The Justice League has long been DC Comics’ greatest team, saving the multiverse from every threat out there. The team brought together the seven greatest heroes on Earth – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter – and threw enemies that no one hero could face at them. Since then, we’ve seen numerous rosters of the team, some of them full of powerhouses and some of them full of lower level yet still skilled heroes, the group defining the superhero community of the DC Multiverse. They’ve saved the day when the odds are totally against them, triumphing over the most powerful antagonists you can imagine.
The Justice League can be superlatively powerful depending on the roster but that doesn’t mean they’re unbeatable. While they’ve been able to save the multiverse many times over, they’ve taken some beatings from their foes, with some villains having torn the team to shreds in battle. These seven DC villains have destroyed the Justice League, showing that the team isn’t unstoppable.
Pariah was an ally of the heroes in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but his guilt over his place in the events of Crisis and the loss of his world drove him mad. Eventually, he was able to tap into the Great Darkness, believing that with its power he could end the multiverse and then rebuild a new one. However, to do that, he needed the energy of the Justice League. He used the Great Darkness to take control of the most powerful villains in the multiverse and the Justice League stepped in to protect existence from the this Dark Army. Pariah’s army was able to “kill” the team. They were sent them to worlds that he had created to harvest their power, allowing him to almost succeed in his goals in the underrated Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Batman created contingency plans for use against the Justice League, which makes sense. The team gets mind-controlled all the time, so having a way to deal with that is smart. However, he never told anyone, which made Ra’s al Ghul’s victory over the team in “Tower of Babel” all the worse. The Demon’s Head was able to steal the Dark Knight’s plans and use them against the League, with the group learning that it was all the Dark Knight’s fault. He decimated the team, with Batman forced to undo his plans to save his friends. Ra’s was always a tough villain, but his defeat of the League put him on a whole new level.
The Crime Syndicate is the Justice League of Earth-Three, a world where evil always wins. Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, and Power Ring, with later members like Deathstorm and Atomika joining the New 52 version of the team, are extremely formidable and were able to beat the Justice League many times; in fact their first fight against the League saw the heroes calling in the Justice Society of Earth-Two to help. In the New 52, the Syndicate attacked the Earth after their world was destroyed, with only the League in their way. They defeated the team and took control of their headquarters, and were only defeated when Lex Luthor assembled a team of villains to stop them. They’ve always been one of the greatest threats to the League, and has proved it by dropping them again and again.
The Hyperclan are one of the greatest threats the Justice League ever faced. The team showed up out of nowhere and started executing villains, promising the people of the world that they were going to make things better, unlike the heroes of the past. They were going to be proactive, showing how outdated the Justice League was. However, they had a terrible secret, one that was revealed after they took down the League – they were White Martians readying the Earth for invasion. They were able to defeat every member of the team but Batman and Martian Manhunter, who fooled them into thinking he was on their side, showing just how dangerous they could be. If it wasn’t for the vaunted Martian weakness to fire, they would have killed the multiverse’s greatest heroes.
The Key might seem like a scrub DC villain but he’s been able to cream the Justice League numerous times. He’s a scientist who believes that the key to godhood resides in the mind of everyone. His attacks usually involve him putting the team into his dream machines and trying to harvest their mental energies. He’s been able to create weapons and robots that can take down the most powerful members of the team, defeating the most potent heroes out there. He usually is defeated before he can gain the power he desires, but he’s much more dangerous than he seems.
DC Comics has characters with high body counts but Perpetua dwarfs most of them, destroying entire universes. She was the Hand that created the multiverse and wanted to use it to destroy her fellow Hands and the Judges who existed in the Source. She was defeated and imprisoned eons ago, but the breaking of the Source Wall in Dark Knights: Metal allowed her to come back into her creation. She went back to her old plan, wanting to complete her goal of creating an unstoppable army. The Justice League stood in her way, but they were constantly getting bodied by her infinite power. The few times they fought her were complete routs, with the villain handily defeating them with little to no effort.
Darkseid is DC’s God of Evil, one of the most powerful forces of darkness in the multiverse. Over the years, he’s done his best to enslave every living being in existence with the forces of New Genesis and the Justice League standing against him. The team has faced the Lord of Apokolips many times and he’s been able to dogwalk them over and over again. He’s more powerful than any member of the team, and it usually takes some kind of massive power upgrades to allow them to beat him. He’s one of their most feared enemies because they know that he can defeat them with ease whenever he shows up.
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