Who Are the Deep Six?

Who's This? Apokolips' underwater force.

The facts: First introduced in New Gods #2 (May 1971), the Deep Six are Darkseid's underwater force, fairly disposable going by the death count at the hands of Orion over the course of the series. They would later show up in Aquaman (vol.5 #6-8), with new members added. They're all killed there in retaliation for the death of Koryak's mother, but the Deep Six would somehow be back to face the Supermen of America, join Lex Luthor's Secret Society and finally be slain in Countdown #38 by the Infinity Man.
How you could have heard of them: I suppose you need to be a Fourth World (or perhaps Aquaman) fan.
Example story: New Gods #6 (January 1972) "The Glory Boat!" by Jack Kirby and Mike Royer
The mummy on the cover is Lightray, who shines so bright the Deep Six had to wrap him in bandages before tying him to a makeshift craft. But they must be elsewhere (the ocean is a big place) when Orion comes into range and frees his friend. In the ship's hold, the two Gods find something born of Slig and Jaffar's power to mutate sea life:
This weird creature is essentially sending signals to the hot pink Moby Dick that's been destroying vessels in the area. Orion would kill it; Lightray thinks it's more humane to turn it into a "basic life-form, stripped of the taint of Apokolips", which means it becomes a glowing cube. Truly the building blocks of life. (We're told it will grow again, but in the image of New Genesis - this story needs to be told!) But of course, this is going to call the Deep Six to their location. In particular, Jaffar, who gets to wailing on some humans Orion rescued earlier.
Orion destroys him with the Astro-Force, but the others soon join the fray! Slig was killed in the previous issue, so there are four left.
No one point out the fact that Shaligo is based on flying fish. That never goes well. And the rest?
Trok was always my favorite - the whirling axe is a cool weapon, and his face is funny - but in this case, he's hoisted his team by his own petard. Orion throws them off the ship, but they soon come back with their mutated whale for a final showdown!
Well, it just so happens the cube has had time to grow into a warhead powered by the Source (uhm, ok) and the New Gods ram the Deep Six and their monster with it. There's a big all-consuming explosion, and only Orion and Lightray make it out. But of course, either Apokolips breeds fish-men who take on these roles later, or Darkseid keeps recreating them out of Omega Beams, so they'll be back.

The Deep Six were Kirby's way of expanding the War into other environments, but without New Genesis' own underwater hero - Seagrin! - there perhaps wasn't as much call for them as all that. Divorcing them from the Fourth World to pit them against Aquaman was one answer, but not a sustainable one. Too bad, cuz I do think they're cool, even if not a lot of them are distinctive.

Who's Next? An underground wizard.

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