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The Legion of Doom in Challenge of the Super Friends.

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From left to right: Black Manta, Giganta, Toyman, Riddler, Bizarro, Scarecrow, Lex Luthor, Captain Cold, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, Gorilla Grodd, Brainiac, and Sinestro.

The Legion of Doom was a group of supervillains led by Lex Luthor that appeared in Challenge of the Super Friends, an animated series that starred superheroes from DC Comics.

In each episode they appeared in, the Legion of Doom would enact various plots against the Super Friends, only to be met with defeat by the end of the story. Often, however, they would escape capture through a last-minute escape plan.

The Legion of Doom's headquarters was the Hall of Doom, a facility located in an anonymous swamp which had a more than passing resemblance to Darth Vader's breathing mask and helmet. The Hall of Doom was capable of being lowered below or raised above the swamp water's surface, and could also be flown through the air via rockets if needed, even remotely controlled. It also had laser defense weapons and could time travel to the past or future.

There were thirteen members of the Legion of Doom:

• Despite the opening sequence for Challenge of the Super Friends claiming that the Legion's members had "banded together from remote galaxies", ten out of the thirteen are native to Earth; only Bizarro (from Bizarro World), Brainiac (from Colu), and Sinestro (from Korugar) are extra-terrestrials.

• A popular misconception was that Joker was a member of the Legion of Doom. He appeared only once in a later iteration of the series, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians. Though he was slated to appear in the Legion, his appearance in The New Adventures of Batman prevented that.

• Captain Marvel and a few of his enemies were to be part of Challenge of the Super Friends, but Filmation bought the rights to the characters involved.

While Challenge of the Super Friends was the series spotlighting the Legion of Doom, they appear in a few Super Friends shorts.

• The Revenge of Doom (Super Friend short): All 13 LOD members appear, but only Lex Luthor, Sinestro and Solomon Grundy speak.
• Two Gleeks are Deadlier Than One: Though only Giganta and Grodd appear, the Legion is mentioned.
• The Krypton Syndrome: After Superman saves Krypton in the past, he returns to an alternate present. Robin mentions that the Super Friends were defeated by the Legion of Doom.

Members of the team have solo appearances in later episodes.

Lex Luthor appears in:

• Lex Luthor Strikes Back (The World's Greatest Super Friends)
• The Case of the Shrinking Super Friends (Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show)
• No Honor Among Thieves Super Friends (Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show)
• The Mask of Mystery Super Friends (Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show)
• The Seeds of Doom (The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians)

Brainiac appears in:

• Superclones (Super Friends short)
• The Wraith of Brainiac (Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show)
  • Brainiac takes up a more robotic form from this appearance to Brainchild matching his current comic counterpart at the time.
• The Village of Lost Souls (Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show)
• Brainchild (The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians)

Bizarro appears in:

• Bizarroworld (Super Friends short)
• Revenge of Bizarro (Super Friends short)
• Video Victims (Super Friends short)
• The Bizarro Super Powers Team (The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians)
  • This episode had Bizarro voiced by Danny Dark, who had been voicing Superman, as well as giving Bizarro his more backward personality. Ironically, though Superman didn't appear on this episode.

Riddler appears in, "Around the World in 80 Riddles" (Super Friends short).

Scarecrow makes an appearance in "The Fear", also introducing his real name, Jonathan Crane. (The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians)

The Legion of Doom made some appearances in the Super Friends spinoff comic title based on the TV series.

The Legion of Doom in their Justice incarnation. From left to right: Clayface, Poison Ivy, Solomon Grundy, Parasite, Toyman, Sinestro, Black Manta, Scarecrow, Brainiac, Lex Luthor, Gorilla Grodd, Captain Cold, Cheetah, Riddler, Bizarro, Giganta, Black Adam and Clayface. Art by Alex Ross and Doug Braithwaite.

The 2006 DC comic miniseries Justice features a version of the Legion of Doom; series plotter/artist Alex Ross is a passionate Super Friends fan. In addition to the thirteen villains featured in the Super Friends cartoon, this version of the Legion counts Black Adam, Metallo, Metallo, Parasite, and Poison Ivy as members.

An updated version of the Legion of Doom is the primary focus of Season 3 of the 2000s animated series Justice League Unlimited. Although clearly based on the original Legion (down to their skull-like swamp-base) the group is never referred to by this name in the series (According to a post from Bruce Timm on Toon Zone.net, this was a direct order from DC, every script his team worked on however addressed the group as the Legion), and is treated simply as an expanded version of the Secret Society of Super-Villains, previously formed by Gorilla Grodd in an earlier season and on camera referred to as such. Grodd is the leader of this "Legion," who refers to the group as a co-operative, a loose organization of super-villains that primarily work on their own, but back each other up when a member is challenged by the Justice League for a 25% portion of the requesting member's take of the crime commissioned at that time.

After the revelation that Grodd's ultimate plan in the creation of the Legion was the ludicrous transformation of humanity into apes, Lex Luthor ousted him and assumed the position as leader with no objections from the membership. Solicitations for future episodes indicated that the Legion had a secret backer, but have turned out to be incorrect.

Confirmed members of this version of the Legion are as follows:

During the two-part series finale, Lex Luthor tried to resurrect Brainiac by ordering the Legion to transform the base into a spaceship, so that they could travel to the site of Brainiac's ruined asteroid base. With Tala's help, Grodd attempted a coup to retake control of the Legion, leading to a battle between members loyal to either Grodd or Luthor.

