Who's This? A colorful quartet.
The facts: This quartet first appeared in The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #4 (February 1983), working for the Council there and in the next issue. And that's pretty much it, scoring Who's Who entries for both the Council AND that Gang after a single story. After this, they would not appear until 1999's JLA #28 where they would be killed by the genie-like Lkz. A couple of cameos would follow, including one in Supergirl vol.5 where the Maid of Steel interrogates them and they appear to be alive and well. To be fair, the ladies did better than the gents, with Brains continuing to appear in Supergirl for a couple issues longer, and Ms. Mesmer actually scoring small appearances in Wonder Woman #175 and Bulleteer #3.
How you could have heard of them: Their last appearance was in a cameo in Convergence: Adventures of Superman, but I suppose the Morrison connection (JLA #28) is probably where most will continue to meet them.
Example story: The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #5 (March 1983) "Fear Times Four" by Paul Kupperberg, Carmine Infantino and Bob Oksner
As we jump into this one, Supergirl has been hypnotized by Ms. Mesmer into flying away in fear (she keeps seeing herself as Linda Danvers, so can't do anything without blowing her secret identity). I don't know about you, but I'm shipping Brains and Mesmer:
With Supergirl out of the way, they're free to snatch John Ostrander (yes, that John Ostrander, or at least, a homage to him from before he was a comics writer), who they wrongly believe is carrying their payment, back to their secret HQ. This is some "hidden in plain sight" set of digs!
But this is more than a gimmick, it's actually thematically relevant as a hideout. Time for an Origin Flashback!
Still shipping them... The costumes are very silly in the context of this backstory - imagine the Newsboy Legion growing up to wear bright color-coded duds - but it's actually not a bad idea for the tight-knit criminal gang. I'm not sure they're a match for SUPERGIRL exactly, but y'know, maybe Len Wein could have used them in his Blue Beetle run, also set in Chicago (except Supergirl had been wiped from history, of course). Anyway... Ostrander brings the Gang to the theater where he probably left his courier bag, where they show they may not even be a match for an aging security guard.
We haven't seen a lot of super-strength/invulnerability tricks from the boys yet, so here you go:
Supergirl to the rescue, and Bulldozer tries to plow into her, but he doesn't do so well.
Next, Supergirl picks up Kong and Ms. Mesmer, that latter promising to release her from the post-hypnotic suggestion if she takes them to a hospital. Like she wasn't going to do that alread! Only Brains escapes in a speedboat, promising to go back to her bosses so they can free her friends.
In the final analysis, I quite like the criminal friendship between these guys, and they'd make fair HEROES given their attitude towards each other. Unfortunately, they don't fit the Daring New Adventures of Supergirl! They're way underpowered for the amount of opposition they're likely to get in Chicago in the early 80s. I don't think their generic name is very good either, but somehow, DC still repurposed it later for a group of children imitating their favorite supervillains (Lex, Joker, etc., not this foursome).
Who's Next? A lunar tyrant.
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