Leviathan (DC Comics)

Leviathan is a fictional criminal organization in DC Comics, later revealed to be a schism of the League of Assassins under the leadership of Talia al Ghul, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul.^[1]

The organization appears in a different form in the fourth season finale and fifth season of Supergirl.

Publication history[]

Leviathan was introduced in Batman: The Return (Jan. 2011) and was created by Grant Morrison and David Finch.^[2]

Fictional team history[]

First incarnation[]

Leviathan is an organization founded by Talia al Ghul upon leaving her father, Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins. Leviathan's liturgy is staunchly anti-capitalist and seeks to dismantle society and impose itself as the leader of a new way.

Leviathan first became known to the heroes of Earth as a terror group who kidnapped the child of a Yemeni sheik. However, Batman discovered that Leviathan was working with the sheik and was planning to attack the world with mind-controlled children and engineered metahumans.^[3]

Batman immediately connected the organization to an apocalyptic vision he had received while coming back from the dead and positioned his Batman Incorporated organization to oppose them. After some moves, Leviathan seemed to form up behind Doctor Dedalus, a Nazi master spy imprisoned on the Falkland Islands, with a predicted lifespan of months due to Alzheimers. In the aftermath of Dedalus' breakout, further investigation revealed that a paper trail showed a flow of child soldiers from training camps in the central African republic of Mtamba to locations around the world for use by Leviathan in their campaign.

In Batman Incorporated's struggle against Doctor Dedalus' master plan, they struck and hit empty locations which were in fact pre-prepared traps by Leviathan. Recovering, they realized that Dedalus was a feint, designed to make them show their hand on the eve of the war. Via a telephone, the leader of Leviathan, Talia al Ghul, spoke from her new headquarters opposite the cinema on Crime Alley. Talia stated Leviathan's goal was war with Batman's followers and the destruction of civilization.

Talia took control of the League of Assassins and added its agents to the plan. The plan began by seeding mind-control chemicals in the Gotham food supply through the "Dark Tower" fast-food chain while taking control of the Brothers Grimm Syndicate, which controlled the club on Gotham's West Side. Using a combination of agents in the school system, the police, and the civil service, Leviathan worked to control Gotham's children.

Talia soon tells Batman that her creation of Leviathan has been all out of spite. As revenge for denying her his love and unwavering dedication to his crusade for justice, Talia created Leviathan as an expressed antithesis of Batman Incorporated. The Heretic is eventually shown to be the eponymous "Leviathan" of the organization, the "Third Batman" that is prophesied to send Gotham into chaos and destroy it. However, the Heretic continuously fails Talia and proves himself to be just as defiant as his genetic template, the then-deceased Damian Wayne. After killing the Heretic, Talia attempts to activate a "death ring" around the planet, established by worldwide Leviathan agents. Batman Incorporated disables the weapon, and Talia is killed by Kathy Kane. Their leader dead, the intelligence agency known as Spyral (another organization Doctor Dedalus was involved with) took over Leviathan's resources, and the organization presumably collapsed in the wake of their defeat.

Upon returning from the dead, Talia ordered her most trusted assassin to kill one of Leviathan's underbosses who had the intention to reveal the existence of the organization to the U.S. authorities. Trust inside the criminal network was shattered, and when Talia died and then was resurrected, she was ousted from her position as leader of Leviathan. The organization then fractured into various factions, guided by competing leaders.^[4]

Talia is taken to a Lazarus Pit in Khadym by those loyal to her and is resurrected from the dead.^[5]

Second incarnation[]

Another incarnation of Leviathan appeared in the pages of "Event Leviathan."^[6] Leviathan has even taken over Project Cadmus as Batgirl discovered.^[7]

Mark Shaw eventually acquired control of the organization and offered Talia a partnership alongside him. She instead decided to kidnap Clark Kent so Superman will come after them and help take the organization down. Shaw however had already been aware of her plan and freed him from the Kryptonite belt around his waist. Firestorm and Dex-Starr later attack Leviathan soldiers after freeing him with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Shaw later threw out Talia from his ship for trying to go against him, but Superman and the other heroes couldn't discover the new leader's identity.

Shaw then proceeded to take out all the other shadow organizations such as D.E.O., A.R.G.U.S., Checkmate, and Spyral. While many assumed he had killed the agents of the organizations, in actuality many had been brainwashed or persuaded into joining while Leviathan had also appropriated their technology. They also nearly assassinated General Sam Lane and Amanda Waller after they refused to join but their actions caused a team of detectives and Lois to go after him.

After Superman confronted them in Cuba while tracking Waller, he was drained by an energy matrix attack. Lois organized another team to go after him. Leviathan meanwhile had Superman transported to their location in Chicago and tried to convince him to join him, revealing how Spyral had developed technology to take his son Jon down and promised to fix the "broken world". Shaw then revealed that he took out the spy organizations to end all secrecy and revealed his true identity to him. He also promises to end all secrecy by exposing all secrets of the world's governments.