• The Legion members loyal to Luthor were: Atomic Skull, Bizarro, Cheetah, Evil Star, Giganta, Heat Wave, Sinestro, Star Sapphire, Toyman and Volcana.
• The group loyal to Grodd included: Tala, Killer Frost, Goldface, Blockbuster, Silver Banshee, Parasite, Rampage, Electrocutioner, KGBeast, and Copperhead.

After a pitched battle, Luthor defeated Grodd by turning his mental powers back on him and shunting the ape out an airlock. The rest of Grodd's forces were frozen solid by a turncoat Killer Frost who pled for clemency from Luthor (Blockbuster, Copperhead, Fastball, Goldface, Hellgrammite, Key, Parasite, Rampage, Shade, and Weather Wizard were shown being frozen).

When the Legion reaches the site of Brainiac's defeat, Luthor used Tala's magic to restore Brainiac, despite a sudden warning from the New God, Metron. Luthor accidentally resurrected Darkseid instead, who rewards Luthor for his help by destroying the Legion's base in a fiery explosion. However, force fields produced by Star Sapphire and Sinestro saved Luthor's crew. Lightray, another of the Gods of New Genesis, spotted the explosion, and was subsequently robbed of his mother box, which allowed the remnants of the Legion to make it back to Earth to warn the Justice League of Darkseid's return.

At the conclusion of "Alive!", the first part of the finale, the only remaining members of the Legion of Doom are: Atomic Skull, Bizarro, Cheetah, Evil Star, Giganta, Heat Wave, Killer Frost, Lex Luthor, Sinestro, Star Sapphire, Toyman and Volcana. They team up with the League to face Darkseid's invasion of Earth by Parademons. Matt Wayne stated that he consciously tried to round up the original 13 Legion of Doom members in Luthor's team, and for that he cited this Wikipedia page as one source.^[6] In "Destroyer", (the series finale) Luthor acquires the Anti-Life Equation, which Darkseid was searching for, and shares it with him—or possibly uses it on him. Both villains disappear in a flash of light, and Darkseid's forces leave Earth. The remaining members of the Legion survive the battle, and as a reward are given a five-minute head start by the Justice League.

It is assumed that Grodd and the villains who weren't with Luthor were killed.

• In the Family Guy episode, "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One" it is claimed in a press conference that the Legion of Doom is conspiring with Adolf Hitler to assassinate Jesus. The scene then jumps to the Hall of Doom where Lex Luthor wonders how their plan was discovered. Solomon Grundy admits he "kind of dropped the ball on that one." Almost all of the original Legion is portrayed, except for the Riddler.

• In Krypto the Superdog, the Intergalactic Villains Club that Mechanicat is apart of is a spoof of the Legion of Doom.

South Park's Legion of Doom.

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From left to right: Osama bin Laden, Doctor Doom, Black Manta, Saddam Hussein, Cheetah, Kim Jong-il, David Blaine, and Doctor Octopus.

• The Legion of Doom was referenced in the animated series South Park episode "Krazy Kripples" featured Christopher Reeve forming his own version of the Legion of Doom, complete with the Hall of Doom as their headquarters; its main goal, according to Reeve, was to kill Gene Hackman. It included both parodies of actual LoD villains (Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, and Black Manta), at least two Marvel villain parodies (Doctor Octopus and Doctor Doom) and villains from the South Park universe (such as Professor Chaos, General Disarray, David Blaine and Saddam Hussein, as well as Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il).

• The first episode of Season 3 of Duck Dodgers titled "Till Doom Do Us Part" featured the Legion of Duck Doom, led by Agent Roboto and was composed of various villains from the earlier seasons made up of Crusher, Fudd, Catapoid, Count Muerte, New Cadet, Black Eel, Nasty Canasta, Commandante Hilgalgo, Baby-Faced Moonbeam, Long John Silver the 23rd, K'chutha Sa'am, and Taz. Black Eel (a parody of Black Manta) makes his first appearance in this episode.

• A Cartoon Network bumper featured the The Powerpuff Girls saving Aquaman and Wonder Woman from the Legion of Doom's clutches. It can be seen here on YouTube

• In the mid to late 1990s, the Philadelphia Flyers forward line of John Leclair, Eric Lindros, and Mikael Renberg was nicknamed the Legion of Doom.

• The professional wrestling tag-team of The Road Warriors was also known informally as "The Legion of Doom" while wrestling for the AWA, NWA, and WCW promotions. When they made the move to the WWF they took Legion of Doom as their official moniker and dropped the "Road Warriors" name entirely.

• An episode of the Drew Carey Show featured Drew and his friends getting in trouble being a "gang". Drew gets sent to a counseling session for gang bangers and enters the room to see a group of imposing bikers and gang members sitting around a large table. He quips, "the reason I've called you all here is to destroy superman!", as Lex Luthor would do when leading a Legion meeting.

• In the Marvel/DC pc videos on youtube Lex Luthor has a legion made up of various villains such as Magneto, Venom, Dr Doom, Sabertooth, Pyro, Juggernaught, Penguin, Two-Face, Sandman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Green Goblin and the Joker. After failing to rally them to his plan to alter history he attempts to wipe the Marvel universe from existence, but is foiled by Superman and the Green Goblin's treachery. Luthor is taken to prison and Goblin, Harley, Ivy, Sandman and Joker escape although the fate of the other members remains undetermined.