in his original guise, first appeared in Detective Comics #29, cover date July 1939 and appeared again the following issue. This was the third Batman story ever, and Death was the closest thing you can point to to being a "first supervillain" Batman fought, being preceded by racketeers and jewel thieves. The character was likely created by Gardner Fox and Bob Kane, though there is some dispute about the writer. His post-Crisis guise, which is more important to Oolong Island, was created by Dylan Horrocks and Adrian Sibar and first appeared in Batgirl #42.
In his first appearance, Death, real name Karl Hellfern, decides to be evil and extort people using poison. That's pretty much his first appearance, to be honest. In his second appearance, he returned but had a greenish, skeletal face following his near-death at the hands of the more violent Golden Age Batman in his first appearance.
That was it 'till the 70s, when he was resurrected for a single story. And then that was it for another thirty years, when he was used in Batgirl. This Dr. Death has become the standard for future deceptions, and is a bald guy using an oxygen mask. Instead of just being a extortionist, he now sells his talents on the black market. He's appeared on Oolong Island and as one of the second Black Mask's Ministry of Science (Batman #692, cover date L. December 2009). A story in Streets of Gotham retconned him into being a Golden Age villain again, and one the JSA had saved Thomas Wayne from, or some such. Honestly, he's just sort of there, waiting for someone to do something especially nice with him, if they ever do.
Honestly, that's pretty much all there is to Dr. Death.
The Four Horsemen of Apokalypse
The Four Horseman are entities from the Dread Planet Apokalypse, home of the Dread Destroyer Darkseid! Unlike most aspects of the Fourth World, however, the Horseman were not created by Jack "the King of Comics" Kirby, but instead by Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid and first appeared in 52 Week 38, although Famine had prevoiusly appeared in week 26. He wasn't fully revealed as such until week 43.
In 52, rather than being the Biblical Horseman, the Four Horseman are ancient entities from the planet Apokalypse. Long before Darkseid was Uxas, let alone Darkseid, the Horseman ruled the wastes. The Horseman are figures in the Religion of Crime and are sorts of pre-Messiahs are help bring Hell to Earth to make way for Darkseid. Rather than being able to possess mortals like the New Gods can, only steel bodies can hold the Horseman. In addition, the Horseman were used to kill Black Adam's Black Marvel Family to get back at him for refusing Intergang and the Religion of Crime into his nation of Khandaq.
As in the Book of Revelation, there are four Horseman, each representing a horrible concept: Pestilence (Instead of Conquest, as in the Bible, but it's a common mistake.), War, Famine and Death. I'll deal with each Horseman in order.
Pestilence, AKA Lor, lord of the age of fevers, is portrayed as a desicated corpse rigged up to disease filled aerosol tanks. I reckon this is what Dr. Death was needed for. Pestilence was the horseman who actually killed Adam's bride, Isis.
War, aKA Rogga from the age of war, looks like a massive robot fiilled with missiles and guns. As he says, "I have the power of all the worlds soldiers and bombs and guns. Those are [his] gods." From what I remember, JG Jones designed him after the ED-209, which gets points from me.
Famine, AKA Yurrd the Unknown, first appeared in 52 week 26 and resembles a crocodile man, similar to the Crocodile Men from the Golden Age Captain Marvel stories. He was rescued from Sivana's home by the Black Marvels and became a sort of mascot for them. his appearances were quite cheesy and often revolved around his Scooby Doo-esque appetite. Things took a turn for a worse later, when the distrout Osiris reverted to human form and was promptly eaten by Yurrd, revealing A: that he was Famine and B: only the flesh of a Marvel could sate him.
Lastly, there was Death, AKA Azraeuz, Silent King of the Age of Death. His appearance is that of a stereotypical post-Baphomet demon with a goat skull, wielding a huge scythe.
The Four Horsemen were all killed by Adam, Death being the last survivor. They later returned and were contained by Veronica Cale, as outline before.
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