Membership[]

• Leviathan - New Head of Leviathan.^[6]
• Talia al Ghul - Former Head of Leviathan.^[8][9]
• Professor Pyg - Lazlo Valentin at first appears to be working for Simon Hurt, but it is later revealed that he is actually working for Talia al Ghul.^[10] He is incarcerated in Arkham Asylum after being captured by Batman (Dick Grayson) and Robin (Damian Wayne) in the first volume of Batman and Robin.
• The Heretic (Fatherless) - Mysterious agent of Leviathan in a bat-like costume.^[3] The Heretic is a clone of Damian Wayne, first seen as a fetus in the first volume of Batman and Robin, whose growth has been accelerated to adulthood by way of a bio-engineered whale carcass.^[11] After killing Damian Wayne, the Heretic is defeated (but not killed) by Batman when he is run through with a sword.^[12] He is then finished off when Talia al Ghul kills him and blows up his body along with Wayne Tower.^[13]
• Son of Pyg - Son of Professor Pyg. Real name Janosz Valentin a.k.a. Johnny Valentine.^[14] Later defeated by Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) during a plot to turn a group of teen mercenaries-in-training into agents of Leviathan.^[15]
• Dr. Dedalus (Otto Netz) - Former Nazi scientist, agent of Leviathan, and the biological father of Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman. Later killed by the new Robin using a concealed knife.^[15]
• Goatboy - Gotham City-bred taxi driver-turned-assassin in light of Talia's billion dollar bounty on Damian.^[16] Later killed by Lumina Lux.^[17]
• Silencer - Honor Guest was an assassin in Leviathan but quit.^[18]
• Quietus - A Leviathan underboss.
• Wishbone - Ran the magical division of Leviathan.^[19]
• Gunn - A Leviathan underboss. He's killed while fighting Quietus and Silencer in Khadym.^[19]
• Jonah 9 - A Leviathan underboss.
• MadDog - Bounty hunter
• Raze
• Rutger Orestes - A Leviathan underboss that was murdered.^[20]

In other media[]

Television[]

• Leviathan appears as a secret organization in the Arrowverse series Supergirl, that now sees its historical manipulation of human events as insufficient to prevent humanity's perceived threat to Earth itself. Its currently revealed leaders include Rama Khan, Gamemnae (who posed as Obsidian Tech board of directors member Gemma Cooper), Tezumak, and Sela, extremely durable aliens from Jarhanpur, a sister planet of Krypton, with mutual knowledge of and language exchange with Coluans. The organization employs humans to assist in manipulating present day Earth society: an elderly human woman named Margo Morrison (portrayed by Patti Allan) who works in middle-management, and an unnamed elderly human man (portrayed by Duncan Fraser) and operatives like assassin Eve Teschmacher and Rip Roar. Rama Khan exhibits superhuman powers of seismic and earthen-materials manipulation including kinetic control of kryptonite, Gamemnae has technopathic abilities, Tezumak has pyrokinetic abilities, and Sela has electrokinetic abilities. The Jarhanpurians have also utilized advanced technology and cosmetic modification to advance their goals, to influence human society, as weapons against Supergirl and Martians, and manipulating events throughout Earth history, including the extinction of the dinosaurs, the destruction of Pompeii and the bubonic plague. Post-Crisis Leviathan was not aware of Crisis events; only Supergirl's core Crisis team retained knowledge of Leviathan's threat to human society. Lex Luthor, unaware of Leviathan prior to Crisis, worked with Lena Luthor in a plot to infiltrate the organization by winning the favor of Gamemnae, who has ties to the board of the Obsidian Tech and Andrea Rojas/Acrata. Lex orchestrated events of Obsidian's Platinum virtual reality system's flaws that lead to Margo overseeing the kidnapping of Platinum's comatose victims, and Margo's subsequent murder as Lex "rescued" the victims. Lex gifts Gamemae with the return of a long-ago-stolen Jarhanpur weapon, which is a threat against Kryptonians.^{[21][22][23][24]}

Film[]

• The Heretic appears as a supporting antagonist in the DC Animated Movie Universe film Batman: Bad Blood, voiced by Travis Willingham. The other members of the organization include Talia, computer experts Mad Hatter and Calculator, enforcers Tusk and Electrocutioner, Firefly, Killer Moth, and mute acrobats Onyx and Hellhound. Talia kills Heretic when he complains about not being seen as a true human being, and the majority of the organization are presumed dead after an attack on their base by Batman. Survivors Mad Hatter and Calculator are killed by an electrical surge during their plan to blackmail the U.S. president, and Onyx slays Talia for reasons unknown, causing the ship she had snuck aboard to crash into the ocean.

References[]