Villainy Inc.

Villainy Inc. debuted in Wonder Woman (Vol. 1) #28, in the last story written by series creator William Moulton Marston. The villains, who were individually sentenced to prison on the Amazon penal colony Transformation Island and later escaped, teamed up to take down their common enemy; led by the Saturnian slaver Eviless, who had tricked the Amazons into believing she had lost her evil nature by manipulating the lock on a magic girdle, and stole Wonder Woman's lasso. While faking her death by controlling her heartbeat, she then wraps the lasso around her arm to smuggle herself out. She tries to release the prisoners on Transformation Island, but most of them refuse due to their Venus Girdles. However, the ones that agree with Eviless join her. They capture Hippolyta using the lasso as Blue Snowman, Poison, and Hypnota lure her into a trap, as she thinks men are on the island. Hippolyta is then taken from the island. Later, the villains capture her by binding her with the lasso and taking her in a boat, but she drags the boat underwater and saves Eviless, as Saturnians cannot swim. Clea tried to anonymously buy a submarine from Steve Trevor to return to Atlantis (why she needed a submarine is unclear), but Trevor recognized her and played along to capture her. He was knocked out by Giganta, and Clea and her aide decided to capture the Holliday Girls and Wonder Woman to force him to give them a submarine. They net and bind the Girls in Professor Zool's lab and Giganta attacks Wonder Woman as she enters, but is overpowered. This sort of worked, and they forced Wonder Woman to steal a US Navy sub for them—but Clea and Giganta were recaptured before their sub could fully dive. They would all be returned to Transformation Island by Wonder Woman and the Amazons.

Following the retcons in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the group's history began when they first menaced Hippolyta in the Golden Age. Cheetah, Zara, Doctor Poison and Hypnotic Woman (formerly Hypnota) were assembled by Queen Clea (it has not been revealed if Eviless or Blue Snowman were members and Giganta was retconned into a modern-age villainess who joined later). The Atlantean monarch of the city Venturia enlisted the others to defeat her rival city, Aurania. They were repeatedly foiled by Hippolyta.[1] Later, Hippolyta's daughter Diana traveled back in time and discovered them in battle. Clea was defeated by Diana (who disguised herself as Miss America) and Clea's own daughter, Ptra.[2]

In recent times, when all of Atlantis disappeared from the Earth, Clea again set out to assemble a new Villainy, Inc. and conquer a land to rule. Together they descended upon the other-dimensional land of Skartaris. She used Cyborgirl to take control of the entire dimension. Clea's entire plan, however, was commandeered by Trinity. Trinity was in fact revealed to be a virus, engineered by the founders of Skartaris. When the "Trinity Virus" was reintroduced into Skartaris' governing computer system, the whole land began to regress and "devolve" to its origins. Wonder Woman managed to stop the process from becoming permanent, but still, some of Skartaris' inhabitants (including Clea) were lost in the de-evolution.[3]